Improving the viability of mental models held by novice programmers

Recent research has found that many novice programmers often hold non-viable mental models of basic programming concepts such as assignment and object reference. This paper proposes a constructivist-based teaching model, integrating a cognitive conflict strategy with program visualization, with the aim of improving novice programmers’ mental models. The results of a preliminary empirical study suggest that, for the relatively straightforward concept of assignment, tight integration of program visualization with a cognitive conflict event that highlights a student’s inappropriate understanding can help improve students’ non-viable mental models. 14 out of 18 participants who held non-viable mental models of the assignment process successfully changed their model to be viable as a result of the proposed teaching model

Applying university strategic objectives at the school level

University Teachers at the School of Interdisciplinary Studies are working together on the Teaching, Learning and Participation Project. This project encompasses three strands: widening participation, student experience, and innovative learning and teaching; all key aspects of the University’s strategic objectives. The widening participation strand has focused primarily on partnership with local schools. This includes Campus Days whereby pupils who have the ability, but perhaps not the confidence, to enter higher education come to the University's two campuses and experience a day as a student. Additionally this strand is seeking to conduct a comparative study of assessment and feedback processes in secondary and higher education. The student experience strand has concentrated on employability and internationalisation. Examples include working with the local education authority to extend student learning and provide staff CPD opportunities via the establishment of an annual education lecture, and developing opportunities for internships overseas. Finally, the innovative learning and teaching strand has sought to review current teaching practices within the School, and to identify and trial innovative methodologies in an effort to engage learners more fully and thereby to enhance both the student and staff learning experiences

A collaborative approach to learning programming: a hybrid learning model

The use of cooperative working as a means of developing collaborative skills has been recognised as vital in programming education. This paper presents results obtained from preliminary work to investigate the effectiveness of Pair Programming as a collaborative learning strategy and also its value towards improving programming skills within the laboratory. The potential of Problem Based Learning as a means of further developing cooperative working skills along with problem solving skills is also examined and a hybrid model encompassing both strategies outlined

Public support for tobacco control policy extensions in Western Australia: a cross-sectional study

Objectives: Policy makers seeking to introduce new tobacco control measures need to anticipatecommunity support to assist them in planning appropriate implementation strategies. This studyassessed community support for plain packaging and smoking bans in outdoor locations in Australia.Design: Analytical cross-sectional survey. Setting and participants: 2005 Western Australianadults participated in a computer-assisted telephone interview. Random household telephone numberswere used to obtain a representative sample. Outcome measures: Support for plain packaging ofcigarettes and smoking bans at outdoor venues by demographic characteristics. Results: Around half of the survey respondents supported plain packaging and almost a further quarter reported being neutral on the issue. Only one in three smokers disagreed with the introduction of a plain packaging policy. A majority of respondents supported smoking bans at five of the six nominated venues, with support being strongest among those with children under the age of 15 years. The venues with the highest levels of support were those where smoke-free policies had already been voluntarily introduced by the venuemanagers, where children were most likely to be in attendance, and that were more limited in size.Conclusions: The study results demonstrate community support for new tobacco control policies.This evidence can be used by public policy makers in their deliberations relating to the introduction of more extensive tobacco control regulations

A review of the evaluation of healthway sponsorships

This study reviewed the methods used by Healthway to assess sponsorship implementation/value and to explore complimentary or alternative evaluation measures... Interview questions related to sponsorship activities, procedures, requirements and evaluation. Suggestions for practical and alternative ways of assessing sponsorship implementation and conducting evaluations were also asked. In addition, the perceived value of sponsorship investments to Healthway and satisfaction with the existing evaluation framework were also sought..

