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Full-Text Articles in Education

How To Lie With Statistics, Eric L. Mann Oct 2013

How To Lie With Statistics, Eric L. Mann

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


The Relationship Between Implementation Of School-Wide Positive Behavior Intervention And Supports And Performance On State Accountability Measures, Adriana M. Marin, Hollie Gabler Filce Oct 2013

The Relationship Between Implementation Of School-Wide Positive Behavior Intervention And Supports And Performance On State Accountability Measures, Adriana M. Marin, Hollie Gabler Filce

Faculty Publications

This study examined data from 96 schools in a Southeastern U.S. state participating in training and/or coaching on School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) provided by the State Personnel Development Grant (SPDG) in their state. Schools studied either received training only (“non-intensive” sites) or training and on-site coaching (“intensive” sites). Fidelity of implementation was self-evaluated by both types of schools using the Benchmarks of Quality (BOQ). Some schools were also externally evaluated using the School-Wide Evaluation Tool (SET), with those scoring 80% or higher determined “model sites.” Using an independent sample t-test, analyses revealed statistically significant differences between …


The Adoption Of Open Educational Resources By One Community College Math Department, John Hilton Iii, Donna Gaudet, Phil Clark, Jared Robinson, David Wiley Sep 2013

The Adoption Of Open Educational Resources By One Community College Math Department, John Hilton Iii, Donna Gaudet, Phil Clark, Jared Robinson, David Wiley

Faculty Publications

The high cost of textbooks is of concern not only to college students but also to society as a whole. Open textbooks promise the same educational benefits as traditional textbooks; however, their efficacy remains largely untested. We report on one community college’s adoption of a collection of open resources across five different mathematics classes. During the 2012 fall semester, 2,043 students in five different courses used these open access resources. We present a comparison between the previous two years in terms of the number of students who withdrew from the courses and the number that completed the courses with a …


One College's Use Of An Open Psychology Textbook, John Hilton Iii Aug 2013

One College's Use Of An Open Psychology Textbook, John Hilton Iii

Faculty Publications

The high cost of textbooks is of concern not only to college students but also to society as a whole. Open textbooks promise the same educational benefits as traditional textbooks; however, their efficacy remains largely untested. We report on one community college's adoption of a free online psychology textbook. During the fall semester, 2011, 690 students used this book. Compared to students using a traditional text in the spring of 2011, students who used the free online textbook scored higher on departmental final exams, had higher GPAs in the class and higher retention rates.


Curriculum Exchange: “Make Your Own Earthquake”, Sandra Seale, Thalia Anagnos, Lelli Van Den Einde Jun 2013

Curriculum Exchange: “Make Your Own Earthquake”, Sandra Seale, Thalia Anagnos, Lelli Van Den Einde

Faculty Publications

A consortium of American universities is involved in earthquake engineering practice and research. Each campus of the consortium participates in outreach and education activities for the local schools and the public. One campus of the consortium, which operates earthquake field sites, designed a K-12 activity called “Make Your Own Earthquake” (MYOE). MYOE involves setting up earthquake field equipment (seismic instruments, data loggers, and computers) in a classroom. Children jump for 10 seconds, see their earthquake trace live on a computer screen and then take home a printed copy of their personal earthquake. Software was developed specifically for this activity. MYOE …


Curriculum Exchange: Visualization Tools And Online Courses For Teaching About Earthquakes, Sandra Seale, Thalia Anagnos Jun 2013

Curriculum Exchange: Visualization Tools And Online Courses For Teaching About Earthquakes, Sandra Seale, Thalia Anagnos

Faculty Publications

As part of a national consortium of universities practicing and doing research in earthquake engineering, our site has developed several videos for use in outreach and education. Visualization tools are extremely useful when teaching about how earthquakes shake the ground and the response of buildings to that shaking. Here we present videos that are targeted to specific audiences: (1) Animations of the response of two model buildings to two earthquakes are targeted at grade 6-16 students. The videos were created with data recorded on these test structures from the two earthquakes. The two events were both located directly below the …


