USING MICROSOFT OFFICE EXCEL® 2007 TO CONDUCT GENERALIZED MATCHING ANALYSES

PubMed Central

Reed, Derek D

2009-01-01

The generalized matching equation is a robust and empirically supported means of analyzing relations between reinforcement and behavior. Unfortunately, no simple task analysis is available to behavior analysts interested in using the matching equation to evaluate data in clinical or applied settings. This technical article presents a task analysis for the use of Microsoft Excel to analyze and plot the generalized matching equation. Using a data-based case example and a step-by-step guide for completing the analysis, these instructions are intended to promote the use of quantitative analyses by researchers with little to no experience in quantitative analyses or the matching law. PMID:20514196

Using Microsoft Office Excel 2007 to conduct generalized matching analyses.

PubMed

Reed, Derek D

2009-01-01

The generalized matching equation is a robust and empirically supported means of analyzing relations between reinforcement and behavior. Unfortunately, no simple task analysis is available to behavior analysts interested in using the matching equation to evaluate data in clinical or applied settings. This technical article presents a task analysis for the use of Microsoft Excel to analyze and plot the generalized matching equation. Using a data-based case example and a step-by-step guide for completing the analysis, these instructions are intended to promote the use of quantitative analyses by researchers with little to no experience in quantitative analyses or the matching law.

Creating Task-Centered Instruction for Web-Based Instruction: Obstacles and Solutions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gardner, Joel; Jeon, Tae

2010-01-01

Merrill proposes First Principles of Instruction, including a problem- or task-centered strategy for designing instruction. However, when the tasks or problems are ill-defined or complex, task-centered instruction can be difficult to design. We describe an online task-centered training at a land-grant university designed to train employees to use…

Investigating Predictors of Spelling Ability for Adults with Low Literacy Skills

PubMed Central

Talwar, Amani; Cote, Nicole Gilbert; Binder, Katherine S.

2014-01-01

This study examined whether the spelling abilities of adults with low literacy skills could be predicted by their phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness. Sixty Adult Basic Education (ABE) students completed several literacy tasks. It was predicted that scores on phonological and orthographic tasks would explain variance in spelling scores, whereas scores on morphological tasks may not. Scores on all phonological tasks and on one orthographic task emerged as significant predictors of spelling scores. Additionally, error analyses revealed a limited influence of morphological knowledge in spelling attempts. Implications for ABE instruction are discussed. PMID:25364644

Baking together-the coordination of actions in activities involving people with dementia.

PubMed

Majlesi, Ali Reza; Ekström, Anna

2016-08-01

This study explores interaction and collaboration between people with dementia and their spouses in relation to the performance of household chores with the focus on instruction as an interactional context to engage the person with dementia in collaboration to accomplish joint activities. Dementia is generally associated with pathological changes in people's cognitive functions such as diminishing memory functions, communicative abilities and also diminishing abilities to take initiative as well as to plan and execute tasks. Using video recordings of everyday naturally occurring activities, we analyze the sequential organization of actions (see Schegloff, 2007) oriented toward the accomplishment of a joint multi-task activity of baking. The analysis shows the specific ways of collaboration through instructional activities in which the person with dementia exhibits his competence and skills in accomplishing the given tasks through negotiating the instructions with his partner and carrying out instructed actions. Although the driving force of the collaboration seems to be a series of directive sequences only initiated by the partner throughout the baking activity, our analyses highlight how the person with dementia can actively use the material environment-including collaborating partners-to compensate for challenges and difficulties encountered in achieving everyday tasks. The sequential organization of instructions and instructed actions are in this sense argued to provide an interactional environment wherein the person with dementia can make contributions to the joint activity in an efficient way. While a collaborator has been described as necessary for a person with dementia to be able to partake in activities, this study shows that people with dementia are not only guided by their collaborators in joint activities but they can also actively use their collaborators in intricate compensatory ways. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

There are limits to the effects of task instructions: Making the automatic effects of task instructions context-specific takes practice.

PubMed

Braem, Senne; Liefooghe, Baptist; De Houwer, Jan; Brass, Marcel; Abrahamse, Elger L

2017-03-01

Unlike other animals, humans have the unique ability to share and use verbal instructions to prepare for upcoming tasks. Recent research showed that instructions are sufficient for the automatic, reflex-like activation of responses. However, systematic studies into the limits of these automatic effects of task instructions remain relatively scarce. In this study, the authors set out to investigate whether this instruction-based automatic activation of responses can be context-dependent. Specifically, participants performed a task of which the stimulus-response rules and context (location on the screen) could either coincide or not with those of an instructed to-be-performed task (whose instructions changed every run). In 2 experiments, the authors showed that the instructed task rules had an automatic impact on performance-performance was slowed down when the merely instructed task rules did not coincide, but, importantly, this effect was not context-dependent. Interestingly, a third and fourth experiment suggests that context dependency can actually be observed, but only when practicing the task in its appropriate context for over 60 trials or after a sufficient amount of practice on a fixed context (the context was the same for all instructed tasks). Together, these findings seem to suggest that instructions can establish stimulus-response representations that have a reflexive impact on behavior but are insensitive to the context in which the task is known to be valid. Instead, context-specific task representations seem to require practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Characterization of mathematics instructional practises for prospective elementary teachers with varying levels of self-efficacy in classroom management and mathematics teaching

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Carrie W.; Walkowiak, Temple A.; Nietfeld, John L.

2017-03-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between prospective teachers' (PTs) instructional practises and their efficacy beliefs in classroom management and mathematics teaching. A sequential, explanatory mixed-methods design was employed. Results from efficacy surveys, implemented with 54 PTs were linked to a sample of teachers' instructional practises during the qualitative phase. In this phase, video-recorded lessons were analysed based on tasks, representations, discourse, and classroom management. Findings indicate that PTs with higher levels of mathematics teaching efficacy taught lessons characterised by tasks of higher cognitive demand, extended student explanations, student-to-student discourse, and explicit connections between representations. Classroom management efficacy seems to bear influence on the utilised grouping structures. These findings support explicit attention to PTs' mathematics teaching and classroom management efficacy throughout teacher preparation and a need for formative feedback to inform development of beliefs about teaching practises.

Instructional influences on analogue functional analysis outcomes.

PubMed Central

Northup, John; Kodak, Tiffany; Grow, Laura; Lee, Jennifer; Coyne, Amanda

2004-01-01

Analogue assessments were conducted with a common contingency (escape from tasks) that varied only by three different instructions describing the contingency. In one condition, the contingency was described as "taking a break," in another condition it was described as "time-out," and no description of the contingency was provided in a third condition. The participant was a typically developing 5-year-old child with a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Rates of inappropriate behavior varied substantially across the three conditions as an apparent effect of the prior instructions. Some implications for conducting functional analyses with verbal children are discussed. PMID:15669409

The impact of instructional context on classroom on-task behavior: a matched comparison of children with ADHD and non-ADHD classmates.

PubMed

Imeraj, Lindita; Antrop, Inge; Sonuga-Barke, Edmund; Deboutte, Dirk; Deschepper, Ellen; Bal, Sarah; Roeyers, Herbert

2013-08-01

Classroom inattentiveness is an important reason for clinical referral of children with ADHD and a strong predictor of their educational achievement. This study investigates classroom on-task behavior of Flemish children with ADHD withdrawn from medication as a function of instructional context. Thirty-one pairs of children (one with ADHD and one age- and sex-matched control; 25 boys and 6 girls 6 to 12years of age) were observed in their classroom environment during two consecutive school days. On-task behavior (time on-task and on-task span) of ADHD and non-ADHD individuals was compared in different class contexts (i.e., different class structures and academic content types). Individualized teacher supervision was simultaneously assessed. Generalized estimation equation analyses showed that children with ADHD were significantly less on-task than controls during individual work and whole class group teaching, but not during small group work, and had significantly shorter on-task span during academic tasks (mathematics, language, and sciences) and instructional transitions between tasks, but not during music and arts. These effects persisted even after controlling for the higher levels of teacher supervision observed for ADHD pupils (7%) across all contexts (vs. 4% in controls). Findings suggest that despite receiving more overall teacher supervision, children with ADHD displayed lower levels of on-task behavior in settings that place high self-regulatory, information processing, and motivational demands on them. This finding may have initial implications for classroom interventions in this population. Copyright © 2013 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Do resident's leadership skills relate to ratings of technical skill?

PubMed

Gannon, Samantha J; Law, Katherine E; Ray, Rebecca D; Nathwani, Jay N; DiMarco, Shannon M; D'Angelo, Anne-Lise D; Pugh, Carla M

2016-12-01

This study sought to compare general surgery research residents' survey information regarding self-efficacy ratings to their observed performance during a simulated small bowel repair. Their observed performance ratings were based on their leadership skills in directing their assistant. Participants were given 15 min to perform a bowel repair using bovine intestines with standardized injuries. Operative assistants were assigned to help assist with the repair. Before the procedure, participants were asked to rate their expected skills decay, task difficulty, and confidence in addressing the small bowel injury. Interactions were coded to identify the number of instructions given by the participants to the assistant during the repair. Statistical analyses assessed the relationship between the number of directional instructions and participants' perceptions self-efficacy measures. Directional instructions were defined as any dialog by the participant who guided the assistant to perform an action. Thirty-six residents (58.3% female) participated in the study. Participants who rated lower levels of decay in their intraoperative decision-making and small bowel repair skills were noted to use their assistant more by giving more instructions. Similarly, a higher number of instructions correlated with lower perceived difficulty in selecting the correct suture, suture pattern, and completing the entire surgical task. General surgery research residents' intraoperative leadership skills showed significant correlations to their perceptions of skill decay and task difficulty during a bowel repair. Evaluating resident's directional instructions may provide an additional individualized intraoperative assessment metric. Further evaluation relating to operative performance outcomes is warranted. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Relationship between Instructional Variables and Problem Behavior: A Review.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Munk, Dennis D.; Repp, Alan C.

1994-01-01

This paper reviews studies that have used instructional variables as nonaversive interventions for problem behaviors of individuals with severe disabilities. These include student choice of task, task variation, pace of instruction, interspersal of high probability tasks, partial versus whole task training, decreasing task difficulty, and a…

Automatic Retrieval of Newly Instructed Cue-Task Associations Seen in Task-Conflict Effects in the First Trial after Cue-Task Instructions.

PubMed

Meiran, Nachshon; Pereg, Maayan

2017-01-01

Novel stimulus-response associations are retrieved automatically even without prior practice. Is this true for novel cue-task associations? The experiment involved miniblocks comprising three phases and task switching. In the INSTRUCTION phase, two new stimuli (or familiar cues) were arbitrarily assigned as cues for up-down/right-left tasks performed on placeholder locations. In the UNIVALENT phase, there was no task cue since placeholder's location afforded one task but the placeholders were the stimuli that we assigned as task cues for the following BIVALENT phase (involving target locations affording both tasks). Thus, participants held the novel cue-task associations in memory while executing the UNIVALENT phase. Results show poorer performance in the first univalent trial when the placeholder was associated with the opposite task (incompatible) than when it was compatible, an effect that was numerically larger with newly instructed cues than with familiar cues. These results indicate automatic retrieval of newly instructed cue-task associations.

Let it go: the flexible engagement and disengagement of monitoring processes in a non-focal prospective memory task.

PubMed

Cohen, Anna-Lisa; Gordon, Aliza; Jaudas, Alexander; Hefer, Carmen; Dreisbach, Gesine

2017-03-01

Remembering to perform a delayed intention is referred to as prospective memory (PM). In two studies, participants performed an Eriksen flanker task with an embedded PM task (they had to remember to press F1 if a pre-specified cue appeared). In study 1, participants performed a flanker task with either a concurrent PM task or a delayed PM task (instructed to carry out the intention in a later different task). In the delayed PM condition, the PM cues appeared unexpectedly early and we examined whether attention would be captured by the PM cue even though they were not relevant. Results revealed ongoing task costs solely in the concurrent PM condition but no significant task costs in the delayed PM condition showing that attention was not captured by the PM cue when it appeared in an irrelevant context. In study 2, we compared a concurrent PM condition (exactly as in Study 1) to a PM forget condition in which participants were told at a certain point during the flanker task that they no longer had to perform the PM task. Analyses revealed that participants were able to switch off attending to PM cues when instructed to forget the PM task. Results from both studies demonstrate the flexibility of monitoring as evidenced by the presence versus absence of costs in the ongoing flanker task implying that selective attention, like a lens, can be adjusted to attend or ignore, depending on intention relevance.

Comparing Task-Based Instruction and Traditional Instruction on Task Engagement and Vocabulary Development in Secondary Language Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Halici Page, Merve; Mede, Enisa

2018-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the impact of task-based instruction (TBI) and traditional instruction (TI) on the motivation and vocabulary development in secondary language education. The focus of the study was to also find out the perceptions of teachers about implementing these two instructional methods in their…

Making sense of the noise: Replication difficulties of Correll's (2008) modulation of 1/f noise in a racial bias task.

PubMed

Madurski, Christine; LeBel, Etienne P

2015-08-01

Correll (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 48-59, 2008; Study 2) found that instructions to use or avoid race information decreased the emission of 1/f noise in a weapon identification task (WIT). These results suggested that 1/f noise in racial bias tasks reflected an effortful deliberative process, providing new insights regarding the mechanisms underlying implicit racial biases. Given the potential theoretical and applied importance of understanding the psychological processes underlying implicit racial biases - and in light of the growing demand for independent direct replications of findings to ensure the cumulative nature of our science - we attempted to replicate Correll's finding in two high-powered studies. Despite considerable effort to closely duplicate all procedural and methodological details of the original study (i.e., same cover story, experimental manipulation, implicit measure task, original stimuli, task instructions, sampling frame, population, and statistical analyses), both replication attempts were unsuccessful in replicating the original finding challenging the theoretical account that 1/f noise in racial bias tasks reflects a deliberative process. However, the emission of 1/f noise did consistently emerge across samples in each of our conditions. Hence, future research is needed to clarify the psychological significance of 1/f noise in racial bias tasks.

Task Prioritization in Dual-Tasking: Instructions versus Preferences

PubMed Central

Jansen, Reinier J.; van Egmond, René; de Ridder, Huib

2016-01-01

The role of task prioritization in performance tradeoffs during multi-tasking has received widespread attention. However, little is known on whether people have preferences regarding tasks, and if so, whether these preferences conflict with priority instructions. Three experiments were conducted with a high-speed driving game and an auditory memory task. In Experiment 1, participants did not receive priority instructions. Participants performed different sequences of single-task and dual-task conditions. Task performance was evaluated according to participants’ retrospective accounts on preferences. These preferences were reformulated as priority instructions in Experiments 2 and 3. The results showed that people differ in their preferences regarding task prioritization in an experimental setting, which can be overruled by priority instructions, but only after increased dual-task exposure. Additional measures of mental effort showed that performance tradeoffs had an impact on mental effort. The interpretation of these findings was used to explore an extension of Threaded Cognition Theory with Hockey’s Compensatory Control Model. PMID:27391779

Cognitive Complexity of Mathematics Instructional Tasks in a Taiwanese Classroom: An Examination of Task Sources

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hsu, Hui-Yu; Silver, Edward A.

2014-01-01

We examined geometric calculation with number tasks used within a unit of geometry instruction in a Taiwanese classroom, identifying the source of each task used in classroom instruction and analyzing the cognitive complexity of each task with respect to 2 distinct features: diagram complexity and problem-solving complexity. We found that…

Procedural instructions, principles, and examples: how to structure instructions for procedural tasks to enhance performance, learning, and transfer.

PubMed

Eiriksdottir, Elsa; Catrambone, Richard

2011-12-01

The goal of this article is to investigate how instructions can be constructed to enhance performance and learning of procedural tasks. Important determinants of the effectiveness of instructions are type of instructions (procedural information, principles, and examples) and pedagogical goal (initial performance, learning, and transfer). Procedural instructions describe how to complete tasks in a stepwise manner, principles describe rules governing the tasks, and examples demonstrate how instances of the task are carried out. The authors review the research literature associated with each type of instruction to identify factors determining effectiveness for different pedagogical goals. The results suggest a trade-off between usability and learnability. Specific instructions help initial performance, whereas more general instructions, requiring problem solving, help learning and transfer. Learning from instructions takes cognitive effort, and research suggests that learners typically opt for low effort. However, it is possible to meet both goals of good initial performance and learning with methods such as fading and by combining different types of instructions. How instructions are constructed influences their effectiveness for the goals of good initial performance, learning, and transfer, and it is therefore important for researchers and practitioners alike to define the pedagogical goal of instructions. If the goal is good initial performance, then instructions should highly resemble the task at hand (e.g., in the form of detailed procedural instructions and examples), but if the goal is good learning and transfer, then instructions should be more abstract, inducing learners to expend the necessary cognitive effort for learning.

The effect of instructions on postural-suprapostural interactions in three working memory tasks.

PubMed

Burcal, Christopher J; Drabik, Evan C; Wikstrom, Erik A

2014-06-01

Examining postural control while simultaneously performing a cognitive, or suprapostural task, has shown a fairly consistent trend of improving postural control in young healthy adults and provides insight into postural control mechanisms used in everyday life. However, the role of attention driven by explicit verbal instructions while dual-tasking is less understood. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation is to determine the effects of explicit verbal instructions on the postural-suprapostural interactions among various domains of working memory. A total of 22 healthy young adults with a heterogeneous history of ankle sprains volunteered to participate (age: 22.2±5.1 years; n=10 history of ankle sprains, n=12 no history). Participants were asked to perform single-limb balance trials while performing three suprapostural tasks: backwards counting, random number generation, and the manikin test. In addition, each suprapostural task was completed under three conditions of instruction: no instructions, focus on the postural control task, focus on the suprapostural task. The results indicate a significant effect of instructions on postural control outcomes, with postural performance improving in the presence of instructions across all three cognitive tasks which each stress different aspects of working memory. Further, postural-suprapostural interactions appear to be related to the direction or focus of an individual's attention as instructions to focus on the suprapostural task resulted in the greatest postural control improvements.Thus, attention driven by explicit verbal instructions influence postural-suprapostural interactions as measured by a temporal-spatial postural control outcome, time-to-boundary, regardless of the suprapostural task performed. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Trading off switch costs and stimulus availability benefits: An investigation of voluntary task-switching behavior in a predictable dynamic multitasking environment.

PubMed

Mittelstädt, Victor; Miller, Jeff; Kiesel, Andrea

2018-03-09

In the present study, we introduce a novel, self-organized task-switching paradigm that can be used to study more directly the determinants of switching. Instead of instructing participants to randomly switch between tasks, as in the classic voluntary task-switching paradigm (Arrington & Logan, 2004), we instructed participants to optimize their task performance in a voluntary task-switching environment in which the stimulus associated with the previously selected task appeared in each trial after a delay. Importantly, the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) increased further with each additional repetition of this task, whereas the stimulus needed for a task switch was always immediately available. We conducted two experiments with different SOA increments (i.e., Exp. 1a = 50 ms, Exp. 1b = 33 ms) to see whether this procedure would induce switching behavior, and we explored how people trade off switch costs against the increasing availability of the stimulus needed for a task repetition. We observed that participants adapted their behavior to the different task environments (i.e., SOA increments) and that participants switched tasks when the SOA in task switches approximately matched the switch costs. Moreover, correlational analyses indicated relations between individual switch costs and individual switch rates across participants. Together, these results demonstrate that participants were sensitive to the increased availability of switch stimuli in deciding whether to switch or to repeat, which in turn demonstrates flexible adaptive task selection behavior. We suggest that performance limitations in task switching interact with the task environment to influence switching behavior.

A comparison of general and specific instructions to promote task engagement and completion by a young man with Asperger syndrome.

PubMed

Bouxsein, Kelly J; Tiger, Jeffrey H; Fisher, Wayne W

2008-01-01

Previous research has suggested that the topography of instructions (general vs. specific) may influence the likelihood that young children comply with instructions. The purpose of the current study was to compare the rates of task completion of a young man diagnosed with Asperger syndrome when provided with general and specific instructions pertaining to the task. The results showed that specific instructions occasioned higher levels of task completion, even when no differential reinforcement contingencies were in place.

Industrial Arts Instructional Tasks/Competencies for Energy and Power. Competency-Based Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

George Mason Univ., Fairfax, VA.

This instructional task/competency package is designed to help teachers and administrators in developing competency-based instructional materials for an energy and power course. Part 1 contains a description of the industrial arts program and a course description, instructional task/competency list, and content outline for energy and power. The…

Design of Computer-aided Instruction for Radiology Interpretation: The Role of Cognitive Task Analysis

PubMed Central

Pusic, Martin V.; LeBlanc, Vicki; Patel, Vimla L.

2001-01-01

Traditional task analysis for instructional design has emphasized the importance of precisely defining behavioral educational objectives and working back to select objective-appropriate instructional strategies. However, this approach may miss effective strategies. Cognitive task analysis, on the other hand, breaks a process down into its component knowledge representations. Selection of instructional strategies based on all such representations in a domain is likely to lead to optimal instructional design. In this demonstration, using the interpretation of cervical spine x-rays as an educational example, we show how a detailed cognitive task analysis can guide the development of computer-aided instruction.

The role of local theories: teacher knowledge and its impact on engaging students with challenging tasks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choppin, Jeffrey

2011-03-01

This study explores the extent to which a teacher elicited students' mathematical reasoning through the use of challenging tasks and the role her knowledge played in doing so. I characterised the teacher's knowledge in terms of a local theory of instruction, a form of pedagogical content knowledge that involves an empirically tested set of conjectures situated within a mathematical domain. Video data were collected and analysed and used to stimulate the teacher's reflection on her enactments of an instructional sequence. The teacher, chosen for how she consistently elicited student reasoning, showed evidence of possessing a local theory in that she articulated the ways student thinking developed over time, the processes by which that thinking developed, and the resources that facilitated the development of student thinking. Her knowledge informed how she revised and enacted challenging tasks in ways that elicited and refined student thinking around integer addition and subtraction. Furthermore, her knowledge and practices emphasised the progressive formalisation of students' ideas as a key learning process. A key implication of this study is that teachers are able to develop robust knowledge from enacting challenging tasks, knowledge that organises how they elicit and refine student reasoning from those tasks.

Process Writing and Communicative-Task-Based Instruction: Many Common Features, but More Common Limitations?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bruton, Anthony

2005-01-01

Process writing and communicative-task-based instruction both assume productive tasks that prompt self-expression to motivate students and as the principal engine for developing L2 proficiency in the language classroom. Besides this, process writing and communicative-task-based instruction have much else in common, despite some obvious…

Report of the Task Force on Continuing Education and Non-Credit Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ernest, Richard J.; And Others

The Task Force on Continuing Education and Non-Credit Instruction was appointed to develop specific strategies for expanding lifelong learning and non-credit instruction in the Virginia community colleges. The task force reviewed a report on the state funding of non-credit instruction; wrote to the community college coordinating offices in 17…

Effect of Task-Centered Instructional Programs on Hypertensives' Ability to Achieve and Maintain Reduced Dietary Sodium Intake.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mann, Karen V.; Sullivan, Patricia L.

This study sought to determine the effectiveness of systematically designed instructional programs in helping adult hypertensives to achieve and maintain dietary sodium intake. Sixty-six subjects were randomly allocated to one of three groups: task-centered instruction; task-centered instruction plus goal-setting and self-monitoring; or control.…

The Workplace Literacy System Project (WLS). Final Performance Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Poulton, Bruce R.

The Workplace Literacy System Project (WLS) prepared interactive CD-ROM discs containing about 50 hours of instruction and drill in basic skills presented within the context of the textile/apparel manufacturing industry. The project was conducted at a Sara Lee knit products plant in North Carolina. During the project, literacy task analyses were…

Dimensions of complexity in learning from interactive instruction. [for robotic systems deployed in space

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Huffman, Scott B.; Laird, John E.

1992-01-01

Robot systems deployed in space must exhibit flexibility. In particular, an intelligent robotic agent should not have to be reprogrammed for each of the various tasks it may face during the course of its lifetime. However, pre-programming knowledge for all of the possible tasks that may be needed is extremely difficult. Therefore, a powerful notion is that of an instructible agent, one which is able to receive task-level instructions and advice from a human advisor. An agent must do more than simply memorize the instructions it is given (this would amount to programming). Rather, after mapping instructions into task constructs that it can reason with, it must determine each instruction's proper scope of applicability. In this paper, we will examine the characteristics of instruction, and the characteristics of agents, that affect learning from instruction. We find that in addition to a myriad of linguistic concerns, both the situatedness of the instructions (their placement within the ongoing execution of tasks) and the prior domain knowledge of the agent have an impact on what can be learned.

Can verbal instruction enhance the recall of an everyday task and promote error-monitoring in people with dementia of the Alzheimer-type?

PubMed

Balouch, Sara; Rusted, Jennifer M

2017-03-01

People with dementia of the Alzheimer-type (DAT) have difficulties with performing everyday tasks, and error awareness is poor. Here we investigate whether recall of actions and error monitoring in everyday task performance improved when they instructed another person on how to make tea. In this situation, both visual and motor cues are present, and attention is sustained by the requirement to keep instructing. The data were drawn from a longitudinal study recording performance in four participants with DAT, filmed regularly for five years in their own homes, completing three tea-making conditions: performed-recall (they made tea themselves); instructed-recall (they instructed the experimenter on how to make tea); and verbal-recall (they described how to make tea). Accomplishment scores (percentage of task they correctly recalled), errors and error-monitoring were coded. Task accomplishment was comparable in the performed-recall and instructed-recall conditions, but both were significantly better than task accomplishment in the verbal-recall condition. Third person instruction did not improve error-monitoring. This study has implications for everyday task rehabilitation for people with DAT.

Designing for Teaching and Learning in an Open World: Task Supported Open Architecture Language Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Derderian, Ani

2017-01-01

Concepts about tasks have been considered as the major part of analysis in different teaching approaches. Instructors are being more interested in the use of task-based instruction in foreign and second language teaching. Task-based instruction and teaching strategies are implemented by emphasizing meaning. The purpose of this paper is to…

Designing Preclinical Instruction for Psychomotor Skills (II)--Instructional Engineering: Task Analysis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knight, G. William; And Others

1994-01-01

The first step in engineering the instruction of dental psychomotor skills, task analysis, is explained. A chart details the procedural, cognitive, desired-criteria, and desired-performance analysis of a single task, occlusal preparation for amalgam restoration with carious lesion. (MSE)

Brain-computer interface control along instructed paths

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sadtler, P. T.; Ryu, S. I.; Tyler-Kabara, E. C.; Yu, B. M.; Batista, A. P.

2015-02-01

Objective. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are being developed to assist paralyzed people and amputees by translating neural activity into movements of a computer cursor or prosthetic limb. Here we introduce a novel BCI task paradigm, intended to help accelerate improvements to BCI systems. Through this task, we can push the performance limits of BCI systems, we can quantify more accurately how well a BCI system captures the user’s intent, and we can increase the richness of the BCI movement repertoire. Approach. We have implemented an instructed path task, wherein the user must drive a cursor along a visible path. The instructed path task provides a versatile framework to increase the difficulty of the task and thereby push the limits of performance. Relative to traditional point-to-point tasks, the instructed path task allows more thorough analysis of decoding performance and greater richness of movement kinematics. Main results. We demonstrate that monkeys are able to perform the instructed path task in a closed-loop BCI setting. We further investigate how the performance under BCI control compares to native arm control, whether users can decrease their movement variability in the face of a more demanding task, and how the kinematic richness is enhanced in this task. Significance. The use of the instructed path task has the potential to accelerate the development of BCI systems and their clinical translation.

Defining the "D" in ISD. Part 1: Task-General Instructional Methods.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clark, Ruth Colvin

1986-01-01

The first of two articles designed to provide guidelines for the instructional development phase of instructional systems development focuses on general instructional methods supporting all instructional tasks. Teaching methods that support selective attention, processing in working memory, and connecting in long-term memory are described and…

Instructable autonomous agents. Ph.D. Thesis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Huffman, Scott Bradley

1994-01-01

In contrast to current intelligent systems, which must be laboriously programmed for each task they are meant to perform, instructable agents can be taught new tasks and associated knowledge. This thesis presents a general theory of learning from tutorial instruction and its use to produce an instructable agent. Tutorial instruction is a particularly powerful form of instruction, because it allows the instructor to communicate whatever kind of knowledge a student needs at whatever point it is needed. To exploit this broad flexibility, however, a tutorable agent must support a full range of interaction with its instructor to learn a full range of knowledge. Thus, unlike most machine learning tasks, which target deep learning of a single kind of knowledge from a single kind of input, tutorability requires a breadth of learning from a broad range of instructional interactions. The theory of learning from tutorial instruction presented here has two parts. First, a computational model of an intelligent agent, the problem space computational model, indicates the types of knowledge that determine an agent's performance, and thus, that should be acquirable via instruction. Second, a learning technique, called situated explanation specifies how the agent learns general knowledge from instruction. The theory is embodied by an implemented agent, Instructo-Soar, built within the Soar architecture. Instructo-Soar is able to learn hierarchies of completely new tasks, to extend task knowledge to apply in new situations, and in fact to acquire every type of knowledge it uses during task performance - control knowledge, knowledge of operators' effects, state inferences, etc. - from interactive natural language instructions. This variety of learning occurs by applying the situated explanation technique to a variety of instructional interactions involving a variety of types of instructions (commands, statements, conditionals, etc.). By taking seriously the requirements of flexible tutorial instruction, Instructo-Soar demonstrates a breadth of interaction and learning capabilities that goes beyond previous instructable systems, such as learning apprentice systems. Instructo-Soar's techniques could form the basis for future 'instructable technologies' that come equipped with basic capabilities, and can be taught by novice users to perform any number of desired tasks.

Manpower Needs in Environmental Management. Research Report of a Graduate Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hillison, John H.; Warmbrod, J. Robert

This report summarizes a study designed to assess current and future manpower needs in wastewater treatment, water treatment, and air pollution control, as well as perform task analyses for the purpose of developing courses of study and instructional materials. Data were collected by means of interviews for all 10 air pollution control areas in…

The nature of instructional effects in color constancy.

PubMed

Radonjić, Ana; Brainard, David H

2016-06-01

The instructions subjects receive can have a large effect on experimentally measured color constancy, but the nature of these effects and how their existence should inform our understanding of color perception remains unclear. We used a factorial design to measure how instructional effects on constancy vary with experimental task and stimulus set. In each of 2 experiments, we employed both a classic adjustment-based asymmetric matching task and a novel color selection task. Four groups of naive subjects were instructed to make adjustments/selections based on (a) color (neutral instructions); (b) the light reaching the eye (physical spectrum instructions); (c) the actual surface reflectance of an object (objective reflectance instructions); or (d) the apparent surface reflectance of an object (apparent reflectance instructions). Across the 2 experiments we varied the naturalness of the stimuli. We find clear interactions between instructions, task, and stimuli. With simplified stimuli (Experiment 1), instructional effects were large and the data revealed 2 instruction-dependent patterns. In 1 (neutral and physical spectrum instructions) constancy was low, intersubject variability was also low, and adjustment-based and selection-based constancy were in agreement. In the other (reflectance instructions) constancy was high, intersubject variability was large, adjustment-based constancy deviated from selection-based constancy and for some subjects selection-based constancy increased across sessions. Similar patterns held for naturalistic stimuli (Experiment 2), although instructional effects were smaller. We interpret these 2 patterns as signatures of distinct task strategies-1 is perceptual, with judgments based primarily on the perceptual representation of color; the other involves explicit instruction-driven reasoning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Measuring Preservice Teachers' Knowledge of Instructional Tasks for Teaching Elementary Content

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Insook; Ko, Bomna

2017-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to measure preservice teachers' knowledge of instructional tasks for teaching three manipulative skills in elementary physical education. Method: Data were collected to measure preservice teachers' entry and exit knowledge of instructional tasks that require selecting developmentally and sequentially…

The effects of timing of exposure to principles and procedural instruction specificity on learning an electrical troubleshooting skill.

PubMed

Eiriksdottir, Elsa; Catrambone, Richard

2015-12-01

Domain principles provided in task instructions are assumed to help performance as learners can later apply this knowledge when faced with new tasks. The goal of the research was to investigate whether the timing of the exposure to principles-studying the principles before or while completing training tasks-and the specificity in the accompanying step-by-step procedural instructions would influence learning to troubleshoot a simulated electrical circuit. The results of a pilot study suggested that timing of principle exposure and specificity might interact. This was investigated by comparing the performance of 4 groups of participants (n = 24) who received either general or detailed procedural instructions and were either exposed to the principles before or during the training. The results showed that studying the principles before training benefited test task performance when the procedural instructions were detailed but not when they were general. The results also showed that using general procedural instructions benefited test task performance while using detailed procedural instructions benefited training task performance. Overall the results reveal how the learning situation as a whole must be considered when determining the efficacy of instructional materials, and how conditions can be created where principles enhance learning. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

The impact of representation format and task instruction on student understanding in science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stephenson, Susan Raatz

The purpose of this study is to examine how representation format and task instructions impact student learning in a science domain. Learning outcomes were assessed via measures of mental model, declarative knowledge, and knowledge inference. Students were asked to use one of two forms of representation, either drawing or writing, during study of a science text. Further, instructions (summarize vs. explain) were varied to determine if students' intended use of the presentation influenced learning. Thus, this study used a 2 (drawing vs. writing) X 2 (summarize vs. explain) between-subjects design. Drawing was hypothesized to require integration across learning materials regardless of task instructions, because drawings (by definition) require learners to integrate new information into a visual representation. Learning outcomes associated with writing were hypothesized to depend upon task instructions: when asked to summarize, writing should result in reproduction of text; when asked to explain, writing should emphasize integration processes. Because integration processes require connecting and analyzing new and prior information, it also was predicted that drawing (across both conditions of task instructions) and writing (when combined the explain task instructions only) would result in increased metacognitive monitoring. Metacognitive monitoring was assessed indirectly via responses to metacognitive prompts interspersed throughout the study.

Cognitive Task Analysis for Instructional Design: Applications in Distance Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Redding, Richard E.

1995-01-01

Provides an overview of cognitive task analysis-based instructional design (CTA-BID) and its applications in the design of instructional and testing materials for distance education. Reviews developments in education, psychology, and instructional design that complement CTA-BID. (Author/AEF)

Triadic instruction of chained food preparation responses: acquisition and observational learning.

PubMed Central

Griffen, A K; Wolery, M; Schuster, J W

1992-01-01

This research examined whether constant time delay would be effective in teaching students with moderate mental retardation in triads to perform chained tasks and whether observational learning would occur. Three chained snack preparation tasks were identified, and each student was directly taught one task. The other 2 students observed the instruction. The instructed student told the observers to watch and to turn pages of a pictorial recipe book. The teacher provided frequent praise to the instructed student based on performance and to the observers for watching the instruction and turning pages. A multiple probe design across students and tasks was used to evaluate the instruction. The results indicated that each student learned the skill he or she was taught directly, and the observers learned nearly all of the steps of the chains they observed. The implications for classroom instruction and future research in observational learning are discussed. PMID:1533856

The Influence of Task Instruction on Action Coding: Constraint Setting or Direct Coding?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wenke, Dorit; Frensch, Peter A.

2005-01-01

In 3 experiments, the authors manipulated response instructions for 2 concurrently performed tasks. Specifically, the authors' instructions described left and right keypresses on a manual task either as left versus right or as blue versus green keypresses and required either "left" versus "right" or "blue" versus "green" concurrent verbalizations.…

Transferring control demands across incidental learning tasks – stronger sequence usage in serial reaction task after shortcut option in letter string checking

PubMed Central

Gaschler, Robert; Marewski, Julian N.; Wenke, Dorit; Frensch, Peter A.

2014-01-01

After incidentally learning about a hidden regularity, participants can either continue to solve the task as instructed or, alternatively, apply a shortcut. Past research suggests that the amount of conflict implied by adopting a shortcut seems to bias the decision for vs. against continuing instruction-coherent task processing. We explored whether this decision might transfer from one incidental learning task to the next. Theories that conceptualize strategy change in incidental learning as a learning-plus-decision phenomenon suggest that high demands to adhere to instruction-coherent task processing in Task 1 will impede shortcut usage in Task 2, whereas low control demands will foster it. We sequentially applied two established incidental learning tasks differing in stimuli, responses and hidden regularity (the alphabet verification task followed by the serial reaction task, SRT). While some participants experienced a complete redundancy in the task material of the alphabet verification task (low demands to adhere to instructions), for others the redundancy was only partial. Thus, shortcut application would have led to errors (high demands to follow instructions). The low control demand condition showed the strongest usage of the fixed and repeating sequence of responses in the SRT. The transfer results are in line with the learning-plus-decision view of strategy change in incidental learning, rather than with resource theories of self-control. PMID:25506336

Learner Control versus Program Control in Interactive Videodisc Instruction: What Are the Effects in Procedural Learning?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shyu, Hsin-Yih; Brown, Scott W.

1992-01-01

Discussion of learner-controlled instruction focuses on a study of undergraduates that compared learner control with program control in interactive videodisc instruction for making an origami crane. Student performance, self-efficacy concerning the instructional task, time on task, and student attitudes toward the instruction are examined. (32…

Short-term effects of using verbal instructions and demonstration at the beginning of learning a complex skill in figure skating.

PubMed

Haguenauer, Marianne; Fargier, Patrick; Legreneur, Pierre; Dufour, Anne-Béatrice; Cogerino, Geneviève; Begon, Mickaël; Monteil, Karine M

2005-02-01

This study examined whether providing verbal instructions plus demonstration and task repetition facilitates the early acquisition of a sport skill for which learners had a prior knowledge of the individual motor components. After one demonstration of the task by an expert, 18 novice skaters practiced a figure skating jump during a 15-min. period. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of 3 groups: a group provided with a verbal instruction that specified the subgoals of the task (Subgoals group), a group provided with a verbal instruction that used a metaphor (Metaphoric group), and a group not receiving any specific instruction during training (Control group). Subjects were filmed prior to and immediately following the practice session. Analysis indicated that the modifications of performance were related to the demonstration and the subsequent task repetitions only. Providing additional verbal instructions generated no effect. Therefore, guiding the learner toward a solution to the task problem by means of verbal instruction seems to be ineffective if done too early in the course of learning.

Effects of Classroom Practices on Reading Comprehension, Engagement, and Motivations for Adolescents

PubMed Central

Guthrie, John T.; Klauda, Susan Lutz

2014-01-01

We investigated the roles of classroom supports for multiple motivations and engagement in students’ informational text comprehension, motivation, and engagement. A composite of classroom contextual variables consisting of instructional support for choice, importance, collaboration, and competence, accompanied by cognitive scaffolding for informational text comprehension, was provided in four-week instructional units for 615 grade 7 students. These classroom motivational-engagement supports were implemented within integrated literacy/history instruction in the Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) framework. CORI increased informational text comprehension compared with traditional instruction (TI) in a switching replications experimental design. Students’ perceptions of the motivational-engagement supports were associated with increases in students’ intrinsic motivation, value, perceived competence, and increased positive engagement (dedication) more markedly in CORI than in TI, according to multiple regression analyses. Results extended the evidence for the effectiveness of CORI to literacy/history subject matter and informational text comprehension among middle school students. The experimental effects in classroom contexts confirmed effects from task-specific, situated experimental studies in the literature. PMID:25506087

Effects of Classroom Practices on Reading Comprehension, Engagement, and Motivations for Adolescents.

PubMed

Guthrie, John T; Klauda, Susan Lutz

2014-10-01

We investigated the roles of classroom supports for multiple motivations and engagement in students' informational text comprehension, motivation, and engagement. A composite of classroom contextual variables consisting of instructional support for choice, importance, collaboration, and competence, accompanied by cognitive scaffolding for informational text comprehension, was provided in four-week instructional units for 615 grade 7 students. These classroom motivational-engagement supports were implemented within integrated literacy/history instruction in the Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) framework. CORI increased informational text comprehension compared with traditional instruction (TI) in a switching replications experimental design. Students' perceptions of the motivational-engagement supports were associated with increases in students' intrinsic motivation, value, perceived competence, and increased positive engagement (dedication) more markedly in CORI than in TI, according to multiple regression analyses. Results extended the evidence for the effectiveness of CORI to literacy/history subject matter and informational text comprehension among middle school students. The experimental effects in classroom contexts confirmed effects from task-specific, situated experimental studies in the literature.

Instructional Materials for Improved Job Performance.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Foley, John P., Jr.

1978-01-01

Instructional materials developed in military research to improve performance of electromechanical maintenance tasks are described, with implications for teacher education. The materials require task analysis, job task relevance, and task-oriented training. Although many industries have implemented these techniques, teacher training institutions…

Children's Use of Semantic Organizational Strategies Is Mediated by Working Memory Capacity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schleepen, Tamara M. J.; Jonkman, Lisa M.

2012-01-01

In adults, the ability to apply semantic grouping strategies has been found to depend on working memory. To investigate this relation in children, two sort-recall tasks (one without and one with a grouping instruction) were administered to 6-12-year-olds. The role of working memory was examined by means of mediation analyses and by assessing…

The Negative Impact of Goal-Oriented Instructions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shatz, Itamar

2015-01-01

The phrasing of task instructions can facilitate or hinder the learning process. In this study, three groups of participants (N = 526) performed a foreign vocabulary memorization task, with modified instructions for each group. The instructions were either learning oriented, encouraging participants to improve their abilities; outcome oriented,…

Effects of Task Relevance Instructions and Topic Beliefs on Reading Processes and Memory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bohn-Gettler, Catherine M.; McCrudden, Matthew T.

2018-01-01

This study investigated the effects of task relevance instructions and topic beliefs on reading processes and memory for belief-related text. Undergraduates received task instructions (focus on arguments for vs. against) before reading a dual-position text. In Experiment 1 (n = 88), a reading time methodology showed no differences in reading time…

Toward the Development of an Observation Measure of Interest and Attention for Literacy Tasks in Kindergarten Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coughlan, Kelly A.

2012-01-01

Kindergarten students (N = 95) in three schools and seven classrooms were observed for on-task versus off-task behavior during three literacy instruction opportunities; small group instruction, whole group instruction and the less structured library setting over the 2011-2012 school year. Students' early literacy skills were assessed before and…

School-Based Management with or without Instructional Leadership: Experience from Sweden

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lindberg, Erik; Vanyushyn, Vladimir

2013-01-01

This study sets out to examine schools principals' perception of the importance of school-based management (SBM) and instructional leadership tasks and their assessment of the performance of those tasks in Swedish upper secondary schools. A review of the literature on SBM and instructional leadership results in a list of twenty one tasks grouped…

When do chronic differences in self-regulation count? Regulatory focus effects in easy and difficult soccer tasks.

PubMed

Vogel, Tobias; Genschow, Oliver

2013-04-01

Research on regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) suggests that performance increases if instructions fit with sportspersons' dispositions. Sportspersons who chronically focus on wins (i.e., promotion-oriented individuals) perform best if instructions frame the objective as a promotion goal (e.g., "Try to hit!"). By contrast, sportspersons who chronically focus on losses (i.e., prevention-oriented individuals) perform best if instructions frame the objective as a prevention goal (e.g., "Try not to miss!"). Recent theorizing also suggests that regulatory focus interacts with task difficulty. In an experiment, we assessed soccer performance as a function of chronic focus, instructional focus, and task difficulty. Results support that task difficulty moderates the effects of fit on performance; fitting instructions to match the sportsperson's chronic regulatory focus improved performance in the easy rather than the difficult task. Findings are discussed regarding the role of regulatory fit in altering subjective pressure during sports performance.

The Role of Input and Output Tasks in Grammar Instruction: Theoretical, Empirical and Pedagogical Considerations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Benati, Alessandro

2017-01-01

In this paper, a review of the role of input, output and instruction in second language acquisition is provided. Several pedagogical interventions in grammar instruction (e.g., processing instruction, input enhancement, structured output and collaborative output tasks) are presented and their effectiveness reviewed. A final and overall evaluation…

Differential Effects of General Metacognition and Task-Specific Beliefs on Strategy Use and Recall.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weed, Keri; And Others

A self-paced free recall task was employed to assess the effects of motivational and metacognitive influences on active processing and recall. A total of 81 fourth-graders were randomly assigned to one of four instructional conditions: strategy instructions plus process monitoring instructions; strategy instructions only; process monitoring…

A Comparative Study of Students’ Track and Field Technical Performance in Sport Education and in a Direct Instruction Approach

PubMed Central

Pereira, José; Hastie, Peter; Araújo, Rui; Farias, Cláudio; Rolim, Ramiro; Mesquita, Isabel

2015-01-01

This study examined students’ technical performances improvements in three track and field events (hurdles, shot put, and long jump) following either a Sport Education season or a Direct Instruction unit. An experienced Physical Education teacher taught two classes totalling 47 sixth-grade students (25 boys and 22 girls, aged between 10 and 13 years old) in 20, 45-minute lessons over 10 weeks. The students’ technical performances were analysed and evaluated through systematic observation of videos. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare scores at three time points (pre-test, post-test and retention), and the Mann-Whitney U test was used to examine the differences within each instructional model at each assessment moment, as well as by gender and skill level. The impact of each instructional model in student learning was markedly distinct. While in Sport Education students of both genders and skill levels improved significantly in all events, in Direct Instruction, evidence of significant improvements was limited to boys and students of higher skill level. Key points The impact of each teaching approach in student learning was distinct. While in Sport Education the technical performance improvements spread throughout students of both genders and skill levels, in Direct Instruction significant improvements were exclusive to boys and students of higher skill level. The extended analysis in the current study, taking into account student gender and skill level, permitted a more comprehensive measure of the learning impact of the two approaches. More sophisticated analyses of the tasks and instructional strategies of each approach are encouraged. PMID:25729299

Is the psychological refractory period effect for ideomotor compatible tasks eliminated by speed-stress instructions?

