Assessment of attention in school children: teachers' ratings related to tests of attention     

Timothy C. Papadopoulos  J. P. Das  H. M. Nelly Kodero  Veronica Solomon 《欧洲特需教育杂志》2013,28(1):15-32

The paper provides (1) a teacher-administered rating instrument for inattention without confounding the rating with hyperactivity and conduct disorder, and (2) evidence that the ratings correlate with the scores obtained from cognitive tests of attention. In Study I, the first objective was to investigate the construct validity and the inter-rater reliability of the Attention Checklist (ACL) by factor analysing the teacher ratings of 110 Grade 4 children, obtained by using the ACL. The second objective was to investigate the predictive validity of the ACL by examining the relationship between the scores obtained for the participants from teachers' ratings using the ACL and the scores obtained by participants in the lab-type attention tests. The results of factor analysis showed that a single factor labelled ‘inattention’ underlies the 12 items in the ACL. Examining the differences in performance on attention tests, the ‘low attention’ children as rated by the teachers on the ACL scored lower than the ‘high attention’ children on the objective tests of attention. These findings were replicated in Study II, which was conducted to test further the construct validity and predictive validity of the ACL. This time, only those two tests (Auditory Attention and Visual Attention) that had shown relatively poor discrimination between the high and low attention groups in Study I were, again, administered to another cohort of 97 Grade 4 children, as it was our intention to further challenge the reliability of the ACL. Overall, the results of both studies suggest that comprehensive assessment of attention skills should include both ACL and objective measures of selective attention.  相似文献   

Making Sense in Education: Pretense (Including No Child Left Behind) and Realities in Rhetoric and Policy About Schools and Schooling     

James M. Kauffman  Timothy R. Konold 《Exceptionality》2013,21(2):75-96

One wrong assumption about reality is sufficient to ensure the failure of education policy. For a variety of reasons, too many people have ignored realities in policies such as the No Child Left Behind Act. Individuals who are serious about reforming or improving education, general or special, must confront realities in at least the following areas: measurement, statistical distributions, measurement error, labels, special services, teacher responsibilities, and teacher training. Enacting or supporting education policy that is known to be seriously flawed is unacceptable and tantamount to the criminal conduct of someone who markets goods with known safety defects or harmful effects or of someone who ignores critical realities in the conduct of business.  相似文献   

Editor's comments     

Timothy J. Flanagan 《Journal of Criminal Justice Education》2013,24(2):129-133

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Politics,Civil Rights,and Disproportional Identification of Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders     

James M. Kauffman  Timothy J. Landrum 《Exceptionality》2013,21(4):177-188

The civil rights movements involving skin tone, gender or gender orientation, disability, and other physiognomic features remain important in securing the legal rights of individuals to equal treatment and equal opportunities regardless of their personal characteristics of color, origin, gender, and so on. Unfortunately, these welcome civil rights movements have led to a misunderstanding of unfairness in another group of individuals whose rights and opportunities have often been abridged—students with disabilities. Individual rights and opportunities must be insured, but doing so requires the discrimination of differences among differences. That is, not all differences require the same remedy to insure equal rights and opportunities. Misunderstanding of differences and their implications have led to political concerns about disproportional representation, particularly of students with emotional or behavioral disorders, which place unwarranted constraints on special education services.  相似文献   

NEW BOOKS     

Timothy Walch 《Religious education (Chicago, Ill.)》2013,108(5):582-591

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Differences in activation patterns between eccentric and concentric quadriceps contractions.     

Malachy P McHugh  Timothy F Tyler  Scott C Greenberg  Gilbert W Gleim 《Journal of sports sciences》2002,20(2):83-91

Previous studies analysing electromyograms (EMGs) from indwelling electrodes have indicated that fast-twitch motor units are selectively recruited for low-intensity eccentric contractions. The aim of this study was to compare the frequency content of surface EMGs from quadriceps muscles during eccentric and concentric contractions at various contraction intensities. Electromyograms were recorded from the rectus femoris, vastus lateralis and vastus medialis muscles of 10 men during isokinetic (1.05 rad x s(-1)) eccentric and concentric knee extension contractions at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) for each contraction mode. Additionally, isometric contractions (70 degrees) were performed at each intensity. The mean frequency and root mean square (RMS) of the surface EMG were computed. Mean frequency was higher for eccentric than concentric contractions at 25% (P < 0.01), 50% (P < 0.01) and 75% (P < 0.05) but not at 100% MVC. It increased with increasing contraction intensity for isometric (P < 0.001) and concentric (P < 0.01) contractions but not for eccentric contractions (P = 0.27). The EMG amplitude (RMS) increased with increasing contraction intensity similarly in each contraction mode (P < 0.0001). Higher mean frequencies for eccentric than concentric contractions at submaximal contraction intensities is consistent with more fast-twitch motor units being active during eccentric contractions.  相似文献   

