USING TRANSACTIONAL DISTANCE THEORY TO EXPLORE THE EXPERIENCES OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS IN ONLINE DEVELOPMENTAL COURSES

The number of community college students taking online courses has steadily increased, which includes students enrolling in online developmental courses. Community colleges have largely embraced online learning in order to improve student access, but many difficulties (e.g. low passing rates, high withdrawal rates) have been discovered in the area of online learning. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of community college students in online developmental courses. The research question that guided this study was: 1.Using Transactional Distance Theory, what is the experience of community college students in online developmental courses?Data was collected using phenomenological semi-structured interviews. Open coding and thematic analysis were used to determine the common experiences shared by community college students in online developmental courses. Results indicated that the majority of students did not appear to experience great amounts of transactional distance in their online developmental courses. Students also largely spoke of quality dialogue with their instructor, a disconnect from classmates, a well-organized structure, no desire to have autonomy in course content selection, and a desire for autonomy with self-paced online developmental courses. Future research is recommended to understand the experiences of community college students enrolled in online developmental courses

Sandhill crane population monitoring, modeling, and harvest decision making

Includes bibliographical references.2015 Fall.To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document

A Comment on Priors for Bayesian Occupancy Models

Understanding patterns of species occurrence and the processes underlying these patterns is fundamental to the study of ecology. One of the more commonly used approaches to investigate species occurrence patterns is occupancy modeling, which can account for imperfect detection of a species during surveys. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of Bayesian modeling in ecology, which includes fitting Bayesian occupancy models. The Bayesian framework is appealing to ecologists for many reasons, including the ability to incorporate prior information through the specification of prior distributions on parameters. While ecologists almost exclusively intend to choose priors so that they are “uninformative” or “vague”, such priors can easily be unintentionally highly informative. Here we report on how the specification of a “vague” normally distributed (i.e., Gaussian) prior on coefficients in Bayesian occupancy models can unintentionally influence parameter estimation. Using both simulated data and empirical examples, we illustrate how this issue likely compromises inference about species-habitat relationships. While the extent to which these informative priors influence inference depends on the data set, researchers fitting Bayesian occupancy models should conduct sensitivity analyses to ensure intended inference, or employ less commonly used priors that are less informative (e.g., logistic or t prior distributions). We provide suggestions for addressing this issue in occupancy studies, and an online tool for exploring this issue under different contexts

Improving spatial predictions of animal resource selection to guide conservation decision making

Resource selection is often studied by ecologists interested in the environmental drivers of animal space use and movement. These studies commonly produce spatial predictions, which are of considerable utility to resource managers making habitat and population management decisions. It is thus paramount that predictions from resource selection studies are accurate. We evaluated model building and fitting strategies for optimizing resource selection function predictions in a use‐availability framework. We did so by simulating low‐ and high‐intensity spatial sampling data that respectively predicted study area and movement‐based resource selection. We compared one of the most commonly used forms of statistical regularization, Akaike\u27s Information Criterion (AIC), with the lesser used least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO). LASSO predictions were less variable and more accurate than AIC and were often best when considering additive and interacting variables. We explicitly demonstrate the predictive equivalence using the logistic and Poisson likelihoods and how it is lost when the available sample is too small. Regardless of modeling approach, interpreting the sign of coefficients as a measure of selection can be misleading when optimizing for prediction

Teacher Reflection Through Video-Recording Analysis

The purpose of this research study was to examine the utility of video-recording self-analysis as an effective means of reflective practice for teachers. Participants were enrolled in a graduate-level education specialist program for practicing teachers based, in part, on the National Board for Professional Teaching standards–one of which explicitly focuses on reflective practice for teachers. Participants employed a formal observation instrument to guide them in this reflective activity. All participants recorded and analyzed their teaching using the observation instrument, and subsequently participated in a think-aloud session during which they discussed the activity as a reflective practice. Participants articulated that engaging in this guided reflective activity brought a heightened awareness of teaching strengths and weaknesses. Specifically, participants noted that employing the observation instrument, coupled with the formalized act of video-recording analysis, allowed them to focus on details of teaching often overlooked in less formal reflective practice or formal evaluation

Sex-Segregated Range Use by Black-and-White Ruffed Lemurs (Varecia variegata) in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar

