Subject Matter Areas Research Articles

Experiences with implementation of EDR into existing survey programs

Statistics Canada has been offering Electronic Data Reporting (EDR) on a small scale as an option for survey respondents for several years. In the past year, the use of EDR has increased as more respondents and subject matter areas are requesting this data collection option. As a national statistical agency, Statistics Canada has strict policies related to confidentiality and privacy of respondent data. Technological and security-related issues have had to be addressed at each step along the way to providing EDR. This has had an impact on flexibility, user-friendliness and overall acceptance of the EDR tools provided thus far. Currently we are focusing on two main ways of receiving data electronically. The first is an infrastructure to receive survey data securely through encryption algorithms applied to the data on the respondents workstation. The second method of EDR allows the respondent to complete an interactive questionnaire over the Internet using Secure Sockets Layer connections and encryption at source. The paper will include a brief description of the tools, a discussion of issues encountered in deploying EDR options, factors we have found that affect the adoption of EDR by respondents and future directions.

Communication, Constructivism and Transfer of Knowledge in the Education of Bilingual Learners

This theoretical framework to educate bilingual learners links the communicative approach and the constructivist approach to learning with the transfer of knowledge from one language to the other. The framework is illustrated in the CCT model where bilingual students (identified in USA as English language learners ELLs), develop their second language when performing academically in the subject matter areas. The CCT model includes, firstly, the communicative approach in language learning that stands on six principles: (1) second language (L2) learning, as first language (L1) learning, goes from whole to parts; (2) L2 learning should be developed in a student-centred setting; (3) the content of language learning should have an immediate meaning for the learner; (4) language learning occurs in social interactions; (5) reading, writing, speaking, and listening develop simultaneously; and (6) L2 learning is more effective when it is supportive of student's first language and culture. Secondly, the constructivist approach that is summarised in a four steps sequence: (1) open-ended opportunities for the learner to interact with meaningful material; (2) the teacher as facilitator of learning focuses student activities within the lesson framing; (3) ELLs use their background knowledge in L1 to discover new knowledge in L2; and (4) after the discovery-concept/process phase, the student applies the new knowledge to other situations restarting the cycle. Thirdly, the transfer of knowledge which discusses (1) transfer of declarative knowledge, identify as a specific kind of knowledge and (2) transfer of procedural and strategic knowledge identify as general kind of knowledge.

Integrating Language and Content: How Three Biology Teachers Work with Non-English Speaking Students

Facing the rapidly increasing non-native English speaking students in public schools, all teachers are challenged by an urgent need for developing ways to make their instruction responsive to these students' needs. This article reports on a year long study on three biology teachers' language integrated biology teaching to non-native English speaking students. Using extensive classroom observations and interviews the study provides portraits of these three teachers' working with multilingual, multicultural, and multilevel students. The findings suggest that subject matter area teachers should and can extend their teaching competencies to be sensitive to these students' language and cultural needs and to integrate their instruction for the second language development with their curricular objectives.

The impact of HIPAA electronic transmissions and health information privacy standards

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-191), often referred to as “HIPAA” or the “Kennedy/Kassebaum” law after its lead cosponsors, Senators Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-KS) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA), was passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton in August 1996. Some of the law’s key provisions began to take effect on July 1, 1997, beginning with the health insurance portability regulations. The legislation covers 5 broad subject matter areas (Title I-V), for which implementing regulations are in various stages of development. This article highlights two important sets of standards arising from Subtitle F of Title II of HIPAA, the Administrative Simplification provisions of the law−standards for electronic transactions and standards for the privacy of individually identifiable health information. In the Administrative Simplification Subtitle, Congress required the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to adopt standards designed to facilitate the development of a uniform, computer-based healthcare information system, while protecting the security of the information and the privacy of its subjects. The new regulations explained below derive from this fundamental mandate. In addition, the Fig. 1 beginning on page 526 provides highlights of HIPAA privacy regulation.