Shiloh in Fiction     

Timothy Morris 《Journal of American culture (Malden, Mass. : 2003)》2008,31(3):283-292

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Rethinking fat as a fuel for endurance exercise     

Jeff S. Volek  Timothy Noakes  Stephen D. Phinney 《European Journal of Sport Science》2015,15(1):13-20

Abstract

A key element contributing to deteriorating exercise capacity during physically demanding sport appears to be reduced carbohydrate availability coupled with an inability to effectively utilize alternative lipid fuel sources. Paradoxically, cognitive and physical decline associated with glycogen depletion occurs in the presence of an over-abundance of fuel stored as body fat that the athlete is apparently unable to access effectively. Current fuelling tactics that emphasize high-carbohydrate intakes before and during exercise inhibit fat utilization. The most efficient approach to accelerate the body’s ability to oxidize fat is to lower dietary carbohydrate intake to a level that results in nutritional ketosis (i.e., circulating ketone levels >0.5 mmol/L) while increasing fat intake for a period of several weeks. The coordinated set of metabolic adaptations that ensures proper interorgan fuel supply in the face of low-carbohydrate availability is referred to as keto-adaptation. Beyond simply providing a stable source of fuel for the brain, the major circulating ketone body, beta-hydroxybutyrate, has recently been shown to act as a signalling molecule capable of altering gene expression, eliciting complementary effects of keto-adaptation that could extend human physical and mental performance beyond current expectation. In this paper, we review these new findings and propose that the shift to fatty acids and ketones as primary fuels when dietary carbohydrate is restricted could be of benefit for some athletes.  相似文献   

The Undergraduate Research Student Self-Assessment (URSSA): Validation for Use in Program Evaluation     

Timothy J. Weston  Sandra L. Laursen 《CBE life sciences education》2015,14(3)

