Computerized Dynamic Assessment as a Potential Inclusive Assessment Tool for Reading Comprehension

The dynamic assessment concept dates back to the sociocultural understating of Vygotsky. Dynamic assessment is a new perspective that combines instruction and assessment procedures while assessing students. In a more recent perspective, computerized dynamic assessment provides electronic mediations to the students when the wrong answer emerges. In this regard, C-DA offers an inclusive way of assessment. This study aims to investigate the effect of C-DA on the reading comprehension performances of the students. To achieve this goal, the C-DA application was implemented for 92 participants, and their performances were recorded. After the implementation, the actual, mediated, and learner potential scores of participants were calculated and then tabulated to the SPSS program. Wilcoxon signed-rank and descriptive analysis were used to analyze the results. The findings of the Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between the actual and mediated scores of students.

Teaching Vocabulary Using Semantic Mapping Technique

The aim of this research is to find out the effectiveness of Semantic Mapping technique in teaching vocabulary. Therefore, the hypothesis in this research is the student who are taught by Semantic Mapping technique achieve better than before. The design used in this research is the Pre-Experiment Design. It also has several forms such as a One-Shot Case Research, One-Group Pretest-Posttest Design, One-Group Pretest and Posttest Design also Intact-Group Comparison. One-group pretest and posttest for this research, it means there will be a pretest before giving treatment to the sample and posttest after ending the treatment. In collecting data, Pre-test and Post-test are employed. The tests are multiple choices and complete the sentences. It consists of twenty questions. The right answer will be get 1 point and for the wrong answer is zero (0). The result of this research in pretest that the highest score was 16, the lower score was 9, the median was 13,00, the mode was 14 mean was 12,90, standard deviation was 1,863, range was 7 and total score of pre-test is 387. The posttest was the highest score was 20, the lower score was 14, the median was 17,00, the mode was 16 mean was 17,07, standard deviation was 1,388, range was 6 and total score of post-test is 512. The conclusion is drawn by analyzing the average scores of pretest and posttest by using t-test formula; Sig value is 0,000 < 0,05 it means that alternative hypothesis (HA) is accepted.

Merging Discrete Morse Vector Fields: A Case of Stubborn Geometric Parallelization

We address the basic question in discrete Morse theory of combining discrete gradient fields that are partially defined on subsets of the given complex. This is a well-posed question when the discrete gradient field V is generated using a fixed algorithm which has a local nature. One example is ProcessLowerStars, a widely used algorithm for computing persistent homology associated to a grey-scale image in 2D or 3D. While the algorithm for V may be inherently local, being computed within stars of vertices and so embarrassingly parallelizable, in practical use, it is natural to want to distribute the computation over patches Pi, apply the chosen algorithm to compute the fields Vi associated to each patch, and then assemble the ambient field V from these. Simply merging the fields from the patches, even when that makes sense, gives a wrong answer. We develop both very general merging procedures and leaner versions designed for specific, easy-to-arrange covering patterns.

‘There is no right or wrong answer’: Swedish preschool teachers’ reflections on the didactics of death

This study is part of a larger project with the general aim of developing the ability of preschool teachers to reflect critically on questions, topics and theories related to different understandings of death(s). The article is based on three focus-group interviews with a focus on how preschool teachers reflect on what, how, why and when they teach about death and death-related issues. The results show that preschool teachers consider that it is important in early childhood education to teach about death because death is a fundamental aspect of life in daily reality, and they consider it to be their task to comfort a child in grief, as well as care for the well-being of the group. However, much of the time, they avoid teaching about biological death relative to concrete goals that the children are to achieve in understanding what death implies. Instead, they use child-responsive, improvisational teaching that is intended to calm and comfort the children. The content of the teaching arises at the intersection of expert knowledge in talking about death as an irreversible outcome of natural processes and the preschool teachers’ own beliefs and ideas about death, dying and an afterlife. As a consequence, the biological conceptions of death coexist with the teachers’ own beliefs in an afterlife, reflecting a dualistic thinking within which culturally constructed beliefs coexist with biological views.

On the Risks of Using the Sequential Product-Level SSNIP Approach to Identify Relevant Antitrust Markets‡

In a recent influential paper Coate et al. (2021) have criticized the sequential product-level approach to market definition in merger review. They argue that a simultaneous market-level approach to critical loss is more appropriate than a product-level critical loss analysis, because under certain plausible demand scenarios (nonlinear demand functions) the latter could yield the wrong answer on market definition—i.e., excessively broad or narrow markets. We extend their analysis by showing that a sequential product-level approach actually leads to an excessively narrow market definition when the typical nonlinear demand functions used in merger analysis are employed.

Infodemic surrounding COVID-19: Can LIS students recognize and categorize “problematic information” types on social media?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate Library and Information Science (LIS) students’ understanding of infodemic and related terminologies and their ability to categorize COVID-19-related problematic information types using examples from social media platforms. Design/methodology/approach The participants of this study were LIS students from a public-funded university located at the south coast of Bangladesh. An online survey was conducted which, in addition to demographic and study information, asked students to identify the correct definition of infodemic and related terminologies and to categorize the COVID-related problematic social media posts based on their inherent problem characteristics. The correct answer for each definition and task question was assigned a score of “1”, whereas the wrong answer was coded as “0”. The percentages of correctness score for total and each category of definition and task-specific questions were computed. The independent sample t-test and ANOVA were run to examine the differences in total and category-specific scores between student groups. Findings The findings revealed that students’ knowledge concerning the definition of infodemic and related terminologies and the categorization of COVID-19-related problematic social media posts was poor. There was no significant difference in correctness scores between student groups in terms of gender, age and study levels. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time an effort was made to understand LIS students’ recognition and classification of problematic information. The findings can assist LIS departments in revising and improving the existing information literacy curriculum for students.

