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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Empathy in Written Feedback to Graduate Students
No full textEmpathy can play an essential role in improving formative feedback for learning in higher education. Formative feedback refers to "information provided by an agent (e.g., teacher, peer, book, parent, self, experience) regarding aspects of one's performance or understanding" (Hattie & Timperley, 2007, p. 81). It has been identified in the research of assessment as a useful tool that enhances student learning. However, a number of factors must be born in mind, like feedback quantity, quality, timing, linguistic style and empathy, as these can affect how feedback is perceived by students. A plethora of studies have investigated feedback quantity, quality, and timing. However, little attention has been given to both feedback linguistic style and empathy. This research in the Educational domain seeks to remedy particular significant omissions in formative assessment literature in two areas: 1) Linguistic style by using "register theory", which refers to field, tenor, and mode of discourse (e.g. Halliday, McIntosh, & Strevens, 1964) in Systemic Functional Linguistics to highlight the inadequately captured relationship between language structure and language function (Halliday, 1985) in connection with formative feedback, and 2) Empathy by using the three types of empathy: "cognitive", "affective", and "compassionate empathy" (Ekman, 2003) to highlight the missing role of empathy in connection with formative feedback. In the current study, field expressed through ideational meanings, tenor expressed through interpersonal meanings, and mode expressed through textual meanings are examined in relation to how empathy is reflected in written feedback provided to graduate students and how that written feedback is perceived by those students. A sample of seven students from a Faculty of Education is examined. The systemic coder (O'Donnell, 2023) is applied on participants' collected data. Results show that the linguistic style of a professor is found to affect students' perceived empathy of written feedback for learning provided on their assignments. The use of the ideational meanings of material processes, mental processes, verbal processes, nominalised imperfective clauses, verbal classifiers, derived verbal nouns, non-human participants, passive voice, and circumstances; the interpersonal meanings of declarative statements, yes/no questions, wh-questions, modalization (usuality), modulation (inclination) and vocatives (second person); the textual meanings of interpersonal Theme, textual Theme, lexical density, continuity, conjunction, cohesion and emphasis, clause complex, expansion (elaborating) and expansion (extending); and the appraisal meanings of positive force, positive focus, positive judgment, positive appreciation, positive emotion, proclamation, entertainment and attribution in written feedback provided to students are all found to help students perceive feedback as empathic. Thus, professors are suggested to increase the use of these language aspects when providing feedback to students. The reason is because of the hidden positive meanings these aspects can add to the feedback provided. This feedback is more likely to be perceived by students as reflecting empathy. However, the use of the ideational meanings of behavioural processes, existential processes, relational processes, underived verbal nouns, nominalised adjectives, abstractions, human participants, missing participants and active voice; the interpersonal meanings of imperative statements, not-full questions, modalization (probability), modulation (obligation), personal pronouns and vocatives (third person); the textual meanings of topical Theme, structural textual adjuncts, no cohesion, ranking clauses and grammatical intricacy; and the appraisal meanings of negative force, negative focus, negative judgment, negative appreciation, negative emotion and disclaim in written feedback to students are found to help student perceive feedback as reflecting no empathy. Hence, professors are advised to decrease the use of these aspects when providing feedback. This is because of the hidden negative and unintended meanings these aspects can add to the feedback provided. Additionally, results show that students perceive feedback as empathic when it cognitively meets student needs, affectively respects student feelings, and compassionately provides actions or solutions for improvement. Likewise, empathic feedback is found to result from healthy relationships among participants, professors and students in this case. These relationships could help participants build teamwork and enrich their experiences in learning. Besides, empathic feedback is found to be detailed and customized to the point in hand. Moreover, empathic feedback is found to be the responsibility of professors as they are feedback providers. Professors are recommended to accept that responsibility and overcome any potential barriers like class size and/or technology that may prevent them from providing empathic feedback. Failing to provide students with empathic feedback is found to reflect negative consequences on students. These consequences can confuse and overwhelm students and it can drive them to make unhealthy decisions, which may prevent them from succeeding in a learning episode. Decision-makers are also requested to help professors by reducing the number of accepted students in each class and the number of tasks required for each learning episode. Similarly, professors are advised to understand their students by building healthy communications with them. Lastly, professors are recommended to keep training themselves and to seize any opportunity that may improve their skills on how to provide empathic feedback
Language Register in Written Feedback to Graduate Students
No full textAbstract\ud
