The teaching of Chemical Oceanography in the Faculty of Marine and Environmental Sciences of the University of Cadiz (Spain) has been improved since 1994 by the employment of a device for the laboratory simulation of estuarine mixing processes and the characterisation of the chemical behaviour of many substances that pass through an estuary. The…

A discussion on how a spreadsheet simulation of linear-molecular spectra could be used to explore the dependence of rotational band spacing and contours on average bond lengths in the initial and final quantum states is presented. The simulation of hydrogen chloride IR, iodine UV-vis, and nitrogen UV-vis spectra clearly show whether the average…

In the case of cars and other engineered objects, humans go about the design process in a very intentional way. They pretty much know what they are aiming for. The activity described in this article demonstrates how a computer can simulate biological evolution and the laws of natural selection. The article is divided into the following sections:…

This article proposes an item exposure control method, which is the extension of the Sympson and Hetter procedure and can provide item exposure control at both the item and test levels. Item exposure rate and test overlap rate are two indices commonly used to track item exposure in computerized adaptive tests. By considering both indices, item…

The study of measurement models in psychometrics by means of dimensionality reduction techniques such as Principal Components Analysis (PCA) is a very common practice. In recent times, an upsurge of interest in the study of artificial neural networks apt to computing a principal component extraction has been observed. Despite this interest, the…

This study investigated the potential accident-proneness of adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in a hazardous road-crossing environment. An immersive virtual reality traffic gap-choice task was used to determine whether ADHD adolescents show more unsafe road-crossing behavior than controls. Participants (ages 13 to…

A need exists for a controlled examination of the variables that may affect the results of a behavior-based safety program. These include the rate of risky behaviors and how they relate to a contingent bonus payout (Experiment 1), and the relative amounts of honesty in injury reporting and rule following (Experiment 2). A simple task consisting of…

The motion of a magnet through a coil is analysed through a model of magnetic monopoles. The magnetic flux of a monopole passing through a loop is explained and also its rate of change. By a superposition of voltages produced by the monopoles on the coils the shape of the voltage versus time graph is explained. Also examined is the interaction of…

An approach called generalizability in item response modeling (GIRM) is introduced in this article. The GIRM approach essentially incorporates the sampling model of generalizability theory (GT) into the scaling model of item response theory (IRT) by making distributional assumptions about the relevant measurement facets. By specifying a random…

This article empirically supports the thesis that there is no clear and unequivocal argument in favor of simulations and experiential learning. Instead the effectiveness of simulation-based learning methods depends strongly on the target group's characteristics. Two methods of supporting experiential learning are compared in two different complex…

Virtual communities are quickly becoming the standard mode of interaction in educational and professional contexts. However, the literature fails to accurately address the possibility of differences in the perceptions of these communities related to sex. Two-hundred and twenty-six students from a medium-sized university in the Mid-Atlantic United…

Librarians instruct students where to find information, but rarely demonstrate its management, while faculty have difficulty incorporating real-time laboratory experience with library research. This paper focuses on the development of a hands-on biology laboratory experiment in an introductory course that integrates bibliographic software into the…

Most people have at least secondhand knowledge about Second Life, a virtual-reality world created by Linden Lab, in which avatars (digital characters) lease "islands" for real-life purposes--to sell products, conduct classes, do research, hold conferences, and even recruit for admissions. About nine million avatars reportedly interact on this…

Project-based learning is not a new idea. It has a solid track record of increasing student motivation and improving students' problem-solving and higher-order thinking skills (Stites, 1998; Thomas, 2000). In the traditional model, students work in teams to investigate open-ended questions and apply their knowledge through culminating products or…

The authors present a constructivist approach for teaching game theory, on the basis, in part, of Axelrod's research approach. Using the Axelrod tournament multi-user system (ATMUS) software, students create strategies for a repeated prisoner's dilemma (RPD). Later, these strategies are matched with those of their classmates' in a classroom…