Validating a forced‑choice method for eliciting quality‑of‑reasoning judgments

In this paper we investigate the criterion validity of forced-choice comparisons of the quality of written arguments with normative solutions. Across two studies, novices and experts assessing quality of reasoning through a forced-choice design were both able to choose arguments supporting more accurate solutions—62.2% (SE = 1%) of the time for novices and 74.4% (SE = 1%) for experts—and arguments produced by larger teams—up to 82% of the time for novices and 85% for experts—with high inter-rater reliability, namely 70.58% (95% CI = 1.18) agreement for novices and 80.98% (95% CI = 2.26) for experts. We also explored two methods for increasing efficiency. We found that the number of comparative judgments needed could be substantially reduced with little accuracy loss by leveraging transitivity and producing quality-of-reasoning assessments using an AVL tree method. Moreover, a regression model trained to predict scores based on automatically derived linguistic features of participants’ judgments achieved a high correlation with the objective accuracy scores of the arguments in our dataset. Despite the inherent subjectivity involved in evaluating differing quality of reasoning, the forced-choice paradigm allows even novice raters to perform beyond chance and can provide a valid, reliable, and efficient method for producing quality-of-reasoning assessments at scale

Texas Bucks the Trend - No Cause of Action for Lost Chance of Survival in the Medical Malpractice Context: Kramer v. Lewisville Memorial Hospital

Jennie Kramer visited her gynecologist in August 1985 complaining of unusual discharges and intermittent bleeding. At that time, her doctor informed her that she tested negative for cancer. Her irregular bleeding continued, but on two subsequent visits to another doctor in November and December, Ms. Kramer was again informed that she did not have cancer. During February of 1986, after continued bleeding, Ms. Kramer detected a hard spot in her vagina. She returned to the second doctor a third time, at which time she was diagnosed with cancer. In spite of subsequent exploratory surgery and chemotherapy, Ms. Kramer died on October 31, 1986. Ms. Kramer\u27s husband, Stephen, brought suit against Lewisville Memorial Hospital8 under the Wrongful Death Act and the Survivorship Statute. The trial court refused the Kramers\u27 requested jury instructions on the lost chance doctrine, and the jury found that Ms. Kramer\u27s death was not caused by the defendant\u27s negligence. The Fort Worth Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court\u27s refusal of the requested jury instructions on lost chance, reasoning that the lost chance doctrine had not been clearly recognized in Texas, and that such decision was best left to the legislature or to the Texas Supreme Court. The Texas Supreme Court affirmed in an opinion written by Chief Justice Phillips. Over the dissent of three justices, the Kramer majority held that Texas did not recognize a cause of action for lost chance of survival under the Wrongful Death Act, the Survivorship Statute, or the common law

Texas Bucks the Trend - No Cause of Action for Lost Chance of Survival in the Medical Malpractice Context: Kramer v. Lewisville Memorial Hospital

Jennie Kramer visited her gynecologist in August 1985 complaining of unusual discharges and intermittent bleeding. At that time, her doctor informed her that she tested negative for cancer. Her irregular bleeding continued, but on two subsequent visits to another doctor in November and December, Ms. Kramer was again informed that she did not have cancer. During February of 1986, after continued bleeding, Ms. Kramer detected a hard spot in her vagina. She returned to the second doctor a third time, at which time she was diagnosed with cancer. In spite of subsequent exploratory surgery and chemotherapy, Ms. Kramer died on October 31, 1986. Ms. Kramer\u27s husband, Stephen, brought suit against Lewisville Memorial Hospital8 under the Wrongful Death Act and the Survivorship Statute. The trial court refused the Kramers\u27 requested jury instructions on the lost chance doctrine, and the jury found that Ms. Kramer\u27s death was not caused by the defendant\u27s negligence. The Fort Worth Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court\u27s refusal of the requested jury instructions on lost chance, reasoning that the lost chance doctrine had not been clearly recognized in Texas, and that such decision was best left to the legislature or to the Texas Supreme Court. The Texas Supreme Court affirmed in an opinion written by Chief Justice Phillips. Over the dissent of three justices, the Kramer majority held that Texas did not recognize a cause of action for lost chance of survival under the Wrongful Death Act, the Survivorship Statute, or the common law

Investigating scaffolding strategies for promoting reasoning-based, collaborative discourse with linguistically diverse learners in the mainstream classroom

