What do K-12 students feel when dealing with technology and engineering issues? Gardner's multiple intelligence theory implications in technology lessons for motivating engineering vocations at Spanish Secondary School

The interest on engineering and scientific studies can be raised up even from the early years of academic instructional process. This vocation may be linked to emotions and aptitudes towards technological education. Particularly, students get in touch with these technological issues (namely STEM) during the Compulsory Secondary Education in Spain (12–16 years old).This work presents a preliminary evaluation of how relevant is Gardner's multiple intelligence theory (MIT) in the teaching–learning process within the Technology Lessons. In this sense, MIT was considered as an explanation variable of the emotional response within the different educational parts (so-called syllabus units, SU) in the Technology spanish curriculum. Different intelligence style (IS) will orient the student to a vision of the engineering and technology. This work tries to identify which relationships can be established between IS and specific technology and engineering learning. This research involved up to 135 students were subsequently tested about their predominant (IS) and on the emotions that arouse in them when working with each SU. The results were statistically significant and only those with a Logic-arithmetic or Environmental IS were not affected by the SU.Best teaching and learning practicesare required for encouraging further engineering studies.     

Exploring affiliation network models as a collaborative filtering mechanism in e-learning

The online interaction of learners and tutors in activities with concrete objectives provides a valuable source of data that can be analyzed for different purposes. One of these purposes is the use of the information extracted from that interaction to aid tutors and learners in decision making about either the configuration of further learning activities or the filtering of learning resources. This article explores the use of an affiliation network model for such kind of purposes. Concretely, the use of techniques such as blockmodeling – a technique used to derive meaningful patterns of relationships in the network – and the analysis of m-slices – a technique helpful to study cohesion in relationships – are explored as tools to decide on the configuration of topics and/or learner groups. In particular, the results of the case study show that such techniques can be used to (i) filter participants for rearranging groups; (ii) rearrange topics of interest; and (iii) dynamically change the structure of a course. The techniques presented can be considered a case of collaborative filtering based on social network structure.     

Film Directors

Peter Lehman and William Luhr, Blake Edwards (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1981 -- $8.95 paper/$18.95 cloth).

David Lean: A Guide to References and Resources by Louis P. Castelli ($18.50)

Stanley Kubrick: A Guide to References and Resources by Wallace Coyle ($24.00).

Jon Tuska (editor), Close Up: The Contemporary Director (Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 1981 -- $22.50).

Frederick Lamster, Souls Made Great Through Love and Adversity: The Film Work of Frank Borzage (Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 1981 -- $12.50).

Renata Berg-Pan, Leni Reifenstahl (1980, $13.95, 222 pages).

Georg Gaston, Karel Reisz (1980, $13.95, 166 pages).

Bettina Knapp, Sacha Guitry (1981, $14.95, 245 pages).

John Kreidl, Jean-Luc Godard (198. 0, $12.95, 273 pages).

Barbara Learning, Gri ore Kozintsev (1980, 14.95, 212 pages).

Charles J. Maland, Frank Capra (1980, $10.95, 218 pages).

Gene D. Phillips, John Schlesinger (19817714.95, 199 pages).

Stephen Snyder, Pier Paolo Pasolini (1980, $13.95, 199 pages).

William R. Taylor, Sydney Pollack (1981-, $14.95, 170 pages).

Louis Giannetti, Masters of the American Cinema (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981 -- $11.95 paper).     

An unexpected world population variation of MCT1 polymorphism 1470T > A involved in lactate transport

A common missense mutation (1470T > A) in gene SLC16A1 responsible for an amino acid substitution in protein MCT1 has been associated with differential lactate transport and hence, differences in physical performance and muscle injuries in relation to physical exercise. This study describes, for the first time, the worldwide variation of MCT1 variant 1470T > A at an intra- and inter-continental level. Two thousand five hundred and four individual genotypes of 26 populations clustered in 5 population groups have been analysed with data downloaded from the public database 1000 Genomes Phase 3 Browser. Several parameters of population differentiation and structure have been explored as well as selection signatures in the whole gene. Allele T, the common variant, shows extremely high values in Sub-Saharan African groups (frequencies 86–91%) as compared with the remaining world regions (69–49%). TT genotype also predominates in African groups, showing significant differences with the rest of world populations. In view of the evidence that the TT genotype is associated with clinical implications and a better predisposition to sprint/power performances, we suggest that the high presence of the TT genotype in African populations should be taken into account in future association studies at both medical and sports fields.     

RETRACTED ARTICLE: The moderating role of resilience in the relationship between academic burnout and the perception of psychological health in nursing students

The objective of this study was to analyse the role of resilience in the dimensions of academic burnout syndrome and psychological health in a sample of nursing students. A battery of questionnaires was administered to 218 nursing students, all of whom were in the second year of their degree at the University of Murcia (Spain). The applied protocol used the CD-RISC 10 scale for the measurement of resilience, the burnout scale MBI, and the GHQ-12 questionnaire to assess psychological health. The findings showed a significant relationship between resilience and burnout, emotional exhaustion and self-efficacy, as well as with psychological health. Moreover, three burnout dimensions were found to be significantly linked to psychological health in the way we had predicted. A stepwise regression analysis indicated the moderating role of resilience on psychological health in emotionally exhausting situations. We conclude that the psychological characteristic resilience moderated the effect of emotional exhaustion on the psychological health of the students. The practical implications of the results are discussed in order to introduce measures for the proper training of nursing students for professional practice; we also make several suggestions for future research in this field.     

Orthographic learning in dyslexic Spanish children

Reading fluency is one of the basic processes of learning to read. Children begin to develop fluency when they are able to form orthographic representations of words, which provide direct, smooth, and fast reading. Dyslexic children of transparent orthographic systems are mainly characterized by poor reading fluency (Cuetos & Suárez-Coalla 2009; Spinelli, De Luca, Di Filippo, Mancini, Martelli, & Zoccolotti, 2005; Wimmer, 1993). Therefore, the main problem for these children could be the difficulty in developing orthographic representations of the words they read. The aim of this study was to test the ability of dyslexic Spanish-speaking children (whose native language is Spanish) to develop orthographic representations and determine if the context helps them. For this, two experiments were conducted with a group of 100 children, 7–12 years of age. The groups were comprised of 20 dyslexics, 40 chronological age-matched controls and 40 reading level-matched controls. In the first experiment, eight unfamiliar words (four short and four long) were presented six times within the context of a story. In the second experiment, eight pseudowords were presented on a computer and the children had to read them aloud. In both experiments, the reading and articulation times of experimental and control stimuli were compared, before and after the training. Children without dyslexia showed a decrease of the influence of length of word on reading speed, indicating a lexical reading, while for dyslexic children, the influence of length remained unchanged. These results appeared when the stimuli were presented in the context of a story as well as when presented in isolation. In short, our results describe that dyslexic children of transparent orthographic systems have problems in developing orthographic representations of words.     

The use (and misuse) of PISA in guiding policy reform: the case of Spain

In 2013 Spain introduced a series of educational reforms explicitly inspired by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 results. These reforms were mainly implemented in secondary education – based upon the assumption that this is where Spain's educational problems lie. This paper questions this assumption by attempting to identify the point where Spanish children fall behind young people in other developed countries. Specifically, by drawing data from multiple international assessments, we are able to explore how cross-national differences in reading skills change as children age. Consideration is given to both the average level of achievement and the evolution of educational inequalities. Our conclusion is that policy-makers have focused their efforts on the wrong part of the education system; educational achievement is low in Spain (and educational inequalities large) long before children enter secondary school. This study therefore serves as a note of caution against simplistic interpretation of the PISA rankings.