Subset Of Learners Research Articles

Initial development of skill with a reversed bicycle and a case series of experienced riders

Riding a bicycle is considered a durable skill that cannot be forgotten. Here, novice participants practiced riding a reversed bicycle, in which a reversing gear inverted the handlebar’s rotation. Although learning to ride the reversed bicycle was possible, it was slow, highly variable, implicit, and followed an S-shape pattern. In the initial learning phase, failed attempts to ride the normal bicycle indicated strong interference between the two bicycle skills. While additional practice decreased this interference effect, a subset of learners could not ride either bicycle after eight sessions of practice. Experienced riders who performed extensive practice could switch bicycles without failed attempts and exhibited similar performance (i.e., similar handlebar oscillations) on both bicycles. However, their performance on the normal bicycle was worse than that of the novice bicycle riders at baseline. In conclusion, “unlearning” of the normal bicycle skill precedes the initial learning of the reversed bicycle skill, and a signature of such unlearning is still present following extensive practice.

Hospital homebound students and K-12 online schooling.

The flexibility afforded by online education may provide opportunities for learners with disability who require absence from traditional learning environments. This study sought to describe how a subset of learners with disability, those with hospital-homebound designation, perform in K-12 online classes, particularly as compared to non-hospital homebound counterparts. A cross-sectional analysis was performed of all Florida Virtual School course enrollments from August 1, 2012 to July 31, 2018. Researchers analyzed 2,534 course enrollments associated with K-12 students who, at the time of their course enrollment, had hospital-homebound designation, and a comparison group of 5,470,591 enrollments from K-12 students without hospital-homebound status. Data analysis showed three important outcomes. First, hospital-homebound designated student academic performance was equivalent to their non-hospital homebound counterparts. Second, however, hospital-homebound course enrollments were 26% more likely to result in a withdrawal prior to grade generation. Third, these withdrawals were potentially mitigated when H/H designated students were enrolled in five or more classes or in classes with five or more students. The results of this study provided evidence that when they can remain enrolled, hospital-homebound learners experience equivalent academic outcomes in online learning environments. These findings suggest that healthcare professionals should be made aware of the potentially equivalent outcomes for their patients. Moreover, virtual schools should seek to identify and create supports for these students.

Educational innovation to integrate cancer survivorship in primary care: course evaluation and learner outcomes.

To evaluate the outcomes of an online cancer survivorship course designed to influence practice change in primary care clinicians through asynchronous education that incorporates emotionally sensitive patient stories and practical resources to prepare clinicians to care for cancer survivors. The Health After Cancer: Cancer Survivorship for Primary Care continuing medical education (CME) course launched in April 2020. Learners who earned CME credit for the course (n=288) completed a survey that assessed satisfaction, engagement, and intent to change practice. A follow-up survey was completed by a subset of learners (n=47) and evaluated impact on clinical practice. Metrics representing learners' interaction with the course were collected automatically. Quantitative survey data and learner metrics were analyzed descriptively, and qualitative survey data were coded to generate latent themes relevant to learning outcomes. The course reached a global audience of learners from the USA and 40 countries. Each patient case had slight drop-offs in viewership over video play time. Learners reported high satisfaction and relevance to practice. Three latent themes were generated from the qualitative data: improve patient communication, utilize course materials, enhance collaboration with multidisciplinary team. The course achieved its purpose of educating learners through an asynchronous format that showcased the value of using patient-centered stories to close a knowledge gap related to cancer survivorship care. Learners self-reported changes in practice; however, further assessment needs to be conducted to measure long-term impact to clinical practice. Educational approaches that prepare generalists and specialists to care for cancer survivors are essential to optimize health outcomes for cancer survivors. Ongoing efforts are needed to increase use of these resources throughout medical training and within the primary care community.

Measuring the impact of strategic design learning experience long after the classroom delivery

This paper seeks to examine the transformational impact of a final year strategic design module on learners some years after its completion. A subset of learners, who completed the module between two and ten years, were surveyed using a semi-structured questionnaire around Fink’s (2003) taxonomy of learning. We researched how much learners still make the connections between what they have learned in the module and their current circumstances. While potentially humbling to find out how little of the detailed content is retained, particularly five to ten years after the event, we argue that the impact of the module on learners developing their creative skill-set and effectiveness in navigating team dynamics has indeed been transformative. We suggest that educators could do more to embed this longer term transformational focus by explicitly raising the future in the classroom and enabling learners to build linkages to the development of their own future selves.

