The Influence of Drawing on Third Graders\u27 Writing Performance

This study compared the writing products of 60 third grade students who drew before writing a story on a self-selected topic (Experimental Group) with the writing products of 59 third grade students who simply wrote without drawing (Control Group). An analysis of the students\u27 writing products revealed two important findings. First, students who drew be fore writing tended to produce more words, more sentences, and more idea units, and their overall writing performance was higher than the students who wrote without drawing. Second, these results were consistent for boys and girls regardless of group membership. The findings indicate that the differences in writing performance were probably due to the integration of drawing and writing. Implications for writing research and instruction are discussed

Revising the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) and testing for factorial invariance

In this study, we revised the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI), a self-report instrument designed to assess students’ awareness of reading strategies when reading school-related materials. We collected evidence of structural, generalizability, and external aspects of validity for the revised inventory (MARSI-R). We first conducted a confirmatory factor analysis of the MARSI instrument, which resulted in the reduction of the number of strategy statements from 30 to 15. We then tested MARSI-R for factorial invariance across gender and ethnic groups and found that there is a uniformity in student interpretation of the reading strategy statements across these groups, thus allowing for their comparison on levels of metacognitive processing skills. We found evidence of the external validity aspect of MARSI-R data through correlations of such data with a measure of the students’ perceived reading ability. Given that this journal is oriented to second language learning and teaching, our article also includes comments on the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS), which was based on the original MARSI and was designed to assess adolescents’ and adults’ metacognitive awareness and perceived use of ESL reading strategies. We provide a copy of the MARSI-R instrument and discuss the implications of the study’s findings in light of new and emerging insights relative to assessing students’ metacognitive awareness and perceived use of reading strategies

Revising the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) and Testing for Factorial Invariance

In this study, we revised the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI), a self-report instrument designed to assess students’ awareness of reading strategies when reading school-related materials. We collected evidence of structural, generalizability, and external aspects of validity for the revised inventory (MARSI-R). We first conducted a confirmatory factor analysis of the MARSI instrument, which resulted in the reduction of the number of strategy statements from 30 to 15. We then tested MARSI-R for factorial invariance across gender and ethnic groups and found that there is a uniformity in student interpretation of the reading strategy statements across these groups, thus allowing for their comparison on levels of metacognitive processing skills. We found evidence of the external validity aspect of MARSI-R data through correlations of such data with a measure of the students’ perceived reading ability. Given that this journal is oriented to second language learning and teaching, our article also includes comments on the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS), which was based on the original MARSI and was designed to assess adolescents’ and adults’ metacognitive awareness and perceived use of ESL reading strategies. We provide a copy of the MARSI-R instrument and discuss the implications of the study’s findings in light of new and emerging insights relative to assessing students’ metacognitive awareness and perceived use of reading strategies

Numerical analysis of the elastic-plastic behavior of a tubular structure in FGM under pressure and defect presence

Given the field of application and the many advantages, the use of FGM (Functionally Graded Materials) materials has recently been extended in several components and more particularly in cylindrical structures, which have been the subject of several recent studies. Our work aims to use the finite element method to analyze a cylindrical structure in FGM with properties gradated in the direction of the radius (Thickness) solicited purely in internal pressure by the implementation of a UMAT subroutine in the calculation code ABAQUS. The elasto-plastic behavior of the FGM is described by the flow theory represented by the equivalent stress of Von Mises and an incremental hardening variable. The TTO model (Tamura-Tomota-Ozawa) was used only to determine the elastic-plastic properties of the FGM material. The radial, tangential and axial stresses according to the thickness were evaluated in the first part of our work. In the second part, these stresses are evaluated under the same conditions but with the presence of a micro-cavity. The results obtained show clearly that these stresses are in direct relation not only with the thickness and properties of the FGM tube but also with the presence of the cavity

Strange Baryon Production in Heavy Ion Collisions

The rapidity distribution of $\Lambda$ and $\bar{\Lambda}$ produced in nucleus-nucleus collisions at CERN energies is studied in the framework of an independent string model - with quark-antiquark as well as diquark-antidiquark pairs in the nucleon sea. It is shown that, besides the $\Lambda$-$\bar{\Lambda}$ pair production resulting from the fragmentation of sea diquarks, final state interactions of co-moving secondaries $\pi + N \to K + \Lambda$ and $\pi + \bar{N} \to K + \bar{\Lambda}$ are needed in order to reproduce the data. Predictions for $Pb$-$Pb$ collisions are presented.Comment: Plain TeX + epsf, 40 pages; 1 Postscript-table and 7 Postscript figures (uuencoded

Inducing Task-Relevant Responses to Speech in the Sleeping Brain

Falling asleep leads to a loss of sensory awareness and to the inability to interact with the environment [1]. While this was traditionally thought as a consequence of the brain shutting down to external inputs, it is now acknowledged that incoming stimuli can still be processed, at least to some extent, during sleep [2]. For instance, sleeping participants can create novel sensory associations between tones and odors [3] or reactivate existing semantic associations, as evidenced by event-related potentials [4; 5; 6 ; 7]. Yet, the extent to which the brain continues to process external stimuli remains largely unknown. In particular, it remains unclear whether sensory information can be processed in a flexible and task-dependent manner by the sleeping brain, all the way up to the preparation of relevant actions. Here, using semantic categorization and lexical decision tasks, we studied task-relevant responses triggered by spoken stimuli in the sleeping brain. Awake participants classified words as either animals or objects (experiment 1) or as either words or pseudowords (experiment 2) by pressing a button with their right or left hand, while transitioning toward sleep. The lateralized readiness potential (LRP), an electrophysiological index of response preparation, revealed that task-specific preparatory responses are preserved during sleep. These findings demonstrate that despite the absence of awareness and behavioral responsiveness, sleepers can still extract task-relevant information from external stimuli and covertly prepare for appropriate motor responses

Subliminal Semantic Priming in Speech

Numerous studies have reported subliminal repetition and semantic priming in the visual modality. We transferred this paradigm to the auditory modality. Prime awareness was manipulated by a reduction of sound intensity level. Uncategorized prime words (according to a post-test) were followed by semantically related, unrelated, or repeated target words (presented without intensity reduction) and participants performed a lexical decision task (LDT). Participants with slower reaction times in the LDT showed semantic priming (faster reaction times for semantically related compared to unrelated targets) and negative repetition priming (slower reaction times for repeated compared to semantically related targets). This is the first report of semantic priming in the auditory modality without conscious categorization of the prime

Subliminal Semantic Priming in Speech

Numerous studies have reported subliminal repetition and semantic priming in the visual modality. We transferred this paradigm to the auditory modality. Prime awareness was manipulated by a reduction of sound intensity level. Uncategorized prime words (according to a post-test) were followed by semantically related, unrelated, or repeated target words (presented without intensity reduction) and participants performed a lexical decision task (LDT). Participants with slower reaction times in the LDT showed semantic priming (faster reaction times for semantically related compared to unrelated targets) and negative repetition priming (slower reaction times for repeated compared to semantically related targets). This is the first report of semantic priming in the auditory modality without conscious categorization of the prime

J/ΨJ/\Psi and Ψ′\Psi ' Suppression in Heavy Ion Collisions

We study the combined effect of nuclear absorption and final state interaction with co-moving hadrons on the $J/\Psi$ and $\Psi '$ suppression in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions. We show that reasonable description of the experimental data can be achieved with theoretically meaningful values of the cross-sections involved and without introducing any dicontinuity in the $J/\Psi$ or $\Psi '$ survival probabilities.Comment: 10 pages, TeX, 2 Postscript figure