‘‘There’s so much more to it than what I initially thought’’: Stepping into researchers’ shoes with a class activity in a first year psychology survey course

In psychology, it is widely agreed that research methods, although central to the discipline, are particularly challenging to learn and teach, particularly at introductory level. This pilot study explored the potential of embedding a student-conducted research activity in a one-semester undergraduate Introduction to Psychology survey course, with the aims of (a) engaging students with the topic of research methods; (b) developing students’ comprehension and application of research methods concepts; and (c) building students’ ability to link research with theory. The research activity explored shoe ownership, examining gender differences and relationships with age, and linking to theories of gender difference and of consumer identity. The process of carrying out the research and reflecting on it created a contextualized, active learning environment in which students themselves raised many issues that research methods lectures seek to cover. Students also wrote richer assignments than standard first year mid-term essay

Emerging diseases-the monkeypox epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Peer reviewe

Thermopower of Two-Dimensional Electrons at ν\nu = 3/2 and 5/2

The longitudinal thermopower of ultra-high mobility two-dimensional electrons has been measured at both zero magnetic field and at high fields in the compressible metallic state at filling factor $\nu = 3/2$ and the incompressible fractional quantized Hall state at $\nu = 5/2$. At zero field our results demonstrate that the thermopower is dominated by electron diffusion for temperatures below about $T = 150$ mK. A diffusion dominated thermopower is also observed at $\nu = 3/2$ and allows us to extract an estimate of the composite fermion effective mass. At $\nu = 5/2$ both the temperature and magnetic field dependence of the observed thermopower clearly signal the presence of the energy gap of this fractional quantized Hall state. We find that the thermopower in the vicinity of $\nu = 5/2$ exceeds that recently predicted under the assumption that the entropy of the 2D system is dominated by non-abelian quasiparticle exchange statistics.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures

OpenEssayist: a supply and demand learning analytics tool for drafting academic essays

This paper focuses on the use of a natural language analytics engine to provide feedback to students when preparing an essay for summative assessment. OpenEssayist is a real-time learning analytics tool, which operates through the combination of a linguistic analysis engine that processes the text in the essay, and a web application that uses the output of the linguistic analysis engine to generate the feedback. We outline the system itself and present analysis of observed patterns of activity as a cohort of students engaged with the system for their module assignments. We report a significant positive correlation between the number of drafts submitted to the system and the grades awarded for the first assignment. We can also report that this cohort of students gained significantly higher overall grades than the students in the previous cohort, who had no access to OpenEssayist. As a system that is content free, OpenEssayist can be used to support students working in any domain that requires the writing of essays

Learning from peer feedback on student-generated multiple choice questions: Views of introductory physics students

PeerWise is an online application where students are encouraged to generate a bank of multiple choice questions for their classmates to answer. After answering a question, students can provide feedback to the question author about the quality of the question and the question author can respond to this. Student use of, and attitudes to, this online community within PeerWise was investigated in two large first year undergraduate physics courses, across three academic years, to explore how students interact with the system and the extent to which they believe PeerWise to be useful to their learning. Most students recognized that there is value in engaging with PeerWise, and many students engaged deeply with the system, thinking critically about the quality of their submissions and reflecting on feedback provided to them. Students also valued the breadth of topics and level of difficulty offered by the questions, recognized the revision benefits afforded by the resource, and were often willing to contribute to the community by providing additional explanations and engaging in discussion

What triggers students’ interest during higher education lectures? Personal and situational variables associated with situational interest

Lecturing is often touted as a means to inspire students’ interest, despite evidence that most lectures fail to do so. This study examines triggers of students’ situational interest during lectures. Students (N=706) in 12 different individual one hour first year lectures in a UK university were surveyed at the end of the lecture. They described the moment they were most interested; rated a series of 5 point Likert scale items on their situational and individual interest, and features of the content, presentation and teacher’s behaviour during that moment; and provided demographic characteristics. Simultaneous regression analyses showed that novelty, cognitive activation, cognitive incongruity, and utility value all positively predicted situational interest. Students’ level of individual interest and perceptions of their teacher’s enthusiasm, approachability and knowledge were the strongest predictor of situational interest. Overchallenge was negatively associated with situational interest

Student Employment: Linking College and the Workplace

The focus of National Student Employment Association (formerly the National Association of Student Employment Administrators, or NASEA) publications has always been on students in transition. From the freshman moving from high school to higher education, to the senior attempting the transition to professional employment and financial independence, we always have explored how students can better accomplish these linking experiences. Student employment is a hybrid, serving as a bridge between work and school, and ultimately, a link between school and full-time work. Student employment links elements of financial aid, career development, academic learning, experiential education, and personal development. Student employment, in all of these ways, is a bridge, moving the student from point A to point B. Because of this variety, any publication on student employment must necessarily speak to diverse themes. We have organized this publication in four sections: an introduction followed by three themed sections.https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/bookshelf/1000/thumbnail.jp