In this study, the balance between conceptual and procedural teaching and its effect on the development of algebraic reasoning was examined. Participants included two seventh grade mathematics teachers and their students in targeted classes (N = 33). One video taped lesson from each teacher was selected for in-depth analysis of the balance between conceptual teaching, procedural teaching, and classroom time that included neither. Student participants took pretest and posttest algebra tests. Distribution of student responses and scores were analyzed for the degree of conceptual understanding demonstrated by students and then related to observed instructional practices. It was concluded that the students of the teacher with a more explicit conceptual emphasis in her lessons performed better on the test and were better able to exhibit flexible reasoning in unfamiliar contexts. Students whose teacher focused more heavily on procedural instruction without conceptual connections were less flexible in their reasoning and unable to apply some of the procedures taught in class.

In this study, the balance between conceptual and procedural teaching and its effect on the development of algebraic reasoning was examined. Participants included two seventh grade mathematics teachers and their students in targeted classes (N = 33). One video taped lesson from each teacher was selected for in-depth analysis of the balance between conceptual teaching, procedural teaching, and classroom time that included neither. Student participants took pretest and posttest algebra tests. Distribution of student responses and scores were analyzed for the degree of conceptual understanding demonstrated by students and then related to observed instructional practices. It was concluded that the students of the teacher with a more explicit conceptual emphasis in her lessons performed better on the test and were better able to exhibit flexible reasoning in unfamiliar contexts. Students whose teacher focused more heavily on procedural instruction without conceptual connections were less flexible in their reasoning and unable to apply some of the procedures taught in class.

Background and purpose: The needs for the post-discharge care increases in tandem with the rapid growth of the ageing population. Discharge planning, as part of continuity of care, is parallel with nursing care. The nurses play the key role in the discharge planning process. Their understanding and attitudes towards discharge planning are likely to affect the practice and the effectiveness of discharge planning. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the nurses¡¦ understanding of the discharge planning process and their attitudes towards it. Methods: The self- administrated questionnaires were delivered to all the nurses working in a general care units in the medical center in southern Taiwan. 332 nurses were approached. The data were analyzed by SPSS 12.0 applying descriptive statistics, ANOVA, chi-square test and Pearson correlation analysis. The reliability of the questionnaire is 0.882. Results: The net response rate is 69.9 percent. About 43 percent of the respondents are with the employment length over 10 years. 43 percent of the respondents had received discharge planning education. Only 10.7 percent of respondents got involved in the discharge planning meetings frequently. The mean value of the understanding between the respondents with the discharge planning training and those without were significantly different (p < 0.001). The significant difference was found in the understanding among the respondents with the different level of involvement in the discharge planning meetings (p< 0.001). There was a significant difference found in the mean value of attitudes among the respondents with different frequency of involvement in the discharge planning meetings. The mean scores of the whole attitudes were significantly higher in the respondents with training than in those without training (p=0.014). Understanding was associated with duration of employment, the discharge planning training or education, and level of involvement in the discharge planning meetings. Attitudes were associated with the level of involvement in the discharge planning meetings and workload. The strong correlation was found between the respondents¡¦ understanding and attitudes. Conclusion: Understanding of the discharge planning process and the attitudes towards discharge planning were influenced by the duration of employment, the involvement in the discharge planning meetings and the education or training regarding discharge planning. Therefore, to increase the understanding and to change the attitudes, the nurses should be provided with the more discharge planning education and opportunities to participate in the discharge planning meetings.

a b s t r a c t Purpose of the research: The purpose of the study was to explore what women living in Ga-Rankuwa in Tshwane, South Africa know and understand about cancer as well as their health seeking behaviour should they suspect that they might have cancer. Methods and Sample: An exploratory, contextual, quantitative door-to-door survey was conducted. The sampling method was convenient (n ¼ 565). Data were gathered by means of self-reports using structured interviews. Key Results: The study provided evidence that, despite all the interventions to teach the community about cancer, women had a low level of knowledge and understanding of cancer. Cancer was seen as something that primarily happens to the breast. There was no link between the perception of cancer and the seriousness of the warning signs. It is doubtful if the woman, except for the possibility of a lump in the breast, would recognize any sign of cancer and consider it to be serious. Women still needed to ask permission to seek health-care and in some instances, the health care provider was chosen for them. Not all women were prepared to spend money of their own health and some would even feel guilty should they do so. Conclusions: Women’s knowledge and understanding of cancer and health seeking behaviour related to cancer do not facilitate early detecting and therefore the possibility to be cured. The fundamental strategy of primary and secondary prevention of cancer, teaching the community, remains a challenge for both nursing practice and nursing research.