Modelling the future of the Hawaiian honeycreeper : an ecological and epidemiological problem

The Hawaiian honeycreeper (Drepanididae) faces the threat of extinction; this is believed to be due primarily to predation from alien animals, endemic avian malaria (Plasmodium relictum) and climate change. A deterministic SI modelling approach is developed, incorporating these three factors and a metapopulation approach in conjunction with a quasi-equilibrium assumption to simplify the vector populations. This enables the qualitative study of the behaviour of the system. Numerical results suggest that although (partial) resistance to avian malaria may be advantageous for individual birds, allowing them to survive infection, this allows them to become carriers of infection and hence greatly increases the spread of this disease. Predation obviously reduces the life-expectancy of honeycreepers, but in turn this reduces the spread of infection from resistant carriers; therefore the population-level impact of predation is reduced. Various control strategies proposed in the literature are also considered and it is shown that predation control could either help or hinter, depending upon resistance of the honeycreeper species. Captive propagation or habitat restoration may be the best feasible solution to the loss of both heterogeneity within the population and the loss of the species as a whole

Positive Clinical Psychology and Schema Therapy (ST): the development of the Young Positive Schema Questionnaire (YPSQ) to complement the Young Schema Questionnaire 3 Short Form (YSQ-S3)

Negative schemas have been widely recognized as being linked to psychopathology and mental health, and they are central to the Schema Therapy (ST) model. This study is the first to report on the psychometric properties of the Young Positive Schema Questionnaire (YPSQ). In a combined community sample (Manila, Philippines, n = 559; Bangalore, India, n = 350; Singapore, n = 628), we identified a 56-item 14-factor solution for the YPSQ. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the 14-factor model for data from the Singapore sample as well as 2 other samples; an Eastern sample from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (n =229) and a Western sample from the United States (n = 214). Construct validity was demonstrated with the Young Schema Questionnaire 3 Short Form (YSQ-S3) that measures negative schemas and divergent validity was demonstrated for 11 of the YPSQ subscales with their respective negative schema counterparts. Convergent validity of the 14 subscales of YPSQ was demonstrated with measures of personality dispositions, emotional distress, well-being, trait gratitude, and humor styles. Positive schemas also showed incremental validity over and above negative schemas for these same measures thus demonstrating that both positive and negative schemas are separate constructs that relate in unique ways to mental health. Implications for using both the YPSQ and the YSQ-S3 scales in tandem in ST as well as cultural nuances from the use of Asian samples were discussed

Basket Cases and Breadbaskets: Sacred Rice and Agricultural Development in Postcolonial Africa

Author's final manuscript.Based on ethnographic research among rural Diola in Guinea-Bissau, I provide a broad view of the history and interpenetration of rice in social, political, religious, and ecological domains, while chronicling the current difficulties of residents in this region who are no longer able to grown enough of it. These farmers’ experiences are unfolding at a time of revitalized attention to agricultural development in Africa, particularly under the auspices of the New Green Revolution for Africa. I examine the premises that constitute the resuscitated effort to address the plight of African farmers. I argue that the totalizing quality of rice in Diola and other rice-cultivating societies requires a development approach that takes into account dimensions of agrarian life not encapsulated by the high- modernist and anti-political orientation of the New Green Revolution for Africa

Estimating infectious disease parameters from data on social contacts and serological status

In dynamic models of infectious disease transmission, typically various mixing patterns are imposed on the so-called Who-Acquires-Infection-From-Whom matrix (WAIFW). These imposed mixing patterns are based on prior knowledge of age-related social mixing behavior rather than observations. Alternatively, one can assume that transmission rates for infections transmitted predominantly through non-sexual social contacts, are proportional to rates of conversational contact which can be estimated from a contact survey. In general, however, contacts reported in social contact surveys are proxies of those events by which transmission may occur and there may exist age-specific characteristics related to susceptibility and infectiousness which are not captured by the contact rates. Therefore, in this paper, transmission is modeled as the product of two age-specific variables: the age-specific contact rate and an age-specific proportionality factor, which entails an improvement of fit for the seroprevalence of the varicella-zoster virus (VZV) in Belgium. Furthermore, we address the impact on the estimation of the basic reproduction number, using non-parametric bootstrapping to account for different sources of variability and using multi-model inference to deal with model selection uncertainty. The proposed method makes it possible to obtain important information on transmission dynamics that cannot be inferred from approaches traditionally applied hitherto.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figure