Reliability and validity evidence of scores on the Achievement Goal Tendencies Questionnaire in a sample of Spanish students of compulsory secondary education

This study examined the reliability and validity evidence drawn from the scores of the Spanish version of the Achievement Goal Tendencies Questionnaire (AGTQ) using a sample of 2,022 (51.1% boys) Spanish students from grades 7 to 10. Confirmatory factor analysis replicated the correlated three‐factor structure of the AGTQ in this sample: Learning Goals (LG), Social Reinforcement Goals (SRG), and Performance Goals (PG). The AGTQ yields relatively reliable scores for Spanish students. Logistic regression analyses were used to provide additional validity evidence of AGTQ scores on academic success (general, Spanish, and mathematics). Results indicated that general academic success was 15% and 5% more likely every time that scores on LG and PG scales increased 1 point, respectively, although general academic success was 9% less likely every time that scores on SRG scale increased 1 point. These results were similar for Spanish and mathematics. However, the score on the LG scale did not forecast success in both subjects. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Voices Describe How Their Teacher Motivated Them to do Mathematics

In this study, data in the form of (preservice teacher) student voices taken from mathematical autobiographies, written at the beginning of the semester, and end-of-semester reflections, were analyzed in order to examine why preservice elementary school teachers were highly motivated in a social constructivist mathematics course in which the teacher emphasized mastery goals. The findings suggest that students entered the course with a wide variety of feelings about mathematics and their own mathematical ability. At the end of the semester, students wrote about aspects of the course that “led to their growth as a mathematical thinker and as a mathematics teacher…” Student responses were coded within themes that emerged from the data: Struggle; Construction of meaning [mathematical language; mathematical understanding]; Grouping [working in groups]; Change [self-efficacy; math self-concept]; and the Teacher’s Role. These themes are described using student voices and within a motivation goal theory framework. The role of struggle, in relation to motivation, is discussed.     

Maturation of cognitive processes from late childhood to adulthood

To characterize cognitive maturation through adolescence, processing speed, voluntary response suppression, and spatial working memory were measured in 8- to 30-year-old (N = 245) healthy participants using oculomotor tasks. Development progressed with a steep initial improvement in performance followed by stabilization in adolescence. Adult-level mature performance began at approximately 15, 14, and 19 years of age for processing speed, response inhibition, and working memory, respectively. Although processes developed independently, processing speed influenced the development of working memory whereas the development of response suppression and working memory were interdependent. These results indicate that processing speed, voluntary response suppression, and working memory mature through late childhood and into adolescence. How brain maturation specific to adolescence may support cognitive maturation is discussed.     

Advisory services and farm-level sustainability profiles: an exploration in nine European countries

Purpose: This study explores the use of advisory services by farm managers and its linkages with the economic, environmental and social performance of farms.

Design/methodology/approach: Using cluster analysis we determined groups of farms according to their sustainability performance and explored the correlations between contacts with advisory services and a set of farm-level sustainability indicators.

Findings: There exist significant differences in the number of farmers’ contacts with advisory services across countries, type of farms, farmers’ degree of agricultural education, utilized agricultural area, legal type of farm ownership and economic size of the farms. We identified three groups of farms that have different sustainability performance, are different in farm characteristics and relate differently to advisory services. The number of contacts with advisory services is positively related to the adoption of innovations, the number of information sources utilized and the adoption of farm risk management measures. We find no clear linear relationship between advisory services and environmental sustainability.

Theoretical implications: This study derives hypotheses to analyze causalities between indicators of farm-level sustainability and advisory services.

Practical implications: Results suggest the importance of taking into account the heterogeneity of farming systems for the design, targeting and evaluation of advisory services. In addition, results confirm the importance of selection of indicators that can be used in multiple sites.

Originality/value: We used a harmonized indicator of advisory services and a harmonized set of farm-level sustainability indicators in nine different EU countries that could be used to evaluate the role of advisory services in the achievement of multiple objectives in different groups of farms in multiple sites.     

The modern mathematics reform movement in Brazil and its consequences for Brazilian mathematics education

This paper reports on the conclusions drawn from an investigation of the modern mathematics reform movement in Brazil. The focus of the study was an analysis of the mechanisms of transfer of knowledge from developed to developing countries, through a case study of Brazil and its adoption of the modern mathematics curriculum.The report presented here focuses on the dynamics of the reform movement and on the consequences of the movement for Brazilian mathematics education. The movement is studied as to how ideas about modern mathematics reform were disseminated to the Brazilian mathematics education community and the consequences due to misinterpretations of the intended curriculum in the implementation process. The intent of the study is that future initiatives in curriculum change proceed more efficiently in light of previous experiences, without repeating the mistakes committed in the past.     

Developmental effects of incentives on response inhibition

Inhibitory control and incentive processes underlie decision making, yet few studies have explicitly examined their interaction across development. Here, the effects of potential rewards and losses on inhibitory control in 64 adolescents (13- to 17-year-olds) and 42 young adults (18- to 29-year-olds) were examined using an incentivized antisaccade task. Notably, measures were implemented to minimize age-related differences in reward valuation and potentially confounding motivation effects. Incentives affected antisaccade metrics differently across the age groups. Younger adolescents generated more errors than adults on reward trials, but all groups performed well on loss trials. Adolescent saccade latencies also differed from adults across the range of reward trials. Overall, results suggest persistent immaturities in the integration of reward and inhibitory control processes across adolescence.     

The intellectual labour market in developed and developing countries: Women's representation in scientific research

Women's representation in scientific research in countries with differing levels of development is analysed. The under‐representation of women in this area is worse in developed countries than in the group of semi‐industrialized and newly industrialized countries. In countries which were late to industrialize, the development of science took place at a stage when women's economic and social participation was more acceptable. Moreover, in developing countries the links between research and the productive system are weak. Both facts are connected with greater discrimination against women in scientific research in developed countries. Within the framework of long‐term economic cycles and technological change, some assumptions can be made about the future. This approach can be used to set up a theoretical framework for women's strategies.