Students’ Perspective on Intrinsic Motivation to Learn: A Model to Guide Educators

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the collective perspective of what motivates students to exert effort and energy towards learning tasks in a classroom setting. To reach this goal, the researcher utilized a qualitative methodology, the Insider Perspective Approach, to take a deep look inside the classroom experience and examine the broad view of the students’ collective perspective. A model for situational motivation is presented suggesting factors that educators can manipulate to enhance students’ intrinsic motivation to learn: control, competence, active involvement, variety, curiosity, challenge, a sense of belonging, and honored voices. When teachers integrate these constructs as they plan activities and assignments, students’ intrinsic motivation to learn will be enhanced

Use with Caution: Interpreting Consumer Expenditure Income Group Data

Economic well-being has been an issue relevant to American public discourse for some time and has become a topic of particular interest among journalists, policymakers, and ordinary American families. The Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) is often used as a tool to analyze the effects of economic well-being. Though the Census Bureau independently collects and processes income data—the CE is the only Federal survey that collects information on income, expenditures, and associated demographic characteristics from U.S. consumers. As a result, CE data are useful for answering many salient questions related to economic well-being. However, CE data are also complex and should be used with an understanding of the limitations of these data. This Beyond the Numbers article examines assumptions users often make regarding how the CE measures household wealth, by providing examples of the nuances in the data and composition of five household groupings. The examples provide a clearer snapshot of economic well-being found in the income quintiles. The article uses tabulations of households by quintiles of income before taxes that many researchers use to identify the “poor” and the “rich” in the CE data. These terms are subjective and potentially pejorative. Another common set of terms for these types of analyses are “low-income” and “high-income.” These are also subjective terms, and they are imprecise for communicating the concept of economic well-being, which involves other measures of wealth (e.g. stocks, bonds, cash assets, etc.). Misunderstandings arise potentially when researchers use terms like “rich” and “poor” to describe households rather than focus solely on income measures. So, what are the common assumptions made about the economic well-being of the “poor” and “rich” when using CE data to compare income groups

A Toolkit of Motivational Skills: How to Help Others Reach for Change

A Toolkit of Motivational Skills, Third Edition, draws on the latest research to show how the Motivational Interviewing approach can be effectively utilized to draw out and sustain an individual’s internal motivation for behavioral change. • Updated with a wide range of applications and practical examples of motivational techniques which have effectively helped others to change • Updated with a wide range of applications and practical examples of motivational techniques which have effectively helped others to change • Features a variety of supplemental resources including 16 online video examples of MI in action, with a workbook chapter that helps readers analyse each video in detail • Includes new illustrations and diagrams designed to amplify the text and make it an engaging and enjoyable reading experienc

Go West Young Man: Self-selection and Endogenous Property Rights

If, as Hume argues, property is a self-referring custom of a group of people, then property rights depend on how that group forms and orders itself. In this paper we investigate how people construct a convention for property in an experiment in which groups of self-selected individuals can migrate between three geographically separate regions. We find that the absence of property rights clearly decreases wealth in our environment and that interest in establishing property rights is a key determinant of the decision to migrate to a new region. Theft is nearly eliminated among migrants, resulting in strong growth, and non-migrants remain in poverty. Thus, self-selection, through the decision to migrate, to form more cooperative groups is essential for establishing property rights.experimental economics, property rights, migration and exit

An automated program for reinforcement requirements for openings in cylindrical pressure vessels

An automated interactive program for calculating the reinforcement requirements for openings in cylindrical pressure vessels subjected to internal pressure is described. The program is written for an electronic desk top calculator. The program calculates the required area of reinforcement for a given opening and compares this value with the area of reinforcement provided by a proposed design. All program steps, operating instructions, and example problems with input and sample output are documented

The effectiveness of origami on overall hand function after injury: A pilot controlled trial

This pilot study measured the effectiveness of using origami to improve the overall hand function of outpatients attending an NHS hand injury unit. The initiative came from one of the authors who had used origami informally in the clinical setting and observed beneficial effects. These observed effects were tested experimentally. The design was a pilot non-randomised controlled trial with 13 participants. Allocation of the seven control group members was based on patient preference. The experimental group members attended a weekly hour of origami for six weeks, in addition to their conventional rehabilitation. Hand function of all participants was measured using the Jebsen-Taylor Hand Function Test before and after the six-week period, and additional qualitative data were gathered in the form of written evaluations from patients. The quantitative data were analysed using the Mann Whitney U test or Fisher’s exact test. Themes were highlighted from the qualitative data. The results show that there was a greater difference in the total score of the experimental group using the impaired hand between pre- and post-intervention of 11.8 seconds, compared with 4.3 seconds in the control group, but this was not statistically significant at the 5% level (p=0.06). Additionally, differences in the sub-test scores show a markedly larger improvement in the experimental group. Qualitative data indicate that the experimental group experienced the origami sessions as being enjoyable and beneficial. Further research with a larger sample and randomised group allocation is recommended to verify and expand these preliminary findings

