scholarly journals Ravens parallel great apes in physical and social cognitive skills

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Pika ◽  
Miriam Jennifer Sima ◽  
Christian R. Blum ◽  
Esther Herrmann ◽  
Roger Mundry
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Performance ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Large Scale Assessment ◽  
The Impact

AbstractHuman children show unique cognitive skills for dealing with the social world but their cognitive performance is paralleled by great apes in many tasks dealing with the physical world. Recent studies suggested that members of a songbird family—corvids—also evolved complex cognitive skills but a detailed understanding of the full scope of their cognition was, until now, not existent. Furthermore, relatively little is known about their cognitive development. Here, we conducted the first systematic, quantitative large-scale assessment of physical and social cognitive performance of common ravens with a special focus on development. To do so, we fine-tuned one of the most comprehensive experimental test-batteries, the Primate Cognition Test Battery (PCTB), to raven features enabling also a direct, quantitative comparison with the cognitive performance of two great ape species. Full-blown cognitive skills were already present at the age of four months with subadult ravens’ cognitive performance appearing very similar to that of adult apes in tasks of physical (quantities, and causality) and social cognition (social learning, communication, and theory of mind). These unprecedented findings strengthen recent assessments of ravens’ general intelligence, and aid to the growing evidence that the lack of a specific cortical architecture does not hinder advanced cognitive skills. Difficulties in certain cognitive scales further emphasize the quest to develop comparative test batteries that tap into true species rather than human specific cognitive skills, and suggest that socialization of test individuals may play a crucial role. We conclude to pay more attention to the impact of personality on cognitive output, and a currently neglected topic in Animal Cognition—the linkage between ontogeny and cognitive performance.

Coach Developers as ‘Facilitators of Learning’ in a Large-Scale Coach Education Programme: One Actor in a Complex System

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane M. Culver ◽  
Penny Werthner ◽  
Pierre Trudel
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Education Programme ◽  
Subjective Assessment ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Coach Education ◽  
Coaching Education ◽  
Coaching Certification ◽  
The Impact

The Canadian National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) redesigned its coaching education programmes to utilise a learner-centred, problem-based approach. The purpose of this paper is to document the design, delivery, and subjective assessment of this large-scale coach education programme through the perspectives of the different actors, with a special focus on the coach developers (CDs) as an essential and important group within the coach education system. A constructivist view of learning, supported by the work of Jennifer Moon on the impact of short courses and workshops, guided this work. Part 1 of the results provides an overview of the studies conducted on the revised NCCP. Part 2 examines the perspectives of 26 CDs concerning their training and experiences delivering the redesigned NCCP. Conclusions include the importance of considering the cognitive structures of the CDs and coach learners; issues related to covering the module content versus addressing coaches’ learning needs; ensuring adequate time for questions and reflection to enable deep learning; specific training for CDs to support post-workshop learning; and the importance of taking a systems approach to coach development that considers all the actors involved in a national programme being delivered at the provincial/territorial or sport organisational level.

scholarly journals V2Karst V1.0: A parsimonious large-scale integrated vegetation-recharge model to simulate the impact of climate and land cover change in karst regions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fanny Sarrazin ◽  
Andreas Hartmann ◽  
Francesca Pianosi ◽  
Thorsten Wagener
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Groundwater Recharge ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Synthetic Data ◽  
Temporal Distribution ◽  
Soil Parameters ◽  
Large Scale Assessment ◽  
Karst Areas ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Karst aquifers are an important source of drinking water in many regions of the world. Karst areas are highly permeable and produce large amounts of groundwater recharge, while surface runoff is typically negligible. As a result, recharge in these systems may have a different sensitivity to climate and land cover changes compared to other less permeable systems. However, little effort has been directed toward assessing the impact of climate and land cover change in karst areas at large-scales. In this study, we address this gap by (1) introducing the first large-scale hydrological model including an explicit representation of both karst and land cover properties, and by (2) analysing the model's recharge production behaviour. To achieve these points, we first improve the evapotranspiration estimation of a previous large-scale karst recharge model (VarKarst). The new model (V2Karst V1.0) includes a parsimonious representation of relevant ET processes for climate and land cover change impact studies. We demonstrate the plausibility of V2Karst simulations at carbonate rock FLUXNET sites using soft rules and global sensitivity analysis. Then, we use virtual experiments with synthetic data to assess the sensitivity of simulated recharge to precipitation characteristics and land cover. Results reveal how both vegetation and soil parameters control the model behaviour, and they suggest that simulated recharge is sensitive to both precipitation (overall amount and temporal distribution) and land cover. Large-scale assessment of future karst groundwater recharge should therefore consider the combined impact of changes in land cover and precipitation properties, if it is to produce realistic projections of future change impacts.

