A chimpanzee’s (Pan troglodytes) long-term retention of lexigrams

In this experiment, a chimpanzee’s (Pan troglodytes) long-term retention was examined. The chimpanzee, Lana, was trained to use lexigrams (geometric symbols representing linguistic units) for foods, colors, and objects when she was 2 years of age. At the age of 27, her recognition of three sets of lexigrams was examined. One of these sets (long term lexigrams) included five object lexigrams, one color lexigram, and one food lexigram, none of which had been seen by Lana for more than 20 years. The second set (different-referent lexigrams) contained lexigrams that are still present on current lexigram keyboards, but had been assigned new referents. The third set (same-referent lexigrams) contained lexigrams that had been kept on the keyboards Lana had used and that had retained the same referents. A food, a colored square, or an object was presented, and Lana had to select, by using a joystick, a lexigram on a computer screen. Lana chose the correct lexigram at a level significantly greater than chance for five of the seven lexigrams that she had not seen for more than 20 years.     

Respect for Evidence: Can Science Education Deliver It?

Science & Education -     

Is Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) Necessary for Reformed Science Teaching?: Evidence from an Empirical Study

This study tested a hypothesis that focused on whether or not teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is a necessary body of knowledge for reformed science teaching. This study utilized a quantitative research method to investigate the correlation between a teacher’s PCK level as measured by the PCK rubric (Park et al. 2008) and the degree to which his/her classroom is reform-oriented as measured by RTOP (Sawada et al. 2002). Data included 33 instructional sessions of photosynthesis and heredity videotaped with 7 high school biology teachers. Each session was given a score on both the PCK rubric and RTOP by two independent raters. Results indicate that PCK score is significantly related to RTOP score in terms of both total score (r = .831, p < .01) and sub-component scores (ranging from r = .616 to .805, p < .01). Implications for science teacher education and future research are discussed.     

Research degrees in Information and Communication Technology (ICT): Why so few doctoral students?

A ‘knowledge society’ relies on a workforce with high-level skills in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Continuing development of ICT will arise partly from research undertaken by doctoral graduates. However, compared to other cognate disciplines, ICT has relatively few students taking up doctoral studies. This article explores some of the perceived barriers to undertaking doctoral studies in ICT in three Australian universities. Current students were surveyed regarding their post-course intentions relating to employment and further study, and the resulting data was analysed in terms of type of university attended, gender, nationality and first-in-family status. Overall, the perceived barriers to doing a research degree were related to the financial implications of such study and a limited understanding of what research in ICT involves. The following recommendations are made to universities and higher education policy-makers: that universities ensure that students have accurate information about the financial costs of doctoral studies; that students be provided with authentic undergraduate research experiences; and that pathways be developed to facilitate a smooth return to research degrees after periods of working in industry.     

Examination of the Weighted Root Mean Square Residual: Evidence for Trustworthiness?

This study examined the performance of the weighted root mean square residual (WRMR) through a simulation study using confirmatory factor analysis with ordinal data. Values and cut scores for the WRMR were examined, along with a comparison of its performance relative to commonly cited fit indexes. The findings showed that WRMR illustrated worse fit when sample size increased or model misspecification increased. Lower (i.e., better) values of WRMR were observed when nonnormal data were present, there were lower loadings, and when few categories were analyzed. WRMR generally illustrated expected patterns of relations to other well-known fit indexes. In general, a cutoff value of 1.0 appeared to work adequately under the tested conditions and the WRMR values of “good fit” were generally in agreement with other indexes. Users are cautioned that when the fitted model is misspeficifed, the index might provide misleading results under situations where extremely large sample sizes are used.     

Teach for Australia (TFA): can it overcome educational disadvantage?

This paper considers an alternative teacher certification pathway known as Teach for Australia (TFA) that is currently operating in the Australian state of Victoria. A discursive approach informed by critical theory is used in the paper to critically examine the specific case of TFA as an alternative teacher certification pathway charged with improving student learning outcomes and reducing educational disadvantage. The problematization of educational programmes such as TFA, including specific terms and statements found in TFA documentation, features prominently in the paper alongside the political and economic policy context of public education. The argument and central contention of the paper is that TFA will not overcome educational disadvantage; nor will it over time improve student learning outcomes.     

