visualizeContext: Function for visualizing the learning context, including the...

In mcbeem/ZPDGrowthTrajectories: Simulate achievement growth trajectories using a theoretical model of academic achievement based on the zone of proximal development

Description

visualizeContext() is a function for visualizing the learning context that is specified by the relevant arguments to ZPDGrowthTrajectories().

Usage

visualizeContext(
  home.learning.decay.rate = NULL,
  curriculum.start.points,
  curriculum.widths,
  curriculum.review.slopes,
  curriculum.advanced.slopes,
  assignment,
  points = 500,
  annotate = FALSE,
  schoolcolor = "gray25",
  homecolor = "gray25",
  linecolor = "indianred2",
  versionlabels = NULL,
  zoomschool = "truncate"
)

Arguments

home.learning.decay.rate	Scalar, An optional value specifying the exponential decay parameter for the home learning function. If provided, the background will be shaded in proportion to the intensity of home learning. Larger values indicate more rapid drop-off. Must be greater than 1. If omitted, only the school curricular context is shown. The visualizHome() can also be used to visualize, understand, and select appropriate values. Defaults to NULL.
curriculum.start.points	a matrix or list of matrices providing the start points of the school curriculum to be offered during each grade (or other time division). The matrices should have one column and one row per grade. Each list entry corresponds to a version of the curriculum, such as 'typical' or 'remedial.' The visualizeSchool() function can also be used to visualize, understand, and select appropriate values.
curriculum.widths	a matrix or list of matrices providing the widths or spans of the school curriculum to be offered during each grade (or other time division). The matrices should have one column and one row per grade. Each list entry corresponds to a version of the curriculum, such as 'typical' or 'remedial.' The visualizeSchool() function can also be used to visualize, understand, and select appropriate values.
curriculum.review.slopes	A matrix or list of matrices describing the steepness of the school curriculum cutoff at the lower range. Conceptually controls the amount of review content. Small numbers indicate a shallower slope and therefore more review content. As general guidance, values in the range of 10-20 describe heavy review, while 50-100 decribes little review, though this depends on the scale of the curriculum. The visualizeSchool() function can also be used to visualize, understand, and select appropriate values.
curriculum.advanced.slopes	a matrix or list of matrices describing the steepness of the school curriculum cutoff at the upper range. Conceptually controls the amount of advanced content. Small numbers indicate a shallower slope and therefore more advanced content. As general guidance, values in the range of 10-20 describe heavy review, while 50-100 decribes little review, though this depends on the scale of the curriculum. The visualizeSchool() function can also be used to visualize, understand, and select appropriate values.
assignment	A vector of integer values assigning school curricula to time intervals. The length is the number of time intervals to simulate. Each entry contains a number representing which grade-level curriculum to present. Zero denotes periods of no school instruction, such as summer breaks. The numbers correspond to the row index of the curriculum.start.points, curriculum.widths, curriculum.review.slopes, and curriculum.advanced.slopes objects.
points	Integer value desribing the number of points within the span of the curriculum for which the intensity is calculated. This controls the smoothness of the gradient of intensity shading in the plot. Larger values yield better smoothness but require longer execution time. Defaults to 500.
annotate	logical. should the figure be annotated with the row numbers of the school curricula? defaults to FALSE
schoolcolor	The color used to represent the school curricular intensity. Defaults to "grey25".
homecolor	The color used to represent the home curricular intensity. Defaults to "grey25". Has an effect only if a non-null value is given for rate.
linecolor	The color used for the horizontal reference lines representing where the curriculum has full intensity. Defaults to "indianred2".
versionlabels	A character vector providing labels for the facets representing the different versions of the curriculum (e.g., typical, remedial).
zoomschool	One of "none", "school", or "truncate". Sets the range of the y-axis of the plot when a non-null value is provided for rate. "none" does not zoom. "school" shows achievement of zero through the maximum level of the school curriculum. "truncate" shows the minimum and maximum achievement levels of the school curriculum.
rate	Scalar, the exponential decay parameter describing the home curriculum function. If a value is given, the background is shaded proportional to the home learning rate. If NULL, only the school curriculum is displayed. Defaults to NULL.

Details

The function produces a figure in which time is represented on the x-axis, achievement on the y-axis, and the intensity of learning opportunities is represented by the coloration of the background, where darker / more opaque means more rapid learning. The home learning context is represented if a value is supplied to the home.learning.decay.rate argument, otherwise the figure only shows the school learning context. If there are multiple versions of the curriculum, they are displayed as facets. In essence, this figure describes the vector field that is produced by the home and school learning contexts, where the coloration or opacity of the background describes the magnitude of the vertical component at each location. Individual student growth depends not only on the location in the field, but also on the student's learning rate, home environment, decay rate, as well as the global parameters describing the size and offset of the ZPD as well as the global weights for school learning, home learning, and decay.

Value

An object of class ggplot2

See Also

ZPDGrowthTrajectories for simulating growth trajectories.

Other visualizations: visualizeHome(), visualizeSchool(), visualizeTrajectories(), visualizeZPD()

Examples

#' # assignment object simulating starting kindergarten on time 201
#  Kindergarten for 200 days, followed by 100 days of summer
#  then 200 days of first grade
assignment <- c(rep(0, times=200), rep(1, times=200),
                rep(0, times=100), rep(2, times=200))

# define school curriculum
curriculum.start.points <- list(
    # "typical curriculum" start points for K and first grade
  matrix(c(.2, .26), nrow=2, ncol=1),
    # "advanced curriculum" start points for K and first grade
  matrix(c(.22, .29), nrow=2, ncol=1)
)

curriculum.widths <- list(
  # "typical curriculum" widths for K and first grade
  matrix(c(.03, .03), nrow=2, ncol=1),
  # "advanced curriculum" widths for K and first grade
  matrix(c(.04, .04), nrow=2, ncol=1)
)

curriculum.review.slopes <- list(
  # "typical curriculum" review slopes for K and first grade
  matrix(c(15, 15), nrow=2, ncol=1),
  # "advanced curriculum" review slopes for K and first grade
  matrix(c(30, 30), nrow=2, ncol=1)
  )

curriculum.advanced.slopes <- list(
  # "typical curriculum" advanced slopes for K and first grade
  matrix(c(50, 50), nrow=2, ncol=1),
  # "advanced curriculum" advanced slopes for K and first grade
  matrix(c(25, 25), nrow=2, ncol=1)
  )

visualizeContext(home.learning.decay.rate=6,
                  curriculum.start.points=curriculum.start.points,
                  curriculum.widths=curriculum.widths,
                  curriculum.review.slopes=curriculum.review.slopes,
                  curriculum.advanced.slopes=curriculum.advanced.slopes,
                  assignment=assignment,
                  annotate=TRUE,
                  versionlabels = c("Typical", "Advanced"),
                  linecolor="blue",
                  zoomschool="truncate")

mcbeem/ZPDGrowthTrajectories documentation built on May 18, 2020, 2:04 p.m.