Adaptation of Child Abuse Potential Inventory in Chile: analysis of the difficulties and challenges in the application in Chilean studies

OBJECTIVE: This paper describes two studies aimed at validating the Chilean version of Child Abuse Potential (CAP). The paper also discusses problems in what respects conceptualizing and detecting maltreatment within a process of research as it relates to a specific culture. METHOD: An instrument based on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory was administered to two different samples of 134 people and 280 people, respectively. Both studies are contrasted in terms of internal consistency, factor analysis, and the instrument's ability to discriminate between abusers and non-abusers. RESULTS: Both studies feature good internal consistency (.98 and .95) and a factor structure similar to that of the original instrument; however, the second study shows problems concerning correct subject classification. The contrast of both studies suggests that the instrument is suitable for discriminating between severe child physical abuse and very well-treated children. The indecision area of classification is 67%. CONCLUSION: The results of both studies highlight the need to conceptualize and operationalize child abuse within a specific cultural context. The distinction between abusers and non-abusers becomes more blurred in the less extreme cases.     

Projects in a sixth‐grade classroom: entering a bumpy but promising road

In this article the possibility of developing authentic project work in a sixth‐grade classroom of a Venezuelan school is explored, by means of action research (AR) methodology. Two AR cycles with two different projects were carried out. Data were collected via teacher researcher, co‐researcher and student journals, and also by means of audio and video recordings, interviews with students, and compilation of classroom products. Data were interpreted using a narrative presentation and also applying five categories, only one of which is analyzed in this paper. Results show that on the one hand student participation increased in all stages of the project work. On the other hand, students encountered some difficulties carrying out empirical research activities and also relating them to theoretical content, although progress in this regard was made. Additionally, communication should have departed more from mere repetition, although some teams were able to try more formative approaches. It was corroborated that school facilities must be improved in order to promote better project work. AR proved fruitful as a way to produce changes and generate practical and reflexive contributions.     

The Impact of Individual,Educational, and Workplace Factors on the Transfer of School-Based Learning into the Workplace

The aim of this study was to investigate the transfer of learning of professional competences from vocational colleges to the workplace context in vocational education. Concretely, the study examined the relations between the professional competences learned at school and the use and further development of those competences at the workplace during the practice module in vocational education programmes in Spain. The study analysed individual, educational design and work environment factors that facilitate or hinder transfer of learning. The study took a multidimensional approach to professional competences by observing four dimensions: hard-specific, hard-generic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. The data collection drew from a questionnaire administered to students of vocational education programmes (N = 379) after they had completed the practice module scheme. A moderation analysis was applied to observe the effect of individual, educational design and workplace factors on the relation between the competences learned at school and those used at the workplace. The findings showed that compulsory placement, school-work alignment, work-based supervisor, access to resources and task complexity are significant moderators between the competences learned at school and those used at the workplace. The study highlights the coherence between the school and workplaces and work environment characteristics as factors conducive to transfer of learning.     

Exploring pre-service primary teachers’ progression towards inquiry-based science learning

ABSTRACT

Background

An in-depth understanding of pre-service primary teachers’ progression towards teaching science through inquiry is critical for improving teacher education programmes and, ultimately, improving the quality of science teaching and learning in the classroom.     

Family-School Cooperation: An Online Survey of Parents and Teachers of Young Children in Spain

Early Childhood Education Journal - Given the closure of schools due to the global confinement resulting from the COVID-19 crisis, family-school cooperation has become a priority in most...     

School experiences of Children in Need: Learning and support

Children in Need (CIN) have received little attention in education circles. These are children who are usually living at home but where there are concerns over their health or development due to abuse or neglect, or they are disabled. Like Children in Care (CIC, who mostly live away), educational attainments for CIN are lower than for the general pupil population, with higher levels of special educational needs. This article draws on additional analysis from a recently completed, mixed methods study into this educational attainment gap for CIN and CIC. The overall research involved quantitative analysis from official statistics of a whole-birth cohort of children (n = 471,688) born in 2000/2001 and tracked through to their General Certificate of Secondary Education exams in 2017. This was complemented by semi-structured interviews with 18 CIN and 23 CIC, parents and associated professionals. This article focuses on interviews with CIN, their parents and professionals. Two main themes emerged from this further analysis of the qualitative data. One concerned children’s problems with learning. Children said that they often struggled with their schoolwork and received insufficient classroom support to help. The second theme was that pupils and parents reported more positive experiences of learning and support in Pupil Referral Units compared with secondary schools. The overall conclusion is that attention should rightly address the social, emotional and mental health difficulties of CIN, but this should be coupled with adequate support for classroom learning.     

