Characterizing and Developing Chemistry Students’ Data Analysis and Interpretation of Chemical Data

All chemistry students must develop competency in analyzing and making sense of data. However, there are many difficulties that chemistry students may experience while analyzing data. Many students may not use relevant prior knowledge to aid in making sense of data, or they may not form conclusions using all the data provided. Additionally, prior knowledge seems to influence one’s data analysis, but little is known about how students use it to make sense of data. Thus, I interviewed undergraduate students as they analyzed graphical data for a task and characterized how they used their prior knowledge throughout. My findings suggest that students’ prior knowledge helped to form a frame for students. This frame is then used throughout students’ sensemaking to help search for and identify relevant data and evaluate data against their frame to aid in decision-making. Because there are limited classroom interventions designed to help develop undergraduate students’ data analysis competencies, I designed a study in which undergraduate students compared their data analyses to pre-constructed sample responses via a simulated peer review. My findings suggest that providing students with the opportunity to compare their analyses against other responses, practice giving feedback, and reflect on their work may provide opportunities to generate internal feedback on their performance. Depending on the nature of the internal feedback (i.e., if it is critical or not), students may revise to improve their work. Finally, as part of contributing new knowledge to their field, chemistry graduate students must learn how to best respond to data that is discrepant with their expectations. Yet, there is little research on how chemistry graduate students analyze data, and none that explores how they respond to unexpected data. For this reason, I interviewed chemistry graduate students as they analyzed multiple data sets to explain a chemical phenomenon, and I characterized how students responded to unexpected data using Data-Frame Theory. My findings indicate that students respond to discrepant data in several ways, and each response is capable of progressing students’ sensemaking to achieve the goals of the analysis

Motive and reflection

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on September 10, 2012).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: Dr. W. Thomas McKenneyInstrumentation: piccolo, flute, oboe, clarinet in B[flat], bassoon, horn in F, trumpet in C, trombone, bass trombone, tuba, violin, viola, violoncello, double bass, percussion (timpani, toms, cymbal, vibraphone, tambourine, claves, marimba, chimes, bass drum, tamtam, crotales, bongo).Master of Music University of Missouri--Columbia 2012."May 2012"Motive and Reflection was originally commissioned by the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation as part of the Sinquefield Prize in composition, which I won in 2009. The resultant work was a one-movement piece for full orchestra. In 2011, I was fortunate to receive a commission from the Columbia Civic Orchestra, with funding from the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. I took this opportunity to expand the original Motive and Reflection into a four-movement symphony that retains the original piece as the first movement. Motive and Reflection represents the process of thought and the expansion of ideas, "motive" being the initial thought and one's reflections upon it. The first movement encapsulates these ideas in the frequent use of two main themes and their development. The three additional movements continue the theme of reflection. "Meditation" represents the mind's fixation on the idea; the movement has minimalist elements, but develops and blossoms with each iteration. "Distraction" is the only movement that does not contain the main themes from the first movement, and hence symbolizes time spent away from an idea. The lively rhythms and bitonal fifth-based harmonies burst into a lively dance before the gravity of the idea begins to set in and the movement is dragged to a close. The final movement is a deconstruction (degradation) of the first. The use of extended string techniques helps create a much darker air than before. Material from each of the previous movements is revisited, and the piece culminates in a fearsome climax, where the main themes are resurrected once more before the grandiose conclusion

Vertical Migration, Orientation, Aggregation, and Fecundity of the Freshwater Mussel Lampsilis Siliquoidea

Author Institution: Department of Zoology, Miami UniversityThe decline in freshwater mussels makes it imperative that more information be gathered on their population status, behavior, and habitat requirements. We examined vertical migration, aggregation, and reproductive potential of captive and field populations of Lampsilis siliquoidea. Both captive populations and a field population exhibited vertical migration. This movement was strongly correlated with day length, and somewhat less strongly correlated with water temperature. While captive mussels tended to orient their siphons into the current, no pattern of orientation was detected in the field population. The field population was significantly aggregated in the fall and winter. The spatial patterning of captive mussels was random in the fall and winter, but this result may have been an artifact of the small size of the artificial streams. Weather conditions prevented data collection in the spring and, therefore, no conclusions could be drawn about the relationship between aggregation and glochidia release. The average number of glochidia (parasitic larvae) produced by individuals across a limited size range was not correlated with any maternal or marsupial properties. These results are useful for implementing qualitative sampling methods under optimum conditions and for information on the reproductive potential of Lampsilis siliquoidea

