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The article presents information on the paper shown to Arnon Lotem, a professor of zoology at Tel-Aviv University in Israel, and his colleague Ido Erev concerning the pay-off odds of choosing two alternatives described verbally to humans and rats. The paper reported on the certainty effect, whereby rats repeatedly faced with the option of receiving either a bigger or lesser reward with certainty preferred the safer option. Moreover, Lotem and his colleagues discovered that both humans and other animals can exhibit certainty or reverse certainty.

The article discusses about the scientific breakthroughs and research in West Asian countries. Topics include the science papers published by Israeli scientists, the budget allocated for research and development, and its weighted fractional count (WFC). The quality of research in Saudi Arabia, its university KAUST, and comments by its vice president Jean Frechet are included. Charts for research efficiency and research strengths of West Asian countries are also given.

Boyer’s call for the study of the “scholarship of teaching” has rekindled interest in outstanding teaching in higher education. However, most studies of teaching quality and student experiences in higher education have paid little attention to intense, meaningful key experiences and were limited in answering the pertinent question: Can universities administer excellent instruction? The current paper attempts to answer this question by providing exploratory evidence of key experiences in higher education. It is based on evidence from a large qualitative study of such episodes, using retrospective accounts provided by adults who speak about their best educational experiences in higher education. The results are grouped under three major thematic headings. The first describes the centrality of personalized student–teacher relations. The second focuses on the ways in which identification and integrity provided students with models to emulate; and the third tells of excellence in the skills of teaching. These results point that the administration of the scholarship of teaching is an intricate endeavor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examined attitudes toward school inclusion of students with disabilities of 1,145 prospective teacher trainees from six national/religious groups in eleven colleges in Israel: The groups were secular, religious and ultra-orthodox Jews and Muslim, Christian and Druze Arabs. Participants responded to the “Opinion Related to Inclusion Scale”. Trainees in all six groups supported the principle of inclusion while simultaneously recognizing the need for segregated special education placements. Several significant group differences were found on the total score and the factor scores. The most supportive group of inclusion (i.e., the strongest rejection of segregation and the least concern about behavior problems) was the Jewish secular group followed by the Jewish religious group. The least support for inclusion was found for the ultra-orthodox Jewish group and the Arab groups. Implications for the preparation of educators in institutions of higher education were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Choice of institution and field of study for a bachelor’s degree in Israel was found essentially meritocratic although influenced by socioeconomic status (SES) as well. As expected, students of higher ability attend universities and those of lower apply to academic colleges. However, among students of higher ability, those of higher SES opt for prestigious professions, such as medicine and law, or natural or social sciences, while those of lower SES choose economics and management, computer science, paramedical professions, and engineering. For students of lower learning ability, the differentiating effect of SES is smaller. Those of higher SES prefer university to college, even if they have to study in a less prestigious field, such as education or the humanities. On the other hand, students of lower ability and lower SES apply to colleges for studies such as education, social sciences, computer science, economics and management, and engineering. Overall, students who master financial resources and higher cultural capital prefer more ‘theoretical’ fields in a more extended course of study, while students of lower SES assume more ‘practical’ studies, which will enable them a faster entry to paying positions on the job market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multilevel SEM was used to examine the extent to which student, instructor, and course characteristics affect student ratings. Data were gathered from 1867 students enrolled in 117 courses at a large teacher training college in Israel. Four alternative two-level models that differ in only the nature of the relationship among interest in the course subject, expected grade, and student ratings were tested. Two of the models were judged as less appropriate, one because it failed to support the spurious relationship assumed between expected grade and student ratings, and the other on grounds of poor model-data fit. The other two models were equally good both in terms of the model-data fit and the amount of variance in student ratings that is accounted for by each of them. Both models supported the mediation effect of expected grade in the relationship between interest in the course subject and student ratings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]