CLOSING THE LOOP: THE USE OF A CURRICULAR DATABASE TO PROVIDE FEEDBACK ON STUDENT PERFORMANCE WITHOUT COMPROMISING EXAM SECURITY

At the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, there is ever-increasing recognition that the development of high-quality medical student examinations is a fundamental part of a high-quality educational experience. As growing faculty time is spent in the development of reliable exams, question banks and the reuse of testing items are both becoming more prevalent. Security of these examinations is thus increasingly becoming a priority. However, our faculty also recognizes the importance of student feedback. In past years, we have allowed students directly access to their tests following the examination sessions, but the increasing importance of exam security obviously conflicts with this approach. The authors and course directors are attempting to resolve this dilemma by utilizing a curricular database to provide students with individualized feedback while maintaining exam security

Coparenting and parenting pathways from the couple relationship to children's behavior problems

Although an extensive literature has linked couple conflict with the development of children’s externalizing behavior problems, longer term protective effects of positive dimensions of couple relationships on children’s externalizing behavior remain understudied, particularly in relation to underlying mechanisms. Supportiveness in the dyadic couple relationship may enhance mothers’ and fathers’ individual parenting skills and protect against children’s behavior problems, but the contribution of co-parenting (couples’ support for one another’s individual parenting) remains unclear. This observational study investigated associations between couple supportiveness in children’s infancy and middle childhood externalizing problems, exploring pathways involving coparenting and/or mothers’ and fathers’ individual parenting using data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS, N = 5779) and the US Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFS, N = 2069). Couple supportiveness was associated with reduced externalizing problems 8-10 years later (standardized betas: MCS:-.13, FFS: -.11, both p <.001). Much of this effect (60% MCS, 55% FFS) was attributable to coparenting and parenting when children were aged 3-5 years. Pathways from couple supportiveness involving negative parenting were stronger than those via positive parenting, pathways via mothers’ parenting were stronger than those via fathers’ parenting, and there were pathways via coparenting alone (without affecting parenting). Pathways involving coparenting were similar in magnitude (MCS), or larger (FFS), than those involving parenting alone. Consistent findings across different population samples suggest that helping parents to support one another in co-parenting, as well as develop their individual parenting skills, may lessen the longer term impact of couple relationship problems during early childhood

Let’s Talk Assessment: An Exploration of Student Perceptions of Audio Feedback For Assessment

This paper reports the findings of a three-year descriptive research investigation into postgraduate level students’ perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of audio feedback for assessment. Overall, results indicated that students positively received audio feedback. Particular strengths of audio feedback included it being more personalised and detailed than traditional written feedback. Limitations identified included issues in reviewing the audio feedback given and the time taking to listen to the feedback provided. Using thematic analysis four major themes emerged from the data: the affordances of audio feedback, the utility of audio feedback, the personalised nature of audio feedback and affective factors

Dynamic Posted-Price Mechanisms for the Blockchain Transaction Fee Market

In recent years, prominent blockchain systems such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have experienced explosive growth in transaction volume, leading to frequent surges in demand for limited block space and causing transaction fees to fluctuate by orders of magnitude. Existing systems sell space using first-price auctions; however, users find it difficult to estimate how much they need to bid in order to get their transactions accepted onto the chain. If they bid too low, their transactions can have long confirmation times. If they bid too high, they pay larger fees than necessary. In light of these issues, new transaction fee mechanisms have been proposed, most notably EIP-1559, aiming to provide better usability. EIP-1559 is a history-dependent mechanism that relies on block utilization to adjust a base fee. We propose an alternative design -- a {\em dynamic posted-price mechanism} -- which uses not only block utilization but also observable bids from past blocks to compute a posted price for subsequent blocks. We show its potential to reduce price volatility by providing examples for which the prices of EIP-1559 are unstable while the prices of the proposed mechanism are stable. More generally, whenever the demand for the blockchain stabilizes, we ask if our mechanism is able to converge to a stable state. Our main result provides sufficient conditions in a probabilistic setting for which the proposed mechanism is approximately welfare optimal and the prices are stable. Our main technical contribution towards establishing stability is an iterative algorithm that, given oracle access to a Lipschitz continuous and strictly concave function $f$, converges to a fixed point of $f$

Prediction of human intestinal absorption using micellar liquid chromatography with an aminopropyl stationary phase

The extent of human intestinal absorption (HIA) for a drug is considered to be an important pharmacokinetic parameter which must be determined for orally administered drugs. Traditional experimental methods relied upon animal testing and are renowned for being time consuming, expensive as well as being ethically unfavourable. As a result, developing alternative methods to evaluate a drug's pharmacokinetics is crucial. Micellar liquid chromatography (MLC) is considered to be one of these methods that can replace the use of animals in prediction of HIA. In this study, the combination of an aminopropyl column with the biosurfactant sodium deoxycholate (NaDC) bile salt were used in the experimental determination of micelle-water partition coefficients (log Pmw) for a group of compounds. Multiple linear regression (MLR) was then used for the prediction of HIA using the experimentally determined log Pmw along with other molecular descriptors leading to the construction of a model equation of R2= 85 % and a prediction power represented by R2Pred. =72 %. The use of MLC with an aminopropyl column in combination with NaDC was found to be a good method for the prediction of human intestinal absorption, providing data for a far wider range of compounds compared with previous studies