scholarly journals Principals as Assessment Leaders in Rural Schools

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Renihan ◽  
Brian Noonan
Keyword(s):  
Rural Schools ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
School Level ◽  
System Level ◽  
Leadership Roles ◽  
Professional Interaction ◽  
Large Scale Assessment ◽  
Small Rural Schools ◽  
Professional Contexts ◽  
The Impact

This article reports a study of rural school principals’ assessment leadership roles and the impact of rural context on their work. The study involved three focus groups of principals serving small rural schools of varied size and grade configuration in three systems. Principals viewed assessment as a matter of teacher accountability and as a focus for the school professional team. They saw themselves as teachers first, stressing their importance as sources of teacher support, serving a ‘buffer role,’ ameliorating external constraints to effective assessment and learning. Bureaucratic environments and trappings of large-scale assessment were seen to be incompatible with the familial nature of rural professional contexts. Other constraints were the logistical challenges of small student populations, higher instances of multi-graded classrooms, and the absence of grade-alike professional interaction. Conversely, smallness enabled professional interaction and transformational leadership. Finally, the quality of system-level support emerged as a critical catalyst for assessment leadership at the school level.  

scholarly journals Defensible inferences from a nested sequence of logistic regressions: a guide for the perplexed

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gulsah Gurkan ◽  
Yoav Benjamini ◽  
Henry Braun
Keyword(s):  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Regression Models ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Family Background ◽  
National Income ◽  
Logistic Models ◽  
Logistic Regression Models ◽  
Logistic Regressions ◽  
The Impact

AbstractEmploying nested sequences of models is a common practice when exploring the extent to which one set of variables mediates the impact of another set. Such an analysis in the context of logistic regression models confronts two challenges: (i) direct comparisons of coefficients across models are generally biased due to the changes in scale that accompany the changes in the set of explanatory variables, (ii) conducting a large number of tests induces a problem of multiplicity that can lead to spurious findings of significance if not heeded. This article aims to illustrate a practical strategy for conducting analyses in the face of these challenges. The challenges—and how to address them—are illustrated using a subset of the findings reported by Braun (Large-scale Assess Educ 6(4):1–52, 2018. 10.1186/s40536-018-0058-x), drawn from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), an international, large-scale assessment of adults. For each country in the dataset, a nested pair of logistic regression models was fit in order to investigate the role of Educational Attainment and Cognitive Skills in mediating the impact of family background and demographic characteristics on the location of an individual’s annual income in the national income distribution. A modified version of the Karlson–Holm–Breen (KHB) method was employed to obtain an unbiased estimate of the true differences in the coefficients between nested logistic models. In order to address the issue of multiplicity, a recent generalization of the Benjamini–Hochberg (BH) False Discovery Rate (FDR)-controlling procedure to hierarchically structured hypotheses was employed and compared to two conventional methods. The differences between the changes in coefficients calculated conventionally and with the KHB adjustment varied from negligible to very substantial. When combined with the actual magnitudes of the coefficients, we concluded that the more proximal factors indeed act as strong mediators for the background factors, but less so for Age, and hardly at all for Gender. With respect to multiplicity, applying the FDR-controlling procedure yielded results very similar to those obtained by applying a standard per-comparison procedure, but quite a few more discoveries in comparison to the Bonferroni procedure. The KHB methodology illustrated here can be applied wherever there is interest in comparing nested logistic regressions. Modifications to account for probability sampling are practicable. The categorization of variables and the order of entry should be determined by substantive considerations. On the other hand, the BH procedure is perfectly general and can be implemented to address multiplicity issues in a broad range of settings.