Diel interactions between prey behaviour and feeding in an invasive fish, the round goby, in a North American river

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72558/1/j.1365-2427.2006.01527.x.pd

The Grizzly, January 26, 1999

A Work in Progress • Area Congressmen Discuss Leadership in the 21st Century • Montco Welcomes Clintons, Gores • Classes Held Martin Luther King Day • The Message of Dr. King Remembered • Students Honored for Fundraising • Spring/Summer Internships • Collegeville Squares is a Hit • Opinion: State of Surreality; Impeachment: Democracy on Trial? • Film Society: New & Improved! • Ursinus Gymnastics Back in Full Swing • First Conference Win for UC Swimming • Winter Sports Wrap-uphttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1431/thumbnail.jp

Meta-analysis of Genome-Wide Association Studies for Extraversion: Findings from the Genetics of Personality Consortium

Extraversion is a relatively stable and heritable personality trait associated with numerous psychosocial, lifestyle and health outcomes. Despite its substantial heritability, no genetic variants have been detected in previous genome-wide association (GWA) studies, which may be due to relatively small sample sizes of those studies. Here, we report on a large meta-analysis of GWA studies for extraversion in 63,030 subjects in 29 cohorts. Extraversion item data from multiple personality inventories were harmonized across inventories and cohorts. No genome-wide significant associations were found at the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) level but there was one significant hit at the gene level for a long non-coding RNA site (LOC101928162). Genome-wide complex trait analysis in two large cohorts showed that the additive variance explained by common SNPs was not significantly different from zero, but polygenic risk scores, weighted using linkage information, significantly predicted extraversion scores in an independent cohort. These results show that extraversion is a highly polygenic personality trait, with an architecture possibly different from other complex human traits, including other personality traits. Future studies are required to further determine which genetic variants, by what modes of gene action, constitute the heritable nature of extraversion

Differential Timing and Coordination of Neurogenesis and Astrogenesis in Developing Mouse Hippocampal Subregions

Funding Information: Funding: This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, grant number R35NS097370 to G.-l.M. and grant number R35NS116843 to H.S.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A genetic validation study reveals a role of vitamin D metabolism in the response to interferon-alfa-based therapy of chronic hepatitis C

Background: To perform a comprehensive study on the relationship between vitamin D metabolism and the response to interferon-α-based therapy of chronic hepatitis C. Methodology/Principal Findings: Associations between a functionally relevant polymorphism in the gene encoding the vitamin D 1α-hydroxylase (CYP27B1-1260 rs10877012) and the response to treatment with pegylated interferon-α (PEG-IFN-α) and ribavirin were determined in 701 patients with chronic hepatitis C. In addition, associations between serum concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25[OH]D3) and treatment outcome were analysed. CYP27B1-1260 rs10877012 was found to be an independent predictor of sustained virologic response (SVR) in patients with poor-response IL28B genotypes (15% difference in SVR for rs10877012 genotype AA vs. CC, p = 0.02, OR = 1.52, 95% CI = 1.061–2.188), but not in patients with favourable IL28B genotype. Patients with chronic hepatitis C showed a high prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency (25[OH]D3<20 ng/mL) during all seasons, but 25(OH)D3 serum levels were not associated with treatment outcome. Conclusions/Significance: Our study suggests a role of bioactive vitamin D (1,25[OH]2D3, calcitriol) in the response to treatment of chronic hepatitis C. However, serum concentration of the calcitriol precursor 25(OH)D3 is not a suitable predictor of treatment outcome