Browsing by Subject "Learning"

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Addressing the social nature of how students learn and teachers teach : promoting healthy socioemotional development and academic success in the classroom
(2009-08) Ice, Charlotte Lee; Schallert, Diane L.; Svinicki, Marilla
This report will illustrate the positive and negative aspects of the social nature of learning through a review of sociocultural related research. In consideration of the billion dollar issues associated with the current state of students’ mental health, and the poor educational experiences of low income students, it seems the current focus on academic achievement in isolation, isn’t working. Socioemotional elements underlie the cognitive processes involved in all higher levels of thinking and problems solving. From a sociocultural perspective, for optimal learning to occur, teachers and students must establish positive affective relationships. Through greater understanding of effective teaching practices that consider the socioemotional elements involved learning, and universal interventions promoting positive child and youth development, schools can promote children’s social and emotional wellbeing while simultaneously improving academic achievement.
Can We Dissociate Contingency Learning from Social Learning in Word Acquisition by 24-Month-Olds?
(Public Library of Science, 2012-11-21) Bannard, Colin; Tomasello, Michael
We compared 24-month-old children’s learning when their exposure to words came either in an interactive (coupled) context or in a nonsocial (decoupled) context. We measured the children’s learning with two different methods: one in which they were asked to point to the referent for the experimenter, and the other a preferential looking task in which they were encouraged to look to the referent. In the pointing test, children chose the correct referents for words encountered in the coupled condition but not in the decoupled condition. In the looking time test, however, they looked to the targets regardless of condition. We explore the explanations for this and propose that the different response measures are reflecting two different kinds of learning.
Causality : from learning to generative models
(2018-09-13) Kocaoglu, Murat; Dimakis, Alexandros G.; Vishwanath, Sriram; Shakkottai, Sanjay; Caramanis, Constantine; Bareinboim, Elias
Causality is a fundamental concept in multiple disciplines. Causal questions arise in fields ranging from medical research to engineering, philosophy to physics. The last few decades have witnessed the development of a mathematical model of probabilistic causation by Judea Pearl and many others. In this modeling framework, directed acyclic graphs arise as natural objects to capture causal relations between random variables. The directed acyclic graph that captures the causal relations between variables is called the causal graph of the system. A fundamental problem is to learn the causal graph over a set of observed variables. In this thesis, we propose new algorithms for learning causal graphs in various settings: 1) First, we consider the setting where the observational data is available, but we are not allowed to perform new experiments without any unobserved common causes in Chapter 2, and with an unobserved common cause in Chapter 3 on two discrete/categorical variables. 2) Second, we consider the scenario where we are allowed to perform experiments, but these experiments have a cost associated with them and our goal is to minimize this cost for learning the causal graph in Chapter 4, and when there are unobserved common causes and we want to minimize the number of experiments to learn both the causal graph on the observed variables and the location of latents in Chapter 5. After the causal graph is learned, the next problem is to fit a functional model that can sample from the causal model. 3) Third, in Chapter 6 we suggest the use of neural networks, specifically generative adversarial networks for learning the causal model when the causal graph is known without latent variables.
Central office data use : a focus on district and school goals
(2009-05) Moll, Kerry Ann; Wayman, Jeffrey C.
This study examined the data use of central office administrators working in the Curriculum and Instruction Department of a school district. The purpose of this work was to broaden the knowledge base of data use and of the integral role the central office plays in the district-wide use of data to improve teaching and learning. Two research questions guided the study: (a) How do central office personnel involved in curriculum and instruction use data to support district goals of improved student achievement, and (b) how do central office personnel involved in curriculum and instruction use data to support campus goals of improved student achievement? A qualitative and quantitative data collection process with a single-case study approach included focus groups, individual interviews, and a survey instrument. The data from these components were coded, analyzed, and translated into themes and findings using a 9-step constant-comparative process. This process provided rich description and a comprehensive evaluation of findings to answer the research questions. Findings regarding the use of data within the department of curriculum and instruction at the central office revealed that administrators most often took on the role of data provider. The central office provided reports both to campuses and to comply with federal and state regulations and funding requirements; provided professional development to principals, teachers, and instructional specialists; provided information about student achievement to parents and the greater community; and encouraged the use of data and highlighted the value of data use to inform instructional choices. Further analysis of the data revealed barriers that inhibit the systemic use of data and the ability of school districts to become truly data informed: lack of a common vision for data use, creation of data silos that reduce the ability to collaborate and make cooperative data-based decisions, too much data for consideration, and fragmented implementation of the goal-setting process. These findings contribute to the current literature by demonstrating the importance of the central office in data use. In conclusion, what central office administrators do with data matters, and how the central office uses data to support teacher and principal quality is critical in a district focused on improving teaching and student learning.