Methods of resistance estimation in permanent magnet synchronous motors for real-time thermal management

Real-time thermal management of electrical ma- chines relies on sufficiently accurate indicators of internal tem- perature. One indicator of temperature in a permanent-magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) is the stator winding resistance. Detection of PMSM winding resistance in the literature has been made on machines with relatively high resistances, where the resistive voltage vector is significant under load. This paper describes two techniques which can be applied to detect the winding resistance, through ‘Fixed Angle’ and ‘Fixed Mag- nitude’ current injection. Two further methods are described which discriminate injected current and voltages from motoring currents and voltages: ‘Unipolar’ and ‘Bipolar’ separation. These enable the resistance to be determined, and hence the winding temperature in permanent-magnet machines. These methods can be applied under load, and in a manner that does not disturb motor torque or speed. The method distinguishes between changes in the electro-motive force (EMF) constant and the resistive voltage. This paper introduces the techniques, whilst a companion paper covers the application of one of the methods to a PMSM drive system

Principal Abiotic Factors Influencing the Structure and Function of Mature Pine Forests in Israel

Mediterranean forests are water limited. While understanding that the growth and survival of these systems are strongly influenced by water availability, the interactive effects of precipitation and other edaphic and topographic factors on forest performance and the importance of these environmental abiotic factors in light of heavy human influence is less clear. The purpose of this project was to (1) assess how abiotic factors such as precipitation, elevation, bedrock and aspect affect the structure and function of Israel’s mature (> 30 years) Pinus halepensis and Pinus brutia forests, (2) determine whether the growth and performance of both species was different in response to abiotic factors and (3) assess how abiotic factors and overstory canopy coverage influence understory growth and development. Inventory data of ninety-six P. halepensis and seventy-four P. brutia stands were analyzed that were planted throughout Israel. Tree growth such as height, stem diameter, and mean basal area increment and stand-level characteristics such as stem density, basal area, and Landsat NDVI were analyzed. In addition, understory volume data such as total, pine, and oak volume, was collected and analyzed from a subset of the same stands, specifically forty-eight P. halepensis and thirty-two P. brutia stands. Stepwise multiple linear regression models were produced. For P. halepensis, precipitation was the determining factor influencing forest performance for all models produced (40 - 92% of explained variation) with an additional positive influence of north vs. south facing aspects, while for P. brutia forests the results were more complicated, as interacting effects between the four abiotic factors were prevalent, mostly aspect × elevation for individual tree characteristics and precipitation × bedrock for stand-level ones. No conclusive explanation was found that would account for these discrepancies, but temperature limitation, or possibly management, might have important contributing effects. Understory development in both forests was positively related to precipitation, while overstory canopy coverage had a minimal effect. The conclusions of this study highlight the need to consider site-specific water based management regimes. In addition, future management decisions should account for the sensitivity to changes in water availability for both species, and temperature for P. brutia

Application of SLA 3D Printing for Polymers

Stereolithography is a type of 3D printing that allows liquid photopolymer resin to be cured into layers that make up a 3D object. Creation of such resins for these purposes can require a significant amount of time to test and develop, and commercial resins also require some amount of testing for printer settings before use. This paper reviews how stereolithography works, the materials used, and experimentation done to compare the resin properties to the determined curing times. Using several commercially available resins, varying base exposure and layer exposure times were used to determine the lowest possible curing time that gave the best results. The ideal curing times were compared to certain properties of the resin to determine key trends and found that viscosity had a significant effect on the curing time. This trend can be used to develop a method of finding the ideal curing times for a resin much faster than current testing methods. Certain aspects of the final samples were also noted, and ideal resin monomers are recommended for flexible or crystalline objects, or simply the fastest curing or production speed

Numerical simulation of rivulet evolution on a horizontal cable subject to an external aerodynamic field

On wet and windy days, the inclined cables of cable-stayed bridges may experience a large amplitude oscillation known as rain-wind-induced vibration (RWIV). It has previously been shown by in situ and wind-tunnel studies that the formation of rain-water accumulations or ‘rivulets’ at approximately the separation points of the external aerodynamic flow field and the resulting effect that these rivulets have on this field may be one of the primary mechanisms for RWIV. A numerical method has been developed to undertake simulations of certain aspects of RWIV, in particular, rivulet formation and evolution. Specifically a two-dimensional model for the evolution of a thin film of water on the outer surface of a horizontal circular cylinder subject to the pressure and shear forces that result from the external flow field is presented. Numerical simulations of the resulting evolution equation using a bespoke pseudo-spectral solver capture the formation of two-dimensional rivulets, the geometry, location and growth rate of which are all in good agreement with previous studies. Examinations of how the distribution and magnitude of aerodynamic loading and the Reynolds number influence the rivulet temporal evolution are undertaken, the results of which indicate that while all three affect the temporal evolution, the distribution of the loading has the greatest effect