PubMed

Shin, Yun Kyoung; Cho, Yang Seok; Lien, Mei-Ching; Proctor, Robert W

2007-09-01

It has been argued that the psychological refractory period (PRP) effect is eliminated with two ideomotor compatible tasks when instructions stress fast and simultaneous responding. Three experiments were conducted to test this hypothesis. In all experiments, Task 1 required spatially compatible manual responses (left or right) to the direction of an arrow, and Task 2 required saying the name of the auditory letter A or B. In Experiments 1 and 3, the manual responses were keypresses made with the left and right hands, whereas in Experiment 2 they were left-right toggle-switch movements made with the dominant hand. Instructions that stressed response speed reduced reaction time and increased error rate compared to standard instructions to respond fast and accurately, but did not eliminate the PRP effect on Task 2 reaction time. These results imply that, even when response speed is emphasized, ideomotor compatible tasks do not bypass response selection.

Occupational Task Analyses for the Development of Business Education Model Curricula with Emphasis on Banking and Financial Occupations. State Technical Committee Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Delaware State Board for Vocational Education, Milford.

This guide, prepared for the Delaware State Board of Education and the State Department of Public Instruction, is intended to assist individuals developing curricula to prepare students for entry-level positions in various banking and financial occupations. It is divided into three sections, each of which consists of a cross-referenced listing of…

Integrated Eye Tracking and Neural Monitoring for Enhanced Assessment of Mild TBI

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-04-01

virtual reality driving simulator data acquisition. Data collection for the pilot study is nearly complete and data analyses are currently under way...Training for primary study procedures including neuropsychological testing, eye- tracking, virtual reality driving simulator, and EEG data acquisition is...the virtual reality driving simulator. Participants are instructed to drive along a coastal highway while performing the target detection task

Integrating Cognitive Task Analysis into Instructional Systems Development.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ryder, Joan M.; Redding, Richard E.

1993-01-01

Discussion of instructional systems development (ISD) focuses on recent developments in cognitive task analysis and describes the Integrated Task Analysis Model, a framework for integrating cognitive and behavioral task analysis methods within the ISD model. Three components of expertise are analyzed: skills, knowledge, and mental models. (96…

Effects of Knowledge and Display Design on Comprehension of Complex Graphics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Canham, Matt; Hegarty, Mary

2010-01-01

In two experiments, participants made inferences from weather maps, before and after they received instruction about relevant meteorological principles. Different versions of the maps showed either task-relevant information alone, or both task-relevant and task-irrelevant information. Participants improved on the inference task after instruction,…

Instruction and Learning through Formative Assessments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bossé, Michael J.; Lynch-Davis, Kathleen; Adu-Gyamfi, Kwaku; Chandler, Kayla

2016-01-01

Assessment and instruction are interwoven in mathematically rich formative assessment tasks, so employing these tasks in the classrooms is an exciting and time-efficient opportunity. To provide a window into how these tasks work in the classroom, this article analyzes summaries of student work on such a task and considers several students'…

Advancing Scientific Reasoning in Upper Elementary Classrooms: Direct Instruction Versus Task Structuring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lazonder, Ard W.; Wiskerke-Drost, Sjanou

2015-02-01

Several studies found that direct instruction and task structuring can effectively promote children's ability to design unconfounded experiments. The present study examined whether the impact of these interventions extends to other scientific reasoning skills by comparing the inquiry activities of 55 fifth-graders randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Children in the control condition investigated a four-variable inquiry task without additional support. Performance of this task in the direct instruction condition was preceded by a short training in experimental design, whereas children in the task structuring condition, who did not receive the introductory training, were given a version of the task that addressed the four variables one at a time. Analysis of children's experimentation behavior confirmed that direct instruction and task structuring are equally effective and superior to unguided inquiry. Both interventions also evoked more determinate predictions and valid inferences. These findings demonstrate that the effect of short-term interventions designed to promote unconfounded experimentation extends beyond the control of variables.

The Report to the United States Office of Education of the National Task Forces on Instructional Strategies in Schools with High Concentrations of Low-Income Pupils.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Optimum Computer Systems, Inc., Washington, DC.

This paper presents the reports of the National Task Forces on Urban, Rural, Migrant, Native American and Bilingual/Bicultural Education. The Task Forces were asked to pinpoint strategies for instructional and programmatic improvement in these areas. The focus of inquiry was on reading and mathematics instruction. Attention was also paid to…

An Electroencephalography Network and Connectivity Analysis for Deception in Instructed Lying Tasks

PubMed Central

Wang, Yue; Ng, Wu Chun; Ng, Khoon Siong; Yu, Ke; Wu, Tiecheng; Li, Xiaoping

2015-01-01

Deception is an impactful social event that has been the focus of an abundance of researches over recent decades. In this paper, an electroencephalography (EEG) study is presented regarding the cognitive processes of an instructed liar/truth-teller during the time window of stimulus (question) delivery period (SDP) prior to their deceptive/truthful responses towards questions related to authentic (WE: with prior experience) and fictional experience (NE: no prior experience). To investigate deception in non-experienced events, the subjects were given stimuli in a mock interview scenario that induced them to fabricate lies. To analyze the data, frequency domain network and connectivity analysis was performed in the source space in order to provide a more systematic level understanding of deception during SDP. This study reveals several groups of neuronal generators underlying both the instructed lying (IL) and the instructed truth-telling (IT) conditions for both tasks during the SDP. Despite the similarities existed in these group components, significant differences were found in the intra- and inter-group connectivity between the IL and IT conditions in either task. Additionally, the response time was found to be positively correlated with the clustering coefficient of the inferior frontal gyrus (44R) in the WE-IL condition and positively correlated with the clustering coefficient of the precuneus (7L) and the angular gyrus (39R) in the WE-IT condition. However, the response time was found to be marginally negatively correlated with the clustering coefficient of the secondary auditory cortex (42L) in the NE-IL condition and negatively correlated with the clustering coefficient of the somatosensory association cortex (5L, R) in the NE-IT condition. Therefore, these results provide complementary and intuitive evidence for the differences between the IL and IT conditions in SDP for two types of deception tasks, thus elucidating the electrophysiological mechanisms underlying SDP of deception from regional, inter-regional, network, and inter-network scale analyses. PMID:25679784

On the Effects of Focus on Form, Focus on Meaning, and Focus on Forms on Learners' Vocabulary Learning in ESP Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saeidi, Mahnaz; Zaferanieh, Elaheh; Shatery, Hafez

2012-01-01

This study investigated the effectiveness of three kinds of vocabulary instruction. Seventy learners in the classes of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) were divided into three different groups receiving different instructions: Focus on Form Instruction (FoF) (Dictogloss task), Focus on Meaning Instruction (FoM) (Reading and Discussion task),…

Use of Task-Value Instructional Inductions for Facilitating Engagement and Conceptual Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Marcus Lee; Sinatra, Gale M.

2013-01-01

This study explored the relationship between task values, engagement, and conceptual change. One hundred and sixty-six under graduate students were randomly assigned to one of three task value instructional inductions (utility, attainment, and control) to determine whether induced task values would result in different degrees of engagement and…

Task frequency influences stimulus-driven effects on task selection during voluntary task switching.

PubMed

Arrington, Catherine M; Reiman, Kaitlin M

2015-08-01

Task selection during voluntary task switching involves both top-down (goal-directed) and bottom-up (stimulus-driven) mechanisms. The factors that shift the balance between these two mechanisms are not well characterized. In the present research, we studied the role that task frequency plays in determining the extent of stimulus-driven task selection. In two experiments, we used the basic paradigm adapted from Arrington (Memory & Cognition, 38, 991-997, 2008), in which the effect of stimulus availability serves as a marker of stimulus-driven task selection. A number and letter appeared on each trial with varying stimulus onset asynchronies, and participants performed either a consonant/vowel or an even/odd judgment. In Experiment 1, participants were instructed as to the relative frequency with which each task was to be performed (i.e., 50/50, 60/40, or 75/25) and were further instructed to make their transitions between tasks unpredictable. In Experiment 2, participants were given no instructions about how to select tasks, resulting in naturally occurring variation in task frequency. With both instructed (Exp. 1) and naturally occurring (Exp. 2) relative task frequencies, the less frequently performed task showed a greater effect of stimulus availability on task selection, suggestive of a larger influence of stimulus-driven mechanisms during task performance for the less frequent task. When goal-directed mechanisms of task choice are engaged less frequently, the relative influence of the stimulus environment increases.

Some decks are better than others: the effect of reinforcer type and task instructions on learning in the Iowa Gambling Task.

PubMed

Fernie, Gordon; Tunney, Richard J

2006-02-01

The Iowa Gambling Task (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994) has become widely used as a laboratory test of "real-life" decision-making. However, aspects of its administration that have been varied by researchers may differentially affect performance and the conclusions researchers can draw. Some researchers have used facsimile money reinforcers while others have used real money reinforcers. More importantly, the instructions participants receive have also been varied. While no differences have been reported in performance dependent on reinforcer type, no previous comparison of participants' instructions has been conducted. This is despite one set of instructions giving participants a clear hint about the nature of the task. Additionally, in previous research one set of instructions have not been used exclusively with one reinforcer type making any differential or cumulative effects of these factors difficult to interpret. The present study compared the effects of instruction and reinforcer type on IGT performance. When participants received instructions without a hint performance was affected by reinforcer type. This was not the case when the instructions included a hint. In a second IGT session performance was improved in participants who had received the hint instructions compared with those who had not.

The paradoxical effect of long instructions on negative affect and performance: When, for whom and why do they backfire?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goemaere, Sophie; Beyers, Wim; De Muynck, Gert-Jan; Vansteenkiste, Maarten

2018-06-01

For reasons of bureaucracy and safety, astronauts on the International Space Station are provided with excruciatingly detailed instructions and a lack of decision-making power, even for simple routine tasks. Besides being time-consuming, many astronauts report feelings of demotivation, irritation, and even defiance when confronted with this working method. Anecdotic evidence suggests that this method leads to situations where astronauts read instructions diagonally or avoid checking in with mission support, thereby ironically increasing the risk of error making. There is a need to consider under which circumstances, for whom, and why the provision of long instructions could be detrimental for well-being and performance. An experimental study with LEGO assembly tasks examined whether length of instructions (i.e. short versus long) and task complexity (simple vs. complex) impact negative affect, motivational experiences and performance of participants (N = 113, Mage = 18.75 ± 2.46 years). Long instructions for simple tasks provoked greater feelings of irritation, diminished the perceived value of instructions, and negatively influenced productivity and accuracy. The negative effect of long instructions on irritation was explained via decreased perceived value. Additionally, the effect of length of instructions on irritation differed for participants high versus those low in need for achievement.

Cholinergic enhancement reduces functional connectivity and BOLD variability in visual extrastriate cortex during selective attention.

PubMed

Ricciardi, Emiliano; Handjaras, Giacomo; Bernardi, Giulio; Pietrini, Pietro; Furey, Maura L

2013-01-01

Enhancing cholinergic function improves performance on various cognitive tasks and alters neural responses in task specific brain regions. We have hypothesized that the changes in neural activity observed during increased cholinergic function reflect an increase in neural efficiency that leads to improved task performance. The current study tested this hypothesis by assessing neural efficiency based on cholinergically-mediated effects on regional brain connectivity and BOLD signal variability. Nine subjects participated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover fMRI study. Following an infusion of physostigmine (1 mg/h) or placebo, echo-planar imaging (EPI) was conducted as participants performed a selective attention task. During the task, two images comprised of superimposed pictures of faces and houses were presented. Subjects were instructed periodically to shift their attention from one stimulus component to the other and to perform a matching task using hand held response buttons. A control condition included phase-scrambled images of superimposed faces and houses that were presented in the same temporal and spatial manner as the attention task; participants were instructed to perform a matching task. Cholinergic enhancement improved performance during the selective attention task, with no change during the control task. Functional connectivity analyses showed that the strength of connectivity between ventral visual processing areas and task-related occipital, parietal and prefrontal regions reduced significantly during cholinergic enhancement, exclusively during the selective attention task. Physostigmine administration also reduced BOLD signal temporal variability relative to placebo throughout temporal and occipital visual processing areas, again during the selective attention task only. Together with the observed behavioral improvement, the decreases in connectivity strength throughout task-relevant regions and BOLD variability within stimulus processing regions support the hypothesis that cholinergic augmentation results in enhanced neural efficiency. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled 'Cognitive Enhancers'. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cholinergic enhancement reduces functional connectivity and BOLD variability in visual extrastriate cortex during selective attention

PubMed Central

Ricciardi, Emiliano; Handjaras, Giacomo; Bernardi, Giulio; Pietrini, Pietro; Furey, Maura L.

2012-01-01

Enhancing cholinergic function improves performance on various cognitive tasks and alters neural responses in task specific brain regions. Previous findings by our group strongly suggested that the changes in neural activity observed during increased cholinergic function may reflect an increase in neural efficiency that leads to improved task performance. The current study was designed to assess the effects of cholinergic enhancement on regional brain connectivity and BOLD signal variability. Nine subjects participated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. Following an infusion of physostigmine (1mg/hr) or placebo, echo-planar imaging (EPI) was conducted as participants performed a selective attention task. During the task, two images comprised of superimposed pictures of faces and houses were presented. Subjects were instructed periodically to shift their attention from one stimulus component to the other and to perform a matching task using hand held response buttons. A control condition included phase-scrambled images of superimposed faces and houses that were presented in the same temporal and spatial manner as the attention task; participants were instructed to perform a matching task. Cholinergic enhancement improved performance during the selective attention task, with no change during the control task. Functional connectivity analyses showed that the strength of connectivity between ventral visual processing areas and task-related occipital, parietal and prefrontal regions was reduced significantly during cholinergic enhancement, exclusively during the selective attention task. Cholinergic enhancement also reduced BOLD signal temporal variability relative to placebo throughout temporal and occipital visual processing areas, again during the selective attention task only. Together with the observed behavioral improvement, the decreases in connectivity strength throughout task-relevant regions and BOLD variability within stimulus processing regions provide further support to the hypothesis that cholinergic augmentation results in enhanced neural efficiency. PMID:22906685

Examining pre-service science teachers' developing pedagogical design capacity for planning and supporting task-based classroom discussions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ross, Danielle Kristina

Teachers face many challenges as we move forward into the age of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (Achieve, Inc., 2013). The NGSS aim to develop a population of scientifically literate and talented students who can participate in the "innovation-driven economy" (p. 1). In order to meet these goals, teachers must provide students with opportunities to engage in science and engineering practices (SEPs) and learn core ideas of these disciplines. This study followed pre-service secondary science teachers as they participated in a secondary science teacher preparation program intended to support the development of their pedagogical design capacity (Brown, 2009) related to planning and supporting whole-class taskbased discussions. Teacher educators in this program designed an intervention that aimed in supporting this development. This study examined a particular dimension of PDC -- specifically, PSTs effective use of resources to plan science lessons in which students engage in a high demand task, participate in SEPs, and discuss their work in a whole-class setting. In order to examine the effectiveness of the intervention, I had to define PDC a priori. I measured PDC by documenting how/whether PSTs engaged in the following instructional planning practices: developing Learning Goals, selecting and/or designing challenging tasks, anticipating student thinking, planning for monitoring student thinking, imagining the discussion storyline, planning questions, and planning marking strategies. Analyses showed a significant difference between baseline lesson plan scores and Instructional Performance scores. These findings suggest these patterns and changes were directly linked to the teacher preparation program. The mean increase in Instructional Performance scores during the course of the teacher preparation year further supports the effect of the teacher preparation coursework. Pre-service teachers with high pedagogical design capacity continually integrated the ambitious planning practices they learned in their coursework. In contrast, pre-service teachers with low pedagogical design capacity appeared to appropriate the vocabulary and language they learned in coursework, but did not integrate these practices at a high level. This study suggests that pre-service teachers who receive intensive instruction on ambitious planning practices for task-based discussion effectively develop the pedagogical design capacity to plan for task-based discussion lessons.

Does overgeneral autobiographical memory result from poor memory for task instructions?

PubMed

Yanes, Paula K; Roberts, John E; Carlos, Erica L

2008-10-01

Considerable previous research has shown that retrieval of overgeneral autobiographical memories (OGM) is elevated among individuals suffering from various emotional disorders and those with a history of trauma. Although previous theories suggest that OGM serves the function of regulating acute negative affect, it is also possible that OGM results from difficulties in keeping the instruction set for the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) in working memory, or what has been coined "secondary goal neglect" (Dalgleish, 2004). The present study tested whether OGM is associated with poor memory for the task's instruction set, and whether an instruction set reminder would improve memory specificity over repeated trials. Multilevel modelling data-analytic techniques demonstrated a significant relationship between poor recall of instruction set and probability of retrieving OGMs. Providing an instruction set reminder for the AMT relative to a control task's instruction set improved memory specificity immediately afterward.

The automaticity of face perception is influenced by familiarity.

PubMed

Yan, Xiaoqian; Young, Andrew W; Andrews, Timothy J

2017-10-01

In this study, we explore the automaticity of encoding for different facial characteristics and ask whether it is influenced by face familiarity. We used a matching task in which participants had to report whether the gender, identity, race, or expression of two briefly presented faces was the same or different. The task was made challenging by allowing nonrelevant dimensions to vary across trials. To test for automaticity, we compared performance on trials in which the task instruction was given at the beginning of the trial, with trials in which the task instruction was given at the end of the trial. As a strong criterion for automatic processing, we reasoned that if perception of a given characteristic (gender, race, identity, or emotion) is fully automatic, the timing of the instruction should not influence performance. We compared automaticity for the perception of familiar and unfamiliar faces. Performance with unfamiliar faces was higher for all tasks when the instruction was given at the beginning of the trial. However, we found a significant interaction between instruction and task with familiar faces. Accuracy of gender and identity judgments to familiar faces was the same regardless of whether the instruction was given before or after the trial, suggesting automatic processing of these properties. In contrast, there was an effect of instruction for judgments of expression and race to familiar faces. These results show that familiarity enhances the automatic processing of some types of facial information more than others.

Training Analyses Supporting the Land Warrior and Ground Soldier Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-07-01

unit with LW and MW expressed in terms of unit force effectiveness, impacts to the DOTMLPF domains, life cycle cost, and ability to mitigate Joint...other individual tasks, Soldier and/or leader, be added to NET; should any be eliminated? What methods of instruction/resources should remain the...presentation of the training observation results from the nine-day NET. Terminal Learning Objectives The NET POI ( Omega Training Group, 2006

Effects of Task Instruction on Autobiographical Memory Specificity in Young and Older Adults

PubMed Central

Ford, Jaclyn Hennessey; Rubin, David C.; Giovanello, Kelly S.

2013-01-01

Older adults tend to retrieve autobiographical information that is overly general (i.e. not restricted to a single event, termed the overgenerality effect) relative to young adults’ specific memories. A vast majority of studies that have reported overgenerality effects explicitly instruct participants to retrieve specific memories, thereby requiring participants to maintain task goals, inhibit inappropriate responses, and control their memory search. Since these processes are impaired in healthy aging, it is important to determine whether such task instructions influence the magnitude of the overgenerality effect in older adults. In the current study, participants retrieved autobiographical memories during presentation of musical clips. Task instructions were manipulated to separate age-related differences in the specificity of underlying memory representations from age-related differences in following task instructions. Whereas young adults modulated memory specificity based on task demands, older adults did not. These findings suggest that reported rates of overgenerality in older adults’ memories may include age-related differences in memory representation, as well as differences in task compliance. Such findings provide a better understanding of the underlying cognitive mechanisms involved in age-related changes in autobiographical memory and may also be valuable for future research examining effects of overgeneral memory on general well-being. PMID:23915176

Design and Use of Task Cards in the Reciprocal Style of Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iserbyt, Peter; Byra, Mark

2013-01-01

Task cards are instructional tools that combine a picture of a skill with written instructions about how to perform the skill. This article provides practical guidelines for developing research-based task cards for use in physical education classes. Fitness-related motor skills are used as examples to clarify design principles for task cards. The…

A Measurement Model of Microgenetic Transfer for Improving Instructional Outcomes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pavlik, Philip I., Jr.; Yudelson, Michael; Koedinger, Kenneth R.

2015-01-01

Efforts to improve instructional task design often make reference to the mental structures, such as "schemas" (e.g., Gick & Holyoak, 1983) or "identical elements" (Thorndike & Woodworth, 1901), that are common to both the instructional and target tasks. This component based (e.g., Singley & Anderson, 1989) approach…

EFL Reading Instruction: Communicative Task-Based Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sidek, Harison Mohd

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the overarching framework of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) reading instructional approach reflected in an EFL secondary school curriculum in Malaysia. Based on such analysis, a comparison was made if Communicative Task-Based Language is the overarching instructional approach for the Malaysian EFL…

Task Analysis in Instructional Design: Some Cases from Mathematics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Resnick, Lauren B.

Task analysis as a tool in the design of instruction is the subject of this paper. Some of the major historical approaches (associationist/behaviorist, gestalt, and Piagetian) are described using examples from mathematics. The usefulness of these approaches to instructional design is evaluated on the basis of four criteria: instructional…

Intravenous Therapy Instruction for Licensed Practical Nurses. Instructor's Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Springer, Pam; Carey, Jean

This Idaho instructor's guide lists tasks and enabling objectives, outlines instruction, and provides handout masters, overhead masters, and tests for intravenous therapy (IV) instruction for licensed practical nurses. Following an introduction and a list of criteria for successful completion of IV therapy courses, the document lists tasks and…

Does cognitive reappraisal reduce anxiety? A daily diary study of a micro-intervention with individuals with high social anxiety.

PubMed

Kivity, Yogev; Huppert, Jonathan D

2016-03-01

To examine emotion regulation (ER) among individuals with high (HSA) and low social anxiety (LSA) and the effects of 1 week of practiced cognitive reappraisal using self-report, daily diary measures and lab tasks. HSAs received reappraisal (HSA-R; n = 43) or monitoring (HSA-M; n = 40) instructions. LSAs received monitoring instructions (LSA-M; n = 41). Self-report measures of social anxiety and ER, and a lab task of reappraisal were administered at baseline and after 1 week. Daily diaries of anxiety and ER were also collected. At baseline, HSAs compared with LSAs reported lower self-efficacy of reappraisal and higher frequency and self-efficacy of suppression, but no differences emerged in the reappraisal task. Following the intervention, the HSA-R compared with the HSA-M reported lower symptom severity, greater self-efficacy of reappraisal but equal daily anxiety. HSA-R used reappraisal mostly combined with suppression (74.76% of situations). Post hoc analyses demonstrated that clinical diagnosis, but not severity, moderated the intervention effect. The results demonstrate the efficacy of a short intervention in social anxiety, and provide additional areas of research for improving its treatment. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

The regulation of induced depression during a frustrating situation: benefits of expressive suppression in Chinese individuals.

PubMed

Yuan, Jiajin; Liu, Yingying; Ding, Nanxiang; Yang, Jiemin

2014-01-01

Studies from European-American cultures consistently reported that expressive suppression was associated with worse emotional consequence (e.g. depression) in comparison with acceptance. However, this conclusion may not apply to Chinese, as suppressing emotional displays to maintain relational harmony is culturally valued in East Asian countries. Thus, the present study examined the effects of suppression and acceptance on the depressive mood induced by a frustrating task in a Chinese sample. Sixty-four subjects were randomly assigned to one of three instructions: suppression, acceptance or no-regulation during a frustrating arithmetic task. The experience of depressive emotion and skin conductance response (SCR) were recorded during pre-frustration baseline, frustration induction and post-frustration recovery phases, respectively. Compared with the control and acceptance instructions, suppression instruction was associated with decreased depressive experiences and smaller SCR activity during frustration. There were no significant differences between acceptance and control groups in both subjective depression and SCR activity during frustration. Moreover, the suppression group showed a better emotional recovery after the frustrating task, in comparison with the acceptance and control groups. Correlation analyses verified that SCR reactivity was a reliable index of experienced depression during the frustration. Expressive suppression is effective in reducing depressive experiences and depression-related physiological activity (SCR) when Chinese people are involved. By contrast, the acceptance of depressive emotion in Chinese people does not produce a similar regulation effect. These findings suggest that cultural context should be considered in understanding the emotional consequences of suppression and acceptance strategies.

The effects of instructional sets on reactions to and performance on an intelligent tutoring system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, Debra Steele

1993-01-01

The effects of a contextual factor, i.e., task instructions, on performance on and reactions to an Intellegent Tutoring System (ITS) training Remote Manipulator System (RMS) tasks were examined. The results supported the first prediction that task instructions could be used to successfully induce a mastery versus an achievement orientation. Previous research suggests that a mastery orientation can result in beneficial effects on learning and performance of complex tasks. Furthermore, the results supported the second prediction that a mastery orientation would have beneficial effects on learning and performance as well as affective and cognitive reactions to the ITS tasks. Moreover, the results indicated that a mastery orientation was especially beneficial for the more complex ITS tasks and later in task practice, i.e., when a task was performed for the second time. A mastery orientation is posited to have its beneficial effects by focusing more effort and attention on task performance. Conclusions are drawn with some caution due to the small number of subjects, although the results for these subjects were consistent across multiple trials and multiple measures of performance. ITS designers are urged to consider contextual factors such as task instructions and feedback in terms of their potential to induce a mastery versus an achievement orientation.

Speech-Action Coordination in Young Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Balamore, Usha; Wozniak, Robert H.

1984-01-01

Speech-action coordination in 100 three and four year olds was measured according to a modified version of Wozniak's hammering-board task. Four instructional conditions (instructional, demonstration, vocalization, no vocalization) were presented in a numerical task ("Hit four times") and in two spatial tasks: three-color ("Hit red,…

The prepared emotional reflex: intentional preparation of automatic approach and avoidance tendencies as a means to regulate emotional responding.

PubMed

Eder, Andreas B; Rothermund, Klaus; Proctor, Robert W

2010-08-01

Advance preparation of action courses toward emotional stimuli is an effective means to regulate impulsive emotional behavior. Our experiment shows that performing intentional acts of approach and avoidance in an evaluation task influences the unintended activation of approach and avoidance tendencies in another task in which stimulus valence is irrelevant. For the evaluation-relevant blocks, participants received either congruent (positive-approach, negative-avoidance) or incongruent (positive-avoidance, negative-approach) mapping instructions. In the evaluation-irrelevant blocks, approach- and avoidance-related lever movements were selected in response to a stimulus feature other than valence (affective Simon task). Response mapping in the evaluation task influenced performance in the evaluation-irrelevant task: An enhanced affective Simon effect was observed with congruent mapping instructions; in contrast, the effect was reversed when the evaluation task required incongruent responses. Thus, action instructions toward affective stimuli received in one task determined affective response tendencies in another task where these instructions were not in effect. These findings suggest that intentionally prepared short-term links between affective valence and motor responses elicit associated responses without a deliberate act of will, operating like a "prepared reflex." Copyright 2010 APA

System and method for seamless task-directed autonomy for robots

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nielsen, Curtis; Bruemmer, David; Few, Douglas

Systems, methods, and user interfaces are used for controlling a robot. An environment map and a robot designator are presented to a user. The user may place, move, and modify task designators on the environment map. The task designators indicate a position in the environment map and indicate a task for the robot to achieve. A control intermediary links task designators with robot instructions issued to the robot. The control intermediary analyzes a relative position between the task designators and the robot. The control intermediary uses the analysis to determine a task-oriented autonomy level for the robot and communicates targetmore » achievement information to the robot. The target achievement information may include instructions for directly guiding the robot if the task-oriented autonomy level indicates low robot initiative and may include instructions for directing the robot to determine a robot plan for achieving the task if the task-oriented autonomy level indicates high robot initiative.« less

SIMON: A Simple Instructional Monitor. Technical Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feurzeig, Wallace; And Others

An instructional monitor is a program which tries to detect, diagnose, and possibly help overcome a student's learning difficulties in the course of solving a problem or performing a task. In one approach to building an instructional monitor, the student uses a special task- or problem-oriented language expressly designed around some particular…

Roles of Working Memory Performance and Instructional Strategy in Complex Cognitive Task Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cevik, V.; Altun, A.

2016-01-01

This study aims to investigate how working memory (WM) performances and instructional strategy choices affect learners' complex cognitive task performance in online environments. Three different e-learning environments were designed based on Merrill's (2006a) model of instructional strategies. The lack of experimental research on his framework is…

Graphic Arts: Orientation, Composition, and Paste-Up. Teacher Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feasley, Sue C., Ed.

This curriculum guide is the first in a three-volume series of instructional materials for competency-based graphic arts instruction. Each publication is designed to include the technical content and tasks necessary for a student to be employed in an entry-level graphic arts occupation. Introductory materials include an instructional/task analysis…

Comparing Vignette Instruction and Assessment Tasks to Classroom Observations and Reflections

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jeffries, Carolyn; Maeder, Dale W.

2011-01-01

The growing body of research on the use of vignettes in teacher education courses suggests that vignette-based instruction and assessment tasks may represent a viable alternative to traditional forms of scaffolded instruction and reflective essays following classroom observations, thereby creating a bridge between college and K-12 classrooms for…

The design of instructional tools affects secondary school students' learning of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in reciprocal peer learning: a randomized controlled trial.

PubMed

Iserbyt, Peter; Byra, Mark

2013-11-01

Research investigating design effects of instructional tools for learning Basic Life Support (BLS) is almost non-existent. To demonstrate the design of instructional tools matter. The effect of spatial contiguity, a design principle stating that people learn more deeply when words and corresponding pictures are placed close (i.e., integrated) rather than far from each other on a page was investigated on task cards for learning Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) during reciprocal peer learning. A randomized controlled trial. A total of 111 students (mean age: 13 years) constituting six intact classes learned BLS through reciprocal learning with task cards. Task cards combine a picture of the skill with written instructions about how to perform it. In each class, students were randomly assigned to the experimental group or the control. In the control, written instructions were placed under the picture on the task cards. In the experimental group, written instructions were placed close to the corresponding part of the picture on the task cards reflecting application of the spatial contiguity principle. One-way analysis of variance found significantly better performances in the experimental group for ventilation volumes (P=.03, ηp2=.10) and flow rates (P=.02, ηp2=.10). For chest compression depth, compression frequency, compressions with correct hand placement, and duty cycles no significant differences were found. This study shows that the design of instructional tools (i.e., task cards) affects student learning. Research-based design of learning tools can enhance BLS and CPR education. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of two stimulus prompt strategies with severely handicapped students.

PubMed Central

Steege, M W; Wacker, D P; McMahon, C M

1987-01-01

In this study we compared the effectiveness and efficiency of two treatment packages that used stimulus prompt sequences and task analyses for teaching community living skills to severely handicapped students. Four severely and multiply handicapped students were trained to perform four tasks: (a) making toast, (b) making popcorn, (c) operating a clothes dryer, and (d) operating a washing machine. Following baseline, each student was exposed to two types of training procedures, each involving a task analysis of the target behavior. Training Procedure 1 (Traditional) utilized a least-to-most restrictive prompt sequence. Training Procedure 2 (Prescriptive) utilized ongoing behavioral assessment data to identify discriminative stimuli. The assessment data were used to prescribe instructional prompts across successive training trials. Performance on the tasks was evaluated within a combination multiple baseline (across subjects) and probe (across tasks) design. Training conditions were counterbalanced across subjects and tasks. Results indicated that both training procedures were equally effective in increasing independent task acquisition for subjects on all tasks; however, the prescriptive procedure was the more efficient procedure. PMID:3667479

Automated Instructional Monitors for Complex Operational Tasks. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feurzeig, Wallace

A computer-based instructional system is described which incorporates diagnosis of students difficulties in acquiring complex concepts and skills. A computer automatically generated a simulated display. It then monitored and analyzed a student's work in the performance of assigned training tasks. Two major tasks were studied. The first,…

Analyzing Tasks to Promote Equity in Secondary Mathematics Teacher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mintos, Alexia

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study is to understand characteristics and outcomes of instructional tasks used to support preservice secondary mathematics teachers (PSMTs) in learning about equity in secondary mathematics methods courses. This study focuses on five instructional tasks from four purposefully chosen teacher education programs. These activities…

How "fun/importance" fit affects performance: relating implicit theories to instructions.

PubMed

Bianco, Amy T; Higgins, E Tory; Klem, Adena

2003-09-01

People experience a regulatory fit when they employ means of goal pursuit that fit their regulatory orientation, and this fit increases motivation that can enhance performance. The present studies extend previous research on regulatory fit to the classic motivational variables of fun and importance. They also examine for the first time the effect on performance of the fit between individuals' implicit theories about a task's fun or importance and their strategic engagement of the task as fun or important as induced by task instructions. In all three studies, task performance was better when the external task instructions "fit" rather than did not fit participants' implicit theory for the task. The implications of these findings for understanding the motivational effects of fun and importance are discussed.

Effects of Four Task Stressors on Blood Pressure Responses in Persons Differing in Type A Coronary Prone Behavior and Cognitive Complexity.

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-03-01

requirements are available. Video game task: a non-social, task-oriented setting in which the person works alone against different levels of experimentally...instructed to watch a video I screen. After the experimenter left the room, videotaped instructions for a video game (similar to Pac Man) were presented on...the screen. Instructions were detailed enough to allow all subjects, including those who had no previous experience with video games , to understand

Attention training through gaze-contingent feedback: Effects on reappraisal and negative emotions.

PubMed

Sanchez, Alvaro; Everaert, Jonas; Koster, Ernst H W

2016-10-01

Reappraisal is central to emotion regulation but its mechanisms are unclear. This study tested the theoretical prediction that emotional attention bias is linked to reappraisal of negative emotion-eliciting stimuli and subsequent emotional responding using a novel attentional control training. Thirty-six undergraduates were randomly assigned to either the control or the attention training condition and were provided with different task instructions while they performed an interpretation task. Whereas control participants freely created interpretations, participants in the training condition were instructed to allocate attention toward positive words to efficiently create positive interpretations (i.e., recruiting attentional control) while they were provided with gaze-contingent feedback on their viewing behavior. Transfer to attention bias and reappraisal success was evaluated using a dot-probe task and an emotion regulation task which were administered before and after the training. The training condition was effective at increasing attentional control and resulted in beneficial effects on the transfer tasks. Analyses supported a serial indirect effect with larger attentional control acquisition in the training condition leading to negative attention bias reduction, in turn predicting greater reappraisal success which reduced negative emotions. Our results indicate that attentional mechanisms influence the use of reappraisal strategies and its impact on negative emotions. The novel attention training highlights the importance of tailored feedback to train attentional control. The findings provide an important step toward personalized delivery of attention training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Cognitive engineering of film library transition from film medium to digital environment in a Texas teaching hospital.

PubMed

Koperwhats, Martha A; Chang, Wei-Chih; Xiao, Jianguo

2002-01-01

Digital imaging technology promises efficient, economical, and fast service for patient care, but the challenges are great in the transition from film to a filmless (digital) environment. This change has a significant impact on the film library's personnel (film librarians) who play a leading roles in storage, classification, and retrieval of images. The objectives of this project were to study film library errors and the usability of a physical computerized system that could not be changed, while developing an intervention to reduce errors and test the usability of the intervention. Cognitive and human factors analysis were used to evaluate human-computer interaction. A workflow analysis was performed to understand the film and digital imaging processes. User and task analyses were applied to account for all behaviors involved in interaction with the system. A heuristic evaluation was used to probe the usability issues in the picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) modules. Simplified paper-based instructions were designed to familiarize the film librarians with the digital system. A usability survey evaluated the effectiveness of the instruction. The user and task analyses indicated that different users faced challenges based on their computer literacy, education, roles, and frequency of use of diagnostic imaging. The workflow analysis showed that the approaches to using the digital library differ among the various departments. The heuristic evaluation of the PACS modules showed the human-computer interface to have usability issues that prevented easy operation. Simplified instructions were designed for operation of the modules. Usability surveys conducted before and after revision of the instructions showed that performance improved. Cognitive and human factor analysis can help film librarians and other users adapt to the filmless system. Use of cognitive science tools will aid in successful transition of the film library from a film environment to a digital environment.

Predicting the 'where' and resolving the 'what' of a moving target: a dichotomy of abilities.

PubMed

Long, G M; Vogel, C A

1998-01-01

Anticipation timing (AT) and dynamic visual acuity (DVA) were assessed in a group of college students (n = 60) under a range of velocity and duration conditions. Subjects participated in two identical sessions 1 week apart. Consistently with previous work, DVA performance worsened as velocity increased and as target duration decreased; and there was a significant improvement from the first to the second session. In contrast, AT performance improved as velocity increased, whereas no improvement from the first to the second session was indicated; but increasing duration again benefited performance. Correlational analyses comparing DVA and AT did not reveal any systematic relationship between the two visual tasks. A follow-up study with different instructions on the AT task revealed the same pattern of AT performance, suggesting the generalizability of the obtained stimulus relationships for the AT task. The importance of the often-overlooked role of stimulus variables on the AT task is discussed.

Tidewater Regional Model for Articulation and Coordination of Nursing Education. Task Analyses Guides for Licensed Practical Nurses Pursuing an Associate Degree in Nursing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Norfolk Public Schools, VA.

This instructional guide includes the curriculum for two complete and separate courses to be taught at the associate degree level. The first six units of the guide are the course content for a 2-3 semester hour course, "Transition from Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) to Associate Degree Nursing (ADN)." The entire content of the guide, 19…

Developmental changes in using verbal self-cueing in task-switching situations: the impact of task practice and task-sequencing demands.

PubMed

Kray, Jutta; Gaspard, Hanna; Karbach, Julia; Blaye, Agnès

2013-01-01

In this study we examined whether developmental changes in using verbal self-cueing for task-goal maintenance are dependent on the amount of task practice and task-sequencing demands. To measure task-goal maintenance we applied a switching paradigm in which children either performed only task A or B in single-task blocks or switched between them on every second trial in mixed-task blocks. Task-goal maintenance was determined by comparing the performance between both blocks (mixing costs). The influence of verbal self-cueing was measured by instructing children to either name the next task aloud or not to verbalize during task preparation. Task-sequencing demands were varied between groups whereas one group received spatial task cues to support keeping track of the task sequence, while the other group did not. We also varied by the amount of prior practice in task switching while one group of participants practiced task switching first, before performing the task naming in addition, and the other group did it vice versa. Results of our study investigating younger (8-10 years) and older children (11-13 years) revealed no age differences in beneficial effects of verbal self-cueing. In line with previous findings, children showed reduced mixing costs under task-naming instructions and under conditions of low task-sequence demands (with the presence of spatial task cues). Our results also indicated that these benefits were only obtained for those groups of children that first received practice in task switching alone with no additional verbalization instruction. These findings suggest that internal task-cueing strategies can be efficiently used in children but only if they received prior practice in the underlying task so that demands on keeping and coordinating various instructions are reduced. Moreover, children benefitted from spatial task cues for better task-goal maintenance only if no verbal task-cueing strategy was introduced first.

Instructional Scaffolds for Learning from Formative Peer Assessment: Effects of Core Task, Peer Feedback, and Dialogue

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Deiglmayr, Anne

2018-01-01

Formative peer assessment is an instructional method that offers many opportunities to foster students' learning with respect to both the domain of the core task and students' assessment skills. The contributions to this special issue effectively address earlier calls for more research into instructional scaffolds and the implementation of…

Using Heuristic Task Analysis to Create Web-Based Instructional Design Theory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fiester, Herbert R.

2010-01-01

The first purpose of this study was to identify procedural and heuristic knowledge used when creating web-based instruction. The second purpose of this study was to develop suggestions for improving the Heuristic Task Analysis process, a technique for eliciting, analyzing, and representing expertise in cognitively complex tasks. Three expert…

Instructional Guidance in Reciprocal Peer Tutoring With Task Cards

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iserbyt, Peter; Elen, Jan; Behets, Daniel

2010-01-01

This article addresses the issue of instructional guidance in reciprocal peer tutoring with task cards as learning tools. Eighty-six Kinesiology students (age 17-19 years) were randomized across four reciprocal peer tutoring settings, differing in quality and quantity of guidance, to learn Basic Life Support (BLS) with task cards. The separate and…

Participant Withdrawal as a Function of Hedonic Value of Task and Time of Semester

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bellone, John A.; Navarick, Douglas J.; Mendoza, Raquel

2012-01-01

Undergraduates participating in experiments late in the semester generally perform more poorly on demanding tasks and withdraw more often than those participating early. To investigate effects of task aversiveness, some participants were instructed to choose brief cartoon reinforcement with a long time-out while others were instructed to choose…

The Impact of Task-Based Instruction Program on Fostering ESL Learners' Speaking Ability: A Cognitive Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mohammadipour, Mohammad; Rashid, Sabariah Md.

2015-01-01

Adopting a direct approach to contrive sufficient focus on form (accuracy) would facilitate interlanguage development without decreasing the naturalness of communication that communicative tasks can generate. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of a proposed task-based instruction programme within a cognitive approach in fostering…

Instructor Perceptions of Web Technology Feature and Instructional Task Fit

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strader, Troy J.; Reed, Diana; Suh, Inchul; Njoroge, Joyce W.

2015-01-01

In this exploratory study, university faculty (instructor) perceptions of the extent to which eight unique features of Web technology are useful for various instructional tasks are identified. Task-technology fit propositions are developed and tested using data collected from a survey of instructors in business, pharmacy, and arts/humanities. It…

Autonomous Learning through Task-Based Instruction in Fully Online Language Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Lina

2016-01-01

This study investigated the affordances for autonomous learning in a fully online learning environment involving the implementation of task-based instruction in conjunction with Web 2.0 technologies. To that end, four-skill-integrated tasks and digital tools were incorporated into the coursework. Data were collected using midterm reflections,…

The Impact of Differentiated Instructional Materials on English Language Learner (ELL) Students' Comprehension of Science Laboratory Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Manavathu, Marian; Zhou, George

2012-01-01

Through a qualitative research design, this article investigates the impacts of differentiated laboratory instructional materials on English language learners' (ELLs) laboratory task comprehension. The factors affecting ELLs' science learning experiences are further explored. Data analysis reveals a greater degree of laboratory task comprehension…

A Verbal-Instruction System to Help Persons with Multiple Disabilities Perform Complex Food- and Drink-Preparation Tasks Independently

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lancioni, Giulio E.; Singh, Nirbhay N.; O'Reilly, Mark F.; Sigafoos, Jeff; Oliva, Doretta; Smaldone, Angela; La Martire, Maria L.; Alberti, Gloria; Scigliuzzo, Francesca

2011-01-01

In a recent single-case study, we showed that a new verbal-instruction system, ensuring the automatic presentation of step instructions, was beneficial for promoting the task performance of a woman with multiple disabilities (including blindness). The present study was aimed at replicating and extending the aforementioned investigation with three…

A Comparison of General and Specific Instructions to Promote Task Engagement and Completion by a Young Man with Asperger Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bouxsein, Kelly J.; Tiger, Jeffrey H.; Fisher, Wayne W.

2008-01-01

Previous research has suggested that the topography of instructions (general vs. specific) may influence the likelihood that young children comply with instructions. The purpose of the current study was to compare the rates of task completion of a young man diagnosed with Asperger syndrome when provided with general and specific instructions…

The Effect of Processing Instruction and Dictogloss Tasks on Acquisition of the English Passive Voice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Qin, Jingjing

2008-01-01

This study was intended to compare processing instruction (VanPatten, 1993, 1996, 2000), an input-based focus on form technique, to dictogloss tasks, an output-oriented focus-on-form type of instruction to assess their effects in helping beginning-EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners acquire the simple English passive voice. Two intact…

Bridges to Swaziland: Using Task-Based Learning and Computer-Mediated Instruction to Improve English Language Teaching and Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pierson, Susan Jacques

2015-01-01

One way to provide high quality instruction for underserved English Language Learners around the world is to combine Task-Based English Language Learning with Computer- Assisted Instruction. As part of an ongoing project, "Bridges to Swaziland," these approaches have been implemented in a determined effort to improve the ESL program for…

A Task Analysis of the Shift from Teacher Instructions to Self-Instructions in Performing an In-Common Task.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grote, Irene; And Others

1996-01-01

Three preschoolers performed four sorts with stimulus cards--an untaught target sort and three directly taught alternating sorts considered to self-instruct the target performance. Accuracy increased first in the skill sorts and then in the untaught target sorts. All subjects generalized to new target sorts. Correct spontaneous self-instructions…

The Regulation of Induced Depression during a Frustrating Situation: Benefits of Expressive Suppression in Chinese Individuals

PubMed Central

Ding, Nanxiang; Yang, Jiemin

2014-01-01

Background Studies from European-American cultures consistently reported that expressive suppression was associated with worse emotional consequence (e.g. depression) in comparison with acceptance. However, this conclusion may not apply to Chinese, as suppressing emotional displays to maintain relational harmony is culturally valued in East Asian countries. Thus, the present study examined the effects of suppression and acceptance on the depressive mood induced by a frustrating task in a Chinese sample. Method Sixty-four subjects were randomly assigned to one of three instructions: suppression, acceptance or no-regulation during a frustrating arithmetic task. The experience of depressive emotion and skin conductance response (SCR) were recorded during pre-frustration baseline, frustration induction and post-frustration recovery phases, respectively. Results Compared with the control and acceptance instructions, suppression instruction was associated with decreased depressive experiences and smaller SCR activity during frustration. There were no significant differences between acceptance and control groups in both subjective depression and SCR activity during frustration. Moreover, the suppression group showed a better emotional recovery after the frustrating task, in comparison with the acceptance and control groups. Correlation analyses verified that SCR reactivity was a reliable index of experienced depression during the frustration. Conclusions Expressive suppression is effective in reducing depressive experiences and depression-related physiological activity (SCR) when Chinese people are involved. By contrast, the acceptance of depressive emotion in Chinese people does not produce a similar regulation effect. These findings suggest that cultural context should be considered in understanding the emotional consequences of suppression and acceptance strategies. PMID:24827934

Task Card Instruction: The Effect of Different Cue Sequences on Students' Learning in Tennis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iserbyt, Peter; Madou, Bob; Elen, Jan; Behets, Daniel

2010-01-01

In physical education, task cards are often used in student-centred learning models. Consequently, a better understanding of how to deliver effective instructions by means of task cards would make a contribution to the literature. In this study, 80 right-handed university students in kinesiology were randomized across three experimental conditions…

Locus of Control and Sex Differences in Performance on an Instructional Task.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holloway, Richard L.; Robinson, Beatrice

1979-01-01

Used locus of control, ability, sex, task selection, task structure, and recall in a regression model to predict affective response to type of instruction of 104 high school seniors. Results showed a main effect for recall, and interaction effects for recall x sex and recall x ability. References are listed. (Author/JEG)

An Attempt to Raise Japanese EFL Learners' Pragmatic Awareness Using Online Discourse Completion Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tanaka, Hiroya; Oki, Nanaho

2015-01-01

This practical paper discusses the effect of explicit instruction to raise Japanese EFL learners' pragmatic awareness using online discourse completion tasks. The five-part tasks developed by the authors use American TV drama scenes depicting particular speech acts and include explicit instruction in these speech acts. 46 Japanese EFL college…

Interactive Computer Based Assessment Tasks: How Problem-Solving Process Data Can Inform Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zoanetti, Nathan

2010-01-01

This article presents key steps in the design and analysis of a computer based problem-solving assessment featuring interactive tasks. The purpose of the assessment is to support targeted instruction for students by diagnosing strengths and weaknesses at different stages of problem-solving. The first focus of this article is the task piloting…

Completing the Task Procedure or Focusing on Form: Contextualizing Grammar Instruction via Task-Based Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saraç, Hatice Sezgi

2018-01-01

In this study, it was aimed to compare two distinct methodologies of grammar instruction: task-based and form-focused teaching. Within the application procedure, which lasted for one academic term, two groups of tertiary level learners (N = 53) were exposed to the same sequence of target structures, extensive writing activities and evaluation…

A potential role of reward and punishment in the facilitation of the emotion-cognition dichotomy in the Iowa Gambling Task.