Civic engagement in a mobile landscape : testing the roles of duration and frequency in learning from news
(2015-08) Molyneux, Logan Ken; Poindexter, Paula Maurie
Consuming the news is often seen as preparing a person to participate in a democracy by giving them the information they need to make choices and provide input. This relationship has varied depending on the ways in which news is delivered, with different news platforms delivering different results in terms of learning from the news. As society changes and people's news consumption habits shift toward mobile, it is necessary to re-examine this relationship in a mobile age. This dissertation conducts surveys of two samples of U.S. adults one year apart in order to examine civic engagement in a mobile news landscape. Study 1, given to a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults in 2014, tests the Mobile News Dependency Model. The model predicts that reliance on mobile devices for news consumption will lead people to consume news in shorter, inattentive sessions, which should have detrimental effects on news knowledge and therefore civic engagement. Study 2, given in 2015 to a different sample of U.S. adults, refines the tests conducted in Study 1 using updated measures to identify those who snack on the news and compare them with those who get news in larger portions. Results show that news sessions on smartphone are indeed shorter than on other platforms, and that smartphone news use is associated with snacking on the news. But those who get news from smartphones are not significantly less knowledgeable and are in fact slightly more civically engaged than those who do not. Links between smartphone news use and short sessions or snacking are supported, but the overall Mobile News Dependency Model is not supported. The overall relationship between mobile news use and civic engagement appears to take a different path than the one specified. Finally, results show that most people consume news on multiple platforms, perhaps normalizing the effects of any one platform on knowledge. Implications for news consumers, news producers, and democracy in a mobile age are discussed.
Complex systems as lenses on learning and teaching
(2007) Hurford, Andrew Charles; Stroup, Walter M.
From metaphors to mathematized models, the complexity sciences are changing the ways disciplines view their worlds, and ideas borrowed from complexity are increasingly being used to structure conversations and guide research on teaching and learning. The purpose of this corpus of research is to further those conversations and to extend complex systems ideas, theories, and modeling to curricula and to research on learning and teaching. A review of the literatures of learning and of complexity science and a discussion of the intersections between those disciplines are provided. The work reported represents an evolving model of learning qua complex system and that evolution is the result of iterative cycles of design research. One of the signatures of complex systems is the presence of scale invariance and this line of research furnishes empirical evidence of scale invariant behaviors in the activity of learners engaged in participatory simulations. The offered discussion of possible causes for these behaviors and chaotic phase transitions in human learning favors real-time optimization of decision-making as the means for producing such behaviors. Beyond theoretical development and modeling, this work includes the development of teaching activities intended to introduce pre-service mathematics and science teachers to complex systems. While some of the learning goals for this activity focused on the introduction of complex systems as a content area, we also used complex systems to frame perspectives on learning. Results of scoring rubrics and interview responses from students illustrate attributes of the proposed model of complex systems learning and also how these preservice teachers made sense of the ideas. Correlations between established theories of learning and a complex adaptive systems model of learning are established and made explicit, and a means for using complex systems ideas for designing instruction is offered. It is a fundamental assumption of this research and researcher that complex systems ideas and understandings can be appropriated from more complexity-developed disciplines and put to use modeling and building increasingly productive understandings of learning and teaching.
