Motivating student learning using a formative assessment journey.

Providing formative assessment opportunities has been recognised as a significant benefit to student learning. The outcome of any formative assessment should be one that ultimately helps improve student learning through familiarising students with the levels of learning required, informing them about gaps in their learning and providing feedback to guide the direction of learning. This article provides an example of how formative assessments can be developed into a formative assessment journey where a number of different assessments can be offered to students during the course of a module of teaching, thus utilising a spaced-education approach.

Factors underlying illusory self-assessment of driving skill in males and females.

While it is known that drivers as a group rate their skills as better than the average, the mechanism underlying this illusion is unclear. It is possible, for example, that it is due either to a "positive-self" or "negative-other" bias. A test of these alternative hypotheses revealed that judgments are consistent with a "positive-self" bias.

Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase of Anabaena sp. Kinetic and molecular properties.

The kinetic and molecular properties of cyanobacterial glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, partly purified from Anabaena sp. ATCC 27893, show that it undergoes relatively slow, reversible transitions between different aggregation states which differ in catalytic activity. Sucrose gradient centrifugation and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis reveal three pincipal forms, with approximate molecular weights of 120 000 (M1), 240 000 (M2) and 345 000 (M3).

Comparative immunology of algal biliproteins.

The three spectroscopically distinct classes of phycobiliproteins characteristic of the Cyanophyta and Rhodophyta-phycocyanins, allophycocyanins, and phycoerythrins-share no common antigenic determinants detectable by the Ouchterlony double diffusion technique. Each class of phycobiliprotein, from both Cyanophyta and Rhodophyta, possesses a strong determinant common to all members of that class. With respect to an antiserum directed against a specific cyanophytan biliprotein, all heterologous biliproteins of the same class are immunologically identical, as shown by the fact that absorption with a given heterologous antigen simultaneously eliminates crossreactions with other heterologous antigens.

Regulation of the -ketoadipate pathway in Alcaligenes eutrophus.

The regulation of the synthesis of the inducible enzymes that mediate the reactions of the beta-ketoadipate pathway in Alcaligenes eutrophus has been examined by determining the inductive responses of the wild type and of mutants derived from it to metabolites of the pathway. The system of control differs in many respects from those which operate in the genera Pseudomonas and Acinetobacter.

Dissimilation of aromatic compounds by Alcaligenes eutrophus.

The range of aromatic compounds that support the growth of Alcaligenes eutrophus has been determined, and the pathways used for the dissimilation of these substrates have been explored, largely by enzymatic analyses. The beta-ketoadipate pathway operates in the dissimilation of benzoate and p-hydroxybenzoate; the genetisate pathway, in the dissimilation of m-hydroxybenzoate; and the meta cleavage pathway, in the dissimilation of phenol and p-cresol. l-Tryptophan is oxidized via anthranilate; but the metabolic fate of anthranilate was not established.

Comparative immunological studies of two Pseudomonas enzymes.

Crystalline preparations of muconate lactonizing enzyme and muconolactone isomerase, two inducible enzymes that catalyze successive steps in the catechol branch of the beta-ketoadipate pathway, were used to prepare antisera. Both enzymes were isolated from a strain of Pseudomonas putida biotype A. The antisera did not cross-react with enzymes of the same bacterial strain that catalyze the chemically analogous steps in the protocatechuate branch of the beta-ketoadipate pathway, carboxymuconate lactonizing enzyme and carboxymuconolactone decarboxylase.