Davydov’s concept of the concept and its dialectical materialist background

Educational Studies in Mathematics - The goal of this article is to investigate Davydov’s concept of the concept against the backdrop of its philosophical system, namely, dialectical...     

From trust to control – the Swedish first teacher reform

In this study, the implementation of the Swedish first teacher reform, where especially skilled teachers get an opportunity to advance in their careers, is examined. The scene is an upper secondary school, Baxter High, in the southwest of Sweden. In this particular school, a new system with first teachers replaces an old system of so-called head teachers. The teachers’ response to this is multilayered: at the same time as it reveals an unwillingness to change everyday work rhythms, it is also a response to cultural change, and to change in the discourse of political life in Baxter High. The implementation of the first teacher reform results not only in a change in administrative categories, but also in a change in ideology, intertwined with and embedded in the cultural and social life of the school. In this article, the authors connect the first teacher reform to the neoliberal transformation process that the Swedish educational system has undergone over the last three decades.     

The study of the pupil’s cognitive structure: the concept of angle

The present research approached a problem which has a twofold aspect: the concept of angle and the techniques needed to represent how pupils construct that concept in their cognitive structure during their years in school. In order to access the knowledge of the concept of angle, we used the pathfinder associative networks. This technique provided us with the data of the 458 networks of the participating students, using 11 concepts related to the general concept of angle. We used quantitative indicators on the network characteristics: coherence, complexity, and similarity with others. Results showed how the pupil’s cognitive structure evolutioned during instruction and what were the most relevant concepts for them. On the basis of the results, we have proposed what we call the “Theory of Nuclear Concepts” which offers a new focus to understanding how the processes of teaching and learning occur.     

The development of students critical thinking abilities and dispositions through the concept mapping learning method – A meta-analysis

Our meta-analysis investigates the effectiveness of the concept mapping method compared with the traditional teaching method, for the improvement of critical thinking ability and disposition outcomes. We included studies measuring students' critical thinking through standardised tests, comparing an experimental (concept mapping) group with a control (traditional teaching) one. Effect sizes for critical thinking ability and disposition outcomes were pooled with a random-effects model. We included in our meta-analysis 21 studies (108 comparisons) involving 1695 students. The concept mapping method was more effective than the traditional teaching method at posttest for the improvement of critical thinking ability (g = 0.531, 95% CI 0.279 to 0.783) and disposition (g = 0.648, 95% CI 0.266 to 1.031). Heterogeneity was moderate to high, Egger's test did not indicate any evidence of publication bias; however, both visual inspection of the Funnel plot and Duval and Tweedie's trim and fill method indicated potentially three missing studies for critical thinking ability and two for critical thinking disposition. Additionally, we analysed the potential moderating effect of students' demographic characteristics, educational conditions, concept mapping elaboration methods and allocation type. Allocation type was a significant moderator, having a strong effect on concept mapping for critical thinking abilities in randomised studies (g = 0.739, 95% CI 0.356 to 1.122), but its effect is low in non-randomised studies (g = 0.265, 95% CI 0.014 to 0.517).     

On extending the concept of double negativity to acoustic waves

INTRODUCTION At this moment, novel concepts of “negative” media, having negative refraction and/or “double negativity” and their physical consequences and plausible applications are drawing considerable at- tention from the science and engineering community. In the past few years, considerable progress has been made in electromagnetic (EM) waves. It is our wish to generalize such concepts to acoustic waves. Since the concept of negative refraction, negative constitutive relationships…     

An empirical study of the influence of the concept of “job-hunting” on graduates’ employment

The concept of job-hunting is an important factor affecting university students’ employment. This empirical study shows that while hunting for a job, graduates witness negative correlation between their expectation of the nature of work and the demand for occupational types and the accessibility to a post and monthly income; positive correlation between students’ initiative and employment opportunities; positive correlation between salary expectation and real income; negative correlation between mental preparation for hardship and job satisfaction. Therefore, institutions of higher learning must strengthen their employment education, guiding students to foster a sound sense of competition, the concept of occupational position, mental preparation for vocational hardship so that students can rectify their attitude towards employment and adjust their employment concept, thus benefiting them in gaining a position.     

Exploring the relational efforts making up a curriculum concept—an Actor-network theory analysis of the curriculum concept of children’s interests

This paper undertakes an investigation of the ‘life’ of the curriculum concept of children’s interests in a preschool practice. The concept of children’s interests plays a vital role in the Swedish preschool curriculum text and in the preschool field. Strongly inspired by Actor-network theory readings, the paper aims at producing accounts making visible the making of the concept of children’s interests through relations among children, carpets, Minecraft figures, boxes, teachers and schedules in a preschool practice. The paper engages in ethnographic materials generated at a Stockholm preschool over a period of 10 months.     