Confusion as an emotional metacognitive experience : students’ voices making sense of confusion during learning
(2021-12-08) Zengilowski, Allison Nicole; Schallert, Diane L.; Muenks, Katherine M; Yan, Veronica X; Jordan, Michelle E
Confusion is a frequent and important experience accompanying the learning process, characterized as both affective and cognitive, and especially prevalent during complex learning. Although research has highlighted confusion’s affective processes and its connection to learning outcomes, students’ lived experiences, what they think about confusion, and what impacts their responses to their experience of confusion have been largely overlooked. Guiding questions for the two studies comprising this project focused on what learners decided to do when confused and what factors played a role in determining the path they took when experiencing confusion. Qualitative methodologies rooted in grounded theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) were used in these investigations. Focus group sessions were conducted in Study 1 (n = 27), with students expressing that confusion was a negative experience but useful for learning. Sources of confusion were cognitive (prior knowledge), affective (relational/emotional status), and contextual (classroom factors), and students recognized their confusion either when initially comprehending or when applying new knowledge. Students relied on themselves and others to resolve confusion, or they ignored it, temporarily or permanently. Factors influencing how students responded to confusion included prior experiences, course goals, and personal/cultural identities. Study 2 examined students’ experiences of confusion in online learning environments, incorporating classroom observations and stimulated recall interviews with 19 participants. Findings from this study were used to create a process model of confusion, illustrating how once students recognize confusion, they choose to address or ignore it. If addressing, learners may move to interim unresolved confusion, and either move to ignore or circle back to addressing the confusion. Addressing confusion leads to one possibility, that the confusion is resolved. Alternatively, if learners ignore confusion, they could do so temporarily, choosing to address it later, or permanently ignore it, resulting in terminal unresolved confusion. Factors impacting students’ decision processes before and while they address or ignore confusion were personal, environmental, and resource related. This research develops an understanding of how students conceptualize confusion and the processes they engage in when confused. By centering students’ voices and highlighting their perceptions and experiences of confusion, the study provides useful insights for researchers as they bolster the theoretical foundations of how to conceptualize confusion and of the ways it can be resolved. Additionally, the study may be useful for practitioners to help them identify appropriate ways to support learners as they move through confusion.
Control, learning, and innovation : a syncretic approach
(2010-05) Romo de Vivar y Sandoval, Carmen Alejandra; Browning, Larry D.
This research focuses on understanding the processes involved in successful innovation---a topic that has appeared in a large body of research, but no conclusive trend has emerged about it. For this reason, I chose a different lens in order to gain a more panoramic view of the events leading up to an innovation. In particular, this research utilized a methodology and ontology that set it apart from previous work. In previous research control/exploitation and learning/exploration are either presented as two categorically separate concepts or as continuum that runs between them. This research supports the idea that innovation operates on a continuum but does not support the idea that it only occurs when the pendulum settles toward the learning/exploration side. Instead, the data shows that innovation could indeed occur at any point along the learning/exploration side of the continuum and even at the central point where learning/exploration and control/exploitation weigh evenly. To conceptualize this middle point, I term this a "syncretism" of two normally opposing forces to account for a significant portion of the interview data.
Does motivation moderate the effectiveness of retrieval as a learning intervention
(2013-05) Clark, Daniel Allen; Svinicki, Marilla D., 1946-; Robinson, Daniel H.
The effects of using retrieval as a study method have been found to occur across many contexts, such as in classrooms, with different age groups, and for non-verbal materials (Rohrer & Pashler, 2010). Even though researchers have suggested that this intervention be implemented on a widespread basis, studies to date have not investigated how the important variable of motivation could have an effect on retrieval as a learning intervention. This experiment investigated whether motivational variables would moderate the effect that retrieval has on learning. In this study, retrieval, extrinsic incentives, and intrinsic motivation positively affected performance. Causality orientations did not have an impact on performance or moderate the effect of the incentives. However, none of the included motivational variables moderated the effect of retrieval on learning. These results suggest that retrieval as a learning intervention is equally effective across different motivational conditions.
Early career experience and optimism spillover
(2012-05) Law, Kai Fung; Starks, Laura T; Clement, Michael B; Han, Bing; Kumar, Alok; Sialm, Clemens
Using a long panel on employment history, I exploit a novel setting to examine if sell-side analysts carry over their early career experience into their future professional careers. I find that analysts' early mentorship experience has a long-lasting impact on their professional styles. Analysts are more optimistic if they work with optimistic mentors in their first jobs as junior analysts: they issue more strong buy recommendations and upgrade jumps, and they are also more optimistic in earnings forecasts and price targets. While it is easy to pick up their mentors' styles, I show that it is apparently harder for them to learn their mentors' skills, as indicated by the lack of spillover in forecast accuracy. Only talented superstar mentors can unwind this pattern, passing their skills and reputation to their proteges. The market—especially sophisticated institutional investors—is smart in identifying the apprentices of optimistic mentors as short-run market reactions to their forecast revisions are weaker. Collectively, these results have important implications for financial economists and regulators (on a new source of optimism), for analyst profession (on talent management and portability), and for market participants (on information dissemination and optimism debias).
