The effects of peer instruction on ninth grade students\u27 conceptual understanding of forces and motion

Because students are often taught physics in a traditional, lecture-based classroom, the present study was undertaken to test whether the use of peer instruction, specifically concept questions embedded within a PowerPoint that allows for students to interact throughout the lecture, affects learner outcomes in a classroom setting. The outcomes from classes taught using peer instruction were compared to classes taught with traditional, lecture-based teaching strategies. Students in five different sections of a 9th grade Physical Science class were given pre-tests and post-tests to determine their learning gains on the topics of motion and forces. In the first unit of instruction, three of the five classes were given peer instruction throughout each class lecture while the other two classes received a traditional, lecture based approach to each class. In the second unit, classes that had not used peer instruction previously received the peer instruction treatment, while the other classes received traditional lecture. Overall, the peer instruction technique showed a significant positive effect on learning gains compared to traditional teaching methods when used in a ninth grade Physical Science classroom. In each of the sections of students examined individually, peer instruction was as or more effective than traditional lecturing in improving student learning

The Nature of Social Relationships in Bottlenose Dolphins (\u3ci\u3eTursiops truncatus\u3c/i\u3e): Associations and the Role of Affiliative, Agonistic, and Socio-Sexual Behaviors

Little is known about the specific behavioral exchanges that occur on a day-to-day basis between dyads of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). This thesis assesses proximity between dyads (~ 2 meters) and the proportion of time that is spent in either an affiliative, agonistic, or socio-sexual context within age/sex pairings of dolphins in order to better understand the nature of social relationships in this species. Observations of bottlenose dolphins housed at the Roatan Institute of Marine Sciences, collected in 2010, provided 10.5 hours of underwater footage for assessment of association coefficients and proportions of interactions. These data suggested similar patterns to previous studies on bottlenose dolphin association patterns and interactions. Mother-calf dyads were found to share the highest coefficients of association, followed by male-male, female-female, and male-female dyads. Four classes of association coefficients were defined for the population: low, medium, medium-high and high. Regardless of which class dyads fell into, affiliative behavior was the most prevalent context recorded, followed by agonistic, and then socio-sexual contexts. This same pattern was also found regardless of which age/sex categories the dyads were placed. This study is the first to quantitatively assess association patterns with affiliative, agonistic, and socio-sexual behaviors in this species concurrently and reveals that the social relationships of these dolphins are predominately affiliative in nature. Furthermore, the patterns of social relationships observed appear to be consistent with sex-specific reproductive strategies

Theoretical Guidance on the Determinants of Success in Agricultural Marketing and Production Clubs

Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Marketing,

A Study of the Pennsylvania Framework for Leadership: Perceptions of Principals in a Suburban Southeastern Pennsylvania County

This study examined the perceptions of principals in a suburban southeastern Pennsylvania county regarding the Framework for Leadership evaluation process. This explanatory sequential mixed-methods multiple case study was designed to explore and explain the relationship among the collection of evidence, the providing of feedback, and the principal's perception of the Framework for Leadership. The Framework for Leadership was first implemented during the 2014-2015 school year, and to date there is no existing research on the extent to which it is improving principal practice. Improved principal practices lead to increased student achievement. The first phase of the study included quantitative data collected from 40 principals via an electronic survey questionnaire about how they perceive the evaluation process through the use of a published survey, the Teacher Evaluation Profile (TEP). The TEP is designed to better understand teachers' experiences with the evaluation process and can be applied to principals' experiences with the evaluation process as well. Therefore, this study used a revised version of the TEP named the Principal Evaluation Profile (PEP). The second phase of the study included qualitative data collected from three school districts during focus group interviews. The three focus groups each contained two to three principals from the same district and consisted of one group in each of the following areas: highest average perceptions of the evaluation process, lowest average perceptions of the evaluation process, and neutral average perceptions about the evaluation process. The qualitative data was used to further explain the quantitative data in order to study principal perceptions of the Framework for Leadership evaluation process.Ed.D., Educational Leadership and Management -- Drexel University, 201