Revisiting Susan Isaacs – a modern educator for the twenty‐first century

Susan Sutherland Isaacs (1885–1948) was arguably the most influential child psychologist and educator of her British generation. Her work was studied by eminent contemporary academics, psychologists, philosophers and politicians. Her influence was international. She reached across the world to a generation of teacher educators who passed on her ideas to succeeding generations of primary teachers throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. She was a thoughtful and immensely erudite woman whose deep understanding of children’s thinking has been admired and discussed for nearly one hundred years. Her advice, under the pseudonym Ursula Wise, was much sought after by parents and nannies in the advice columns of the British magazine Nursery World. Susan Isaacs synthesised the work of earlier European and American educators into a particularly English package, suited to the practical bent of the English educator. Her work pre‐figures that of Piaget (whose early work she reviewed) and Vygotsky (whose work was translated from the Russian after her death). And always, at the heart of her work, lay the belief that deep observation was the key to understanding the complex and unique realities of individual children.     

Expectations and experiences: the voice of a first‐generation first‐year college student and the question of student persistence

This single case study takes a phenomenological approach using the voice centered analysis to analyze qualitative interview data so that the voice of this first‐generation college student is brought forward. It is a poignant voice filled with conflicting emotional responses to the desire for college success, for family stability, for meaningful friendships, and for understanding the self. In combination with other research calling for an expansion of the dominant theory of persistence, this research raises the importance of elevating family relationships in the student persistence model.     

The use of citations in educational research: the instance of the concept of ‘situated learning’

This article provides a citation analysis of Lave and Wenger’s work on ‘communities of practice’ and ‘situated learning’ over the period 1991–2001. The data relate to educational research in the UK, although comparisons are made with the USA. The findings indicate that although the text was incorporated and heavily used within educational research over the period of the study there were very few citations that could be identified as cumulative. The discussion considers the value of using citations as an indicator of quality within any research excellence framework and argues the case for taking a broader, more qualitative approach to assessing research quality in the social sciences.     

Legitimating the world-class university concept through the discourse of elite universities’ presidents†

Although well-renowned universities attempt to differentiate themselves from other universities, little research has been undertaken on the principal themes involved in the concept of the world-class university (WCU) as presented in speeches by members of WCUs. These discourses are a key tool in universities’ attempt to shape the competitive framework of higher education through legitimacy. We study the presidents’ discourses from 100 leading universities to identify the themes and emergent discourse of these universities’ communities. Applying topic modeling methodology to the speeches’ corpus, we find seven communities (Worldwide-the four regions, American-from different states, Flagship, Education concerned, Some Chinese universities, Central European universities and Challengers) and four main themes arising from WCUs’ discourses (Research universities within international rankings, Stakeholders and leadership, Mission and values, and Education). Our preliminary findings suggest that leading universities are working to adopt the WCU label based on their salient characteristics.     

Change in the body temperature of healthy term infant over the first 72 hours of life

INTRODUCTIONMeasuringbodytemperaturehaslongbecomeanindispensablemeansfortheevaluationofapa-tient抯generalhealthstatus.Temperatureasoneofthekeyfactorsinphysiologicalhomeostasisissubjecttominuteregulation,whilebeingareadilyaccessiblediagnosticindicatoraswell.Circadianrhythmswerereportedinnewbornsasearlyasonthe2nddayoflife(Sitkaetal.,1994).Likewise,avarietyofotherbenignfactors,suchasenviron-mentaltemperature,seasonalvariations,stateofarousal,metabolicstate,ethnicityandothers,arealsoknowntoaf…     

Conceptions of first‐year university students of the constituents of matter and the notions of acids and bases

Preconceptions of first‐year university students of the constituents of matter and the notions of acids and bases were investigated on a total of 400 students. The procedure used consisted of free interviews, semi‐structured interviews and questionnaires.

It was found that the constituents of matter were well known to students, but that interactions between these constituents were either totally unknown or were the subject of severe misconceptions. The students’ knowledge tended to be qualitative and formal, with a worrying lack of connection with everyday life.     

University students＇ conceptions about the concept of gene： Interest of historical approach

Concepts of genetics are often difficult to teach, specifically the central concept of gene. Even the scientists disagree when defining this concept. This paper investigates university students＇ understanding about the gene and its functions. The results show the dominance of two conceptions of the gene： the Neoclassical model and the Mendelian model. The existence of hybrid conceptions and the lack of the modern model show that students are unable to mobilize the knowledge taught in biology. These results suggest to improve the teaching methods of genetics, for instance, by developing activities that bring students face to face with their conceptions.     

Teachers’ first year in the profession: the power of high-quality support

ABSTRACT

In research on teacher induction, scholars have pointed at the pivotal role of collegial support to overcome the challenges inherent to the first years of teaching. In this quantitative study, we extend current work by using a social network perspective to examine characteristics (i.e. network size, frequency and perceived usefulness) of professional, emotional, and social collegial support networks. Moreover, we explore the extent to which these characteristics explain key factors affecting teacher retention, namely job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation to teach, and self-efficacy. An online survey was completed by 292 beginning primary school teachers in Flanders (Belgium). Social network data showed that, on average, they receive professional, emotional and social support from six colleagues each week and found this mostly useful. Regression analyses demonstrated that network size and perceived usefulness of professional, emotional, and social collegial support networks were positively related to job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation to teach, thus confirming the importance of collegial support in teacher induction. Frequency of support was not significant. Finally, no substantial relationship was found between collegial support and teachers’ self-efficacy. Implications of these findings for practice and policy are discussed.