Highlights as an Early Predictor of Student Comprehension and Interests

When engaging with a textbook, students are inclined to highlight key content. Although students believe that highlighting and subsequent review of the highlights will further their educational goals, the psychological literature provides little evidence of benefits. Nonetheless, a student’s choice of text for highlighting may serve as a window into her mental state—her level of comprehension, grasp of the key ideas, reading goals, and so on. We explore this hypothesis via an experiment in which 400 participants read three sections from a college-level biology text, briefly reviewed the text, and then took a quiz on the material. During initial reading, participants were able to highlight words, phrases, and sentences, and these highlights were displayed along with the complete text during the subsequent review. Consistent with past research, the amount of highlighted material is unrelated to quiz performance. Nonetheless, highlighting patterns may allow us to infer reader comprehension and interests. Using multiple representations of the highlighting patterns, we built probabilistic models to predict quiz performance and matrix factorization models to predict what content would be highlighted in one passage from highlights in other passages. We find that quiz score prediction accuracy reliably improves with the inclusion of highlighting data (by about 1%–2%), both for held-out students and for held-out student questions (i.e., questions selected randomly for each student), but not for held-out questions. Furthermore, an individual’s highlighting pattern is informative of what she highlights elsewhere. Our long-term goal is to design digital textbooks that serve not only as conduits of information into the reader’s mind but also allow us to draw inferences about the reader at a point where interventions may increase the effectiveness of the material.     

Applications for tracking reading behavior on the Macintosh

Two applications for the Macintosh that permit students to read the sentences in a text in any order also provide a record of reading behavior from which processing time and reading strategies can be determined. The applications differ: READIT! presents the sentences one at a time, whereas SELECT THE TEXT presents the entire passage with a mask, which resembles the moving window technique. Unique to these applications is that students may return to sentences to reread them any number of times and in any order. Because these applications allow students to reexamine parts of the text, the reading that they enable is more similar to normal reading than has been the case with previous methodologies for tracking student reading behavior. The applications are described, and a summary of the major results of the work in which we have used the applications is provided.     

A computerized slot machine simulation to investigate the variables involved in gambling behavior

The present paper describes a computerized slot machine simulation designed to examine many of the potential variables involved in gambling behavior. This program was created in Visual Basic Version 6.0 and is designed to run on any Windows 95 or higher equipped computer. The program allows for experimenter manipulation of probabilities of payoffs, visual display of potential winning symbols, exact sequences of wins and losses, as well as pose run time questions to the subject on prespecified trials. The program records data on a trial-bytrial basis to a text file for easy importation into many data analysis and statistical programs. Conceptual and experimental questions that may be addressed with the described program are also discussed.     

Textual Appropriation in Engineering Master’s Theses: A Preliminary Study

In the thesis literature review, an engineering graduate student is expected to place original research in the context of previous work by other researchers. However, for some students, particularly those for whom English is a second language, the literature review may be a mixture of original writing and verbatim source text appropriated without quotations. Such problematic use of source material leaves students vulnerable to an accusation of plagiarism, which carries severe consequences. Is such textual appropriation common in engineering master’s writing? Furthermore, what, if anything, can be concluded when two texts have been found to have textual material in common? Do existing definitions of plagiarism provide a sufficient framework for determining if an instance of copying is transgressive or not? In a preliminary attempt to answer these questions, text strings from a random sample of 100 engineering master’s theses from the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database were searched for appropriated verbatim source text using the Google search engine. The results suggest that textual borrowing may indeed be a common feature of the master’s engineering literature review, raising questions about the ability of graduate students to synthesize the literature. The study also illustrates the difficulties of making a determination of plagiarism based on simple textual similarity. A context-specific approach is recommended when dealing with any instance of apparent copying.     