Teaching Net Present Value Analysis: Returns-to-Assets versus Returns-to-Equity

We surveytextbooks from agricultural economics and other subject matter areas to determine their treatments of the returns-to-assets versus returns-to-equitymethods for determining the net present value of investment projects. Textbook authors disagree about the appropriate method, often give conflicting advice as to how a given method should be applied, and do not show how the results of the two methods can be reconciled. We provide a consolidated discussion of the circumstances under which the two methods produce the same net present value.

PERCEPTIONS OF IOWA SECONDARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS TOWARD AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

The primary purpose of this study was to determine principals ‘perceptions of secondary agricultural education programs in Iowa high schools with agricultural education programs. A stratified random sample consisting of 147 principals was selected. Researcher-constructed questionnaires were developed, tested and mailed to a stratified random sample of principals. Strata consisted of Agricultural Education districts as outlined by the State of Iowa Department of Education. Overall, principals expressed favorable perceptions of agriculture programs, courses, and teachers. They expressed perceptions that students enjoy agricultural education courses and believed those courses reinforced learning in other subject matter areas. The overall knowledge or familiarity level of agricultural education programs by principals was generally positive. Principals believed agricultural education teachers were high quality teachers, but did not believe they were more effective than other teachers. Principals tended to support agricultural education programs, and disagreed with the statement that agricultural education courses provided little for students ' intellectual development. They also perceived agricultural education programs to be important to their community, and that any high school student could benefit from coursework in agricultural education. Recommendations included further research to determine the relationship of principals ‘perceptions to actual practices of support.

Developing Pedagogical and Communications Skills in Graduate Students: The Emory University Biostatistics TATTO Program

Unlike primary and secondary educators, professors in post-secondary education are not required to meet certification requirements in education. Expressly, they are not required to have demonstrated competencies in the areas of education that contribute to the process of educating undergraduate and graduate students, such as pedagogy or evaluation in a subject matter area. To address its responsibility for training graduate students as teachers as well as scholars and investigators, the Emory University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences implemented the Teaching Assistant and Teacher Training Opportunity (TATTO) for all graduate students in 1992. Each graduate department has instituted its own TATTO program with a consistent and Graduate School approved format. In this paper we describe our experience over the last six years with the evolving teacher training program in the Department of Biostatistics. In our program, we focus on developing communication skills for all graduates, even those who may not pursue an academic career involving teaching. We also discuss the merits and challenges of our course in pedagogy in biostatistics, as well as other training components, including instruction in statistical consultation. We have found that the interactive dynamic nature of this program is well-received by the students. We have also found that the students benefit from observing good teachers, with attention to the craft of teaching, and from the feedback given by these teachers on student teaching style.

'Unilateralism', values, and international law

States take unilateral measures every day. Their 'unilateral acts' only become contentious where one state seeks to impose its values on another state, and where that other state has not consented to the imposed values. Recently international tribunals have sought to determine when values may be imposed in environmental/natural resource disputes. In the Shrimp/Turtle case the WTO Appelate Body identified three international conditions which need to be satisfied: the concerned resource must be shared (community value), protective measures are required because the conservation of the species is recognized as a desirable objective (conservation value), and a consensual approach is desirable (consensus/cooperation value). This approach raises two questions: how are international values to be identified? What is the proper function of international courts and tribunals in seeking to give weight and effect to values once they have been identified? The debate about 'unilateral' acts reflects a broader debate about tension between different values (economic, social, political, environmental) and the hierarchical relationships between different values as reflected in international legal norms. The debate is further informed by the changing character of the international legal order, including the growth in the number of international instruments across subject matters, cross-fertilization between different subject-matter areas, and the increase in the number of international courts before which these tensions may be aired.

Content analysis of farm imformation in selected dailies

The study was conducted to know the extent of coverage of subject matter areas, source of articles, modes of presentation and illustration components of four dailies. The results that higher percentage of articles were from agriculture as scientific articles from University Scientists with less percentage of illustration components.