PubMed

Singh, Varsha

2013-01-01

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is based on the assumption that a decision maker is equally motivated to seek reward and avoid punishment, and that decision making is governed solely by the intertemporal attribute (i.e., preference for an option that produces an immediate outcome instead of one that yields a delayed outcome is believed to reflect risky decision making and is considered a deficit). It was assumed in the present study that the emotion- and cognition-based processing dichotomy manifests in the IGT as reward and punishment frequency and the intertemporal attribute. It was further proposed that the delineation of emotion- and cognition-based processing is contingent upon reward and punishment as manifested in the frame of the task (variant type) and task motivation (instruction type). The effects of IGT variant type (reward vs. punishment) and instruction type (task motivation induced by instruction types: reward, punishment, reward and punishment, or no hint) on the intertemporal and frequency attributes of IGT decision-making were analyzed. Decision making in the reward variant was equally governed by both attributes, and significantly affected by instruction type, while decision making in the punishment variant was differentially affected by the two attributes and not significantly impacted by instruction type. These results suggest that reward and punishment manifested via task frame as well as the task motivation may facilitate the differentiation of emotion- and cognition-based processing in the IGT.

A potential role of reward and punishment in the facilitation of the emotion-cognition dichotomy in the Iowa Gambling Task

PubMed Central

Singh, Varsha

2013-01-01

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is based on the assumption that a decision maker is equally motivated to seek reward and avoid punishment, and that decision making is governed solely by the intertemporal attribute (i.e., preference for an option that produces an immediate outcome instead of one that yields a delayed outcome is believed to reflect risky decision making and is considered a deficit). It was assumed in the present study that the emotion- and cognition-based processing dichotomy manifests in the IGT as reward and punishment frequency and the intertemporal attribute. It was further proposed that the delineation of emotion- and cognition-based processing is contingent upon reward and punishment as manifested in the frame of the task (variant type) and task motivation (instruction type). The effects of IGT variant type (reward vs. punishment) and instruction type (task motivation induced by instruction types: reward, punishment, reward and punishment, or no hint) on the intertemporal and frequency attributes of IGT decision-making were analyzed. Decision making in the reward variant was equally governed by both attributes, and significantly affected by instruction type, while decision making in the punishment variant was differentially affected by the two attributes and not significantly impacted by instruction type. These results suggest that reward and punishment manifested via task frame as well as the task motivation may facilitate the differentiation of emotion- and cognition-based processing in the IGT. PMID:24381567

Verbal-motor attention-focusing instructions influence kinematics and performance on a golf-putting task.

PubMed

Munzert, Jörn; Maurer, Heiko; Reiser, Mathias

2014-01-01

The authors examined how varying the content of verbal-motor instructions and requesting an internal versus external focus influenced the kinematics and outcome of a golf putting task. On Day 1, 30 novices performed 120 trials with the instruction to focus attention either on performing a pendulum-like movement (internal) or on the desired ball path (external). After 20 retention trials on Day 2, they performed 20 transfer trials with the opposite instruction. Group differences for retention and a group by block interaction showed that external instruction enhanced movement outcome. Kinematic data indicated that specific instruction content influenced outcomes by eliciting changes in movement execution. Switching from the external to the internal focus instruction resulted in a more pendulum-like movement.

The Case against Secondary Task Analyses of Mental Workload.

DTIC Science & Technology

1980-01-10

different attributes of one object (e.g., its color, form and size) than one attribute of three objects (e.g., red, green and blue or square, circle and...RED printed in colored ink, e.g. green . The subjecc is instructed to report the ink color, ignoring the color word. This is quite difficult for most...Directions in Cognitive Psycholoz. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul (in press). Baddeley, A. D. The capacity for generating information by randomization

In search for instructional techniques to maximize the use of germane cognitive resources: A case of teaching complex tasks in physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sliva, Yekaterina

The purpose of this study was to introduce an instructional technique for teaching complex tasks in physics, test its effectiveness and efficiency, and understand cognitive processes taking place in learners' minds while they are exposed to this technique. The study was based primarily on cognitive load theory (CLT). CLT determines the amount of total cognitive load imposed on a learner by a learning task as combined intrinsic (invested in comprehending task complexity) and extraneous (wasteful) cognitive load. Working memory resources associated with intrinsic cognitive load are defined as germane resources caused by element interactivity that lead to learning, in contrast to extraneous working memory resources that are devoted to dealing with extraneous cognitive load. However, the amount of learner's working memory resources actually devoted to a task depends on how well the learner is engaged in the learning environment. Since total cognitive load has to stay within limits of working memory capacity, both extraneous and intrinsic cognitive load need to be reduced. In order for effective learning to occur, the use of germane cognitive resources should be maximized. In this study, the use of germane resources was maximized for two experimental groups by providing a learning environment that combined problem-solving procedure with prompts to self-explain with and without completion problems. The study tested three hypotheses and answered two research questions. The first hypothesis predicting that experimental treatments would reduce total cognitive load was not supported. The second hypothesis predicting that experimental treatments would increase performance was supported for the self-explanation group only. The third hypothesis that tested efficiency measure as adopted from Paas and van Merrienboer (1993) was not supported. As for the research question of whether the quality of self-explanations would change with time for the two experimental conditions, it was determined that time had a positive effect on such quality. The research question that investigated learners' attitudes towards the instructions revealed that experimental groups understood the main idea behind the suggested technique and positively reacted to it. The results of the study support the conclusions that (a) prompting learners to self-explain while independently solving problems can increase performance, especially on far transfer questions; (b) better performance is achieved in combination with increased mental effort; (c) self-explanations do not increase time on task; and (d) quality of self-explanations can be improved with time. Results based on the analyses of learners' attitudes further support that learners in the experimental groups understood the main idea behind the suggested techniques and positively reacted to them. The study also raised concern about application of efficiency formula for instructional conditions that increase both performance and mental effort in CLT. As a result, an alternative model was suggested to explain the relationship between performance and mental effort based on Yerkes-Dodson law (1908). Keywords: instructional design, cognitive load, complex tasks, problem-solving, self-explanation.

A dissociation between engagement and learning: Enthusiastic instructions fail to reliably improve performance on a memory task.

PubMed

Motz, Benjamin A; de Leeuw, Joshua R; Carvalho, Paulo F; Liang, Kaley L; Goldstone, Robert L

2017-01-01

Despite widespread assertions that enthusiasm is an important quality of effective teaching, empirical research on the effect of enthusiasm on learning and memory is mixed and largely inconclusive. To help resolve these inconsistencies, we conducted a carefully-controlled laboratory experiment, investigating whether enthusiastic instructions for a memory task would improve recall accuracy. Scripted videos, either enthusiastic or neutral, were used to manipulate the delivery of task instructions. We also manipulated the sequence of learning items, replicating the spacing effect, a known cognitive technique for memory improvement. Although spaced study reliably improved test performance, we found no reliable effect of enthusiasm on memory performance across two experiments. We did, however, find that enthusiastic instructions caused participants to respond to more item prompts, leaving fewer test questions blank, an outcome typically associated with increased task motivation. We find no support for the popular claim that enthusiastic instruction will improve learning, although it may still improve engagement. This dissociation between motivation and learning is discussed, as well as its implications for education and future research on student learning.

A dissociation between engagement and learning: Enthusiastic instructions fail to reliably improve performance on a memory task

PubMed Central

de Leeuw, Joshua R.; Carvalho, Paulo F.; Liang, Kaley L.; Goldstone, Robert L.

2017-01-01

Despite widespread assertions that enthusiasm is an important quality of effective teaching, empirical research on the effect of enthusiasm on learning and memory is mixed and largely inconclusive. To help resolve these inconsistencies, we conducted a carefully-controlled laboratory experiment, investigating whether enthusiastic instructions for a memory task would improve recall accuracy. Scripted videos, either enthusiastic or neutral, were used to manipulate the delivery of task instructions. We also manipulated the sequence of learning items, replicating the spacing effect, a known cognitive technique for memory improvement. Although spaced study reliably improved test performance, we found no reliable effect of enthusiasm on memory performance across two experiments. We did, however, find that enthusiastic instructions caused participants to respond to more item prompts, leaving fewer test questions blank, an outcome typically associated with increased task motivation. We find no support for the popular claim that enthusiastic instruction will improve learning, although it may still improve engagement. This dissociation between motivation and learning is discussed, as well as its implications for education and future research on student learning. PMID:28732087

Effectiveness of Focus-on-Forms Instruction: Different Outcomes on Constrained- and Free-Production Tasks?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Corbeil, Giselle

2005-01-01

The purpose of this study is to investigate how focus-on-forms instruction in second language teaching affects attention to forms in two different types of task: constrained and free production. These two different types of task were administered to 87 university students enrolled in a first-year French as a second language course before and after…

The APA Task Force on Statistical Inference (TFSI) Report as a Framework for Teaching and Evaluating Students' Understandings of Study Validity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thompson, Bruce

Web-based statistical instruction, like all statistical instruction, ought to focus on teaching the essence of the research endeavor: the exercise of reflective judgment. Using the framework of the recent report of the American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force on Statistical Inference (Wilkinson and the APA Task Force on Statistical…

Emotional event-related potentials are reduced if negative pictures presented at fixation are unattended.

PubMed

Wiens, Stefan; Sand, Anders; Norberg, Joakim; Andersson, Per

2011-05-20

Viewing of emotional pictures elicits two event-related potentials (ERPs) to emotional versus neutral pictures: an early posterior negativity (EPN) and a late positive potential (LPP). Because it is unresolved whether these indexes of emotional processing are reduced to task-irrelevant pictures at fixation, negative and neutral pictures from the International Affective Picture Set (IAPS) were shown at fixation together with 6 letters that surrounded the pictures. In separate tasks, participants were instructed to attend either the pictures or the letters. When the pictures were task relevant, results showed an EPN and LPP. In contrast, when the pictures were task irrelevant, the EPN was eliminated and the LPP reduced. Performance was high in both tasks (hit rates>87%), but somewhat better when the pictures were relevant. However, analyses showed no relationship between this performance difference and the differences in EPN and LPP between tasks. These results suggest that emotional processing of strong, negative pictures is sensitive to manipulations of attention even if the pictures are shown at fixation. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The effect of resonance tubes on glottal contact quotient with and without task instruction: a comparison of trained and untrained voices.

PubMed

Gaskill, Christopher S; Quinney, Dana M

2012-05-01

Phonation into narrow tubes or straws has been used as a voice training and voice therapy technique and belongs to a group of techniques known as semi-occluded vocal tract exercises. The use of what are called resonance tubes has received renewed attention in the voice research literature, in both theoretical and empirical studies. The assumption is that the partially occluded and lengthened vocal tract alters supraglottal acoustics in such a way as to allow phonation near a lowered first vocal tract formant, which has been suggested as a way to bring about a more efficient glottal closure pattern for sustained oscillation. In this study, two groups of male participants, 10 with no vocal training and 10 with classical vocal training, phonated into a resonance tube for approximately 1 minute. Electroglottography was used to estimate glottal contact quotient (CQ) during spoken /a/ vowels before tube phonation, during tube phonation, and again during spoken /a/ vowels after tube phonation. Half of each group of participants was made to keep pitch and loudness consistent for all phases of the experiment, replicating the method of a previous study by this author. The other half was instructed to practice phonating into the resonance tube before collecting data and was encouraged to find a pitch and loudness combination that maximized ease of phonation and a sense of forward oral resonance. Glottal CQ altered considerably from baseline for almost all participants during tube phonation, with a larger variability than that during vowel production. Small differences in glottal CQ were found as a function of training and instruction, with most participants' CQ increasing during tube phonation. A small post-tube phonation effect was found primarily for the trained and instructed group. Secondary single-subject analyses revealed large intersubject variation, highlighting the highly individualized response to the resonance tube task. Continued study of resonance tubes is recommended, comparing both male and female as well as vocally trained and untrained participants. Future studies should continue to examine systematic variations in task instruction, length of practice, and resonance tube dimensions. Copyright © 2012 The Voice Foundation. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

An ICAI architecture for troubleshooting in complex, dynamic systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fath, Janet L.; Mitchell, Christine M.; Govindaraj, T.

1990-01-01

Ahab, an intelligent computer-aided instruction (ICAI) program, illustrates an architecture for simulator-based ICAI programs to teach troubleshooting in complex, dynamic environments. The architecture posits three elements of a computerized instructor: the task model, the student model, and the instructional module. The task model is a prescriptive model of expert performance that uses symptomatic and topographic search strategies to provide students with directed problem-solving aids. The student model is a descriptive model of student performance in the context of the task model. This student model compares the student and task models, critiques student performance, and provides interactive performance feedback. The instructional module coordinates information presented by the instructional media, the task model, and the student model so that each student receives individualized instruction. Concept and metaconcept knowledge that supports these elements is contained in frames and production rules, respectively. The results of an experimental evaluation are discussed. They support the hypothesis that training with an adaptive online system built using the Ahab architecture produces better performance than training using simulator practice alone, at least with unfamiliar problems. It is not sufficient to develop an expert strategy and present it to students using offline materials. The training is most effective if it adapts to individual student needs.

Exploring General Versus Task-Specific Assessments of Metacognition in University Chemistry Students: A Multitrait-Multimethod Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Chia-Yu

2015-08-01

The purpose of this study was to use multiple assessments to investigate the general versus task-specific characteristics of metacognition in dissimilar chemistry topics. This mixed-method approach investigated the nature of undergraduate general chemistry students' metacognition using four assessments: a self-report questionnaire, assessment of concurrent metacognitive skills, confidence judgment, and calibration accuracy. Data were analyzed using a multitrait-multimethod correlation matrix, supplemented with regression analyses, and qualitative interpretation. Significant correlations among task performance, calibration accuracy, and concurrent metacognition within a task suggest a converging relationship. Confidence judgment, however, was not associated with task performance or the other metacognitive measurements. The results partially support hypotheses of both general and task-specific metacognition. However, general and task-specific properties of metacognition were detected using different assessments. Case studies were constructed for two participants to illustrate how concurrent metacognition varied within different task demands. Considerations of how each assessment may appropriate different metacognitive constructs and the importance of the alignment of analytical constructs when using multiple assessments are discussed. These results may help lead to improvements in metacognition assessment and may provide insights into designs of effective metacognitive instruction.

Investigating the Use of Integrated Instructions to Reduce the Cognitive Load Associated with Doing Practical Work in Secondary School Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haslam, Carolyn Yvonne; Hamilton, Richard Joseph

2010-09-01

This study investigated the effects of integrated illustrations on understanding instructions for practical work in science. Ninety-six secondary school students who were unfamiliar with the target content knowledge and practical equipment took part. The students were divided into two conditions: (1) modified instructions containing integrated text and illustrations, and (2) conventional instructions containing text only. Modified instructions produced significantly higher levels of performance on task, lower time to completion and perceived cognitive load and task difficulty, higher relative efficiency score, and higher post-test scores than the conventional instructions. When learners are inexperienced and the information is complex, the results suggest that physically integrating mutually referring sources of information reduces cognitive load, and therefore makes practical work instructions easier to understand.

Effects of Instruction and Stage-Fright on Intelligence Testing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meijer, Joost; Oostdam, Ron

2011-01-01

In the present research, it was tried to unravel the influence of various types of instruction on test anxiety levels and, in turn, its influence on intelligence test performance. Three types of instruction were compared: a stressful, achievement-orientated instruction; a reassuring, task-orientated instruction; and an ambiguous instruction.…

Demonstrating Empathy: A Phenomenological Study of Instructional Designers Making Instructional Strategy Decisions for Adult Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vann, Linda S.

2017-01-01

Instructional designers are tasked with making instructional strategy decisions to facilitate achievement of learning outcomes as part of their professional responsibilities. While the instructional design process includes learner analysis, that analysis alone does not embody opportunities to assist instructional designers with demonstrations of…

Visual Search in ASD: Instructed Versus Spontaneous Local and Global Processing.

PubMed

Van der Hallen, Ruth; Evers, Kris; Boets, Bart; Steyaert, Jean; Noens, Ilse; Wagemans, Johan

2016-09-01

Visual search has been used extensively to investigate differences in mid-level visual processing between individuals with ASD and TD individuals. The current study employed two visual search paradigms with Gaborized stimuli to assess the impact of task distractors (Experiment 1) and task instruction (Experiment 2) on local-global visual processing in ASD versus TD children. Experiment 1 revealed both groups to be equally sensitive to the absence or presence of a distractor, regardless of the type of target or type of distractor. Experiment 2 revealed a differential effect of task instruction for ASD compared to TD, regardless of the type of target. Taken together, these results stress the importance of task factors in the study of local-global visual processing in ASD.

Promoting Transfer in Memory Training for Older Adults

PubMed Central

Cavallini, Elena; Dunlosky, John; Bottiroli, Sara; Hertzog, Christopher; Vecchi, Tomaso

2011-01-01

Background and aims Many studies have focused on memory training in aging showing older adults can improve their performance. Unfortunately the benefits of training rarely generalize to other tasks that were not specifically trained. We investigated the benefits of instruction-based training in promoting transfer effects in older adults. Methods In Experiment 1, we evaluated transfer effects in a training group who practiced using standard mnemonics to learn paired associates and word lists, and this group was provided instructions about how the mnemonics could be used for two of the four transfer tasks (text learning, name-face learning, grocery list learning, place learning). In Experiment 2, we compared transfer effects for two different training groups: one practiced the strategies with the two trained tasks and did not receive instructions and one had the same practice but also received instructions on all the transfer tasks. Results Transfer in text learning occurred in both experiments. Such transfer is particularly interesting considering that text learning was the most dissimilar task in terms of both the nature of the materials and the underlying processes that support performance. Such transfer was reliably greater when training involved instructions about applicability than when it did not. Conclusions Instructions to use practiced strategies on new materials could be a useful technique in promoting transfer in older adults. It seems that the lack of transfer does not necessarily arise from older adults’ inabilities but instead because they do not realize that trained strategies can (or should) be applied to new materials. PMID:19966535

Promoting transfer in memory training for older adults.

PubMed

Cavallini, Elena; Dunlosky, John; Bottiroli, Sara; Hertzog, Christopher; Vecchi, Tomaso

2010-08-01

Many studies have focused on memory training in aging, showing that older adults can improve their performance. Unfortunately, the benefits of training can rarely be generalized to other tasks for which adults were not specifically trained. We investigated the benefits of instruction-based training in promoting transfer effects in older adults. In Experiment 1, we evaluated transfer effects in a training group who practiced using standard mnemonics to learn paired associates and word lists, and this group was given instructions about how the mnemonics could be used for two of the four transfer tasks (text learning, name-face learning, grocery list learning, place learning). In Experiment 2, we compared transfer effects for two different training groups: one practiced the strategies with the two trained tasks and did not receive instructions, and the other had the same practice but also received instructions on all the transfer tasks. Transfer in text learning occurred in both experiments. This transfer is particularly interesting, as text learning was the most dissimilar task in terms of both the nature of the materials and the underlying processes that support performance. The transfer was reliably greater when training involved instructions about applicability than when it did not. Instructions to use practiced strategies on new materials may be a useful technique in promoting transfer in older adults. It seems that the lack of transfer does not necessarily arise from older adults' inabilities, but because they do not realize that trained strategies can (or should) be applied to new materials.

Strategy Instruction in Mathematics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldman, Susan R.

1989-01-01

Experiments in strategy instruction for mathematics have been conducted using three models (direct instruction, self-instruction, and guided learning) applied to the tasks of computation and word problem solving. Results have implications for effective strategy instruction for learning disabled students. It is recommended that strategy instruction…

Evaluating the contributions of task expectancy in the testing and guessing benefits on recognition memory.

PubMed

Huff, Mark J; Yates, Tyler J; Balota, David A

2018-05-03

Recently, we have shown that two types of initial testing (recall of a list or guessing of critical items repeated over 12 study/test cycles) improved final recognition of related and unrelated word lists relative to restudy. These benefits were eliminated, however, when test instructions were manipulated within subjects and presented after study of each list, procedures designed to minimise expectancy of a specific type of upcoming test [Huff, Balota, & Hutchison, 2016. The costs and benefits of testing and guessing on recognition memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 42, 1559-1572. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000269 ], suggesting that testing and guessing effects may be influenced by encoding strategies specific for the type of upcoming task. We follow-up these experiments by examining test-expectancy processes in guessing and testing. Testing and guessing benefits over restudy were not found when test instructions were presented either after (Experiment 1) or before (Experiment 2) a single study/task cycle was completed, nor were benefits found when instructions were presented before study/task cycles and the task was repeated three times (Experiment 3). Testing and guessing benefits emerged only when instructions were presented before a study/task cycle and the task was repeated six times (Experiments 4A and 4B). These experiments demonstrate that initial testing and guessing can produce memory benefits in recognition, but only following substantial task repetitions which likely promote task-expectancy processes.

Early Science Instruction and Academic Language Development Can Go Hand in Hand. The Promising Effects of a Low-Intensity Teacher-Focused Intervention

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Henrichs, Lotte F.; Leseman, Paul P. M.

2014-11-01

Early science instruction is important in order to lay a firm basis for learning scientific concepts and scientific thinking. In addition, young children enjoy science. However, science plays only a minor role in the kindergarten curriculum. It has been reported that teachers feel they need to prioritize language and literacy practices over science. In this paper, we investigate whether science lessons might be integrated with learning the language functional for school: academic language. The occurrence of scientific reasoning and sophisticated vocabulary in brief science lessons with 5-year-olds is evaluated. The aim of the study was twofold: first, to explore the nature of kindergarten science discourse without any researcher directions (pre-intervention observation). Second, in a randomized control trial, we evaluated the effect on science discourse of a brief teacher training session focused on academic language awareness. The science lessons focussed on air pressure and mirror reflection. Analyses showed that teachers from the intervention group increased their use of scientific reasoning and of domain-specific academic words in their science discourse, compared to the control group. For the use of general academic words and for lexical diversity, the effect was task-specific: these dependent measures only increased during the air pressure task. Implications of the study include the need to increase teachers' awareness of possibilities to combine early science instruction and academic language learning.

Stressor Effects in Lab and Life: Correspondences between the Effects of the Accident at Three Mile Island and Stress Responses in the Laboratory.

DTIC Science & Technology

1982-09-01

data as well as administra- tion requirements are available. Video game task: a non-social, task-oriented setting in which the person is working...dominant arm and the subject was instructed to watch a video screen. After the experimenter left the room, videotaped instructions for a video game (similar...with video games to understand the task. The task itself was selected for its general interest across divergent groups of potential subjects and

Modeling stimulus variation in three common implicit attitude tasks.

PubMed

Wolsiefer, Katie; Westfall, Jacob; Judd, Charles M

2017-08-01

We explored the consequences of ignoring the sampling variation due to stimuli in the domain of implicit attitudes. A large literature in psycholinguistics has examined the statistical treatment of random stimulus materials, but the recommendations from this literature have not been applied to the social psychological literature on implicit attitudes. This is partly because of inherent complications in applying crossed random-effect models to some of the most common implicit attitude tasks, and partly because no work to date has demonstrated that random stimulus variation is in fact consequential in implicit attitude measurement. We addressed this problem by laying out statistically appropriate and practically feasible crossed random-effect models for three of the most commonly used implicit attitude measures-the Implicit Association Test, affect misattribution procedure, and evaluative priming task-and then applying these models to large datasets (average N = 3,206) that assess participants' implicit attitudes toward race, politics, and self-esteem. We showed that the test statistics from the traditional analyses are substantially (about 60 %) inflated relative to the more-appropriate analyses that incorporate stimulus variation. Because all three tasks used the same stimulus words and faces, we could also meaningfully compare the relative contributions of stimulus variation across the tasks. In an appendix, we give syntax in R, SAS, and SPSS for fitting the recommended crossed random-effects models to data from all three tasks, as well as instructions on how to structure the data file.

Productive Struggle for All: Differentiated Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lynch, Sararose D.; Hunt, Jessica H.; Lewis, Katherine E.

2018-01-01

This article demonstrates how to consider differentiating instruction for diverse learners while maintaining the cognitive demand of a mathematics task. The authors present scenarios involving hypothetical cases of students in inclusive classrooms who engaged in productive struggle within the differentiated task. The authors specifically focus on…

Attention failures versus misplaced diligence: separating attention lapses from speed-accuracy trade-offs.

PubMed

Seli, Paul; Cheyne, James Allan; Smilek, Daniel

2012-03-01

In two studies of a GO-NOGO task assessing sustained attention, we examined the effects of (1) altering speed-accuracy trade-offs through instructions (emphasizing both speed and accuracy or accuracy only) and (2) auditory alerts distributed throughout the task. Instructions emphasizing accuracy reduced errors and changed the distribution of GO trial RTs. Additionally, correlations between errors and increasing RTs produced a U-function; excessively fast and slow RTs accounted for much of the variance of errors. Contrary to previous reports, alerts increased errors and RT variability. The results suggest that (1) standard instructions for sustained attention tasks, emphasizing speed and accuracy equally, produce errors arising from attempts to conform to the misleading requirement for speed, which become conflated with attention-lapse produced errors and (2) auditory alerts have complex, and sometimes deleterious, effects on attention. We argue that instructions emphasizing accuracy provide a more precise assessment of attention lapses in sustained attention tasks. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

How automatic is the hand's automatic pilot? Evidence from dual-task studies.

PubMed

McIntosh, Robert D; Mulroue, Amy; Brockmole, James R

2010-10-01

The ability to correct reaching movements for changes in target position has been described as the hand's 'automatic pilot'. These corrections are preconscious and occur by default in double-step reaching tasks, even if the goal is to react to the target jump in some other way, for instance by stopping the movement (STOP instruction). Nonetheless, corrections are strongly modulated by conscious intention: participants make more corrections when asked to follow the target (GO instruction) and can suppress them when explicitly asked not to follow the target (NOGO instruction). We studied the influence of a cognitively demanding (auditory 1-back) task upon correction behaviour under GO, STOP and NOGO instructions. Correction rates under the STOP instruction were unaffected by cognitive load, consistent with the assumption that they reflect the default behaviour of the automatic pilot. Correction rates under the GO instruction were also unaffected, suggesting that minimal cognitive resources are required to enhance online correction. By contrast, cognitive load impeded the ability to suppress online corrections under the NOGO instruction. These data reveal a constitutional bias in the automatic pilot system: intentional suppression of the default correction behaviour is cognitively demanding, but enhancement towards greater responsiveness is seemingly effortless.

The first signs of prospective memory.

PubMed

Ślusarczyk, Elżbieta; Niedźwieńska, Agnieszka; Białecka-Pikul, Marta

2018-06-05

We conducted a study to examine the impact of motivation and length of delay on performance on prospective memory (PM) tasks in 2-year of children. A total of 158 children aged exactly 24 months were asked to perform a naturalistic PM task. Length of delay (10 min; 35 min) and motivation (high; very high) were between-subjects factors. Two thirds of children had to be excluded from the analysis because of poor retrospective memory for the PM task instructions which were no longer remembered at the end of the session. For the children who did remember the instructions, both motivation and delay had significant effects on PM. Also, their PM performance was reliably above zero, even after the long delay. The findings indicate that when children as young as 24 months are able to remember the PM task instructions they can reliably succeed in PM tasks that are intrinsically motivating for them.

Learning procedures from interactive natural language instructions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Huffman, Scott B.; Laird, John E.

1994-01-01

Despite its ubiquity in human learning, very little work has been done in artificial intelligence on agents that learn from interactive natural language instructions. In this paper, the problem of learning procedures from interactive, situated instruction is examined in which the student is attempting to perform tasks within the instructional domain, and asks for instruction when it is needed. Presented is Instructo-Soar, a system that behaves and learns in response to interactive natural language instructions. Instructo-Soar learns completely new procedures from sequences of instruction, and also learns how to extend its knowledge of previously known procedures to new situations. These learning tasks require both inductive and analytic learning. Instructo-Soar exhibits a multiple execution learning process in which initial learning has a rote, episodic flavor, and later executions allow the initially learned knowledge to be generalized properly.

Fourth and eighth grade students' conceptions of energy flow through ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arkwright, Ashlie Beals

This mixed methods status study examined 32 fourth grade students' conceptual understandings of energy flow through ecosystems prior to instruction and 40 eighth grade students' conceptual understandings of the same topic after five years of daily standards-based instruction in science. Specific ecological concepts assessed related to: 1) roles of organisms; 2) the sun as the original energy source for most ecosystems; and 3) interdependency of organisms. Fourth and eighth grade students were assessed using the same three-tiered forced-choice instrument, with accompanying tasks for students to defend their forced-choice selections and rate their level of confidence in making the selections. The instrument was developed for the study by a team of researchers and was based on similar tasks presented in the research literature. Distractor options were embedded in each assessment task using common non-scientific ideas also reported in the research literature. Cronbach's alpha values at or greater than .992 for each task indicated interrater consistency of task answers, and Rasch analysis was employed to establish the reliability of the instrument. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were employed to assess the data. Constant comparative methods were employed to analyze students' written responses, which were coded and grouped into emerging themes. These themes were further developed to characterize students' conceptual understandings. Student open responses also were scored and coded by a team of researchers using a rubric to identify level of scientific understanding. Quantitative analyses included Rasch analysis used to normalize survey data. Independent samples t-tests were then employed to compare students' forced-choice responses to their written responses and to the confidence ratings, as well as to compare fourth and eighth grade students' responses. Findings indicated that eighth grade students generally outperformed the fourth grade on both the forced-choice and written responses, but both groups demonstrated conceptual difficulties in all three topics assessed. Thus, results from the current study support the assertion that students' understanding of concepts related to energy flow in ecosystems is not at the expected level according to national science education standards and frameworks. Conceptual difficulties identified in the study are discussed along with implications and curricular recommendations.

Elementary Students' Learning of Materials Science Practices Through Instruction Based on Engineering Design Tasks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wendell, Kristen Bethke; Lee, Hee-Sun

2010-12-01

Materials science, which entails the practices of selecting, testing, and characterizing materials, is an important discipline within the study of matter. This paper examines how third grade students' materials science performance changes over the course of instruction based on an engineering design challenge. We conducted a case study of nine students who participated in engineering design-based science instruction with the goal of constructing a stable, quiet, thermally comfortable model house. The learning outcome of materials science practices was assessed by clinical interviews conducted before and after the instruction, and the learning process was assessed by students' workbooks completed during the instruction. The interviews included two materials selection tasks for designing a sturdy stepstool and an insulated pet habitat. Results indicate that: (1) students significantly improved on both materials selection tasks, (2) their gains were significantly positively associated with the degree of completion of their workbooks, and (3) students who were highly engaged with the workbook's reflective record-keeping tasks showed the greatest improvement on the interviews. These findings suggest the important role workbooks can play in facilitating elementary students' learning of science through authentic activity such as engineering design.

Free classification of regional dialects of American English.

PubMed

Clopper, Cynthia G; Pisoni, David B

2007-07-01

Recent studies have found that naïve listeners perform poorly in forced-choice dialect categorization tasks. However, the listeners' error patterns in these tasks reveal systematic confusions between phonologically similar dialects. In the present study, a free classification procedure was used to measure the perceptual similarity structure of regional dialect variation in the United States. In two experiments, participants listened to a set of short English sentences produced by male talkers only (Experiment 1) and by male and female talkers (Experiment 2). The listeners were instructed to group the talkers by regional dialect into as many groups as they wanted with as many talkers in each group as they wished. Multidimensional scaling analyses of the data revealed three primary dimensions of perceptual similarity (linguistic markedness, geography, and gender). In addition, a comparison of the results obtained from the free classification task to previous results using the same stimulus materials in six-alternative forced-choice categorization tasks revealed that response biases in the six-alternative task were reduced or eliminated in the free classification task. Thus, the results obtained with the free classification task in the current study provided further evidence that the underlying structure of perceptual dialect category representations reflects important linguistic and sociolinguistic factors.

IBES: a tool for creating instructions based on event segmentation

PubMed Central

Mura, Katharina; Petersen, Nils; Huff, Markus; Ghose, Tandra

2013-01-01

Receiving informative, well-structured, and well-designed instructions supports performance and memory in assembly tasks. We describe IBES, a tool with which users can quickly and easily create multimedia, step-by-step instructions by segmenting a video of a task into segments. In a validation study we demonstrate that the step-by-step structure of the visual instructions created by the tool corresponds to the natural event boundaries, which are assessed by event segmentation and are known to play an important role in memory processes. In one part of the study, 20 participants created instructions based on videos of two different scenarios by using the proposed tool. In the other part of the study, 10 and 12 participants respectively segmented videos of the same scenarios yielding event boundaries for coarse and fine events. We found that the visual steps chosen by the participants for creating the instruction manual had corresponding events in the event segmentation. The number of instructional steps was a compromise between the number of fine and coarse events. Our interpretation of results is that the tool picks up on natural human event perception processes of segmenting an ongoing activity into events and enables the convenient transfer into meaningful multimedia instructions for assembly tasks. We discuss the practical application of IBES, for example, creating manuals for differing expertise levels, and give suggestions for research on user-oriented instructional design based on this tool. PMID:24454296

Fraction magnitude understanding and its unique role in predicting general mathematics achievement at two early stages of fraction instruction.

PubMed

Liu, Yingyi

2017-09-08

Prior studies on fraction magnitude understanding focused mainly on students with relatively sufficient formal instruction on fractions whose fraction magnitude understanding is relatively mature. This study fills a research gap by investigating fraction magnitude understanding in the early stages of fraction instruction. It extends previous findings to children with limited and primary formal fraction instruction. Thirty-five fourth graders with limited fraction instruction and forty fourth graders with primary fraction instruction were recruited from a Chinese primary school. Children's fraction magnitude understanding was assessed with a fraction number line estimation task. Approximate number system (ANS) acuity was assessed with a dot discrimination task. Whole number knowledge was assessed with a whole number line estimation task. General reading and mathematics achievements were collected concurrently and 1 year later. In children with limited fraction instruction, fraction representation was linear and fraction magnitude understanding was concurrently related to both ANS and whole number knowledge. In children with primary fraction instruction, fraction magnitude understanding appeared to (marginally) significantly predict general mathematics achievement 1 year later. Fraction magnitude understanding emerged early during formal instruction of fractions. ANS and whole number knowledge were related to fraction magnitude understanding when children first began to learn about fractions in school. The predictive value of fraction magnitude understanding is likely constrained by its sophistication level. © 2017 The British Psychological Society.

IBES: a tool for creating instructions based on event segmentation.

PubMed

Mura, Katharina; Petersen, Nils; Huff, Markus; Ghose, Tandra

2013-12-26

Receiving informative, well-structured, and well-designed instructions supports performance and memory in assembly tasks. We describe IBES, a tool with which users can quickly and easily create multimedia, step-by-step instructions by segmenting a video of a task into segments. In a validation study we demonstrate that the step-by-step structure of the visual instructions created by the tool corresponds to the natural event boundaries, which are assessed by event segmentation and are known to play an important role in memory processes. In one part of the study, 20 participants created instructions based on videos of two different scenarios by using the proposed tool. In the other part of the study, 10 and 12 participants respectively segmented videos of the same scenarios yielding event boundaries for coarse and fine events. We found that the visual steps chosen by the participants for creating the instruction manual had corresponding events in the event segmentation. The number of instructional steps was a compromise between the number of fine and coarse events. Our interpretation of results is that the tool picks up on natural human event perception processes of segmenting an ongoing activity into events and enables the convenient transfer into meaningful multimedia instructions for assembly tasks. We discuss the practical application of IBES, for example, creating manuals for differing expertise levels, and give suggestions for research on user-oriented instructional design based on this tool.

The effect of new technologies in the training and utilization of dental auxiliaries in the US armed forces--Navy.

PubMed

Pebley, H C

1976-06-01

The dental health care requirements of Navy and Marine Corps personnel exceed the treatment capabilities of the Navy Dental Corps. Through the effective training and efficient utilization of the various categories of auxiliaries, members of the naval service have all essential care completed. The staff of the Dental Technicians School has developed a task-based/self-paced curriculum for the basic dental assisting course. In the task-based curriculum instruction is limited to the psychomotor domain. Background knowledge from the cognitive domain is included only to the extent that the information is needed to perform designated tasks. There are 229 tasks in the inventory of the 12 week basic dental assisting course. These are organized into 17 instructional modules covering all aspects of chairside dental assisting. Student evaluation is based on demonstrated performance of the tasks and is graded on a pass/fail standard. The new curriculum is believed to be unique in dental auxiliary education. Because of the highly successful results in improving the quality of graduates, the positive student enthusiasm and acceptance of task-based instruction and the overall revitalization of every dimension of the basic dental assistant training program, development teams have begun to convert the other three courses of instruction conducted at the Dental Technicians School to the task-based curriculum format.

Optimal Structures for Multimedia Instruction. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goguen, Joseph; And Others

This 2-year study, which took a multidisciplinary approach to the problem of discovering principles for designing effective multimedia instruction, focused on the effects on instructional effectiveness of the discourse structure of instructional materials and the coordination of multiple instructional media. The task domain was a logic box said to…

Self-guided strategy-adaption training for older adults: Transfer effects to everyday tasks.

PubMed

Bottiroli, Sara; Cavallini, Elena; Dunlosky, John; Vecchi, Tomaso; Hertzog, Christopher

2017-09-01

The goal of the present research was to examine the potential of a learner-oriented approach to improving older adults' performance in tasks that are similar to real-life situations that require strategic deployment of cognitive resources. A crucial element of this approach involves encouraging older adults to explicitly analyze tasks to consider how to adapt trained skills to a new task context. In an earlier study, a specialist-directed intervention produced training gains and transfer to some untrained memory tasks. In the present study, older adults received a manual instructing them about principles of task analysis, two memory strategies, and strategy adaptation. Self-guided strategy-adaption training involved practicing some memory tasks as well as instructions on how the trained skills could be applied to new tasks that were not practiced. The criterion tasks involved practice tasks, non-practiced tasks that were discussed in the manual, and transfer tasks that were never mentioned in the manual. Two of the tests were from the Everyday Cognition Battery (inductive reasoning and working memory). As compared to a waiting-list control group, older adults assigned to self-guided strategy-adaption training showed memory improvements on tasks that were practiced or discussed during training. Most important, the learner-oriented approach produced transfer to the everyday tasks. Our findings show the potential of instructing task appraisal processes as a basis for fostering transfer, including improving older adults' performance in simulated everyday tasks. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Explicit pre-training instruction does not improve implicit perceptual-motor sequence learning

PubMed Central

Sanchez, Daniel J.; Reber, Paul J.

2012-01-01

Memory systems theory argues for separate neural systems supporting implicit and explicit memory in the human brain. Neuropsychological studies support this dissociation, but empirical studies of cognitively healthy participants generally observe that both kinds of memory are acquired to at least some extent, even in implicit learning tasks. A key question is whether this observation reflects parallel intact memory systems or an integrated representation of memory in healthy participants. Learning of complex tasks in which both explicit instruction and practice is used depends on both kinds of memory, and how these systems interact will be an important component of the learning process. Theories that posit an integrated, or single, memory system for both types of memory predict that explicit instruction should contribute directly to strengthening task knowledge. In contrast, if the two types of memory are independent and acquired in parallel, explicit knowledge should have no direct impact and may serve in a “scaffolding” role in complex learning. Using an implicit perceptual-motor sequence learning task, the effect of explicit pre-training instruction on skill learning and performance was assessed. Explicit pre-training instruction led to robust explicit knowledge, but sequence learning did not benefit from the contribution of pre-training sequence memorization. The lack of an instruction benefit suggests that during skill learning, implicit and explicit memory operate independently. While healthy participants will generally accrue parallel implicit and explicit knowledge in complex tasks, these types of information appear to be separately represented in the human brain consistent with multiple memory systems theory. PMID:23280147

Large-scale coupling dynamics of instructed reversal learning.

PubMed

Mohr, Holger; Wolfensteller, Uta; Ruge, Hannes

2018-02-15

The ability to rapidly learn from others by instruction is an important characteristic of human cognition. A recent study found that the rapid transfer from initial instructions to fluid behavior is supported by changes of functional connectivity between and within several large-scale brain networks, and particularly by the coupling of the dorsal attention network (DAN) with the cingulo-opercular network (CON). In the present study, we extended this approach to investigate how these brain networks interact when stimulus-response mappings are altered by novel instructions. We hypothesized that residual stimulus-response associations from initial practice might negatively impact the ability to implement novel instructions. Using functional imaging and large-scale connectivity analysis, we found that functional coupling between the CON and DAN was generally at a higher level during initial than reversal learning. Examining the learning-related connectivity dynamics between the CON and DAN in more detail by means of multivariate patterns analyses, we identified a specific subset of connections which showed a particularly high increase in connectivity during initial learning compared to reversal learning. This finding suggests that the CON-DAN connections can be separated into two functionally dissociable yet spatially intertwined subsystems supporting different aspects of short-term task automatization. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Using Performance Task Data to Improve Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abbott, Amy L.; Wren, Douglas G.

2016-01-01

Two well-accepted ideas among educators are (a) performance assessment is an effective means of assessing higher-order thinking skills and (b) data-driven instruction planning is a valuable tool for optimizing student learning. This article describes a locally developed performance task (LDPT) designed to measure critical thinking, problem…

Research into Practice: The Task-Based Approach to Instructed Second Language Acquisition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

East, Martin

2017-01-01

This article discusses the phenomenon of task-based language teaching (TBLT) in instructed additional language settings. It begins from the premise that, despite considerable theoretical and empirical support, TBLT remains a contested endeavour. Critics of TBLT argue that, particularly with regard to time-limited foreign language instructional…

Processes Involving Perceived Instructional Support, Task Value, and Engagement in Graduate Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marchand, Gwen C.; Gutierrez, Antonio P.

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relations among perceived instructional support (provision of relevance and involvement), subjective task value beliefs (utility, attainment, and intrinsic value), and engagement (behavioral and emotional) over the course of a semester for graduate students enrolled in an introductory research…

Mathematical Tasks as a Framework for Reflection: From Research To Practice.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stein, Mary Kay; Smith, Margaret Schwan

1998-01-01

Describes the Quantitative Understanding: Amplifying Student Achievement and Reasoning (QUASAR) national reform project aimed at studying and fostering the development and implementation of enhanced mathematics instructional programs. It is a framework for reflection based on mathematical tasks used during classroom instruction and the ways in…

Examining the Task and Knowledge Demands Needed to Teach with Representations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mitchell, Rebecca; Charalambous, Charalambos Y.; Hill, Heather C.

2014-01-01

Representations are often used in instruction to highlight key mathematical ideas and support student learning. Despite their centrality in scaffolding teaching and learning, most of our understanding about the tasks involved with using representations in instruction and the knowledge requirements imposed on teachers when using these aids is…

Escape the Black Hole of Lecturing: Put Collaborative Ranking Tasks on Your Event Horizon

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hudgins, D. W.; Prather, E. E.; Grayson, D. J.

