Relative Importance Of Environmental Influences Research Articles

Environmental influences and individual characteristics that affect learner-centered teaching practices.

Research-based teaching practices can improve student learning outcomes in a variety of complex educational environments. The implementation of learner-centered teaching practices in STEM can both benefit from or be constrained by different factors related to individual instructors and the teaching environment. Additionally, we know little of how the instructional climate varies across institutions and how this climate affects teaching practices. Our study sought to examine the relative importance of environmental influences and individual characteristics on learner-centered teaching practices across institutions. We also assessed differences in our study population and departmental climate for 35 US higher education institutions across the country. We found that self-efficacy in teaching and professional development exert a strong influence on faculty teaching practices in biology. While departmental climate did not emerge as a significant predictor of teaching practices, there was consistently low support for teaching, and institution size was negatively correlated with leadership and evaluation of effective teaching. We also found that intensive professional development programs, such as the Faculty Institutes for Reforming Science Teaching IV program, may prepare instructors to teach learner-centered courses in different collegial teaching climates. Our results suggest that through cultivating self-efficacy and participating in iterative professional development, instructors can implement effective teaching practices in a variety of institutional environments.

Increased environmental sensitivity in high mathematics performance

Results of international comparisons of students in studies such as PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) are often taken to indicate that mathematical education in Dutch schools is not appropriate for mathematically talented students. However, there has been no empirical study yet that investigated this hypothesis. If indeed, Dutch students with a genetic predisposition for high mathematical ability are not nurtured to their full potential, their mathematics performance should be more affected by environmental factors than that of children with a genetic predisposition for low mathematical ability. In behaviour genetics such a situation is termed genotype-environment interaction: the relative importance of environmental influences differs depending on students' genotypic values. To investigate genotype-environment interaction, we analyzed mathematics performance of 2110 Dutch twin pairs on a national achievement test. In the analysis we corrected for error variance heterogeneity in the measurement of mathematics performance through the application of an item response theory (IRT) measurement model. As hypothesized, results indicated that environmental influences are relatively more important in explaining individual differences in students with a genetic predisposition for high mathematical ability.

Schizophrenia and subsequent neighborhood deprivation: revisiting the social drift hypothesis using population, twin and molecular genetic data.

Neighborhood influences in the etiology of schizophrenia have been emphasized in a number of systematic reviews, but causality remains uncertain. To test the social drift hypothesis, we used three complementary genetically informed Swedish cohorts. First, we used nationwide Swedish data on approximately 760 000 full- and half-sibling pairs born between 1951 and 1974 and quantitative genetic models to study genetic and environmental influences on the overlap between schizophrenia in young adulthood and subsequent residence in socioeconomically deprived neighborhoods. Schizophrenia diagnoses were ascertained using the National Patient Registry. Second, we tested the overlap between childhood psychotic experiences and neighborhood deprivation in early adulthood in the longitudinal Twin Study of Child and Adolescent Development (TCHAD; n=2960). Third, we investigated to what extent polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia predicted residence in deprived neighborhoods during late adulthood using the TwinGene sample (n=6796). Sibling data suggested that living in deprived neighborhoods was substantially heritable; 65% (95% confidence interval (95% CI): 60–71%) of the variance was attributed to genetic influences. Although the correlation between schizophrenia and neighborhood deprivation was moderate in magnitude (r=0.22; 95% CI: 0.20–0.24), it was entirely explained by genetic influences. We replicated these findings in the TCHAD sample. Moreover, the association between polygenic risk for schizophrenia and neighborhood deprivation was statistically significant (R2=0.15%, P=0.002). Our findings are primarily consistent with a genetic selection interpretation where genetic liability for schizophrenia also predicts subsequent residence in socioeconomically deprived neighborhoods. Previous studies may have overemphasized the relative importance of environmental influences in the social drift of schizophrenia patients. Clinical and policy interventions will therefore benefit from the future identification of potentially causal pathways between different dimensions of cognitive functions and socioeconomic trajectories derived from studies adopting family-based research designs.

Evaluating diel, ontogenetic and environmental effects on larval fish vertical distribution using Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape

AbstractChanges in ichthyoplankton vertical distributions can have important consequences with respect to larval transport and survivorship, yet determining the relative importance of environmental influences on vertical migrations in a statistically meaningful framework remains challenging. Here we use Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape (GAMLSS) and Akaike Information Criteria (AIC) to model the vertical distribution of larval Urophycis regia collected over a 108‐h time series on the Mid‐Atlantic Bight shelf. Depth was the response variable weighted by two measures of larval abundance: concentrations (number 100 m−3) and proportions at depth. Mean and variance of depth were modeled as a function of time, wind stress, current velocity, water column stratification and ontogeny. Model results indicated a large effect of stage for both concentration‐ and proportion‐based analyses. Subsequent and separate analyses on preflexion and postflexion U. regia indicated a differential response to the environmental parameters based on ontogeny. Model results suggested preflexion U. regia do not have a diel pattern in vertical distribution, but do avoid areas of high surface turbulence related to wind stress. In contrast, postflexion larvae have a significant diel pattern of vertical distribution mediated by surface turbulence (increased variance). The statistical approaches applied here offer the potential to evaluate the effect of multiple factors on vertical distribution and have provided significant insight into the factors that influence the vertical distribution of spotted hake larvae.