Every breath you take: an exploration of perceptions of stalking and the consequences of stalking victimization

This thesis explores the criminal offence of stalking. Chapter One introduces the existing literature on the topic of stalking with reference to males as perpetrators and females as victims. This is by far the most prevalent stalking context (Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998). Chapter Two details a quantitative study examining the effect of relationship type, stalking myth endorsement, and participant gender on victim and perpetrator blame using a cross-sectional experimental design. Results found that relationship type did not impact victim or perpetrator blame. A positive correlation was identified between overall stalking myth endorsement and victim blame and a negative correlation between overall stalking myth endorsement and perpetrator blame. Furthermore, results revealed that males endorsed significantly more stalking myths than females, although this did not lead to significant differences in victim and perpetrator blaming between the genders. Results are discussed with reference to the implications for training, education, and awareness. Chapter Three critiques the use of the vignette methodology. It was found that vignettes can be highly effective in yielding valid and reliable outcomes, but that several factors must be taken into consideration prior to dissemination. The critique also highlights the need for vignettes to be carefully constructed in order that they meet the aims of the studies they serve. Chapter Four presents a systematic review of eight studies, each identifying potential risk factors for victims of stalking developing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. The review identifies a number of potential risk factors including the ways in which victims cope with their victimisation, victims’ perceptions of social support, the severity of stalking, and victims’ forgiveness. Outcomes of the review are considered critical in developing interventions for female victims of stalking, or females at risk of stalking victimization, in order to reduce the traumatic impact of stalking perpetration. No such help was offered to or accessed by case study, BB – a female victim of stalking – following her experience of stalking victimization perpetrated by an ex-intimate partner. The effectiveness of a schema-based intervention in addressing some of the symptoms of trauma resulting from stalking victimization is discussed based on a single case study, BB, in Chapter Five. Schema mode therapy appeared to reduce BB’s agoraphobia and social isolation, and improve her assertiveness and ability to regulate her emotions. The extent to which BB was made vulnerable to intimate partner violence as a result of her traumatic childhood is explored. Finally, Chapter Six concludes the thesis by discussing the clinical and theoretical implications of the research in Chapters Two to Five, as well as acknowledging its limitations and making considered recommendations for future research

Spatial variability of microzooplankton grazing on phytoplankton in coastal southern Florida, USA

Microzooplankton are considered the primary consumers of phytoplankton in marine environments. Microzooplankton grazing rates on phytoplankton have been studied across the globe, but there are still large regions of the ocean that are understudied, such as sub-tropical coastal oceans. One of these regions is the coastal area around south Florida, USA. We measured microzooplankton grazing rates in two distinct environments around south Florida; the oligotrophic Florida Keys and the mesotrophic outflow from the Everglades. For 2-years from January 2018 to January 2020, we set up 55 dilution and light-dark bottle experiments at five stations to estimate the microzooplankton community grazing rate, instantaneous phytoplankton growth rate, and primary production. Our results suggest that microzooplankton are consuming a higher proportion of the primary production near the Everglades outflow compared to the Florida Keys. We also found that changes in phytoplankton growth rates are disconnected from changes in the microzooplankton grazing rates in the Florida Keys. Overall, the data from the Everglades outflow is what would be expected based on global patterns, but factors other than microzooplankton grazing are more important in controlling phytoplankton biomass in the Florida Keys

Sarcasm and emoticons: comprehension and emotional impact

Most theorists agree that sarcasm serves some communicative function that would not be achieved by speaking directly, such as eliciting a particular emotional response in the recipient. One debate concerns whether this kind of language serves to enhance or mute the positive or negative nature of a message. The role of textual devices commonly used to accompany written sarcastic remarks is also unclear. The current research uses a rating task to investigate the influence of textual devices (emoticons and punctuation marks) on the comprehension of, and emotional responses to, sarcastic versus literal criticism and praise, for both unambiguous (Experiment 1) and ambiguous (Experiment 2) materials. Results showed that sarcastic criticism was rated as less negative than literal criticism, and sarcastic praise was rated as less positive than literal praise, suggesting that sarcasm serves to mute the positive or negative nature of the message. In terms of textual devices, results showed that emoticons had a larger influence on both comprehension and emotional impact than punctuation marks

Quantifying the resolution of spatial and temporal representation in children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome.