2005-05-01

At the University of Arizona, we have been developing and testing a new type of introductory astronomy curriculum material called Ranking Tasks. Ranking Tasks are a form of conceptual exercise that presents students with four to six physical situations, usually by pictures or diagrams, and asks students to rank order the situations based on some resulting effect. Our study developed design guidelines for Ranking Tasks based on learning theory and classroom pilot studies. Our research questions were: Do in-class collaborative Ranking Task exercises result in student conceptual gains when used in conjunction with traditional lecture-based instruction? And are these gains sufficient to justify implementing them into the astronomy classroom? We conducted a single-group repeated measures experiment across eight core introductory astronomy topics with 250 students at the University of Arizona in the Fall of 2004. The study found that traditional lecture-based instruction alone produced statistically significant gains - raising test scores to 61% post-lecture from 32% on the pretest. While significant, we find these gains to be unsatisfactory from a teaching and learning perspective. The study data shows that adding a collaborative learning component to the class structured around Ranking Task exercises helped students achieve statistically significant gains - with post-Ranking Task scores over the eight astronomy topic rising to 77%. Interestingly, we found that the normalized gain from the Ranking Tasks was equal to the entire previous gain from traditional instruction. Further analysis of the data revealed that Ranking Tasks equally benefited both genders; they also equally benefited both high and low-scoring median groups based on their pretest scores. Based on these results, we conclude that adding collaborative Ranking Task exercises to traditional lecture-based instruction can significantly improve student conceptual understanding of core topics in astronomy.

The effect of speed-accuracy strategy on response interference control in Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Wylie, S A; van den Wildenberg, W P M; Ridderinkhof, K R; Bashore, T R; Powell, V D; Manning, C A; Wooten, G F

2009-07-01

Studies that used conflict paradigms such as the Eriksen Flanker task show that many individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) have pronounced difficulty resolving the conflict that arises from the simultaneous activation of mutually exclusive responses. This finding fits well with contemporary views that postulate a key role for the basal ganglia in action selection. The present experiment aims to specify the cognitive processes that underlie action selection deficits among PD patients in the context of variations in speed-accuracy strategy. PD patients (n=28) and healthy controls (n=17) performed an arrow version of the flanker task under task instructions that either emphasized speed or accuracy of responses. Reaction time (RT) and accuracy rates decreased with speed compared to accuracy instructions, although to a lesser extent for the PD group. Differences in flanker interference effects among PD and healthy controls depended on speed-accuracy strategy. Compared to the healthy controls, PD patients showed larger flanker interference effects under speed stress. RT distribution analyses suggested that PD patients have greater difficulty suppressing incorrect response activation when pressing for speed. These initial findings point to an important interaction between strategic and computational aspects of interference control in accounting for cognitive impairments of PD. The results are also compatible with recent brain imaging studies that demonstrate basal ganglia activity to co-vary with speed-accuracy adjustments.

Some Implications of Cognitive Theory for Instructional Design.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Winn, William

1990-01-01

Examines some of the recent developments in cognitive theory and explores their implications for instructional design. Topics discussed include a shift from emphasis on behavioral theory to cognitive theory; task analysis; instructional objectives; learner characteristics; instructional strategies; metacognition; and the dynamic nature of…

Cognitive task analysis for instruction in single-injection ultrasound guided-regional anesthesia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gucev, Gligor V.

Cognitive task analysis (CTA) is methodology for eliciting knowledge from subject matter experts. CTA has been used to capture the cognitive processes, decision-making, and judgments that underlie expert behaviors. A review of the literature revealed that CTA has not yet been used to capture the knowledge required to perform ultrasound guided regional anesthesia (UGRA). The purpose of this study was to utilize CTA to extract knowledge from UGRA experts and to determine whether instruction based on CTA of UGRA will produce results superior to the results of traditional training. This study adds to the knowledge base of CTA in being the first one to effectively capture the expert knowledge of UGRA. The derived protocol was used in a randomized, double blinded experiment involving UGRA instruction to 39 novice learners. The results of this study strongly support the hypothesis that CTA-based instruction in UGRA is more effective than conventional clinical instruction, as measured by conceptual pre- and post-tests, performance of a simulated UGRA procedure, and time necessary for the task performance. This study adds to the number of studies that have proven the superiority of CTA-informed instruction. Finally, it produced several validated instruments that can be used in instructing and evaluating UGRA.

Instructional Design: System Strategies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ledford, Bruce R.; Sleeman, Phillip J.

This book is intended as a source for those who desire to apply a coherent system of instructional design, thereby insuring accountability. Chapter 1 covers the instructional design process, including: instructional technology; the role of evaluation; goal setting; the psychology of teaching and learning; task analysis; operational objectives;…

Reducing cognitive load while teaching complex instruction to occupational therapy students.

PubMed

Pociask, Fredrick D; DiZazzo-Miller, Rosanne; Samuel, Preethy S

2013-01-01

Cognitive load theory is a field of research used to improve the learning of complex cognitive tasks by matching instruction to the learner's cognitive architecture. We used an experimental posttest control-group design to test the effectiveness of instruction designed to reduce cognitive load (CL) and improve instructional effectiveness in teaching complex instruction to 24 first-year master's students under authentic classroom conditions. We modified historically taught instruction using an isolated-to-interacting-elements sequencing approach intended to reduce high CL levels. We compared control and modified instructional formats using written assessment scores, subjective ratings of CL, and task completion times. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences for postinstruction, posttest CL ratings, and delayed written posttest scores (p < .05). No significant differences were identified for posttest completion times. Findings suggest that this approach can be used to improve instructional efficiency in teaching human locomotion to occupational therapy students. Copyright © 2013 by the American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc.

The effects of mental representation on performance in a navigation task

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Barshi, Immanuel; Healy, Alice F.

2002-01-01

In three experiments, we investigated the mental representations employed when instructions were followed that involved navigation in a space displayed as a grid on a computer screen. Performance was affected much more by the number of instructional units than by the number of words per unit. Performance in a three-dimensional space was independent of the number of dimensions along which participants navigated. However, memory for and accuracy in following the instructions were reduced when the task required mentally representing a three-dimensional space, as compared with representing a two-dimensional space, although the words used in the instructions were identical in the two cases. These results demonstrate the interdependence of verbal and spatial memory representations, because individuals' immediate memory for verbal navigation instructions is affected by their mental representation of the space referred to by the instructions.

The effects of age, illustrations, and task variables on the performance of procedural assembly tasks.

PubMed

Morrell, R W; Park, D C

1993-09-01

Older adults may be disadvantaged in the performance of procedural assembly tasks because of age-related declines in working memory operations. It was hypothesized that adding illustrations to instructional text may lessen age-related performance differences by minimizing processing demands on working memory in the elderly. In the present study, younger and older adults constructed a series of 3-dimensional objects from 3 types of instructions (text only, illustration only, or text and illustrations). Results indicated that instructions consisting of text and illustrations reduced errors in construction for both age groups compared with the other formats. Younger adults, however, outperformed older adults under all instructional format conditions. Measures of spatial and verbal working memory and text comprehension ability accounted for substantial age-related variance across the different format conditions but did not fully account for the age differences observed.

Visual Search in ASD: Instructed versus Spontaneous Local and Global Processing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van der Hallen, Ruth; Evers, Kris; Boets, Bart; Steyaert, Jean; Noens, Ilse; Wagemans, Johan

2016-01-01

Visual search has been used extensively to investigate differences in mid-level visual processing between individuals with ASD and TD individuals. The current study employed two visual search paradigms with Gaborized stimuli to assess the impact of task distractors (Experiment 1) and task instruction (Experiment 2) on local-global visual…

Effects of Reinforcement History and Instructions on the Persistence of Student Engagement.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martens, Brian K.; Bradley, Tracy A.; Eckert, Tanya L.

1997-01-01

This study examined the effects of three reinforcement histories on the persistence of task engagement by two students (ages 9-10) who were off task during independent seat work. Results found the reinforcement history that contained an instructional control component produced the greatest persistence in student engagement. (Author/CR)

It's All about Baxter: Task Orientation in the Effective Teaching of Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gadd, Murray; Parr, Judy M.

2016-01-01

This New Zealand-based study of the classroom practice of nine exemplary teachers of writing to upper primary-age students explored the significance of task orientation as a component of effective teacher instruction and the instructional strategies or actions that effective teachers utilise to promote such. Effectiveness pertains to teachers…

Drafting and Design Technology Curriculum Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Idaho State Dept. of Education, Boise. Div. of Vocational Education.

This document provides lists of tasks, performance objectives, and enabling objectives for 1,800 hours of postsecondary instruction or 900 hours of secondary instruction in the drafting and design technology program. Following a list of tasks and an explanation of the program, the bulk of the document consists of 25 modules, each of which is a…

The Impact of Instruction on Second-Language Implicit Knowledge: Evidence against Encapsulation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Toth, Paul D.; Guijarro-Fuentes, Pedro

2013-01-01

This paper compares explicit instruction in second-language Spanish with a control treatment on a written picture description task and a timed auditory grammaticality judgment task. Participants came from two intact, third-year US high school classes, with one experiencing a week of communicative lessons on the Spanish clitic "se"…

Instruction-First and Problem-Solving-First Approaches: Alternative Pathways to Learning Complex Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Likourezos, Vicki; Kalyuga, Slava

2017-01-01

According to cognitive load theory, using worked examples is an effective and efficient instructional strategy for initial cognitive skill acquisition for novice learners, as it reduces cognitive load and frees up cognitive resources to build task competence. Contrary to this, productive failure (as well as invention learning, desirable…

Safety and Health Instructional Materials for Vocational Education--A State of the Art Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hull, Daniel M.; Lube, Bruce M.

This report details Task D (of a seventeen-task project), which identified safety and health concepts, knowledge, and skills included in print and non-print materials designed to develop performance outcomes needed by employers and employees. (The project intends to develop performance-based modularized instructional materials for teaching job…

Enhancing Problem-Solving Capabilities Using Object-Oriented Programming Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Unuakhalu, Mike F.

2009-01-01

This study integrated object-oriented programming instruction with transfer training activities in everyday tasks, which might provide a mechanism that can be used for efficient problem solving. Specifically, a Visual BASIC embedded with everyday tasks group was compared to another group exposed to Visual BASIC instruction only. Subjects were 40…

The Use of Cognitive Task Analysis to Capture Expertise for Tracheal Extubation Training in Anesthesiology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Embrey, Karen K.

2012-01-01

Cognitive task analysis (CTA) is a knowledge elicitation technique employed for acquiring expertise from domain specialists to support the effective instruction of novices. CTA guided instruction has proven effective in improving surgical skills training for medical students and surgical residents. The standard, current method of teaching clinical…

Reference Guide for Teaching Selected Duty Areas from Business, Marketing and Management Occupations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rich, John H.

This reference guide was designed to assist business, marketing, and management educators in locating textbook/instructional materials for use in teaching duty areas and task lists for grades 11-14. Duty areas and task lists are matched with selected textbook/instructional publications for the secretarial, general office clerk, and information…

Advancing Scientific Reasoning in Upper Elementary Classrooms: Direct Instruction versus Task Structuring

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lazonder, Ard W.; Wiskerke-Drost, Sjanou

2015-01-01

Several studies found that direct instruction and task structuring can effectively promote children's ability to design unconfounded experiments. The present study examined whether the impact of these interventions extends to other scientific reasoning skills by comparing the inquiry activities of 55 fifth-graders randomly assigned to one of…

An Approximation of an Instructional Model for Developing Home Living Skills in Severely Handicapped Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hamre, S.

The author discusses the need for severely handicapped students to acquire basic home living skills, reviews task analysis principles, and provides sample instructional programs. Listed are basic grooming, dressing, domestic maintenance, and cooking skills. A sample task analysis procedure is demonstrated for the skill of brushing teeth. Reported…

Formative use of select-and-fill-in concept maps in online instruction: Implications for students of different learning styles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kaminski, Charles William

The purpose of this research was to investigate the formative use of Select and Fill-In (SAFI) maps in online instruction and the cognitive, metacognitive, and affective responses of students to their use. In particular, the implications of their use with students of different learning styles was considered. The research question investigated in this qualitative study was: How do students of different learning styles respond to online instruction in which SAFI maps are utilized? This question was explored by using an emergent, collective case study. Each case consisted of community college students who shared a dominant learning style and were enrolled in an online course in environmental studies. Cases in the study were determined using Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (LSI). Seven forms of data were collected during the study. During the first phase of data collection, dominant learning style and background information on student experience with concept mapping and online instruction was determined. In the second phase of data collection, participants completed SAFI maps and quiz items that corresponded to the content of the maps. Achievement data on the map activities and quiz and student responses to a post-SAFI survey and questionnaire were recorded to identify learner cognitive, metacognitive, and affective responses to the tasks. Upon completion of data collection, cases were constructed and compared across learning styles. Cases are presented using the trends, across participants sharing the same dominant learning style, in achievement, behaviors and attitudes as seen in the evidence present in the data. Triangulation of multiple data sources increased reliability and validity, through cross-case analyses, and produced a thick description of the relationship between the cases for each learning style. Evidence suggesting a cognitive response to the SAFI tasks was inconsistent across cases. However, learners with an affinity towards reflective learning activities demonstrated more positive metacognitive and affective responses to the SAFI tasks. This suggests that the contemplation and consideration of relationships expressed in the map requires learners, while completing the SAFI task, to compare their existing cognitive structure with an accepted structure and to reflect on the differences and similarities that may exist. Subsequently, the value of formative online SAFI map use for learners lies within the cognitive process of completing the tasks, not in the construction of an abstract cognitive structure reflecting an accepted structure and organization of concepts suggested by a completed map.

Optimization of Simulation-Based Training Systems: Model Description, Implementation, and Evaluation

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-06-01

Taskcs01 for Instructional _______Cue ______ 0__ Fq’o~eturesResponse 1A I Analyze Tasks %Requirements 018 TaskfrFieiy0-m Learning fo ielt asl... academic instruction on aircraft systems, emergency procedures, and tactics. Although some Army aviators enter the AH-I AQC immediately after completing...from low to high fidelity, and (d) tasks could not be trained to standard using academic training only. The tasks that were chosen are enumerated in

Choosing to regulate: does choice enhance craving regulation?

PubMed Central

Mobasser, Arian; Zeithamova, Dagmar; Pfeifer, Jennifer H

2018-01-01

Abstract Goal-directed behavior and lifelong well-being often depend on the ability to control appetitive motivations, such as cravings. Cognitive reappraisal is an effective way to modulate emotional states, including cravings, but is often studied under explicit instruction to regulate. Despite the strong prediction from Self-Determination Theory that choice should enhance task engagement and regulation success, little is known empirically about whether and how regulation is different when participants choose (vs are told) to exert control. To investigate how choice affects neural activity and regulation success, participants reappraised their responses to images of personally-craved foods while undergoing functional neuroimaging. Participants were either instructed to view or reappraise (‘no-choice’) or chose freely to view or reappraise (‘yes-choice’). Choice increased activity in the frontoparietal control network. We expected this activity would be associated with increased task engagement, resulting in better regulation success. However, contrary to this prediction, choice slightly reduced regulation success. Follow-up multivariate functional neuroimaging analyses indicated that choice likely disrupted allocation of limited cognitive resources during reappraisal. While unexpected, these results highlight the importance of studying upstream processes such as regulation choice, as they may affect the ability to regulate cravings and other emotional states. PMID:29462475

Investigating Comprehension in Real World Tasks: Understanding Jury Instructions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Charrow, Veda R.; Charrow, Robert

This paper discusses the results of part of an ongoing project studying an aspect of real world language usage, the comprehension of standard jury instructions. Problems in the comprehension of these instructions include the memory load that they impose, the fact that most instructions are read only once, and the fact that instructions are written…

Children's Learning in Scientific Thinking: Instructional Approaches and Roles of Variable Identification and Executive Function

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Blums, Angela

The present study examines instructional approaches and cognitive factors involved in elementary school children's thinking and learning the Control of Variables Strategy (CVS), a critical aspect of scientific reasoning. Previous research has identified several features related to effective instruction of CVS, including using a guided learning approach, the use of self-reflective questions, and learning in individual and group contexts. The current study examined the roles of procedural and conceptual instruction in learning CVS and investigated the role of executive function in the learning process. Additionally, this study examined how learning to identify variables is a part of the CVS process. In two studies (individual and classroom experiments), 139 third, fourth, and fifth grade students participated in hands-on and paper and pencil CVS learning activities and, in each study, were assigned to either a procedural instruction, conceptual instruction, or control (no instruction) group. Participants also completed a series of executive function tasks. The study was carried out with two parts--Study 1 used an individual context and Study 2 was carried out in a group setting. Results indicated that procedural and conceptual instruction were more effective than no instruction, and the ability to identify variables was identified as a key piece to the CVS process. Executive function predicted ability to identify variables and predicted success on CVS tasks. Developmental differences were present, in that older children outperformed younger children on CVS tasks, and that conceptual instruction was slightly more effective for older children. Some differences between individual and group instruction were found, with those in the individual context showing some advantage over the those in the group setting in learning CVS concepts. Conceptual implications about scientific thinking and practical implications in science education are discussed.

Specifications for an Advanced Instructional Design Advisor (AIDA) for Computer-Based Training

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-05-01

student time under instruction o increased student comprehension and learning transfer o establishment of instruction standards o...strategies. 6. The nature of the cognitive task determines the learning objective. 7. Learning is internal; instruction is external. 12 Major...AIDAs and to its instructional products. Halff argued that cognitive structures have a role to play in instructional design. He maintained that learning

Shielding voices: The modulation of binding processes between voice features and response features by task representations.

PubMed

Bogon, Johanna; Eisenbarth, Hedwig; Landgraf, Steffen; Dreisbach, Gesine

2017-09-01

Vocal events offer not only semantic-linguistic content but also information about the identity and the emotional-motivational state of the speaker. Furthermore, most vocal events have implications for our actions and therefore include action-related features. But the relevance and irrelevance of vocal features varies from task to task. The present study investigates binding processes for perceptual and action-related features of spoken words and their modulation by the task representation of the listener. Participants reacted with two response keys to eight different words spoken by a male or a female voice (Experiment 1) or spoken by an angry or neutral male voice (Experiment 2). There were two instruction conditions: half of participants learned eight stimulus-response mappings by rote (SR), and half of participants applied a binary task rule (TR). In both experiments, SR instructed participants showed clear evidence for binding processes between voice and response features indicated by an interaction between the irrelevant voice feature and the response. By contrast, as indicated by a three-way interaction with instruction, no such binding was found in the TR instructed group. These results are suggestive of binding and shielding as two adaptive mechanisms that ensure successful communication and action in a dynamic social environment.

Goal orientations, motivational climate, equality, and discipline of Spanish physical education students.

PubMed

Cervelló, Eduardo M; Jiménez, Ruth; del Villar, Fernando; Ramos, Luis; Santos-Rosa, Francisco J

2004-08-01

This study analyzes how dispositional goal orientations and perception of different motivational climates are related to the students' perception of sex-related egalitarian treatment and the appearance of disciplined or undisciplined behaviors in physical education classes. Analyses showed that ego orientation is a predictor of undisciplined behavior. Task orientation was positively associated to discipline. The perception of task-involving motivational climate is related to the students' perception of equal treatment. On the contrary, the perception of ego-involving climate has been linked positively to the prediction of the perception of sex discrimination in physical education classes and negatively to the perception of equality and the appearance of disciplined behavior. This study discusses the implications of these results related to teaching instructional actions in physical education classes.

Entropy of Movement Outcome in Space-Time.

PubMed

Lai, Shih-Chiung; Hsieh, Tsung-Yu; Newell, Karl M

2015-07-01

Information entropy of the joint spatial and temporal (space-time) probability of discrete movement outcome was investigated in two experiments as a function of different movement strategies (space-time, space, and time instructional emphases), task goals (point-aiming and target-aiming) and movement speed-accuracy constraints. The variance of the movement spatial and temporal errors was reduced by instructional emphasis on the respective spatial or temporal dimension, but increased on the other dimension. The space-time entropy was lower in targetaiming task than the point aiming task but did not differ between instructional emphases. However, the joint probabilistic measure of spatial and temporal entropy showed that spatial error is traded for timing error in tasks with space-time criteria and that the pattern of movement error depends on the dimension of the measurement process. The unified entropy measure of movement outcome in space-time reveals a new relation for the speed-accuracy.

Fine and gross motor skills: The effects on skill-focused dual-tasks.

PubMed

Raisbeck, Louisa D; Diekfuss, Jed A

2015-10-01

Dual-task methodology often directs participants' attention towards a gross motor skill involved in the execution of a skill, but researchers have not investigated the comparative effects of attention on fine motor skill tasks. Furthermore, there is limited information about participants' subjective perception of workload with respect to task performance. To examine this, the current study administered the NASA-Task Load Index following a simulated shooting dual-task. The task required participants to stand 15 feet from a projector screen which depicted virtual targets and fire a modified Glock 17 handgun equipped with an infrared laser. Participants performed the primary shooting task alone (control), or were also instructed to focus their attention on a gross motor skill relevant to task execution (gross skill-focused) and a fine motor skill relevant to task execution (fine skill-focused). Results revealed that workload was significantly greater during the fine skill-focused task for both skill levels, but performance was only affected for the lesser-skilled participants. Shooting performance for the lesser-skilled participants was greater during the gross skill-focused condition compared to the fine skill-focused condition. Correlational analyses also demonstrated a significant negative relationship between shooting performance and workload during the gross skill-focused task for the higher-skilled participants. A discussion of the relationship between skill type, workload, skill level, and performance in dual-task paradigms is presented. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Perception of Non-Native Consonant Length Contrast: The Role of Attention in Phonetic Processing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Porretta, Vincent J.; Tucker, Benjamin V.

2015-01-01

The present investigation examines English speakers' ability to identify and discriminate non-native consonant length contrast. Three groups (L1 English No-Instruction, L1 English Instruction, and L1 Finnish control) performed a speeded forced-choice identification task and a speeded AX discrimination task on Finnish non-words (e.g.…

The Effect of Instruction on the Acquisition of Conservation of Volume.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Butts, David P.; Howe, Ann C.

Tested was the hypothesis that science instruction based on task analysis will lead to the acquisition of the ability to perform certain Piaget volume tasks which have been characterized as requiring formal operations for their solutions. A Test on Formal Operations and a Learning Hierarchies Test were given to fourth- and sixth-grade students in…

Formative Research on the Simplifying Conditions Method (SCM) for Task Analysis and Sequencing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, YoungHwan; Reigluth, Charles M.

The Simplifying Conditions Method (SCM) is a set of guidelines for task analysis and sequencing of instructional content under the Elaboration Theory (ET). This article introduces the fundamentals of SCM and presents the findings from a formative research study on SCM. It was conducted in two distinct phases: design and instruction. In the first…

"Lo Cotidiano": The Effectiveness of Critical Task-Based Instruction in Teaching the Culture of Everyday Life

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

García-Villada, Eduardo

2014-01-01

Teaching cultural competency in the language classroom can be a challenge. This study explores the effectiveness of task-based instruction (Lee, 2000) on the learning of culture by students in college-level Spanish language courses. Students were required to record oral presentations, write essays, and make comparisons between the culture and…

Towards the Automatic Generation of Programmed Foreign-Language Instructional Materials.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Campen, Joseph A.

The purpose of this report is to describe a set of programs which either perform certain tasks useful in the generation of programed foreign-language instructional material or facilitate the writing of such task-oriented programs by other researchers. The programs described are these: (1) a PDP-10 assembly language program for the selection from a…

Computer-Based Instruction: Effect of Cognitive Style, Instructional Format, and Subject-Matter Content on Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brent, Linda J. Buehner

This report describes an experiment investigating the effects of cognitive style, presentation format, and task content on learning. Cognitive style was described in terms of hemisphericity (i.e., left- or right-brain influence on perception). Presentation format consisted of graphics, text, and a combination of the two. The tasks consisted of…

Designing simulator-based training: an approach integrating cognitive task analysis and four-component instructional design.

PubMed

Tjiam, Irene M; Schout, Barbara M A; Hendrikx, Ad J M; Scherpbier, Albert J J M; Witjes, J Alfred; van Merriënboer, Jeroen J G

2012-01-01

Most studies of simulator-based surgical skills training have focused on the acquisition of psychomotor skills, but surgical procedures are complex tasks requiring both psychomotor and cognitive skills. As skills training is modelled on expert performance consisting partly of unconscious automatic processes that experts are not always able to explicate, simulator developers should collaborate with educational experts and physicians in developing efficient and effective training programmes. This article presents an approach to designing simulator-based skill training comprising cognitive task analysis integrated with instructional design according to the four-component/instructional design model. This theory-driven approach is illustrated by a description of how it was used in the development of simulator-based training for the nephrostomy procedure.

Epilogue: Reading Comprehension Is Not a Single Ability-Implications for Assessment and Instruction.

PubMed

Kamhi, Alan G; Catts, Hugh W

2017-04-20

In this epilogue, we review the 4 response articles and highlight the implications of a multidimensional view of reading for the assessment and instruction of reading comprehension. We reiterate the problems with standardized tests of reading comprehension and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of recently developed authentic tests of reading comprehension. In the "Instruction" section, we review the benefits and limitations of strategy instruction and highlight suggestions from the response articles to improve content and language knowledge. We argue that the only compelling reason to administer a standardized test of reading comprehension is when these tests are necessary to qualify students for special education services. Instruction should be focused on content knowledge, language knowledge, and specific task and learning requirements. This instruction may entail the use of comprehension strategies, particularly those that are specific to the task and focus on integrating new knowledge with prior knowledge.

Free classification of regional dialects of American English

PubMed Central

Clopper, Cynthia G.; Pisoni, David B.

2011-01-01

Recent studies have found that naïve listeners perform poorly in forced-choice dialect categorization tasks. However, the listeners' error patterns in these tasks reveal systematic confusions between phonologically similar dialects. In the present study, a free classification procedure was used to measure the perceptual similarity structure of regional dialect variation in the United States. In two experiments, participants listened to a set of short English sentences produced by male talkers only (Experiment 1) and by male and female talkers (Experiment 2). The listeners were instructed to group the talkers by regional dialect into as many groups as they wanted with as many talkers in each group as they wished. Multidimensional scaling analyses of the data revealed three primary dimensions of perceptual similarity (linguistic markedness, geography, and gender). In addition, a comparison of the results obtained from the free classification task to previous results using the same stimulus materials in six-alternative forced-choice categorization tasks revealed that response biases in the six-alternative task were reduced or eliminated in the free classification task. Thus, the results obtained with the free classification task in the current study provided further evidence that the underlying structure of perceptual dialect category representations reflects important linguistic and sociolinguistic factors. PMID:21423862

Cognitive/Information Processing Psychology and Instruction: Reviewing Recent Theory and Practice.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gallagher, John P.

1979-01-01

Discusses recent developments in instructional psychology relative to cognitive task analysis, individual difference variables, and cognitive models of interactive instructional decision making, which use constructs developed within the field of cognitive/information processing psychology. (Author/WBC)

Goal neglect, fluid intelligence and processing speed: Manipulating instruction load and inter-stimulus interval.

PubMed

Iveson, Matthew H; Della Sala, Sergio; Anderson, Mike; MacPherson, Sarah E

2017-05-01

Goal maintenance is the process where task rules and instructions are kept active to exert their control on behavior. When this process fails, an individual may ignore a rule while performing the task, despite being able to describe it after task completion. Previous research has suggested that the goal maintenance system is limited by the number of concurrent rules which can be maintained during a task, and that this limit is dependent on an individual's level of fluid intelligence. However, the speed at which an individual can process information may also limit their ability to use task rules when the task demands them. In the present study, four experiments manipulated the number of instructions to be maintained by younger and older adults and examined whether performance on a rapid letter-monitoring task was predicted by individual differences in fluid intelligence or processing speed. Fluid intelligence played little role in determining how frequently rules were ignored during the task, regardless of the number of rules to be maintained. In contrast, processing speed predicted the rate of goal neglect in older adults, where increasing the presentation rate of the letter-monitoring task increased goal neglect. These findings suggest that goal maintenance may be limited by the speed at which it can operate. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Flipping Radiology Education Right Side Up.

PubMed

O'Connor, Erin E; Fried, Jessica; McNulty, Nancy; Shah, Pallav; Hogg, Jeffery P; Lewis, Petra; Zeffiro, Thomas; Agarwal, Vikas; Reddy, Sravanthi

2016-07-01

In flipped learning, medical students independently learn facts and concepts outside the classroom, and then participate in interactive classes to learn to apply these facts. Although there are recent calls for medical education reform using flipped learning, little has been published on its effectiveness. Our study compares the effects of flipped learning to traditional didactic instruction on students' academic achievement, task value, and achievement emotions. At three institutions, we alternated flipped learning with traditional didactic lectures during radiology clerkships, with 175 medical students completing a pretest on general diagnostic imaging knowledge to assess baseline cohort comparability. Following instruction, posttests and survey examinations of task value and achievement emotions were administered. Linear mixed effects analysis was used to examine the relationship between test scores and instruction type. Survey responses were modeled using ordinal category logistic regression. Instructor surveys were also collected. There were no baseline differences in test scores. Mean posttest minus pretest scores were 10.5% higher in the flipped learning group than in the didactic instruction group (P = 0.013). Assessment of task value and achievement emotions showed greater task value, increased enjoyment, and decreased boredom with flipped learning (all P < 0.01). All instructors preferred the flipped learning condition. Flipped learning was associated with increased academic achievement, greater task value, and more positive achievement emotions when compared to traditional didactic instruction. Further investigation of flipped learning methods in radiology education is needed to determine whether flipped learning improves long-term retention of knowledge, academic success, and patient care. Copyright © 2016 The Association of University Radiologists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Child Skills and Teacher Qualifications: Associations with Elementary Classroom Teachers' Reading Instruction for Struggling Readers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bratsch-Hines, Mary E.; Vernon-Feagans, Lynne; Varghese, Cheryl; Garwood, Justin

2017-01-01

This study explored the extent to which kindergarten and first grade teachers provided individualized reading instruction to struggling readers during a unique one-on-one reading instruction task. Three outcomes of teachers' instructional strategies were captured: code-focused strategies, meaning-focused strategies, and level of challenge. Child…

Effects of Instructions, Self-Instructions and Discipline on Children's Donating.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Margery S.; Israel, Allen C.

In a study of children's donating behavior, the effects of experimenter instructions, perceived maternal discipline, and self-instructive cognitions were investigated. Seventy-two second; third; and fourth-grade girls who viewed their mothers as inductive or power assertive earned tokens in a size-judgement task. They observed a model donate and…

Development of an Online Orientation for an Instructional Technology Masters Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dixon, Michael; Beveridge, Pamela; Farrior, Charlotte; Williams, Beth Ann; Sugar, William; Brown, Abbie

2012-01-01

Four graduate students were tasked with creating a real-world solution to a problem faced by the instructional technology masters program in which they were participating. While taking an online course in multimedia instructional product development, part of East Carolina University's Masters of Science in Instructional Technology degree program,…

Food Production, Management, and Services. Production. Teacher Edition. Second Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gibson, LeRoy

This teacher's guide contains 20 units of instruction for a course in production in the food production, management, and services area. Units of instruction are designed for use in more than one lesson or class period of instruction. Introductory materials include the following: a competency profile; instructional/task analysis; related academic…

The Instructional Effect of Color in Immediate and Delayed Retention.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lamberski, Richard J.

The effect of verbal and visual (color or black/white) coding strategies in self-paced instruction and test materials in facilitating student retention on different cognitive tasks was studied. The 176 college student subjects received instruction and testing using varied combinations of color or black/white materials. Instructional materials were…

Library Instruction Programs; A Wisconsin Directory.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stoffle, Carla J., Ed.; Chernik, Suzanne, Ed.

Compiled from a survey by the Task Force on Instruction in Academic Libraries of the Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians, this directory lists 62 institutions of higher education in Wisconsin which offer some form of instruction in library use. Schools are listed by instruction provided, teaching methods used, types of print and non-print…

Do Dynamic Work Instructions Provide an Advantage over Static Instructions in a Small Scale Assembly Task?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watson, Gareth; Butterfield, Joe; Curran, Ricky; Craig, Cathy

2010-01-01

Recent studies exploring the effects of instructional animations on learning compared to static graphics have yielded mixed results. Few studies have explored their effectiveness in portraying procedural-motor information. Opportunities exist within an applied (manufacturing) context for instructional animations to be used to facilitate build…

Augmenting Instructional Animations with a Body Analogy to Help Children Learn about Physical Systems

PubMed Central

Pouw, Wim T. J. L.; van Gog, Tamara; Zwaan, Rolf A.; Paas, Fred

2016-01-01

We investigated whether augmenting instructional animations with a body analogy (BA) would improve 10- to 13-year-old children’s learning about class-1 levers. Children with a lower level of general math skill who learned with an instructional animation that provided a BA of the physical system, showed higher accuracy on a lever problem-solving reaction time task than children studying the instructional animation without this BA. Additionally, learning with a BA led to a higher speed–accuracy trade-off during the transfer task for children with a lower math skill, which provided additional evidence that especially this group is likely to be affected by learning with a BA. However, overall accuracy and solving speed on the transfer task was not affected by learning with or without this BA. These results suggest that providing children with a BA during animation study provides a stepping-stone for understanding mechanical principles of a physical system, which may prove useful for instructional designers. Yet, because the BA does not seem effective for all children, nor for all tasks, the degree of effectiveness of body analogies should be studied further. Future research, we conclude, should be more sensitive to the necessary degree of analogous mapping between the body and physical systems, and whether this mapping is effective for reasoning about more complex instantiations of such physical systems. PMID:27375538

Emotional arousal and memory after deep encoding.

PubMed

Leventon, Jacqueline S; Camacho, Gabriela L; Ramos Rojas, Maria D; Ruedas, Angelica

2018-05-22

Emotion often enhances long-term memory. One mechanism for this enhancement is heightened arousal during encoding. However, reducing arousal, via emotion regulation (ER) instructions, has not been associated with reduced memory. In fact, the opposite pattern has been observed: stronger memory for emotional stimuli encoded with an ER instruction to reduce arousal. This pattern may be due to deeper encoding required by ER instructions. In the current research, we examine the effects of emotional arousal and deep-encoding on memory across three studies. In Study 1, adult participants completed a writing task (deep-encoding) for encoding negative, neutral, and positive picture stimuli, whereby half the emotion stimuli had the ER instruction to reduce the emotion. Memory was strong across conditions, and no memory enhancement was observed for any condition. In Study 2, adult participants completed the same writing task as Study 1, as well as a shallow-encoding task for one-third of negative, neutral, and positive trials. Memory was strongest for deep vs. shallow encoding trials, with no effects of emotion or ER instruction. In Study 3, adult participants completed a shallow-encoding task for negative, neutral, and positive stimuli, with findings indicating enhanced memory for negative emotional stimuli. Findings suggest that deep encoding must be acknowledged as a source of memory enhancement when examining manipulations of emotion-related arousal. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Remember to blink: Reduced attentional blink following instructions to forget.

PubMed

Taylor, Tracy L

2018-04-24

This study used rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) to determine whether, in an item-method directed forgetting task, study word processing ends earlier for forget words than for remember words. The critical manipulation required participants to monitor an RSVP stream of black nonsense strings in which a single blue word was embedded. The next item to follow the word was a string of red fs that instructed the participant to forget the word or green rs that instructed the participant to remember the word. After the memory instruction, a probe string of black xs or os appeared at postinstruction positions 1-8. Accuracy in reporting the identity of the probe string revealed an attenuated attentional blink following instructions to forget. A yes-no recognition task that followed the study trials confirmed a directed forgetting effect, with better recognition of remember words than forget words. Considered in the context of control conditions that required participants to commit either all or none of the study words to memory, the pattern of probe identification accuracy following the directed forgetting task argues that an intention to forget releases limited-capacity attentional resources sooner than an instruction to remember-despite participants needing to maintain an ongoing rehearsal set in both cases.

Is performance in task-cuing experiments mediated by task set selection or associative compound retrieval?

PubMed

Forrest, Charlotte L D; Monsell, Stephen; McLaren, Ian P L

2014-07-01

Task-cuing experiments are usually intended to explore control of task set. But when small stimulus sets are used, they plausibly afford learning of the response associated with a combination of cue and stimulus, without reference to tasks. In 3 experiments we presented the typical trials of a task-cuing experiment: a cue (colored shape) followed, after a short or long interval, by a digit to which 1 of 2 responses was required. In a tasks condition, participants were (as usual) directed to interpret the cue as an instruction to perform either an odd/even or a high/low classification task. In a cue + stimulus → response (CSR) condition, to induce learning of mappings between cue-stimulus compound and response, participants were, in Experiment 1, given standard task instructions and additionally encouraged to learn the CSR mappings; in Experiment 2, informed of all the CSR mappings and asked to learn them, without standard task instructions; in Experiment 3, required to learn the mappings by trial and error. The effects of a task switch, response congruence, preparation, and transfer to a new set of stimuli differed substantially between the conditions in ways indicative of classification according to task rules in the tasks condition, and retrieval of responses specific to stimulus-cue combinations in the CSR conditions. Qualitative features of the latter could be captured by an associative learning network. Hence associatively based compound retrieval can serve as the basis for performance with a small stimulus set. But when organization by tasks is apparent, control via task set selection is the natural and efficient strategy. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Investigating the Washback Effects of Task-Based Instruction on the Iranian EFL Learners' Vocabulary Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hamzeh, Alireza

2016-01-01

The current research was an attempt to explore the washback impact of task-based instruction (TBI) on EFL Iranian learners' vocabulary development. To this end, conducting an Oxford Placement Test (OPT), 30 out of 72 EFL Iranian learners studying in an English language institute, were randomly selected. Then, they were assigned to experimental (N…

Student Language Production, Second Language Tasks, and Instructional Scaffolding in an English-Based Curriculum in Vietnam: Realities and Hopes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pham, Thuong T. M.

2017-01-01

This dissertation investigates L2 student language production, task-based instruction, and teachers' scaffolding strategies in two special EFL classes in a Vietnamese university. Two English teachers and 73 students were studied as they participated in a nationwide educational project known as the Advanced Curriculum (AC), an initiative launched…

The Resistance of Renewal to Instructions that Devalue the Role of Contextual Cues in a Conditioned Suppression Task with Humans

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neumann, David L.

2007-01-01

The renewal of extinguished conditioned behaviour appears to reflect context-dependent learning. The present research used a conditioned suppression task with humans to examine whether instructions concerning the context could influence renewal. Pairings of a conditional stimulus (CS) and unconditional stimulus (US) were made in one context,…

Comprehension of Short Stories: Effects of Task Instructions on Literary Interpretation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCarthy, Kathryn S.; Goldman, Susan R.

2015-01-01

An important purpose of reading literature is to move beyond the literal text to construct an interpretation of what the text conveys about the human condition and nature of the world. In two experiments, college students with no prior training in literary analysis read a short story and responded to one of four task instructions (plot, ambiguous,…

Systematic Variations of Instructional Variables on Learner Performance: Aircraft Instrument Comprehension Task. Final Report, June 1973-July 1974.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tenpas, Barbara G.; And Others

Incentive, practice, instruction, and feedback were manipulated in a series of four 2 x 2 factorial studies, with Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets and graduate students in education, to determine the individual and combined effects of these variables on learner performance (both speed and accuracy) of an aircraft comprehension task.…

Desktop Publishing: A New Frontier for Instructional Technologists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bell, Norman T.; Warner, James W.

1986-01-01

Discusses new possibilities that computers and laser printers offer instructional technologists. Includes a brief history of printed communications, a description of new technological advances referred to as "desktop publishing," and suggests the application of this technology to instructional tasks. (TW)

Educational Television: Brazil.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bretz, R.; Shinar, D.

Based on evaluation of nine Brazilian educational television centers, an Instructional Television Training Model (ITV) was developed to aid in determining and designing training requirements for instructional television systems. Analysis based on this model would include these tasks: (1) determine instructional purpose of the television…

When global rule reversal meets local task switching: The neural mechanisms of coordinated behavioral adaptation to instructed multi-level demand changes.

PubMed

Shi, Yiquan; Wolfensteller, Uta; Schubert, Torsten; Ruge, Hannes

2018-02-01

Cognitive flexibility is essential to cope with changing task demands and often it is necessary to adapt to combined changes in a coordinated manner. The present fMRI study examined how the brain implements such multi-level adaptation processes. Specifically, on a "local," hierarchically lower level, switching between two tasks was required across trials while the rules of each task remained unchanged for blocks of trials. On a "global" level regarding blocks of twelve trials, the task rules could reverse or remain the same. The current task was cued at the start of each trial while the current task rules were instructed before the start of a new block. We found that partly overlapping and partly segregated neural networks play different roles when coping with the combination of global rule reversal and local task switching. The fronto-parietal control network (FPN) supported the encoding of reversed rules at the time of explicit rule instruction. The same regions subsequently supported local task switching processes during actual implementation trials, irrespective of rule reversal condition. By contrast, a cortico-striatal network (CSN) including supplementary motor area and putamen was increasingly engaged across implementation trials and more so for rule reversal than for nonreversal blocks, irrespective of task switching condition. Together, these findings suggest that the brain accomplishes the coordinated adaptation to multi-level demand changes by distributing processing resources either across time (FPN for reversed rule encoding and later for task switching) or across regions (CSN for reversed rule implementation and FPN for concurrent task switching). © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Rapid instructed task learning: A new window into the human brain’s unique capacity for flexible cognitive control

PubMed Central

Cole, Michael W.; Laurent, Patryk; Stocco, Andrea

2012-01-01

The human ability to flexibly adapt to novel circumstances is extraordinary. Perhaps the most illustrative yet underappreciated form of this cognitive flexibility is rapid instructed task learning (RITL) – the ability to rapidly reconfigure our minds to perform new tasks from instruction. This ability is important for everyday life (e.g., learning to use new technologies), and is used to instruct participants in nearly every study of human cognition. We review the development of RITL as a circumscribed domain of cognitive neuroscience investigation, culminating in recent demonstrations that RITL is implemented via brain circuits centered on lateral prefrontal cortex. We then build on this and other insights to develop an integrative theory of cognitive flexibility and cognitive control, identifying theoretical principles and mechanisms that may make RITL possible in the human brain. Insights gained from this new theoretical account have important implications for further developments and applications of RITL research. PMID:23065743

Effects of reading-oriented tasks on students' reading comprehension of geometry proof

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Kai-Lin; Lin, Fou-Lai

2012-06-01

This study compared the effects of reading-oriented tasks and writing-oriented tasks on students' reading comprehension of geometry proof (RCGP). The reading-oriented tasks were designed with reading strategies and the idea of problem posing. The writing-oriented tasks were consistent with usual proof instruction for writing a proof and applying it. Twenty-two classes of ninth-grade students ( N = 683), aged 14 to 15 years, and 12 mathematics teachers participated in this quasi-experimental classroom study. While the experimental group was instructed to read and discuss the reading tasks in two 45-minute lessons, the control group was instructed to prove and apply the same propositions. Generalised estimating equation (GEE) method was used to compare the scores of the post-test and the delayed post-test with the pre-test scores as covariates. Results showed that the total scores of the delayed post-test of the experimental group were significantly higher than those of the control group. Furthermore, the scores of the experimental group on all facets of reading comprehension except the application facet were significantly higher than those of the control group for both the post-test and delayed post-test.

Cold-Blooded Attention: Finger Temperature Predicts Attentional Performance.

PubMed

Vergara, Rodrigo C; Moënne-Loccoz, Cristóbal; Maldonado, Pedro E

2017-01-01

Thermal stress has been shown to increase the chances of unsafe behavior during industrial and driving performances due to reductions in mental and attentional resources. Nonetheless, establishing appropriate safety standards regarding environmental temperature has been a major problem, as modulations are also be affected by the task type, complexity, workload, duration, and previous experience with the task. To bypass this attentional and thermoregulatory problem, we focused on the body rather than environmental temperature. Specifically, we measured tympanic, forehead, finger and environmental temperatures accompanied by a battery of attentional tasks. We considered a 10 min baseline period wherein subjects were instructed to sit and relax, followed by three attentional tasks: a continuous performance task (CPT), a flanker task (FT) and a counting task (CT). Using multiple linear regression models, we evaluated which variable(s) were the best predictors of performance. The results showed a decrement in finger temperature due to instruction and task engagement that was absent when the subject was instructed to relax. No changes were observed in tympanic or forehead temperatures, while the environmental temperature remained almost constant for each subject. Specifically, the magnitude of the change in finger temperature was the best predictor of performance in all three attentional tasks. The results presented here suggest that finger temperature can be used as a predictor of alertness, as it predicted performance in attentional tasks better than environmental temperature. These findings strongly support that peripheral temperature can be used as a tool to prevent unsafe behaviors and accidents.

Flexible conceptual combination: Electrophysiological correlates and consequences for associative memory

PubMed Central

Lucas, Heather D.; Hubbard, Ryan J.; Federmeier, Kara D.