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS, 2012) call for shifts in teaching and learning, emphasizing diverse students’ complex uses of language and skilled articulation of reasoning in collaborative discussion settings. Concurrently, it is becoming increasingly common for English Learners (ELs) to be educated in mainstream classrooms alongside their English-proficient peers, raising the challenge for teachers to effectively mediate these new standards into practice for all students. This design-based research study, grounded in sociocultural theory, was carried out in collaboration with two classroom teachers. The study focused on the implementation of discussion scaffolding strategies, including academic language functions (e.g., language used by students to tell, restate, build on, or challenge). The analysis investigated shifts in both whole class discourse and the discourse of four English learners in the classroom over a seven-month period. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of eight audio-recorded discussion transcripts examined shifts in student talk, with particular attention to (a) participation, (b) reasoning, (c) collaborative talk, and (d) use of academic language for engaging in dialogue with peers. Analyses revealed that as teachers successively introduced the four categories of talk moves, students engaged in significantly more reasoned, collaborative talk. Over time, students also used the academic language stems with greater frequency and exhibited increased autonomy in reasoned-focused, collaborative talk. Additionally, collective reasoning (prompted by instructional moves designed to have students think with others) appeared to promote individual reasoning, as shown by higher instances of reasoning words used by students. Shifts in talk for EL students were similar to those of the whole class, with key differences being how ELs were afforded additional opportunities for second language development in the context of discussion: ELs had a chance to listen to and express complex reasoning, extended discourse, and relevant language functions in contextualized ways. They engaged in meaningful and sustained interactions with English-proficient peers. Finally, ELs connected new learning with their prior knowledge and experience. These findings pose important considerations for implementing standards in ways that support reasoning-based, collaborative discourse for all students—while simultaneously affording ELs learning opportunities for developing language proficiency and disciplinary knowledge in an equitable learning environment

Functional real-time programming: the language Ruth and its semantics

Real-time systems are amongst the most safety critical systems involving computer software and the incorrect functioning of this software can cause great damage, up to and including the loss of life. If seems sensible therefore to write real-time software in a way that gives us the best chance of correctly implementing specifications. Because of the high level of functional programming languages, their semantic simplicity and their amenability to formal reasoning and correctness preserving transformation it thus seems natural to use a functional language for this task. This thesis explores the problems of applying functional programming languages to real-time by defining the real-time functional programming language Ruth. The first part of the thesis concerns the identification of the particular problems associated with programming real-time systems. These can broadly be stated as a requirement that a real-time language must be able to express facts about time, a feature we have called time expressibility. The next stage is to provide time expressibility within a purely functional framework. This is accomplished by the use of timestamps on inputs and outputs and by providing a real-time clock as an input to Ruth programs. The final major part of the work is the construction of a formal definition of the semantics of Ruth to serve as a basis for formal reasoning and transformation. The framework within which the formal semantics of a real-time language are defined requires time expressibility in the same way as the real-time language itself. This is accomplished within the framework of domain theory by the use of specialised domains for timestamped objects, called herring-bone domains. These domains could be used as the basis for the definition of the semantics of any real-time language

The High Water Mark of Social History in Civil War Studies

Just hours before the Army of Northern Virginia raised the white flag at Appomattox Court House, Confederate Colonel Edward Porter Alexander approached his commanding officer, Robert E. Lee, with what he hoped was a game-saving plan. Rather than suffer the mortification of surrendering, Alexander begged Lee to scatter his men across the countryside like “rabbits & partridges” where they could continue waging war, not as regular Confederate soldiers, but as elusive guerrilla fighters. Lee listened patiently to his subordinate’s reasoning for irregular warfare. Before Alexander finished, he reminded Lee that the men were utterly devoted to their commanding general, and that such loyalty would continue to inspire the sacrifice of more blood, even if it meant taking to the woods and fighting like common outlaws. When Alexander concluded his impassioned plea, Lee asked his subordinate to imagine what would happen if he turned Alexander’s suggestion into official policy. But before Alexander had a chance to respond, Lee reminded him that virtually every Southern community had been overrun by Union armies, that farms were in disarray, and that crops were ruined. Lee feared that his veterans, upon returning home, would have no choice but to plunder and rob for survival. It would take no time for his disciplined army to descend into a demoralized mob that would take the rest of the South into a downward spiral of unending and unrestrained violence. “As for myself,” Lee concluded, “while you young men might afford to go to bushwhacking, the only proper & dignified course for me would be to surrender myself & take the consequences of my actions.” [excerpt

Factors and processes in children's transitive deductions

Transitive tasks are important for understanding how children develop socio-cognitively. However, developmental research has been restricted largely to questions surrounding maturation. We asked 6-, 7- and 8-year-olds (N = 117) to solve a composite of five different transitive tasks. Tasks included conditions asking about item-C (associated with the marked relation) in addition to the usual case of asking only about item-A (associated with the unmarked relation). Here, children found resolving item-C much easier than resolving item-A, a finding running counter to long-standing assumptions about transitive reasoning. Considering gender perhaps for the first time, boys exhibited higher transitive scores than girls overall. Finally, analysing in the context of one recent and well-specified theory of spatial transitive reasoning, we generated the prediction that reporting the full series should be easier than deducing any one item from that series. This prediction was not upheld. We discuss amendments necessary to accommodate all our earlier findings

The Use of Metaphors as a Parametric Design Teaching Model: A Case Study

Teaching methodologies for parametric design are being researched all over the world, since there is a growing demand for computer programming logic and its fabrication process in architectural education. The computer programming courses in architectural education are usually done in a very short period of time, and so students have no chance to create their own designs. This paper describes a course in which metaphors are used as a teaching methodology in parametric design, in order to let students create their own designs and learn the basic elements of parametric programming language in a short period of time with deductive reasoning. In this course, it was intended to teach visual programming language to undergraduates. Advancing under the metaphor theoretical framework, the students obtained experience in achieving form-finding process for their projects in accord with the certain constraints. Using this methodology, the students, who experienced all design stages from 3D modeling to the digital fabrication, additionally were able to develop their ability for versatile thinking and the use of more than one tool in combination, in the early years of their architectural education