Subjektive Theorien von Lehrkräften über ungünstige Faktoren in der Bildungsbiografie von Schülerinnen und Schülern – Wie konstruieren Lehrkräfte den Übergang von der Schule in die Berufsausbildung?

The transition from school to apprenticeship marks a turning point in the life of teenagers because it can affect the course of their professional careers. Currently, this transition appears to be difficult for many older teenagers. Science deals with factors and conditions which contribute to the complication of this transition process. Teachers and their beliefs play an important role in this process but are largely neglected in the literature. Research has shown that there is a dialectic and dynamic interaction between knowledge and action (i.?e. knowledge is the basis for action). Thus, it is important to investigate the knowledge and beliefs of teachers about the transition from school to apprenticeship. It is documented that beliefs of professionals are underdeveloped in some areas in comparison to the epistemic truth status of scientific knowledge. A certain type of teacher develops an independent and creative professional-action strategy based on his/her beliefs.     

Career adaptability and associations with personality traits and pathological traits utilizing network analysis

This study investigated relationships between career adaptability and personality and pathological traits using the network analysis approach. We administered CAAS, BFI-2-S, and IDCP-2 to 630 working adults. We observed positive associations between personality and career adaptability and negative associations between pathological traits and career adaptability. This paper contributes to the understanding of the associations between career adaptability and Big Five personality traits and pathological traits. We found stronger associations between career adaptability and personality traits as compared to pathological traits. Our findings suggest that Neuroticism and Conscientiousness contribute more to adaptation to professional development tasks than do pathological traits.

     

Early tracking and different types of inequalities in achievement: difference-in-differences evidence from 20 years of large-scale assessments

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability - Research to date on the effects of between-school tracking on inequalities in achievement and on performance has been inconclusive. A...     

Was Hochschuldozierende aus Lehrevaluations-Rückmeldungen lernen k?nnen

The extent to which students profit from a university course depends on the lecturers?? approach to teaching, with a student-focused approach being more supportive for student gains in competences than a teacher-focused approach. Little is known, however, about how to foster a student-focused approach to teaching. In this paper, we want to investigate how to frame the feedback lecturers obtain from students?? course evaluations in such a manner that a student-focused approach to teaching is encouraged. In two studies using either a qualitative or a quantitative methodology it can be shown that providing lecturers with a feedback on students?? subjective gain in competences (output-focused teaching evaluation) is more effective in promoting a student-focused approach to teaching than a feedback on how satisfied students were with the lecturer (process-focused teaching evaluation). Results are discussed in the context of the Bologna reforms which demand a continuous evaluation of all university courses.     

Making sense of science in the reception class

In the context of growing awareness of young children's capabilities, and debates about the nature of their reasoning in science, this study set out to explore the ways in which reception children make sense of classroom experiences in science. A particular challenge of the study was to develop appropriate and productive approaches to investigating young children's developing thinking. The first phase of research, reported in this paper, concentrated on the topic of electricity. A series of case studies was undertaken to examine children's learning in a classroom context. Classroom sessions were video recorded and transcribed to examine the development of children's practical competence in circuit making, and interviews were carried out to elicit children's views about electric circuits. Analysis of the classroom sessions revealed children's growing competence in circuit making through their self‐directed efforts. The interviews prompted predictions and explanations that were not offered spontaneously. Responses indicated a range of models of the circuit and forms of explanation for what was happening in the circuit. The relationship between children's practical competence, predictions and explanations was not straightforward. Analysis revealed marked differences in models of the circuit and forms of explanation in children with the same levels of practical competence. This has important implications for the ways in which children's views are assessed.     

Students’ attitudes towards online pre-laboratory exercises for a physics extended curriculum programme

Background: Students’ well preparedness for laboratory sessions is of importance for a number of reasons including them being able to engage in and learn from the session and in acquiring the necessary laboratory skills needed for the scientific community and for possible further work in industry. To enhance the preparedness of the students an online environment was designed, developed and implemented in a structured logical manner.

Purpose: The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate student perceptions in a Science Extended Curriculum Program (ECP) of both the traditional pen and paper method they used in 2016, and the new online resource method they used in 2017 to better prepare them for Physics laboratories, and to compare the two methods.

Sample: N = 51 students from a first-year Extended Curriculum Programme in physics at a South African university voluntarily participated in this study.

