Using the Task Analysis Process with Teachers to Uncover Language Demands within an Eight-Week NGSS Summer Course

The state of Oregon has adopted the Next Generation Science Standards as well as the English Language Proficiency standards, both of which affect elementary school teachers. These standards adoptions challenge teachers and professional developers to rethink how they approach science conceptual understanding and language acquisition. The Math Science Partnership K-6 Instructional Specialist Grant made the decision to incorporate a Task Analysis process, which asks the participant to analyze the demands of a content-based task in the domains of content knowledge, analytical skills and language, into six eight-week summer courses focused on the Next Generation Science Standards. A pre and post-assessment was created to determine if any growth in teacher understanding of the demands of a science task could be observed as a result of engaging in the Task Analysis process. A four point rubric was created to score participant responses. Two research questions were developed: 1. How well does the ELPA21 Task Analysis tool help participants understand the language demands of a science task when used as part of an NGSS summer professional development course? 2. How effective is a work sample and scoring rubric protocol for measuring the impact of the Task Analysis process? Participants showed statistically significant growth in their analysis of a science task from pre to post-assessment responses, with particularly strong growth demonstrated in the domains of content and language. Further coding of responses revealed that participants frequently discussed vocabulary as both a language and content knowledge demand of a science task

Human Nature and Research Paradigms: Theory Meets Physical Therapy Practice

Human nature is a very complex phenomenon. In physical therapy this complexity is enhanced by the need to understand the intersection between the art and science of human behavior and patient care. A paradigm is a set of basic beliefs that represent a worldview, defines the nature of the world and the individuals place in it, and helps to determine criteria used to select and define research inquiry. A paradigm guides scientific inquiry, not only in the manner in which an investigation is performed, but also in how the investigator defines truth and reality and how the investigator comes to know truth or reality. A paradigm guides the types of research questions that will be posed, the methodological approach to the inquiry, and criteria for assessing the trustworthiness of the inquiry. Research plays an important role in enabling physical therapists to fully embrace the values of the profession, including evidence-based practice and client-centered care, in making informed clinical decisions. However, to do so, the research provided must include not only the views of the researchers, but also the lived experiences of the clients as well. This paper provides the reader with a solid foundation in the positivist/post-positivist, constructivist, and critical theorist research paradigms and how they apply in physical therapy practice. Research perspectives in physical therapy are explored, as are implications for future practice in physical therapy

The Potential Effects of Corrective Advertising on Consumer Beliefs Mandated by U.S vs. Philip Morris USA, Inc. (2006)

In US v. Philip Morris USA Inc. (2006), six major tobacco companies were ordered to provide funding for an extremely large corrective advertising and marketing campaign. The Court ruled that consumers may have been misled and deceived about the (1) health effects of smoking, (2) addictiveness of smoking, (3) lack of health benefit from low tar/light cigarettes, (4) companies’ manipulation of nicotine delivery and cigarette design, and (5) health effects of secondhand smoke. Using print advertising copy test procedures, this research focused on the potential effectiveness of test ads submitted to the Court in impacting these target beliefs. In an initial pilot study, reliable multi-item measures for each of these belief themes were developed and assessed. These multi-item belief measures were then employed in the subsequent main study, in which the effects of two versions of a print advertisement (submitted to the Court in this litigation) were tested using a mixed experimental design. As hypothesized, results show that corrective ads can have a positive effect on the belief themes (compared to a control group not exposed to such ads), but there is an interaction demonstrating that some belief themes are more strongly affected by the test ads than are others. Results suggested that the beliefs about light/low tar cigarettes may be substantially affected by such a campaign. The addition to the ad copy of graphic visuals, such as those currently used on cigarette packages in Canada and Australia, had mixed results overall. Contributions of the research include the development of reliable multi-item measures for critical smoking-related beliefs, as well as implications of the copy test findings for this specific case and corrective advertising, tobacco counter advertising, and public policy, in general

Perceptual consequences of "hidden" hearing loss

Dramatic results from recent animal experiments show that noise exposure can cause a selective loss of high-threshold auditory nerve fibers without affecting absolute sensitivity permanently. This cochlear neuropathy has been described as hidden hearing loss, as it is not thought to be detectable using standard measures of audiometric threshold. It is possible that hidden hearing loss is a common condition in humans and may underlie some of the perceptual deficits experienced by people with clinically normal hearing. There is some evidence that a history of noise exposure is associated with difficulties in speech discrimination and temporal processing, even in the absence of any audiometric loss. There is also evidence that the tinnitus experienced by listeners with clinically normal hearing is associated with cochlear neuropathy, as measured using Wave I of the auditory brainstem response. To date, however, there has been no direct link made between noise exposure, cochlear neuropathy, and perceptual difficulties. Animal experiments also reveal that the aging process itself, in the absence of significant noise exposure, is associated with loss of auditory nerve fibers. Evidence from human temporal bone studies and auditory brainstem response measures suggests that this form of hidden loss is common in humans and may have perceptual consequences, in particular, regarding the coding of the temporal aspects of sounds. Hidden hearing loss is potentially a major health issue, and investigations are ongoing to identify the causes and consequences of this troubling condition

