Spindle cell (Kaposiform) hemangioendothelioma with Kasabach-Merritt syndrome in an infant: successful treatment with alpha-2A interferon

Typically, the primary instructional method for ambulatory care education is direct interaction between a preceptor and a learner during a patient encounter. This paper describes instructional strategies teachers and learners can use in ambulatory care training that can occur before or after scheduled clinic hours, thus providing instruction without disrupting a preceptor's busy clinic. First, they describe how preceptors and clerkship or residency-program directors can orient learners prior to their arrival at assigned sites, so that learners are better prepared to assume their patient-care responsibilities. Then they discuss strategies for making use of various types of conferences and independent learning activities to enhance learners' clinical experiences. Conferences and independent study projects that occur before clinic hours can help learners bring a higher level of thinking and clinical sophistication to their role in the ambulatory care site; conferences and independent study activities that occur after clinic hours give learners an opportunity to reinforce and expand on what they have learned during clinic. In this way, learners' educational experiences are enhanced, the best use is made of preceptors' time and expertise, and clinic efficiency is not disrupted.     

Reflected Appraisals, Academic Self-Perceptions, and Math/Science Performance During Early Adolescence.

The authors tested a model of the relations among adolescents' perceptions of parents', teachers', and classmates' support for, valuing of, and beliefs about their competence in math/science; adolescents' own academic self-perceptions concerning math/science; and their academic performance. The sample included 378 middle school students; 65% were Latino, and 21% were European American. Reflected appraisals of adults' beliefs concerning both the importance of and students' competence in math/science, as well as perceived support, predicted students' own self-perceived importance, competence, scholastic behavior, and performance in these courses. Latino students reported lower mean levels of perceived competence than did European American students (controlling for maternal education). Findings have important implications for understanding achievement socialization in ethnically diverse populations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Level of analysis in the perception of ongoing instruction: An exploratory study.

The level of perceptual analysis at which learners operate during ongoing instruction is suggested to be a variable mediating the effects of instructional variables on learner outcomes. Several instructional variables were manipulated to determine whether they influence the level of perceptual analyses; Ss were 184 undergraduates. Unitization instructions, lesson difficulty, teacher effectiveness, and teacher order were found to influence perceptual analysis significantly. The relationships of perceptual analysis to concept learning and to evaluations of the instructors were also examined. Partial support was obtained for the hypotheses that finer levels of perceptual analysis are associated with more favorable instructor evaluations and with concept learning. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contract learning, clinical learning and clinicians

Current trends in education and training emphasise that learners, whether they are school children, students or adults, need to acquire generic skills and personal characteristics which will enable them to become independent self-directed learners. This will enable them to continue the process of learning throughout their lives. Recent recommendations for the reform of undergraduate medical education, for training of hospital doctors and general practitioners, and the higher profile now being given to continuing medical education, reflect the strength of this particular educational current sweeping through all levels of medical education. Learning contracts, developed through negotiation between a teacher and a learner, are especially effective educational tools for stimulating independent learning. This paper examines the theoretical basis of contract-learning and its relevance to clinical settings.     

Teaching and Learning: The Critical Balance in Effective Education

This lecture addresses the balance between teaching and learning and explores the notion that “we teach too much and our students learn too little.” Research in the areas of teaching and learning, in addition to personal experience in construction education, are used to show how appropriate teaching styles and a learner centered approach can be combined to improve learning and reinforce the belief that the true goal of education should be to produce self-motivated, independent lifelong learners. Data from an informal study of student perceptions are presented to show that much is achieved when faculty make it possible for students to be independent active learners and accept responsibility for their own learning.     

Activities, self-referent memory beliefs, and cognitive performance: Evidence for direct and mediated relations.