Assessment of the Knowledge of CT Scanner Operators on the Use of Dose Reduction Software Called Automatic Exposure Control (AEC) During a CT Scan

Objectif : Evaluate the knowledge of medical imaging technicians on the use of dose reduction software and the concept of patient radiation protection.Materials and methods : Descriptive and analytical transversal study from January 1 to December 1, 2020, conducted in the radiology and medical imaging services of Cameroon's public and private hospitals with a CT scanner. It was the first study on this topic that was conducted in Cameroon. This study was conducted from a questionnaire distributed to all medical imaging technicians in 10 country hospitals relating to the notions of dose reduction software and patient radiation protection.Results: 80 questionnaires were distributed and analyzed. The average age of medical imaging technicians was 30 years old. There were 32 women and 48 men. Most of the medical imaging technicians worked in private centers (n = 6). 75% of medical imaging technicians had been in practice for more than 5 years. 75% of medical imaging technicians gave the wrong answer regarding the use of dose reduction software. Finally, only a third of the practitioners had received training in patient radiation protection.Conclusion : Although the majority of medical imaging technicians declares to take into account the dangers related to ionizing radiation during examinations, a broader dissemination of patient radiation protection training and the use of dose reduction software, particularly during the initial curriculum. Radiology technicians could be one of the solutions to improve the knowledge of hospital practitioners in patient radiation protection. However, the use of ionizing radiation, however, need to know and take into account the potential risks of radio-induced cancer linked to high X-ray doses.

Validating Financial Knowledge Scale Using Item Response Theory

It is important to have knowledge about financial products and services to make rational financial decisions. Financial knowledge is a wider term and hence difficult to measure. The previous studies have used various methods and instruments to measure it. But there is a need of comprehensive and validated instrument to measure the financial knowledge. In this study, an attempt has been made to measure financial knowledge using a scale consisting of multiple-choice questions on basic and specific financial knowledge related with banking products and services. Each correct answer has been scored ‘1’ and each wrong answer has been scored ‘0’. This dichotomous scale has been validated using Item Response Theory. The theory focuses on the appropriateness of the questions (items) included in the scale with respect to difficulty and discriminability. The results reveal that the overall instrument fulfils both the criteria. The test consisting of twenty-two items is reliable as well as valid with the discrimination index having all positive values ranging from 0.23 to 1.96 and the difficulty index ranging from –5.66 to 0.90. The purpose of this article is to encourage the usage of validated scales for the measurement of financial knowledge and discourage the perplexity in the field of financial knowledge and financial literacy.

Traffic Sign Recognition Evaluation for Senior Adults Using EEG Signals

Elderly people are not likely to recognize road signs due to low cognitive ability and presbyopia. In our study, three shapes of traffic symbols (circles, squares, and triangles) which are most commonly used in road driving were used to evaluate the elderly drivers’ recognition. When traffic signs are randomly shown in HUD (head-up display), subjects compare them with the symbol displayed outside of the vehicle. In this test, we conducted a Go/Nogo test and determined the differences in ERP (event-related potential) data between correct and incorrect answers of EEG signals. As a result, the wrong answer rate for the elderly was 1.5 times higher than for the youths. All generation groups had a delay of 20–30 ms of P300 with incorrect answers. In order to achieve clearer differentiation, ERP data were modeled with unsupervised machine learning and supervised deep learning. The young group’s correct/incorrect data were classified well using unsupervised machine learning with no pre-processing, but the elderly group’s data were not. On the other hand, the elderly group’s data were classified with a high accuracy of 75% using supervised deep learning with simple signal processing. Our results can be used as a basis for the implementation of a personalized safe driving system for the elderly.

The Difficulties Facing Of The Mechanic Otomotif (Mo) Student At Smk Yapim Kabanjahe Using Participle In Sentences

This study deals with the student’s difficulties in using participle in sentences. The purposes of the study were to find out whether or not the students found difficulties in using participle in sentence and to find out the type of difficulties they faced.The population of the study was the 2020/2021 of the Mechanic Otomotif (MO) students at SMK YAPIM Kabanjahe. In this sampling, all the population has equal chance to be selected for the sample. The total numbers of samples was 30 students. The instrument used to collect the data was multiple choice test. This research was conducted by applying the descriptive quantitative design. The reliability of the test is counted by using KR21 formula. The formula testing result showed that the reliability of the test was 0,89, it means that the test was very good. The finding showed that the students found some difficulties in using participle, they were : Present Participle (8,67 %), Past Participle (9,34 %) and Perfect Participle (9,33 %). Perfect Participle was regarded as the most difficult type for them, especially in using it after certain verbs and in replacing relative pronoun, and then followed Past Participle by especially in using in it replacing relative pronoun and after certain verb. And the last was Present Participle. The percentage of each difficulty was taken by dividing the wrong answer to the total correct answer of the test.