Design and methods: The research was conducted using two non-standardised structured questionnaires where the enrolled ECP students were asked both open-ended – and closed questions (using a Likert response scale). Google Forms using graphs assessed these responses. An additional source of data was iKamva/Sakai which is the University of Western Cape’s institutional Learning Management (LMS) system, which allowed for detailed information regarding online activities.

Results: Four main research questions focussing on preparedness, time spent, lab activities and online resources were identified. Findings from these suggest that an introduction of an online environment positively affected the students’ perceptions of the online environment for pre-laboratory preparation in comparison with using traditional pen and paper.

Conclusions: The present study has successfully managed to both reveal that the introduction of online environment for Physics laboratories brought about some positive benefits as perceived by the students, as well as fruitful avenues for future research. While more work is needed, in terms of research and continuing evaluation of eLearning in Physics education, there is reason to be positive in terms of renewed emphasis to add blended learning within the broader Physics learning and teaching communities.     

Digital ITEMS Module 1: Reliability in Classical Test Theory

In this ITEMS module, we provide a two‐part introduction to the topic of reliability from the perspective of classical test theory (CTT). In the first part, which is directed primarily at beginning learners, we review and build on the content presented in the original didactic ITEMS article by Traub and Rowley (1991). Specifically, we discuss the notion of reliability as an intuitive everyday concept to lay the foundation for its formalization as a reliability coefficient via the basic CTT model. We then walk through the step‐by‐step computation of key reliability indices and discuss the data collection conditions under which each is most suitable. In the second part, which is directed primarily at intermediary learners, we present a distribution‐centered perspective on the same content. We discuss the associated assumptions of various CTT models ranging from parallel to congeneric, and review how these affect the choice of reliability statistics. Throughout the module, we use a customized Excel workbook with sample data and basic data manipulation functionalities to illustrate the computation of individual statistics and to allow for structured independent exploration. In addition, we provide quiz questions with diagnostic feedback as well as short videos that walk through sample exercises within the workbook.     

Sleep and Cognition in Preschool Years: Specific Links to Executive Functioning

This study investigated the prospective links between sleep in infancy and preschoolers' cognitive performance. Mothers of 65 infants completed a sleep diary when infants were aged 1 year, and children completed two subscales of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence at 4 years, indexing general cognitive ability and complex executive functioning. Consistent with hypotheses, children getting higher proportions of their sleep at night as infants were found to perform better on executive functions, but did not show better general cognition. Relations held after controlling for family socioeconomic status and prior cognitive functioning. These findings suggest that the special importance of sleep for higher order cognition, documented among adults, may appear very early in life.     

New Features of Educational Media Development in Hungarian Secondary Education

Abstract

In 1994 Eger, a city of long standing cultural and educational tradition, hosted the Agria Media ‘94 ICEP Conference. The conference aimed at providing an analysis of new challenges gradually emerging with the development of educational media. The present paper will look at the main subject, giving an overview of new features of educational media in Hungarian secondary education.     

Circadian-temporal context and latent inhibition of conditioned taste aversion: Effect of restriction in the intake of the conditioned taste stimulus

Latent inhibition of conditioned taste aversion (CTA) is sensitive to changes in the temporal context. A change in the time of day of conditioning with respect to the time of day of the preexposure can disrupt the latent inhibition. This contextual change in the time of day may reveal a temporal specificity of latent inhibition. The optimum procedure to induce this temporal specificity is not well established. For example, it has been shown that a long period of habituation to temporal contexts is one factor that can determine the effect. However, the experimental conditions on the conditioning day that facilitate this phenomenon are unknown. The aim of this study is to elucidate whether a restriction in the intake of the conditioned taste stimulus affects the temporal specificity of latent inhibition. Two main groups of Wistar rats were tested in a latent inhibition of CTA paradigm, in which the temporal specificity of this phenomenon was analyzed by a change in the time of day of conditioning. The intake of the taste stimulus was restricted in the conditioning day in one of the groups, but this restriction was not applied in the other group. The results indicated temporal specificity of latent inhibition only in the group without restriction, but not in the group with limitation in the intake of the taste stimulus during conditioning. These findings can help to elucidate the characteristics of the procedure to induce temporal specificity of latent inhibition.