Author Index Volume 6

Authors Index

Author Index Volume 6     

You Learn by your Mistakes. Effective Training Strategies Based on the Analysis of Video-Recorded Worked-out Examples

This paper presents an empirical study on procedural learning from errors that was conducted within the field of vocational education. It examines whether, and to what extent, procedural learning can benefit more from the detection and written analysis of errors (experimental condition) than from the correct elements (control group). The study involved 136 commercial employee apprentices who were working on a videorecorded, worked-out example of a professional procedure involving customer counselling. The results showed no differences between the conditions with regards to declarative knowledge acquisition during the procedure. Additionally, the analysis of errors was demonstrated to be more effective than the analysis of correct behaviours in terms of (1) representing a much more detailed and correct procedure and (2) developing anticipatory knowledge about possible errors to be avoided. The results highlighted the value of the inductive instructional strategy (from the analysis of a single worked-out example to the learning of the general procedure) and opened the field up for future applications of a similar instructional approach combining roleplaying and video analysis of errors in vocational education to develop communication skills.     

Cost-effective on-demand associative author name disambiguation

Authorship disambiguation is an urgent issue that affects the quality of digital library services and for which supervised solutions have been proposed, delivering state-of-the-art effectiveness. However, particular challenges such as the prohibitive cost of labeling vast amounts of examples (there are many ambiguous authors), the huge hypothesis space (there are several features and authors from which many different disambiguation functions may be derived), and the skewed author popularity distribution (few authors are very prolific, while most appear in only few citations), may prevent the full potential of such techniques. In this article, we introduce an associative author name disambiguation approach that identifies authorship by extracting, from training examples, rules associating citation features (e.g., coauthor names, work title, publication venue) to specific authors. As our main contribution we propose three associative author name disambiguators: (1) EAND (Eager Associative Name Disambiguation), our basic method that explores association rules for name disambiguation; (2) LAND (Lazy Associative Name Disambiguation), that extracts rules on a demand-driven basis at disambiguation time, reducing the hypothesis space by focusing on examples that are most suitable for the task; and (3) SLAND (Self-Training LAND), that extends LAND with self-training capabilities, thus drastically reducing the amount of examples required for building effective disambiguation functions, besides being able to detect novel/unseen authors in the test set. Experiments demonstrate that all our disambigutators are effective and that, in particular, SLAND is able to outperform state-of-the-art supervised disambiguators, providing gains that range from 12% to more than 400%, being extremely effective and practical.     

Peculiaridades de la lectura táctil del braille. Un estudio empírico

Resumen

Este artículo ofrece una discusión sobre las posibles causas que pueden explicar por qué el desarrollo cognitivo de los ciegos presenta retrasos importantes en el período de las operaciones concretas, mientras que no presenta diferencias respecto a los videntes en tareas de tipo proposicional. Para ello se examinan tres posibles explicaciones: la influencia del modo de escolarización, las características del tacto y la remediación verbal. Se acaba concluyendo que estas dos últimas hipótesis son las que ofrecen una explicación más convincente. Los datos que aquí se aportan pare?en sostener la hipótesis dual sobre la representación de la información en la memoria.     

Celebrating Jhumki Basu’s contributions to science education as a scholar and an activist: voices from the field

This metalogue addresses the ways Sreyashi Jhumki Basu mediated our practices in science education and life. We focus on Basu’s uses of critical science agency, democratic science classrooms, and critical feminist ethnography to transform the possibilities for all participants in her research and educational practices. We also examine her use of cases and pedagogical strategies to support youth set practice goals based on conceptions of self and preferred learning trajectories. These strategies allow youth to develop power through the use of disciplinary knowledge and modes of inquiry to support their understanding of themselves as powerful, able to change their position in the world, and make the world more socially just. This (Key Contributors) article acknowledges a life cut short through disease, reflects our personal loss of a friend and colleague, and expresses determination to ensure that her contributions to science education are sustained and continued.

Internal quality assurance: A new culture or added bureaucracy?

This paper analyses teaching and non-teaching staff perceptions on the implementation of internal quality assurance (QA) practices at their higher education institutions. The aim is to understand how far different perspectives on quality – as culture, as compliance or as consistency – are reflected in the views of these two groups on such practices. Data from a survey sent to all Portuguese institutions show that, to some extent, the perspectives of quality as culture and quality as compliance seem to permeate both groups’ views. This is evident in regard to the factors identified as supporting the development of internal QA, the main features underlying the implementation of such practices and their main effects. As the study allows for a better understanding on how these practices are perceived by teaching and non-teaching staff, it can contribute to promoting the critical reflection of institutions about QA and the way it can be both more effective and aligned with academia’s needs and expectations, contributing to influencing institutional practices.