In this study, the authors investigated the role of activities and self-referent memory beliefs for cognitive performance in a life-span sample. A factor analysis identified 8 activity factors, including Developmental Activities, Experiential Activities, Social Activities, Physical Activities, Technology Use, Watching Television, Games, and Crafts. A second-order general activity factor was significantly related to a general factor of cognitive function as defined by ability tests. Structural regression models suggested that prediction of cognition by activity level was partially mediated by memory beliefs, controlling for age, education, health, and depressive affect. Models adding paths from general and specific activities to aspects of crystallized intelligence suggested additional unique predictive effects for some activities. In alternative models, nonsignificant effects of beliefs on activities were detected when cognition predicted both variables, consistent with the hypothesis that beliefs derive from monitoring cognition and have no influence on activity patterns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Instructional treatments, presenter types, and learner characteristics as significant variants in instructional television for adults.

Assessed the effectiveness for adults of several instructional TV segments. Treatments included (a) active and passive learner participation, (b) a presenter acting in an instructional vignette, and (c) content structure explicitly and implicitly displayed. The 3 treatments were replicated by professional actors, and in each treatment a 2 * 3 factorial design was employed to assess treatment effects and interaction effects between talents and instructional formats. A multivariate analysis was made of data from 334 Ss obtained by a consumer research firm. Results support the following research hypotheses: (a) Some instructional techniques would be more effective than others; (b) learners would react differently to different talent types; and (c) learner characteristics are related to attitudinal and achievement outcomes. Implications for planners of open-learning TV lessons for adults are discussed. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Power to the people: Using learner control to improve trainee reactions and learning in web-based instructional environments.

This experimental study investigated the mechanisms by which learner control influences learning in an e-learning environment. The authors hypothesized that learner control would enhance learning indirectly through its effect on trainee reactions and learner engagement (in particular, off-task attention), such that learners who were more satisfied with the training and devoted more cognitive resources toward the instructional content versus off-task thoughts would possess greater posttraining knowledge. The study also examined the role of individual differences (training motivation and goal orientation) in the prediction of these 2 mediating variables. A sample of 274 undergraduates completed an e-learning program, either with or without interactive, learner control tools. Results suggest that both training satisfaction and off-task attention predicted subsequent learning. Learner control had a positive impact on training satisfaction but was not related to off-task attention. The individual difference variables had a differential impact on the mediating variables. In particular, performance orientation was linked to off-task attention, whereas mastery orientation was found to indirectly influence satisfaction via its direct effect on training motivation. Implications for the design and further study of e-learning are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of interests and competency beliefs in Italian adolescents: An exploration of circumplex structure and bidirectional relationships.

In a cross-national replication and extension of prior research with American students, Italian middle and high school students completed measures of interests and competency beliefs relative to a variety of school- and nonschool-related activities. Both interests and competency beliefs tended to show greater adherence to circumplex Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional (known as RIASEC) structure with increasing age, but this tendency was more pronounced in female than in male students. Interests and competency beliefs were moderately stable over a 1-year interval, with relatively small percentages of participants exhibiting clinically large changes on either variable. Good support was found for a bidirectional model of interest-competency belief relationships in both male and female students. Implications for further efforts to understand how interests and competency beliefs develop over time and across cultures are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's action-control beliefs and emotional regulation in the social domain.

In a short-term longitudinal study of 314 U.S. military-dependent children (Grades 2-6) in Berlin, Germany, we examined whether children's coping strategies mediate the relations between their action-control beliefs and anxiety. The results provided only limited support for a mediational hypothesis. At both times of measurement, self-related agency beliefs related to (a) increased prosocial coping, (b) reduced antisocial coping, and (c) reduced anxiety. Prosocial coping was not uniquely related to anxiety. However, antisocial coping did partially mediate the relations between children's action-control beliefs and anxiety over time. Consistent with previous literature, boys reported using antisocial coping more than did girls, and younger children reported using primary control coping strategies more than did older children. Results are discussed in terms of lifespan differences in the development of coping strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beliefs about affirmative action: A test of the group self-interest and racism beliefs models.

