Engineering education at a new public university in Brazil: first students’ contact with engineering methods

This paper describes the experience of an introductory discipline to the engineering curricula at the Brazilian Federal University of ABC (UFABC). The university offers a common basic curriculum that must be accomplished by every student and can be followed by professionalising courses. The discipline ‘Introduction to Engineering’ presents the basis of the engineering career, methods and thinking together with professional commitments and regulations. The objective is to help students to consciously choose their careers, minimising the precocity problem in deciding a professional future. The discipline methodology includes activities proposed by the TryEngineering website and from Brazilian engineering councils. Lectures with invited professors introduce UFABC engineering specialities: Aerospace, Bioengineering, Energy, Environmental & Urban, Information, Instrumentation & Automation & Robotics, Management, Materials. This paper reports the proposed activities, results obtained by the students, a methodology critical analysis and the impacts on the following steps of students embracing an engineering career.     

通过话轮交替模式分析《茶花女》中的人物性格

本文运用会话分析中的话轮交替模式来分析Alexandre Dumas fils的剧本《茶花女》第九章的一段对话,展示戏剧中人物性格。本文中具体分析话轮交替机制主要包括的三个方面,即话轮分配、话轮分布和话轮序列。     

International

THE VOICE OF AMERICA: FROM DETENTE TO THE REAGAN DOCTRINE by Laurien Alexandre (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1989—no price given, ISBN 0-89391-465-7)

VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDERS IN THE THIRD WORLD edited by Douglas A. Boyd, Joseph D. Straubhaar and John A. Lent (New York: Longman, 1989—price not given, ISBN 0-8013-0196-3)

SPACEBRIDGES: TELEVISION AND US-SOVIET DIALOGUE edited by Michael Brainerd (University Press of America, 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, MD 20706—$13.50, paper, ISBN 0-8191-7433-5, with a hardback also available)

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND GLOBAL INTERDEPENDENCE edited by Mereroo Jussawalla, Tadayuki Okuma, and Toshihiro Araki (New York: Praeger, 1989—$39.95, ISBN 0-313-26326-4)     

Validity and reliability of the Very Short form of the Physical Self-Inventory among Turkish adolescents

The study aimed to test the validity and reliability of the Very Short form of the Physical Self-Inventory (PSI-VS) among a sample of 635 Turkish adolescents. These adolescents have completed the 12 original items of the PSI-VS, plus a positively worded reformulation of the single reverse-keyed item of the physical attractiveness subscale. A series of confirmatory factor analyses was used to examine the psychometric properties of the original and modified versions of the PSI-VS. Findings revealed superior psychometric properties with the modified version than with the original set of items. The modified version was thus subsequently used to examine its factor structure invariance across sexes, age groups and sport practice involvement. Results not only report that this version was fully invariant across, but also that latent means were significantly different across sexes and sport practice involvement. In sum, the Turkish modified version of the PSI-VS presents acceptable psychometric properties and may be used to repeatedly and/or intensively assess participants’ physical self-perceptions in the context of sport and exercise interventions.     

Book reviews

International Review of Education -