Strategy for capacity building of the potential growers of export-oriented cutflowers

A study was conducted with a sample of 150 potential growers of export-oriented cutflowers identified through snowball sampling technique from Nilgiris district. The training needs of the respondents on knowledge and skill aspects of cutflowers and their preference to various dimensions of training were studied. Results indicate that farmers needed training in 12 major subject matter areas of cutflower cultivation for knowledge level and packaging technology of cutflowers for skill level training. Based on the felt needs of the respondents, appropriate capacity building strategies were formulated.

Peer and self-evaluation of teamwork skills

The increasing reliance of corporations on teamwork and peer evaluation of job performance requires the acquisition of these skills in high school. An approach called the Peer and Self-Evaluation System (PSES) informs teachers about group interaction from the student view. This strategy enables students to identify and record teamwork skills demonstrated by peers and themselves in co-operative activities. Based upon these observations, which are kept anonymous, students get confidential feedback about personal strengths and limitations. Field testing of the system with 300 high school students and their teachers confirmed its worthwhileness. Moreover, the findings showed that girls were identified by the boys and by themselves as having greater co-operative teamwork skills. The PSES method of evaluating group work can be used in most subject matter areas, results are appropriate for student and teacher portfolios, and outcomes can guide the united effort of parents and teachers

Authorities and Research Emphasized in the Annual Review of Psychology, 1975–1998

The Annual Review of Psychology, which has been published since 1950, provides a useful profile of post-World War II developments in American psychology. In 1979, Gilgen and Hultman identified the authorities and subject matter areas emphasized in the volumes for the 1950 through 1974 period. The present study extends that investigation through 1998. Based on the earlier analyses, American psychology during the third quarter of the century was characterized by a strong interest in research methodologies and psychometrics, Hullian and then Skinnerian perspectives on learning and conditioning, animal research, the perceptual theory of James J. Gibson, Gestalt inspired social psychology, and the emerging perspective of Carl Rogers on personality and psychopathology. The present work shows that, while psychometrics and methodological matters remained salient, many American psychologists shifted attention to study cognitive processes especially as manifested in social and developmental contexts. Interest in gender and women's studies, gerontological questions, and psychological aspects of both health and sport also accelerated, and many more women were highly (very frequently) cited during the final quarter of the century than during the earlier post-World War II years.

MAKING STUDENTS ACCOUNTABLE FOR TEAMWORK

Cooperative learning is intended to maximize understanding of class material and acquisition of teamwork skills. To attain these goals, students must be individually accountable and credited for their efforts to help teammates. The Peer and Self Evaluation System ( PSES ) informs teachers about group interaction from the student point of view. Specifically, this system enables students to identify and record the team skills demonstrated by peers and themselves during group work. Based on these observations, which are kept anonymous, each student receives confidential feedback regarding personal strengths and limitations . Fieldtesting of the PSES has confirmed that it is valid, reliable, and practical. This new method for processing group work can be used in most subject matter areas and appears suitable for meeting the developmental needs of students from high school through college.

Analysis of the first five years of Ghana's BECE results in General Science

An essential part of the machinery of education is examination. It has become fashionable to disapprove of examination as a means of stimulating effort in pupils to regard their influence on school work as unnecessarily vicious, and to suppose that their only legitimate function is the selection and classification of pupils after they have passed through some part of the educational machine. This fashion is unfortunate. Examinations fulfill a double function: they are a mobilising force in education, and they also provide a means of testing its results. The stimulating and mobilising power of examinations affect teachers, schools, textbooks and administration, but it is exerted through the medium of the individual pupil. In this study, an attempt has been made to examine and analyse the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) papers in General Science for the first five years conducted by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) to see if the objectives of the Junior Secondary School (JSS) science syllabus has been fulfilled. From the analysis, it may be concluded that the BECE examination organised by WAEC in the first five years has not been fair to the candidates. There has been a lot of over testing and under testing in most of the subject-matter content areas. Little attention has been paid to content validation. It is about time that the constructed tests provided a balance measure of the intended learning outcomes so that no area is over emphasised or neglected. JOURNAL OF THE GHANA SCIENCE ASSOCIATION Volume 1 Number 2, January (1999) pp. 1-9

Introduction and Overview: The New Face of Teaching in the 21st Century: Are We Ready for the Challenge?

