The Effect of Team-Based Active Learning and Embedded Tutors in the First Course in Accounting

We evaluate the impact of teams-based active learning mode on student performance in the first course in accounting as compared to a traditional instructor-led passive mode. We find positive results for active learning mode, indicating its impact on the long-term knowledge retention. We also test the effect of embedded (in-class) peer-to-peer tutors in the active learning mode. The averages of all three exams of sections with embedded tutors are all significantly higher than those with no embedded tutors. When controlled for the time spent with traditional outside tutors, the role of the embedded tutors remains significant in Exam 1 and 2

A Short Guide To Material Speculation: Actual Artifacts For Critical Inquiry

Speculative and fictional approaches have long been implemented in human-computer interaction and design techniques through scenarios, prototypes, forecasting, and envisionments. Recently, speculative and critical design approaches have reflectively explored and questioned possible, and preferable futures in HCI research. We propose a complementary concept – material speculation – that utilizes actual and situated design artifacts in the everyday as a site of critical inquiry. We see the literary theory of possible worlds and the related concept of the counterfactual as informative to this work. We briefly present three examples of interaction design artifacts that can be viewed as material speculations.&nbsp

Material Speculation: Actual Artifacts for Critical Inquiry

Speculative and fictional approaches have long been implemented in human-computer interaction and design techniques through scenarios, prototypes, forecasting, and envisionments. Recently, speculative and critical design approaches have reflectively explored and questioned possible, and preferable futures in HCI research. We propose a complementary concept – material speculation – that utilizes actual and situated design artifacts in the everyday as a site of critical inquiry. We see the literary theory of possible worlds and the related concept of the counterfactual as informative to this work. We present five examples of interaction design artifacts that can be viewed as material speculations. We conclude with a discussion of characteristics of material speculations and their implications for future design-oriented research.&nbsp

Undergraduate Student Attitudes and Perspectives of the Accessibility, Supportiveness, and Appreciation of Research Opportunities in the Health Sciences

Undergraduate research is a “high-impact” educational practice that enriches student learning and facilitates student career advancement. This sequential explanatory mixed methods study, composed of a quantitative online questionnaire followed by qualitative focus group interviews, sought to explore undergraduate student attitudes on research and elicit perceived facilitators and barriers to undergraduate research engagement. The survey respondents (N = 377), all undergraduate health sciences students at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, generally had positive attitudes toward undergraduate research, but had polarized perceptions of its accessibility, supportiveness, and appreciation. Follow-up focus group interviews with selected participants (N = 11) revealed four main themes: (1) the hidden curriculum of undergraduate research, (2) the paucity of meaningful research work for emerging student researchers, (3) the administrative barriers within the undergraduate research landscape, and (4) the inequitable access to undergraduate research opportunities. This study’s findings suggest potential avenues to improve the undergraduate student research experience,La recherche au premier cycle enrichit l’apprentissage des étudiants et facilite l’avancement de leur carrière. Cette étude séquenti-elle explicative à méthodes mixtes, comprenant un questionnaire suivi de groupes de discussion, visait à explorer les attitudes des étudiants de premier cycle en sciences de la santé à l’égard de la recherche, ainsi que les facilitateurs et les obstacles perçus quant à leur engagement dans celle-ci. Les n = 377 répondants au questionnaire avaient généralement une attitude positive à l’égard de la recherche au premier cycle, mais avaient des perceptions polarisées quant à son accessibilité, au soutien reçu et à l’appréciation obtenue. Les groupes de discussion avec n = 11 participants ont révélé quatre thèmes principaux : 1) le « programme caché » de la recherche au premier cycle; 2) la rareté des travaux de recherche significatifs pour les étudiants chercheurs; 3) les barrières adminis-tratives; et 4) l’accès inéquitable aux possibilités de recherche. Les résultats de cette étude suggèrent des méthodes pour améliorer l’expérience de recherche des étudiants de premier cycle

Reconnection Outflows and Current Sheet Observed with Hinode/XRT in the 2008 April 9 "Cartwheel CME" Flare

Supra-arcade downflows (SADs) have been observed with Yohkoh/SXT (soft X-rays (SXR)), TRACE (extreme ultra-violet (EUV)), SoHO/LASCO (white light), SoHO/SUMER (EUV spectra), and Hinode/XRT (SXR). Characteristics such as low emissivity and trajectories which slow as they reach the top of the arcade are consistent with post-reconnection magnetic flux tubes retracting from a reconnection site high in the corona until they reach a lower-energy magnetic configuration. Viewed from a perpendicular angle, SADs should appear as shrinking loops rather than downflowing voids. We present XRT observations of supra-arcade downflowing loops (SADLs) following a coronal mass ejection (CME) on 2008 April 9 and show that their speeds and decelerations are consistent with those determined for SADs. We also present evidence for a possible current sheet observed during this flare that extends between the flare arcade and the CME. Additionally, we show a correlation between reconnection outflows observed with XRT and outgoing flows observed with LASCO.Comment: 32 pages, 23 figures, Accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal (Oct. 2010

Concurrent semantic priming and lexical interference for close semantic relations in blocked-cyclic picture naming:Electrophysiological signatures

In the present study, we employed event-related brain potentials to investigate the effects of semantic similarity on different planning stages during language production. We manipulated semantic similarity by controlling feature overlap within taxonomical hierarchies. In a blocked-cyclic naming task, participants named pictures in repeated cycles, blocked in semantically close, distant, or unrelated conditions. Only closely related items, but not distantly related items, induced semantic blocking effects. In the first presentation cycle, naming was facilitated, and amplitude modulations in the N1 component around 140–180 ms post-stimulus onset predicted this behavioral facilitation. In contrast, in later cycles, naming was delayed, and a negative-going posterior amplitude modulation around 250–350 ms post-stimulus onset predicted this interference. These findings indicate easier object recognition or identification underlying initial facilitation and increased difficulties during lexical selection. The N1 modulation was reduced but persisted in later cycles in which interference dominated, and the posterior negativity was also present in cycle 1 in which facilitation dominated, demonstrating concurrent effects of conceptual priming and lexical interference in all naming cycles. Our assumptions about the functional role these two opposing forces play in producing semantic context effects are further supported by the finding that the joint modulation of these two ERPs on naming latency exclusively emerged when naming closely related, but not unrelated items. The current findings demonstrate that close relations, but not distant taxonomic relations, induce stronger semantic blocking effects, and that temporally overlapping electrophysiological signatures reflect a trade-off between facilitatory priming and interfering lexical competition.Peer Reviewe

Individual differences in the perception of similarity and difference.

Thematically related concepts like coffee and milk are judged to be more similar than thematically unrelated concepts like coffee and lemonade. We investigated whether thematic relations exert a small effect that occurs consistently across participants (i.e., a generalized model), or a large effect that occurs inconsistently across participants (i.e., an individualized model). We also examined whether difference judgments mirrored similarity or whether these judgments were, in fact, non-inverse. Five studies demonstrated the necessity of an individualized model for both perceived similarity and difference, and additionally provided evidence that thematic relations affect similarity more than difference. Results suggest that models of similarity and difference must be attuned to large and consistent individual variability in the weighting of thematic relations