Two models of affirmative action attitudes (i.e., group self-interest and racism beliefs) were examined among a sample of racially diverse college students. Open-ended questions were included to provide students an opportunity to elaborate on their beliefs about affirmative action and beliefs about the existence of racial discrimination. Findings from logistic regression analysis on a subsample (n = 376) provide support for both models; race (a proxy for group self-interest) and racism beliefs (as measured by the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale [CoBRAS] and an the open-ended question) helped predict endorsement of affirmative action in theoretically expected ways. Asian, Latino, and Black students were more likely to view affirmative action as helpful compared to their White counterparts, and limited awareness of institutional racism (i.e., higher CoBRAS scores) was associated with antiaffirmative action arguments. Follow-up analysis, however, provided support for the superiority of the racism beliefs model as measured by the CoBRAS in predicting affirmative action beliefs over the group-interest model. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interferon-alpha in the idiopathic hypereosinophilic syndrome: consideration of five cases

A consortially developed continuing education series for rural nurses was implemented using videoconferencing technology. This article provides an overview of distance education technologies, the history and goals of the demonstration project at Edinboro University, and the coordination activities and instructional issues faced by the faculty. Participants became acquainted with distance education technology as they developed a process for program development, delivery, evaluation, and for awarding continuing education credits. The project was well received by instructors and students and testified to previous findings in the literature that distance education is a viable delivery system in terms of a teaching tool, learner satisfaction, and cost effectiveness.     

A model of mastery motivation for at-risk preschoolers.

The authors empirically tested a theoretical model of mastery motivation with 169 4-year-old African American at-risk children and their parents. The authors hypothesized that (a) parent characteristics (exogenous variables of education, income, and global self-efficacy) would predict parenting beliefs and parent-child relationships, (b) parenting beliefs and parent-child relationships would predict children's mastery, and (c) children's mastery would predict academic gains from pretest to posttest. The results showed that parents' education predicted parenting beliefs, parents' global self-efficacy predicted parenting beliefs and parent-child relationships, parenting beliefs predicted parent-child relationships, parent-child relationships predicted children's mastery, and children's mastery predicted children's performance on achievement tests controlling for pretest differences. This research provides support for the contention that motivational patterns develop early as a function of family variables and have the potential to influence academic success. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multiagent reinforcement learning in the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma

Reinforcement learning (RL) is based on the idea that the tendency to produce an action should be strengthened (reinforced) if it produces favorable results, and weakened if it produces unfavorable results. Q-learning is a recent RL algorithm that does not need a model of its environment and can be used on-line. Therefore, it is well suited for use in repeated games against an unknown opponent. Most RL research has been confined to single-agent settings or to multiagent settings where the agents have totally positively correlated payoffs (team problems) or totally negatively correlated payoffs (zero-sum games). This paper is an empirical study of reinforcement learning in the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (IPD), where the agents' payoffs are neither totally positively nor totally negatively correlated. RL is considerably more difficult in such a domain. This paper investigates the ability of a variety of Q-learning agents to play the IPD game against an unknown opponent. In some experiments, the opponent is the fixed strategy Tit-For-Tat, while in others it is another Q-learner. All the Q-learners learned to play optimally against Tit-For-Tat. Playing against another learner was more difficult because the adaptation of the other learner created a non-stationary environment, and because the other learner was not endowed with any a priori knowledge about the IPD game such as a policy designed to encourage cooperation. The learners that were studied varied along three dimensions: the length of history they received as context, the type of memory they employed (lookup tables based on restricted history windows or recurrent neural networks that can theoretically store features from arbitrarily deep in the past), and the exploration schedule they followed. Although all the learners faced difficulties when playing against other learners, agents with longer history windows, lookup table memories, and longer exploration schedules fared best in the IPD games.     

Measuring Knowledge to Optimize Cognitive Load Factors During Instruction.