Virtual tutor support using SMARTHINKING: Preliminary findings

The University of New England (UNE) has been using a virtual tutoring service called SMARTHINKING since 2007. UNE explored the use of a "virtual tutor service" to support distance education students in their academic development; to reduce attrition; and to provide academic support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to all students with access to a computer irrespective of geographical location. A cascading selection of units across different disciplinary areas and cohorts of students were targeted for the virtual tutorial support service over 6 semesters to provide rich data. A survey consisting of 20 questions was developed and implemented at the end of each teaching period. Preliminary analysis of data indicates that SMARTHINKING appears to be making a difference to student learning outcomes. However, while uptake tends to be low in all cohorts but where students select to use the service they are positive about its effects. Keywords: SMARTHINKING, student feedback, virtual feedback Introduction Tertiary institutions have been continuously making use of new technologies to enhance student learning and to improve student competition and retention rates ___________________________________________________________________________________ Proceedings ascilite Sydney 2010: Full paper: McDonell, Parkes & Tynan 596 Since the first pilot in 2008 an evaluation cycle has investigated the use of the virtual tutor support for students called SMARTHINKING. The investigation and evaluation cycle will conclude in 2010. The preliminary findings presented here describe the methodology for the evaluation and an example of the findings at this stage. The research team were interested in how SMARTHINKING is used by students and staff; sentiment towards the use of SMARTHINKING; identification of the reasons for any hesitancy towards the use of SMARTHINKING; best practices examples and evidence of impact for learning; costs and benefits; and any lessons learned. The research will provide recommendations on the investigation of use of tools within about the further use of SMARTHINKING and evaluate use for blockers, issues, and best practices that could be re-used by other groups

The Competencies Required for Effective Performance in a University e-Learning Environment

As a means of redressing the lack of learner-centred research in the field of e-learning, the current study set out to identify the competencies required for effective performance in a university e-learning environment. To achieve this, the study was implemented in two phases. In Phase One of the study, the Hybrid BARS methodology was used to identify the performance dimensions and competencies considered essential for e-learning. In Phase Two of the study, the performance dimensions and e-learning competencies identified in Phase One formed the basis of a web-based survey. The purpose of the survey was to gather the perceptions of student and staff stakeholders of the relative 'importance', 'difficulty', and 'preparedness' of the e-learning competencies. ... Results from the study indicated that students found learning in e-learning environments developed in accordance with social constructivist principles to be challenging. Evidence suggested that staff struggled with these principles as well. One of the main conclusions drawn from the study, was that both students and staff need to be apprenticed into a culture of social constructivism in order for the affordances of e-learning and social constructivism to be fully realised

Enriching Gross National Happiness through Information and Communication Technology

The stance taken in this study was based on two premises: GNH principles and values need to be entrenched in education, and ICT has great potential to transform learning. With these in mind, this study set out to explore the capacity of ICT to enhance GNH principles and values in pre-service teacher education in Bhutan. Set in a pre-service teacher college in Bhutan, a mixed methods approach utilising convergent parallel design was employed in the study. Quantitative data was collected using a web-based survey instrument to determine: pre-service teacher and lecturer attitudes towards GNH and GNH in education; pre-service teacher and lecturer attitudes towards ICT in education; pre-service teacher and lecturer attitudes towards ICT enhancing GNH principles and values; and pre-service teacher and lecturer TPACK. Qualitative data was collected using focus group interviews for the preservice teachers and semi-structured interviews for the lecturers to provide a richer view of the data. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the webbased survey data. Thematic analysis was utilised to analyse the focus group and interview data. The study revealed that pre-service teachers and lecturers viewed both GNH and ICT positively indicating a strong enabler to using ICT to enhance GNH principles and values at the study site. However, there are areas where attention needs to be paid if ICT is to be used to enhance GNH principles and values. For example, the lecturers in their teaching do not specifically stress GNH principles and values but rather assume that GNH principles and values are being taught unintentionally. However, results from the study suggest that in order for GNH principles and values to be enhanced by ICT, they need to be explicitly taught and modelled by lecturers. The study also discovered that both pre-service teachers and lecturers use very few ICT tools and for a limited range of activities. Furthermore, these ICT tools are mostly being used at either the substitution or augmentation level as viewed through the SAMR lens. In order for the affordances of ICT to enhance GNH principles and values to be fully realised, ICT tools need to be implemented at the Transformation domain of the SAMR model. This is where the level of ICT usage is either modification where technology allows for significant task redesign or redefinition where technology allows for the creation of new tasks previously not possible

The effect of EFL teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) on EFL teaching in Saudi Arabian Secondary Schools

This dissertation aimed to investigate the level of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) of English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in Saudi Arabian male public secondary schools. Precisely, the research investigated teachers' knowledge of and attitudes towards implementing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) into EFL classrooms. The research utilised a mixed method research design with two main sources of data. First, an online survey employed to determine EFL teachers' knowledge, skills and attitudes towards implementing ICT into the EFL classroom. Second, EFL teachers were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview to further explore EFL teachers' knowledge of and attitudes towards ICT integration into the process of EFL learning and teaching. The TPACK framework developed by Mishra and Koehler (2006) was applied as the theoretical framework for the study. Findings of the study indicated that EFL teachers were able to use ICT in many different forms in an EFL teaching context. In particular, EFL teachers indicated a sound knowledge and skills of using ICT in an EFL context. This indicated that EFL teachers' use of technology was positively associated with their ICT knowledge and attitudes and with their perception of TPACK. Despite the many factors that influenced their responses, EFL teachers are mostly willing and ready to integrate ICT into the process of EFL teaching and learning