Gender differences in reading performance on documents across countries

Females are known to excel over males in most reading tasks, but notconsistently so in tasks that require processing information from maps,tables, charts and diagrams, so called `Documents'. The IEA ReadingLiteracy data provides possibilities to investigate gender differencesacross countries in such tasks in two age groups, 9-year-olds and14-year-olds. The general question about cultural influences vs. aninvariant pattern of gender differences is of great interest for genderresearch, and central in this study. The aim of the paper is to describeand analyze gender differences on Document tasks, and investigate if andhow the pattern of differences varies over countries. Another aim is todemonstrate the power of using a multivariate analysis technique bycontrasting it against traditional univariate approaches. The univariateanalysis indicates female advantage as the most common in the youngergroup and a mixed pattern in the older. The multivariate analysisindicate that Document tasks are not unidimensional, because bothgeneral and specific dimensions can be extracted from the raw scores.The traditional univariate analysis often disguised true patterns ofdifferences in the data, both in terms of country differences and interms of the direction of the gender differences. Raw score differencesbetween the genders proved to be due to differences in both general andpassage specific dimensions. Ten of the countries showed genderdifferences in both directions in the general dimension among9-year-olds, while an almost consistent pattern of female advantage wasfound among 14-years-olds. Many of the specific passage dimensionsturned out to favor either males or females. This complex pattern variedover both age groups and across countries, although commonalities in thepattern among subgroups of countries were common.     

Teacher efficacy in student engagement,instructional management,student stressors,and burnout: A theoretical model using in-class variables to predict teachers' intent-to-leave

The models presented here posit a complex relationship between efficacy in student engagement and intent-to-leave that is mediated by in-class variables of instructional management, student behavior stressors, aspects of burnout, and job satisfaction. Using data collected from 631 teachers, analyses provided support for the two models that predicted teachers' intent-to-leave. To enhance generalizability, this study also tested whether the structural coefficients were invariant across teacher gender and grade level. With one exception, the models appeared largely invariant across gender and grade level. Supplementing the structural models, measurement invariance and equality of latent factor means were also explored.     

Investigating Factorial Invariance of Latent Variables Across Populations When Manifest Variables Are Missing Completely

Difficulties arise in multiple-group evaluations of factorial invariance if particular manifest variables are missing completely in certain groups. Ad hoc analytic alternatives can be used in such situations (e.g., deleting manifest variables), but some common approaches, such as multiple imputation, are not viable. At least 3 solutions to this problem are viable: analyzing differing sets of variables across groups, using pattern mixture approaches, and a new method using random number generation. The latter solution, proposed in this article, is to generate pseudo-random normal deviates for all observations for manifest variables that are missing completely in a given sample and then to specify multiple-group models in a way that respects the random nature of these values. An empirical example is presented in detail comparing the 3 approaches. The proposed solution can enable quantitative comparisons at the latent variable level between groups using programs that require the same number of manifest variables in each group.     

如何提高大学生的俄语阅读能力

阅读教学在俄语教学中占有十分重要的地位。通过阅读,既可形成语言习惯,又可熟悉许多常用的句型,同时又能提高阅读的准确性。本就目前俄语阅读教学中所存在的问题,阅读在教学中的重要性和必要性以及提高学生阅读的途径进行了论述。     

Reading to young children: A head-start in life?

This paper investigates the importance of parents reading to their young children. Using Australian data we find that parental reading to children at age 4–5 has positive and significant effects on reading skills and cognitive skills (including numeracy skills) of these children at least up to age 10 or 11. The effects on skills more closely related to reading and language are larger than those on skills such as numeracy skills. However, all findings in relation to reading and other cognitive skills are persistent and robust to a wide range of sensitivity analyses. Although reading to children is also correlated with children's non-cognitive skills, after accounting for the endogeneity of reading to children, no causal effect remains.     

大学英语阅读教学的新解读

针对现今英语教学改革中出现过于强调听说,忽视阅读教学的现象,认为阅读教学不应受到冷落,反而应该加强,否则将会极大地阻碍学生综合应用语言能力的发展。同时提出了提高英语阅读教学效果的教学对策：1.提高识记单词的能力;2.扩大阅读量,培养英语思维习惯;3.科学地训练阅读技能。     

浅谈英语快速阅读

英语快速阅读受诸多因素的影响,本文对此进行了简要论述.同时对阅读者应该学习一些阅读方法、掌握一定的阅读技巧,以便提高英语阅读速度和理解力进行了探讨.     

掌握英语阅读技巧提高英语阅读能力

在英语阅读过程中，读者应当摒弃一些贯用而不太合理的阅读方式，寻找到省时，省力并能准确领会文章的适合于自己的阅读方式，这就要求读者掌握一定的的阅读技巧，以提高自己的阅读能力。