„Wirtschaftsseminare für Lehrer“ in West-Berlin

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Supporting learning with interactive multimedia through active integration of representations

When learners explore dynamic and interactive visualisations they are often not able to interact with them in a systematic and goal-oriented way. Frequently, even supporting learners in processes of discovery learning does not lead to better learning outcomes. This can be due to missing pre-requisite knowledge such as the coherent mental integration of the pictorial and symbolic sources of information. In order to support learners in this process, we encouraged them to interactively and externally relate different static sources of information to each other before exploring dynamic and interactive visualisations. We evaluated the benefit of this instructional support in two experimental studies concerning the domains of statistics and mechanics. It revealed that the active integration of static representations before processing dynamic visualisations resulted in better performance and can provide a basis for a more systematic and goal-oriented experimentation behaviour during simulation-based discovery learning.in final form: 16 November 2004     

The Problem of School Failure in Sweden

The opening of the article points to the importance of a broad contextualisation of the understanding of school failure, which needs to be understood both on the educational-political level, as well as on the economical, practical and organisational levels. Questions of justice in the Swedish educational system are explored and the validity of this broad focus is examined through a historical discussion of the rhetorical and traditional idea of a school for all. The point of this analysis is critically to point to a gap between this idea and the practical situation in schools. Connected to this analysis, two important reform themes within the Swedish school today are discussed: those of individuality and decentralisation and their implications for school failure. The latter part of the article contains a statistically based analysis of school failure in Sweden. The ambitious political goals of the compulsory school are described and analysed and the problems in attaining this goal are highlighted. The heart of the problem is connected to differences in value systems, determining what is important knowledge within different cultural backgrounds.     

Peripheral vision and simple catching: The screen paradigm revisted

The importance of effector visual feedback has previously been indicated using an opaque screen to prevent sight of the catching hand for the final 150–200 ms of a flight path of 850 ms in total. Attention was drawn to the finding that the ability to position the arm correctly in the line of flight of the ball deteriorated as a consequence of the number of trials without visual feedback. However, the use of only 20 test trials allows a possibility that the proprioceptive system may be able to re‐establish predominant control under conditions of prolonged visual decrement. In order to verify this notion, the number of experimental trials was quadrupled for 24 subjects of mixed sex in a replication of the initial paradigm.

The results provided preliminary support for the view that the positioning of the catching arm is more seriously affected by visual occlusion than the timing of the grasp phase. However, increments in accuracy of limb orientation were evidenced in all screen conditions, as the number of trials increased. The grasp component of one‐handed catching appeared to remain unaffected by the increase in experimental trials. The relative influence of skill level on catching errors was next addressed by comparing the performance of the six best and worst catchers in the group.

The results did not support previous research which found a relation between skill level and error type. The number of position, but not grasp, errors decreased as a function of task practice for both subgroups. Future investigations should, perhaps, focus on the developmental nature of movement control in one‐handed catching to obtain a clearer picture of this relation.     

A place for organisational critical consciousness: comparing two case studies of Freirean nonprofits

One of the primary goals of Freirean theory is the achievement of a higher level of political and social consciousness amongst participants in educational programming. Freire himself only loosely defined this sense of consciousness, and interpretations of how this abstract concept might look vary widely. In some organisations, the politically radical goals of Freirean facilitators do not match the desired outcomes of participants. Other organisations may use Freirean methods to pursue their programming, but without subscribing to Freire's revolutionary educational project. This article provides case study examples of both extremes in Brazil and Mozambique, concluding with the argument that applying Freire's notion of critical consciousness organisationally can help to make sense of the diversity of interpretation among Freirean nonprofits.     

General Mass Communication

Jack Temple Kirby's Media-Made Dixie: The South in the American Imagination. (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1978—$9.95)

Dan Nimmo's Political Communication and Public Opinion in America (Santa Monica, Calif.: Goodyear Publishing Co., 1978—price not given, but available in hard and paper editions)

Raymond G. Smith's The Message Measurement Inventory: A Profile for Communication Analysis (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1978—$12.50)

Fred Fedler's An Introduction to the Mass Media (New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1978—price not given, paper)

Rolf Myller's Symbols and their Meaning (New York: Atheneum, 1978—$9.95)

William E. Francois, Mass Media Law and Regulation (Columbus, Ohio: Grid, Inc., 1978—price not given)

James Leigh and Claude R. Martin, Jr., Current Issues and Research in Advertising (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Michigan, 1978—$4.75, paper)

Philip Ward Burton's Advertising Copywriting (Columbus, Ohio: Grid, 1978—$12.95)

Postal and Allied Arenas–Research Task Specifications, Phase I: Arena Survey by John F. McLaughlin (October 1977, 39 pp., $10.90, paper, Working Paper W-77-9)

The Communications Act Policy Toward Competition: A Failure to Communicate by G. Hamilton Loeb (October 1977, 95 pp., $23.40, paper, Publication P-77-3)

Roland E. Wolseley's Careers in Religious Communications (Herald Press, Scottdale, Pa. 15683—$4.95, paper)

Roland Barthes' Image-Music- Text (New York: Hill & Wang, 1977—$8.95)

Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff's The Modern Researcher (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977—$6.95 in paper, and also available in hardback)     

Valid inferences of teachers’ judgements of pupils’ reading literacy: does formal teacher competence matter?

The primary aim of this study was to investigate whether and, if so, how formal teacher competence relates to the relationship between pupil reading achievement and teachers judgements’ of pupils’ reading achievement. The data come from the Swedish participation in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2001 in Grade 3. Information was obtained from pupils (N = 5271) and teachers (N = 351). Analyses were conducted using multilevel structural equation modeling (SEM) with random slopes. Teacher competence was operationalized using multiple observed indicators and defined as a latent variable. A higher correspondence between teacher judgements and pupil reading achievement for teachers with higher competence was found. The results highlight the importance of teacher competence in assessment practice.