Comparisons of grade based learning outcomes between online and face-to-face course formats have become essential because the number of online courses, online programs and institutional student enrollments have seen rapid growth in recent years. Overall, online education is largely viewed by education professionals as being equivalent to instruction conducted face-to-face. However, the research investigating student performance in online versus face-to-face courses has been mixed and is often hampered by small samples or a lack of demographic and academic controls. This study utilizes a dataset that includes over 5,000 courses taught by over 100 faculty members over a period of ten academic terms at a large, public, four-year university. The unique scale of the dataset facilitates macro level understanding of course formats at an institutional level. Multiple regression was used to account for student demographic and academic corollaries—factors known to bias course format selection and grade based outcomes—to generate a robust test for differences in grade based learning outcomes that could be attributed to course format. The final model identified a statistical difference between course formats that translated into a negligible difference of less than 0.07 GPA points on a 4 point scale. The primary influence on individual course grades was student GPA. Interestingly, a model based interaction between course type and student GPA indicated a cumulative effect whereby students with higher GPAs will perform even better in online courses (or alternatively, struggling students perform worse when taking courses in an online format compared to a face-to-face format). These results indicate that, given the large scale university level, multi course, and student framework of the current study, there is little to no difference in grade based student performance between instructional modes for courses where both modes are applicable.

Integrative studies of genetics, neurobiology and behaviour indicate that polymorphism in specific genes contributes to variation observed in some complex social behaviours. The neuropeptide arginine vasopressin plays an important role in the regulation of a variety of social behaviours, including social attachment of males to females, through its action on the vasopressin 1a receptor (V1aR). In socially monogamous prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster), polymorphism in the length of microsatellite DNA within the regulatory region of the gene (avpr1a) encoding the V1aR predicts differences among males in neural expression of V1aRs and partner preference under laboratory conditions. However, understanding the extent to which V1aR mediates variation in prairie vole social and reproductive behaviour observed in nature requires investigating the consequences of avpr1a polymorphism and environmental influences under ecologically relevant conditions. We examined the relationship between avpr1a length polymorphism and monogamy among male prairie voles living in 0.1 ha enclosures during a time similar to their natural lifespan. We found no evidence that avpr1a genotype of males predicts variation in social monogamy measured in the field but some indices of social monogamy were affected by population density. Parentage data indicated that a male's avpr1a genotype significantly influenced the number of females with which he sired offspring and the total number of offspring sired. Total brain concentrations of V1aR mRNA were not associated with either male behaviour or avpr1a genotype. These data show that melding ecological field studies with neurogenetics can substantially augment our understanding of the effects of genes and environment on social behaviours.

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. 2013. The influence of preservation on fish morphology in museum collections based on two species of the genus Lepomis (Actinopterygii: Perciformes: Centrarchidae). Acta Ichthyol. Piscat. 43 (3): 219-227.Background. The wide availability of specimen-based museum collections allows scientists to address a variety of ecological and systematic hypotheses from a broad timeframe and extensive spatial scale. However, techniques employed to preserve and maintain these collections affect morphology, potentially altering or skewing any morphological comparisons inherent in research study questions. The purpose of this study was to better understand and describe the effects that preservation techniques may have on fish specimens. Materials and methods. Bluegill, Lepomis macrochirus Rafinesque, 1819, and green sunfish, Lepomis cyanellus Rafinesque, 1819, were initially preserved for six weeks in a 10% formalin solution and then transferred to 70% ethyl alcohol for 46 additional weeks to determine how the commonly used preservation methods influence morphology. Fish were photographed at 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 39, and 52 weeks of preservation to assess changes in shape. Standard length and maximum depth were measured on all fish images using Sigma Scan Pro. These measurements were then used to generate aspect ratios (maximum depth vs. standard length) for each fish. Additionally, geometric morphometric techniques (relative warp analysis) using 10 digital landmarks, were also used to evaluate overall morphological change. Results. During the 52-week period of preservation, fish standard length was reduced, but this dimension shrank proportionally with body depth. This finding was confirmed along the major gradients elicited from relative warp axis scores tested using repeated measures ANOVA. However, with both species, morphological contortions were observed immediately after the fish were placed in formalin and again when this fixative was replaced with ethyl alcohol. Conclusion. Ultimately, shape stabilized after a period of acclimatization of up to 39 weeks. This stabilization phenomenon provides evidence that long term museum collections do plateau in shape change and may be compared to address a variety of ecological and evolutionary hypotheses.Keywords: fixation, geometric morphometrics, bluegill, green sunfish, body shape, formalin, ethyl alcohol preservative; however, more recently this method changed given the toxicity of formalin (Morgan 1997) to using formalin for fixation and ethyl alcohol for preservation (Kelsch and Shields 1996, Al-Hassan et al. 2000). Regardless of the technique, the effects of preservation can be species-and size specific (Ehrlich 1974, Hjörleifsson and Klein-MacPhee 1992, Al-Hassan et al. 2000, Cunningham et al. 2000, Jawad 2003, Santos et al. 2009, Lee et al. 2011 or vary with the type of preservation (Cunningham et al. 2000, Jawad 2003, Santos et al. 2009).The most common effect of preservation is shrinkage, potentially altering morphometric configurations (Al-Hassan et al. 2000, Cunningham ...

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