Evaluating student achievement with a relational database

Commercial database programs such as dBase and Paradox, although developed originally for business applications, are versatile and powerful tools that can be used for an academic purpose such as evaluating student performance. They can be used to write and store test questions, assemble and print classroom or on-line laboratory tests, and calculate grades, test statistics, and so forth. Databases are flexible, unlike textbook “ancillary” test bank programs that are inextricably bound to the strictly linear format and brief shelf life of specific textbook editions. A prototypical relational database program is described, with which an instructor can produce tests based on generic terms adapted from Boneau’s (1990) study of psychological literacy, as well as on behavioral learning objectives adapted from Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy of educational objectives. As a relational database, the program integrates terms, objectives, questions, tests, and test scores, and avoids unnecessary data duplication and waste of computer storage space.     

Psychometric and Validity Issues in Machine Learning Approaches to Personality Assessment: A Focus on Social Media Text Mining

In the age of big data, substantial research is now moving toward using digital footprints like social media text data to assess personality. Nevertheless, there are concerns and questions regarding the psychometric and validity evidence of such approaches. We seek to address this issue by focusing on social media text data and (i) conducting a review of psychometric validation efforts in social media text mining (SMTM) for personality assessment and discussing additional work that needs to be done; (ii) considering additional validity issues from the standpoint of reference (i.e. ‘ground truth’) and causality (i.e. how personality determines variations in scores derived from SMTM); and (iii) discussing the unique issues of generalizability when validating SMTM for personality assessment across different social media platforms and populations. In doing so, we explicate the key validity and validation issues that need to be considered as a field to advance SMTM for personality assessment, and, more generally, machine learning personality assessment methods. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Semantic processing of unattended text during selective reading: how the eyes see it

Subjects were instructed to read and comprehend a target (attended) passage while eye movements were recorded. A second (unattended) passage was also present, with attended and unattended passages occupying alternating lines of text. Subsequent multiple-choice questions showed acquisition of semantic information from attended and unattended text. However, a detailed examination of eye-fixation records showed that readers occasionally fixated unattended text, indicating the presence of shifts of visual attention to unattended text. When fixations of unattended text were excluded, there was no longer any indication that readers obtained useful semantic information from unattended text.     

‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants’: Recontextualization in Writing from Sources

Despite calls for more research into the writing expertise of senior scientists, the literature reveals surprisingly little about the writing strategies of successful scientist writers. The present paper addresses the gap in the literature by reporting a study that investigated the note-taking strategies of an expert writer, a Chinese professor of biochemistry. Primarily based on interview data, the paper describes the expert’s recontextualization (Linell, Text 18:143–157, 1998) strategies at three levels: ‘accumulating writing materials’ by modifying source texts, composing from ‘collections’ of cut-and-pasted chunks in drafting a review article, and adopting reusable citations in sources as a ‘map’. It is emphasized that through repeatedly revising his paper in light of his rhetorical intentions in a new context of meaning, the expert writer would maximally recontextualize the source-based text segments and citations in the paper, averting transgressive intertextuality (Chandrasoma et al., J Lang Identity Educ 3:171–193, 2004) as a result. The paper ends by highlighting the pedagogical implications of the study for English for Professional Academic Purposes (EPAP).     

Programs of religious/spiritual support in hospitals - five “Whies” and five “Hows”

A contemporary orientation of the hospital experience model must encompass the clients’ religious-spiritual dimension. The objective of this paper is to share a previous experience, highlighting at least five reasons hospitals should invest in this direction, and an equal number of steps required to achieve it. In the first part, the text discourses about five reasons to invest in religious-spiritual support programs: 1. Religious-spiritual wellbeing is related to better health; 2. Religious-spiritual appreciation is a standard for hospital accreditation; 3. To undo religious-spiritual misunderstandings that can affect treatment; 4. Patients demand a religious-spiritual outlook from the institution; and 5. Costs may be reduced with religious-spiritual support. In the second part, the text suggests five steps to implement religious-spiritual support programs: 1. Deep institutional involvement; 2. Formal staff training; 3. Infrastructure and resources; 4. Adjustment of institutional politics; and 5. Agreement with religious-spiritual leaders. The authors hope the information compiled here can inspire hospitals to adopt actions toward optimization of the healing experience.     