2017-01-01

When meaningful stimuli such as words are encountered in groups or pairs (e.g., “elephant-ferry”), they can be processed either separately or as an integrated concept (“an elephant ferry”). Prior research suggests that memory for integrated associations is supported by different mechanisms than is memory for nonintegrated associations. However, little is known about the neurocognitive mechanisms that support the integration of novel stimulus pairs. We recorded ERPs while participants memorized sequentially presented, unrelated noun pairs using a strategy that either did or did not involve attempting to construct coherent definitions. We varied the concreteness of the first noun in each pair to examine whether conceptual combination instructions would induce compositional concreteness effects, or differences in ERPs evoked by the second noun as a function of the concreteness of the first noun. We found that the conceptual combination task, but not the noncombinatory encoding task, produced compositional concreteness effects on a late frontal negativity previously linked to visual imagery. Moreover, word pairs studied under conceptual combination instructions showed evidence of more unitized or holistic memory representations on associative recognition and free recall tests. Finally, item analyses indicated that (a) items with higher normed imageability ratings were rated by participants as easier to conceptually combine, and (b) in the conceptual combination task, ease-of-combination ratings mediated an indirect relationship between imageability and subsequent associative memory. These data are suggestive of a role of compositional imagery in the online formation of novel concepts via conceptual combination. PMID:28191647

Teaching of science and language by elementary teachers who emphasize the integrated language approach: A descriptive study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Blouch, Kathleen Kennedy

This research involved investigating the nature of science and language instruction in 13 elementary classrooms where teachers have restructured their language programs to reflect an integrated or holistic view of language instruction. The teachers were identified by school administrators and other professionals as teachers who have implemented instructional reforms described in the Pennsylvania Framework for Reading, Writing and Speaking Across the Curriculum (PCRPII), (Lytle & Botel, 1900). The instruction utilized by these teachers was described as atypical when compared to that of teachers utilizing the more traditional didactic skills oriented approach to language literacy. The research involved observing, recording and categorizing teaching behaviors during both science and language instruction. Videotaped observations were followed by analyses and descriptions of these behaviors. Interviews were also conducted to ascertain the basis for selection of the various instructional approaches. The instruction was compared on four dimensions: participation patterns, time the behaviors were practiced, type of tasks and levels of questioning. The instruction was then described in light of constructivist teaching practices: student collaboration, student autonomy, integration and higher order thinking. Constructivist practices differed among teachers for science and language instruction. During science instruction teachers spent more time involved in teacher-whole group participation patterns with more direct questioning as compared to language instruction in which children participated alone or in groups and had opportunity to initiate conversations and questions. Student inquiry was evidenced during language instruction more so than during science. The 13 teachers asked a variety of levels and types of questions both in science and language instruction. More hands-on science experiences were observed when science was taught separately compared to when integrated with the language instruction. Teachers also described professional changes that caused them to implement new practices. Each cited the importance of a significant person, who encouraged them to attempt new approaches. The research reveals that to produce significant reform in instruction (more so in science than in language) at the elementary school level, proactive support and encouragement by administrators is required. Involving practicing teachers in extensive - modeled - mentored professional development experiences is also required.

Modeling the Value of Strategic Actions in the Superior Colliculus

PubMed Central

Thevarajah, Dhushan; Webb, Ryan; Ferrall, Christopher; Dorris, Michael C.

2009-01-01

In learning models of strategic game play, an agent constructs a valuation (action value) over possible future choices as a function of past actions and rewards. Choices are then stochastic functions of these action values. Our goal is to uncover a neural signal that correlates with the action value posited by behavioral learning models. We measured activity from neurons in the superior colliculus (SC), a midbrain region involved in planning saccadic eye movements, while monkeys performed two saccade tasks. In the strategic task, monkeys competed against a computer in a saccade version of the mixed-strategy game ”matching-pennies”. In the instructed task, saccades were elicited through explicit instruction rather than free choices. In both tasks neuronal activity and behavior were shaped by past actions and rewards with more recent events exerting a larger influence. Further, SC activity predicted upcoming choices during the strategic task and upcoming reaction times during the instructed task. Finally, we found that neuronal activity in both tasks correlated with an established learning model, the Experience Weighted Attraction model of action valuation (Camerer and Ho, 1999). Collectively, our results provide evidence that action values hypothesized by learning models are represented in the motor planning regions of the brain in a manner that could be used to select strategic actions. PMID:20161807

Towards Contextualized Learning Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Specht, Marcus

Personalization of feedback and instruction has often been considered as a key feature in learning support. The adaptations of the instructional process to the individual and its different aspects have been investigated from different research perspectives as learner modelling, intelligent tutoring systems, adaptive hypermedia, adaptive instruction and others. Already in the 1950s first commercial systems for adaptive instruction for trainings of keyboard skills have been developed utilizing adaptive configuration of feedback based on user performance and interaction footprints (Pask 1964). Around adaptive instruction there is a variety of research issues bringing together interdisciplinary research from computer science, engineering, psychology, psychotherapy, cybernetics, system dynamics, instructional design, and empirical research on technology enhanced learning. When classifying best practices of adaptive instruction different parameters of the instructional process have been identified which are adapted to the learner, as: sequence and size of task difficulty, time of feedback, pace of learning speed, reinforcement plan and others these are often referred to the adaptation target. Furthermore Aptitude Treatment Interaction studies explored the effect of adapting instructional parameters to different characteristics of the learner (Tennyson and Christensen 1988) as task performance, personality characteristics, or cognitive abilities, this is information is referred to as adaptation mean.

Final report for 105-N Basin sediment disposition task, phase 2 -- samples BOMPC8 and BOMPC9

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Esch, R.A.

1998-02-05

This document is the final report deliverable for Phase 2 analytical work for the 105-N Basin Sediment Disposition Task. On December 23, 1997, ten samples were received at the 222-S Laboratory as follows: two (2) bottles of potable water, six (6) samples for process control testing and two (2) samples for characterization. Analyses were performed in accordance with the Letter of Instruction for Phase 2 Analytical Work for the 105-N Basin Sediment Disposition Task (Logan and Kessner, 1997) (Attachment 7) and 105-N Basin Sediment Disposition Phase-Two Sampling and Analysis Plan (SAP) (Smith, 1997). The analytical results are included in Tablemore » 1. This document provides the values of X/Qs for the onsite and offsite receptors, taking into account the building wake and the atmospheric stability effects. X/Qs values for the potential fire accident were also calculated. In addition, the unit dose were calculated for the mixtures of isotopes.« less

Walking execution is not affected by divided attention in patients with multiple sclerosis with no disability, but there is a motor planning impairment.

PubMed

Nogueira, Leandro Alberto Calazans; Santos, Luciano Teixeira Dos; Sabino, Pollyane Galinari; Alvarenga, Regina Maria Papais; Thuler, Luiz Claudio Santos

2013-08-01

We analysed the cognitive influence on walking in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, in the absence of clinical disability. A case-control study was conducted with 12 MS patients with no disability and 12 matched healthy controls. Subjects were referred for completion a timed walk test of 10 m and a 3D-kinematic analysis. Participants were instructed to walk at a comfortable speed in a dual-task (arithmetic task) condition, and motor planning was measured by mental chronometry. Scores of walking speed and cadence showed no statistically significant differences between the groups in the three conditions. The dual-task condition showed an increase in the double support duration in both groups. Motor imagery analysis showed statistically significant differences between real and imagined walking in patients. MS patients with no disability did not show any influence of divided attention on walking execution. However, motor planning was overestimated as compared with real walking.

Exploring conflict- and target-related movement of visual attention.

PubMed

Wendt, Mike; Garling, Marco; Luna-Rodriguez, Aquiles; Jacobsen, Thomas

2014-01-01

Intermixing trials of a visual search task with trials of a modified flanker task, the authors investigated whether the presentation of conflicting distractors at only one side (left or right) of a target stimulus triggers shifts of visual attention towards the contralateral side. Search time patterns provided evidence for lateral attention shifts only when participants performed the flanker task under an instruction assumed to widen the focus of attention, demonstrating that instruction-based control settings of an otherwise identical task can impact performance in an unrelated task. Contrasting conditions with response-related and response-unrelated distractors showed that shifting attention does not depend on response conflict and may be explained as stimulus-conflict-related withdrawal or target-related deployment of attention.

Fundamentals of Welding. Teacher Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fortney, Clarence; And Others

These instructional materials assist teachers in improving instruction on the fundamentals of welding. The following introductory information is included: use of this publication; competency profile; instructional/task analysis; related academic and workplace skills list; tools, materials, and equipment list; and 27 references. Seven units of…

Instructional Strategy: Administration of Injury Scripts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schilling, Jim

2016-01-01

Context: Learning how to form accurate and efficient clinical examinations is a critical factor in becoming a competent athletic training practitioner, and instructional strategies differ for this complex task. Objective: To introduce an instructional strategy consistent with complex learning to encourage improved efficiency by minimizing…

Measuring the Instructional Sensitivity of ESL Reading Comprehension Items.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brutten, Sheila R.; And Others

A study attempted to estimate the instructional sensitivity of items in three reading comprehension tests in English as a second language (ESL). Instructional sensitivity is a test-item construct defined as the tendency for a test item to vary in difficulty as a function of instruction. Similar tasks were given to readers at different proficiency…

Transfer of Training and Processing Instruction: From Input to Output

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

VanPatten, Bill; Uludag, Onur

2011-01-01

In this paper we report the findings of an experiment to test whether training via processing instruction transfers to output tasks. Two groups of Turkish L1-English L2 learners participated: one that received processing instruction on passive structures and a control group that did not receive any instruction on passives. A pre-test/multiple…

Physiological Factors in Adult Learning and Instruction. Research to Practice Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Verner, Coolie; Davison, Catherine V.

The physiological condition of the adult learner as related to his learning capability is discussed. The design of the instructional process, the selection of learning tasks, the rate at which instruction occurs, and the nature of the instructional setting may all be modified by the instructor to accomodate the variable physiological conditions of…

Multiple Representation Instruction First versus Traditional Algorithmic Instruction First: Impact in Middle School Mathematics Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Flores, Raymond; Koontz, Esther; Inan, Fethi A.; Alagic, Mara

2015-01-01

This study examined the impact of the order of two teaching approaches on students' abilities and on-task behaviors while learning how to solve percentage problems. Two treatment groups were compared. MR first received multiple representation instruction followed by traditional algorithmic instruction and TA first received these teaching…

Direct versus Indirect Explicit Methods of Enhancing EFL Students' English Grammatical Competence: A Concept Checking-Based Consciousness-Raising Tasks Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dang, Trang Thi Doan; Nguyen, Huong Thu

2013-01-01

Two approaches to grammar instruction are often discussed in the ESL literature: direct explicit grammar instruction (DEGI) (deduction) and indirect explicit grammar instruction (IEGI) (induction). This study aims to explore the effects of indirect explicit grammar instruction on EFL learners' mastery of English tenses. Ninety-four…

Collaborative damage mapping for emergency response: the role of Cognitive Systems Engineering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kerle, N.; Hoffman, R. R.

2013-01-01

Remote sensing is increasingly used to assess disaster damage, traditionally by professional image analysts. A recent alternative is crowdsourcing by volunteers experienced in remote sensing, using internet-based mapping portals. We identify a range of problems in current approaches, including how volunteers can best be instructed for the task, ensuring that instructions are accurately understood and translate into valid results, or how the mapping scheme must be adapted for different map user needs. The volunteers, the mapping organizers, and the map users all perform complex cognitive tasks, yet little is known about the actual information needs of the users. We also identify problematic assumptions about the capabilities of the volunteers, principally related to the ability to perform the mapping, and to understand mapping instructions unambiguously. We propose that any robust scheme for collaborative damage mapping must rely on Cognitive Systems Engineering and its principal method, Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA), to understand the information and decision requirements of the map and image users, and how the volunteers can be optimally instructed and their mapping contributions merged into suitable map products. We recommend an iterative approach involving map users, remote sensing specialists, cognitive systems engineers and instructional designers, as well as experimental psychologists.

Motivational Elements of Digital Instructional Games: A Study of Young L2 Learners' Game Designs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Butler, Yuko Goto

2017-01-01

This article focuses on the design of digital instructional game (DIG) tasks for young second language (L2) learners. The aim of the study is to identify motivational task elements based on what children respond to positively in games and incorporate into their own L2 vocabulary learning game designs. Eighty-two sixth-grade students (ages 11-12…

Vocabulary and Content Learning in Grade 9 Earth Science: Effects of Vocabulary Preteaching, Rational Cloze Task, and Reading Comprehension Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Siok H.

2010-01-01

This study examines strategies for supporting vocabulary and content learning in 5 grade 9 Earth Science classes that are part of a SDAIE program (Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English) in an urban California high school. Students received vocabulary and content instruction during a unit on Earthquakes. One group of students performed…

The Effects of the Placement of Objectives within an Instructional Period and a Precriterion Test on the Acquisition of a Cognitive Task.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yelon, Stephen L.; Schmidt, William H.

A study to determine some conditions to be used to communicate desired instructional outcomes to students in order to produce learning was conducted. A commercial game called "Think-A-Dot" consisting of a series of flip-flops encased in plastic was employed as the learning task. Three independent variables were experimentally…

Evaluating Maintenance Performance: Test Administrator's Manual and Test Subject's Instructions for Criterion Referenced Job Task Performance Tests for Electronic Maintenance. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shriver, Edgar L.; And Others

This document furnishes a complete copy of the Test Subject's Instructions and the Test Administrator's Handbook for a battery of criterion referenced Job Task Performance Tests (JTPT) for electronic maintenance. General information is provided on soldering, Radar Set AN/APN-147(v), Radar Set Special Equipment, Radar Set Bench Test Set-Up, and…

In Search for Instructional Techniques to Maximize the Use of Germane Cognitive Resources: A Case of Teaching Complex Tasks in Physics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sliva, Yekaterina

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study was to introduce an instructional technique for teaching complex tasks in physics, test its effectiveness and efficiency, and understand cognitive processes taking place in learners' minds while they are exposed to this technique. The study was based primarily on cognitive load theory (CLT). CLT determines the amount of…

Intrusive and Non-Intrusive Instruction in Dynamic Skill Training.

DTIC Science & Technology

1981-10-01

less sensitive to the processing load imposed by the dynaic task together with instructional feedback processing than were the decison - making and...betwee computer based instruction of knowledge systems and computer based instruction of dynamic skills. There is reason to expect that the findings of...knowledge 3Ytm and computer based instruction of dynlamic skill.. There is reason to expect that the findings of research on knowledge system

Design of instructions for evacuating disabled adults.

PubMed

Boyce, Michael W; Al-Awar Smither, Janan; Fisher, Daniel O; Hancock, P A

2017-01-01

We investigated how the design of instructions can affect performance in preparing emergency stair travel devices for the evacuation of disable individuals. We had three hypotheses: 1) Design of instructions would account for a significant portion of explained performance variance, 2) Improvements in design of instructions would reduce time on task across device type and age group, and 3) There would be a performance decrement for older adults compared to younger adults based on the slowing of older adult information processing abilities. Results showed that design of instructions does indeed account for a large portion of explained variance in the operation of emergency stair travel devices, and that improvements in design of instructions can reduce time on task across device type and age group. However, encouragingly for real-world operations, results did not indicate any significant differences between older versus younger adults. We look to explore ways that individuals with disabilities can exploit these insights to enhance the performance of emergency stair travel devices for use. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Promoting Task-Based Pragmatics Instruction in EFL Classroom Contexts: The Role of Task Complexity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Youjin; Taguchi, Naoko

2015-01-01

Robinson's (2001) Cognition Hypothesis claims that more complex tasks promote interaction and language development. This study examined the effect of task complexity in the learning of request-making expressions. Task complexity was operationalized as [+/- reasoning] following Robinson's framework. The study employed a pretest-posttest research…

Perceptions of Middle School Assessment: An Ecological View

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

James, Alisa R.; Griffin, Linda; Dodds, Patt

2009-01-01

Background: The ecology of physical education is created through the interaction of three task systems: managerial task system, instructional task system, and the student social system. Within the ecological framework tasks are presented and task development is influenced by concepts such as ambiguity, risk, and accountability. Teachers' and…

Individual Differences Influencing Immediate Effects of Internal and External Focus Instructions on Children's Motor Performance.

PubMed

van Abswoude, Femke; Nuijen, Nienke B; van der Kamp, John; Steenbergen, Bert

2018-06-01

A large pool of evidence supports the beneficial effect of an external focus of attention on motor skill performance in adults. In children, this effect has been studied less and results are inconclusive. Importantly, individual differences are often not taken into account. We investigated the role of working memory, conscious motor control, and task-specific focus preferences on performance with an internal and external focus of attention in children. Twenty-five children practiced a golf putting task in both an internal focus condition and external focus condition. Performance was defined as the average distance toward the hole in 3 blocks of 10 trials. Task-specific focus preference was determined by asking how much effort it took to apply the instruction in each condition. In addition, working memory capacity and conscious motor control were assessed. Children improved performance in both the internal focus condition and external focus condition (ŋ p 2  = .47), with no difference between conditions (ŋ p 2  = .01). Task-specific focus preference was the only factor moderately related to the difference between performance with an internal focus and performance with an external focus (r = .56), indicating better performance for the preferred instruction in Block 3. Children can benefit from instruction with both an internal and external focus of attention to improve short-term motor performance. Individual, task-specific focus preference influenced the effect of the instructions, with children performing better with their preferred focus. The results highlight that individual differences are a key factor in the effectiveness in children's motor performance. The precise mechanisms underpinning this effect warrant further research.

Task-set inertia and memory-consolidation bottleneck in dual tasks.

PubMed

Koch, Iring; Rumiati, Raffaella I

2006-11-01

Three dual-task experiments examined the influence of processing a briefly presented visual object for deferred verbal report on performance in an unrelated auditory-manual reaction time (RT) task. RT was increased at short stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs) relative to long SOAs, showing that memory consolidation processes can produce a functional processing bottleneck in dual-task performance. In addition, the experiments manipulated the spatial compatibility of the orientation of the visual object and the side of the speeded manual response. This cross-task compatibility produced relative RT benefits only when the instruction for the visual task emphasized overlap at the level of response codes across the task sets (Experiment 1). However, once the effective task set was in place, it continued to produce cross-task compatibility effects even in single-task situations ("ignore" trials in Experiment 2) and when instructions for the visual task did not explicitly require spatial coding of object orientation (Experiment 3). Taken together, the data suggest a considerable degree of task-set inertia in dual-task performance, which is also reinforced by finding costs of switching task sequences (e.g., AC --> BC vs. BC --> BC) in Experiment 3.

Three Techniques for Task Analysis: Examples from the Nuclear Utilities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carlisle, Kenneth E.

1984-01-01

Discusses three task analysis techniques utilized at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station to review training programs: analysis of (1) job positions, (2) procedures, and (3) instructional presentations. All of these include task breakdown, relationship determination, and task restructuring. (MBR)

The impact of the stimulus features and task instructions on facial processing in social anxiety: an ERP investigation.

PubMed

Peschard, Virginie; Philippot, Pierre; Joassin, Frédéric; Rossignol, Mandy

2013-04-01

Social anxiety has been characterized by an attentional bias towards threatening faces. Electrophysiological studies have demonstrated modulations of cognitive processing from 100 ms after stimulus presentation. However, the impact of the stimulus features and task instructions on facial processing remains unclear. Event-related potentials were recorded while high and low socially anxious individuals performed an adapted Stroop paradigm that included a colour-naming task with non-emotional stimuli, an emotion-naming task (the explicit task) and a colour-naming task (the implicit task) on happy, angry and neutral faces. Whereas the impact of task factors was examined by contrasting an explicit and an implicit emotional task, the effects of perceptual changes on facial processing were explored by including upright and inverted faces. The findings showed an enhanced P1 in social anxiety during the three tasks, without a moderating effect of the type of task or stimulus. These results suggest a global modulation of attentional processing in performance situations. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Using Web-Based Key Character and Classification Instruction for Teaching Undergraduate Students Insect Identification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Golick, Douglas A.; Heng-Moss, Tiffany M.; Steckelberg, Allen L.; Brooks, David. W.; Higley, Leon G.; Fowler, David

2013-08-01

The purpose of the study was to determine whether undergraduate students receiving web-based instruction based on traditional, key character, or classification instruction differed in their performance of insect identification tasks. All groups showed a significant improvement in insect identifications on pre- and post-two-dimensional picture specimen quizzes. The study also determined student performance on insect identification tasks was not as good as for family-level identification as compared to broader insect orders and arthropod classification identification tasks. Finally, students erred significantly more by misidentification than misspelling specimen names on prepared specimen quizzes. Results of this study support that short web-based insect identification exercises can improve insect identification performance. Also included is a discussion of how these results can be used in teaching and future research on biological identification.

Effects of Episodic Future Thinking and Self-Projection on Children’s Prospective Memory Performance

PubMed Central

Kretschmer-Trendowicz, Anett; Ellis, Judith A.; Altgassen, Mareike

2016-01-01

The present study is the first to investigate the benefits of episodic future thinking (EFT) at encoding on prospective memory (PM) in preschool (age: M = 66.34 months, SD = 3.28) and primary school children (age: M = 88.36 months, SD = 3.12). A second aim was to examine if self-projection influences the possible effects of EFT instructions. PM was assessed using a standard PM paradigm in children with a picture-naming task as the ongoing activity in which the PM task was embedded. Further, two first- and two second-order ToM tasks were administered as indicator of children’s self-projection abilities. Forty-one preschoolers and 39 school-aged children were recruited. Half of the participants in each age group were instructed to use EFT as a strategy to encode the PM task, while the others received standard PM instructions. Results revealed a significant age effect, with school-aged children significantly outperforming preschoolers and a significant effect of encoding condition with overall better performance when receiving EFT instructions compared to the standard encoding condition. Even though the interaction between age group and encoding condition was not significant, planned comparisons revealed first evidence that compared to the younger age group, older children’s PM benefitted more from EFT instructions during intention encoding. Moreover, results showed that although self-projection had a significant impact on PM performance, it did not influence the effects of EFT instructions. Overall, results indicate that children can use EFT encoding strategies to improve their PM performance once EFT abilities are sufficiently developed. Further, they provide first evidence that in addition to executive functions, which have already been shown to influence the development of PM across childhood, self-projection seems to be another key mechanism underlying this development. PMID:27355645

Designing K-2 Formative Assessment Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reed, Kristen E.; Goldenberg, E. Paul

2016-01-01

Formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students' achievements of intended instructional outcomes. Formative assessment means assessment embedded in instruction. That definition was adopted in 2006 by the Council of Chief State…

Practical Programming.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pipe, Peter

Programed instruction causes the student to take an active role in the instructional process and stimulates interchange between student and teacher. Since it adjusts itself to individual differences in students' learning rates, it can have delegated to it some parts of a teacher's task. Characteristics of programed instruction are small steps,…

Cognitive Approaches to Automated Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Regian, J. Wesley, Ed.; Shute, Valerie J., Ed.

This book contains a snapshot of state-of-the-art research on the design of automated instructional systems. Selected cognitive psychologists were asked to describe their approach to instruction and cognitive diagnosis, the theoretical basis of the approach, its utility and applicability, and the knowledge engineering or task analysis methods…

Different effects of dopaminergic medication on perceptual decision-making in Parkinson's disease as a function of task difficulty and speed-accuracy instructions.

PubMed

Huang, Yu-Ting; Georgiev, Dejan; Foltynie, Tom; Limousin, Patricia; Speekenbrink, Maarten; Jahanshahi, Marjan

2015-08-01

When choosing between two options, sufficient accumulation of information is required to favor one of the options over the other, before a decision is finally reached. To establish the effect of dopaminergic medication on the rate of accumulation of information, decision thresholds and speed-accuracy trade-offs, we tested 14 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) on and off dopaminergic medication and 14 age-matched healthy controls on two versions of the moving-dots task. One version manipulated the level of task difficulty and hence effort required for decision-making and the other the urgency, requiring decision-making under speed vs. accuracy instructions. The drift diffusion model was fitted to the behavioral data. As expected, the reaction time data revealed an effect of task difficulty, such that the easier the perceptual decision-making task was, the faster the participants responded. PD patients not only made significantly more errors compared to healthy controls, but interestingly they also made significantly more errors ON than OFF medication. The drift diffusion model indicated that PD patients had lower drift rates when tested ON compared to OFF medication, indicating that dopamine levels influenced the quality of information derived from sensory information. On the speed-accuracy task, dopaminergic medication did not directly influence reaction times or error rates. PD patients OFF medication had slower RTs and made more errors with speed than accuracy instructions compared to the controls, whereas such differences were not observed ON medication. PD patients had lower drift rates and higher response thresholds than the healthy controls both with speed and accuracy instructions and ON and OFF medication. For the patients, only non-decision time was higher OFF than ON medication and higher with accuracy than speed instructions. The present results demonstrate that when task difficulty is manipulated, dopaminergic medication impairs perceptual decision-making and renders it more errorful in PD relative to when patients are tested OFF medication. In contrast, for the speed/accuracy task, being ON medication improved performance by eliminating the significantly higher errors and slower RTs observed for patients OFF medication compared to the HC group. There was no evidence of dopaminergic medication inducing impulsive decisions when patients were acting under speed pressure. For the speed-accuracy instructions, the sole effect of dopaminergic medication was on non-decision time, which suggests that medication primarily affected processes tightly coupled with the motor symptoms of PD. Interestingly, the current results suggest opposite effects of dopaminergic medication on the levels of difficulty and speed-accuracy versions of the moving dots task, possibly reflecting the differential effect of dopamine on modulating drift rate (levels of difficulty task) and non-decision time (speed-accuracy task) in the process of perceptual decision making. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Task Difficulty and Prior Videogame Experience: Their Role in Performance and Motivation in Instructional Videogames

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-06-01

Video game -based environments are an increasingly popular medium for training Soldiers. This research investigated how various strategies for...modifying task difficulty over the progression of an instructional video game impact learner performance and motivation. Further, the influence of prior... video game experience on these learning outcomes was examined, as well as the role prior experience played in determining the optimal approach for

The Influence of Instructional Climates on Time Spent in Management Tasks and Physical Activity of 2nd-Grade Students during Physical Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Logan, Samuel W.; Robinson, Leah E.; Webster, E. Kipling; Rudisill, Mary E.

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of two physical education (PE) instructional climates (mastery, performance) on the percentage of time students spent in a) moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and b) management tasks during PE in 2nd-grade students. Forty-eight 2nd graders (mastery, n = 23; performance, n = 25)…

The Role of Task Repetition in Learning Word-Stress Patterns through Auditory Priming Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jung, YeonJoo; Kim, YouJin; Murphy, John

2017-01-01

This study focused on an instructional component often neglected when teaching the pronunciation of English as either a second, foreign, or international language--namely, the suprasegmental feature of lexical stress. Extending previous research on collaborative priming tasks and task repetition, the study investigated the impact of task and…

Teaching Scientific Communication Skills in Science Studies: Does It Make a Difference?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spektor-Levy, Ornit; Eylon, Bat-Sheva; Scherz, Zahava

2009-01-01

This study explores the impact of "Scientific Communication" (SC) skills instruction on students' performances in scientific literacy assessment tasks. We present a general model for skills instruction, characterized by explicit and spiral instruction, integration into content learning, practice in several scientific topics, and application of…

Putting the Fun Back into Fluency Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cahill, Mary Ann; Gregory, Anne E.

2011-01-01

Based on recent research in fluency instruction, the authors present a scenario in which a teacher focuses her fluency instruction on authentic fluency tasks based in performance. Beginning with establishing a student-friendly definition of fluency and culminating with student engagement in fun fluency activities, this article explores the…

Function-Altering Effects of Rule Phrasing in the Modulation of Instructional Control

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Henley, Amy J.; Hirst, Jason M.; DiGennaro Reed, Florence D.; Becirevic, Amel; Reed, Derek D.

2017-01-01

This study evaluated the effects of four instructional variants on instruction following under changing reinforcement schedules using an operant task based on Hackenberg and Joker's "Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior," 62, 367-383 (1994) experimental preparation. Sixteen college-aged adults served as participants and were…

Adult age differences in the storage of information in working memory.

PubMed

Foos, P W; Wright, L

1992-01-01

The performance of 97 young and 91 old persons were compared to determine if a deficiency in working memory resources for processing, storage, or allocation could be detected. Persons simultaneously performed a storage and one of two processing tasks while instructed to allocate resources to processing, storage, or both tasks. The storage task involved remembering the names of one, three, or five persons. Processing tasks involved solving addition problems presented on flashcards or answering common knowledge questions. Results showed increased age differences on the storage task as demands for resources increased but no differences on processing tasks. Individuals seemed unable to allocate resources as instructed. A comparison of young-old and old-old groups showed the same results as those obtained comparing young and old groups and support the hypothesis of a deficiency of storage, but not processing, resources in working memory for old, especially old-old, adults.

Instructional Cues Modify Performance on the Iowa Gambling Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Balodis, Iris M.; MacDonald, Tara K.; Olmstead, Mary C.

2006-01-01

The current study investigated whether acute alcohol intoxication produces impaired decision-making on tasks assessing ventromedial prefrontal (VMF) cortex functioning and impulsive responding. Participants completed the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), a decision-making test targeting the VMF, and the Newman Perseveration Task (NT), a measure of…

48 CFR 1852.216-80 - Task ordering procedure.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... specified in the schedule. The Contractor may incur costs under this contract in performance of task orders... contemplated task order. (2) Proposed performance standards to be used as criteria for determining whether the... the task order, including special instructions or other information necessary for performance of the...

The Special Education Teacher as an Instructional Designer. Rational, Content, and Strategy for an Innovative Individualized Course on Instructional Design in Special Education. Working Paper 9.14.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thiagarajan, Sivasailam

Provided are the rationale, content and strategy for an introductory course in instructional design for special education teachers. The teacher's need for varied competencies in instructional design, management and interaction are discussed. It is recommended that teacher training include development of such design skills as task analysis, learner…

Connected Classroom Technology Facilitates Multiple Components of Formative Assessment Practice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shirley, Melissa L.; Irving, Karen E.

2015-02-01

Formative assessment has been demonstrated to result in increased student achievement across a variety of educational contexts. When using formative assessment strategies, teachers engage students in instructional tasks that allow the teacher to uncover levels of student understanding so that the teacher may change instruction accordingly. Tools that support the implementation of formative assessment strategies are therefore likely to enhance student achievement. Connected classroom technologies (CCTs) include a family of devices that show promise in facilitating formative assessment. By promoting the use of interactive student tasks and providing both teachers and students with rapid and accurate data on student learning, CCT can provide teachers with necessary evidence for making instructional decisions about subsequent lessons. In this study, the experiences of four middle and high school science teachers in their first year of implementing the TI-Navigator™ system, a specific type of CCT, are used to characterize the ways in which CCT supports the goals of effective formative assessment. We present excerpts of participant interviews to demonstrate the alignment of CCT with several main phases of the formative assessment process. CCT was found to support implementation of a variety of instructional tasks that generate evidence of student learning for the teacher. The rapid aggregation and display of student learning evidence provided teachers with robust data on which to base subsequent instructional decisions.

The effects of instruction and hand dominance on grip-to-load force coordination in manipulation tasks.

PubMed

Jin, Xin; Uygur, Mehmet; Getchell, Nancy; Hall, Susan J; Jaric, Slobodan

2011-10-31

The force applied upon a vertically oriented hand-held object could be decomposed into two orthogonal and highly coordinated components: the grip force (GF; the component perpendicular to the hand-object contact area that provides friction) and the load force (LF; the parallel component that can move the object or support the body). The aim of this study was to investigate the underexplored effects of task instruction and hand dominance on GF-LF coordination. Sixteen right-handed subjects performed bimanual manipulation against a horizontally oriented instrumented device under different sets of instructions. The tasks involved exertion of ramp-and-hold or oscillation patterns of LF performed symmetrically with two hands, while the instructions regarding individual actions were either similar (pull with both hands) or dissimilar (pull with one hand and hold with another). The results revealed that the instruction "to pull" leads to higher indices of GF-LF coordination than the instruction "to hold", as evidenced by a lower GF-LF ratio, higher GF-LF coupling, and higher GF modulation. The only effect of hand dominance was a moderate time lag of GF relative to LF changes observed in the non-dominant hand. We conclude that the instructions could play an important role in GF-LF coordination and, therefore, they should be taken into account when exploring or routinely testing hand function. Additionally, the results suggest that the neural control of GF of the non-dominant hand could involve some feedback mechanisms. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Goal orientation, perceived task outcome and task demands in mathematics tasks: effects on students' attitude in actual task settings.

PubMed

Seegers, Gerard; van Putten, Cornelis M; de Brabander, Cornelis J

2002-09-01

In earlier studies, it has been found that students' domain-specific cognitions and personal learning goals (goal orientation) influence task-specific appraisals of actual learning tasks. The relations between domain-specific and task-specific variables have been specified in the model of adaptive learning. In this study, additional influences, i.e., perceived task outcome on a former occasion and variations in task demands, were investigated. The purpose of this study was to identify personality and situational variables that mediate students' attitude when confronted with a mathematics task. Students worked on a mathematics task in two subsequent sessions. Effects of perceived task outcome at the first session on students' attitude at the second session were investigated. In addition, we investigated how differences in task demands influenced students' attitude. Variations in task demands were provoked by different conditions in task-instruction. In one condition, students were told that the result on the test would add to their mark on mathematics. This outcome orienting condition was contrasted with a task-orienting condition where students were told that the results on the test would not be used to give individual grades. Participants were sixth grade students (N = 345; aged 11-12 years) from 14 primary schools. Multivariate and univariate analyses of (co)variance were applied to the data. Independent variables were goal orientation, task demands, and perceived task outcome, with task-specific variables (estimated competence for the task, task attraction, task relevance, and willingness to invest effort) as the dependent variables. The results showed that previous perceived task outcome had a substantial impact on students' attitude. Additional but smaller effects were found for variation in task demands. Furthermore, effects of previous perceived task outcome and task demands were related to goal orientation. The resulting pattern confirmed that, in general, performance-oriented learning goals emphasised the negative impact of failure experiences, whereas task-oriented learning goals had a strengthening effect on how success experiences influenced students' attitude.

Comparison of Direct Instruction and Problem Centered Instruction for Army Institutional Training

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-04-01

of the ALC small group classrooms and were briefed on the general research objectives. They then completed the pretest and Demographic...Findings For this research, we measured participants’ performance on well-defined (WD) tasks in terms of their score on the pretest and posttest ...WD score was 49% on the pretest and 52% on the posttest . Similarly, we measured participants’ performance on ill-defined (ID) tasks in terms of

Results from Five Task Forces Appointed by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Council on Library and Information Resources. Scholarship, Instruction, and Libraries at the Turn of the Century.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Council on Library and Information Resources, Washington, DC.

The American Council of Learned Societies and the Council on Library and Information Resources appointed 36 scholars, librarians, and leaders of various academic enterprises to five task forces "to consider changes in the process of scholarship and instruction that will result from the use of digital technology and to make recommendations to…

Science inquiry and student diversity: Enhanced abilities and continuing difficulties after an instructional intervention

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Okhee; Buxton, Cory; Lewis, Scott; Leroy, Kathryn

2006-09-01

This study examines elementary students' abilities to conduct science inquiry through their participation in an instructional intervention over a school year. The study involved 25 third and fourth grade students from six elementary schools representing diverse linguistic and cultural groups. Prior to and at the completion of the intervention, the students participated in elicitation sessions as they conducted a semistructured inquiry task on evaporation. The results indicate that students demonstrated enhanced abilities with some aspects of the inquiry task, but continued to have difficulties with other aspects of the task even after instruction. Although students from all demographic subgroups showed substantial gains, students from non-mainstream and less privileged backgrounds in science showed greater gains in inquiry abilities than their more privileged counterparts. The results contribute to the emerging literature on designing learning environments that foster science inquiry of elementary students from diverse backgrounds.

Plan recognition and generalization in command languages with application to telerobotics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Yared, Wael I.; Sheridan, Thomas B.

1991-01-01

A method for pragmatic inference as a necessary accompaniment to command languages is proposed. The approach taken focuses on the modeling and recognition of the human operator's intent, which relates sequences of domain actions ('plans') to changes in some model of the task environment. The salient feature of this module is that it captures some of the physical and linguistic contextual aspects of an instruction. This provides a basis for generalization and reinterpretation of the instruction in different task environments. The theoretical development is founded on previous work in computational linguistics and some recent models in the theory of action and intention. To illustrate these ideas, an experimental command language to a telerobot is implemented. The program consists of three different components: a robot graphic simulation, the command language itself, and the domain-independent pragmatic inference module. Examples of task instruction processes are provided to demonstrate the benefits of this approach.

The influence of levels of processing on recall from working memory and delayed recall tasks.

PubMed

Loaiza, Vanessa M; McCabe, David P; Youngblood, Jessie L; Rose, Nathan S; Myerson, Joel

2011-09-01

Recent research in working memory has highlighted the similarities involved in retrieval from complex span tasks and episodic memory tasks, suggesting that these tasks are influenced by similar memory processes. In the present article, the authors manipulated the level of processing engaged when studying to-be-remembered words during a reading span task (Experiment 1) and an operation span task (Experiment 2) in order to assess the role of retrieval from secondary memory during complex span tasks. Immediate recall from both span tasks was greater for items studied under deep processing instructions compared with items studied under shallow processing instructions regardless of trial length. Recall was better for deep than for shallow levels of processing on delayed recall tests as well. These data are consistent with the primary-secondary memory framework, which suggests that to-be-remembered items are displaced from primary memory (i.e., the focus of attention) during the processing phases of complex span tasks and therefore must be retrieved from secondary memory. (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved.

Using a Planetarium Software Program to Promote Conceptual Change with Young Children

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hobson, Sally M.; Trundle, Kathy Cabe; Saçkes, Mesut

2010-04-01

This study explored young children’s understandings of targeted lunar concepts, including when the moon can be observed, observable lunar phase shapes, predictable lunar patterns, and the cause of lunar phases. Twenty-one children (ages 7-9 years) from a multi-aged, self-contained classroom participated in this study. The instructional intervention included lunar data gathering, recording, and sharing, which integrated Starry Night planetarium software and an inquiry-based instruction on moon phases. Data were gathered using semi-structured interviews, student drawings, and a card sorting activity before and after instruction. Students’ lunar calendars and written responses, participant observer field notes, and videotaped class sessions also provided data throughout the study. Data were analyzed using constant comparative analysis. Nonparametric statistical analyses were also performed to support the qualitative findings. Results reflected a positive change in children’s conceptual understanding of all targeted concepts including the cause of moon phases, which is remarkable considering the complexity and abstractness of this spatial task. Results provided evidence that computer simulations may reduce the burden on children’s cognitive capacity and facilitate their learning of complex scientific concepts that would not be possible to learn on their own.

Tasks in Pedagogical Context: Integrating Theory and Practice. Multilingual Matters 94.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crookes, Graham, Ed.; Gass, Susan M., Ed.

These six essays discuss the use of tasks as pedagogical tools in second language instruction, particularly in the contexts of curriculum and syllabus design. The essays are: (1) "Units of Analysis in Syllabus Design: The Case for Task" (Michael H. Long and Graham Crookes); (2) "Task-Based Syllabus Design: Selecting, Grading and Sequencing Tasks"…

Task Complexity and Modality: Exploring Learners' Experience from the Perspective of Flow

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cho, Minyoung

2018-01-01

Despite an increased awareness of language learner performance in task-based instruction, little is known about how learners perceive and respond to different task factors. This study investigates the effects of task complexity and modality on (a) learners' perception of task difficulty, skill, and its balance, and on (b) learners' task…

Task Lists for Health Occupations. Radiologic Aide. Activity Aide. Optometric Assistant. Physical Therapy Aide. Education for Employment Task Lists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lathrop, Janice

These task lists contain employability skills and tasks for the following health occupations: radiologic aide, activity aide, physical therapy aide, and optometric assistant. The duties and tasks found in these lists form the basis of instructional content for secondary, postsecondary, and adult occupational training programs. Employability skills…

Semantic Encoding Enhances the Pictorial Superiority Effect in the Oldest-Old

PubMed Central

Cherry, Katie E.; Brown, Jennifer Silva; Walker, Erin Jackson; Smitherman, Emily A.; Boudreaux, Emily O.; Volaufova, Julia; Jazwinski, S. Michal

2011-01-01

We examined the effect of a semantic orienting task during encoding on free recall and recognition of simple line drawings and matching words in middle-aged (44 to 59 years), older (60 to 89 years), and oldest-old (90 + years) adults. Participants studied line drawings and matching words presented in blocked order. Half of the participants were given a semantic orienting task and the other half received standard intentional learning instructions. Results confirmed that the pictorial superiority effect was greater in magnitude following semantic encoding compared to the control condition. Analyses of clustering in free recall revealed that oldest-old adults’ encoding and retrieval strategies were generally similar to the two younger groups. Self-reported strategy use was less frequent among the oldest-old adults. These data strongly suggest that semantic elaboration is an effective compensatory mechanism underlying preserved episodic memory performance that persists well into the ninth decade of life. PMID:22053814

The New ISD: Applying Cognitive Strategies to Instructional Design.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clark, Ruth Colvin

2002-01-01

Discusses cognitive models of instruction that can help develop new models of Instructional Systems Design (ISD) that include cognitive task analysis to identify mental models; constructive assumptions of learning; working memory and long-term memory; retrieval of new knowledge and skills from long-term memory; and support of metacognitive skills.…

Social Skill Instruction for the Developmentally Disabled: A Generalizability Problem.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Monroe, Don; And Others

A social curriculum package was developed for use in adjustment training centers that serve developmentally disabled clients over the age of 16 years. The curriculum features two different instructional styles (verbal instruction and role play) for nine task areas: (1) seeking attention, (2) complying, (3) telling the truth, (4) expressing…

From Perception to Practice: The Impact of Teachers' Scoring Experience on Performance-based Instruction and Classroom Assessment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldberg, Gail Lynn; Roswell, Barbara Sherr

2000-01-01

Studied the impact of experience scoring the Maryland School Performance Assessment tasks on teachers' instructional and classroom assessment practice. Interview data, questionnaires, classroom observation, and classroom artifacts from approximately 5 teacher-scorers demonstrated that teachers' appropriation of performance-based instruction may be…

Using Web-Based Key Character and Classification Instruction for Teaching Undergraduate Students Insect Identification

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Golick, Douglas A.; Heng-Moss, Tiffany M.; Steckelberg, Allen L.; Brooks, David. W.; Higley, Leon G.; Fowler, David

2013-01-01

The purpose of the study was to determine whether undergraduate students receiving web-based instruction based on traditional, key character, or classification instruction differed in their performance of insect identification tasks. All groups showed a significant improvement in insect identifications on pre- and post-two-dimensional picture…

Gas Metal Arc Welding and Flux-Cored Arc Welding. Teacher Edition. Second Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fortney, Clarence; Gregory, Mike

These instructional materials are designed to improve instruction in Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) and Flux-Cored Arc Welding (FCAW). The following introductory information is included: use of this publication; competency profile; instructional/task analysis; related academic and workplace skills list; tools, materials, and equipment list; and…

Graphic Arts: Process Camera, Stripping, and Platemaking. Teacher Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feasley, Sue C., Ed.

This curriculum guide is the second in a three-volume series of instructional materials for competency-based graphic arts instruction. Each publication is designed to include the technical content and tasks necessary for a student to be employed in an entry-level graphic arts occupation. Introductory materials include an instructional/task…

The Implementation of Service-Learning in Graduate Instructional Design Coursework

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stefaniak, Jill E.

2015-01-01

This paper describes the design of service-learning experiences with a graduate-level instructional design course. Service-learning provides students with real-life experiences in a situated-learning environment. Students were tasked with working on an instructional design project in a real-world setting to gain consultative experience. This paper…

Instructional Leadership in Missouri: A Study of Middle-Level Building Principals and Student Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carson, Craig L.

2013-01-01

The purpose of this descriptive study was to describe Missouri middle-level school principals' perceptions of their instructional leadership practices. The Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS) by Philip Hallinger was used to define the measured leadership tasks (www.philiphallinger.com). There were a total of 77 middle-level…

Use of Static Picture Prompts Versus Video Modeling during Simulation Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alberto, Paul A.; Cihak, David F.; Gama, Robert I.

2005-01-01

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of static picture prompts and video modeling as classroom simulation strategies in combination with in vivo community instruction. Students with moderate intellectual disabilities were instructed in the tasks of withdrawing money from an ATM and purchasing items using a…

Applying Piaget's Theory to Reading Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heatherly, Anna L.

This paper discusses beginning reading instruction in the light of Piaget's theory, which demands that we think more broadly about the term "where the child is" in terms of his level of thinking, not simply his reading level or reading skill level. Using Piaget's four major developmental stages as the basis, the task of instruction in…

Systematic Instruction for Retarded Children: The Illinois Program. Part III: Self-Help Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Linford, Maxine D.; And Others

The manual for programed instruction of self care skills for trainable mentally handicapped children consists of dressing, dining, grooming, and toilet training. Teaching methods used include behavioral analysis and management, task analysis, and errorless learning. The lesson plans in each section are programed to maximize the child's success at…

A Repeated Lie Becomes a Truth? The Effect of Intentional Control and Training on Deception

PubMed Central

Hu, Xiaoqing; Chen, Hao; Fu, Genyue

2012-01-01

Deception has been demonstrated as a task that involves executive control such as conflict monitoring and response inhibition. In the present study, we investigated whether or not the controlled processes associated with deception could be trained to be more efficient. Forty-eight participants finished a reaction time-based differentiation of deception paradigm (DDP) task using self- and other-referential information on two occasions. After the first baseline DDP task, participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a control group in which participants finished the same task for a second time; an instruction group in which participants were instructed to speed up their deceptive responses in the second DDP; a training group in which participants received training in speeding up their deceptive responses, and then proceeded to the second DDP. Results showed that instruction alone significantly reduced the RTs associated with participants’ deceptive responses. However, the differences between deceptive and truthful responses were erased only in the training group. The result suggests that the performance associated with deception is malleable and could be voluntarily controlled with intention or training. PMID:23162520

Virtual Reality: An Instructional Medium for Visual-Spatial Tasks.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Regian, J. Wesley; And Others

1992-01-01

Describes an empirical exploration of the instructional potential of virtual reality as an interface for simulation-based training. Shows that subjects learned spatial-procedural and spatial-navigational skills in virtual reality. (SR)

Self-Instructional Training with an Adolescent Schizophrenic.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gumaer, Jim; Headspeth, Tanya

1985-01-01

Presents a case study involving the use of self-instructional training with an adolescent schizophrenic boy. Changes initiated in his internal and external dialog with himself improved his self-control and task performance. (JAC)

A Usability Study of a Serious Game in Cognitive Rehabilitation: A Compensatory Navigation Training in Acquired Brain Injury Patients

PubMed Central

van der Kuil, Milan N. A.; Visser-Meily, Johanna M. A.; Evers, Andrea W. M.; van der Ham, Ineke J. M.