Virtual multiphase flow metering using diverse neural network ensemble and adaptive simulated annealing

Real-time production monitoring in oil and gas industry has become very significant particularly as fields become economically marginal and reservoirs deplete. Virtual flow meters (VFMs) are intelligent systems that infer multiphase flow rates from ancillary measurements and are attractive and cost-effective solutions to meet monitoring demands, reduce operational costs, and improve oil recovery efficiency. Current VFMs are very challenging to develop and very expensive to maintain, most of which were developed for wells with dedicated physical meters where there exists an abundance of well test data. This study proposes a VFM system based on ensemble learning for fields with common metering infrastructure where data generated is very limited. The proposed method generates diverse neural network (NN) learners by manipulating training data, NN architecture and learning trajectory. Adaptive simulated annealing optimization is proposed to select the best subset of learners and the optimal combining strategy. The proposed method was evaluated using actual well test data and managed to achieve a remarkable performance with average errors of 4.7% and 2.4% for liquid and gas flow rates respectively. The accuracy of the developed VFM was also analyzed using cumulative deviation plot where the predictions are within a maximum deviation of ± 15%. Furthermore, the proposed ensemble method was compared to standard bagging and stacking and remarkable improvements have been observed in both accuracy and ensemble size. The proposed VFM is expected to be easier to develop and maintain than model-driven VFMs since only well test samples are required to tune the model. It is hoped that the developed VFM can augment and backup physical meters, improve data reconciliation, and assist in reservoir management and flow assurance ultimately leading to a more efficient oil recovery and less operating and maintenance costs.

Post learning sleep improves cognitive-emotional decision-making: evidence for a 'deck B sleep effect' in the Iowa Gambling Task.

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is widely used to assess real life decision-making impairment in a wide variety of clinical populations. Our study evaluated how IGT learning occurs across two sessions, and whether a period of intervening sleep between sessions can enhance learning. Furthermore, we investigate whether pre-sleep learning is necessary for this improvement. A 200-trial version of the IGT was administered at two sessions separated by wake, sleep or sleep and wake (time-of-day control). Participants were categorized as learners and non-learners based on initial performance in session one. In session one, participants initially preferred the high-frequency reward decks B and D, however, a subset of learners decreased choice from negative expected value ‘bad’ deck B and increased choices towards with a positive expected value ‘good’ decks (decks C and D). The learners who had a period of sleep (sleep and sleep/wake control conditions) between sessions showed significantly larger reduction in choices from deck B and increase in choices from good decks compared to learners that had intervening wake. Our results are the first to show that post-learning sleep can improve performance on a complex decision-making task such as the IGT. These results provide new insights into IGT learning and have important implications for understanding the neural mechanisms of “sleeping on” a decision.

SYNTACTIC AND PROSODIC COMPUTATIONS IN THE RESOLUTION OF RELATIVE CLAUSE ATTACHMENT AMBIGUITY BY ENGLISH-FRENCH LEARNERS

This study investigates the manner in which syntax, prosody, and context interact when second- and fourth-semester college-level English-French learners process relative clause (RC) attachment to either the first noun phrase (NP1) or the second noun phrase (NP2) in complex nominal expressions such asle secrétaire du psychologue qui se promène (au centre ville)“the secretary of the psychologist who takes a walk (downtown).” Learners' interpretations were affected by the length of the RC, specifically its phonological weight. Effects of intonation contour were found only in a subset of learners. In a response time (RT) experiment that manipulated contexts, fourth-semester learners showed a final bias for NP1 attachment in interpretation but an initial RT bias for NP2 attachment. Second-semester learners also produced a NP2 attachment bias in RTs, but no asymmetry in interpretation was found. We argue that the processing of RC attachment by English-French learners requires a task-specific algorithm that implicates autonomous syntactic and prosodic computations and specific interactions among them.