The effects of emotion on dissociable learning systems across the lifespan
(2014-08) Gorlick, Marissa Ann; Maddox, W. Todd
Contemporary cognitive theory recognizes several dissociable learning systems that are critical in understanding different patterns of performance. Rule Based learning is mediated predominantly by the frontal lobe and is available to conscious control. Here executive function and working memory develop verbalizable rules guided by corrective feedback. Procedural learning is based on integrating non-verbal information from multiple sources and is predominantly mediated by the striatum. Here habitual stimulus-response associations develop using corrective feedback. Perceptual Representation learning is based on passive familiarity predominantly mediated by the visual cortex. Here learning is not guided by on conscious evaluations or feedback. Age-related deficits in learning have been well documented, however dissociable learning systems approaches demonstrated the greatest declines occur in feedback-driven learning. In the face of declines, older adults maintain several well-persevered aspects of cognition. For example, older adults sometimes show enhanced processing of positive emotionally arousing stimuli, but this positivity bias reverses when cognitive control resources are limited becoming a negativity bias. Unlike previous work that explores emotional stimuli directly, the goal of Chapters 1 and 2 is to use emotional feedback to improve learning outcomes. In addition, older adults have a performance advantage over younger adults in perceptual representation learning in the absence of feedback. This suggests that the processes that underlie this mode of learning are relatively intact, however it is unclear what these processes are and how they contribute to performance. The dissociable memory systems that underlie rule based and perceptual representation learning demonstrate asymmetric age-related declines that may be driving these differences. Chapter 3 explores age-related changes processes during learning. Chapter 3 also highlights a younger adult deficit in perceptual representation learning. Generating rules depends on narrow attention to features, and perceptual representations depend on broad attention to the whole stimulus. Task-irrelevant emotional primes influence the scope of attention where negative arousal narrows and positive arousal broadens, which likely affects rule based and perceptual representation learning systems differently. Chapter 4 explores how task-irrelevant emotional primes influence attention and interact with learning system to enhance performance in younger adults.
Effects of using presentation formats that accommodate the learner's multiple intelligences on the learning of freshman college chemistry concepts
(2004-12) Brown Wright, Gloria Aileen; Lagowski, J. J.
Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences identifies linguistic, spatial and logical-mathematical intelligences as necessary for learning in the physical sciences. He has identified nine intelligences which all persons possess to varying degrees, and says that learning is most effective when learners receive information in formats that correspond to their intelligence strengths. This research investigated the importance of the multiple intelligences of students in first-year college chemistry to the learning of chemistry concepts. At three pre-selected intervals during the first-semester course each participant received a tutorial on a chemistry topic, each time in a format corresponding to a different one of the three intelligences, just before the concept was introduced by the class lecturer. At the end of the experiment all subjects had experienced each of the three topics once and each format once, after which they were administered a validated instrument to measure their relative strengths in these three intelligences. The difference between a pre- and post-tutorial quiz administered on each occasion was used as a measure of learning. Most subjects were found to have similar strengths in the three intelligences and to benefit from the tutorials regardless of format. Where a difference in the extent of benefit occurred the difference was related to the chemistry concept. Data which indicate that students' preferences support these findings are also included and recommendations for extending this research to other intelligences are made.