On the Impact of the Response Options’ Position on Item Difficulty in Multiple-Choice-Items

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Bettina Hagenmüller
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Item Difficulty ◽  
Multiple Choice ◽  
Test Construction ◽  
Test Model ◽  
Group Setting ◽  
Response Options ◽  
Large Scale Assessment ◽  
Multiple Choice Item ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The multiple-choice item format is widely used in test construction and Large-Scale Assessment. So far, there has been little research on the impact of the position of the solution among the response options and the few existing results are even inconsistent. Since it would be an easy way to create parallel items for group setting by altering the response options, the influence of the response options’ position on item difficulty should be examined. The Linear Logistic Test Model ( Fischer, 1972 ) was used to analyze the data of 829 students aged 8–20 years, who worked on general knowledge items. It was found that the position of the solution among the response options has an influence on item difficulty. Items are easiest when the solution is in first place and more difficult when the solution is placed in a middle position or at the end of the set of response options.

scholarly journals Teaching with the Test: Experimental Evidence on Diagnostic Feedback and Capacity Building for Public Schools in Argentina

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael de Hoyos ◽  
Alejandro J Ganimian ◽  
Peter A Holland
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Capacity Building ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Feedback Group ◽  
Large Scale Assessment ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Diagnostic Feedback ◽  
Assessment Results

Abstract This article examines the impact of two strategies for using large-scale assessment results to improve school management and classroom instruction in the province of La Rioja, Argentina. In the study, 104 public primary schools were randomly assigned to three groups: a diagnostic-feedback group, in which standardized tests were administered at baseline and two follow-ups and results were made available to schools; a capacity-building group, in which workshops and school visits were conducted; and a control group, in which tests were administered at the second follow-up. After two years, diagnostic-feedback schools outperformed control schools by 0.33 standard deviations (σ) in mathematics and 0.36σ in reading. In fact, feedback schools still performed 0.26σ better in math and 0.22σ better in reading in the national assessment a year after the end of the intervention. Additionally, principals at feedback schools were more likely to use assessment results in making management decisions, and students were more likely to report that their teachers used more instructional strategies and to rate their teachers more favorably. Combining feedback with capacity building does not seem to yield additional improvements, but this could be due to schools assigned to receive both components starting from lower learning levels and participating in fewer workshops and visits than expected.

Teacher Decision Making in Participation of Students with Disabilities in Large-Scale Assessment

2001 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lizanne Destefano ◽  
James G. Shriner ◽  
Claire A. Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
High Confidence ◽  
Large Scale Assessment ◽  
Teacher Decision Making ◽  
Scale Assessment ◽  
Instructional Needs ◽  
Teacher's Knowledge ◽  
The Impact

This article reports on the findings of a study to test the effectiveness of an intervention with teachers and administrators to improve decision making regarding participation and accommodation for students with disabilities in large-scale assessments. Using a pretest/posttest, multiple measures design involving more than 80 teachers, the study assessed the impact of training on teacher's knowledge and confidence about participation and accommodation, accommodation decisions for hypothetical students, and actual accommodation decisions the following year. Results indicate that after training, there was a stronger relationship among participation/accommodation, curriculum, and instructional needs. Teachers expressed high confidence in their ability to make accommodation decisions after training.

scholarly journals Pervasive Smart Spaces and Environments: A Service-Oriented Middleware Architecture for Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 725190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel S. Familiar ◽  
José F. Martínez ◽  
Lourdes López
Keyword(s):  
Sensor Networks ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Smart Spaces ◽  
Dynamic Composition ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Service Oriented ◽  
The Impact

In the twenty-first century, the impact of wireless and ubiquitous technologies is changing the way people perceive and interact with the physical world. These communication paradigms promise to change and redefine, in a reasonably short period of time, the most common way of our everyday living. The continuous advances in the field of Wireless Sensor Networks and their direct application in Smart Spaces are clear examples of it. However, in order for this kind of new generation infrastructures to have a large-scale dissemination, there are still some open issues to tackle. In this way, this paper presents nSOM, a service-oriented framework based on sensor network design that provides internetworking services with the Internet cloud. This lightweight middleware architecture implements an agent-based virtual sensor service approach which is a compact semantic knowledge management scheme based on a dynamic composition model.

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