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The Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT-2) and Engineering Ethical Reasoning Instrument (EERI) are designed to measure ethical reasoning of general (DIT-2) and engineering-student (EERI) populations. These tools—and the DIT-2 especially—have gained wide usage for assessing the ethical reasoning of undergraduate students. This paper reports on a research study in which the ethical reasoning of first-year undergraduate engineering students at multiple universities was assessed with both of these tools. In addition to these two instruments, students were also asked to create personal concept maps of the phrase “ethical decision-making.” It was hypothesized that students whose instrument scores reflected more postconventional levels of moral development and more sophisticated ethical reasoning skills would likewise have richer, more detailed concept maps of ethical decision-making, reflecting their deeper levels of understanding of this topic and the complex of related concepts. In fact, there was no significant correlation between the instrument scores and concept map scoring, suggesting that the way first-year students conceptualize ethical decision making does not predict the way they behave when performing scenario-based ethical reasoning (perhaps more situated). This disparity indicates a need to more precisely quantify engineering ethical reasoning and decision making, if we wish to inform assessment outcomes using the results of such quantitative analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From an ecological psychology perspective, a full analysis of any learning context must acknowledge the complex nonlinear dynamics that unfold as an intentionally-driven learner interacts with a technology-based purposefully designed learning environment. Further, a full analysis must avoid focusing only on the individual within the learning context and not accounting for the intentionality and constraining influence of the designer and the broader community. Finally, such an analysis must either pin down how learning and development can be driven by perception of the environment alone (detection of affordances), or alternatively from an ecological perspective, by a cyclical interaction of perception and action. This paper presents these parameters for any model of context or situation in relationship to the issues raised by Akhras and Self's (this issue) presentation on intelligent learning environments. We propose that a full situation model would need to incorporate constraints not only from the environment, but also from the individual and most precisely from the specific interaction at the moment of an occasion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses contemporary approaches to assessment highlighting their reliance on the linear model of knowledgeable performance. Description of an ecological psychology approach to problem solving; Adoption of an agent-environment interaction in the analysis; Emphasis on perception and perceptual attunement over memory in understanding vision; Description of the problem-solving process.

Identifying secreted mediators that drive the cognitive benefits of exercise holds great promise for the treatment of cognitive decline in ageing or Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, we show that irisin, the cleaved and circulating form of the exercise-induced membrane protein FNDC5, is sufficient to confer the benefits of exercise on cognitive function. Genetic deletion of Fndc5/irisin (global Fndc5 knock-out (KO) mice; F5KO) impairs cognitive function in exercise, ageing and AD. Diminished pattern separation in F5KO mice can be rescued by delivering irisin directly into the dentate gyrus, suggesting that irisin is the active moiety. In F5KO mice, adult-born neurons in the dentate gyrus are morphologically, transcriptionally and functionally abnormal. Importantly, elevation of circulating irisin levels by peripheral delivery of irisin via adeno-associated viral overexpression in the liver results in enrichment of central irisin and is sufficient to improve both the cognitive deficit and neuropathology in AD mouse models. Irisin is a crucial regulator of the cognitive benefits of exercise and is a potential therapeutic agent for treating cognitive disorders including AD., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)