Adherence to 24-hour movement guidelines among Portuguese preschool children: the prestyle study

ABSTRACT

Purpose

The 24-Hour Movement Guidelines (24 hMG) provide specific recommendations, including physical activity (PA), screen-time and sleep-duration, which preschoolers should achieve for a healthy day (24 h). The aim of the current study was to analyse preschooler’s adherence with the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines.     

Virtual Microscopy as a Learning Tool in Brazilian Medical Education

Virtual microscopy (VM) is a widely used teaching method in Medical Education in many developed countries. In Brazil, however, this is not the case for most medical schools, considering Brazilian social inequality and uneven access to technology. Recently, the Covid-19 pandemic has also challenged Universities to seek and make a transition toward more effective methods of full-time online education. Thus, the main goal of this work was to verify student's perception and academic performance, assessed upon VM implementation in a Brazilian Medical School. Ribeirao Preto Medical School students answered a 26-question survey with regards to optical microscopy (OM) and VM. Academic performance was compared between participants that were (year of 2019) or were not (year of 2015) exposed to VM. Taken the results together, subjective impressions such as handling, suitability, learning effectiveness, and pleasure using the tools, have shown a higher score for virtual microscopy (median = 29), when compared to optical microscopy (median = 24) with a P-value < 0.001 by Wilcoxon rank test, upon measurement using an ordinal scale. Regarding academic performance, no statistically significant differences were found between groups (P-value = 0.38, Cohen's d = 0.19). Therefore, VM proved to be adequate to the Brazilian medical education in light of Brazilian social contexts and Covid-19 pandemic.     

Improvement of Word Problem Solving and Basic Mathematics Competencies in Students with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Mathematical Learning Difficulties

Problem solving represents a salient deficit in students with mathematical learning difficulties (MLD) primarily caused by difficulties with informal and formal mathematical competencies. This study proposes a computerized intervention tool, the integrated dynamic representation (IDR), for enhancing the early learning of basic mathematical competencies and word problem solving skills. The goal was to compare and contrast the effects of IDR on the acquisition of informal and formal mathematical competencies in students with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and MLD. Participants were 216 students (6–9 years), who were classified into three groups: ADHD (n = 72), MLD (n = 82), ADHD and MLD (n = 62). They completed the Test of Early Mathematics Ability (Third Edition). The results showed that all three diagnosed groups improved significantly postintervention in all mathematical competencies, with the MLD‐only group benefiting the most at posttest.     

Differing Roles,Differing Concerns: Using Network Analysis as a Tool to Highlight Diverging Concerns and Priorities Surrounding Teacher Education at Minority-Serving Institutions

Abstract

Minority-serving institutions are important in the production of teachers of color. However, this formative process is not without limitations. This multisite, multistate study relied on network analysis techniques to unveil timely and relevant concerns that students, faculty, and administrators identified as critical toward the strengthening of teacher production.     

‘I'm ready for a new chapter’: The voices of young people with autism spectrum disorder in transition to post-16 education and employment

This study explores the views and experiences of 12 young people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in transition to post-16 education and employment, in light of the changes introduced by the new special educational needs and disability (SEND) legislation in England. The extension of provision until the age of 25, and the introduction of person-centred education, health and care (EHC) plans, have given a significant place to the views of young people with SEND and their families. The views, wishes and aspirations of young people must be captured in the newly developed plans, reflecting the statutory requirement for local authorities to systematically record these in a biopsychosocial way, focusing on participation and well-being. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with young people with ASD attending specialist settings or receiving specialist support under the new EHC plans. These were analysed inductively, through thematic analysis. The findings suggest that at the time of transition, young people with ASD want to become increasingly more independent, present ambivalent feelings about their future and acknowledge the relevance of support systems in their lives. Implications for practice and future research are discussed, in light of the new English policy context.     

Preferences of students with learning disabilities for alternative service delivery modes

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the preferences of students with learning disabilities regarding the location in which they receive help and the person from whom to get help. The attitudes of students with learning disabilities towards school as a function of the time they spend in the mainstream and their characteristics were also investigated. Results of the structured interviews and survey statements of 150 students indicated that they preferred receiving extra help in the special education class from the special education teacher. Students’ preferences for setting or teacher were not related to age, sex, IQ or academic achievement level, nor to the time students spent in the mainstream. The students expressed a positive attitude towards school in general, and towards their teachers, their classmates and the schoolwork in particular.     

Pride as moral motive: moral pride and prosocial behaviour / El orgullo como motivación moral: orgullo moral y conducta prosocial

Moral pride, namely the pride generated by morally positive behaviour, can foster prosocial behaviour. To demonstrate this, two quasi-experimental studies were conducted with nine- to 11-year-old children. Study 1 analysed the effect of the pride felt after engaging in prosocial behaviour, in four classrooms from two different schools (N = 94). Study 2 analysed the effect of the pride generated by the evocation of a past example of one’s own prosocial behaviour, in four classrooms from another school (N = 77). The hypothesis was supported in Study 1 but not in Study 2. Interesting correlations were found between dispositional moral pride (measured using a scale designed ad hoc) and other relevant variables in the moral field: intention to engage in prosocial behaviour, habitual prosocial behaviour and dispositional empathy. In general, these studies attest to the importance of moral pride, both dispositional and that felt in a specific situation, in moral life.     

Revisiting Cross-document Structure Theory for multi-document discourse parsing

Multi-document discourse parsing aims to automatically identify the relations among textual spans from different texts on the same topic. Recently, with the growing amount of information and the emergence of new technologies that deal with many sources of information, more precise and efficient parsing techniques are required. The most relevant theory to multi-document relationship, Cross-document Structure Theory (CST), has been used for parsing purposes before, though the results had not been satisfactory. CST has received many critics because of its subjectivity, which may lead to low annotation agreement and, consequently, to poor parsing performance. In this work, we propose a refinement of the original CST, which consists in (i) formalizing the relationship definitions, (ii) pruning and combining some relations based on their meaning, and (iii) organizing the relations in a hierarchical structure. The hypothesis for this refinement is that it will lead to better agreement in the annotation and consequently to better parsing results. For this aim, it was built an annotated corpus according to this refinement and it was observed an improvement in the annotation agreement. Based on this corpus, a parser was developed using machine learning techniques and hand-crafted rules. Specifically, hierarchical techniques were used to capture the hierarchical organization of the relations according to the proposed refinement of CST. These two approaches were used to identify the relations among texts spans and to generate multi-document annotation structure. Results outperformed other CST parsers, showing the adequacy of the proposed refinement in the theory.     

Green intellectual capital and environmental product innovation: the mediating role of green social capital

Although the importance of intellectual capital has already been highlighted in the management literature, few articles have focused on the importance of its green counterpart, green intellectual capital. Nowadays, when environmental concerns cannot be ignored by firms, it is therefore time to explore the role of green intellectual capital in environmental improvement. For that reason, our research aims to explore the relationships between green intellectual capital components and the environmental performance of the firms. In particular, we try to show the importance of green organizational and social capital in the development of environmental product innovations, which are vital to the development and implementation of environmental strategies since, as scholars have pointed out, they generate some of the greatest environmental impacts. The empirical results show that green organizational capital has an indirect impact on environmental product innovation through green social capital, meaning that the latter is a significant mediator of that relationship, and at the same time emphasizing that informal relationships play a key role in the improvement of the environmental performance of the firm and, more specifically, in the development of environmental product innovations.