Does the accuracy matter? Accurate concept map feedback helps students improve the cohesion of their explanations

Students are often challenged by the demand of writing cohesive explanatory texts. Prior research has shown that providing students with concept map feedback that visualizes explanatory cohesion deficits helped students generate more cohesive explanations. We conducted an experiment to investigate whether the accuracy of the provided information within the concept map feedback affected students’ improvements of cohesion. Accordingly, we varied the represented accuracy of information within such concept maps: Students either received accurate concept map feedback that depicted the real relations between concepts, as well as the authentic cohesion gaps in their explanations, or students received inaccurate concept map feedback, which depicted randomly drawn relations and random cohesion gaps. Additionally, in a baseline condition, students did not receive any feedback. We found that the students in the accurate feedback condition generated more cohesive explanations than the students in the no-feedback condition, whereas the students in the inaccurate feedback condition lay in-between. Evidently, providing feedback in general can be regarded as beneficial to enhance students’ writing. However, the accuracy of the provided feedback further impacts the effectiveness of computer-generated concept maps.     

Quality Assurance in UK Higher Education: Issues of Trust, Control, Professional Autonomy and Accountability

This article explores the issues of trust, control, professional autonomy and accountability in higher education quality assurance in the UK. The main part of this article is conceptual, but it includes results from semi-structured interviews with academic staff that were conducted at two “new university” business schools. Both institutions are broadly similar in their key characteristics and have experienced a transformation to university status in the early 1990s. The article argues that there has been a change from informal “light-touch” quality control systems based on local practices and a significant amount of trust and professional autonomy in the early 1990s to a highly prescribed process of audit-based quality control today. The article argues that accountability and transparency are important principles that academics should wholeheartedly embrace, but that the audit format adopted in the UK introduces a one-way accountability and provides “rituals of verification” (Power 1997) instead of fostering trust, has high opportunity costs and may well be detrimental to innovative teaching and learning.     

Editorial Themenheft: Aktuelle Entwicklungen im Softwaretest

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

The Relationships Between Paranormal Belief, Creationism, Intelligent Design and Evolution at Secondary Schools in Vienna (Austria)

The present study is the first to investigate the relationships between a multiple set of paranormal beliefs and the acceptance of evolution, creationism, and intelligent design, respectively, in Europe. Using a questionnaire, 2,129 students at secondary schools in Vienna (Austria) answered the 26 statements of the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (R-PBS) and three statements about naturalistic evolution, creationism and intelligent design (ID). The investigated Austrian students showed an average R-PBS score of 82.08, more than 50% of them agreed with naturalistic evolution, 28% with creationism, and more than a third agreed with ID, the latter two closely correlated with each other. Females generally showed higher belief scores in the paranormal, creationism and ID. The agreement with naturalistic evolution correlated negatively with religious belief, but not with other paranormal beliefs, whereas the two non-scientific alternatives to evolution significantly correlated with both traditional and paranormal beliefs. Religious belief showed a significant positive correlation with other paranormal beliefs. All subscales of paranormal belief decreased during the eight grades of secondary school, as did acceptance of creationism and ID. However, the acceptance of naturalistic evolution did not correlate with age or grade. Possible reasons and implications for science education and the biology curriculum at Austrian secondary schools are discussed.     

On the influence of the architecture of poly(ethylene glycol)-based thermoresponsive polymers on cell adhesion

Thermoresponsive polymer surface coatings are a promising tool for cell culture applications. They allow for a mild way of cell detachment that preserves the activity of membrane proteins—a prerequisite for reliable cell analysis. To enlarge the application range of these coatings to cells with different adhesion properties, we synthesized various novel poly(ethylene glycol)-based thermoresponsive polymers and describe how (i) their chemical structure and (ii) their surface density affect their efficiency. In order to quantify the influence of both factors, the time for cell spreading and rounding efficiency were observed. As a result, efficiency of cell rounding, which is closely correlated to cell detachment, is less affected by both factors than the time needed for cell spreading. This time can effectively be adjusted by the molecular architecture which includes the length of the polymer backbone and the side chains. Based on this work, recommendations are given for future optimization of functionality of thermoresponsive polymer coatings for cell culture applications.     

Clean and productive? Empirical evidence from the German manufacturing industry

In view of the controversial policy debate on “green” growth and corresponding stimulus packages we empirically investigate the production effects of environmental investment as well as of environmental and energy expenditures. Using a panel dataset of German manufacturing sectors our econometric analysis identifies a positive impact of environmental investment on production growth. In contrast, our estimation results cannot support the hypothesis of positive production impacts induced by environmental or energy expenditures. We thus conclude that environmental regulation should in particular stimulate environmental investment in order to be compatible with the pursuit of production growth.     

Mathematics for teaching: A form of applied mathematics

In this article we elaborate a conceptualisation of mathematics for teaching as a form of applied mathematics (using Bass's idea of characterising mathematics education as a form of applied mathematics) and we examine implications of this conceptualisation for the mathematical preparation of teachers. Specifically, we focus on issues of design and implementation of a special kind of mathematics tasks whose use in mathematics teacher education can support the development of knowledge of mathematics for teaching. Also, we discuss broader implications of the article for mathematics teacher education, including implications for mathematics teacher educators' knowledge for promoting mathematics for teaching.     

Intercultural learning in English as foreign language instruction: The importance of teachers’ intercultural experience and the usefulness of precise instructional directives

The development of intercultural competence, especially in foreign language instruction, is considered a key goal of teaching in German schools. The present article sheds light on the teaching of intercultural topics in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL). It presents the results of an analysis of data from a larger study (DESI study – Assessment of Student Achievements in German and English as a Foreign Language) bringing the intercultural experience of teachers and observable aspects of instruction into focus. Videotapes of EFL-classroom instruction of 9th and 10th grade students are analyzed in order to assess characteristic of the implementation of intercultural topics. The study reveals the impact of teachers’ intercultural experience on the quality of their intercultural instruction. Furthermore, the results indicate that precise external directives for particular lessons can help teachers put intercultural topics into practice.     

Combinations of Epoch Durations and Cut-Points to Estimate Sedentary Time and Physical Activity Among Adolescents

The purpose of the current study was to investigate how combinations of different epoch durations and cut-points affect the estimations of sedentary time and physical activity in adolescents. Accelerometer data from 101 adolescents were derived and 30 combinations were used to estimate sedentary time, light, moderate, vigorous, and combined moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Data were analyzed with repeated measurement analyses of variance. Large differences of sedentary time and times of different physical activity intensities were observed between 1 s and longer epoch durations using virtually all cut-points. Generally, sedentary time, moderate physical activity, vigorous physical activity, and combined moderate-to-vigorous physical activity progressively decreased, whereas light physical activity increased with longer epoch durations. The extreme differences between cut-points were large and increased with longer epoch durations for sedentary time and for all physical activity intensities except for vigorous physical activity per epoch duration. Caution is required when cross-comparing studies using different epoch durations and cut-points. To accurately register adolescents’ spontaneous intermittent physical activity behavior, short epoch durations are recommended.