Ranging behavior is one important strategy by which nonhuman primates obtain access to resources critical to their biological maintenance and reproductive success. As most primates live in permanent social groups, their members must balance the benefits of group living with the costs of intragroup competition for resources. However, some taxa live in more spatiotemporally flexible social groups, whose members modify patterns of association and range use as a method to mitigate these costs. Here, we describe the range use of one such taxon, the black-and-white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata), at an undisturbed primary rain forest site in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar, and characterize sex differences in annual home range area, overlap, and daily distances traveled. Moreover, we characterize seasonal variability in range use and ask whether ranging behaviors can be explained by either climatic or reproductive seasonality. We found that females used significantly larger home ranges than males, though sexes shared equal and moderate levels of home range overlap. Overall, range use did not vary across seasons, although within sexes, male range use varied significantly with climate. Moreover, daily path length was best predicted by day length, female reproductive state, and sex, but was unrelated to climate variables. While the patterns of range use and spatial association presented here share some similarities with “bisexually bonded” community models described for chimpanzees, we argue that ruffed lemurs best conform to a “nuclear neighborhood” community model wherein nuclear (core) groups share the highest levels of home range overlap, and where these groups cluster spatially into adjacent “neighborhoods” within the larger, communally defended territory

Elevated potential for intraspecific competition in territorial carnivores occupying fragmented landscapes

The distribution of mammals is determined by a suite of endogenous and exogenous factors. In territorial, polygynous species like tigers (Panthera tigris), males often center their space-use around female territories, repelling competitors from these areas. Competition among males for females leads to increased mortality of both sexes and infanticide of unrelated cubs, which can lead to population declines. We hypothesized that increased territorial overlap among adult male tigers and elevated levels of inter and intra-sex competition would be manifest in populations with male-biased adult sex ratios (ASR). We also assessed whether inter-sex variation in adult survival or degree of habitat connectivity resulted in skewed ASR. We evaluated these hypotheses using camera trap data from three tiger populations occupying habitat patches with varying levels of connectivity and ASRs. Data were analyzed using multi-state occupancy models, where states were defined as habitat use by one or more male tigers in sites with and without female use. As predicted, in populations with male-biased or even ASR we found evidence for increased spatial overlap between male tigers, particularly pronounced in areas adjacent to female territories. Given parity in adult survival, habitat fragmentation likely caused male-biased ASR. Our results suggest that the persistence of small tiger populations in habitat patches with male-biased ASR may be significantly compromised by behavior-mediated endogenous demographic processes that are often overlooked. In habitat fragments with pronounced male biased ASR, population recovery of territorial carnivores may require timely supplementation of individuals to compensate for population losses from intraspecific competition

The international humanitarian sector and language translation in crisis situations: assessment of current practices and future needs

Assessment Focus During major social disruptions, such as civil conflicts, natural disasters, or other crises, access to information is of fundamental importance to response and recovery operations. Ability to understand the language in which information is disseminated is a key marker of social vulnerability to disasters or crises. Assessing the degree to which the service efforts of organizations involved in the humanitarian sector are informed by commitment to multilingual communication and language translation is important to understanding how these organizations contribute to risk reduction and improved community resilience. This short report provides an assessment of the current state of practice and key language access issues in the humanitarian sector. Guiding Questions Assessment of the efforts in the humanitarian sector in crisis relief and recovery work can be understood in the context of the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit’s Grand Bargain commitments to reform aspects of humanitarian organizations’ relief work. Among those goals are key pronouncements on accountability, localization, and participation; language is integral to each. Because of the importance of language access to risk reduction and resilience in crisis situations, the assessment here attempts to address three questions: (1) what is the significance of language access to international humanitarian assistance efforts?; (2) what constitutes effective practices or key challenges at present?; and (3) what is the prospect for humanitarian organizations’ managing language access needs in the future? Key Findings Study subjects voiced near unanimity that providing language access is fundamentally important to humanitarian operations, but, at present, the capacity to formalize or routinize such efforts is limited; There was wide-spread consensus that accommodating language needs is necessary for achieving the Grand Bargain’s aim of two-way communication for greater accountability of operational humanitarian organizations towards affected communities; Accommodating language needs is consistently seen as a complex task; currently, even when there is capacity to address the issue, there is no agreement on how language needs should be accommodated; Language access capabilities may go beyond budget or staff resources and include issues of modality, culture, politics, ownership within the organizations, etc.; Key gaps in practice render service delivery less effective. Implications & Recommendations Findings suggest defined “ownership” of language translation within an organization is key to effective practice; Incorporating more systematic efforts on language translation in humanitarian operations is directly relevant to the Grand Bargain goals of accountability, localization, and participation in serving affected communities; Establishing systematic provision for communication in local languages in humanitarian response plans is crucial as the world is facing increasing hazard vulnerability; Improving humanitarian assistance requires management solutions such as better integration of language access provision with the cluster system

Variability in antifungal and antiviral use in hospitalized children

We analyzed antifungal and antiviral prescribing among high-risk children across freestanding children’s hospitals. Antifungal and antiviral days of therapy varied across hospitals. Benchmarking antifungal and antiviral use and developing antimicrobial stewardship strategies to optimize use of these high cost agents is needed.Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol2017;38:743–746</jats:p