Emission-line properties of active galactic nuclei and an experiment in integrated, guided-inquiry science classes and implications for teaching astronomy
(2012-08) Ludwig, Randi Renae; Kopp, Sacha; Robinson, Edward Lewis, 1945-; Hemenway, Mary Kay; Prather, Edward; Shields, Gregory; Wills, Derek
This dissertation examines two broad topics -- emission line properties of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and the effect of hands-on, integrated science courses on student understanding of astronomy. To investigate trends in overall properties of emission lines in AGN, we apply principal component analysis (PCA) to the fluxes in the H [beta] - (O III) region of a sample of 9046 spectroscopically-identified broad-line AGN from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 5 with a redshift range of 0.1 < z < 0.56. After performing independent spectral PCA on subsets defined effectively by their (O III) equivalent width (EW), we find only the weakest (O III) objects retain the optical Fe II - (O III) anticorrelation and the correlation of EW[subscript O III] with H [beta] linewidth that have previously been found in high-luminosity AGN. The objects with strongest EW[subscript O III] do not differ from the entire data set significantly in other spectral and derived properties, such as luminosity, redshift, emission line shapes, Eddington ratio, continuum slope, and radio properties. However, our findings are consistent with previous suggestions that (O III) emission is primarily a function of covering factor of the narrow-line region. To investigate the other side of the Fe II - (O III) anticorrelation, we examine the effect of changes in the gas-phase abundance of Fe on observed variation in Fe II. Using AGN spectra from the SDSS in the redshift range of 0.2 < z < 0.35, we measure the Fe/Ne abundance of the narrow-line region (NLR) using the (Fe VII)/(Ne V) line intensity ratio. We find no significant difference in the abundance of Fe relative to Ne in the NLR as a function of Fe II/H [beta]. However, the (N II)/(S II) ratio increases by a factor of 2 with increasing Fe II strength. This indicates a trend in N/S abundance ratio, and by implication in the overall metallicity of the NLR gas, with increasing Fe II strength. We propose that the wide range of Fe II strength in AGN largely results from the selective depletion of Fe into grains in the low ionization portion of the broad-line region. We utilize photoionization models to show that the strength of the optical Fe II lines varies almost linearly with gas-phase Fe abundance, while the ultraviolet Fe II strength varies more weakly, as seen observationally. After examining the emission line properties of large samples of fairly typical AGN, we investigated the newly expanded regime of low-mass AGN (M[subscript BH] [less than or approximately equal to] 10⁶ M[subscript sun]) with respect to their emission line properties at a smaller scale. We utilize the high spectral resolution and small aperture of our Keck data of 27 low-mass AGN, taken with the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager, to isolate the NLRs of these low-mass black holes. Some of these low-luminosity objects plausibly represent examples of the low-metallicity AGN described by Groves et al. (2006), based on their (N II)/H[alpha] ratios and their consistency with the Kewley & Ellison (2008) mass-metallicity relation. We also find that these low-mass AGN have steeper UV continuum slopes than more-massive AGN based on their He II/H[beta] ratio. Overall, NLR emission lines in these low-mass AGN exhibit trends similar to those seen in AGN with higher-mass BHs, such as increasing blueshifts and broadening with increasing ionization potential. Additionally, we see evidence of an intermediate line region whose intensity correlates with L/L[subscript Edd] in these objects, as seen in higher-mass AGN. We highlight the interesting trend that, at least in these low-mass BHs, the (O III) EW is highest in symmetric NLR lines with no blue wing. This trend of increasing (O III) EW with line symmetry could be explained by a high covering factor of lower ionization gas in the NLR. We also investigate effective methods for teaching astronomy and connections between astronomical topics in student learning and understanding. After developing the curriculum for a hands-on, learner-centered astronomy course (Hands-on-Science, hereafter HoS) aimed at pre-service elementary teachers, we measure student performance in HoS compared to traditional, large lecture courses (hereafter Astro101). We utilize distractor-driven multiple choice assessments in order to quantitatively assess student understanding and evaluate the persistence or correction of common misconceptions in astronomy. We find that for the topics included in the HoS curriculum, HoS students have a higher average post-test score, and higher normalized gains, than the Astro101 students. We cannot pinpoint the exact cause of this student achievement because of the multitude of nontraditional practices incorporated into the HoS implementation. Increased time-on-task, a classroom environment structured around student discussion, or focus on conceptual understanding could each be key factors in the high achievement of HoS students. We conclude that the HoS students are better prepared in astronomy for their future careers as elementary school teachers by HoS courses than they would have been in traditional, introductory astronomy courses. When we compare directly between topics covered in both HoS and Astro101, we find that HoS students have normalized gains that are a factor of 2-4 higher than those of Astro101 students. Therefore, we conclude that curricula similar to the HoS approach would benefit Astro101 students as well, particularly for topics which are most impacted by the HoS method, such as Moon phases and seasons. Lastly, a PCA of the changes in HoS student scores reveals that there is very little systematic student variation apart from the trends apparent in the mean changes in the sample. Thus, we do not find groupings of questions that some subsets of students systematically learn more readily than others. Another way to interpret this result is that the HoS curriculum and methodology indiscriminately help all kinds of pre-service elementary teachers, despite presumptive differences in their own learning styles and strengths.