This article examines the validity of the Undergraduate Research Student Self-Assessment (URSSA), a survey used to evaluate undergraduate research (UR) programs. The underlying structure of the survey was assessed with confirmatory factor analysis; also examined were correlations between different average scores, score reliability, and matches between numerical and textual item responses. The study found that four components of the survey represent separate but related constructs for cognitive skills and affective learning gains derived from the UR experience. Average scores from item blocks formed reliable but moderate to highly correlated composite measures. Additionally, some questions about student learning gains (meant to assess individual learning) correlated to ratings of satisfaction with external aspects of the research experience. The pattern of correlation among individual items suggests that items asking students to rate external aspects of their environment were more like satisfaction ratings than items that directly ask about student skills attainment. Finally, survey items asking about student aspirations to attend graduate school in science reflected inflated estimates of the proportions of students who had actually decided on graduate education after their UR experiences. Recommendations for revisions to the survey include clarified item wording and increasing discrimination between item blocks through reorganization.Undergraduate research (UR) experiences have long been an important component of science education at universities and colleges but have received greater attention in recent years, as they have been identified as important ways to strengthen preparation for advanced study and work in the science fields, especially among students from underrepresented minority groups (Tsui, 2007 ; Kuh, 2008 ). UR internships provide students with the opportunity to conduct authentic research in laboratories with scientist mentors, as students help design projects, gather and analyze data, and write up and present findings (Laursen et al., 2010 ). The promised benefits of UR experiences include both increased skills and greater familiarity with how science is practiced (Russell et al., 2007 ). While students learn the basics of scientific methods and laboratory skills, they are also exposed to the culture and norms of science (Carlone and Johnson, 2007 ; Hunter et al., 2007 ; Lopatto, 2010 ). Students learn about the day-to-day world of practicing science and are introduced to how scientists design studies, collect and analyze data, and communicate their research. After participating in UR, students may make more informed decisions about their future, and some may be more likely to decide to pursue graduate education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines (Bauer and Bennett, 2003 ; Russell et al., 2007 ; Eagan et al. 2013 ).While UR experiences potentially have many benefits for undergraduate students, assessing these benefits is challenging (Laursen, 2015 ). Large-scale research-based evaluation of the effects of UR is limited by a range of methodological problems (Eagan et al., 2013 ). True experimental studies are almost impossible to implement, since random assignment of students into UR programs is both logistically and ethically impractical, while many simple comparisons between UR and non-UR groups of students suffer from noncomparable groups and limited generalizability (Maton and Hrabowski, 2004 ). Survey studies often rely on poorly developed measures and use nonrepresentative samples, and large-scale survey research usually requires complex statistical models to control for student self-selection into UR programs (Eagan et al., 2013 ). For smaller-scale program evaluation, evaluators also encounter a number of measurement problems. Because of the wide range of disciplines, research topics, and methods, common standardized tests assessing laboratory skills and understandings across these disciplines are difficult to find. While faculty at individual sites may directly assess products, presentations, and behavior using authentic assessments such as portfolios, rubrics, and performance assessments, these assessments can be time-consuming and not easily comparable with similar efforts at other laboratories (Stokking et al., 2004 ; Kuh et al., 2014 ). Additionally, the affective outcomes of UR are not readily tapped by direct academic assessment, as many of the benefits found for students in UR, such as motivation, enculturation, and self-efficacy, are not measured by tests or other assessments (Carlone and Johnson, 2007 ). Other instruments for assessing UR outcomes, such as Lopatto’s SURE (Lopatto, 2010 ), focus on these affective outcomes rather than direct assessments of skills and cognitive gains.The size of most UR programs also makes assessment difficult. Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs), one mechanism by which UR programs may be organized within an institution, are funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), but unlike many other educational programs at NSF (e.g., TUES) that require fully funded evaluations with multiple sources of evidence (Frechtling, 2010 ), REUs are generally so small that they cannot typically support this type of evaluation unless multiple programs pool their resources to provide adequate assessment. Informal UR experiences, offered to students by individual faculty within their own laboratories, are often more common but are typically not coordinated across departments or institutions or accountable to a central office or agency for assessment. Partly toward this end, the Undergraduate Research Student Self-Assessment (URSSA) was developed as a common assessment instrument that can be compared across multiple UR sites within or across institutions. It is meant to be used as one source of assessment information about UR sites and their students.The current research examines the validity of the URSSA in the context of its use as a self-report survey for UR programs and laboratories. Because the survey has been taken by more than 3400 students, we can test some aspects of how the survey is structured and how it functions. Assessing the validity of the URSSA for its intended use is a process of testing hypotheses about how well the survey represents its intended content. This ongoing process (Messick, 1993 ; Kane, 2001 ) involves gathering evidence from a range of sources to learn whether validity claims are supported by evidence and whether the survey results can be used confidently in specific contexts. For the URSSA, our method of inquiry focuses on how the survey is used to assess consortia of REU sites. In this context, survey results are used for quality assurance and comparisons of average ratings over years and as general indicators of program success in encouraging students to pursue graduate science education and scientific careers. Our research questions focus on the meaning and reliability of “core indicators” used to track self-reported learning gains in four areas and the ability of numerical items to capture student aspirations for future plans to attend graduate school in the sciences.  相似文献   

Breaking the Cycle: Future Faculty Begin Teaching with Learner-Centered Strategies after Professional Development     

Diane Ebert-May  Terry L. Derting  Timothy P. Henkel  Jessica Middlemis Maher  Jennifer L. Momsen  Bryan Arnold  Heather A. Passmore 《CBE life sciences education》2015,14(2)

The availability of reliable evidence for teaching practices after professional development is limited across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines, making the identification of professional development “best practices” and effective models for change difficult. We aimed to determine the extent to which postdoctoral fellows (i.e., future biology faculty) believed in and implemented evidence-based pedagogies after completion of a 2-yr professional development program, Faculty Institutes for Reforming Science Teaching (FIRST IV). Postdocs (PDs) attended a 2-yr training program during which they completed self-report assessments of their beliefs about teaching and gains in pedagogical knowledge and experience, and they provided copies of class assessments and video recordings of their teaching. The PDs reported greater use of learner-centered compared with teacher-centered strategies. These data were consistent with the results of expert reviews of teaching videos. The majority of PDs (86%) received video ratings that documented active engagement of students and implementation of learner-centered classrooms. Despite practice of higher-level cognition in class sessions, the items used by the PDs on their assessments of learning focused on lower-level cognitive skills. We attributed the high success of the FIRST IV program to our focus on inexperienced teachers, an iterative process of teaching practice and reflection, and development of and teaching a full course.  相似文献