2018-01-01

Acquired brain injury patients often report navigation impairments. A cognitive rehabilitation therapy has been designed in the form of a serious game. The aim of the serious game is to aid patients in the development of compensatory navigation strategies by providing exercises in 3D virtual environments on their home computers. The objective of this study was to assess the usability of three critical gaming attributes: movement control in 3D virtual environments, instruction modality and feedback timing. Thirty acquired brain injury patients performed three tasks in which objective measures of usability were obtained. Mouse controlled movement was compared to keyboard controlled movement in a navigation task. Text-based instructions were compared to video-based instructions in a knowledge acquisition task. The effect of feedback timing on performance and motivation was examined in a navigation training game. Subjective usability ratings of all design options were assessed using questionnaires. Results showed that mouse controlled interaction in 3D environments is more effective than keyboard controlled interaction. Patients clearly preferred video-based instructions over text-based instructions, even though video-based instructions were not more effective in context of knowledge acquisition and comprehension. No effect of feedback timing was found on performance and motivation in games designed to train navigation abilities. Overall appreciation of the serious game was positive. The results provide valuable insights in the design choices that facilitate the transfer of skills from serious games to real-life situations. PMID:29922196

The use of instructional design guidelines to increase effectiveness of postpartum hemorrhage simulation training.

PubMed

de Melo, Brena C P; Falbo, Ana R; Muijtjens, Arno M M; van der Vleuten, Cees P M; van Merriënboer, Jeroen J G

2017-04-01

To compare learning outcomes of postpartum hemorrhage simulation training based on either instructional design guidelines or best practice. A pretest-post-test non-equivalent groups study was conducted among obstetrics and gynecology residents in Recife, Brazil, from June 8 to August 30, 2013. The instructional design group included 13 teams, whereas the best practice group included seven teams. A standardized task checklist was used for scenario analysis and the proportion of correctly executed tasks compared (post-test minus pretest). The instructional design group scored higher than the best practice group for total number of tasks completed (median difference 0.46 vs 0.17; P<0.001; effect size [r]=0.72). Similar results were observed for communication (median difference 0.56 vs 0.22; P=0.004; r=0.58), laboratory evaluation (median difference 0.83 vs 0.00; P<0.001; r=0.76), and mechanical management (median difference 0.25 vs -0.15; P=0.048; r=0.39). Speed of learning was also increased. The median differences were 0.20 for the instructional design group compared with 0.05 for the best practice group at 60 seconds (P=0.015; r=0.49), and 0.49 versus 0.26 (P=0.001; r=0.65) at 360 seconds. The use of simulation training for postpartum hemorrhage that was based on instructional design guidelines yielded better learning outcomes than did training based on best practice. © 2016 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics.

A Usability Study of a Serious Game in Cognitive Rehabilitation: A Compensatory Navigation Training in Acquired Brain Injury Patients.

PubMed

van der Kuil, Milan N A; Visser-Meily, Johanna M A; Evers, Andrea W M; van der Ham, Ineke J M

2018-01-01

Acquired brain injury patients often report navigation impairments. A cognitive rehabilitation therapy has been designed in the form of a serious game. The aim of the serious game is to aid patients in the development of compensatory navigation strategies by providing exercises in 3D virtual environments on their home computers. The objective of this study was to assess the usability of three critical gaming attributes: movement control in 3D virtual environments, instruction modality and feedback timing. Thirty acquired brain injury patients performed three tasks in which objective measures of usability were obtained. Mouse controlled movement was compared to keyboard controlled movement in a navigation task. Text-based instructions were compared to video-based instructions in a knowledge acquisition task. The effect of feedback timing on performance and motivation was examined in a navigation training game. Subjective usability ratings of all design options were assessed using questionnaires. Results showed that mouse controlled interaction in 3D environments is more effective than keyboard controlled interaction. Patients clearly preferred video-based instructions over text-based instructions, even though video-based instructions were not more effective in context of knowledge acquisition and comprehension. No effect of feedback timing was found on performance and motivation in games designed to train navigation abilities. Overall appreciation of the serious game was positive. The results provide valuable insights in the design choices that facilitate the transfer of skills from serious games to real-life situations.

Further Effects of Phylogenetic Tree Style on Student Comprehension in an Introductory Biology Course.

PubMed

Dees, Jonathan; Bussard, Caitlin; Momsen, Jennifer L

2018-06-01

Phylogenetic trees have become increasingly important across the life sciences, and as a result, learning to interpret and reason from these diagrams is now an essential component of biology education. Unfortunately, students often struggle to understand phylogenetic trees. Style (i.e., diagonal or bracket) is one factor that has been observed to impact how students interpret phylogenetic trees, and one goal of this research was to investigate these style effects across an introductory biology course. In addition, we investigated the impact of instruction that integrated diagonal and bracket phylogenetic trees equally. Before instruction, students were significantly more accurate with the bracket style for a variety of interpretation and construction tasks. After instruction, however, students were significantly more accurate only for construction tasks and interpretations involving taxa relatedness when using the bracket style. Thus, instruction that used both styles equally mitigated some, but not all, style effects. These results inform the development of research-based instruction that best supports student understanding of phylogenetic trees.

Analogy motor learning by young children: a study of rope skipping.

PubMed

Tse, Andy C Y; Fong, Shirley S M; Wong, Thomson W L; Masters, Rich

2017-03-01

Research in psychology suggests that provision of an instruction by analogy can enhance acquisition and understanding of knowledge. Limited research has been conducted to test this proposition in motor learning by children. The purpose of the present study was to examine the feasibility of analogy instructions in motor skill acquisition by children. Thirty-two children were randomly assigned to one of the two instruction protocols: analogy and explicit instruction protocols for a two-week rope skipping training. Each participant completed a pretest (Lesson 1), three practice sessions (Lesson 2-4), a posttest and a secondary task test (Lesson 5). Children in the analogy protocol displayed better rope skip performance than those in the explicit instruction protocol (p < .001). Moreover, a cognitive secondary task test indicated that children in the analogy protocol performed more effectively, whereas children in the explicit protocol displayed decrements in performance. Analogy learning may aid children to acquire complex motor skills, and have potential benefits related to reduced cognitive processing requirements.

A Computer-Aided Instruction Program for Teaching the TOPS20-MM Facility on the DDN (Defense Data Network)

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-06-01

Continue on reverse if necessary and identify by block number) FIELD GROUP SUB-GROUP Computer Assisted Instruction; Artificial Intelligence 194...while he/she tries to perform given tasks. Means-ends analysis, a classic technique for solving search problems in Artificial Intelligence, has been...he/she tries to perform given tasks. Means-ends analysis, a classic technique for solving search problems in Artificial Intelligence, has been used

Identifying instructional tasks that occasion problem behaviors and assessing the effects of student versus teacher choice among these tasks.

PubMed

Vaughn, B J; Horner, R H

1997-01-01

Levels of problem behavior were assessed when 4 students with severe disabilities received instruction on preferred versus nonpreferred tasks and when tasks of each type were chosen by the teacher rather than by the student. In Phase 1, interview and direct observation assessments were conducted to identify relative preferences for academic tasks. In Phase 2, the effects of these lower preference and higher preference tasks on the rate of problem behavior were evaluated using a multielement design. The results showed that lower preference tasks were associated with higher rates of problem behaviors and that students, when given a choice, consistently selected the tasks that had been identified through interview and direct observation as higher preference. In Phase 3, we assessed whether allowing the students to choose between pairs of lower preference tasks or between pairs of higher preference tasks reduced problem behavior relative to a condition in which the teacher selected the same tasks. For 2 of 4 students, the rates of problem behavior were lower when students (rather than the teacher) selected the lower preference activity. Higher preference tasks for 3 students were associated with relatively low rates of problem behavior regardless of whether the student or the teacher selected the task.

Heuristic Task Analysis on E-Learning Course Development: A Formative Research Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Ji-Yeon; Reigeluth, Charles M.

2009-01-01

Utilizing heuristic task analysis (HTA), a method developed for eliciting, analyzing, and representing expertise in complex cognitive tasks, a formative research study was conducted on the task of e-learning course development to further improve the HTA process. Three instructional designers from three different post-secondary institutions in the…

A Standard Procedure for Conducting Cognitive Task Analysis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Redding, Richard E.

Traditional methods for task analysis have been largely based on the Instructional Systems Development (ISD) model, which is widely used throughout industry and the military. The first part of this document gives an overview of cognitive task analysis, which is conducted within the first phase of ISD. The following steps of cognitive task analysis…

TASK: Let's Have a Party!

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rees, James

2012-01-01

In this article, the author describes a creative way to demystify contemporary art for students. TASK is artist Oliver Herring's creation, where participants actively interpret instructions found on little pieces of paper--what he calls "tasks." An art classroom has all the key ingredients for a TASK event: (1) people; (2) materials; (3) space;…

Agricultural Production: Task Analysis for Livestock Production. Competency-Based Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Henrico County Public Schools, Glen Allen, VA. Virginia Vocational Curriculum Center.

This task analysis guide is intended to help teachers and administrators develop instructional materials and implement competency-based education in the agricultural production program. Section 1 contains a validated task inventory for the livestock production portion of agricultural production IV and V. Tasks are divided into six duty areas:…

Applied Welding Technology Curriculum Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Idaho State Dept. of Education, Boise. Div. of Vocational Education.

This Idaho state curriculum guide provides lists of tasks, performance objectives, and enabling objectives for instruction in welding. Following an introduction and a list of tasks, the bulk of the document consists of 10 modules, each of which is a list of tasks and the performance objectives and enabling objectives that pertain to each task. The…

Big 6 Tips: Teaching Information Problem Solving. #1 Task Definition: What Needs To Be Done.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eisenberg, Michael

1997-01-01

Explains task definition which is the first stage in the Big 6, an approach to information and technology skills instruction. Highlights include defining the problem; identifying the information requirements of the problem; transferability from curriculum-based problems to everyday tasks; and task definition logs kept by students. (LRW)

The enactment of tasks in a fifth grade classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schwartz, Jonathan L.

2007-12-01

This study looked at one classroom's manifestation of inquiry. Looking at tasks as part of the Full Option Science System (FOSS) shed light on the way in which inquiry took shape in the classroom. To do this, detailed descriptions and analysis of the enactment of inquiry-based tasks were conducted in one fifth-grade elementary school classroom during an 8-week period of instruction. A central finding was that the intended tasks differed from the actual tasks. This incongruence occurred primarily due to the actions of individuals in the classroom. These actions shaped tasks and transformed inquiry-based tasks from highly ambiguous, high-risk tasks to a routine set of steps and procedures. Teacher's actions included establishing a classroom culture, creating a flow to classroom events, and making instructional decisions. These actions resulted in implicit structures in the classroom that determined the pace and sequence of events, as well as how the requirements and value of work were understood by students. Implicit structures reflected shared understandings between the teacher and students about work and the overall system of accountability in the classroom.

Agricultural Occupations. Education for Employment Task Lists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lake County Area Vocational Center, Grayslake, IL.

The duties and tasks found in these task lists form the basis of instructional content for secondary, postsecondary, and adult occupational training programs for agricultural occupations. The agricultural occupations are divided into three clusters. The clusters and occupations are: agricultural business and management cluster…

The Role of Task Type in Foreign Language Written Production: Focusing on Fluency, Complexity, and Accuracy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rezazadeh, Mohsen; Tavakoli, Mansoor; Rasekh, Abbas Eslami

2011-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of two task types on foreign language written production. Particularly it addressed the issue of how three aspects of language production (i.e. fluency, complexity, and accuracy) vary among two different task types (i.e. argumentative writing task and instruction writing task). One hundred sixty…

Effects of Faded Scaffolding in Computer-Based Instruction on Learners' Performance, Cognitive Load, and Test Anxiety

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hao, Shuang

2016-01-01

Scaffolding is a type of instructional support that helps students to complete a learning task that exceeds their current ability. Scaffolding plays an important role in augmenting other instructional approaches, such as problem-based learning, and facilitates gradual shifts of responsibility from the more advanced others to the learner (Belland,…

Using Eye Tracking to Understand the Responses of Learners to Vocabulary Learning Strategy Instruction and Use

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Pei-Lin

2014-01-01

This study examined the influence of morphological instruction in an eye-tracking English vocabulary recognition task. Sixty-eight freshmen enrolled in an English course and received either traditional or morphological instruction for learning English vocabulary. The experimental part of the study was conducted over two-hour class periods for…

An Investigation of Learner-Control Variables in Vocabulary Learning Using Traditional Instruction and Two Forms of Computer-Based Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Balajthy, Ernest

1988-01-01

Investigates college students' ability to monitor learner-controlled vocabulary instruction when performed in traditional workbook-like tasks and in two different computer-based formats: video game and text game exercises. Suggests that developmental reading students are unable to monitor their own vocabulary development accurately. (MM)

Physical Education Opportunity Program for Exceptional Learners (PEOPEL): A Teacher's Guide for Secondary Schools. Second Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Irmer, Larry D.; And Others

The instructional guide for PEOPEL (Physical Education Opportunity Program for Exceptional Learners) contains 36 units of instruction for use with handicapped junior and senior high school students. The units contain basic performance objectives which have been task analyzed in an effort to individualize instruction. Each unit is divided into four…

Encoding of Others' Beliefs without Overt Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cohen, Adam S.; German, Tamsin C.

2009-01-01

Under what conditions do people automatically encode and track the mental states of others? A recent investigation showed that when subjects are instructed to track the location of an object but are not instructed to track a belief about that location in a non-verbal false-belief task, they respond more slowly to questions about an agent's belief,…

Teaching Domain-Specific Skills before Peer Assessment Skills Is Superior to Teaching Them Simultaneously

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Zundert, M. J.; Konings, K. D.; Sluijsmans, D. M. A.; van Merrienboer, J.J.G.

2012-01-01

Instruction in peer assessment of complex task performance may cause high cognitive load, impairing learning. A stepwise instructional strategy aimed at reducing cognitive load was investigated by comparing it with a combined instructional strategy in an experiment with 128 secondary school students (mean age 14.0 years; 45.2% male) with the…

A Methodology for Instructional Design in Mathematics--With the Generic and Epistemic Student at the Centre

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strømskag, Heidi

2017-01-01

This theoretical paper presents a methodology for instructional design in mathematics. It is a theoretical analysis of a proposed model for instructional design, where tasks are embedded in situations that preserve meaning with respect to particular pieces of mathematical knowledge. The model is applicable when there is an intention of teaching…

Improving Comprehension of Capital Sentencing Instructions: Debunking Juror Misconceptions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Otto, Charles W.; Applegate, Brandon K.; Davis, Robin King

2007-01-01

Previous research has demonstrated that judicial instructions on the law are not well understood by jurors tasked with applying the law to the facts of a case. The past research has also shown that jurors are often confused by the instructions used in the sentencing phase of a capital trial. The current research tested the effectiveness of a…

Event-related potential correlates of mindfulness meditation competence

PubMed Central

Atchley, Rachel; Klee, Dan; Memmott, Tabatha; Goodrich, Elena; Wahbeh, Helané; Oken, Barry

2016-01-01

Objective This cross-sectional study evaluated event-related potentials (ERPs) across three groups: naïve, novice, and experienced meditators as potential physiological markers of mindfulness meditation competence. Methods Electroencephalographic (EEG) data was collected during a target tone detection task and a Breath Counting task. The Breath Counting task served as the mindfulness meditation condition for the novice and experienced meditator groups. Participants were instructed to respond to target tones with a button press in the first task (Tones), and then ignore the primed tones while breath counting. The primary outcomes were ERP responses to target tones, namely the N2 and P3, as markers of stimulus discrimination and attention, respectively. Results As expected, P3 amplitudes elicited by target tones were attenuated within groups during the Breath Counting task in comparison to the Tones task (p < .001). There was a task by group interaction for P3 (p = .039). Both meditator groups displayed greater change in peak-to-trough P3 amplitudes, with higher amplitudes during the Tones condition and more pronounced reductions in P3 amplitudes during the Breath Counting meditation task in comparison to the naïve group. Conclusions Meditators had stronger P3 amplitude responses to target tones when instructed to attend to the tones, and a greater attenuation of P3 amplitudes when instructed to ignore the same tones during the Breath Counting task. This study introduces the idea of identifying ERP markers as a means of measuring mindfulness meditation competence, and results suggest this may be a valid approach. This information has the potential to improve mindfulness meditation interventions by allowing objective assessment of mindfulness meditation quality. PMID:26850995

Event-related potential correlates of mindfulness meditation competence.

PubMed

Atchley, R; Klee, D; Memmott, T; Goodrich, E; Wahbeh, H; Oken, B

2016-04-21

This cross-sectional study evaluated event-related potentials (ERPs) across three groups: naïve, novice, and experienced meditators as potential physiological markers of mindfulness meditation competence. Electroencephalographic (EEG) data were collected during a target tone detection task and a Breath Counting task. The Breath Counting task served as the mindfulness meditation condition for the novice and experienced meditator groups. Participants were instructed to respond to target tones with a button press in the first task (Tones), and then ignore the primed tones while Breath Counting. The primary outcomes were ERP responses to target tones, namely the N2 and P3, as markers of stimulus discrimination and attention, respectively. As expected, P3 amplitudes elicited by target tones were attenuated within groups during the Breath Counting task in comparison to the Tones task (p<.001). There was a task by group interaction for P3 (p=.039). Both meditator groups displayed greater change in peak-to-trough P3 amplitudes, with higher amplitudes during the Tones condition and more pronounced reductions in P3 amplitudes during the Breath Counting meditation task in comparison to the naïve group. Meditators had stronger P3 amplitude responses to target tones when instructed to attend to the tones, and a greater attenuation of P3 amplitudes when instructed to ignore the same tones during the Breath Counting task. This study introduces the idea of identifying ERP markers as a means of measuring mindfulness meditation competence, and results suggest this may be a valid approach. This information has the potential to improve mindfulness meditation interventions by allowing objective assessment of mindfulness meditation quality. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Introductory labs; what they don't, should, and can teach (and why)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wieman, Carl

2016-03-01

Introductory physics labs are widely used and expensive. They have a wide variety of potential learning goals, but these are seldom specified and less often measured if they are achieved. We cover three different research projects on introductory labs: 1) We have done cognitive task analyses of both experimental research in physics and instructional labs. The striking differences explain much of the unhappiness expressed by students with labs: 2) We have measured the effectiveness of two introductory physics lab courses specifically intended to teach the physics content covered in standard introductory courses on mechanics and E & M. As measured by course exams, the benefit is 0 +/-2% for both. 3) We show how it is possible to use lab courses to teach students to correctly evaluate physical models with uncertain data. Such quantitative critical thinking is an important skill that is not learned in typical lab courses, but is well learned by our modified lab instruction.

Future thinking instructions improve prospective memory performance in adolescents.

PubMed

Altgassen, Mareike; Kretschmer, Anett; Schnitzspahn, Katharina Marlene

2017-07-01

Studies on prospective memory (PM) development in adolescents point to age-related increases through to adulthood. The goal of the present study was to examine whether instructing adolescents to engage in an episodic prospection of themselves executing future actions (i.e., future thinking) when forming an intention would improve their PM performance and reduce age-related differences. Further, we set out to explore whether future thinking instructions result in stronger memory traces and/or stronger cue-context associations by evaluating retrospective memory for the PM cues after task completion and monitoring costs during PM task processing. Adolescents and young adults were allocated to either the future thinking, repeated-encoding or standard condition. As expected, adolescents had fewer correct PM responses than young adults. Across age groups, PM performance in the standard condition was lower than in the other encoding conditions. Importantly, the results indicate a significant interaction of age by encoding condition. While adolescents benefited most from future thinking instructions, young adults performed best in the repeated-encoding condition. The results also indicate that the beneficial effects of future thinking may result from deeper intention-encoding through the simulation of future task performance.

Is gaze following purely reflexive or goal-directed instead? Revisiting the automaticity of orienting attention by gaze cues.

PubMed

Ricciardelli, Paola; Carcagno, Samuele; Vallar, Giuseppe; Bricolo, Emanuela

2013-01-01

Distracting gaze has been shown to elicit automatic gaze following. However, it is still debated whether the effects of perceived gaze are a simple automatic spatial orienting response or are instead sensitive to the context (i.e. goals and task demands). In three experiments, we investigated the conditions under which gaze following occurs. Participants were instructed to saccade towards one of two lateral targets. A face distracter, always present in the background, could gaze towards: (a) a task-relevant target--("matching" goal-directed gaze shift)--congruent or incongruent with the instructed direction, (b) a task-irrelevant target, orthogonal to the one instructed ("non-matching" goal-directed gaze shift), or (c) an empty spatial location (no-goal-directed gaze shift). Eye movement recordings showed faster saccadic latencies in correct trials in congruent conditions especially when the distracting gaze shift occurred before the instruction to make a saccade. Interestingly, while participants made a higher proportion of gaze-following errors (i.e. errors in the direction of the distracting gaze) in the incongruent conditions when the distracter's gaze shift preceded the instruction onset indicating an automatic gaze following, they never followed the distracting gaze when it was directed towards an empty location or a stimulus that was never the target. Taken together, these findings suggest that gaze following is likely to be a product of both automatic and goal-driven orienting mechanisms.

When a Bilingual Child Describes Living Things: An Analysis of Conceptual Understandings from a Language Perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Salleh, Romaizah; Venville, Grady J.; Treagust, David F.

2007-07-01

With increasing numbers of students learning science through a second language in many school contexts, there is a need for research to focus on the impact language has on students’ understanding of science concepts. Like other countries, Brunei has adopted a bilingual system of education that incorporates two languages in imparting its curriculum. For the first three years of school, Brunei children are taught in Malay and then for the remainder of their education, instruction is in English. This research is concerned with the influence that this bilingual education system has on children’s learning of science. The purpose was to document the patterns of Brunei students’ developing understandings of the concepts of living and non-living things and examine the impact in the change in language as the medium of instruction. A cross-sectional case study design was used in one primary school. Data collection included an interview ( n = 75), which consisted of forced-response and semi-structured interview questions, a categorisation task and classroom observation. Data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results indicate that the transition from Malay to English as the language of instruction from Primary 4 onwards restricted the students’ ability to express their understandings about living things, to discuss related scientific concepts and to interpret and analyse scientific questions. From a social constructivist perspective these language factors will potentially impact on the students’ cognitive development by limiting the expected growth of the students’ understandings of the concepts of living and non-living things.

New paradigm for task switching strategies while performing multiple tasks: entropy and symbolic dynamics analysis of voluntary patterns.

PubMed

Guastello, Stephen J; Gorin, Hillary; Huschen, Samuel; Peters, Natalie E; Fabisch, Megan; Poston, Kirsten

2012-10-01

It has become well established in laboratory experiments that switching tasks, perhaps due to interruptions at work, incur costs in response time to complete the next task. Conditions are also known that exaggerate or lessen the switching costs. Although switching costs can contribute to fatigue, task switching can also be an adaptive response to fatigue. The present study introduces a new research paradigm for studying the emergence of voluntary task switching regimes, self-organizing processes therein, and the possibly conflicting roles of switching costs and minimum entropy. Fifty-four undergraduates performed 7 different computer-based cognitive tasks producing sets of 49 responses under instructional conditions requiring task quotas or no quotas. The sequences of task choices were analyzed using orbital decomposition to extract pattern types and lengths, which were then classified and compared with regard to Shannon entropy, topological entropy, number of task switches involved, and overall performance. Results indicated that similar but different patterns were generated under the two instructional conditions, and better performance was associated with lower topological entropy. Both entropy metrics were associated with the amount of voluntary task switching. Future research should explore conditions affecting the trade-off between switching costs and entropy, levels of automaticity between task elements, and the role of voluntary switching regimes on fatigue.

Industrial Occupations. Education for Employment Task Lists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lake County Area Vocational Center, Grayslake, IL.

The duties and tasks found in these task lists form the basis of instructional content for secondary, postsecondary, and adult occupational training programs for industrial occupations. The industrial occupations are divided into eight clusters. The clusters and occupations are: construction cluster (bricklayer, carpenter, building maintenance…

Instruction and jump-landing kinematics in college-aged female athletes over time.

PubMed

Etnoyer, Jena; Cortes, Nelson; Ringleb, Stacie I; Van Lunen, Bonnie L; Onate, James A

2013-01-01

Instruction can be used to alter the biomechanical movement patterns associated with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries. To determine the effects of instruction through combination (self and expert) feedback or self-feedback on lower extremity kinematics during the box-drop-jump task, running-stop-jump task, and sidestep-cutting maneuver over time in college-aged female athletes. Randomized controlled clinical trial. Laboratory. Forty-three physically active women (age = 21.47 ± 1.55 years, height = 1.65 ± 0.08 m, mass = 63.78 ± 12.00 kg) with no history of ACL or lower extremity injuries or surgery in the 2 months before the study were assigned randomly to 3 groups: self-feedback (SE), combination feedback (CB), or control (CT). Participants performed a box-drop-jump task for the pretest and then received feedback about their landing mechanics. After the intervention, they performed an immediate posttest of the box-drop-jump task and a running-stop-jump transfer test. Participants returned 1 month later for a retention test of each task and a sidestep-cutting maneuver. Kinematic data were collected with an 8-camera system sampled at 500 Hz. The independent variables were feedback group (3), test time (3), and task (3). The dependent variables were knee- and hip-flexion, knee-valgus, and hip- abduction kinematics at initial contact and at peak knee flexion. For the box-drop-jump task, knee- and hip-flexion angles at initial contact were greater at the posttest than at the retention test (P < .001). At peak knee flexion, hip flexion was greater at the posttest than at the pretest (P = .003) and was greater at the retention test than at the pretest (P = .04); knee valgus was greater at the retention test than at the pretest (P = .03) and posttest (P = .02). Peak knee flexion was greater for the CB than the SE group (P = .03) during the box-drop-jump task at posttest. For the running-stop-jump task at the posttest, the CB group had greater peak knee flexion than the SE and CT (P ≤ .05). Our results suggest that feedback involving a combination of self-feedback and expert video feedback with oral instruction effectively improved lower extremity kinematics during jump-landing tasks.

Instruction and Jump-Landing Kinematics in College-Aged Female Athletes Over Time

PubMed Central

Etnoyer, Jena; Cortes, Nelson; Ringleb, Stacie I.; Van Lunen, Bonnie L.; Onate, James A.

2013-01-01

Context: Instruction can be used to alter the biomechanical movement patterns associated with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries. Objective: To determine the effects of instruction through combination (self and expert) feedback or self-feedback on lower extremity kinematics during the box–drop-jump task, running–stop-jump task, and sidestep-cutting maneuver over time in college-aged female athletes. Design: Randomized controlled clinical trial. Setting: Laboratory. Patients or Other Participants: Forty-three physically active women (age = 21.47 ± 1.55 years, height = 1.65 ± 0.08 m, mass = 63.78 ± 12.00 kg) with no history of ACL or lower extremity injuries or surgery in the 2 months before the study were assigned randomly to 3 groups: self-feedback (SE), combination feedback (CB), or control (CT). Intervention(s): Participants performed a box–drop-jump task for the pretest and then received feedback about their landing mechanics. After the intervention, they performed an immediate posttest of the box–drop-jump task and a running–stop-jump transfer test. Participants returned 1 month later for a retention test of each task and a sidestep-cutting maneuver. Kinematic data were collected with an 8-camera system sampled at 500 Hz. Main Outcome Measure(s): The independent variables were feedback group (3), test time (3), and task (3). The dependent variables were knee- and hip-flexion, knee-valgus, and hip- abduction kinematics at initial contact and at peak knee flexion. Results: For the box–drop-jump task, knee- and hip-flexion angles at initial contact were greater at the posttest than at the retention test (P < .001). At peak knee flexion, hip flexion was greater at the posttest than at the pretest (P = .003) and was greater at the retention test than at the pretest (P = .04); knee valgus was greater at the retention test than at the pretest (P = .03) and posttest (P = .02). Peak knee flexion was greater for the CB than the SE group (P = .03) during the box–drop-jump task at posttest. For the running–stop-jump task at the posttest, the CB group had greater peak knee flexion than the SE and CT (P ≤ .05). Conclusions: Our results suggest that feedback involving a combination of self-feedback and expert video feedback with oral instruction effectively improved lower extremity kinematics during jump-landing tasks. PMID:23672380

Differences between Students with and without ADHD on Task Vigilance under Conditions of Distraction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ross, Peter; Randolph, Justus

2016-01-01

Distraction is a typical component of any classroom environment. For effective instruction and learning to take place, it is critical for students to eventually return to task and maintain task vigilance (i.e., returning to the task at hand) when a distraction occurs. Students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), by definition,…

The Effect of iPad Use during Independent Practice for Students with Challenging Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Flower, Andrea

2014-01-01

In the classroom, time on-task is critical because it is linked to learning and success. When off-task behaviors occur, substantial learning and instructional time may be lost. Many students with disabilities struggle with remaining on-task, particularly during independent practice periods. Strategies to increase time on-task during classroom…

The Effects of a Treatment Package in Establishing Independent Academic Work Skills in Children with Autism.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pelios, Lillian V.; MacDuff, Gregory S.; Axelrod, Saul

2003-01-01

This study evaluated a treatment package to improve on-task academic skills by three children with autism. Program components included delayed reinforcement for on-task and on-schedule responding, fading of instructional prompts and instructor's presence, unpredictable supervision, and response cost for off-task responding. On-task and on-schedule…

ELT Teacher Education Flipped Classroom: An Analysis of Task Challenge and Student Teachers' Views and Expectations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karaaslan, Hatice; Çelebi, Hatice

2017-01-01

In this study, we explore the interplay between task complexity, task conditions and task difficulty introduced by Robinson (2001) in flipped classroom instruction at tertiary level through the data we collected from undergraduate English Language Teaching (ELT) department students studying at an English-medium state university. For the…

Evaluating the Effects of Formal Corrective Feedback on Off-Task/On-Task Behavior of Mild Intellectually Disabled Students: An Action Research Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

George, Kevin

2016-01-01

The off-task behavior demonstrated by the study participants appears to interfere with classroom instruction, contribute to poor academic performance and in many instances lead to disciplinary actions such as suspension. The purpose of the study entailed determining if formal corrective feedback has an effect on the off-task/on-task behavior of…

The power of instructions: Proactive configuration of stimulus-response translation.

PubMed

Meiran, Nachshon; Pereg, Maayan; Kessler, Yoav; Cole, Michael W; Braver, Todd S

2015-05-01

Humans are characterized by an especially highly developed ability to use instructions to prepare toward upcoming events; yet, it is unclear just how powerful instructions can be. Although prior work provides evidence that instructions can be sufficiently powerful to proactively program working memory to execute stimulus-response (S-R) translations, in a reflexlike fashion (intention-based reflexivity [IBR]), the results to date have been equivocal. To overcome this shortcoming, we developed, and tested in 4 studies, a novel paradigm (the NEXT paradigm) that isolates IBR effects even prior to first task execution. In each miniblock, participants received S-R mapping instructions for a new task. Prior to implementing this mapping, responses were required to advance through screens during a preparatory (NEXT) phase. When the NEXT response was incompatible with the instructed S-R mapping, interference (IBR effect) was observed. This NEXT compatibility effect and performance in the implementation (GO) trials barely changed when prior practice of a few trials was provided. Finally, a manipulation that encouraged preparation resulted in relatively durable NEXT compatibility effects (indicating durable preparatory efforts) coupled with improved GO performance (indicating the success of these efforts). Together, these findings establish IBR as a marker of instructed proactive control. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

A task analysis of the shift from teacher instructions to self-instructions in performing an in-common task.

PubMed

Grote, I; Rosales, J; Baer, D M

1996-11-01

Three preschool children repeatedly did four kinds of sorts with a deck of stimulus cards: a difficult, untaught target sort and three other sorts considered analytic of self-instructing the target performance. The untaught target sort was to find in a deck of cards those matching what two sample cards had in common. Most preschool children must be taught to mediate this problem. The three other kinds of sorts taught skills involved in the target performance or its mediation. As correct self-instructive talk emerged in the target sorts, it was confirmed. The untaught target sorts were interspersed infrequently among the three alternating directly taught skill sorts, to see if accurate target sorts, and accurate self-instructive talk about the target sorts, would emerge as the three skill sorts were mastered. As all the sorts progressed, increasing accuracy was seen first in the skill sorts and then in the untaught target sorts. All three subjects showed subsequent generalization to new target sorts involving other stimulus sets. Correct spontaneous self-instructions about the target sorts increased from near zero at the beginning of the experiment to consistency at its end. Thus the three skill sorts appeared sufficient for the emergence of a self-instructed solution to the previously insoluble target performance.

Featuring: It Works! Competency Based Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Elston, Teri

1979-01-01

Describes a competency based curriculum approach for ornamental horticulture. A horticulture cluster core consisting of 18 tasks was developed with competency sheets for each task. The competency sheet contains six columns: skills to be attained, task list, materials required, student activities, evaluation methods, and a recommended time period.…

A Skyscraping Feat

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roberts, Sarah A.; Lee, Jean S.

2013-01-01

Research shows that the greatest gains in student learning in mathematics classrooms occur in classrooms in which there is sustained use of high cognitive demanding tasks throughout instruction (Boston and Smith 2009). High cognitive demanding tasks, which this article will refer to as rich tasks, are mathematics problems that are complex, less…

Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Military Testing Association (23rd) held at Arlington, Virginia, on 25-30 October 1981. Volume 1

DTIC Science & Technology

1981-01-01

instruction and type of task, and method of instruction and ability level were found with respect to school ... student . Methods of instruction that reduce the intellectual demand often reduce the differences between high and low ability students (Cronbach and...Snow, 1977). If these methods are applied to instruction of low ability students over a long period, many low ability students may equal or excel

Industrial Automation Mechanic Model Curriculum Project. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Toledo Public Schools, OH.

This document describes a demonstration program that developed secondary level competency-based instructional materials for industrial automation mechanics. Program activities included task list compilation, instructional materials research, learning activity packet (LAP) development, construction of lab elements, system implementation,…

Training cognitive control in older adults with the space fortress game: the role of training instructions and basic motor ability.

PubMed

Blumen, Helena M; Gopher, Daniel; Steinerman, Joshua R; Stern, Yaakov

2010-01-01

This study examined if and how cognitively healthy older adults can learn to play a complex computer-based action game called the Space Fortress (SF) as a function of training instructions [Standard vs. Emphasis Change (EC); e.g., Gopher et al., 1989] and basic motor ability. A total of 35 cognitively healthy older adults completed a 3-month SF training program with three SF sessions weekly. Twelve 3-min games were played during each session. Basic motor ability was assessed with an aiming task, which required rapidly rotating a spaceship to shoot targets. Older adults showed improved performance on the SF task over time, but did not perform at the same level as younger adults. Unlike studies of younger adults, overall SF performance in older adults was greater following standard instructions than following EC instructions. However, this advantage was primarily due to collecting more bonus points and not - the primary goal of the game - shooting and destroying the fortress, which in contrast benefited from EC instructions. Basic motor ability was low and influenced many different aspects of SF game learning, often interacted with learning rate, and influenced overall SF performance. These findings show that older adults can be trained to deal with the complexity of the SF task but that overall SF performance, and the ability to capitalize on EC instructions, differs when a basic ability such as motor control is low. Hence, the development of this training program as a cognitive intervention that can potentially compensate for age-related cognitive decline should consider that basic motor ability can interact with the efficiency of training instructions that promote the use of cognitive control (e.g., EC instructions) - and the confluence between such basic abilities and higher-level cognitive control abilities should be further examined.

Training Cognitive Control in Older Adults with the Space Fortress Game: The Role of Training Instructions and Basic Motor Ability

PubMed Central

Blumen, Helena M.; Gopher, Daniel; Steinerman, Joshua R.; Stern, Yaakov

2010-01-01

This study examined if and how cognitively healthy older adults can learn to play a complex computer-based action game called the Space Fortress (SF) as a function of training instructions [Standard vs. Emphasis Change (EC); e.g., Gopher et al., 1989] and basic motor ability. A total of 35 cognitively healthy older adults completed a 3-month SF training program with three SF sessions weekly. Twelve 3-min games were played during each session. Basic motor ability was assessed with an aiming task, which required rapidly rotating a spaceship to shoot targets. Older adults showed improved performance on the SF task over time, but did not perform at the same level as younger adults. Unlike studies of younger adults, overall SF performance in older adults was greater following standard instructions than following EC instructions. However, this advantage was primarily due to collecting more bonus points and not – the primary goal of the game – shooting and destroying the fortress, which in contrast benefited from EC instructions. Basic motor ability was low and influenced many different aspects of SF game learning, often interacted with learning rate, and influenced overall SF performance. These findings show that older adults can be trained to deal with the complexity of the SF task but that overall SF performance, and the ability to capitalize on EC instructions, differs when a basic ability such as motor control is low. Hence, the development of this training program as a cognitive intervention that can potentially compensate for age-related cognitive decline should consider that basic motor ability can interact with the efficiency of training instructions that promote the use of cognitive control (e.g., EC instructions) – and the confluence between such basic abilities and higher-level cognitive control abilities should be further examined. PMID:21120135

[Motivation effect on power changes in the brain biopotentials in the figurative and verbal creativity tasks].

PubMed

Razumnikova, O M; Vol'f, N V; Tarasova, I V

2007-01-01

Effect of extrinsic motivation stimulating the most original problem solving during verbal and figurative divergent thinking was studied by EEG mapping. The righthanded university students (27 males and 26 females) participated in the experiments. An instruction "to create the most original solution" as compared to condition with an instruction "to create any solution" induced an increase in the baseline power of the alpha 1 and alpha 2 rhythms most pronounced in the posterior cortex. Task-related desynchronization of the alpha rhythms was higher but the beta-2 synchronization was lower after the former than after the latter instruction. Differences in the asymmetry of the alpha 1 and alpha 2 rhythms in the parietal and temporal regions of hemispheres suggested the right hemisphere dominance in intrinsic alertness and evoked activation related to divergent thinking. The findings were common and gender-independent in both figurative and verbal tasks suggesting a generalized influence of extrinsic motivation on creative activity.

Sense of agency in continuous action: Assistance-induced performance improvement is self-attributed even with knowledge of assistance.

PubMed

Inoue, Kazuya; Takeda, Yuji; Kimura, Motohiro

2017-02-01

In a task involving continuous action to achieve a goal, the sense of agency increases with an improvement in task performance that is induced by unnoticed computer assistance. This study investigated how explicit instruction about the existence of computer assistance affects the increase of sense of agency that accompanies performance improvement. Participants performed a continuous action task in which they controlled the direction of motion of a dot to a goal by pressing keys. When instructions indicated the absence of assistance, the sense of agency increased with performance improvement induced by computer assistance, replicating previous findings. Interestingly, this increase of sense of agency was also observed even when instructions indicated the presence of assistance. These results suggest that even when a plausible cause of performance improvement other than one's own action exists, the improvement can be misattributed to one's own control of action, resulting in an increased sense of agency. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An Exploratory Factor Analysis of the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol as an Evaluation Tool to Measure Teaching Effectiveness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Polat, Nihat; Cepik, Saban

2016-01-01

To narrow the achievement gap between English language learners (ELLs) and their native-speaking peers in K-12 settings in the United States, effective instructional models must be identified. However, identifying valid observation protocols that can measure the effectiveness of specially designed instructional practices is not an easy task. This…

Comparing the Effects of Four Instructional Treatments on EFL Students' Achievement in Writing Classified Ads

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Khodabandeh, Farzaneh

2016-01-01

The current study set out to compare the effect of traditional and non-traditional instructional treatments; i.e. explicit, implicit, task-based and no-instruction approaches on students' abilities to learn how to write classified ads. 72 junior students who have all taken a course in Reading Journalistic Texts at the Payame-Noor University…

Training Pre-Service Chinese Language Teachers to Create Instructional Video to Enhance Classroom Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Lih-Ching Chen; Wang, Ming-Chian Ken

2014-01-01

Foreign language instruction is a complex and challenging task made even more so by situations in which the learner's native language is radically different from the foreign language being mastered. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of native English speakers seeking to learn Mandarin Chinese. The rapid increase in the availability and…

Sex-related differences on a task of volume and density

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Howe, Ann C.; Shayer, Michael

A sex-related difference, favoring boys, was found on initial performance of two samples (one British, one American) of 10- and 11-year-old children on a task of volume and density. After a period of classroom instruction that included opportunities for children to interact with appropriate materials and each other, both boys and girls performed at a higher level on the task, but the difference between them remained the same. There was no indication of a sex-related difference other than a time lag, in pattern of development of the concept. The question of why there is a sex-related difference, which persists in spite of experience and instruction, is discussed.

Music and On-task Behaviors in Preschool Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

PubMed

Dieringer, Shannon Titus; Porretta, David L; Sainato, Diane

2017-07-01

The purpose of our study was to determine the effect of music (music with lyrics versus music with lyrics plus instruction) relative to on-task behaviors in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in a gross motor setting. Five preschool children (4 boys, 1 girl) diagnosed with ASD served as participants. A multiple baseline across participants in conjunction with an alternating-treatment design was used. For all participants, music with lyrics plus instruction increased on-task behaviors to a greater extent than did music with lyrics. The results of our study provide a better understanding of the role of music with regard to the behaviors of young children with ASD.

Considering student choice when selecting instructional strategies: a comparison of three prompting systems.

PubMed

Taber-Doughty, Teresa

2005-01-01

Three secondary age students with moderate intellectual disabilities learned to use the system of least prompts, a self-operated picture prompting system, and a self-operated auditory prompting system to use a copy machine and a debit machine. Both the effectiveness and efficiency of these prompting systems were compared. Additionally, student preference of instructional method was examined. The results demonstrated that each prompting system was effective and efficient with varying students when skill acquisition and duration of task performance were measured. All students demonstrated increased independence in completing both tasks. This study found that the preferred prompting systems were more effective in terms of both skill acquisition and duration for completing tasks for students.

Reducing the framing effect in older and younger adults by encouraging analytic processing.

PubMed

Thomas, Ayanna K; Millar, Peter R

2012-03-01

The present study explored whether the framing effect could be reduced in older and younger adults using techniques that influenced the accessibility of information relevant to the decision-making processing. Accessibility was manipulated indirectly in Experiment 1 by having participants engage in concurrent tasks, and directly in Experiment 2, through an instructions manipulation that required participants to maintain a goal of analytic processing throughout the experimental trial. We tested 120 older and 120 younger adults in Experiment 1. Participants completed 28 decision trials while concurrently either performing a probability calculation task or a memory task. In Experiment 2, we tested 136 older and 136 younger adults. Participants completed 48 decision trials after either having been instructed to "think like a scientist" or base decisions on "gut reactions." Results demonstrated that the framing effect was reduced in older and younger adults in the probability calculation task in Experiment 1 and under the "think like a scientist" instructions manipulation in Experiment 2. These results suggest that when information relevant to unbiased decision making was made more accessible, both older and younger adults were able to reduce susceptibility to the framing effect.

"Happy goat says": The effect of a food selection inhibitory control training game of children's response inhibition on eating behavior.

PubMed

Jiang, Qianxia; He, Dexian; Guan, Wanyi; He, Xianyou

2016-12-01

Recent studies suggest that when inhibitory control is lacking, people are more inclined to indulge in high-calorie food, but inhibitory control can be trained. In this study, a daily-life training game was used to train children and investigate whether strengthening or weakening inhibitory control influences food intake in opposite directions. The baseline of response inhibition was measured by the go/no-go task, and the baseline of food intake was measured by a bogus food taste task. Then, participants performed a food selection training game named "Happy goat says" with three within-subject conditions: the first type of instruction was always paired without a go signal (inhibition manipulation); the second type of instruction was always presented with a go signal (impulsivity manipulation); and the third type of instruction was presented either with a go or no-go signal, both in 50% of the time (control manipulation). Following these manipulations, they went through the go/no-go task and bogus food taste task. In the pre-training food taste task, commission errors were positively correlated with body mass index. Relative to a control group playing Lego blocks (n = 20), the trained group showed a performance improvement on the go/no-go task. The intake of food in the inhibition manipulation was significantly less in the post-training food taste task. These findings demonstrate that children can gain control over the consumption of high-calorie food after a daily-life response inhibition training game. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Specificity and Transfer in Learning How to Follow Navigation Instructions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Healy, Alice F.; Schneider, Vivian L.; Barshi, Immanuel

2012-01-01

We report a series of experiments that use a navigation task in which instructions for navigating in a space displayed as grids on a computer screen are given to subjects who then attempt to follow them by mouse clicking on the grids. The navigation task was broken down into component dimensions (e.g., presentation mode of the instructions, length of the instructions, characteristics of the display, size of the grids, response type). For each task dimension, one condition was used at training and the same or another condition was used at test. Each task dimension was examined in terms of two measures. One measure provided an index of transfer (i.e., better performance at test than at training when test and training involved different conditions), and the other provided an index of specificity (i.e., better performance at test when training and test conditions were the same than when training and test conditions were different). By and large, these two indices were complementary, so there was evidence of either transfer or specificity but not both. For one dimension transfer but no specificity was evident, and for another dimension specificity but no transfer was evident. For the remaining dimensions, however, there was asymmetrical transfer, with transfer evident for some conditions and specificity evident for others. The findings are interpreted within the procedural reinstatement framework. They have practical implications concerning how to optimize training and how much fidelity to the testing situation is necessary when training.