Essays in empirical macroeconomics
(2022-06-15) Kim, Gwangmin; Coibion, Olivier; Eusepi, Stefano; Bhattarai, Saroj; Glover, Andy
This dissertation is going to empirically study household inflation expectations and inflation. Inflation expectations and inflation play a central role in economic dynamics. For example, when households expect future price increases, households will try to purchase goods now than later at higher prices which is eventually going to push prices even higher. Chapter 1 contributes to the literature on inflation expectations by showing a channel that can significantly bias the central banks' aggregate inflation expectations measures. This chapter is joint work with Carola Binder. We show that when inflation expectations surveys rely on repeat survey participants, survey participation itself may affect future responses. Because the central bank's survey asks about future prices and inflation, it prompts information acquisition between survey waves for survey respondents. These "Learning-through-Survey" effects are particularly large for household inflation expectations. For example, after participating twelve consecutive times in the SCE, respondents end up with a 2.6 percentage point lower inflation forecast and 34% lower inflation uncertainty on average than in the first interview, with most of the decline happening in the first two months of participation. Consequently, repeat participants may be more informed, and not be representative of the broader population of the economy. Chapter 2 estimates three components of household inflation expectations of the SCE using a dynamic factor model: Common, Learning, and Long-run factor. Using the estimated common inflation expectation factor shared by all survey participants, I recover the household inflation expectations less the learning effect of the SCE without discarding repeat survey participants' data which could have been wasteful otherwise. It successfully corrects for the bias due to the learning effects of repeat survey participants and is significantly less noisy than the raw data. In addition, the estimated learning factor and long-run factor of inflation expectations suggest that inflation expectations of households are largely influenced by news coverage on inflation and oil prices. Finally, Chapter 3 studies the product life cycle effects on prices and inflation inequality in the U.S. The annual inflation rate of lower-income households has been higher than that of higher-income households in general, a finding termed in extensive literature as "inflation inequality." Using barcode-level retail sales data and household spending data in the U.S, I show that the product life cycle channel can account for a significant portion of this inflation inequality among households. The prices of new products are initially high but steadily decrease after then as it goes out of fashion. Because rich households tend to be early adopters preferring new goods to old goods, those rich early adopters experience a sharp price decrease or lower inflation than poor late-adopters who buy goods when the price decreasing phase has stopped or got less steep.
Essays on experimentation in agency models
(2019-05-01) Sun, Yiman; Bhaskar, V. (Venkataraman); Thomas, Caroline, (Caroline Désirée); Wiseman, Thomas E.; Hatfield, John W.
This dissertation consists of three chapters in microeconomic theory with a focus on dynamic games and learning. It has applications in political economy, contracts, and industrial organization. In the first chapter, I study censorship in a dynamic game between an informed agent and an uninformed evaluator. Two types of public news are informative about the agents ability -- a conclusive good news process and a bad news process. However, the agent can censor bad news, at some cost, and will censor it if and only if this secures her a significant increase in tenure. Thus, the evaluator faces a bandit problem with an endogenous news process. When bad news is conclusive, the agent always censors when the public belief is sufficiently high, but below a threshold, she either stops censoring or only censors with some probability, depending on the information structure. The possibility of censorship hurts the evaluator and the good agent, and it may also hurt the bad agent. However, when bad news is inconclusive, I show that the good agent censors bad news more aggressively than the bad agent does. This improves the quality of information, and may benefit all players -- the evaluator, the bad agent, and the good agent. The second chapter examines the nature of contracts that optimally reward innovations in a risky environment, when the innovator is privately informed about the quality of her innovation and must engage an agent to develop it. I model the innovator as a principal who has private but imperfect information about the quality of her project: the project might be worth exploring or not, but even a project of high quality may fail. I characterize the best equilibrium for the high type principal, which is either a separating equilibrium or a pooling one. Due to the interaction between the signaling incentives of the principal and dynamic moral hazard of the agent, the best equilibrium induces inefficiently early termination of the high quality project. The high type principal is forced to share the surplus – with the agent in the separating equilibrium, or the low type principal in the pooling equilibrium. A mediator, who offers a menu of contracts and keeps the agent uncertain about which contract will be implemented, can increase the payoff of the high type principal to approximate her full information surplus. In the third chapter, I study how competition between platforms affects the process of social learning. Especially, how product differentiation affects that process. Che and Hörner (2018) show that a monopolistic platform may want to over-recommend consumers in the early phase to gather and learn information for the sake of future consumers. I show that when platforms do not differentiate their products, duopoly competition dramatically reduces the early experimentation, and the Full Transparency policy is the unique equilibrium strategy for both platforms. When platforms differentiate their products, I show that the equilibrium strategy is in between the Full Transparency policy and the optimal policy in the monopolistic case, and depends on how differentiated the products are
Evidence for children’s use of social cues to determine credibility in early 2-year-olds
(2009-05) Krogh-Jespersen, Sheila Ann; Echols, Catharine H.