Increasing access to rights for young people has highlighted the fact that little is known about their thinking and understanding of rights issues. However, expanding children’s access to rights without adequate knowledge of how they understand, experience and are able to use these rights, may be detrimental to their well-being. Thus far, research has explored conceptions of rights in several populations, including school aged children and young offenders, but little attention has been focused on maltreated children – a particularly vulnerable group. The purpose of the current study was to examine conceptions of and attitudes towards children’s nurturance and self-determination rights in 10-18-year-old children with histories of maltreatment who were living in state care. Associations between rights conceptions and attitudes, and factors related to the experience of maltreatment and child welfare care (e.g. type of maltreatment, type of foster care, time in care, and number of foster care placement changes), were explored. Rights concepts were assessed by having participants generate and discuss children’s rights issues arising in three contexts: home, school and the greater community, as well as through general knowledge questions. Attitudes were assessed using the Children’s ii iii Rights Attitudes questionnaire (Peterson-Badali, Morine, Ruck & Day, 2004), a 32 item likert-scale measure of children’s endorsement of various nurturance and self-determination rights. Results indicated that, while maltreated children’s conceptions of rights did frequently vary from previous findings with non-maltreated children, there were also a number of broad-based similarities. Interestingly, while maltreatment and child welfare care variables were largely unrelated to rights conceptions and attitudes, participants’ understanding did appear to be informed by the particular concerns that emerged from their unique circumstances (e.g., the fulfillment of basic needs such as food, clothing, and education). Findings are discussed in relation to theory, research, policy, and practice.

Increasing access to rights for young people has highlighted the fact that little is known about their thinking and understanding of rights issues. However, expanding children’s access to rights without adequate knowledge of how they understand, experience and are able to use these rights, may be detrimental to their well-being. Thus far, research has explored conceptions of rights in several populations, including school aged children and young offenders, but little attention has been focused on maltreated children – a particularly vulnerable group. The purpose of the current study was to examine conceptions of and attitudes towards children’s nurturance and self-determination rights in 10-18-year-old children with histories of maltreatment who were living in state care. Associations between rights conceptions and attitudes, and factors related to the experience of maltreatment and child welfare care (e.g. type of maltreatment, type of foster care, time in care, and number of foster care placement changes), were explored. Rights concepts were assessed by having participants generate and discuss children’s rights issues arising in three contexts: home, school and the greater community, as well as through general knowledge questions. Attitudes were assessed using the Children’s ii iii Rights Attitudes questionnaire (Peterson-Badali, Morine, Ruck & Day, 2004), a 32 item likert-scale measure of children’s endorsement of various nurturance and self-determination rights. Results indicated that, while maltreated children’s conceptions of rights did frequently vary from previous findings with non-maltreated children, there were also a number of broad-based similarities. Interestingly, while maltreatment and child welfare care variables were largely unrelated to rights conceptions and attitudes, participants’ understanding did appear to be informed by the particular concerns that emerged from their unique circumstances (e.g., the fulfillment of basic needs such as food, clothing, and education). Findings are discussed in relation to theory, research, policy, and practice.

No description available.

This research addresses the question, "how do we evaluate systems like LOLITA?" LOLITA is the Natural Language Processing (NLP) system under development at the University of Durham. It is intended as a platform for building NL applications. We are therefore interested in questions of evaluation for such general NLP systems. The thesis has two, parts. The first, and main, part concerns the participation of LOLITA in the Sixth Message Understanding Conference (MUC-6). The MUC-relevant portion of LOLITA is described in detail. The adaptation of LOLITA for MUC-6 is discussed, including work undertaken by the author. Performance on a specimen article is analysed qualitatively, and in detail, with anonymous comparisons to competitors' output. We also examine current LOLITA performance. A template comparison tool was implemented to aid these analyses. The overall scores are then considered. A methodology for analysis is discussed, and a comparison made with current scores. The comparison tool is used to analyse how systems performed relative to each-other. One method, Correctness Analysis, was particularly interesting. It provides a characterisation of task difficulty, and indicates how systems approached a task. Finally, MUC-6 is analysed. In particular, we consider the methodology and ways of interpreting the results. Several criticisms of MUC-6 are made, along with suggestions for future MUC-style events. The second part considers evaluation from the point of view of general systems. A literature review shows a lack of serious work on this aspect of evaluation. A first principles discussion of evaluation, starting from a view of NL systems as a particular kind of software, raises several interesting points for single task evaluation. No evaluations could be suggested for general systems; their value was seen as primarily economic. That is, we are unable to analyse their linguistic capability directly.

No description available.

No description available.