Gait analysis with cognitive-motor dual tasks to distinguish fallers from nonfallers among rehabilitating stroke patients.

PubMed

Baetens, Tina; De Kegel, Alexandra; Palmans, Tanneke; Oostra, Kristine; Vanderstraeten, Guy; Cambier, Dirk

2013-04-01

To evaluate fall risk in stroke patients based on single- and dual-task gait analyses, and to investigate the difference between 2 cognitive tasks in the dual-task paradigm. Prospective cohort study. Rehabilitation hospitals. Subacute stroke patients (N=32), able to walk without physical/manual help with or without walking aids, while performing a verbal task. Not applicable. Functional gait measures were Functional Ambulation Categories (FAC) and use of a walking aid. Gait measures were evaluated by an electronic walkway system under single- and dual-task (DT) conditions. For the single-task, subjects were instructed to walk at their usual speed. One of the DTs was a verbal fluency dual task, whereby subjects had to walk while simultaneously enumerating as many different animals as possible. For the other DT (counting dual task), participants had to walk while performing serial subtractions. After inclusion, participants kept a 6-month falls diary. Eighteen (56.3%) of the 32 included patients fell. Ten (31.3%) were single fallers (SFs), and 8 (25%) were multiple fallers (MFs). Fallers (Fs) more frequently used a walking aid and more frequently needed an observatory person for walking safely (FAC score of 3) than nonfallers (NFs). Two gait decrement parameters in counting dual task could distinguish potential Fs from NFs: decrement in stride length percentage (P=.043) and nonparetic step length percentage (P=.047). Regarding the division in 3 groups (NFs, SFs, and MFs), only MFs had a significantly higher percentage of decrement for paretic step length (P=.023) than SFs. Examining the decrement of spatial gait characteristics (stride length and paretic and nonparetic step length) during a DT addressing working memory can identify fall-prone subacute stroke patients. Copyright © 2013 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Verbal communication improves laparoscopic team performance.

PubMed

Shiliang Chang; Waid, Erin; Martinec, Danny V; Bin Zheng; Swanstrom, Lee L

2008-06-01

The impact of verbal communication on laparoscopic team performance was examined. A total of 24 dyad teams, comprised of residents, medical students, and office staff, underwent 2 team tasks using a previously validated bench model. Twelve teams (feedback groups) received instant verbal instruction and feedback on their performance from an instructor which was compared with 12 teams (control groups) with minimal or no verbal feedback. Their performances were both video and audio taped for analysis. Surgical backgrounds were similar between feedback and control groups. Teams with more verbal feedback achieved significantly better task performance (P = .002) compared with the control group with less feedback. Impact of verbal feedback was more pronounced for tasks requiring team cooperation (aiming and navigation) than tasks depending on individual skills (knotting). Verbal communication, especially the instructions and feedback from an experienced instructor, improved team efficiency and performance.

Modeling Cognitive Strategies during Complex Task Performing Process

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mazman, Sacide Guzin; Altun, Arif

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study is to examine individuals' computer based complex task performing processes and strategies in order to determine the reasons of failure by cognitive task analysis method and cued retrospective think aloud with eye movement data. Study group was five senior students from Computer Education and Instructional Technologies…

Claretian Medical Center Task Analysis. Worker Education Program.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees.

This task analysis for positions at the Claretian Medical Center in southeast Chicago was developed to improve communication and customer service in the workplace. The task analysis was prepared through clinic tours, employee interviews, and supervisor questionnaires. It is used for the purpose of curriculum development for onsite instruction in…

Listening Strategies of L2 Learners with Varied Test Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chang, Anna Ching-Shyang

2008-01-01

This article investigates the strategies that EFL students used and how they adjusted these strategies in response to various listening test tasks. The test tasks involved four forms of listening support: previewing questions, repeated input, background information preparation, and vocabulary instruction. Twenty-two participants were enlisted and…

Business, Marketing and Management Occupations. Education for Employment Task Lists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lake County Area Vocational Center, Grayslake, IL.

The duties and tasks found in these task lists form the basis of instructional content for secondary, postsecondary, and adult occupational training programs for business, marketing, and management occupations. The business, marketing, and management occupations are divided into eight clusters. The clusters and occupations are:…

Task Lists for Industrial Occupations. Education for Employment Task Lists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dimmlich, David

These cluster matrices provide duties and tasks that form the basis of instructional content for secondary, postsecondary, and adult occupational training programs for industrial occupations. Duties and skills are presented for the following: (1) electric home appliance and power tool repairers; (2) office machine/cash register repairer; (3)…

Health Occupations. Education for Employment Task Lists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lake County Area Vocational Center, Grayslake, IL.

The duties and tasks found in these task lists form the basis of instructional content for secondary, postsecondary, and adult occupational training programs for health occupations. The health occupations are divided into five clusters. The clusters and occupations are: health occupations, nursing occupations (home health aide, geriatric aide,…

Graphics Design Technology Curriculum Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Idaho State Dept. of Education, Boise. Div. of Vocational Education.

This Idaho secondary education curriculum guide provides lists of tasks, performance objectives, and enabling objectives for instruction intended to impart entry-level employment skills in graphics design technology. The first list states all tasks for 11 areas; separate lists for each area follow. Each task on the lists is accompanied by a…

Psychological Attributes of Unwillingness to Communicate and Task-Based Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fukuta, Junya

2017-01-01

This study explored the longitudinal changes of Japanese EFL learners' psychological attributes of unwillingness to speak English in a task-based classroom. Thirty-three university students participated in this study. They engaged in a communicative task once a week for two semesters. They completed a questionnaire examining the psychological…

Conceptual Transformation and Cognitive Processes in Origami Paper Folding

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tenbrink, Thora; Taylor, Holly A.

2015-01-01

Research on problem solving typically does not address tasks that involve following detailed and/or illustrated step-by-step instructions. Such tasks are not seen as cognitively challenging problems to be solved. In this paper, we challenge this assumption by analyzing verbal protocols collected during an Origami folding task. Participants…

How Does Lesson Structure Shape Teacher Perceptions of Teaching with Challenging Tasks?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Russo, James; Hopkins, Sarah

2017-01-01

Despite reforms in mathematics education, many teachers remain reluctant to incorporate challenging (i.e., more cognitively demanding) tasks into their mathematics instruction. The current study examines how lesson structure shapes teacher perceptions of teaching with challenging tasks. Participants included three Year 1/2 classroom teachers who…

The Effect of Task Instructions on Students' Use of Repetition in Argumentative Discourse

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gilabert, Sandra; Garcia-Mila, Merce; Felton, Mark K.

2013-11-01

The reasoning belief of argumentum ad nauseam assumes that when someone repeats something often enough, he or she becomes more convincing. The present paper analyses the use of this strategy by seventh-grade students in an argumentation task. Sixty-five students (mean age: 12.2, SD = 0.4) from a public school in a mid-sized urban environment took part in the study. The students were asked to either argue to convince an opposing partner or argue to reach consensus with an opposing partner on three dilemmas that dealt with energy sources. Data were gathered according to a between-groups design that included one independent variable (argumentative goal: to convince vs. to reach consensus) and one dependent variable (the degree of argumentative repetitions). We predicted that in the condition to convince their partner, the students would use the repetition strategy more often in their attempts to be persuasive. Our findings show that the mean number of argumentative repetitions was significantly higher for the persuasion group for both of the most frequent argumentative structures (claim and claim data). The mean percentage of repeated claims for the persuasion condition was 86.2 vs. 69.0 for the consensus condition. For the claim data, the mean percentage for the persuasion group was 35.2 vs. 24.3 for the consensus group. Also, students in the persuasion group tended to repeat one idea many times rather than repeating many ideas a few times within the same argumentative structure. The results of our study support the hypothesis that the goal of the argumentative task mediates argumentative discourse and, more concretely, the rate of repetitions and the conceptual diversity of the statements. These differences in rates of repetition and conceptual diversity are related to the amount of learning produced by the instructional goal. We apply Mercer's idea that not all classroom argumentation tasks promote learning equally.

Contribution of Equal-Sign Instruction beyond Word-Problem Tutoring for Third-Grade Students with Mathematics Difficulty.

PubMed

Powell, Sarah R; Fuchs, Lynn S

2010-05-01

Elementary school students often misinterpret the equal sign (=) as an operational rather than a relational symbol. Such misunderstanding is problematic because solving equations with missing numbers may be important for higher-order mathematics skills including word problems. Research indicates equal-sign instruction can alter how typically-developing students use the equal sign, but no study has examined effects for students with mathematics difficulty (MD) or how equal-sign instruction contributes to word-problem skill for students with or without MD. The present study assessed the efficacy of equal-sign instruction within word-problem tutoring. Third-grade students with MD (n = 80) were assigned to word-problem tutoring, word-problem tutoring plus equal-sign instruction (combined) tutoring, or no-tutoring control. Combined tutoring produced better improvement on equal sign tasks and open equations compared to the other 2 conditions. On certain forms of word problems, combined tutoring but not word-problem tutoring alone produced better improvement than control. When compared at posttest to 3(rd)-grade students without MD on equal sign tasks and open equations, only combined tutoring students with MD performed comparably.

A Workbench for Discovering Task-Specific Theories of Learning

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-03-03

mind (the cognitive architecture) will not be of much use to educators who wish to perform a cognitive task analysis of their subject matter before...analysis packages that can be added to a cognitive architecture, thus creating a ’workbench’ for performing cognitive task analysis . Such tools becomes...learning theories have been. Keywords: Cognitive task analysis , Instructional design, Cognitive modelling, Learning.

Influence of Using Challenging Tasks in Biology Classrooms on Students' Cognitive Knowledge Structure: An Empirical Video Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nawani, Jigna; Rixius, Julia; Neuhaus, Birgit J.

2016-01-01

Empirical analysis of secondary biology classrooms revealed that, on average, 68% of teaching time in Germany revolved around processing tasks. Quality of instruction can thus be assessed by analyzing the quality of tasks used in classroom discourse. This quasi-experimental study analyzed how teachers used tasks in 38 videotaped biology lessons…

Why Do Students Choose Not to Follow All Instructions When Completing Assessment Tasks?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fleet, Wendy

2013-01-01

As academics we often assume that allocating marks to a task will influence student decision-making when it comes to completing that task. Marks are used by lecturers to indicate the relative importance of each of the criteria used for marking the assessment task and we expect the student to respond to the marks' allocation. This Postcard suggests…

Project FARE task III report : urban mass transportation industry reporting system design : interim task III report for November 1972-June 1973 period. Part II - Reporting system instructions.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1973-06-01

This report contains a description of the proposed uniform reporting system for the urban mass transit industry. It is presented in four volumes: Part I - Task Summary contains a description of how Task III was accomplished and the conclusions and re...

Neural Correlates of a Default Response in a Delayed Go/No-Go Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kalenscher, Tobias; Gunturkun, Onur; Calabrese, Pasquale; Gehlen, Walter; Kalt, Thomas; Diekamp, Bettina

2005-01-01

Working memory, the ability to temporarily retain task-relevant information across a delay, is frequently investigated using delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) or delayed Go/No-Go tasks (DGNG). In DMTS tasks, sample cues instruct the animal which type of response has to be executed at the end of a delay. Typically, performance decreases with…

Robot-assisted laparoscopic skills development: formal versus informal training.

PubMed

Benson, Aaron D; Kramer, Brandan A; Boehler, Margaret; Schwind, Cathy J; Schwartz, Bradley F

2010-08-01

The learning curve for robotic surgery is not completely defined, and ideal training components have not yet been identified. We attempted to determine whether skill development would be accelerated with formal, organized instruction in robotic surgical techniques versus informal practice alone. Forty-three medical students naive to robotic surgery were randomized into two groups and tested on three tasks using the robotic platform. Between the testing sessions, the students were given equally timed practice sessions. The formal training group participated in an organized, formal training session with instruction from an attending robotic surgeon, whereas the informal training group participated in an equally timed unstructured practice session with the robot. The results were compared based on technical score and time to completion of each task. There was no difference between groups in prepractice testing for any task. In postpractice testing, there was no difference between groups for the ring transfer tasks. However, for the suture placement and knot-tying task, the technical score of the formal training group was significantly better than that of the informal training group (p < 0.001), yet time to completion was not different. Although formal training may not be necessary for basic skills, formal instruction for more advanced skills, such as suture placement and knot tying, is important in developing skills needed for effective robotic surgery. These findings may be important in formulating potential skills labs or training courses for robotic surgery.

Programed Instruction for Selected CIC Watch Officer Tasks. 2. Evaluation of the Audio Notebook in the Teaching of the Allied Naval Signal Book.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brock, John F.

The research evaluated oral program instruction used with a multitape recorder, the audio notebook, as a means of promoting adaptation to student differences and flexibility in instructional scheduling. Use of the Allied Naval Signal Book required by the CIC (Combat Information Center) watch officer position was programed for the audio notebook in…

Cost Study of Educational Media Systems and Their Equipment Components. Volume III, A Supplementary Report: Computer Assisted Instruction. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

General Learning Corp., Washington, DC.

The COST-ED model (Costs of Schools, Training, and Education) of the instructional process encourages the recognition of management alternatives and potential cost-savings. It is used to calculate the minimum cost of performing specified instructional tasks. COST-ED components are presented as cost modules in a flowchart format for manpower,…

Influence of using challenging tasks in biology classrooms on students' cognitive knowledge structure: an empirical video study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nawani, Jigna; Rixius, Julia; Neuhaus, Birgit J.

2016-08-01

Empirical analysis of secondary biology classrooms revealed that, on average, 68% of teaching time in Germany revolved around processing tasks. Quality of instruction can thus be assessed by analyzing the quality of tasks used in classroom discourse. This quasi-experimental study analyzed how teachers used tasks in 38 videotaped biology lessons pertaining to the topic 'blood and circulatory system'. Two fundamental characteristics used to analyze tasks include: (1) required cognitive level of processing (e.g. low level information processing: repetiition, summary, define, classify and high level information processing: interpret-analyze data, formulate hypothesis, etc.) and (2) complexity of task content (e.g. if tasks require use of factual, linking or concept level content). Additionally, students' cognitive knowledge structure about the topic 'blood and circulatory system' was measured using student-drawn concept maps (N = 970 students). Finally, linear multilevel models were created with high-level cognitive processing tasks and higher content complexity tasks as class-level predictors and students' prior knowledge, students' interest in biology, and students' interest in biology activities as control covariates. Results showed a positive influence of high-level cognitive processing tasks (β = 0.07; p < .01) on students' cognitive knowledge structure. However, there was no observed effect of higher content complexity tasks on students' cognitive knowledge structure. Presented findings encourage the use of high-level cognitive processing tasks in biology instruction.

Tackling creativity at its roots: Evidence for different patterns of EEG alpha activity related to convergent and divergent modes of task processing

PubMed Central

Jauk, Emanuel; Benedek, Mathias; Neubauer, Aljoscha C.

2012-01-01

The distinction between convergent and divergent cognitive processes given by Guilford (1956) had a strong influence on the empirical research on creative thinking. Neuroscientific studies typically find higher event-related synchronization in the EEG alpha rhythm for individuals engaged in creative ideation tasks compared to intelligence-related tasks. This study examined, whether these neurophysiological effects can also be found when both cognitive processing modes (convergent vs. divergent) are assessed by means of the same task employing a simple variation of instruction. A sample of 55 participants performed the alternate uses task as well as a more basic word association task while EEG was recorded. On a trial-by-trial basis, participants were either instructed to find a most common solution (convergent condition) or a most uncommon solution (divergent condition). The answers given in the divergent condition were in both tasks significantly more original than those in the convergent condition. Moreover, divergent processing was found to involve higher task-related EEG alpha power than convergent processing in both the alternate uses task and the word association task. EEG alpha synchronization can hence explicitly be associated with divergent cognitive processing rather than with general task characteristics of creative ideation tasks. Further results point to a differential involvement of frontal and parietal cortical areas by individuals of lower versus higher trait creativity. PMID:22390860

Does strategy instruction on the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure task lead to transferred performance improvement on the Modified Taylor Complex Figure task? A randomized controlled trial in school-aged children.

PubMed

Resch, Christine; Keulers, Esther; Martens, Rosa; van Heugten, Caroline; Hurks, Petra

2018-04-05

Providing children with organizational strategy instruction on the Rey Osterrieth Complex Figure (ROCF) has previously been found to improve organizational and accuracy performance on this task. It is unknown whether strategy instruction on the ROCF would also transfer to performance improvement on copying and the recall of another complex figure. Participants were 98 typically developing children (aged 9.5-12.6 years, M = 10.6). Children completed the ROCF (copy and recall) as a pretest. Approximately a month later, they were randomized to complete the ROCF with strategy instruction in the form of a stepwise administration of the ROCF or again in the standard format. All children then copied and recalled the Modified Taylor Complex Figure (MTCF). All productions were assessed in terms of organization, accuracy and completion time. Organization scores for the MTCF did not differ for the two groups for the copy production, but did differ for the recall production, indicating transfer. Accuracy and completion times did not differ between groups. Performance on all measures, except copy accuracy, improved between pretest ROCF and posttest MTCF production for both groups, suggesting practice effects. Findings indicate that transfer of strategy instruction from one complex figure to another is only present for organization of recalled information. The increase in RCF-OSS scores did not lead to a higher accuracy or a faster copy or recall.

Working Memory Capacity Limits Motor Learning When Implementing Multiple Instructions

PubMed Central

Buszard, Tim; Farrow, Damian; Verswijveren, Simone J. J. M.; Reid, Machar; Williams, Jacqueline; Polman, Remco; Ling, Fiona Chun Man; Masters, Rich S. W.

2017-01-01

Although it is generally accepted that certain practice conditions can place large demands on working memory (WM) when performing and learning a motor skill, the influence that WM capacity has on the acquisition of motor skills remains unsubstantiated. This study examined the role of WM capacity in a motor skill practice context that promoted WM involvement through the provision of explicit instructions. A cohort of 90 children aged 8 to 10 years were assessed on measures of WM capacity and attention. Children who scored in the lowest and highest thirds on the WM tasks were allocated to lower WM capacity (n = 24) and higher WM capacity (n = 24) groups, respectively. The remaining 42 participants did not participate in the motor task. The motor task required children to practice basketball shooting for 240 trials in blocks of 20 shots, with pre- and post-tests occurring before and after the intervention. A retention test was administered 1 week after the post-test. Prior to every practice block, children were provided with five explicit instructions that were specific to the technique of shooting a basketball. Results revealed that the higher WM capacity group displayed consistent improvements from pre- to post-test and through to the retention test, while the opposite effect occurred in the lower WM capacity group. This implies that the explicit instructions had a negative influence on learning by the lower WM capacity children. Results are discussed in relation to strategy selection for dealing with instructions and the role of attention control. PMID:28878701

Sport Education and Direct Instruction Units: Comparison of Student Knowledge Development in Athletics.

PubMed

Pereira, José; Araújo, Rui; Farias, Cláudio; Bessa, Cristiana; Mesquita, Isabel

2016-12-01

This study conducted a comparative analysis of students' knowledge development on athletics in Sport Education and in a Direct Instruction unit taking into account sex and initial skill level. The participants were an experienced Physical Education teacher and two sixth-grade classes totaling 47 students (25 boys and 22 girls). Each class was randomly placed in either Sport Education or Direct Instruction classes and participated in 20, 45-minutes lessons focused on shot put, hurdles and triple jump. Knowledge on athletics was assessed through a 25-items written and video-based test. The inter-group differences and improvements across time in the knowledge test were analyzed through the Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon tests, respectively. There were significant knowledge improvements in both instructional approaches irrespective of students' gender and skill level. In Direct Instruction, the type of task organization, the high rates of repetition of movement patterns and feedback by the teacher were beneficial to student learning. In Sport Education, the autonomy granted to students in the control of the pace of task transitions by making on-going judgments on achievement of performance criteria, implicated students affectively and cognitively with the learning content. It was further supported that several models and teaching strategies should be taken into consideration when teaching Physical Education. Different approaches should be perceived as alternatives and teachers should retain the best in each according with the moment in the unit, student developmental stage, and the specific learning objectives in the task.

How much exercise does the enhanced gait-oriented physiotherapy provide for chronic stroke patients?

PubMed

Peurala, Sinikka H; Pitkänen, Kauko; Sivenius, Juhani; Tarkka, Ina M

2004-04-01

Physical exercise therapy in sensorimotor rehabilitation of stroke patients includes active and repetitive exercise and task-specific training. The time spent in active practice is fundamental. The purpose of this study was to analyse what was the actual amount of exercise and content of the performed exercise of the three-week gait-oriented physiotherapy program for chronic stroke patients in an in-patient setting. Twenty ambulatory post-stroke patients participated in an in-patient rehabilitation period during which a special effort was made to enhance gait training and the amount of therapy and its contents were recorded in structured form. Baseline and postintervention gait ability assessments were made, but the analysis concentrated on participation records in different forms of therapy. Patients received 19 hours of instructed physiotherapy in three weeks and together with self-initiated training they practised for 28 hours. The practice time in the upright position was 62% of the total duration of the instructed physiotherapy and 35% was performed while sitting. This amount of exercise resulted in improvement of the gait tests. In order to improve gait in the chronic state of disease, a sufficient amount of gait rehabilitation practice can be obtained with a combination of electromechanical gait trainer exercises, physiotherapy, instructed exercise groups and self-initiated training.

RSA Reactivity in Current and Remitted Major Depressive Disorder

PubMed Central

Bylsma, Lauren M.; Salomon, Kristen; Taylor-Clift, April; Morris, Bethany H.; Rottenberg, Jonathan

2014-01-01

Objective Low resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) levels and blunted RSA reactivity are thought to index impaired emotion regulation capacity. Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) has been associated with abberant RSA reactivity and recovery to a speech stressor task relative to healthy controls. Whether impaired RSA functioning reflects aspects of the depressed mood state or a stable vulnerability marker for depression is unknown. Methods We compared resting RSA and RSA reactivity between individuals with MDD (n=49), remitted depression (RMD, n=24), and healthy controls (n=45). ECG data were collected during a resting baseline, a paced-breathing baseline, and two reactivity tasks (speech stressor, cold exposure). Results A group by time quadratic effect emerged (F=4.36(2,109), p=.015) for RSA across phases of the speech stressor (baseline, instruction, preparation, speech, recovery). Follow-up analyses revealed that those with MDD uniquely exhibited blunted RSA reactivity, whereas RMD and controls both exhibited normal task-related vagal withdrawal and post-task recovery. The group by time interaction remained after covariation for age, sex, waist circumference, physical activity, and respiration, but not sleep quality. Conclusions These results provide new evidence that abberant RSA reactivity marks features that track the depressed state, such as poor sleep, rather than a stable trait evident among asymtomatic persons. PMID:24367127

Sex-Differences, Handedness, and Lateralization in the Iowa Gambling Task

PubMed Central

Singh, Varsha

2016-01-01

In a widely used decision-making task, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), male performance is observed to be superior to that of females, and is attributed to right lateralization (i.e., right hemispheric dominance). It is as yet unknown whether sex-differences in affect and motor lateralization have implications for sex-specific lateralization in the IGT, and specifically, whether sex-difference in performance in the IGT changes with right-handedness or with affect lateralization (decision valence, and valence-directed motivation). The present study (N = 320; 160 males) examined the effects of right-handedness (right-handedness vs. non-right-handedness) as a measure of motor lateralization, decision valence (reward vs. punishment IGT), and valence-directedness of task motivation (valence-directed vs. non-directed instructions), as measures of affective lateralization on IGT decision making. Analyses of variance revealed that both male and female participants showed valence-induced inconsistencies in advantageous decision-making; however, right-handed females made more disadvantageous decisions in a reward IGT. These results suggest that IGT decision-making may be largely right-lateralized in right-handed males, and show that sex and lateralized differences (motor and affect) have implications for sex-differences in IGT decision-making. Implications of the results are discussed with reference to lateralization and sex-differences in cognition. PMID:27303316

Cognitive Load Reduces Perceived Linguistic Convergence Between Dyads.

PubMed

Abel, Jennifer; Babel, Molly

2017-09-01

Speech convergence is the tendency of talkers to become more similar to someone they are listening or talking to, whether that person is a conversational partner or merely a voice heard repeating words. To elucidate the nature of the mechanisms underlying convergence, this study uses different levels of task difficulty on speech convergence within dyads collaborating on a task. Dyad members had to build identical LEGO® constructions without being able to see each other's construction, and with each member having half of the instructions required to complete the construction. Three levels of task difficulty were created, with five dyads at each level (30 participants total). Task difficulty was also measured using completion time and error rate. Listeners who heard pairs of utterances from each dyad judged convergence to be occurring in the Easy condition and to a lesser extent in the Medium condition, but not in the Hard condition. Amplitude envelope acoustic similarity analyses of the same utterance pairs showed that convergence occurred in dyads with shorter completion times and lower error rates. Together, these results suggest that while speech convergence is a highly variable behavior, it may occur more in contexts of low cognitive load. The relevance of these results for the current automatic and socially-driven models of convergence is discussed.

Altered time course of amygdala activation during speech anticipation in social anxiety disorder.

PubMed

Davies, Carolyn D; Young, Katherine; Torre, Jared B; Burklund, Lisa J; Goldin, Philippe R; Brown, Lily A; Niles, Andrea N; Lieberman, Matthew D; Craske, Michelle G

2017-02-01

Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Participants (SAD n=58; HC n=16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task. Repeated measures multi-level modeling analyses were used to examine group differences in time course activity during speech vs. control anticipation for regions of interest, including bilateral amygdala, insula, ventral striatum, and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. The time course of amygdala activity was more prolonged and less variable throughout speech anticipation in SAD participants compared to HCs, whereas the overall magnitude of amygdala response did not differ between groups. Magnitude and time course of activity was largely similar between groups across other regions of interest. Analyses were restricted to regions of interest and task order was the same across participants due to the nature of deception instructions. Sustained amygdala time course during anticipation may uniquely reflect heightened detection of threat or deficits in emotion regulation in socially anxious individuals. Findings highlight the importance of examining temporal dynamics of amygdala responding. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Altered time course of amygdala activation during speech anticipation in social anxiety disorder

PubMed Central

Davies, Carolyn D.; Young, Katherine; Torre, Jared B.; Burklund, Lisa J.; Goldin, Philippe R.; Brown, Lily A.; Niles, Andrea N.; Lieberman, Matthew D.; Craske, Michelle G.

2016-01-01

Background Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Method Participants (SAD n = 58; HC n = 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task. Repeated measures multi-level modeling analyses were used to examine group differences in time course activity during speech vs. control anticipation for regions of interest, including bilateral amygdala, insula, ventral striatum, and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Results The time course of amygdala activity was more prolonged and less variable throughout speech anticipation in SAD participants compared to HCs, whereas the overall magnitude of amygdala response did not differ between groups. Magnitude and time course of activity was largely similar between groups across other regions of interest. Limitations Analyses were restricted to regions of interest and task order was the same across participants due to the nature of deception instructions. Conclusions Sustained amygdala time course during anticipation may uniquely reflect heightened detection of threat or deficits in emotion regulation in socially anxious individuals. Findings highlight the importance of examining temporal dynamics of amygdala responding. PMID:27870942

Reconcilable Differences: Standards-based Teaching and Differentiation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tomlinson, Carol Ann

2000-01-01

There is no contradiction between effective standards-based instruction and differentiation. Curriculum tells teachers what to teach; differentiation tells how. Teachers can challenge all learners by providing standards-based materials and tasks calling for varied difficulty levels, scaffolding, instructional styles, and learning times. (MLH)

Geometry for Pie Lovers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fisher, William

1982-01-01

An approach to the instruction of maxima and minima problems that works with tools of geometry and algebra is presented. The focus is on a classic pie-cutting problem, which is viewed as an interesting and instructive task that is an excellent application of transformation geometry. (MP)

Instructional Variables that Make a Difference: Attention to Task and Beyond.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rieth, Herbert J.; And Others

1981-01-01

Three procedures for increasing the disabled students' academic learning time(ALT)by maximizing allocation time, engagement time, and success rate are discussed, and a direct instructional model for enhancing ALT in both regular and special education environments is described. (CL)

English as a Foreign Language in Bilingual Language-minority Children, Children with Dyslexia and Monolingual Typical Readers.

PubMed

Bonifacci, Paola; Canducci, Elisa; Gravagna, Giulia; Palladino, Paola

2017-05-01

The present study was aimed at investigating literacy skills in English as a foreign language in three different groups of children: monolinguals with dyslexia (n = 19), typically developing bilinguals (language-minority) (n = 19) and a control group of monolinguals (Italian) (n = 76). Bilinguals were not expected to fail in English measures, and their gap with monolinguals would be expected to be limited to the instructional language, owing to underexposure. All participants were enrolled in Italian primary schools (fourth and fifth grades). A non-verbal reasoning task and Italian and English literacy tasks were administered. The Italian battery included word and non-word reading (speed and accuracy), word and non-word writing, and reading comprehension; the English battery included similar tasks, except for the non-word writing. Bilingual children performed similarly to typical readers in English tasks, whereas in Italian tasks, their performance was similar to that of typical readers in reading speed but not in reading accuracy and writing. Children with dyslexia underperformed compared with typically developing children in all English and Italian tasks, except for reading comprehension in Italian. Profile analysis and correlational analyses were further discussed. These results suggest that English as a foreign language might represent a challenge for students with dyslexia but a strength for bilingual language-minority children. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Relational memory generalization and integration in a transitive inference task with and without instructed awareness.

PubMed

Munnelly, Anita; Dymond, Simon

2014-03-01

Two experiments investigated the potential facilitative effects of prior instructed awareness and predetermined learning criteria on humans' ability to make transitive inference (TI) judgments. Participants were first exposed to a learning phase and required to learn five premise pairs (A+B-, B+C-, C+D-, D+E-, E+F-). Testing followed, where participants made judgments on novel non-endpoint (BD, BE and CE) and endpoint inferential pairs (AC, AD, AE, AF, BF, CF and DF), as well as learned premise pairs. Across both experiments, one group were made aware that the stimuli could be arranged in a hierarchy, while another group were not given this instruction. Results demonstrated that prior instructional task awareness led to a minor performance advantage, but that this difference was not significant. Furthermore, in Experiment 2, inferential test trial accuracy was not correlated with a post-experimental measure of awareness. Thus, the current findings suggest that successful TI task performance may occur in the absence of awareness, and that repeated exposure to learning and test phases may allow weak inferential performances to emerge gradually. Further research and alternative methods of measuring awareness and its role in TI are needed. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Learning to research in first grade: Bridging the transition from narrative to expository texts and tasks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weise, Richard

Decades of research indicate that students at all academic grade and performance levels perform poorly with informational texts and tasks and particularly with locating assignment-relevant information in expository texts. Students have little understanding of the individual tasks required, the arc of the activity, the hierarchical structure of the information they seek, or how to reconstitute and interpret the information they extract. Poor performance begins with the introduction of textbooks and research assignments in fourth grade and continues into adulthood. However, to date, neither educators nor researchers have substantially addressed this problem. In this quasi-experimental study, we ask if first-grade children can perform essential tasks in identifying, extracting, and integrating assignment-relevant information and if instruction improves their performance. To answer this question, we conducted a 15-week, teacher-led, intervention in two first-grade classrooms in an inner-city Nashville elementary school. We created a computer learning environment (NoteTaker) to facilitate children's creation of a mental model of the research process and a narrative/expository bridge curriculum to support the children's transition from all narrative to all expository texts and tasks. We also created a new scaffolding taxonomy and a reading-to-research model to focus our research. Teachers participated in weekly professional development workshops. The results of this quasi-experimental study indicate that at-risk, first-grade children are able to (a) identify relevant information in an expository text, (b) categorize the information they identify, and (c) justify their choice of category. Children's performance in the first and last tasks significantly improved with instruction, and low-performing readers showed the greatest benefits from instruction. We find that the children's performance in categorizing information depended upon content-specific knowledge that was not taught, as well as on the process knowledge that was taught. We also find that children's narrative reading performance predicted their initial-performance for each assessment measure. We argue that first-grade children are developmentally ready to read expository texts and to learn reading-to-research tasks and that primary-school literacy instruction should not be limited to reading and writing stories.

Variables associated with achievement in higher education: A systematic review of meta-analyses.

PubMed

Schneider, Michael; Preckel, Franzis

2017-06-01

The last 2 decades witnessed a surge in empirical studies on the variables associated with achievement in higher education. A number of meta-analyses synthesized these findings. In our systematic literature review, we included 38 meta-analyses investigating 105 correlates of achievement, based on 3,330 effect sizes from almost 2 million students. We provide a list of the 105 variables, ordered by the effect size, and summary statistics for central research topics. The results highlight the close relation between social interaction in courses and achievement. Achievement is also strongly associated with the stimulation of meaningful learning by presenting information in a clear way, relating it to the students, and using conceptually demanding learning tasks. Instruction and communication technology has comparably weak effect sizes, which did not increase over time. Strong moderator effects are found for almost all instructional methods, indicating that how a method is implemented in detail strongly affects achievement. Teachers with high-achieving students invest time and effort in designing the microstructure of their courses, establish clear learning goals, and employ feedback practices. This emphasizes the importance of teacher training in higher education. Students with high achievement are characterized by high self-efficacy, high prior achievement and intelligence, conscientiousness, and the goal-directed use of learning strategies. Barring the paucity of controlled experiments and the lack of meta-analyses on recent educational innovations, the variables associated with achievement in higher education are generally well investigated and well understood. By using these findings, teachers, university administrators, and policymakers can increase the effectivity of higher education. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Measuring L2 Speakers' Interactional Ability Using Interactive Speech Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Batenburg, Eline S. L.; Oostdam, Ron J.; van Gelderen, Amos J. S.; de Jong, Nivja H.

2018-01-01

This article explores ways to assess interactional performance, and reports on the use of a test format that standardizes the interlocutor's linguistic and interactional contributions to the exchange. It describes the construction and administration of six scripted speech tasks (instruction, advice, and sales tasks) with pre-vocational learners (n…

Relations of Instructional Tasks to Teacher-Student Discourse in Mathematics Classrooms of Chinese Primary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ni, Yujing; Zhou, Dehui; Li, Xiaoqing; Li, Qiong

2014-01-01

This study, based on observation of 90 fifth-grade mathematics classes in Chinese elementary schools, examined how the task features, high cognitive demand, multiple representations, and multiple solution methods may relate to classroom discourse. Results indicate that high cognitive demand tasks were associated with teachers' use higher order…

Task Analysis - Its Relation to Content Analysis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gagne, Robert M.

Task analysis is a procedure having the purpose of identifying different kinds of performances which are outcomes of learning, in order to make possible the specification of optimal instructional conditions for each kind of outcome. Task analysis may be related to content analysis in two different ways: (1) it may be used to identify the probably…

Gender Effects When Learning Manipulative Tasks from Instructional Animations and Static Presentations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wong, Mona; Castro-Alonso, Juan C.; Ayres, Paul; Paas, Fred

2015-01-01

Humans have an evolved embodied cognition that equips them to deal easily with the natural movements of object manipulations. Hence, learning a manipulative task is generally more effective when watching animations that show natural motions of the task, rather than equivalent static pictures. The present study was completed to explore this…

Tailoring Tasks to Meet Students' Needs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McDuffie, Amy Roth; Wohlhuter, Kay A.; Breyfogle, M. Lynn

2011-01-01

Just as ready-made clothes may not provide a perfect fit for all bodies, math lessons may not be a perfect fit for all students. Published instructional tasks, including problems in mathematics textbooks, often need to be tailored to be meaningful, relevant, or accessible to each student. Ways are possible to take high-level reasoning tasks and…

Integral Students' Experiences: Measuring Instructional Quality and Instructors' Challenges in Calculus 1 Lessons

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hong, Dae S.; Choi, Kyong Mi; Hwang, Jihyun; Runnalls, Cristina

2017-01-01

In this study, we examined 10 integral lessons to understand students' opportunities to learn cognitively challenging tasks and maintain cognitive demand during integral lessons. Our findings reveal issues with implemented tasks as well as the way these tasks were presented to students. We also examined mathematicians' reasons behind their…

Office Education. North Dakota Validated Task Listing. Competency-Based Vocational Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

North Dakota State Board for Vocational Education, Bismarck.

Intended to provide a base for vocational office education instructional programs at secondary and postsecondary levels in North Dakota, this task listing describes the skills needed to be performed by program completers, from the viewpoint of workers in office occupations. A listing of task validators (name, occupation, employer, business city,…

Task Simulation: Word Processing. Teacher [and Student Manuals], B. Correspondence Secretary.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burch, Geralyn H.

This task-simulation learning module on being a correspondence secretary in a realty office for secondary and postsecondary teachers and students, the fifth in a series of eleven task and in-basket simulations, was designed to provide individualized instruction in office occupations courses, such as introductory business and typewriting. (Each of…

A Review of Content and Task Analysis Methodology. Technical Report No. 2.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gibbons, Andrew S.

A review of the literature related to methods for analyzing content or tasks prior to instructional development is presented. The review classifies methods according to a two-dimensional matrix. The first dimension differentiates phases of analysis, each dealing with content and tasks of a particular scope and each generating certain…

Prospective memory in dynamic environments: effects of load, delay, and phonological rehearsal

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stone, M.; Dismukes, K.; Remington, R.

2001-01-01

A new paradigm was developed to examine prospective memory performance in a visual-spatial task that resembles some aspects of the work of air traffic controllers. Two experiments examined the role of workload (number of aeroplanes that participants directed), delay (between receipt of prospective instructions and execution), and phonological rehearsal. High workload increased prospective memory errors but increasing delay from 1-3 or 5 minutes had no effect. Shadowing aurally presented text reduced prospective memory performance, presumably because it prevented verbal rehearsal of the prospective instructions. However, performance on the foreground task of directing aeroplanes to routine destinations was affected only by workload and not by opportunity for rehearsal. Our results suggest that ability to maintain performance on a routine foreground task while performing a secondary task--perhaps analogous to conversation--does not predict ability to retrieve a prospective intention to deviate from the routine.

Enhancing motor learning through peer tutoring.

PubMed

Feinberg, Judy R; Elkington, Sarah J; Dewey, Kimberly A; Dzielawa, Dawn M; Hayden, Nicky L; Blankenship, Staci L; Nahrwold, Christopher M; Smith, Jennifer L

2002-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of incorporating mnemonic memory aids and having a subject teach another person a given task (peer tutoring) as a method of enhancing task acquisition and recall by the subject and to discuss the implications for occupational therapists who instruct clients in motor tasks such as therapeutic exercise programs. Sixty-seven college students were randomly assigned to one of three groups using different teaching methods for the purpose of learning a motor task, specifically the American Sign Language alphabet. Subjects who were taught using mnemonics and peer tutoring scored significantly better on post-testing two days following instruction than did the control groups. Use of these techniques did not increase direct teaching time by the instructor, nor did they incur additional costs. Thus, these techniques may be easily incorporated into client education to improve recall and performance.

Endpoint-based parallel data processing in a parallel active messaging interface of a parallel computer

DOEpatents

Archer, Charles J; Blocksome, Michael E; Ratterman, Joseph D; Smith, Brian E

2014-02-11

Endpoint-based parallel data processing in a parallel active messaging interface ('PAMI') of a parallel computer, the PAMI composed of data communications endpoints, each endpoint including a specification of data communications parameters for a thread of execution on a compute node, including specifications of a client, a context, and a task, the compute nodes coupled for data communications through the PAMI, including establishing a data communications geometry, the geometry specifying, for tasks representing processes of execution of the parallel application, a set of endpoints that are used in collective operations of the PAMI including a plurality of endpoints for one of the tasks; receiving in endpoints of the geometry an instruction for a collective operation; and executing the instruction for a collective opeartion through the endpoints in dependence upon the geometry, including dividing data communications operations among the plurality of endpoints for one of the tasks.

Prospective memory in dynamic environments: effects of load, delay, and phonological rehearsal.

PubMed

Stone, M; Dismukes, K; Remington, R

2001-05-01

A new paradigm was developed to examine prospective memory performance in a visual-spatial task that resembles some aspects of the work of air traffic controllers. Two experiments examined the role of workload (number of aeroplanes that participants directed), delay (between receipt of prospective instructions and execution), and phonological rehearsal. High workload increased prospective memory errors but increasing delay from 1-3 or 5 minutes had no effect. Shadowing aurally presented text reduced prospective memory performance, presumably because it prevented verbal rehearsal of the prospective instructions. However, performance on the foreground task of directing aeroplanes to routine destinations was affected only by workload and not by opportunity for rehearsal. Our results suggest that ability to maintain performance on a routine foreground task while performing a secondary task--perhaps analogous to conversation--does not predict ability to retrieve a prospective intention to deviate from the routine.

Endpoint-based parallel data processing in a parallel active messaging interface of a parallel computer

DOEpatents

Archer, Charles J.; Blocksome, Michael A.; Ratterman, Joseph D.; Smith, Brian E.

2014-08-12

Endpoint-based parallel data processing in a parallel active messaging interface (`PAMI`) of a parallel computer, the PAMI composed of data communications endpoints, each endpoint including a specification of data communications parameters for a thread of execution on a compute node, including specifications of a client, a context, and a task, the compute nodes coupled for data communications through the PAMI, including establishing a data communications geometry, the geometry specifying, for tasks representing processes of execution of the parallel application, a set of endpoints that are used in collective operations of the PAMI including a plurality of endpoints for one of the tasks; receiving in endpoints of the geometry an instruction for a collective operation; and executing the instruction for a collective operation through the endpoints in dependence upon the geometry, including dividing data communications operations among the plurality of endpoints for one of the tasks.

Applied Cognitive Task Analysis (ACTA) Methodology

DTIC Science & Technology

1997-11-01

experienced based cognitive skills. The primary goal of this project was to develop streamlined methods of Cognitive Task Analysis that would fill this need...We have made important progression this direction. We have developed streamlined methods of Cognitive Task Analysis . Our evaluation study indicates...developed a CD-based stand alone instructional package, which will make the Applied Cognitive Task Analysis (ACTA) tools widely accessible. A survey of the

Teaching Communication Skills in Science: Tracing Teacher Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spektor-Levy, Ornit; Eylon, Bat-Sheva; Scherz, Zahava

2008-01-01

This paper describes a general model for skills instruction and its implementation through the program "Scientific Communication" for acquiring learning skills. The model is characterized by modularity, explicit instruction, spiral integration into contents, practice in various contexts, and implementation in performance tasks. It requires…

Instructional Design: Its Relevance for CALL.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

England, Elaine

1989-01-01

Describes an interdisciplinary (language and educational technology departments) instructional design program that is intended to develop back-up computer programs for students taking supplementary English as a second language classes. The program encompasses training programs, the psychology of screen reading, task analysis, and color cueing.…

Sharing the Secrets

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Good, Rebecca

2008-01-01

Instructional leadership is defined in a broader yet more intense definition today than it was 20 years ago. Originally, the role involved traditional tasks such as setting clear goals, allocating resources to instruction, managing the curriculum, monitoring lesson plans, and evaluating teachers. Today it includes much deeper involvement in the…

Administering Instructional Media Programs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Erickson, Carlton W. H.

This book presents a wide discussion of the educational and administrative tasks of the instructional media program director. It includes guidelines, principles, case studies, and examples of advanced media use, with emphasis on audiovisual media, the area in which innovation has occurred most. Strong leadership, technological competence, and good…

A comparison of mental strategies during athletic skills performance.

PubMed

Peluso, Eugenio A; Ross, Michael J; Gfeller, Jeffrey D; Lavoie, Donna J

2005-12-01

The current study examined the effects of performance enhancement techniques (PET's) on motor skill performance. Specifically, one hundred fifty college student volunteers (Men = 41; 27.3% and Women = 109; 72.6%) were randomly assigned to one of the nine conditions (Cond): Cond 1 and 2, simultaneous, externally verbalized self-talk or imagery (e.g., participants were instructed to say "aim, back, birdie "or engaged in imagery out loud while putting); Cond 3 and 4, delayed externally verbalized self-talk or imagery (e.g., participants were instructed to say "aim, back, birdie "or engaged in imagery out loud before putting); Cond 5 and 6, simultaneous, internally verbalized self-talk or imagery (e.g., participants were instructed to say "aim, back, birdie "or engaged in imagery silently to oneself while putting); Cond 7 and 8, delayed internally verbalized (e.g., participant were instructed to say "aim, back, birdie "or engaged in imagery silently to oneself before putting); and Cond 9, no instruction control group. All participants were asked to perform a golf-putting task. Results indicated that participants who implemented several (PET's) increased their putting accuracy across overall difference score evaluations F (8, 141) = 4.01, p < 0.05 when compared to a no instruction control condition. Follow-up analyses indicated that participants who reportedly engaged in ten hours or less of athletic activities per week preferred self-talk strategies F (2, 119) = 4.38, p < 0.05 whereas participants who endorsed ten hours or more of athletic activity per week preferred imagery strategies F (2, 25) = 5.27, p < 0.05. Key PointsMental imagery and self-talk strategies are implemented by athletes in order to regulate arousal, reduce maladaptive behaviors, reconstruct negative thoughts, and to increase one's concentration and focus.Results of the current study suggest that participants who engaged in several performance enhancement techniques exhibited enhanced performance on a golf putting task when compared to participants in a control condition.Participants who endorsed limited athletic familiarity and activity (e.g., ten hours or less) preferred self-talk practice whereas participants who endorsed higher ratings scores of athletic familiarity and activity (e.g., ten hours or more) preferred imagery strategies.The results of this study demonstrate the flexibility of Performance Enhancement Techniques (e.g., imagery v. self-talk, internal v. external, simultaneous v. delayed) and how they can be implemented to help an athlete reach his or her full potential.