Difference threshold for stimulus length under simultaneous and nonsimultaneous viewing conditions

The present study was concerned with Weber’s Law as it is related to the discriminability of the lengths of lines. Experiments were conducted to investigate three questions: (I) Is Weber’s Law equally applicable to simultaneous and nonsimultaneous viewing conditions? (2) Is the relationship between the stimulus sizes and the values ofDLs described more adequately by the function proposed by Weber or a generalized Weber’s Law stated by Miller? and (3) Is Weber’s Law better approximated by proximal or distal size? It was demonstrated that the discriminability of the lengths of lines follows Weber’s Law under the nonsimultaneous viewing condition, but not under the simultaneous viewing condition. Under the nonsimultaneous viewing condition, it was noted that the generalized Weber’s Law as stated by Miller described the relationship between the DL and stimulus size significantly better than the function proposed by Weber. From the results pertaining to the third question, it was not possible to determine whether the proximal or the distal size follows Weber’s Law more closely.     

词切分对日-汉和汉-日双语者日语阅读影响的眼动研究*

选取24名日-汉和24名汉-日双语者,采用EyeLink2000眼动仪,探讨日-汉和汉-日双语者阅读有词切分线索的日语文本的眼动特征,研究词切分线索对日-汉和汉-日双语者日语句子阅读的影响。研究包括两个实验。实验一采用三种词切分方式：正常条件、词间空格条件和非词条件。为了确保三种词切分条件下句子的空间分布一致,实验二采用灰条标记作为词或非词的边界。结果表明,日语文本中加入词间空格促进汉-日双语者日语文本的阅读。     

Conceiving existence: on Hume’s argument against the distinctness of the idea of existence

There are two questions concerning Hume’s doctrine of existence which have not yet found any persuasive answer: (a) What is his argument in favour of the thesis that there is no distinct idea of existence? (b) What are the semantic and metaphysical consequences of this thesis within his philosophical framework? This paper mainly aims to answer question (a). In order to do that, I will first explain why some reconstructions suggested by interpreters such as Cummins and Bricke are problematic. One of them relies on exegetically dubious presumptions; the other departs too much from Hume’s text. Then, I will offer my own reconstruction that makes maximal use of some principles which are very familiar to Hume’s readers, including the principle stating the similarity between perceptions and their images. After that, I will discuss a potential objection to my reconstruction and make a brief remark on question (b), arguing that, as opposed to numerous interpreters’ concerns, Hume’s thesis that there is no distinct idea of existence does not by itself prevent him from being able to conceive negative existential propositions.     

Comparative Evaluations

My response to Engelmann (2008) will be based on several questions that will allow both its author and the general reader to determine whether the assumptions I make as an interpreter of this complex paper are congruent or incongruent with their own interpretations of the text. The interpretations by the writer, by any commentator, and the diverse interpretations of a general audience together with my own interpretations will, I hope, facilitate some fruitful ‘comparative evaluations.’ I articulate my inferences of the most dense part of the paper, namely the ‘concrete immediate Consciousness and the developing absent outside.’ My hope is to address Engelmann’s question: “Am I in a better disposition to judge modern theories of consciousness?” The last section of my response spells out more personal comments to my all too brief and single encounter with Arno Engelmann. It is there that Arno Engelmann’s fascinating statement “I am a citizen of the world” is addressed through its counterparts in my life.     

The influence of a reading task on children’s eye movements during reading

In the present study, second graders (n= 23), fourth graders (n= 16), sixth graders (n= 24) and adults (n= 21) read texts adopted from children’s science textbooks either with the task to answer a “why” question presented as the title of the text or for comprehension when their eye movements were recorded. Immediately after reading, readers answered a text memory and an integration question. Second graders showed an effect of questions as increased processing during first-pass reading, whereas older readers showed the effect in later look-backs. For adult readers, questions also facilitated first-pass reading. Text memory or integration question-answering was not influenced by the reading task. The results indicate that questions increase the standards of coherence for text information and that already young readers do modify their reading behaviour according to task demands.     

