Brain activity links performance in science reasoning with conceptual approach

Understanding how students learn is crucial for helping them succeed. We examined brain function in 107 undergraduate students during a task known to be challenging for many students—physics problem solving—to characterize the underlying neural mechanisms and determine how these support comprehension and proficiency. Further, we applied module analysis to response distributions, defining groups of students who answered by using similar physics conceptions, and probed for brain differences linked with different conceptual approaches. We found that integrated executive, attentional, visual motion, and default mode brain systems cooperate to achieve sequential and sustained physics-related cognition. While accuracy alone did not predict brain function, dissociable brain patterns were observed when students solved problems by using different physics conceptions, and increased success was linked to conceptual coherence. Our analyses demonstrate that episodic associations and control processes operate in tandem to support physics reasoning, offering potential insight to support student learning.

Examination of Clinical Internship Impact on Critical Thinking Utilizing the Health Science Reasoning Test

Introduction The Health Science Reasoning Test (HSRT) is a validated instrument to assess critical thinking skills and is specifically calibrated for trainees in undergraduate and graduate health science educational programs. The objective of this study was to examine the association of scores on the HSRT with clinical internship education in laboratory science students. Methods In March 2019, assessment of clinical reasoning skills by the HSRT was administered to 29 laboratory science students in the following programs: medical laboratory science and cytotechnology. As this was a pretest/posttest design, the HSRT was also administered after the completion of a 5-week clinical internship. Results Significant positive correlations were found between clinical internship education and HSRT scores. Changes in the HSRT scores occurred in overall scores and in the subdomains of deduction, evaluation, and inference after the students completed the 5-week clinical internship. Conclusion Clinical internships are an opportunity for students to develop critical thinking by participating in higher levels of learning objectives, including application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. However, the impact of clinical internships on critical thinking is unknown, and this study has shown a significant improvement in HSRT scores following student participation in a 5-week clinical internship. The HSRT was useful in measuring the association and impact of clinical internship education and critical thinking. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude clinical internships are valuable educational experiences fostering critical thinking in laboratory science students.

Brain activity links performance in science reasoning with conceptual approach

ABSTRACTUnderstanding how students learn is crucial for helping them succeed. We examined brain function in 107 undergraduate students during a task known to be challenging for many students – physics problem solving – to characterize underlying neural mechanisms and determine how these support comprehension and proficiency. Further, we applied module analysis to response distributions, defining groups of students who answered using similar physics conceptions, and probed for brain differences linked with different conceptual approaches. We found integrated executive, attentional, visual motion, and default mode brain systems cooperate to achieve sequential and sustained physics-related cognition. While accuracy alone did not predict brain function, dissociable brain patterns were observed when students solved problems using different physics conceptions, and increased success was linked to conceptual coherence. Our analyses demonstrate that episodic associations and control processes operate in tandem to support physics reasoning, offering insight into effective classroom practices to promote student success.

The Rise of Neo-Wilsonian Theory

This chapter addresses the rise of neo-Wilsonianism. The problem with neo-Wilsonianism is that it replaced the relatively amorphous thinking of liberal internationalism with a much “harder” ideology, one that gave its adherents a moral commitment to a more militant foreign policy based on social-science reasoning that represented a new argument in American liberal internationalism. Democratic peace theory, democratic transition theory, and the responsibility to protect in combination were a strong mixture, one with murderous consequences for the people in the Middle East and Southwest Asia as well as for American pretensions to hegemony in world politics. Neither human rights nor democratic government abroad was served by these imperialist adventures, nor was the national security of the United States in any way enhanced.

An Inference Rule for the Acyclicity Property of Term Algebras

Term algebras are important structures in many areas of mathematics and computer science. Reasoning about their theories in superposition-based first-order theorem provers is made difficult by the acyclicity property of terms, which is not finitely axiomatizable. We present an inference rule that extends the superposition calculus and allows reasoning about term algebras without axioms to describe the acyclicity property. We detail an indexing technique to efficiently apply this rule in problems containing a large number of clauses. Finally we experimentally evaluate an implementation of this extended calculus in the first-order theorem prover Vampire. The results show that this technique is able to find proofs for difficult problems that existing SMT solvers and first-order theorem provers are unable to solve.

Students’ Errors in Solving Science Reasoning-Domain of Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)

This research aims to identify the errors of students’ answers in solving the TIMSS cognitive domain of reasoning. This research was a qualitative descriptive research. A total 259 students from four secondary schools located in rural and urban areas in Jember, East Java participated in a paper and pencil test. Error identification was examined by reducing the result of wrong students’ answer and grouping based on error type of general errors. The results showed that the average percentage of total errors from the four schools were contradicting error of 7.3%, disregarding evidence error of 5.2%, misreading error of 45.7%, and opinion-based judgment error of 40.9%. In conclusion, there were four types of general errors made by students in answering TIMMS test item of reasoning domain with misreading and disregarding evidence as the highest and lowest error, respectively.

Understanding the Complex Relationship between Critical Thinking and Science Reasoning among Undergraduate Thesis Writers

Developing critical-thinking and scientific reasoning skills are core learning objectives of science education, but little empirical evidence exists regarding the interrelationships between these constructs. Writing effectively fosters students’ development of these constructs, and it offers a unique window into studying how they relate. In this study of undergraduate thesis writing in biology at two universities, we examine how scientific reasoning exhibited in writing (assessed using the Biology Thesis Assessment Protocol) relates to general and specific critical-thinking skills (assessed using the California Critical Thinking Skills Test), and we consider implications for instruction. We find that scientific reasoning in writing is strongly related to inference, while other aspects of science reasoning that emerge in writing (epistemological considerations, writing conventions, etc.) are not significantly related to critical-thinking skills. Science reasoning in writing is not merely a proxy for critical thinking. In linking features of students’ writing to their critical-thinking skills, this study 1) provides a bridge to prior work suggesting that engagement in science writing enhances critical thinking and 2) serves as a foundational step for subsequently determining whether instruction focused explicitly on developing critical-thinking skills (particularly inference) can actually improve students’ scientific reasoning in their writing.