The impact of a peer-tutoring program on quality standards in higher education

The purposes of this study were, on one had, to determine the impact of a peer tutoring program on preventing academic failure and dropouts among first-year students (N = 100), from Civil Engineering, Economics, Pharmacy, and Chemical Engineering careers; while, on the other hand, to identify the potential benefits of such tutoring program on the cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies and social skills of student mentors in their last year of studies or already in a postgraduate program (N = 41) at the University of Granada (Spain). After building and selecting the measurement instruments necessary to gather demographic and academic relevant information on both samples, and assigning first-year students to either an experimental or control group, the intervention consisted of ten 90-min tutoring sessions during the first semester lead by student tutors who, in turn, had undergone four 3-h training sessions on tutoring contents like planning and time management, cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies, motivational strategies and the use of materials designed ad hoc for this program. The results show differences in favour of the treatment group on grade point average, performance rate, success rate and learning strategies and, also, statistically significant pre-post differences for the tutors on learning strategies and social skills.     

The moral dimension of class and gender identity-making: poverty and aggression in a secondary school in the city of Buenos Aires

This paper presents some results of a qualitative study carried out in a secondary school in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina). It examines how two students from poor families responded to, and viewed, aggression by peers at their school. This paper argues that the examination of students’ narratives about aggression (based on classism and sexism) illustrates the analytical usefulness of the moral dimension of social life to unpack crucial aspects of the micro politics of class and gender and processes of identity-making. Following Sayer, this article maps students’ responses to immoral sentiments and misrecognition: the search for respect and respectability, and moral boundary drawing. It demonstrates that these reactions are entangled in students’ class and gender identity-making. It also shows how ‘victims’ are able to regain respect. However, the individualized nature of these processes and the spirals of aggression they instigate demonstrate the fragile and temporary nature of this achievement.     

Zafar,so good: middle‐class students,school habitus and secondary schooling in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina)

This article examines how students from the ‘loser’ sections of the middle class dealt with the game of secondary schooling in a ‘good’ state school in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina). It engages with Bourdieu’s theory of social practice and, in particular, with its concepts of game, habitus and cultural capital. It argues that middle‐class students embody a school habitus, which I call zafar. Zafar (a Spanish slang word) refers to students’ dispositions, practices and strategies towards social and educational demands of teachers and their school. Zafar propels middle‐class students to be just ‘good enough’ students, and promote an instrumental approach to schooling and learning. Although this paper offers an account within which the reproduction of relative educational advantage of a group of middle‐class students takes place, it also poses questions about their future educational and occupational opportunities.     

Three‐year results of the Friendly Schools whole‐of‐school intervention on children's bullying behaviour

A group randomized controlled trial tested the efficacy of the Friendly Schools program to reduce student bullying behaviour. This socio‐ecological intervention targeted the whole school, classroom, family, and individual students to reduce bullying behaviour. Self‐report data were collected in 29 schools over three years from a cohort of 1968 eight to nine‐year‐olds. Surveys measured frequency of being bullied, bullying others, telling if bullied and observing bullying. Results indicate that intervention students were significantly less likely to observe bullying at 12, 24 and 36 months and be bullied after 12 and 36 months, and significantly more likely to tell if bullied after 12 months than comparison students. No differences were found for self‐reported perpetration of bullying. The findings suggest whole‐of‐school programs that engage students in their different social contexts appear to reduce their experiences of being bullied and increase their likelihood of telling someone if they are bullied.     

Emotion recognition in fathers and mothers at high-risk for child physical abuse

Objective

The present study was designed to determine whether parents at high risk for physical child abuse, in comparison with parents at low risk, show deficits in emotion recognition, as well as to examine the moderator effect of gender and stress on the relationship between risk for physical child abuse and emotion recognition.

Methods

Based on their scores on the Abuse Scale of the CAP Inventory (Milner, 1986), 64 parents at high risk (24 fathers and 40 mothers) and 80 parents at low risk (40 fathers and 40 mothers) for physical child abuse were selected. The Subtle Expression Training Tool/Micro Expression Training Tool ( [Ekman, 2004a] and [Ekman, 2004b]) and the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy II (Nowicki & Carton, 1993) were used to assess emotion recognition.

Results

As expected, parents at high risk, in contrast to parents at low risk, showed deficits in emotion recognition. However, differences between high- and low-risk participants were observed only for fathers, but not for mothers. Whereas fathers at high risk for physical child abuse made more errors than mothers at high risk, no differences between mothers at low risk and fathers at low risk were found. No interaction between stress, gender, and risk status was observed for errors in emotion recognition.