An Oer Coup: College Teacher And Student Perceptions Of Open Educational Resources, John Hilton Iii, Tj Bliss, T. Jared Robinson, David A. Wiley Apr 2013

An Oer Coup: College Teacher And Student Perceptions Of Open Educational Resources, John Hilton Iii, Tj Bliss, T. Jared Robinson, David A. Wiley

Faculty Publications

Despite increased development and dissemination, there has been very little empirical research on Open Educational Resources (OER). Teachers and students involved in a large-scale OER initiative at eight community colleges across the United States were given a detailed questionnaire aimed at uncovering their perceptions of the cost, outcomes, uses and perceptions of quality of the OER used in their courses. Teachers and students alike reported significant cost savings and various pedagogical and learning impacts due to the implementation of OER in the classroom. In addition, most students and teachers perceived their OER to be at least equal in quality to …


Variation Of Instructor-Student Interactions In An Introductory Interactive Physics Course, Emily West, Cassandra Paul, David Webb, Wendell Potter Mar 2013

Variation Of Instructor-Student Interactions In An Introductory Interactive Physics Course, Emily West, Cassandra Paul, David Webb, Wendell Potter

Faculty Publications

The physics instruction at UC Davis for life science majors takes place in a long-standing reformed large-enrollment physics course in which the discussion or laboratory instructors (primarily graduate student teaching assistants) implement the interactive-engagement (IE) elements of the course. Because so many different instructors participate in disseminating the IE course elements, we find it essential to the instructors’ professional development to observe and document the student-instructor interactions within the classroom. Out of this effort, we have developed a computerized real-time instructor observation tool (RIOT) to take data of student-instructor interactions. We use the RIOT to observe 29 different instructors for …


The Cost And Quality Of Open Textbooks: Perceptions Of Community College Faculty And Students, Tj Bliss, John Hilton Iii, David Wiley, Kim Thanos Jan 2013

The Cost And Quality Of Open Textbooks: Perceptions Of Community College Faculty And Students, Tj Bliss, John Hilton Iii, David Wiley, Kim Thanos

Faculty Publications

Proponents of open educational resources (OER) claim that significant cost savings are possible when open textbooks displace traditional textbooks in the college classroom. We investigated student and faculty perceptions of OER used in a community college context. Over 125 students and 11 faculty from seven colleges responded to an online questionnaire about the cost and quality of the open textbooks used in their classrooms. Results showed that the majority of students and faculty had a positive experience using the open textbooks, appreciated the lower costs, and perceived the texts as being of high quality. The potential implications for OER initiatives …


The Effect Of Argumentative Task Goal On The Quality Of Argumentative Discourse, Merce Garcia-Mila, Sandra Gilabert, Sibel Erduran, Mark Felton Jan 2013

The Effect Of Argumentative Task Goal On The Quality Of Argumentative Discourse, Merce Garcia-Mila, Sandra Gilabert, Sibel Erduran, Mark Felton

Faculty Publications

In argumentative discourse, there are two kinds of activity-dispute and deliberation-that depend on the argumentative task goal. In dispute the goal is to defend a conclusion by undermining alternatives, whereas in deliberation the goal is to arrive at a conclusion by contrasting alternatives. In this study, we examine the impact of these tasks goals on the quality of argumentative discourse. Sixty-five junior high school students were organized into dyads to discuss sources of energy. Dyads were formed by members who had differing viewpoints and were distributed to one of two conditions: 31 dyads were asked to discuss with the goal …


Integrated Or Isolated Experiences? Considering The Role Of Service-Learning In The Spanish Language Curriculum, Gabriel Ignacio Barreneche, Héctor Ramos-Flores Jan 2013

Integrated Or Isolated Experiences? Considering The Role Of Service-Learning In The Spanish Language Curriculum, Gabriel Ignacio Barreneche, Héctor Ramos-Flores

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.