Eye movements of students with learning disabilities in reading: A study of problem-solving strategies

In this exploratory study, eye movements of students with and without a learning disability in reading were recorded as they solved a set of third grade science problems. The recorded eye-gaze information included location of eye-gaze fixation on a computer screen, duration of fixation, the path of eye movement, and duration between fixations. The results revealed statistically significant differences in latent response time, question-zone fixation time, total fixations and correct responses

An exploration of think-aloud protocols linked with eye-gaze tracking: Are they talking about what they are looking at

This pilot study investigated the use of juxtaposed think aloud and eye-gaze tracking to understand a possible different understanding of think aloud process of participants. Four participants completed eight multiple-choice science questions while thinking aloud and having their eye-gazes tracked. Analysis of the data revealed that participants had behaviors such as fore telling of an eye movement, pauses in the think-aloud, different duration of the think-aloud, and the interaction between the think-aloud and associated eye movements. These findings suggest that juxtaposed think aloud and eye-gaze tracking may be a useful approach to furthering our understanding of students’ problem solving behaviors

Participation in college laboratory research apprenticeships among students considering careers in medicine

Objective: We sought to determine the prevalence of college laboratory research apprenticeship (CLRA) participation among students considering medical careers and to examine the relationship between CLRA participation and medical-school acceptance among students who applied to medical school. Methods: We used multivariate logistic regression to identify predictors of: 1) CLRA participation in a national cohort of 2001–2006 Pre-Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) Questionnaire (PMQ) respondents and 2) among those PMQ respondents who subsequently applied to medical school, medical-school acceptance by June 2013, reporting adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Results: Of 213,497 PMQ respondents in the study sample (81.2% of all 262,813 PMQ respondents in 2001–2006), 72,797 (34.1%) reported CLRA participation. Each of under-represented minorities in medicine (URM) race/ethnicity (vs. white, aOR: 1.04; 95% CI: 1.01–1.06), Asian/Pacific Islander race/ethnicity (vs. white, aOR: 1.20; 95% CI: 1.17–1.22), and high school summer laboratory research apprenticeship (HSLRA) participation (aOR: 3.95; 95% CI: 3.84–4.07) predicted a greater likelihood of CLRA participation. Of the 213,497 PMQ respondents in the study sample, 144,473 (67.7%) had applied to medical school and 87,368 (60.5% of 144,473 medical-school applicants) had been accepted to medical school. Each of female gender (vs. male, aOR: 1.19; 95% CI: 1.16–1.22), URM race/ethnicity (vs. white, aOR: 3.91; 95% CI: 3.75–4.08), HSLRA participation (aOR: 1.11; 95% CI: 1.03–1.19), CLRA participation (aOR: 1.12; 95% CI: 1.09–1.15), college summer academic enrichment program participation (aOR: 1.26; 95% CI: 1.21–1.31), and higher MCAT score (per point increase, aOR: 1.31; 95% CI: 1.30–1.31) predicted a greater likelihood of medical-school acceptance. Conclusions: About one-third of all PMQ respondents had participated in CLRAs prior to taking the MCAT, and such participation was one of the several variables identified that were independently associated with medical-school acceptance

The Politics of Racial Identity: A Pedagogy of Invisibility

A Critical theory informed Review of Blacked Out: Dilemmas of Race, Identity, and Success at Capital High by Signithia Fordham. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996; Unraveling the “Model Minority” Stereotype: Listening to Asian American Youth by Stacey J. Lee. New York: Teachers College Press, 1996, and Latinos and Education: A Critical Reader by Antonia Darder, Rodolfo D. Torres, and Henry Gutierrez (Eds.). New York: Routledge, 1997

Evidence of Self-Directed Learning on a High School Robotics Team

Self-directed learning is described as an individual taking the initiative to engage in a learning experience while assuming responsibility to follow through to its conclusion. Robotics competitions are examples of informal environments that can facilitate self-directed learning. This study examined how mentor involvement, student behavior, and physical workspace contributed to self-directed learning on one robotics competition team. How did mentors transfer responsibility to students? How did students respond to managing a team? Are the physical attributes of a workspace important? The mentor, student, and workplace factors captured in the research showed mentors wanting students to do the work, students assuming leadership roles, and the limited workspace having a positive effect on student productivity

Overcoming controllability problems in distributed testing from an input output transition system

This is the Pre-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2012 Springer VerlagThis paper concerns the testing of a system with physically distributed interfaces, called ports, at which it interacts with its environment. We place a tester at each port and the tester at port p observes events at p only. This can lead to controllability problems, where the observations made by the tester at a port p are not sufficient for it to be able to know when to send an input. It is known that there are test objectives, such as executing a particular transition, that cannot be achieved if we restrict attention to test cases that have no controllability problems. This has led to interest in schemes where the testers at the individual ports send coordination messages to one another through an external communications network in order to overcome controllability problems. However, such approaches have largely been studied in the context of testing from a deterministic finite state machine. This paper investigates the use of coordination messages to overcome controllability problems when testing from an input output transition system and gives an algorithm for introducing sufficient messages. It also proves that the problem of minimising the number of coordination messages used is NP-hard

Timed Implementation Relations for the Distributed Test Architecture

In order to test systems that have physically distributed interfaces, called ports, we might use a distributed approach in which there is a separate tester at each port. If the testers do not synchronise during testing then we cannot always determine the relative order of events observed at different ports and this leads to new notions of correctness that have been described using corresponding implementation relations. We study the situation in which each tester has a local clock and timestamps its observations. If we know nothing about how the local clocks relate then this does not affect the implementation relation while if the local clocks agree exactly then we can reconstruct the sequence of observations made. In practice, however, we are likely to be between these extremes: the local clocks will not agree exactly but we have some information regarding how they can differ. We start by assuming that a local tester interacts synchronously with the corresponding port of the system under test and then extend this to the case where communications can be asynchronous, considering both the first-in-first-out (FIFO) case and the non-FIFO case. The new implementation relations are stronger than implementation relations for distributed testing that do not use timestamps but still reflect the distributed nature of observations. This paper explores these alternatives and derives corresponding implementation relations

Broad activation of the ubiquitin-proteasome system by Parkin is critical for mitophagy

Parkin, an E3 ubiquitin ligase implicated in Parkinson's disease, promotes degradation of dysfunctional mitochondria by autophagy. Using proteomic and cellular approaches, we show that upon translocation to mitochondria, Parkin activates the ubiquitin–proteasome system (UPS) for widespread degradation of outer membrane proteins. This is evidenced by an increase in K48-linked polyubiquitin on mitochondria, recruitment of the 26S proteasome and rapid degradation of multiple outer membrane proteins. The degradation of proteins by the UPS occurs independently of the autophagy pathway, and inhibition of the 26S proteasome completely abrogates Parkin-mediated mitophagy in HeLa, SH-SY5Y and mouse cells. Although the mitofusins Mfn1 and Mfn2 are rapid degradation targets of Parkin, we find that degradation of additional targets is essential for mitophagy. These results indicate that remodeling of the mitochondrial outer membrane proteome is important for mitophagy, and reveal a causal link between the UPS and autophagy, the major pathways for degradation of intracellular substrates