ObjectivesOur ability to generate mental representation of magnitude from sensory information affects how we perceive and experience the world. Reduced resolution of the mental representations formed from sensory inputs may generate impairment in the proximal and distal information processes that utilize these representations. Impairment of spatial and temporal information processing likely underpins the non-verbal cognitive impairments observed in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS). The present study builds on prior research by seeking to quantify the resolution of spatial and temporal representation in children with 22q11DS, sex chromosome aneuploidy (SCA), and a typically developing (TD) control group.Participants and methodsChildren (22q11DS = 70, SCA = 49, TD = 46) responded to visual or auditory stimuli with varying difference ratios. The participant's task was to identify which of two sequentially presented stimuli was of larger magnitude in terms of, size, duration, or auditory frequency. Detection threshold was calculated as the minimum difference ratio between the "standard" and the "target" stimuli required to achieve 75% accuracy in detecting that the two stimuli were different.ResultsChildren with 22q11DS required larger magnitude difference between spatial stimuli for accurate identification compared with both the SCA and TD groups (% difference from standard: 22q11DS = 14; SCA = 8; TD: 7; F  = 8.42, p < 0.001). Temporal detection threshold was also higher for the 22q11DS group to both visual (% difference from standard: 22q11DS = 14; SCA = 8; TD = 7; F  = 8.33, p < 0.001) and auditory (% difference from standard: 22q11DS = 23; SCA = 12; TD: 8; F  = 8.99, p < 0.001) stimuli compared with both the SCA and TD groups, while the SCA and TD groups displayed equivalent performance on these measures (p's > 0.05). Pitch detection threshold did not differ among the groups (p's > 0.05).ConclusionsThe observation of higher detection thresholds to spatial and temporal stimuli indicates further evidence for reduced resolution in both spatial and temporal magnitude representation in 22q11DS, that does not extend to frequency magnitude representation (pitch detection), and which is not explained by generalized cognitive impairment alone. These findings generate further support for the hypothesis that spatiotemporal hypergranularity of mental representations contributes to the non-verbal cognitive impairment seen in 22q11DS

PORTABLE ARDUINO-BASED INTEGRATED WATER QUALITY ANALYZER WITH REAL-TIME DATA TRANSMITTER

In our society, there is an accelerated rate of morbidity and mortality worldwide stemming from various water-related diseases. Thus, safety is the most critical factor in decision making for safe-drinking water. Moreover, prompt acquisition of on-the-spot information regarding water quality is still a challenge due to the unavailability of portable devices that can give vital information which hinders the resolution of water-related problems. Another challenge is the transport time of data from one location to another especially from distant or isolated places and the limitation of the locals to interpret the information. In this study, all the problems are solved by the development of a user-friendly portable Arduino-based integrated water quality analyzer which measures the temperature, pH, turbidity, and the total dissolved solids (TDS) of the water which are the core parameters in determining the water quality in just one sitting. Furthermore, the device has a Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) module which sends real-time data to identified professionals and institutions. To ensure the accuracy of the device, the sensors were subjected to various tests, verifications, and comparisons with standard laboratory equipment. The results show that both the device and the lab equipment had no significant differences, with the data values acquired from the device all falling within ± 5%. The t-test was also done. The p-values for all four parameters are greater than the α value (0.05) which means that the device is indeed accurate with the prototype and laboratory values having no significant difference. The device has great potential in helping people ranging from the locals up to the professionals and institutions by reducing the time of data transport and simplifying the analysis regarding water quality which is crucial in the decision making and action-taking processes of water treatment. The device is expected to be tested in the field as soon as recommendations are well integrated