A computer-based programmable tachistoscope for nonprogrammers

A set of programs for on-line control of reaction time experiments is described. These programs allow a wide range of experiments to be coded in a simple form that eliminates the need for any knowledge of programming.     

Reading paradigms: From lab to cyberspace?

Computer-controlled display procedures useful for doing reading research are discussed. The procedures used in the present research vary the text unit size (from single words to half-sentences), the amount of context available (no context and varying amounts of prior text), text movement (centered words or successive left-to-right placement), and use of text highlighting (present, absent). The data suggest links between the display attributes and the subjects’ coding strategies during reading of mathematical word problems. Display attributes can influence the time course of processing, the subjectively coded unit size, and the nature of linguistic processing. The data also have implications for display attributes that may make reading in cyberspace more user friendly for both novice and expert readers.     

Reinforcement learning in the brain

A wealth of research focuses on the decision-making processes that animals and humans employ when selecting actions in the face of reward and punishment. Initially such work stemmed from psychological investigations of conditioned behavior, and explanations of these in terms of computational models. Increasingly, analysis at the computational level has drawn on ideas from reinforcement learning, which provide a normative framework within which decision-making can be analyzed. More recently, the fruits of these extensive lines of research have made contact with investigations into the neural basis of decision making. Converging evidence now links reinforcement learning to specific neural substrates, assigning them precise computational roles. Specifically, electrophysiological recordings in behaving animals and functional imaging of human decision-making have revealed in the brain the existence of a key reinforcement learning signal, the temporal difference reward prediction error. Here, we first introduce the formal reinforcement learning framework. We then review the multiple lines of evidence linking reinforcement learning to the function of dopaminergic neurons in the mammalian midbrain and to more recent data from human imaging experiments. We further extend the discussion to aspects of learning not associated with phasic dopamine signals, such as learning of goal-directed responding that may not be dopamine-dependent, and learning about the vigor (or rate) with which actions should be performed that has been linked to tonic aspects of dopaminergic signaling. We end with a brief discussion of some of the limitations of the reinforcement learning framework, highlighting questions for future research.     

Sport,Craft Or Technique? The Case of competitive aeromodelling

This essay takes competitive aeromodelling as a test case for certain contentious issues in philosophy of sport. More specifically, I look at the challenge it presents to prevailing ideas of what properly counts as ‘sport’, which in turn have their source in other, more basic or deep-rooted preconceptions. Among them are a range of ‘common-sense’ beliefs about the properly (naturally) human, the mind/body relationship, the role (if any) of scientific-technological innovation as a means of performance enhancement, and – most fundamentally – the distinction between nature and culture in so far as it bears on these questions. My approach is broadly deconstructionist in taking them as genuine questions and in pressing hard on those unresolved problems thrown up by any attempt to secure a definition of ‘sport’ that would pre-emptively exclude any kind of advanced technological adjunct (or Derridean ‘supplement’) that seemed to lead outside and beyond the realm of ‘natural’ human powers, capacities and skills. On the other hand I acknowledge – as against ‘strong’-conventionalist (e.g. Wittgensteinian) approaches – that the category ‘sport’ cannot be relativised or culturally contextualised to the point where it loses all determinate sense or normative significance. My main purpose here is to assess various claims and counter-claims by running them past a fairly detailed account of competitive aeromodelling – or one particular branch thereof – and the kinds of difficulty it creates not only for conservative, essentialist or naturalising definitions but also for that other reactive trend towards all-out cultural-relativist or social-constructivist doctrines. In addition, though far from incidentally, I want to make the case that this is indeed a sport on any reasonable, fair, or adequately informed reckoning and that its recognition as such might help to clarify certain obscure corners of current philosophical thinking about these issues.