Effective feedback, as an integral part of formative assessment, has been identified as a powerful tool that enhances learning. However, “Effectiveness” has been perceived differently by students due to at least four factors: 1. Quantity, 2. Quality, 3. Timing, and 4. Language used in feedback provided. Much research has been conducted on the first three factors, but language needs to be thoroughly investigated. This research in the sector of Education attempts to rectify certain important omissions in the literature of formative assessment in the area of language by using “register theory” in Systemic Functional Linguistics. With ‘register’ simply defined as field, tenor, and mode of discourse (e.g. Halliday, McIntosh, & Strevens, 1964), the not adequately captured relationship between language structure and language function, is to be re-visited (Halliday, 1985) in connection with educative feedback. In this study, field expressed through ideational meanings, tenor expressed through interpersonal meanings, and mode expressed through textual meanings are investigated in connection to how linguistic style affects the perceived effectiveness of written feedback provided to students. A small sample of graduate students from a Faculty of Education is examined. The systemic coder (O’Donnell, 2002) is employed on collected assignments from participants. Results show that the linguistic style of a professor is found to affect the perceived effectiveness of written feedback provided to students on their assignments. The use of the ideational meanings of material process, non-human participants, passive voice, and nominalization; the interpersonal meanings of declarative statements, interrogative statements, and modality; in addition to the textual meanings of lexical density, cohesion, textual adjuncts, and emphasis are all found to help students perceive feedback as effective. Therefore; professors are requested to increase the use of these language aspects when providing feedback because of the hidden positive meanings these aspects can add to the feedback provided. However, the use of the ideational meanings of behavioral process, relational process, and active voice; the interpersonal meanings of imperative statements, personal pronouns, and evaluative words; and the textual meanings of grammatical intricacy are found to result in students perceiving feedback as ineffective. As a result, professors are requested to decrease the use of these language aspects when providing feedback because of the hidden negative and unwanted meanings these aspects can add to the feedback provided. Results also illustrate that students perceive feedback as effective when this feedback leads to at least one of the following scenarios: improving student grades, protecting student self-esteem, having a good relation with feedback provider, and/or enhancing student learning. Ineffective feedback is found to have negative consequences on students. Decision-makers are requested to reduce the number of students as well as the tasks required in each class. They are also advised to professionally develop professors with training workshops on how to provide feedback
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Effect of Formative Feedback via Interactive Concept Maps on Informal Inferential Reasoning and Conceptual Understanding of ANOVA
No full textThis study assessed the knowledge structure of undergraduate participants related to previously determined critical concepts of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) by using Pathfinder networks. Three domain experts’ knowledge structures regarding the same concepts were also elicited and averaged to create a referent knowledge structure. The referent knowledge structure served as a basis for formative feedback. Then, each participant’s knowledge structure was compared with the referent structure to identify common, missing, and extraneous links between the two networks. Each participant was provided with individualized written and visual, and multi-media feedback through an online Concept Mapping tool based on the principals of formative assessment and feedback in an attempt to increase their conceptual knowledge of ANOVA.
The study was conducted with 67 undergraduate participants from a mid-size university in the United States. Participants completed two data collection tools related to the critical concepts of ANOVA. Later, three different types of feedback around the critical concepts were given to participants in three stages. First, each participant was given visual feedback as a result of the comparison between their own knowledge structures and the referent knowledge structure to highlight similarities and differences between the two. Then, participants were provided with individualized written and multi-media feedback to emphasize conceptual understanding behind ANOVA procedures. This procedure was followed by the re-assessment of participants’ reasoning ability related to ANOVA and knowledge structures related to critical concepts to measure the effect of the intervention.
Results suggest that participants both in control and intervention groups had the same level of statistics experience and anxiety before this study indicating that randomization of participants into two different groups was successful. Moreover, women participants reported a statistically significant higher level of statistics anxiety than men, however, it seems that this small difference did not limit their ability to perform required statistical tasks. Further, findings revealed that participants’ conceptual knowledge related to critical concepts of ANOVA increased significantly after the individualized feedback. However, the increase in the conceptual understanding did not help participants to transform this knowledge into more formal understanding related to procedures underlying ANOVA. Moreover, even though, previous similar studies suggest that participants are consistent in using a single strategy for making inferential reasoning across datasets, in the present study, qualitative data analysis revealed that statistics learners demonstrate diverse patterns of inferential reasoning strategies when they were provided with different size of datasets each with varying amount of variability. As a result, findings support the use of an extended framework for describing and measuring the development of participants’ reasoning ability regarding consideration of variation in statistics education
Exploring the Mobile Structural Assessment Tool: Concept Maps for Learning Website
