The importance of epistemic cognition in student-centred learning

To infer the sophistication of epistemic thinking in a sample of undergraduate students, 25 participants completed a free-response task in which they were asked to give reasons for their agreement or disagreement with a small number of beliefs about the role of tutorials and of tutors in gaining knowledge. Responses were analysed according to King & Kitchener's (1994) stages of reasoning, revealing that the justifications offered were either at the stages of pre-reflective or quasi-reflective thinking with none exhibiting reflective thinking. The findings have two main pedagogical implications: first that good teaching be understood not as a set of performance skills which may only be opportunistically related to students' extant conceptualisations but as the locus through which students confront their own epistemic beliefs. A second implication is that to extend students' reasoning, teaching practices must focus explicitly on the difficult issue of what counts as evidenc

1943-01-18, R.L. MacLellan to Norris K. Calkins

This collection contains seven correspondence from 2ndLt. Norris K. Calkins, USAAF to his parents during the Second World War. Also included are ten correspondence to his parents in regards to his missing in action and subsequent killing in action status. Ephemera from his father Norris R. Calkins from the First World War is also included.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/nkcalkins_condolence_letters/1000/thumbnail.jp

The suitability of various spacecraft for future space applications missions

The Space Applications Advisory Committee (SAAC) of NASA's Advisory Council was asked by the Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications to consider the most suitable future means for accomplishing space application missions. To comply with this request, SAAC formed a Task Force whose report is contained in this document. In their considerations, the Task Force looked into the suitability of likely future spacecraft options for supporting various types of application mission payloads. These options encompass a permanent manned space station, the Space Shuttle operating in a sortie mode, unmanned platforms that integrate a wide variety of instruments or other devices, and smaller free fliers that accommodate at most a few functions. The Task Force also recognized that the various elements could be combined to form a larger space infrastructure. This report summarizes the results obtained by the Task Force. It describes the approach utilized, the findings and their analysis, and the conclusions

Theory of learning or theory of education? a response to Smith

The explicit aim of our article was to depict teachers' knowledge of such accounts. Because of the very circumscribed aim, we were not, as Smith states in his abstract, considering "applications of learning theory to teaching". While, of course, it is useful to the reader if an article stimulates a range of further ideas and/or helps the reader to make new conceptual connections, the ideas stimulated in the reader are not necessarily accidental omissions by the author(s). We deliberately chose to exclude the literature on the 'complex' relationships between theory and practice since Thomas (1997), Rowlands (1999), and Loughran (2002) are but a few who have rigorously examined that issue. Similarly we would not deny (Maclellan & Soden, 2004, Soden, 2003) that analysing issues involves the variety of interpretative considerations that Smith raises. However, in order to make a contribution to the body of literature, it is necessary both to focus tightly on the issue of concern and to develop that issue within a coherent explanatory framework: ours happened to be a psychological one although others working within different perspectives (such as philosophical, sociological or historical) would doubtless draw on different bodies of literature

Magnetic steering of a helicon double layer thruster

The ion beam generated by a helicon double layer has been electrically steered up to 20° off axis by using a solenoid placed normal to the two axial solenoids of the helicon plasmasource without significantly changing the beam exhaust velocity

