Author: Rebecca Regine

In the article, “Public Pre-K and Test Taking for the NYC Gifted-and-Talented Programs: Forging a Path to Equity,” the researchers studied what factors led to the discrepancies involved with students taking the gifted and talented test. The researchers noticed that there was a substantial difference in the number of students who took the test as the majority of students were White and wanted to further investigate. To do this, they used NYC DOE enrollment records of elementary school students in 2009. They collected data that included students’ addresses, demographic data, whether a student was an English Language Learner or in special education classes. By using their addresses, they were able to analyze census data to describe neighborhoods where students lived. Their sample included 69,960 students who took the test and obtained a spot in one of the programs. With this information, they analyzed the data and broke it down into percentages. They later performed statistical analyses to address the main goals of their research. Using the statistical data, they found that almost all the factors they tested for influenced whether or not a student would take the test like the neighborhood they lived in. However, the strongest predictor was whether or not they attended a public Pre-kindergarten program.

S. D., S. (2016). Public Pre-K and Test-Taking for the NYC Gifted and Talented Programs: Forging a Path to Equity. Education Week, 35(24), 5.

The articles that I decided to compare were The Blaze’s, “Bill Nye blames powerful hurricanes on climate change — then a real scientist shuts him down” and The New York Times article, “Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change? For Some, a Very ‘Insensitive’ Question.” Both articles discuss the possibility that Irma was a result of climate change. The article in the Blaze discusses how Bill Nye claims that the strength of the hurricane was due to climate change and dismisses this idea by introducing the tweets of another scientist, Ryan Maue. The author uses the subheading, “Everything is climate change.” He ignores the possibility of the issue by asserting that Bill Nye considers everything to be a result of climate change. The author openly states that Bill Nye is “plain wrong,” a “crusader,” and rejects “anything other than his own version of science.” In the article’s title, the author even dismisses Bill Nye as a scientist by stating that his ideas were rejected by a “real scientist.”

On the other hand, the article presented in the NYT analyzes Scott Pruitt’s comment stating that talking about climate change is insensitive during such a horrible storm. The authors take it as a given that climate change is not a hoax and instead pokes at how people in Washington seem to believe that the issue is political. They also make it a point to introduce the Republican mayor of Miami, who was directly affected by the storm, stating that this is the time to talk about it. They use terms like important and obligated when describing the discussion of climate change. Instead of using negative words like wrong and personally attacking Pruitt, they introduce evidence as to why they believe he is incorrect or why others disagree with him. Additionally, they use words like “pretending,” and “risks” which to me indicates that they assume that individuals who speak out against climate change don’t truly believe that it is a hoax. It is clear that both of these articles are biased on completely different sides of the spectrum based on the content and language that the authors chose to use.

Enloe , C. (2017, September 10). Bill Nye blames powerful hurricanes on climate change — then a real scientist shuts him down. The Blaze. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/09/10/bill-nye-blames-powerful-hurricanes-on-climate-change-then-a-real-scientist-shuts-him-down/

Friedman, L. (2017, September 11). Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change? For Some, a  Very ‘Insensitive’ Question. The New York Times. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from   https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/climate/hurricane-irma-climate-change.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fclimate

Kerdijk, W., Cohen-Schotanus, J., Mulder, B. F., Muntinghe, F. H., & Tio, R. A. (2015). Cumulative versus end-of-course assessment: effects on self-study time and test performance. Medical Education, 49(7), 709-716.

In the article, researchers conducted an experiment to see if there was a difference between self-study habits when taking cumulative and end-of-course exams. To do this, they randomly assigned 78 students to one of the two testing conditions and each week every participant had to fill out a survey to document how many hours they studied on their own. The participants in the cumulative testing group had to take three tests throughout the semester whereas the participants in the end-of-course group only had to take one test during the final week. Both groups were given the same set of questions in the final exam, and the results were then compared. In addition to comparing the final test scores, the researchers calculated the GPA of each student in prior courses to assure that there was no significant difference in academic performance between the groups to make sure the results were not biased.

They found that there was no significant difference in performance in the course, however, students in the cumulative testing group studied more and did better on questions regarding material covered during the last two weeks of class.

Lo, J. C., Chong, P. H., Ganesan, S., Leong, R. F., & Chee, M. L. (2016). Sleep deprivation increases formation of false memory. Journal of Sleep Research, 25(6), 673-682.

The researchers’ objective was to determine what effect sleep deprivation of healthy young adults and adolescents had on the formation of false memories. They found that sleep deprived individuals were more likely to incorporate false information when retrieving memories than those who were well rested.