Effect of human auditory efferent feedback on cochlear gain and compression

The manunalian auditory system includes a brainstem-mediated efferent pathway from the superior olivary complex by way of the medial olivocochlear system, which reduces the cochlear response to sound (Warr and Guinan, 1979; Liberman et al., 1996). The human medial olivocochlear response has an onset delay of between 25 and 40 ms and rise and decay constants in the region of 280 and 160 ms, respectively (Backus and Guinan, 2006). Physiological studies with nonhuman mammals indicate that onset and decay characteristics of efferent activation are dependent on the temporal and level characteristics of the auditory stimulus (Bacon and Smith, 1991; Guinan and Stankovic, 1996). This study uses a novel psychoacoustical masking technique using a precursor sound to obtain a measure of the efferent effect in humans. This technique avoids confounds currently associated with other psychoacoustical measures. Both temporal and level dependency of the efferent effect was measured, providing a comprehensive measure of the effect of human auditory efferents on cochlear gain and compression. Results indicate that a precursor (>20 dB SPL) induced efferent activation, resulting in a decrease in both maximum gain and maximum compression, with linearization of the compressive function for input sound levels between 50 and 70 dB SPL. Estimated gain decreased as precursor level increased, and increased as the silent interval between the precursor and combined masker-signal stimulus increased, consistent with a decay of the efferent effect Human auditory efferent activation linearizes the cochlear response for mid-level sounds while reducing maximum gain

Effects of High-Intensity Airborne Ultrasound Exposure on Behavioural and Electrophysiological Measures of Auditory Function

Regulations on safe ultrasound exposure limits are based on a very limited number of studies, which have only considered audiometric threshold shifts as indicators of hearing deficits. The purpose of the current study was to assess the effects of exposure to high-intensity ultrasound on a range of measures of hearing function, which included audiometric thresholds, as well as subclinical measures of hearing deficits: speech-in-noise understanding, supra-threshold auditory brainstem response wave I amplitude and latency, and frequency following response levels to amplitude modulated (AM) tones. Changes in these measures were assessed before and after exposure of the left ear to high-intensity ultrasound in a group of nine young listeners. These changes were compared to those observed in a control group of nine young listeners. Exposure consisted in the presentation of a 40-kHz AM tone at levels of 105, 110, 115, and 120 dB SPL for 10 minutes at each level, plus an exposure to a 40-kHz unmodulated tone during an ultrasound detection task, for a total duration of 50 seconds. None of the measures of hearing function was found to change significantly more for the left compared to the right ear, for participants of the exposure group compared to control participants. Electroencephalographic recordings obtained during exposure to the AM tone did not show significant phase-locked activity at the modulation frequency or at low-frequency subharmonics of the ultrasound tone. One out of nine participants was able to perform the ultrasound detection task above chance level, although due to limitations of the experimental setup the mechanism by which she could detect the presentation of the tone remains unclear

The role of the clinically obtained acoustic reflex as a research tool for sub-clinical hearing pathologies

The acoustic reflex (AR) shows promise as an objective test for the presence of cochlear synaptopathy in rodents. The AR has also been shown to be reduced in humans with tinnitus compared to those without. The aim of the present study was twofold: (a) to determine if AR strength (quantified as both threshold and growth) varied with lifetime noise exposure, and thus provided an estimate of the degree of synaptopathy and (b) to identify which factors should be considered when using the AR as a quantitative measure rather than just present/absent responses. AR thresholds and growth functions were measured using ipsilateral and contralateral, broadband and tonal elicitors in adults with normal hearing and varying levels of lifetime noise exposure. Only the clinical standard 226 Hz probe tone was used. AR threshold and growth were not related to lifetime noise exposure, suggesting that routine clinical AR measures are not a sensitive measure when investigating the effects of noise exposure in audiometrically normal listeners. Our secondary, exploratory analyses revealed that AR threshold and growth were significantly related to middle-ear compliance. Listeners with higher middle-ear compliance (though still in the clinically normal range) showed lower AR thresholds and steeper AR growth functions. Furthermore, there was a difference in middle-ear compliance between the sexes, with males showing higher middle-ear compliance values than females. Therefore, it may be necessary to factor middle-ear compliance values into any analysis that uses the AR as an estimate of auditory function