Are we as a nation ready to face a future void of talented teachers? Are we ready to accept the fact that thousands of potential teachers are daily being lured away to other fields that offer financial, status, and material rewards that the teaching profession cannot as yet promise? Most estimates conclude that about 2 million new teachers will be needed to replace the large numbers of teachers who will be retiring in the coming decade. Who will educate the increasing number of students who will be flooding the nation's schoolhouse doors in the next few years? The teachers of the near future must be prepared to teach the students of Generation Ythat media-saturated, Internet-savvy, brand-conscious generation of youth born during the baby bulge demographers locate between 1979 and 1994. Within the coming decade, fully a third of these young people will come from language- or racial/ethnic-minority families. By 2050, they will represent at least 50% of the U.S. public school classroom population. Substantial numbers of them will come from impoverished backgrounds and families with high rates of no or low school attendance. Too many, especially those who are African American and Hispanic, will be underprepared in mathematics and science. Many millions will be latchkey or children between the ages of 5 and 14 who spend considerable amounts of time home alone after school. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (1998), nearly one in five college graduates who began teaching during the 1993-94 school year left the field within three years to pursue other, more lucrative careers. Worse, many of those who left were among the best and brightest of novice teachers. The projected teacher shortfalls predicted for the coming decade further exacerbate the already critical shortage of teachers in urban school districts and those in mathematics, science, bilingual, and special education. These trends, combined with the declining enrollments of students, and particularly minority students, in schools, colleges, and departments of teacher education nationwide, have numerous long-term, detrimental effects. If we are not ready to accept the dismal fate these trends portend, what will be the mission of teacher educators in the 21st century? Quite simply-that is, simply stated rather than simply done-it will be to recruit, educate, and retain the best and the brightest teachers and equip them to meet the needs of the nation's changing face. How can those of us who are committed to and vested in furthering teaching as a profession counteract this reality? How can we help reduce teaching's soaring attrition rates and retain the best and brightest in our nation's teaching pool? As the struggle to attract quality candidates to teaching continues, the questioning becomes more specific. Where will these much-sought-after teachers be found? And once found, how will we prepare them for the challenges they will face in light of the nation's burgeoning diversity? How can more people of color, and especially males of color, be recruited into the teaching profession? How should tomorrow's teachers be prepared to address pedagogical knowledge generally as well as student deficiencies in specific subjectmatter areas? What kinds of professional development will enable in-service teachers to stay current in their subject-matter areas and master today's global technology? How can preservice and in-service teachers alike come to understand and appreciate children, youth, and colleagues from diverse racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic backgrounds? It is precisely these kinds of probing questions that cause considerable angst among those of us charged with preparing future teachers. The nation's colleges and universities face the added challenge of elevating the perception of the teaching profession, both its value and its attractiveness, to the public generally and to the millions of postsecondary students considering career choices in particular. …

METHOD OF REINFORCEMENT AND STUDENT GENDER: EFFECTS ON ACHIEVEMENT IN AGRISCIENCE EDUCATION

A randomized post-test-only experimental design with a counter-balanced internal replication was conducted to determine the effects of reinforcement method (worksheet or hands-on activity) and student gender on immediate and delayed cognitive achievement in two physical science subject matter areas (Ohm 's Law and simple machines). Students enrolled in seven purposively selected Agricultural Science and Technology classes (N = 132) in five school districts participated in the study. The experimental results were stable across both subject matter areas. The main effect of method of reinforcement produced no significant differences in either immediate or delayed cognitive posttest scores. There was no significant interaction between the two main effects (method of reinforcement or gender). However, there were significant differences in both immediate and delayed cognitive posttest scores based on the main effect of gender, with females scoring higher than males on each of the four posttests.