Studying the effects of early child care experiences on the development of children of color in the United States: toward a more inclusive research agenda

Evidence is presented of the different cultural and ecological contexts affecting early child care for families of color. It is argued that improvements on previous research require a fundamental shift in how race, ethnicity, and culture as psychological variables are examined. Furthermore, to avoid the pitfalls and failures of previous research, new research must incorporate expanded models of child care and development in childhood. The integrative model of development for children of color proposed by Garcia Coll et al. (1996) is presented as a basis for developing more specific ecological models relevant to addressing child care issues in ethnic minority families. Finally, priority areas for future research are recommended to stimulate and enable child care researchers to adopt a more inclusive view of child care and its effects.     

Analysis of lexical quality and its relation to writing quality for 4th grade,primary school students in Chile

Few studies have addressed vocabulary quality in developing writing skill in Spanish. Even less addressed it within the Chilean educational system. The specific objective of this study was to characterize, using a comprehensive set of indicators, the quality of the vocabulary produced by Chilean 4th grade students. Based on a national writing survey, a sample of 2056 texts written by 685 students was collected (narrative, persuasive, and informative texts). Current literature defines lexical quality as a composite of diverse factors that, while distinct, are interrelated. To represent the properties of the vocabulary, a set of indicators were selected: (a) lexical diversity; (b) lexical sophistication; and (c) lexical density. Using multilevel modeling (students and schools as levels 1 and 2) to explain a global writing score we found that diversity was a significant determinant for narrative and persuasive texts, density was a significant determinant for the three genres and sophistication was a significant determinant for narrative and expository text. In addition, indicators related to gender and socioeconomic conditions were only significant determinants of narrative stories. The parts of speech most often used also varied according to the purpose of each text. In all genres, words had a short extension and were very sensitive to the input presented in the stimuli. These results imply a significant challenge to this education system: how to promote the development of vocabulary in all children in order to support language learning.     

Science and Literature: Towards a Conceptual Framework

Teachers of science and the history of science may wish to enliven and contextualise their subject matter by citing literary references to scientific ideas; similarly, teachers of literature may wish to examine the impact of science on their own field. Both groups of scholars may wish to examine how science and literature inform each other in their common social and cultural context. The question that arises is whether or not the relationship between science and literature has stable features that can give structure to such studies? There are various possibilities: the study of ‘science and literature’ could chart the impact of science on literature, or the impact of literature on science, or both; or look at how both science and literature have historically responded in similar or different ways to a common historical context. Amid this melee of options, the primary purpose of this paper is to sketch a conceptual framework to assist the science educator to explore the literary response to scientific ideas. For the sake of brevity, science will be taken to include the natural sciences (including the pseudo sciences of alchemy and astrology since they were once regarded as authentic) but not technology or medicine. Literature will be taken to mean fictive writing – poems, plays, novels – but will not include here science fiction. These exclusions are partly for reasons of space, but also because science fiction has its own literature of critical analysis within literary scholarship.     

Good practices for transforming education

This text is a guide to the reading and interpretation of the good practices that are developing in the countries participating in this project and elsewhere. A systematic approach to the factors making up a good practice has enabled us to share our analyses in a more structured manner and to reflect on their potential for learning and change, their peculiarities and regular features, as well as their sustainability outside certain particular contexts and specific forms of support. What can we learn from these good practices? Can they influence educational policies on both the administrative and pedagogical levels? Can they become strong points in strategies aimed at improving school life and pupils’ results? Under what conditions? These are some of the questions that guide this text on good practices. The analysis of the answers to these questions has enabled us to identify a number of minimal conditions that are necessary for a good practice to have some effect on education policies. Moreover, it opened up new lines of questioning which can be pursued.