LEARNERS' INTERPRETATIONS OF RECASTS

A number of interaction researchers have claimed that recasts might be ambiguous to learners; that is, instead of perceiving recasts as containing corrective feedback, learners might see them simply as literal or semantic repetitions without any corrective element (Long, in press; Lyster & Ranta, 1997). This study investigates learners' interpretations of recasts in interaction. Videotapes of task-based interactions including recasts and repetitions were shown to advanced English as a second language students (N = 34). Although both groups viewed the teacher's feedback (recasts, repetitions, or other), one group saw video clips that had been edited to remove the learners' nontargetlike utterances that had triggered the feedback, and another group saw the same video clips with the initial nontargetlike utterances included. After each clip, learners in both groups were asked to indicate whether they thought they were hearing a recast, a repetition, or something else. A subset of learners (n = 14) provided verbal reports while they evaluated the clips. Results show that learners who did not overhear initial learner utterances were significantly less successful at distinguishing recasts from repetitions. The verbal protocol data suggest that learners were not looking for nonverbal cues from the speakers. A post hoc analysis suggests that morphosyntactic recasts were less accurately recognized than phonological or lexical recasts in this study. These findings suggest that the contrast between a problematic utterance and a recast contributes to learners' interpretations of recasts as corrective.We are grateful to Bo Ram Suh for her help with data collection and coding and Rebecca Sachs for her help with editing. We would also like to thank Mohammed Louguit from the Center for Applied Linguistics for statistical assistance. We are grateful for the comments made by the anonymous SSLA reviewers who helped us to improve the paper. Despite the assistance of these individuals, any errors remain our own.

Approaches to Biology Teaching and Learning: Learning Styles and the Problem of Instructional Selection—Engaging All Students in Science Courses

Teachers aspire to have all of their students learn. This aspiration of reaching all students spans disciplines, age levels, and all varieties of institutions. Most teachers do so out of a genuine love for their discipline and a desire to share the wonder of their chosen field with others. Science teaching is no different than other disciplines in this respect. However, try as we may in science, the lack of diversity apparent in the statistics of who chooses to pursue scientific disciplines professionally suggests that we still have much to learn about how to reach all students. In their book, Talking About Leaving: Why Undergraduates Leave the Sciences, Elaine Seymour and Nancy Hewitt (1997) provide ample evidence from analysis of previous studies and their own research that two major factors contribute to choices students make about pursuing science majors and their satisfaction with science as a choice of major—classroom climate and faculty pedagogy. These factors underlie many of the reasons ‘‘switchers’’ leave science majors and many of the complaints ‘‘nonswitchers’’ have about their education in science (Seymour, 1997). Competitive class climate, strict grading, overpacked curricula, and the overt ‘‘weed-out’’ attitude of some faculty are cited most often as criticisms and reasons for abandoning a science major. However, Seymour and Hewitt (1994) emphasize that ‘‘switchers’’ and ‘‘nonswitchers’’ are not identifiably different populations of students, in that academic ability is not a reliable predictor of who stays and who leaves. This leads to the conclusion that science classroom environments, instructor teaching styles, and the process of instructional selection is unintentionally causing the loss of able, interested students from the profession of science. If we lose students precisely because they learn differently and think differently than those who currently dominate the profession and teach them, we lose a potential source of future creativity in our discipline. Sheila Tobias (1990), author of They’re Not Dumb, They’re Different, writes that ‘‘not every student who doesn’t do science can’t do science; many simply choose not to.’’ Tobias identifies the selection process of introductory science courses as a driving force against diversifying participation, and thus diversifying intellectual approaches within the profession. Consider the environment that characterizes most science classrooms, particularly in the late 1980s when Sheila Tobias conducted her research in these classrooms. It is usually organized by an individual—faculty or a teacher of grades 6 through 12—who survived, if not thrived, in the fairly traditional pedagogical settings of teacher-centered direct instruction, mostly dominated by lecture-based approaches to teaching. The dominance of lectures and direct instruction, especially at the high school and undergraduate level, in an attempt to transmit the large body of accrued scientific knowledge efficiently, has created a relative monoculture of teaching styles in these settings. Although a variety of strategies have been developed to broaden access for students through more varied instructional strategies (see, e.g., Allen and Tanner, 2003; Tanner et al., 2003), these approaches are not widely used for a variety of reasons. This is not to say that lectures have no place in the pedagogical toolbox of a science instructor, but rather that this tool tends to be overused (Powell, 2003). As such, teaching strategies used in science classrooms have created a situation that we’ll refer to here as Instructional Selection, in which by our very choice of pedagogy, we are constructing environments in which only a subset of learners can succeed. Understanding the variety of learning styles that students bring to a science classroom will not only help some students learn more science, but also help more students learn any science.