Experiment for the Future?Reprinted from Special Education: Forward Trends (1974) 1 (1)

Are the present 10 statutory categories of handicap likely to be abolished in the next year or two? A DES experiment with summaries that introduce five wider areas of handicap than the existing category suggests that a number of important changes may lie ahead, related to the assessment and placement of handicapped children.     

A Framework for Explaining Teachers’ Diagnostic Judgements by Cognitive Modeling (DiaCoM)

Research on diagnostic competencies of teachers nowadays raises the question which person or situational characteristics moderate judgement accuracy. Beside this correlational approach, a stronger interest in understanding the cognitive processes involved in the genesis of diagnostic judgements has emerged. To address the theoretical gap regarding cognitive processes underlying diagnostic judgements, we propose a framework, called DiaCoM (Explaining Teachers’ Diagnostic Judgements by Cognitive Modeling). It aims at supporting (existing or envisioned) research that strives to test cognitively oriented explanations for processes and products of diagnostic judgements of teachers.     

Mastery Motivation in Children with Intellectual Disability: Is there Evidence for a Down Syndrome Behavioural Phenotype?

The main purpose of the current study was to provide empirical evidence to support or refute assumptions of phenotypic deficits in motivation for children with Down syndrome (DS). Children with moderate intellectual disability (MID) associated with etiologies other than DS were recruited in an extension of a previous study that involved children with DS and typically developing children. The participants were 29 children with MID and 33 children with DS who were matched on mental age to 33 typically developing children, aged 3–8 years. Mastery motivation was assessed on task measures of curiosity, preference for challenge and persistence, as well as parental reports. There were no significant group differences on the mastery motivation tasks. Parental ratings of mastery motivation differed, with typically developing children generally being rated more highly than each of the disability groups. The view that motivational deficits are part of the DS behavioural phenotype was not supported.     

The quest for higher education by the Chinese middle class: retrenching social mobility?

This article examines how and why the Chinese second-generation middle class, who are unable to obtain admission in China’s premier universities, turn their back on other public universities and instead attend private universities in their country. It finds that their parents capitalize on their privileged guanxi (connections) to send their children to private universities and then study abroad to secure a generational reproduction of their class status and mobility. The Chinese new middle class families look upon joint-partnership private universities as the stepping stone for overseas study. In addition, this article examines how extant Western class theories, including Weberian, Neo-Weberian, and Bourdieuian theories, cannot provide an adequate account of class formation and the generational stratification in present-day China. To explain this reproduction of class in contemporary China, this paper explores how and why the Maoist social institutions of danwei (work unit) and hukou (household registration) still matter in post-reform China in determining middle class’s life chance. Seen in this light, the progenies of cadres and skilled professionals are the main beneficiaries of economic reform.     

高职(专科)生就业:技高一筹?

2009年,我国一半以上省份高职毕业生就业率已经超过或与本科毕业生就业率持平,高职院校毕业生就业率达到90％以上,技能型人才受到企业热烈欢迎。这是2009年11月召开的全国高等职业教育专业改革与教学资源建设工作研讨会暨国家示范性高职院校建设3周年成果展示会上,所公布的数据。     

Student-centred learning (SCL): roles changed?

This paper addresses the espoused and enacted practices of high school teachers with regard to student-centred learning (SCL). Explanatory mixed-method design, where quantitative strand is followed by qualitative one, is employed. While the quantitative strand aims to explore teachers’ perceptions regarding the extent student-centred teacher and student roles are performed, qualitative strand is used to explore how well the enacted roles represent the espoused ones and to explain the discrepancies, if any, between them. The findings indicate discrepancies between espoused and enacted practices of teachers. Qualitative data reveal that teachers’ beliefs about teacher and student roles are still very much teacher centred. Reasons are varied including system-wide barriers hindering the adoption of SCL and teacher training offered. The findings draw attention to an urgent need for alternative teacher training programmes that would focus on changing teachers’ traditional beliefs enabling them to put theory into practice and adopt student-centred roles.     

Linkages Between Children's and Their Friends' Social and Physical Aggression: Evidence for a Gene–Environment Interaction?