Framing alters risk-taking behavior on a modified Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) in a sex-specific manner.

PubMed

Gabriel, Kara I; Williamson, Ashley

2010-12-01

Framing uncertain scenarios to emphasize potential positive or negative elements influences decision making and behavior. The current experiment investigated sex differences in framing effects on risk-taking propensity in a modified version of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). Male and female undergraduates completed questionnaires on sensation seeking, impulsiveness, and risk and benefit perception prior to viewing one of three framing conditions for the BART: (1) positively-framed instructions emphasizing the ability to earn money if balloons were inflated to large size; (2) negatively framed instructions emphasizing the possibility that money could be lost if balloons were inflated to bursting; and (3) completely framed instructions noting both possible outcomes. Results revealed correlations between BART performance and impulsiveness for both sexes. Compared to positive and complete framing, negatively framed instructions decreased balloon inflation time in women but not men, indicating sex differences in response to treatments designed to alter risk-taking behavior.

Translating Expertise into Effective Instruction: The Impacts of Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) on Lab Report Quality and Student Retention in the Biological Sciences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feldon, David F.; Timmerman, Briana Crotwell; Stowe, Kirk A.; Showman, Richard

2010-01-01

Poor instruction has been cited as a primary cause of attrition from STEM majors and a major obstacle to learning for those who stay [Seymour and Hewitt [1997]. Talking about leaving: Why undergraduates leave the sciences. Boulder, CO: Westview]. Using a double-blind design, this study tests the hypothesis that the lack of explicit instructions in…

An Instructional Management Guide to Cost Effective Decision Making,

DTIC Science & Technology

1974-01-01

Journal , 1968, 34. United States Congress. To improve learning. Report by the Commission on Instructional Technology of the Commis- sion on Education...of cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis has been recognized in public and private education. It was reported by the Commission on...instructional decision-making, however, is a more formidable task. One difficulty is that although much has been reported on the advantages of

Reduced modulation of scanpaths in response to task demands in posterior cortical atrophy.

PubMed

Shakespeare, Timothy J; Pertzov, Yoni; Yong, Keir X X; Nicholas, Jennifer; Crutch, Sebastian J

2015-02-01

A difficulty in perceiving visual scenes is one of the most striking impairments experienced by patients with the clinico-radiological syndrome posterior cortical atrophy (PCA). However whilst a number of studies have investigated perception of relatively simple experimental stimuli in these individuals, little is known about multiple object and complex scene perception and the role of eye movements in posterior cortical atrophy. We embrace the distinction between high-level (top-down) and low-level (bottom-up) influences upon scanning eye movements when looking at scenes. This distinction was inspired by Yarbus (1967), who demonstrated how the location of our fixations is affected by task instructions and not only the stimulus' low level properties. We therefore examined how scanning patterns are influenced by task instructions and low-level visual properties in 7 patients with posterior cortical atrophy, 8 patients with typical Alzheimer's disease, and 19 healthy age-matched controls. Each participant viewed 10 scenes under four task conditions (encoding, recognition, search and description) whilst eye movements were recorded. The results reveal significant differences between groups in the impact of test instructions upon scanpaths. Across tasks without a search component, posterior cortical atrophy patients were significantly less consistent than typical Alzheimer's disease patients and controls in where they were looking. By contrast, when comparing search and non-search tasks, it was controls who exhibited lowest between-task similarity ratings, suggesting they were better able than posterior cortical atrophy or typical Alzheimer's disease patients to respond appropriately to high-level needs by looking at task-relevant regions of a scene. Posterior cortical atrophy patients had a significant tendency to fixate upon more low-level salient parts of the scenes than controls irrespective of the viewing task. The study provides a detailed characterisation of scene perception abilities in posterior cortical atrophy and offers insights into the mechanisms by which high-level cognitive schemes interact with low-level perception. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Augmented reality application utility for aviation maintenance work instruction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pourcho, John Bryan

Current aviation maintenance work instructions do not display information effectively enough to prevent costly errors and safety concerns. Aircraft are complex assemblies of highly interrelated components that confound troubleshooting and can make the maintenance procedure difficult (Drury & Gramopadhye, 2001). The sophisticated nature of aircraft maintenance necessitates a revolutionized training intervention for aviation maintenance technicians (United States General Accounting Office, 2003). Quite simply, the paper based job task cards fall short of offering rapid access to technical data and the system or component visualization necessary for working on complex integrated aircraft systems. Possible solutions to this problem include upgraded standards for paper based task cards and the use of integrated 3D product definition used on various mobile platforms (Ropp, Thomas, Lee, Broyles, Lewin, Andreychek, & Nicol, 2013). Previous studies have shown that incorporation of 3D graphics in work instructions allow the user to more efficiently and accurately interpret maintenance information (Jackson & Batstone, 2008). For aircraft maintenance workers, the use of mobile 3D model-based task cards could make current paper task card standards obsolete with their ability to deliver relevant, synchronized information to and from the hangar. Unlike previous versions of 3D model-based definition task cards and paper task cards, which are currently used in the maintenance industry, 3D model based definition task cards have the potential to be more mobile and accessible. Utilizing augmented reality applications on mobile devices to seamlessly deliver 3D product definition on mobile devices could increase the efficiency, accuracy, and reduce the mental workload for technicians when performing maintenance tasks (Macchiarella, 2004). This proposal will serve as a literary review of the aviation maintenance industry, the spatial ability of maintenance technicians, and benefits of modern digital hardware to educate, point out gaps in research, and observe possible foundations on which to build the future of aviation maintenance job task cards leading to a the methodology of the proposed study.

Repetition priming effects from attended vs. ignored single words in a semantic categorization task.

PubMed

Ortells, Juan J; Fox, Elaine; Noguera, Carmen; Abad, María J F

2003-10-01

The present research examines priming effects from a centrally presented single-prime word to which participants were instructed to either attend or ignore. The prime word was followed by a single central target word to which participants made a semantic categorization (animate vs. inanimate) task. The main variables manipulated across experiments were attentional instructions (attend vs. ignore the prime word), presentation duration of the prime word (20, 50, 80 or 100 ms), prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA; 300 vs. 800 ms), and temporal presentation of instructions (before vs. after the prime word). The results showed (a) a consistent interaction between attentional instructions and repetition priming and (b) a qualitatively different ignored priming pattern as a function of prime duration: reduced positive priming (relative to the attend instruction) for prime exposures of 80 and 100 ms, and reliable negative priming for the shorter prime exposures of 20 and 50 ms. In addition (c), the differential priming pattern for attend and ignore trials was observed at a prime-target SOA of 800 ms (but not at a shorter 300-ms SOA) and only when instructions were presented before the prime word. Methodological and theoretical implications of the present findings for the extant negative priming literature are discussed.

Representations in learning new faces: evidence from prosopagnosia.

PubMed

Polster, M R; Rapcsak, S Z

1996-05-01

We report the performance of a prosopagnosic patient on face learning tasks under different encoding instructions (i.e., levels of processing manipulations). R.J. performs at chance when given no encoding instructions or when given "shallow" encoding instruction to focus on facial features. By contrast, he performs relatively well with "deep" encoding instructions to rate faces in terms of personality traits or when provided with semantic and name information during the study phase. We propose that the improvement associated with deep encoding instructions may be related to the establishment of distinct visually derived and identity-specific semantic codes. The benefit associated with deep encoding in R.J., however, was found to be restricted to the specific view of the face presented at study and did not generalize to other views of the same face. These observations suggest that deep encoding instructions may enhance memory for concrete or pictorial representations of faces in patients with prosopagnosia, but that these patients cannot compensate for the inability to construct abstract structural codes that normally allow faces to be recognized from different orientations. We postulate further that R.J.'s poor performance on face learning tasks may be attributable to excessive reliance on a feature-based left hemisphere face processing system that operates primarily on view-specific representations.

Preparing novice teachers to develop basic reading and spelling skills in children.

PubMed

Spear-Swerling, Louise; Brucker, Pamela Owen

2004-12-01

This study examined the word-structure knowledge of novice teachers and the progress of children tutored by a subgroup of the teachers. Teachers' word-structure knowledge was assessed using three tasks: graphophonemic segmentation, classification of pseudowords by syllable type, and classification of real words as phonetically regular or irregular. Tutored children were assessed on several measures of basic reading and spelling skills. Novice teachers who received word-structure instruction outperformed a comparison group of teachers in word-structure knowledge at post-test. Tutored children improved significantly from pre-test to post-test on all assessments. Teachers' post-test knowledge on the graphophonemic segmentation and irregular words tasks correlated significantly with tutored children's progress in decoding phonetically regular words; error analyses indicated links between teachers' patterns of word-structure knowledge and children's patterns of decoding progress. The study suggests that word-structure knowledge is important to effective teaching of word decoding and underscores the need to include this information in teacher preparation.

Stay Focused! The Effects of Internal and External Focus of Attention on Movement Automaticity in Patients with Stroke

PubMed Central

Kal, E. C.; van der Kamp, J.; Houdijk, H.; Groet, E.; van Bennekom, C. A. M.; Scherder, E. J. A.

2015-01-01

Dual-task performance is often impaired after stroke. This may be resolved by enhancing patients’ automaticity of movement. This study sets out to test the constrained action hypothesis, which holds that automaticity of movement is enhanced by triggering an external focus (on movement effects), rather than an internal focus (on movement execution). Thirty-nine individuals with chronic, unilateral stroke performed a one-leg-stepping task with both legs in single- and dual-task conditions. Attentional focus was manipulated with instructions. Motor performance (movement speed), movement automaticity (fluency of movement), and dual-task performance (dual-task costs) were assessed. The effects of focus on movement speed, single- and dual-task movement fluency, and dual-task costs were analysed with generalized estimating equations. Results showed that, overall, single-task performance was unaffected by focus (p = .341). Regarding movement fluency, no main effects of focus were found in single- or dual-task conditions (p’s ≥ .13). However, focus by leg interactions suggested that an external focus reduced movement fluency of the paretic leg compared to an internal focus (single-task conditions: p = .068; dual-task conditions: p = .084). An external focus also tended to result in inferior dual-task performance (β = -2.38, p = .065). Finally, a near-significant interaction (β = 2.36, p = .055) suggested that dual-task performance was more constrained by patients’ attentional capacity in external focus conditions. We conclude that, compared to an internal focus, an external focus did not result in more automated movements in chronic stroke patients. Contrary to expectations, trends were found for enhanced automaticity with an internal focus. These findings might be due to patients’ strong preference to use an internal focus in daily life. Future work needs to establish the more permanent effects of learning with different attentional foci on re-automating motor control after stroke. PMID:26317437

The differential role of motor cortex in the stretch reflex modulation induced by changes in environmental mechanics and verbal instruction

PubMed Central

Shemmell, Jonathan; An, Je Hi; Perreault, Eric J.

2009-01-01

The motor cortex assumes an increasingly important role in higher mammals relative to that in lower mammals. This is true to such an extent that the human motor cortex is deeply involved in reflex regulation and it is common to speak of “transcortical reflex loops”. Such loops appear to add flexibility to the human stretch reflex, once considered to be immutable, allowing it to adapt across a range of functional tasks. However, the purpose of this adaptation remains unclear. A common proposal is that stretch reflexes contribute to the regulation of limb stability; increased reflex sensitivity during tasks performed in unstable environments supports this hypothesis. Alternatively, prior to movement onset, stretch reflexes can assist an imposed stretch, opposite to what would be expected from a stabilizing response. Here we show that stretch reflex modulation in tasks that require changes in limb stability is mediated by motor cortical pathways, and that these differ from pathways contributing to reflex modulation that depends on how the subject is instructed to react to an imposed perturbation. By timing muscle stretches such that the modulated portion of the reflex occurred within a cortical silent period induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation, we abolished the increase in reflex sensitivity observed when individuals stabilized arm posture within a compliant environment. Conversely, reflex modulation caused by altered task instruction was unaffected by cortical silence. These results demonstrate that task-dependent changes in reflex function can be mediated through multiple neural pathways and that these pathways have task specific roles. PMID:19846713

The differential role of motor cortex in stretch reflex modulation induced by changes in environmental mechanics and verbal instruction.

PubMed

Shemmell, Jonathan; An, Je Hi; Perreault, Eric J

2009-10-21

The motor cortex assumes an increasingly important role in higher mammals relative to that in lower mammals. This is true to such an extent that the human motor cortex is deeply involved in reflex regulation and it is common to speak of "transcortical reflex loops." Such loops appear to add flexibility to the human stretch reflex, once considered to be immutable, allowing it to adapt across a range of functional tasks. However, the purpose of this adaptation remains unclear. A common proposal is that stretch reflexes contribute to the regulation of limb stability; increased reflex sensitivity during tasks performed in unstable environments supports this hypothesis. Alternatively, before movement onset, stretch reflexes can assist an imposed stretch, opposite to what would be expected from a stabilizing response. Here we show that stretch reflex modulation in tasks that require changes in limb stability is mediated by motor cortical pathways, and that these differ from pathways contributing to reflex modulation that depend on how the subject is instructed to react to an imposed perturbation. By timing muscle stretches such that the modulated portion of the reflex occurred within a cortical silent period induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation, we abolished the increase in reflex sensitivity observed when individuals stabilized arm posture within a compliant environment. Conversely, reflex modulation caused by altered task instruction was unaffected by cortical silence. These results demonstrate that task-dependent changes in reflex function can be mediated through multiple neural pathways and that these pathways have task-specific roles.

Teacher leadership in mathematics and science: Subject content knowledge and the improvement of instruction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Manno, Christopher M.

This study explores the role of teacher leader subject content knowledge in the promotion of professional development and instructional reform. Consistent with a distributed leadership perspective, many have asserted that the promotion of school effectiveness can be enhanced through the application of teacher leadership (Frost & Durrant, 2003; Harris, 2002a; Sherrill, 1999; Silva, Gimbert, & Nolan, 2000; York-Barr & Duke, 2004). There has been much discussion in the research about the significance of teachers' subject content knowledge in teaching and learning which has generally asserted a positive relationship with instructional practice and student achievement (Darling-Hammond, 2000; Newton & Newton, 2001; Parker & Heywood, 2000). The role of content knowledge in teacher leader work has been less researched. This study focused on deepening understanding of perceptions regarding teacher leaders' roles in improving instructional practice. Based on a framework of common teacher leader tasks, qualitative methods were used to investigate the relationship between teacher leader subject content knowledge and perceptions of effectiveness in promoting professional development and instructional reform. The study indicates that content experts behave differently than their non-expert counterparts. Content experts recognize deficiencies in colleagues' content knowledge as a primary problem in the implementation of math or science reform. Content experts view their work as advocacy for improved curriculum and instruction for all children, and work within a small set of task categories to promote discussions about teaching, learning, and content. Content experts develop trust and rapport with colleagues by demonstrating expertise, and are respected for their deep knowledge and efforts to help teachers learn the content. They also differ from non-content experts in the professional growth experiences in which they engage. The consideration of content expertise as an influence to teacher leader work helps to refine our conception of teacher leadership. A task-focused model of content expert teacher leadership is presented, and provides guidance for recruitment, selection, and development of future teacher leaders. Content expertise is presented as a form of human capital that promotes task-focused distributed leadership. Practical recommendations for future teacher leadership initiatives and suggestions for future research are presented.

Learning Semantics of Gestural Instructions for Human-Robot Collaboration

PubMed Central

Shukla, Dadhichi; Erkent, Özgür; Piater, Justus

2018-01-01

Designed to work safely alongside humans, collaborative robots need to be capable partners in human-robot teams. Besides having key capabilities like detecting gestures, recognizing objects, grasping them, and handing them over, these robots need to seamlessly adapt their behavior for efficient human-robot collaboration. In this context we present the fast, supervised Proactive Incremental Learning (PIL) framework for learning associations between human hand gestures and the intended robotic manipulation actions. With the proactive aspect, the robot is competent to predict the human's intent and perform an action without waiting for an instruction. The incremental aspect enables the robot to learn associations on the fly while performing a task. It is a probabilistic, statistically-driven approach. As a proof of concept, we focus on a table assembly task where the robot assists its human partner. We investigate how the accuracy of gesture detection affects the number of interactions required to complete the task. We also conducted a human-robot interaction study with non-roboticist users comparing a proactive with a reactive robot that waits for instructions. PMID:29615888

Learning Semantics of Gestural Instructions for Human-Robot Collaboration.

PubMed

Shukla, Dadhichi; Erkent, Özgür; Piater, Justus

2018-01-01

Designed to work safely alongside humans, collaborative robots need to be capable partners in human-robot teams. Besides having key capabilities like detecting gestures, recognizing objects, grasping them, and handing them over, these robots need to seamlessly adapt their behavior for efficient human-robot collaboration. In this context we present the fast, supervised Proactive Incremental Learning (PIL) framework for learning associations between human hand gestures and the intended robotic manipulation actions. With the proactive aspect, the robot is competent to predict the human's intent and perform an action without waiting for an instruction. The incremental aspect enables the robot to learn associations on the fly while performing a task. It is a probabilistic, statistically-driven approach. As a proof of concept, we focus on a table assembly task where the robot assists its human partner. We investigate how the accuracy of gesture detection affects the number of interactions required to complete the task. We also conducted a human-robot interaction study with non-roboticist users comparing a proactive with a reactive robot that waits for instructions.

SU43. The Effect of Implementation Intention on Different Types of Prospective Memory Performance in Patients With Schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Wang, Ya; Liu, Lu-lu; Gan, Ming-yuan; Tan, Shu-ping; Shum, David; Chan, Raymond

2017-01-01

Abstract Background: Prospective memory (PM) refers to remembering to execute a planned intention in the future, which can been divided as event-based PM (focal, nonfocal) and time-based PM according to the nature of the cue. Focal event-based PM, where the ongoing task requires processing of the characteristics of PM cues, has been found to be benefited from implementation intention (II, ie, an encoding strategy in the format of “if I see X, then I will do Y”). However, to date, it is unclear whether implementation intention can produce a positive effect on nonfocal event-based PM (where the ongoing task is irrelevant with the PM cues) and time-based PM. Moreover, patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) were found to have impairments in these types of PM, and few studies have been conducted to examine the effect of II on these types of PM. This study investigated whether (and how) implementation intention can improve nonfocal event-based PM and time-based PM performance in patients with SCZ. Methods: Forty-two patients with SCZ and 42 healthy control participants were administered both computerized nonfocal event-based PM task and time-based PM task. Patients and healthy controls were further randomly allocated to implementation intention condition (N = 21) and typical instruction condition (N = 21). Results: Patients with SCZ in the implementation intention group showed higher PM accuracy than the typical instruction group in both nonfocal event-based PM task (0.51 ± 0.32 vs 0.19 ± 0.29, t(40) = 3.39, P = .002) and time-based PM task (0.72 ± 0.31 vs 0.39 ± 0.40, t(40) = 2.98, P = .005). Similarly, healthy controls in the II group also showed better PM performance than the typical instruction group in both tasks (all P’s < 0.05). Time check frequency of time-based PM task in the II group of all the participants was significantly higher than the typical instruction group. Conclusion: Implementation intention is an effective strategy for improving different types of PM performance in patients with schizophrenia and can be applied for clinical settings.

Fostering Creativity in the Classroom: Effects of Teachers' Epistemological Beliefs, Motivation, and Goal Orientation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hong, Eunsook; Hartzell, Stephanie A.; Greene, Mary T.

2009-01-01

The relationships of teachers' epistemological beliefs, motivation, and goal orientation to their instructional practices that foster student creativity were examined. Teachers' perceived instructional practices that facilitate the development of multiple perspectives in problem solving, transfer, task commitment, creative skill use, and…

Residential and Light Commercial HVAC. Teacher Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stephenson, David; Fulkerson, Dan, Ed.

This curriculum guide contains 18 units of instruction for a competency-based course in residential and light commercial heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC). Introductory materials include a competency profile and an instructional/task analysis that correlates job training with related information for this course. Each instructional…

Diesel Technology: Workplace Skills. Teacher Edition and Student Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kellum, Mary

This publication consists of instructional materials to provide secondary and postsecondary students with skills useful in pursuing a career in the diesel industry. Introductory materials in the teacher edition include information on use of the publication, competency profile, instructional/task analysis, related academic and workplace skills…

Introduction to Surgical Technology. Third Edition. Teacher Edition [and] Student Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bushey, Vicki; Hildebrand, Bob; Hildebrand, Dinah; Johnson, Dave; Sikes, John; Tahah, Ann; Walker, Susan; Zielsdorf, Lani

These teacher and student editions provide instructional materials for an introduction to surgical technology course. Introductory materials in the teacher edition include information on use, instructional/task analysis, academic and workplace skill classifications and definitions, related academic and workplace skill list, and crosswalk to…

Conversation Walks: Improving Instructional Leadership

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zepeda, Sally J.; Lanoue, Philip D.

2017-01-01

Principals are tasked with being the instructional leaders in their schools--developing teacher's abilities through formal and informal classroom observations and feedback. But how can school districts ensure that principals have the skills they need to fulfill this crucial role? In Clarke County School District in Georgia, central-office leaders…

A Multidisciplinary Model for Development of Intelligent Computer-Assisted Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Park, Ok-choon; Seidel, Robert J.

1989-01-01

Proposes a schematic multidisciplinary model to help developers of intelligent computer-assisted instruction (ICAI) identify the types of required expertise and integrate them into a system. Highlights include domain types and expertise; knowledge acquisition; task analysis; knowledge representation; student modeling; diagnosis of learning needs;…

Microsaccades and interest areas during free-viewing sport task.

PubMed

Piras, Alessandro; Raffi, Milena; Perazzolo, Monica; Malagoli Lanzoni, Ivan; Squatrito, Salvatore

2017-09-18

Microsaccades are important fixation eye movements for visual scene perception. Compared to novices, athletes make fewer fixations of longer duration toward limited interest areas crucial for action prediction. Thus, our aim was to study the microsaccade features during those fixations. Gaze behaviour of expert and novice table tennis players was recorder during a task in which subjects were instructed to predict the direction of the ball after the opponent's throw. Three interest areas from the opponent's body and one from the ball trajectory were identified. We analysed correctness of predictions, fixations, microsaccades and saccades to estimate the relationship between eye movements toward interest areas and success in the task. Compared to novices, experts fixated more on hand-racket during forehand and on trunk during backhand drive technique. Longer fixations on hand-racket and trunk were associated with higher microsaccade rate with a narrower directional distribution of them. It probably means that athletes focused their gaze on these small areas, suggesting enhanced attention mainly to them, and fewer consideration for the surrounding regions. We can assume that microsaccade rate and average direction could be related to the salience of interest areas during performance.

Use of static picture prompts versus video modeling during simulation instruction.

PubMed

Alberto, Paul A; Cihak, David F; Gama, Robert I

2005-01-01

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of static picture prompts and video modeling as classroom simulation strategies in combination with in vivo community instruction. Students with moderate intellectual disabilities were instructed in the tasks of withdrawing money from an ATM and purchasing items using a debit card. Both simulation strategies were effective and efficient at teaching the skills. The two simulation strategies were not functionally different in terms of number of trials to acquisition, number of errors, and number of instructional sessions to criterion.

Route learning in Korsakoff's syndrome: Residual acquisition of spatial memory despite profound amnesia.

PubMed

Oudman, Erik; Van der Stigchel, Stefan; Nijboer, Tanja C W; Wijnia, Jan W; Seekles, Maaike L; Postma, Albert

2016-03-01

Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) is characterized by explicit amnesia, but relatively spared implicit memory. The aim of this study was to assess to what extent KS patients can acquire spatial information while performing a spatial navigation task. Furthermore, we examined whether residual spatial acquisition in KS was based on automatic or effortful coding processes. Therefore, 20 KS patients and 20 matched healthy controls performed six tasks on spatial navigation after they navigated through a residential area. Ten participants per group were instructed to pay close attention (intentional condition), while 10 received mock instructions (incidental condition). KS patients showed hampered performance on a majority of tasks, yet their performance was superior to chance level on a route time and distance estimation tasks, a map drawing task and a route walking task. Performance was relatively spared on the route distance estimation task, but there were large variations between participants. Acquisition in KS was automatic rather than effortful, since no significant differences were obtained between the intentional and incidental condition on any task, whereas for the healthy controls, the intention to learn was beneficial for the map drawing task and the route walking task. The results of this study suggest that KS patients are still able to acquire spatial information during navigation on multiple domains despite the presence of the explicit amnesia. Residual acquisition is most likely based on automatic coding processes. © 2014 The British Psychological Society.

Student-generated questions during chemistry lectures: Patterns, self-appraisals, and relations with motivational beliefs and achievement

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bergey, Bradley W.

Self-generated questions are a central mechanism for learning, yet students' questions are often infrequent during classroom instruction. As a result, little is known about the nature of student questioning during typical instructional contexts such as listening to a lecture, including the extent and nature of student-generated questions, how students evaluate their questions, and the relations among questions, motivations, and achievement. This study examined the questions undergraduate students (N = 103) generated during 8 lectures in an introductory chemistry course. Students recorded and appraised their question in daily question logs and reported lecture-specific self-efficacy beliefs. Self-efficacy, personal interest, goal orientations, and other motivational self-beliefs were measured before and after the unit. Primary analyses included testing path models, multiple regressions, and latent class analyses. Overall, results indicated that several characteristics of student questioning during lectures were significantly related to various motivations and achievement. Higher end-of-class self-efficacy was associated with fewer procedural questions and more questions that reflected smaller knowledge deficits. Lower exam scores were associated with questions reflecting broader knowledge deficits and students' appraisals that their questions had less value for others than for themselves. Individual goal orientations collectively and positively predicted question appraisals. The questions students generated and their relations with motivational variables and achievement are discussed in light of the learning task and academic context.

The role of uncertainty and reward on eye movements in a virtual driving task

PubMed Central

Sullivan, Brian T.; Johnson, Leif; Rothkopf, Constantin A.; Ballard, Dana; Hayhoe, Mary

2012-01-01

Eye movements during natural tasks are well coordinated with ongoing task demands and many variables could influence gaze strategies. Sprague and Ballard (2003) proposed a gaze-scheduling model that uses a utility-weighted uncertainty metric to prioritize fixations on task-relevant objects and predicted that human gaze should be influenced by both reward structure and task-relevant uncertainties. To test this conjecture, we tracked the eye movements of participants in a simulated driving task where uncertainty and implicit reward (via task priority) were varied. Participants were instructed to simultaneously perform a Follow Task where they followed a lead car at a specific distance and a Speed Task where they drove at an exact speed. We varied implicit reward by instructing the participants to emphasize one task over the other and varied uncertainty in the Speed Task with the presence or absence of uniform noise added to the car's velocity. Subjects' gaze data were classified for the image content near fixation and segmented into looks. Gaze measures, including look proportion, duration and interlook interval, showed that drivers more closely monitor the speedometer if it had a high level of uncertainty, but only if it was also associated with high task priority or implicit reward. The interaction observed appears to be an example of a simple mechanism whereby the reduction of visual uncertainty is gated by behavioral relevance. This lends qualitative support for the primary variables controlling gaze allocation proposed in the Sprague and Ballard model. PMID:23262151

A Comparison of Self-Monitoring with and without Reinforcement to Improve On-Task Classroom Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davis, Tonya N.; Dacus, Sharon; Bankhead, Jenna; Haupert, Megan; Fuentes, Lisa; Zoch, Tamara; Kang, Soyeon; Attai, Shanna; Lang, Russell

2014-01-01

In this study we analyzed the effects of a self-monitoring and self-monitoring plus reinforcement intervention on classroom behavior. A typically-developing high school student demonstrating difficulty staying on-task during classroom instruction was observed in three classroom settings associated with high levels of off-task behavior. During…

Incidental Learning of S-R Contingencies in the Masked Prime Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schlaghecken, Friederike; Blagrove, Elisabeth; Maylor, Elizabeth A.

2007-01-01

Subliminal motor priming effects in the masked prime paradigm can only be obtained when primes are part of the task set. In 2 experiments, the authors investigated whether the relevant task set feature needs to be explicitly instructed or could be extracted automatically in an incidental learning paradigm. Primes and targets were symmetrical…

Proactive Adjustments of Response Strategies in the Stop-Signal Paradigm

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Verbruggen, Frederick; Logan, Gordon D.

2009-01-01

In the stop-signal paradigm, fast responses are harder to inhibit than slow responses, so subjects must balance speed is the go task with successful stopping in the stop task. In theory, subjects achieve this balance by adjusting response thresholds for the go task, making proactive adjustments in response to instructions that indicate that…

Hybrid Task Design: Connecting Learning Opportunities Related to Critical Thinking and Statistical Thinking

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kuntze, Sebastian; Aizikovitsh-Udi, Einav; Clarke, David

2017-01-01

Stimulating thinking related to mathematical content is the focus of many tasks in the mathematics classroom. Beyond such content-related thinking, promoting forms of higher order thinking is among the goals of mathematics instruction as well. So-called hybrid tasks focus on combining both goals: they aim at fostering mathematical thinking and…

77 FR 17534 - Self-Regulatory Organizations; The Depository Trust Company; Notice of Filing of Proposed Rule...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-03-26

... Association (``SIFMA'') formed the MMI Blue-Sky Task Force (``Task Force'') to address systemic and unique... processing. The Task Force, along other money market industry members,\\8\\ determined that DTC's current MMI... amount or proceeds after the 3 p.m. E.T. deadline for RTP instructions.\\9\\ Accordingly, DTC is proposing...

The Effects of Knowledge of Criterion Task on Comprehension and Recall in Normally Achieving and Learning Disabled Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wong, Bernice Y. L.; And Others

1982-01-01

A study investigated the hypothesis that poor comprehension or recall of task demands, rather than a putative lack of goal directedness, is a possible source of learning-disabled children's poor performance of experimental tasks. Clear instructions substantially facilitated performance by both normally achieving and learning disabled children of…

Orchestrating Productive Mathematical Discussions: Five Practices for Helping Teachers Move beyond Show and Tell

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stein, Mary Kay; Engle, Randi A.; Smith, Margaret S.; Hughes, Elizabeth K.

2008-01-01

Teachers who attempt to use inquiry-based, student-centered instructional tasks face challenges that go beyond identifying well-designed tasks and setting them up appropriately in the classroom. Because solution paths are usually not specified for these kinds of tasks, students tend to approach them in unique and sometimes unanticipated ways.…

Effects of Strategy Instruction on the Learning, Use, and Vertical Transfer of Strategies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Finley, Fred N.; Smith, Edward L.

1980-01-01

Compares group differences in strategy learning, use, and transfer to a more complex task for two groups of elementary students (N=48). Asked to perform three tasks in classifying igneous rocks, the groups differed in whether they received advice on the use of a specific strategy for performing each task. (CS)

Goal Neglect and Working Memory Capacity in 4- to 6-Year-Old Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marcovitch, Stuart; Boseovski, Janet J.; Knapp, Robin J.; Kane, Michael J.

2010-01-01

Goal neglect is the phenomenon of failing to execute the momentary demands of a task despite understanding and being able to recall the task instructions. Successful goal maintenance is more likely to occur in adults with high working memory capacity (WMC) who can keep rules mentally accessible while performing the task. The current study…

Scaffolding Advice on Task Selection: A Safe Path toward Self-Directed Learning in On-Demand Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kicken, Wendy; Brand-Gruwel, Saskia; van Merrienboer, Jeroen J. G.

2008-01-01

An intuitively appealing approach to increasing the flexibility of vocational education and training is to delegate choices on instruction, such as the selection of learning tasks, to students. However, empirical evidence shows that students often do not have sufficiently developed self-directed learning skills to select suitable tasks. This…

The Effect of Implementation of TBLT in Reading Comprehension Classes of Iranian EFL Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Madhkhan, Mozhgan; Mousavi, Seyed Mojtaba

2017-01-01

The present study investigates the impact of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) on Iranian EFL learners' reading comprehension performance. Seventy participants were assigned randomly to the experimental and control groups. Having instructed the two groups with the same texts but different task types and activities (i.e., tasks in 4 types) during…

Piano Keyboard Training and the Spatial-Temporal Development of Young Children Attending Kindergarten Classes in Greece

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zafranas, Nikolaos

2004-01-01

This research had three main goals: to control whether children would show significant improvement in cognitive test scores following piano/keyboard instruction; to compare whether the spatial tasks would show greater improvement than other tasks; and to examine whether the effects of piano/keyboard training on spatial tasks are gender…

Advanced Marketing 8130. Instructional Areas. Duties and Tasks. Learning Activities. Referenced Resources.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Virginia State Dept. of Education, Richmond.

This resource handbook, which is designed for use by instructors of courses in advanced marketing, consists of a duty/task list with referenced resources, a duty/task list with learning activities, and a list of resources. Included in each list are materials dealing with the following topics: communication in marketing, economics in marketing,…

Young Learner Perspectives on Four Focus-on-Form Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shak, Juliana; Gardner, Sheena

2008-01-01

Recent studies suggest that focus-on-form (FonF) instruction has a positive effect on the second language proficiency of young learners. However, few have looked at learner perspectives on different FonF tasks, particularly in those young learners. This study investigates children's attitudes towards four FonF task-types in three Primary 5 English…

Explicit Instructions Increase Cognitive Costs of Deception in Predictable Social Context

PubMed Central

Falkiewicz, Marcel; Sarzyńska, Justyna; Babula, Justyna; Szatkowska, Iwona; Grabowska, Anna; Nęcka, Edward

2015-01-01

Convincing participants to deceive remains one of the biggest and most important challenges of laboratory-based deception research. The simplest and most prevalent method involves explicitly instructing participants to lie or tell the truth before presenting each task item. The usual finding of such experiments is increased cognitive load associated with deceptive responses, explained by necessity to inhibit default and automatic honest responses. However, explicit instructions are usually coupled with the absence of social context in the experimental task. Context plays a key role in social cognition by activating prior knowledge, which facilitates behaviors consistent with the latter. We hypothesized that in the presence of social context, both honest and deceptive responses can be produced on the basis of prior knowledge, without reliance on truth and without additional cognitive load during deceptive responses. In order to test the hypothesis, we have developed Speed-Dating Task (SDT), which is based on a real-life social event. In SDT, participants respond both honestly and deceptively to questions in order to appear similar to each of the dates. The dates are predictable and represent well-known categories (i.e., atheist or conservative). In one condition participants rely on explicit instructions preceding each question (external cue). In the second condition no explicit instructions are present, so the participants need to adapt based on prior knowledge about the category the dates belong to (internal cue). With internal cues, reaction times (RTs) are similar for both honest and deceptive responses. However, in the presence of external cues (EC), RTs are longer for deceptive than honest responses, suggesting that deceptive responses are associated with increased cognitive load. Compared to internal cues, deception costs were higher when EC were present. However, the effect was limited to the first part of the experiment, only partially confirming our initial hypothesis. The results suggest that the presence of social context in deception tasks might have a significant influence on cognitive processes associated with deception. PMID:26696929

Perceived task complexity of trunk stability exercises.

PubMed

McPhee, Megan; Tucker, Kylie J; Wan, Alan; MacDonald, David A

2017-02-01

Perceived task complexity can impact participation in an exercise programme and the level of skill acquisition resulting from participation. Although trunk stability exercises are commonly included in the management of people with low back pain, potential differences in perceived task complexity between those exercises have not been investigated previously. To investigate the perceived task complexity following first time instruction of two common stability exercises: the abdominal brace and abdominal hollow. Cross-sectional. Twenty-four naïve healthy participants received instruction in the performance of an abdominal brace and an abdominal hollow with feedback. Participants rated their perceived task complexity (mental, physical, and temporal demand, performance, effort, frustration) for each exercise on the NASA-Task Load Index. The abdominal hollow was associated with higher perceived mental demand than the abdominal brace (p = 0.01), and required more time to learn (p < 0.01). The abdominal brace was associated with greater mental demand and frustration when performed after the abdominal hollow than before. This study has provided the first evidence for differences in perceived task complexity between two commonly used trunk stability exercises. Those differences in perceived task complexity may influence the selection of exercises intended to enhance the robustness of spinal stability. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contribution of Equal-Sign Instruction beyond Word-Problem Tutoring for Third-Grade Students with Mathematics Difficulty

PubMed Central

Powell, Sarah R.; Fuchs, Lynn S.

2010-01-01

Elementary school students often misinterpret the equal sign (=) as an operational rather than a relational symbol. Such misunderstanding is problematic because solving equations with missing numbers may be important for higher-order mathematics skills including word problems. Research indicates equal-sign instruction can alter how typically-developing students use the equal sign, but no study has examined effects for students with mathematics difficulty (MD) or how equal-sign instruction contributes to word-problem skill for students with or without MD. The present study assessed the efficacy of equal-sign instruction within word-problem tutoring. Third-grade students with MD (n = 80) were assigned to word-problem tutoring, word-problem tutoring plus equal-sign instruction (combined) tutoring, or no-tutoring control. Combined tutoring produced better improvement on equal sign tasks and open equations compared to the other 2 conditions. On certain forms of word problems, combined tutoring but not word-problem tutoring alone produced better improvement than control. When compared at posttest to 3rd-grade students without MD on equal sign tasks and open equations, only combined tutoring students with MD performed comparably. PMID:20640240

The influence of selective attention to auditory and visual speech on the integration of audiovisual speech information.

PubMed

Buchan, Julie N; Munhall, Kevin G

2011-01-01

Conflicting visual speech information can influence the perception of acoustic speech, causing an illusory percept of a sound not present in the actual acoustic speech (the McGurk effect). We examined whether participants can voluntarily selectively attend to either the auditory or visual modality by instructing participants to pay attention to the information in one modality and to ignore competing information from the other modality. We also examined how performance under these instructions was affected by weakening the influence of the visual information by manipulating the temporal offset between the audio and video channels (experiment 1), and the spatial frequency information present in the video (experiment 2). Gaze behaviour was also monitored to examine whether attentional instructions influenced the gathering of visual information. While task instructions did have an influence on the observed integration of auditory and visual speech information, participants were unable to completely ignore conflicting information, particularly information from the visual stream. Manipulating temporal offset had a more pronounced interaction with task instructions than manipulating the amount of visual information. Participants' gaze behaviour suggests that the attended modality influences the gathering of visual information in audiovisual speech perception.

Effects of Phylogenetic Tree Style on Student Comprehension

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dees, Jonathan Andrew

Phylogenetic trees are powerful tools of evolutionary biology that have become prominent across the life sciences. Consequently, learning to interpret and reason from phylogenetic trees is now an essential component of biology education. However, students often struggle to understand these diagrams, even after explicit instruction. One factor that has been observed to affect student understanding of phylogenetic trees is style (i.e., diagonal or bracket). The goal of this dissertation research was to systematically explore effects of style on student interpretations and construction of phylogenetic trees in the context of an introductory biology course. Before instruction, students were significantly more accurate with bracket phylogenetic trees for a variety of interpretation and construction tasks. Explicit instruction that balanced the use of diagonal and bracket phylogenetic trees mitigated some, but not all, style effects. After instruction, students were significantly more accurate for interpretation tasks involving taxa relatedness and construction exercises when using the bracket style. Based on this dissertation research and prior studies on style effects, I advocate for introductory biology instructors to use only the bracket style. Future research should examine causes of style effects and variables other than style to inform the development of research-based instruction that best supports student understanding of phylogenetic trees.

Relationships between language input and letter output modes in writing notes and summaries for students in grades 4 to 9 with persisting writing disabilities.

PubMed

Thompson, Robert; Tanimoto, Steven; Abbott, Robert; Nielsen, Kathleen; Lyman, Ruby Dawn; Geselowitz, Kira; Habermann, Katrien; Mickail, Terry; Raskind, Marshall; Peverly, Stephen; Nagy, William; Berninger, Virginia

2017-01-01

This study in programmatic research on technology-supported instruction first identified, through pretesting using evidence-based criteria, students with persisting specific learning disabilities (SLDs) in written language during middle childhood (grades 4-6) and early adolescence (grades 7-9). Participants then completed computerized writing instruction and posttesting. The 12 computer lessons varied output modes (letter production by stylus alternating with hunt and peck keyboarding versus by pencil with grooves alternating with touch typing on keyboard), input (read or heard source material), and task (notes or summaries). Posttesting and coded notes and summaries showed the effectiveness of computerized writing instruction on both writing tasks for multiple modes of language input and letter production output for improving letter production and related writing skills.

Relationships between Language Input and Letter Output Modes in Writing Notes and Summaries for Students in Grades 4 to 9 with Persisting Writing Disabilities

PubMed Central

Thompson, Robert; Tanimoto, Steven; Abbott, Robert; Nielsen, Kathleen; Lyman, Ruby Dawn; Geselowitz, Kira; Habermann, Katrien; Mickail, Terry; Raskind, Marshall; Peverly, Stephen; Nagy, William; Berninger, Virginia

2017-01-01

This study in programmatic research on technology-supported instruction first identified, through pretesting using evidence-based criteria, students with persisting specific learning disabilities (SLDs) in written language during middle childhood (grades 4-6) and early adolescence (grades 7-9). Participants then completed computerized writing instruction and posttesting. The 12 computer lessons varied output modes (letter production by stylus alternating with hunt and peck keyboarding versus by pencil with grooves alternating with touch typing on keyboard), input (read or heard source material), and task (notes or summaries). Posttesting and coded notes and summaries showed the effectiveness of computerized writing instruction on both writing tasks for multiple modes of language input and letter production output for improving letter production and related writing skills. PMID:27434553

Building A Learning Pathway: An Interactive How-to Guide to Course Design

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-08-01

paradigm, a college professor’s primary task in the classroom was to deliver instruction – literally to profess his or her knowledge of a ... Instruction -Focused Paradigm to a Learning-Focused One There have been several factors that have led the higher education community to shift toward an...conceptions of teaching. Some faculty adopt an instruction -focused approach, with a conception of teaching principally as a matter of information

Accelerated development of object permanence in Down's syndrome infants.

PubMed

Pasnak, C F; Pasnak, R

1987-01-01

Six infants with Down's syndrome, aged 3-19 months, were taught to solve object permanence problems. The instruction took place in the infants' homes and in a child development centre, and was conducted both by parents and by a child psychologist. Object permanence tasks ranging over stages 3-6 of the sensorimotor period of intelligence were utilized in the intervention, which lasted for up to 8 months. The infants were able to progress rather rapidly on these tasks. When the instruction was terminated most had mastered multiple visible displacements, which index the fifth stage of sensorimotor intelligence.

Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiate Mathematics Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Small, Marian

2009-01-01

Using differentiated instruction in the classroom can be a challenge, especially when teaching mathematics. This book cuts through the difficulties with two powerful and universal strategies that teachers can use across all math content: Open Questions and Parallel Tasks. Specific strategies and examples for grades Kindergarten - 8 are organized…

Incorporating Podcasting and Blogging into a Core Task for ESOL Teacher Candidates

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Deoksoon

2011-01-01

Due to innovation and globalization in education, educators of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) are encouraged to use such instructional technologies as podcasting and blogging, but studies on integrating these technologies into assignments are rare. This project revealed how ESOL teacher candidates implement instructional technology…

Aircrew Training Devices: Utility and Utilization of Advanced Instructional Features (Phase IV--Summary Report).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Polzella, Donald J.; And Others

Modern aircrew training devices (ATDs) are equipped with sophisticated hardware and software capabilities, known as advanced instructional features (AIFs), that permit a simulator instructor to prepare briefings, manage training, vary task difficulty/fidelity, monitor performance, and provide feedback for flight simulation training missions. The…

The Influence of Instructional Variables and Task Constraints on Handwriting Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fitzpatrick, Paula; Vander Hart, Nanho; Cortesa, Cathryn

2013-01-01

Handwriting is used throughout the school day and is important to demonstrate knowledge. This research evaluated how handwriting instructional practices and intrinsic and extrinsic factors in actual classroom settings impacted learning handwriting over the course of the school year. Findings indicated that extrinsic factors (educational…

Do Instructional Interventions Influence College Students' Critical Thinking Skills? A Meta-Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Niu, Lian; Behar-Horenstein, Linda S.; Garvan, Cyndi W.

2013-01-01

Promoting students' critical thinking skills is an important task of higher education. Colleges and universities have designed various instructional interventions to enhance students' critical thinking skills. Empirical studies have yielded inconsistent results in terms of the effects of such interventions. This meta-analysis presents a synthesis…

Rethinking the Boundaries of Cognitive Load Theory in Complex Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kalyuga, Slava; Singh, Anne-Marie

2016-01-01

In the traditional framework of cognitive load theory, it is assumed that the acquisition of domain-specific knowledge structures (or schemas) is the only instructional goal, and therefore, the theory is applicable to any instructional task. Accordingly, the basic concepts of intrinsic (productive) and extraneous (unproductive) types of cognitive…

Food Production, Management, and Services. Baking. Teacher Edition. Second Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gibson, LeRoy

These instructional materials are intended for a course on food production, management, and services involved in baking. The following introductory information is included: use of this publication; competency profile; instructional/task analysis; related academic and workplace skills list; tools, materials, and equipment list; 13 references; and a…

Computer-Assisted Instruction: Authoring Languages. ERIC Digest.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reeves, Thomas C.

One of the most perplexing tasks in producing computer-assisted instruction (CAI) is the authoring process. Authoring is generally defined as the process of turning the flowcharts, control algorithms, format sheets, and other documentation of a CAI program's design into computer code that will operationalize the simulation on the delivery system.…

Teaching Algebraic Equations to Middle School Students with Intellectual Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baker, Joshua N.; Rivera, Christopher J.; Morgan, Joseph John; Reese, Noelle

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to replicate similar instructional techniques of Jimenez, Browder, and Courtade (2008) using a single-subject multiple-probe across participants design to investigate the effects of task analytic instruction coupled with semi-concrete representations to teach linear algebraic equations to middle school students with…