Utility value is associated with positive learning outcomes in science and is often used to motivate engagement in the sciences, but less is known about what influences its development and maintenance, particularly during the critical middle school years. Using multinomial regression applied to longitudinal data from approximately 2600 middle-school students, we test the relationship of science classroom experiences (affective engagement, behavioral-cognitive engagement, & perceived success) and optional formal and optional informal experiences to changes in science utility value. Furthermore, we address whether the same factors that predict growth in utility value also predict absence of decline. Overall, we find all five factors are associated with changes in utility value, but some have different relationships with growth vs. decline outcomes. These findings provide a more nuanced view of factors associated with utility value towards science (both in and out of the science classroom), as well as practical implications for educational practice. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Several studies suggest that parents' use of number words while talking with their children is positively related to children's understanding of certain mathematical concepts. In this study, we extended these findings and further examined several parent characteristics that could be related to individual differences in their number talk, including their subjective ratings of their math skills, preference for using math, beliefs about the importance of their children's math skills, and numerical approximation abilities, an early number skill present in children and adults. A sample of 44 5- and 6 -year-old children and their parents completed a variety of laboratory-based tasks, including a 10-min free play session to assess number talk, a standardized math assessment for children, a nonsymbolic numerical comparison task for parents, and several questionnaires for parents. Parents' overall number talk was not related to children's performance on the math assessment; however, parents' use of numbers larger than 10 was positively and significantly related to children's math abilities even when controlling for parents' overall talk. Parents' large number talk was also associated with their numerical approximation abilities and subjective math ability, suggesting that math-specific characteristics of parents themselves can explain some of the individual variability in parents' use of number words, especially those larger than 10. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This paper examines the growing field of computational thinking (CT) in education. A review of the relevant literature shows a diversity in definitions, interventions, assessments, and models. After synthesizing various approaches used to develop the construct in K-16 settings, we have created the following working definition of CT: The conceptual foundation required to solve problems effectively and efficiently (i.e., algorithmically, with or without the assistance of computers) with solutions that are reusable in different contexts. This definition highlights that CT is primarily a way of thinking and acting, which can be exhibited through the use particular skills, which then can become the basis for performance-based assessments of CT skills. Based on the literature, we categorized CT into six main facets: decomposition, abstraction, algorithm design, debugging, iteration, and generalization. This paper shows examples of CT definitions, interventions, assessments, and models across a variety of disciplines, with a call for more extensive research in this area.

Children's ability to place fractions on a number line strongly correlates with math achievement. But does the number line play a causal role in fraction learning or does it simply index more advanced fraction knowledge? The number line may be a particularly effective representation for fraction learning because its properties align with the desired mental representation and take advantage of preexisting spatial numeric biases. Using a pretest-training-posttest design, we examined second and third graders' fraction learning in 3 conditions: number line training, area model training, and a non-numerical control. Children who received number line training improved at representing fractions with number lines, and children who received area model training improved at representing fractions with area models. Critically, only the number line training led to transfer to an untrained fraction magnitude comparison task. We conclude that the number line plays a causal role in children's fraction magnitude understanding, and is more beneficial than the widely used area model.

Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly (2007) defined grit as one's passion and perseverance toward long-term goals. They proposed that it consists of 2 components: consistency of interests and perseverance of effort. In a high school and college student sample, we used a multidimensional item response theory approach to examine (a) the factor structure of grit, and (b) grit's relations to and overlap with conceptually and operationally similar constructs in the personality, self-regulation, and engagement literatures, including self-control, conscientiousness, cognitive self-regulation, effort regulation, behavioral engagement, and behavioral disaffection. A series of multiple regression analyses with factor scores was used to examine (c) grit's prediction of end-of-semester course grades. Findings indicated that grit's factor structure differed to some degree across high school and college students. Students' grit overlapped empirically with their concurrently reported self-control, self-regulation, and engagement. Students' perseverance of effort (but not their consistency of interests) predicted their later grades, although other self-regulation and engagement variables were stronger predictors of students' grades than was grit.

[No abstract available]

The science and engineering workforce has aged rapidly in recent years, both in absolute terms and relative to the workforce as a whole. This is a potential concern if the large number of older scientists crowds out younger scientists, making it difficult for them to establish independent careers. In addition, scientists are believed to be most creative earlier in their careers, so the aging of the workforce may slow the pace of scientific progress. We develop and simulate a demographic model, which shows that a substantial majority of recent aging is a result of the aging of the large baby boom cohort of scientists. However, changes in behavior have also played a significant role, in particular, a decline in the retirement rate of older scientists, induced in part by the elimination of mandatory retirement in universities in 1994. Furthermore, the age distribution of the scientific workforce is still adjusting. Current retirement rates and other determinants of employment in science imply a steady-state mean age 2.3 y higher than the 2008 level of 48.6.

Many PhD programs incorporate boot camps and summer bridge programs to accelerate the development of doctoral students' research skills and acculturation into their respective disciplines. These brief, high-intensity experiences span no more than several weeks and are typically designed to expose graduate students to data analysis techniques, to develop scientific writing skills, and to better embed incoming students into the scholarly community. However, there is no previous study that directly measures the outcomes of PhD students who participate in such programs and compares them to the outcomes of students who did not participate. Likewise, no previous study has used a longitudinal design to assess these outcomes over time. Here we show that participation in such programs is not associated with detectable benefits related to skill development, socialization into the academic community, or scholarly productivity for students in our sample. Analyzing data from 294 PhD students in the life sciences from 53 US institutions, we found no statistically significant differences in outcomes between participants and nonparticipants across 115 variables. These results stand in contrast to prior studies presenting boot camps as effective interventions based on participant satisfaction and perceived value. Many universities and government agencies (e.g., National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation) invest substantial resources in boot camp and summer bridge activities in the hopes of better supporting scientific workforce development. Our findings do not reveal any measurable benefits to students, indicating that an allocation of limited resources to alternative strategies with stronger empirical foundations warrants consideration.

Graphics presented alongside expository science texts can have a number of positive effects for instruction, including facilitating engagement, arousing interest, and improving understanding. However, because students harbor expectations about which contexts are likely to support better understanding, the mere presence of graphics also has the potential to lead to inaccurate judgments of understanding when those graphics do not actually lead to presumed levels of performance. Previous work has demonstrated that including graphics alongside text can alter the judgment process. The present work explores different categories of instructional graphics found in biology textbooks and tests how different graphic types, classified by their form and function, can affect expectations of understanding prior to actual reading. Experiment 1 found that realistic, depictive graphics predominated in a middle school text, whereas more abstract and explanatory graphics predominated in a college text. Experiment 2 demonstrated that different categories of graphics led to differences in expectations of how helpful graphics would be for understanding.