The expertise reversal effect occurs when a learning procedure that is effective for novices becomes ineffective for more knowledgeable learners. The authors consider how to match instructional presentations to levels of learner knowledge. Experiments 1-2 were designed to develop a schema-based rapid method of measuring learners' knowledge in a specific area. Experimental data using algebra and geometry materials for students in Grades 9-10 indicated a highly significant correlation (up to .92) between performance on the rapid measure and traditional measures of knowledge, with test times reduced by factors of 4.9 and 2.5, respectively. Experiments 3-4 used this method to monitor learners' cognitive performance to determine which instructional design should be used for given levels of expertise. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rational emotive behavior therapy versus cognitive therapy versus pharmacotherapy in the treatment of major depressive disorder: Mechanisms of change analysis.

Cognitive-behavioral psychotherapies (CBT) are among the first-line interventions for major depressive disorder (MDD), and a significant number of studies indicate their efficacy in the treatment of this disorder. However, differential effects of various forms of CBT have seldom been analyzed in the same experimental design. On the basis of data collected in a randomized clinical trial comparing the efficacy of rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT), cognitive therapy (CT), and pharmacotherapy (SSRI) in the treatment of MDD, the present article investigates the theory of change advanced by REBT and CT. Measures included to test the two theories of change assess three classes of cognitions: (a) automatic thoughts, (b) dysfunctional attitudes, and (c) irrational beliefs. The results indicate that REBT and CT (and also pharmacotherapy) indiscriminately affect the three classes of cognitions. On the long term (follow-up), a change in implicit demandingness seems more strongly associated with reduced depression and relapse prevention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When learning is just a click away: Does simple user interaction foster deeper understanding of multimedia messages?

In 2 experiments, students received 2 presentations of a narrated animation that explained how lightning forms followed by retention and transfer tests. In Experiment 1, learners who were allowed to exercise control over the pace of the narrated animation before a second presentation of the same material at normal speed (part–whole presentation) performed better on transfer but not retention tests compared with learners who received the same 2 presentations in the reverse order (whole–part presentation). In Experiment 2, learners who were allowed to exercise control over the pace of the narrated animation across 2 presentations (part–part presentation) performed better on transfer but not retention tests compared with learners who received the same 2 presentations at normal speed without any learner control (whole–whole presentation). These results are consistent with cognitive load theory and a 2-stage theory of mental model construction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When less is more in cognitive diagnosis: A rapid online method for diagnosing learner task-specific expertise.

Rapid cognitive diagnosis allows measuring current levels of learner domain-specific knowledge in online learning environments. Such measures are required for individualizing instructional support in real time, as students progress through a learning session. This article describes 2 experiments designed to validate a rapid online diagnostic method that was inspired by experimental procedures applied in classical cognitive studies of chess expertise. With the described rapid verification method, learners are required to rapidly verify suggested steps at various stages of a problem solution procedure. In this study involving 33 university students, a high degree of correlation was found between rapid testing scores and results of in-depth cognitive diagnosis based on observations of problem-solving steps using video recordings and concurrent verbal reports in the domains of kinematics (vector addition motion problems) and mathematics (transforming graphs of linear and quadratic functions). The article discusses possible applications of the suggested method in adaptive learning environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learner control versus program control as adaptive strategies for selection of instructional support on math rules.

124 undergraduates completed a self-paced lesson on math rules in which a number of supporting examples was adapted to pretest scores through program control, selected through learner control, or kept constant (nonadaptive). In a 4th treatment, the nonadaptive program was presented through lecture. On immediate and delayed tests of achievement, program control means were consistently highest while learner control means were lowest. Nonadaptive support and lecture treatments produced comparable, middle-range outcomes. Interaction patterns suggested increasing advantages of program control over learner control both across retention intervals and as subject-entry ability decreased. Results support the achievement–treatment interaction framework while elucidating possible advantages of program controlled adaptation for applied individualization models, such as the Keller Plan. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)