Conclusions and practice implications

The present findings, if confirmed with physical abusers, could be helpful to further our understanding of deficits in processing information of physically abusive parents and to develop treatment strategies specifically focused on emotion recognition. Moreover, if gender differences can be confirmed, the findings could be helpful to develop specific treatment programs for abusive fathers.     

Experience of cooperative learning in engineering

The objective of this work is to share the authors’ experience towards a different mode of teaching/learning method. Cooperative learning (Jigsaw) was employed on the University of Vigo's fourth-year engineering students. The results of the experience show that cooperative learning is quite a viable alternative to the classical way of lecturing at the university when the number of students is not too high. The authors’ observation indicates that students did not show a lot of interest towards the new learning style but their resistance changed once they began the activity. The Jigsaw method has proved to be a useful tool for improving the learning process so that students have the opportunity to participate actively in the learning activities.     

Gender Gaps in Collegiate Teaching Style: Variations by Course Characteristics

Using data from over 9,000 faculty members that participated in the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE), this study examined the moderating role a range of course characteristics played on the effects of gender on the percentage of class time spent on various activities, a measure of teaching style. Results revealed gender differences, but that the gaps between men and women in lecturing and active classroom practices varied by disciplinary area, course level, and the number of times a course had been taught by the same instructor. The results confirm that gender effects depend on context, which implies that efforts to improve teaching and learning must also adapt to the instructional context.     

Engineering the race car wing: application of the vortex panel numerical method

This study examined aerodynamic properties and boundary layer stability in five cambered airfoils operating at the low Reynolds numbers encountered in motor racing. Numerical modelling was carried out in the flow regime characterised by Reynolds numbers 0.82–1.29 × 10⁶. The design Reynolds number of 3 × 10⁶ was used as a reference. Aerodynamics variables were computed using AeroFoil 2.2 software, which uses the vortex panel method and integral boundary layer equations. Validation of AeroFoil 2.2 software showed very good agreement between calculated aerodynamic coefficients and wind tunnel experimental data. Drag polars, lift/drag ratio, pitching moment coefficient, chordwise distributions (surface velocity ratio, pressure coefficient and boundary layer thickness), stagnation point, and boundary layer transition and separation were obtained at angles of attack from −4° to 12°. The NASA NLF(1)-0414F airfoil offers versatility for motor racing with a wide low-drag bucket, low minimum profile drag, high lift/drag ratio, laminar flow up to 0.7 chord, rapid concave pressure recovery, high resultant pressure coefficient and stall resistance at low Reynolds numbers. The findings have implications for the design of race car wings.     

Whole-body predictors of wrist shot accuracy in ice hockey: a kinematic analysis

The purpose of this study was to identify joint angular kinematics that corresponds to shooting accuracy in the stationary ice hockey wrist shot. Twenty-four subjects participated in this study, each performing 10 successful shots on four shooting targets. An eight-camera infra-red motion capture system (240 Hz), along with passive reflective markers, was used to record motion of the joints, hockey stick, and puck throughout the performance of the wrist shot. A multiple regression analysis was carried out to examine whole-body kinematic variables with accuracy scores as the dependent variable. Significant accuracy predictors were identified in the lower limbs, torso and upper limbs. Interpretation of the kinematics suggests that characteristics such as a better stability of the base of support, momentum cancellation, proper trunk orientation and a more dynamic control of the lead arm throughout the wrist shot movement are presented as predictors for the accuracy outcome. These findings are substantial as they not only provide a framework for further analysis of motor control strategies using tools for accurate projection of objects, but more tangibly they may provide a comprehensive evidence-based guide to coaches and athletes for planned training to improve performance.     

Retrieval constraints and word frequency distributions a log-logistic model for IR

We first present in this paper an analytical view of heuristic retrieval constraints which yields simple tests to determine whether a retrieval function satisfies the constraints or not. We then review empirical findings on word frequency distributions and the central role played by burstiness in this context. This leads us to propose a formal definition of burstiness which can be used to characterize probability distributions with respect to this phenomenon. We then introduce the family of information-based IR models which naturally captures heuristic retrieval constraints when the underlying probability distribution is bursty and propose a new IR model within this family, based on the log-logistic distribution. The experiments we conduct on several collections illustrate the good behavior of the log-logistic IR model: It significantly outperforms the Jelinek-Mercer and Dirichlet prior language models on most collections we have used, with both short and long queries and for both the MAP and the precision at 10 documents. It also compares favorably to BM25 and has similar performance to classical DFR models such as InL2 and PL2.