The Korean financial crisis, reform and positive transformation: Is a second ‘Han river miracle’ possible?

There is general agreement that the initial onset of the East Asian Financial crisis was made possible by fundamental economic, political and financial market errors and weaknesses, but also that the market reaction to these vulnerabilities (as their extent was revealed) was exaggerated and disproportionate. This is based on a model of “self‐fulfilling” crises, under which existing vulnerabilities make a crisis a possibility but not a certainty. Unfortunately, the analyses to date (whether from public or private, domestic or international sources) do not suggest at what point underlying vulnerabilities will move from being the potential for a crisis and the point at which a crisis is a certainty. This article suggests that in the face of potential self‐fulfilling crises, countries should act in advance (i.e., to take pre‐emptive action) to reduce their potential vulnerabilities, both to an initial crisis and to contagion resulting from the onset of a crisis elsewhere, whether through panic, fundamental problems or the unpredictable potentialities of vulnerabilities. In effect, a main emphasis of this presentation concerns the importance of ongoing and meaningful ("bottom‐up") economic, financial and commercial law reform throughout the East Asian region (or other emerging regions) and the related enhancement of legal education in these subject matter areas. In this sense, this article further suggests that, in looking forward, these emerging countries need to consider the critical importance of a law‐based, “building block” approach in addressing the long‐term implications of the current East Asian financial crisis.

Breaking the Vegetative Cycle of Plant Materials Lectures

Routine lectures, even in topics as inherently appealing to students as plant materials classes, can become monotonous. Educational games can be effective mechanisms for breaking the classroom routine, stimulating student interaction, and reviewing key concepts in an alternative teaching/learning style. Three plant materials games that can be tailored to apply specifically to regional/local classes were developed based on popular television game shows. Basing the formats on games with which the students are familiar allows minimal time and effort to learn the rules and permits students to immediately participate in the activity. The names of the games are “Plant Pictionary”, “Plant Taboo”, and “Name That Plant”. A brief game of each can be completed within 15 to 20 min. The games were developed using plant morphology, taxonomy, aesthetic characteristics, and/or site requirement terminology introduced for general concepts or specific taxa covered in the course. Based on student evaluations, these activities were well received when periodically inserted into the lecture sessions. Participation and enthusiasm for the activities was greatest during the later half of the semester, likely due to the greater base of knowledge that could be incorporated into the games. The games worked best as group activities, particularly fostering good natured competition among laboratory sections. The general concepts of the games should be transferable to other subject matter areas.

Self-Concept – Performance Congruence: An Exploration of Patterns among High-Achieving Adolescents

Self-concept to performance congruence among academically able adolescents (54 females, 49 males) in both math and English was explored. Although analyses revealed similar congruence patterns for females and males in both subject-matter areas, the overall majority of these able learners fell outside the congruent range. These findings suggest that, regardless of gender or content area, able adolescents may be at risk for unrealistic self-concept perceptions relative to their actual performance.

Robust estimation of extremes

AbstractWe consider the problem of making inferences about extreme values from a sample. The underlying model distribution is the generalized extreme‐value (GEV) distribution, and our interest is in estimating the parameters and quantiles of the distribution robustly. In doing this we find estimates for the GEV parameters based on that part of the data which is well fitted by a GEV distribution. The robust procedure will assign weights between 0 and 1 to each data point. A weight near 0 indicates that the data point is not well modelled by the GEV distribution which fits the points with weights at or near 1. On the basis of these weights we are able to assess the validity of a GEV model for our data. It is important that the observations with low weights be carefully assessed to determine whether diey are valid observations or not. If they are, we must examine whether our data could be generated by a mixture of GEV distributions or whether some other process is involved in generating the data. This process will require careful consideration of die subject matter area which led to the data. The robust estimation techniques are based on optimal B‐robust estimates. Their performance is compared to the probability‐weighted moment estimates of Hosking et al. (1985) in both simulated and real data.