Get PDFIn this paper, we describe how the pathfinder algorithm converts relatedness ratings of concept pairs to concept maps; we also present how this algorithm has been used to develop the Concept Maps for Learning website (www.conceptmapsforlearning.com) based on the principles of effective formative assessment. The pathfinder networks, one of the network representation tools, claim to help more students memorize and recall the relations between concepts than spatial representation tools (such as Multi- Dimensional Scaling). Therefore, the pathfinder networks have been used in various studies on knowledge structures, including identifying students’ misconceptions. To accomplish this, each student’s knowledge map and the expert knowledge map are compared via the pathfinder software, and the differences between these maps are highlighted. After misconceptions are identified, the pathfinder software fails to provide any feedback on these misconceptions. To overcome this weakness, we have been developing a mobile-based concept mapping tool providing visual, textual and remedial feedback (ex. videos, website links and applets) on the concept relations. This information is then placed on the expert concept map, but not on the student’s concept map. Additionally, students are asked to note what they understand from given feedback, and given the opportunity to revise their knowledge maps after receiving various types of feedback.En este artículo se describe cómo el algoritmo de búsqueda de ruta convierte puntajes de conceptos pareados en mapas conceptuales. También se presenta cómo este algoritmo ha sido utilizado para desarrollar estos mapas conceptuales para aprendizaje (www.conceptmapsforlearning.com) basados en los principios del aseguramiento formativo efectivo. Las redes de búsqueda de ruta, una de las herramientas de representación de redes, ayudan a memorizar a los estudiantes y enunciar las relaciones entre mapas más que las herramientas de expresión espacial (tales como el escalonamiento multidimensional). Por tanto, las redes de búsqueda de rutas han sido usadas en varios estudios de estructura del conocimiento incluyendo la identificación de malos conceptos usados por los estudiantes. Para lograr esto, cada mapa de conocimiento tanto del estudiante como del experto son comparados vía el software de búsqueda de ruta y se remarcan las diferencias entre éstos. Después que los malos conceptos son identificados, el software de búsqueda falla en entregar una retroalimentación en estos nodos conceptuales. Para superar esta debilidad, se desarrolla una herramienta de mapa conceptual móvil que manda retroalimentaciones visuales, textuales y remediales (e.g. vídeos, enlaces a páginas web y applets) en las relaciones de los conceptos. Adicionalmente, los estudiantes son preguntados acerca de qué entienden de la retroalimentación brindada y se les da la oportunidad de revisar sus mapas de conocimiento después de recibir varios tipos de retroalimentación
Comparing the Effect of Reflections, Written Exercises, and Multimedia Instruction to Address Learners’ Misconceptions Using Structural Assessment of Knowledge
No full textThe study assessed the knowledge structure of Grade 11 physics students and their instructors using Pathfinder networks. Instructors’ structural knowledge was averaged to create a referent pathfinder network. Each student’s pathfinder network was compared with the referent pathfinder network in order to identify misconceptions. These misconceptions served as the basis for remedial instruction. The study was conducted in six sections of Grade 11. Three different types of remedial instruction based on three different chapters from the Grade 11 physics textbook were given to the students at three separate stages. In the first section, students were shown their own and referent pathfinder networks as an intervention during the first stage. The students were asked to reflect on the similarities and differences between them. The researcher gave written concept-oriented exercises based on the differences at the second stage, and multimedia concept-oriented instruction based on the differences was given to the students at the third stage. The order of instruction was counterbalanced in all the six sections. After each stage, students’ pathfinder networks were reassessed and the similarities between students’ and the referent pathfinder networks were calculated to measure the effect of a particular intervention. The study tried to determine which type of remedial instruction given to students best improved the knowledge structure of the students in the domain of physics. Results revealed that the similarity indices around the treatment concepts in the pathfinder networks of the students increased the most from pre- to post-intervention phase because of their reflections, followed by multimedia concept-oriented instruction and written concept-oriented exercises. Most likely, the major reason for this change was the interventions around the treatment concepts by the researcher at three different stages which stimulated and probably changed some of students’ misconceptions. To address the issue of validity, the similarity indices of control concepts in the students’ pathfinder networks were also checked for improvement. The result shows that there is no appreciable improvement in control concepts as there was no intervention around those concepts. Findings support the use of structural assessment of knowledge with pathfinder scaling technique to check the effectiveness of a classroom instruction
Does Work Experience Using Technology for College and University Nursing Students Influence the Nursing Informatics Competency Scores by the End of the 4th Year Program for One School in the Province of Ontario, Canada? A Cross-Sectional Design
No full textThe use of Information Technology (IT) in healthcare organizations is omnipresent. The nursing curriculum needs to include IT in order to prepare nursing students to acquire Nursing Informatics (NI) competencies before entering the workplace. The literature review suggests that pre-licensure nurses are ill prepared to enter the workforce because they lack some of the essential computer skills that employers are seeking when hiring new graduates (Fetter, 2009a; Gassert, 2008; Ornes & Gassert, 2007). The lack of defined competencies in NI is a worldwide problem (Chang, 2007; Fetter, 2009b; Staggers, Gassert, & Curran, 2001; Ragneskog & Gerdner, 2006). This thesis will examine two questions: 1) Do nursing students increase their NI competency scores progressively in their school program from year 1 to 4? 2) Do nursing students with work experience requiring the use of technology outside of the curriculum get higher scores for NI competencies than those without by the end of 4th year? A questionnaire was given to 176 nursing students asking them to rate their computer use and computer knowledge. The results were consistent for both independent variables of year of study and experience with technology in the work setting. There is no interaction present between variables; they each influence individually the total score for NI competencies for nursing students. The results show NI competencies progressively increasing over the four academic years. The nursing students scored higher still when they had technology experience in any work field on NI competencies. The combination of academic and work experience that uses IT provides nursing students with more opportunities to practice and assimilate their NI competencies before graduation
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