Locomotor-like leg movements evoked by rhythmic arm movements in humans

Motion of the upper limbs is often coupled to that of the lower limbs in human bipedal locomotion. It is unclear, however, whether the functional coupling between upper and lower limbs is bi-directional, i.e. whether arm movements can affect the lumbosacral locomotor circuitry. Here we tested the effects of voluntary rhythmic arm movements on the lower limbs. Participants lay horizontally on their side with each leg suspended in an unloading exoskeleton. They moved their arms on an overhead treadmill as if they walked on their hands. Hand-walking in the antero-posterior direction resulted in significant locomotor-like movements of the legs in 58% of the participants. We further investigated quantitatively the responses in a subset of the responsive subjects. We found that the electromyographic (EMG) activity of proximal leg muscles was modulated over each cycle with a timing similar to that of normal locomotion. The frequency of kinematic and EMG oscillations in the legs typically differed from that of arm oscillations. The effect of hand-walking was direction specific since medio-lateral arm movements did not evoke appreciably leg air-stepping. Using externally imposed trunk movements and biomechanical modelling, we ruled out that the leg movements associated with hand-walking were mainly due to the mechanical transmission of trunk oscillations. EMG activity in hamstring muscles associated with hand-walking often continued when the leg movements were transiently blocked by the experimenter or following the termination of arm movements. The present results reinforce the idea that there exists a functional neural coupling between arm and legs

Experienced tutors' deployment of thinking skills and what might be entailed in enhancing such skills

In the context of research that reports weaknesses in adults' critical thinking skills, the primary aim was to examine adults' use of critical thinking skills that are described in taxonomies and to identify areas for development. Position papers written by an opportunity sample of 32 experienced adult educators formed the data for a descriptive sample survey design intended to reveal participants' use of critical thinking skills. Each 6000-word paper was written during a development programme that supported such skills. A content analysis of the papers revealed that when participants drew on personal and published ideas about learning to derive their proposals for change, they accepted the ideas uncritically, thereby implying that they might find it difficult to help learners to examine ideas critically. The evidence supports research that implies that critical thinking skills are unlikely to develop unless overall course design privileges the development of epistemological understanding (King and Kitchener 1994, Kuhn 1999). A fundamental assumption underlying the study is that this understanding influences effective citizenship and personal development, as well as employability. A proposition that merits attention in future research is that the development of epistemological understanding is largely neglected in current curricula in formal post-16 education

Helping education undergraduates to use appropriate criteria for evaluating accounts of motivation

The aim of the study was to compare students in a control group with those in a treatment group with respect to evaluative comments on psychological accounts of motivation. The treatment group systematically scrutinized the nature and interpretation of evidence that supported different accounts, and the assumptions, logic, coherence and clarity of accounts. Content analysis of 74 scripts (using three categories) showed that the control group students made more assertions than either evidential or evaluative points, whereas the treatment group used evaluative statements as often as they used assertion. The findings provide support for privileging activities that develop understanding of how knowledge might be contested, and suggest a need for further research on pedagogies to serve this end. The idea is considered that such understanding has a pivotal role in the development of critical thinking

Performance testing of radiobioassay laboratories: In vitro measurements (urinalysis): Final report

This report provides results of the two-round nationwide in vitro bioassay intercomparison study. Conclusions were based on analyses by 35 bioassay laboratories of nearly 1400 artificial urine samples containing known quantities of radionuclides. The test radionuclides were H, /sup 89/Sr, /sup 238/Pu, /sup 241/Am, /sup 137/Cs, /sup 60/Co, and natural uranium. The data reported included background count rates, total samples counts, counting times, counting efficiencies, sample yields, and estimated errrors of the determinations. The measurement data were evaluated according to statistical methods presented in the November 1985 version of the draft ANSI Standard N13.30. If a laboratory failed a performance test for any one of the three criteria, the laboratory was considered to have failed the test for that category. 22 refs., 18 figs., 14 tab

Academic achievement : the role of praise in motivating students

The motivation of students is an important issue in higher education, particularly in the context of the increasing diversity of student populations. A social-cognitive perspective assumes motivation to be dynamic, context-sensitive and changeable, thereby rendering it to be a much more differentiated construct than previously understood. This complexity may be perplexing to tutors who are keen to develop applications to improve academic achievement. One application that is within the control of the tutor, at least to some extent, is the use of praise. Using psychological literature the article argues that in motivating students, the tutor is not well served by relying on simplistic and common sense understandings of the construct of praise and that effective applications of praise are mediated by students' goal orientations, which of themselves may be either additive or interactive composites of different objectives and different contexts