The measurement of online latent constructs, such as student engagement, have mimicked the measurement of these constructs in traditional, brick-and-mortar learning environments. For brick-and-mortar K-12 schools and online K-12 schools there are challenges that need to be addressed to establish a measure with support for validity. Measurement in an online learning environment has different accessibility and data collection requirements. The online learning environment lends itself well to the use of student behaviors to measure latent constructs, including student engagement. The behaviors of students in an online learning environment are regularly documented. This chapter will delve into the ways latent constructs, using student engagement as an example/case study, are currently being measured in the K-12 online learning environment and alternatives to these measures mimicking traditional brick-and-mortar measures.

Undergraduate educational settings struggle to provide biologically or medically relevant situations and problems that simultaneously improve students' understanding of physics. Exercises developed in an elective physics course for life sciences or pre–health majors at Portland State University are aimed at teaching fundamental physics concepts within the context of biomedical devices.

The major purpose of this study was to determine if the five-year-old child could be taught reading skills through the computer. Fourteen children attending a preschool for low income families received specific reading skills instruction exclusively on the microcomputer. The curriculum used at the preschool was designed to eliminate any drill and practice on isolated reading skills. The study was a pretest/posttest single group design. All subjects were administered the Metropolitan Readiness Test and the results were analyzed using the one-way analysis of variance ( p < .01). A secondary purpose was to determine if the children could learn basic computer literacy skills without direct instruction and drill. Through an analysis of the observation notes it was determined that the computer literacy skills were learned by the children while involved in the academic skills instructional program.

Undergraduates’ motivation to learn is complex, driven in part by course assessments and student expectations of those assessments. Using Bloom's Taxonomy, we characterized cognitive learning levels of biology assessments. We specifically ask (1) what cognitive skills are assessed in introductory and upper level biology courses and (2) how well aligned are introductory and upper level biology courses? Three independent raters coded over 3000 assessment items from introductory and advanced biology courses; agreement among raters was 83%. Assessments in introductory biology courses assessed primarily knowledge (57% of items) and comprehension (36% of items); upper level courses also assessed primarily knowledge and comprehension (75% and 18%, respectively), with a limited number of items assessing higher cognitive levels. These results may reinforce student‐held beliefs that biology is about memorizing facts. In the midst of transforming and reforming undergraduate biology education, revisiting how we assess students’ learning is critical for scaffolding the development of students’ cognitive abilities to gain skills of practicing scientists. Supported in part by NSF‐DUE #0833268.

A controlled presleep experience was used in an attempt to trace waking experience in dreams. Dream reports were collected in the laboratory from 12 dreamers (half men, half women; half recallers, half nonrecallers), using the electrophysiological method of Dement and Kleitman. Following a baseline night, each dreamer was awakened on three consecutive nights during every REM period (rapid eye movement and Stage 1-ascending EEG pattern). Immediately prior to sleep on Night 3, four of the dreamers viewed an emotionally arousing film, four others viewed a s l ide sequence having the same content as the stressful film, and four others viewed an emotionally "neutral" film. Two independent judges, using Hall and Van de Castle's dream content analysis method and a tally system designed specifically for this study, failed to differentiate dreamers in the three groups on the basis of their dream content. Analyses of variance of dream content scores also failed to provide any evidence for differences among groups, recallers and nonrecallers, or nights. Some differences in dreaming style (e.g., total REM time, recallability) were noted.Limitations of the study and methodological problems were people who revealed secrets from their i:nnermost selves for this study.