Based on a sample of 406 seven-year-old twins, this study examined whether exposure to friends' social or physical aggression, respectively, moderates the effect of heritability on children's own social and physical aggression. Univariate analyses showed that children's own social and physical aggression were significantly explained by genetic factors, whereas friends' social and physical aggression represented "true" environmental factors that were unrelated to children's genetic dispositions. Multivariate analyses further suggested a possible gene–environment interaction in the link between friends' and children's physical aggression but not in the link between friends' and children's social aggression. Instead, friends' social aggression was directly related to children's social aggression, in addition to genetic effects on this behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

Core Elements of the European (Higher) Education Policy: Market-Driven Restructuring or Impetus for Intercultural Rapprochement?

For many years there has been a debate about the existence or not, of a common European education policy. In this article I argue that there has been a real European education policy since the approval of the Maastricht Treaty, with a proper content and which offers many new possibilities to students. The core of this policy is the setting up of the European Higher Education Area, designed not only for attendance-based universities, but also for distance and virtual universities. However, the policies, expected to be in force by 2010, have not been without problems and a critique of the implications for European higher education institutes is offered following an outline of the development and evolution of the policies.     

Education for sustainable development (ESD): the turn away from ‘environment’ in environmental education?

This article explores the implications of the shift of environmental education (EE) towards education for sustainable development (ESD) in the context of environmental ethics. While plural perspectives on ESD are encouraged both by practitioners and researchers of EE, there is also a danger that such pluralism may sustain dominant political ideologies and consolidated corporate power that obscure environmental concerns. Encouraging plural interpretations of ESD may in fact lead ecologically ill-informed teachers and students acculturated by the dominant neo-liberal ideology to underprivilege ecocentric perspective. It is argued that ESD, with its focus on human welfare, equality, rights and fair distribution of resources is a radical departure from the aim of EE set out by the Belgrade Charter as well as a distinct turn towards anthropocentrically biased education. This article has two aims: to demonstrate the importance of environmental ethics for EE in general and ESD in particular and to argue in favour of a return to instrumentalism, based on the twinned assumptions that the environmental problems are severe and that education of ecologically minded students could help their resolution.     

威客(Witkey)与博客(Blog):网上教师教育领域谁主沉浮?

本文首先提炼出目前网络上非常火热的两个个性化知识管理和信息交流工具——博客与威客的含义、特点、功能,总结出它们在教师教育中的作用及缺陷,指出威客与博客在教师教育中的共性与区别,通过二维坐标详细分析了威客与博客在教师教育中所处的不同地位。从而预示出这两种新型网络平台的潜在教育应用价值。     

“Just dreaming of them”: The Berlin Project for Primary Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse by Juveniles (PPJ)

The Berlin Project for Primary Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse by Juveniles (PPJ) offers diagnostic and therapeutic help to 12-to-18-year-old juveniles with a sexual preference for the prepubescent and/or early pubescent body of children and who apply for treatment on a voluntary basis. The project goal is to prevent primary or recurrent child sexual abuse as well as primary or recurrent use of child abuse images. Treatment aims to enable affected juveniles to obtain control over their conflictual sexual behaviors. In the present article, the origin of the PPJ; its main approach, including the conception of a media campaign; as well as results from the first year of a three-year study are presented. Further, initial characterizations of juveniles taking part in the project for the first 12 months are provided. The results confirmed that the group of 12-to-18-year-old juveniles with a sexual preference for prepubescent and/or early pubescent minors exists as a target group for primary preventive measures and that they can be assessed for their sexual preferences.     

Reading Recovery and Evidence‐based Practice: A response to Reynolds and Wheldall (2007)

Reynolds and Wheldall reviewed research relating to Reading Recovery (RR) and concluded that “RR has provided an excellent model in demonstrating how to plan, promote, and implement an intervention across an educational system and how to design a professional development programme” (2007 Reynolds, M. and Wheldall, K. 2007. Reading Recovery 20 years down the track: Looking forward, looking back. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 54: 199–223. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar], p. 218). They balanced this praise with concerns about the research base for RR, its effectiveness for the lowest‐performing first‐grade students, long‐term change in literacy achievement for RR students and RR’s cost‐effectiveness. This response aims to address these concerns by discussing four central issues of evidence‐based practice from their review: evidence of effectiveness; sustained gains; programme evaluation data from a response to intervention perspective; and cost‐effectiveness versus cost‐benefit.