Children’s confidence in their own knowledge and their understanding of other’s intentions may influence their willingness to learn novel information from others. Two studies investigated whether 24-month-old children take into account these different sources of information when learning novel labels. In Study 1, children interacted with a speaker who referred to familiar objects in either a knowledgeable (e.g., the speaker confidently stated, “I know what that is”) or an ignorant manner (e.g., the speaker doubtfully stated, “I don’t know what that is.”). The previously knowledgeable or ignorant speaker then provided a novel label for either a novel or a familiar object. Children were less willing to apply a novel label to a familiar object from a speaker who previously had expressed ignorance than one who previously had expressed confidence in his/her knowledge of object labels. In contrast, when objects were novel, children were equally willing to learn a novel label regardless of the level of knowledge portrayed by the speaker. In Study 2, children interacted with a speaker who provided either accurate or inaccurate labels for familiar objects in a manner that expressed uncertainty about the information being offered (e.g., “I think that’s a …”). Children’s willingness to accept second labels for familiar objects was examined. Children were equally likely to learn the novel label for a familiar object from the accurate and the inaccurate speaker. In contrast to past findings which present differences in willingness to learn from accurate and inaccurate speakers, children in this study may have taken into account the speaker’s lack of confidence when deciding whether to accept or reject the novel information being provided. Young children are not naïve observers accepting novel label information from any source. They attend to cues about the speaker’s level of knowledge by 24 months. They also are capable of comparing their knowledge with the information being presented by an adult speaker and deciding whether to rely on their own knowledge or accept the information being provided. Both reliability cues from the speaker and children’s prior knowledge influence their willingness to learn novel information.
Facebook use in college students : facing the learning motivation of young adults
(2012-08) Huang, Chu-Jen; Schallert, Diane L.; Falbo, Toni
This study explored college students’ perceptions of Facebook, focusing on their views of Facebook as an informal learning environment, how the features of Facebook motivate students’ learning, and the relationship between motivation and interest triggered when using Facebook. Participants were surveyed via an online survey program in order to examine whether their perceptions and experiences with Facebook (Madge, Wellens, & Hooley, 2009) and how the features of Facebook motivated users’ learning. This study provides evidence to support the idea that interest and motivated actions on Facebook are related. For example, students mostly read (click) posts that are related to things they are learning and therefore they are mostly self-motivated to reply to posts in which they are interested. In addition, in support of the four-phase model of interest development (Hidi & Renninger, 2006), students’ positive feelings, which is interest, plays a crucial role in developing individual interest which leads to self-regulated learning.
