Prediction of adult height in girls: the Beunen-Malina-Freitas method

The purpose of this study was to validate and cross-validate the Beunen-Malina-Freitas method for non-invasive prediction of adult height in girls. A sample of 420 girls aged 10-15 years from the Madeira Growth Study were measured at yearly intervals and then 8 years later. Anthropometric dimensions (lengths, breadths, circumferences, and skinfolds) were measured; skeletal age was assessed using the Tanner-Whitehouse 3 method and menarcheal status (present or absent) was recorded. Adult height was measured and predicted using stepwise, forward, and maximum R (2) regression techniques. Multiple correlations, mean differences, standard errors of prediction, and error boundaries were calculated. A sample of the Leuven Longitudinal Twin Study was used to cross-validate the regressions. Age-specific coefficients of determination (R (2)) between predicted and measured adult height varied between 0.57 and 0.96, while standard errors of prediction varied between 1.1 and 3.9 cm. The cross-validation confirmed the validity of the Beunen-Malina-Freitas method in girls aged 12-15 years, but at lower ages the cross-validation was less consistent. We conclude that the Beunen-Malina-Freitas method is valid for the prediction of adult height in girls aged 12-15 years. It is applicable to European populations or populations of European ancestry.     

Making a modernist pedagogy: changes in elementary and pre-elementary schooling

Present primary public education in France originated in the école républicaine of the nineteenth century. Starting in the 1960s, the primary school has become integrated into a system of education, with virtually all children now attending pre-elementary and secondary education. These structural changes have led to important alterations in the curriculum of pre-elementary and elementary schools: their traditional pedagogical specificity has diminished in response to a relatively new requirement of curriculum continuity and the overall aim of preparing for future schooling. On the whole, however, this level of schooling is characterized by modernistic pedagogy, the importance it gives to children's harmonious growth and the psycho-affective nature of the teacher-pupil relationship. Although inequalities in socio-economic status between children have not disappeared, new directives aim to limit the inegalitarian mechanisms at work through decentralized compensatory measures and teamwork inside schools.     

Effects of self-assessment feedback on self-assessment and task-selection accuracy

Metacognition and Learning - Effective self-regulated learning in settings in which students can decide what tasks to work on, requires accurate self-assessment (i.e., a judgment of own level of...     

Ethnotheories of development and education: A view from different cultures

Cultures differ according to the type of competences adults encourage in infants, the age at which these competences should be acquired and the level of expertise that should be reached (Hess & al., 1980). Consequently, three main criteria are involved in the shaping of the infant’s environment: the age at which some particular behavior are expected, the presume most appropriate time to initiate various activities with the infant, and the beliefs in the possibility of influencing some aspects of development. To discuss this problem we worked on naive conception of development assessed through semi-structured interviews and focussed questionnaires. Data were collected in 3 cultures: French, Bambara (Mali) and Bakongo (Kongo-Brazzaville). The results show that Bambara and Bakongo mothers have clear cut idea of development and relevant educational practices that rely upon traditional and empirical knowledge about the infant. French mothers are greatly influenced by medical and psychological modern knowledge.     

Changes in sensed dis/continuity in the development of student teachers throughout teacher education

Initiatives aimed at supporting student teachers for entering and staying in the teaching profession require a better understanding of the nature of student teachers’ development as it unfolds during teacher education. Accordingly, we focused on changes in the extent to which student teachers perceive and expect dis/continuity in their development during the programme. The design of the study included 25 authentic supervision dialogues/conversations, enabling the analysis of development within and across six student teachers’ developmental trajectories. Findings showed that student teachers’ initial sense of dis/continuity is not necessarily predictive of progress and (un)successful completion of teacher education. Furthermore, sensed dis/continuity varies differently over time in student teachers, both in terms of when it changes as well as in terms of with what types of past perceptions and future expectations these changes occur.     

‘People at the heart of our processes’, a case study of how a nursery school and children's centre promotes community cohesion

This article reports on a doctoral case study of how an English integrated nursery school and children's centre fulfils its legal duty to promote community cohesion. The provocation for the enquiry derives from the author's growing unease over the perceived limitations of a target-driven culture currently pervading English schools. A case is made for the importance of schools’ community cohesion work; presented here as a potential vehicle with which to broaden and extend the school experience beyond the narrow individualistic confines imposed by current accountability frameworks.     

Prevention of fatherhood disorders — Accompanying early father-child interaction in day-care centers

Over the last fifteen years, increasing numbers of fathers have been attending medical or day-care centers for young children, traditionally “reserved” for mothers and babies. Thus the professionals who work there are able to take an active part in the “co-construction of the fathers” by accompanying their emerging fatherhood. The Research-Action-Training approach used in partnership with the public health service (“Mother and Child Protection” in Paris) has proven to be a particularly interesting tool for modifying the routine found in day-care centers. Through the transfer of knowledge on fatherhood processes and new triadic models, it has led to improvements in the manner fathers are welcome but also babies and the whole family.     

Training self-regulated learning skills with video modeling examples: Do task-selection skills transfer?

Self-assessment and task-selection skills are crucial in self-regulated learning situations in which students can choose their own tasks. Prior research suggested that training with video modeling examples, in which another person (the model) demonstrates and explains the cyclical process of problem-solving task performance, self-assessment, and task-selection, is effective for improving adolescents’ problem-solving posttest performance after self-regulated learning. In these examples, the models used a specific task-selection algorithm in which perceived mental effort and self-assessed performance scores were combined to determine the complexity and support level of the next task, selected from a task database. In the present study we aimed to replicate prior findings and to investigate whether transfer of task-selection skills would be facilitated even more by a more general, heuristic task-selection training than the task-specific algorithm. Transfer of task-selection skills was assessed by having students select a new task in another domain for a fictitious peer student. Results showed that both heuristic and algorithmic training of self-assessment and task-selection skills improved problem-solving posttest performance after a self-regulated learning phase, as well as transfer of task-selection skills. Heuristic training was not more effective for transfer than algorithmic training. These findings show that example-based self-assessment and task-selection training can be an effective and relatively easy to implement method for improving students’ self-regulated learning outcomes. Importantly, our data suggest that the effect on task-selection skills may transfer beyond the trained tasks, although future research should establish whether this also applies when trained students perform novel tasks themselves.