Facilitating Memory for Novel Characters by Reducing Neural Repetition Suppression in the Left Fusiform Cortex
(Public Library of Science, 2010-10-06) Xue, Gui; Mei, Leilei; Chen, Chuansheng; Lu, Zhong-Lin; Poldrack, Russell A.; Dong, Qi
Background -- The left midfusiform and adjacent regions have been implicated in processing and memorizing familiar words, yet its role in memorizing novel characters has not been well understood. Methodology/Principal Findings -- Using functional MRI, the present study examined the hypothesis that the left midfusiform is also involved in memorizing novel characters and spaced learning could enhance the memory by enhancing the left midfusiform activity during learning. Nineteen native Chinese readers were scanned while memorizing the visual form of 120 Korean characters that were novel to the subjects. Each character was repeated four times during learning. Repetition suppression was manipulated by using two different repetition schedules: massed learning and spaced learning, pseudo-randomly mixed within the same scanning session. Under the massed learning condition, the four repetitions were consecutive (with a jittered inter-repetition interval to improve the design efficiency). Under the spaced learning condition, the four repetitions were interleaved with a minimal inter-repetition lag of 6 stimuli. Spaced learning significantly improved participants' performance during the recognition memory test administered one hour after the scan. Stronger left midfusiform and inferior temporal gyrus activities during learning (summed across four repetitions) were associated with better memory of the characters, based on both within- and cross-subjects analyses. Compared to massed learning, spaced learning significantly reduced neural repetition suppression and increased the overall activities in these regions, which were associated with better memory for novel characters. Conclusions/Significance -- These results demonstrated a strong link between cortical activity in the left midfusiform and memory for novel characters, and thus challenge the visual word form area (VWFA) hypothesis. Our results also shed light on the neural mechanisms of the spacing effect in memorizing novel characters.
How classroom learning experiences of young Latinx children from immigrant families shape their beliefs about learning
(2019-02-14) McManus, Molly Ellen; Suizzo, Marie-Anne; Adair, Jennifer Keys; Awad, Germine H.; Ainslie, Ricardo C.
This study uses Rogoff (2003) and Moje & Lewis’ (2007) interpretations and application of Sociocultural Learning Theory to consider the relationship between the classroom learning experiences offered to young Latinx children from immigrant families and their beliefs about learning. Using qualitative methods informed by multivocal video-cued ethnography (Tobin, Wu & Davidson, 1989) and grounded theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2008), I conducted and analyzed three ethnographic classroom observations of children’s learning experiences and video-cued interviews with thirty first grade students and their teachers about their beliefs about learning. Findings characterize children’s beliefs about learning across six domains including processes of learning, environmental factors that influence learning, social aspects of learning, enjoyment and learning, the importance of learning, and behavior and learning, and consider the similarities and differences in learning beliefs across three classrooms that offer three different types of learning experiences. Finally, the relationship between Latinx children’s beliefs about learning and classroom learning experiences is discussed with a focus family and cultural influence, ideas of classroom management and control, and the role of schools.
How differences in interactions affect learning and development of design expertise in the context of biomedical engineering design
(2009-05) Svihla, Vanessa; Petrosino, Anthony J. (Anthony Joseph), 1961-
Authentic design commonly involves teams of designers collaborating on ill-structured problems over extended time periods. Nonetheless, design has been studied extensively in sequestered settings, limiting our understanding of design as process and especially of learning design process. This study addresses potential shortcomings of such studies by examining in-situ student team design. The participants of this study are three cohorts of a year-long capstone biomedical engineering design class at The University of Texas. Pilot research demonstrated advantages of a more authentic redesign task over a kit-based design task; students who chose devices to redesign were significantly better at representing perspective taking associated with customers' needs. Pilot research showed that there was no relationship between Early Efficiency (appropriate use of factual and conceptual knowledge) and Final Innovation of design products. I triangulated various methods for studying design: Qualitative research, Hierarchical Linear Modeling, and Social Network Analysis, the latter of which allowed me to generate team-level statistics of interaction (Cohesion), once I devised a practical method to account for missing data in a weighted network. Final Efficiency is a function of Early Innovation, early and late Cohesion, and team feasibility (factual and practical knowledge). Final Innovation is a function of Early Innovation, late Cohesion, and team Voice of the Customer (perspective-taking), with all relationships in both models positive. Measures of both design skills and interaction are required to explain variance in these outcomes. Narratives of team negotiation of design impasses --seemingly insurmountable barriers-- provide deeper understanding of relationships between design process and products. The case study teams spent a large percentage of their time engaged in problem scoping, but framed as engineering science rather than as engineering design. Only when they began prototyping did they transition towards being solution focused and frame the problem as engineering design. This left little time for iteration of the final design. Variance in timing of iteration may account for slight deviations of the case study teams from the statistical model. Recommendations include earlier opportunities to design and support for team collaboration. Social network analysis is recommended when learning is interactional and to support triangulation.