Developing the ability to recontextualise cellular respiration: an explorative study in recontextualising biological concepts

In many science education practices, students are expected to develop an understanding of scientific knowledge without being allowed a view of the practices and cultures that have developed and use this knowledge. Therefore, students should be allowed to develop scientific concepts in relation to the contexts in which those concepts are used. Since many concepts are used in a variety of contexts, students need to be able to recontextualise and transfer their understanding of a concept from one context to another. This study aims to develop a learning and teaching strategy for recontextualising cellular respiration. This article focuses on students’ ability to recontextualise cellular respiration. The strategy allowed students to develop their understanding of cellular respiration by exploring its use and meaning in different contexts. A pre- and post-test design was used to test students’ understanding of cellular respiration. The results indicate that while students did develop an acceptable understanding of cellular respiration, they still had difficulty with recontextualising the concept to other contexts. Possible explanations for this ack of understanding are students’ familiarity with the biological object of focus in a context, the manner in which this object is used in a context and students’ understanding of specific elements of cellular respiration during the lessons. Although students did develop an adequate understanding of the concept, they do need more opportunities to practice recontextualising the concept in different contexts. Further research should focus on improving the strategy presented here and developing strategies for other core concepts in science.     

The (non)effect of Joint Construction in a genre-based approach to teaching writing

This quasi-experimental intervention study examines the effect of genre-based instructional practices on 90 primary students’ narrative writing achievements and is a result of six teachers’ action to meet the educational goals of the Swedish national curriculum. Specifically, the authors examine the effects of Joint Construction, the phase in the genre pedagogical model of the Sydney School known as the Teaching and Learning Cycle, in which teachers and students work together to co-construct texts. Joint Construction has been put forward as the most powerful part of the Teaching and Learning Cycle. The authors challenge this argument, presenting findings that are inconsistent with this widely held belief. Using a pretest-posttest control group design, the study shows that the Joint Construction stage did not significantly improve the quality of students’ narrative writing or increase the text length of their writings.     

Evaluating faculty performance under the equal pay for equal work doctrine

The issue of sex discrimination in faculty employment has become a prominent legal and political concern, necessitating the development of objective empirical methods to determine the existence of patterns of discriminatory treatment. In this study, regression techniques are employed to apply the equal pay for equal work interpretation of the fair employment doctrine. Specifically, faculty promotion and salary policies at the University of Texas at Austin are analyzed to determine whether male and female faculty members are rewarded equally for equal academic qualifications and performances. This regression analysis tends to support the discrimination hypothesis with respect to both promotion and salary policies.     

PHYSIOLOGICAL INDICATORS OF STRESS AND INTELLECTUAL PERFORMANCE AMONG ANXIOUS OLDER ADULTS

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the relationship between anxiety and cognitive performance in older adults. We asked 27 older adults, self‐selected on the basis of their concerns about decrements in intellectual functioning, to perform a series of cognitive tasks to assess crystallized (Gc) and fluid (Gf) intellectual abilities. Volunteers also completed questionnaires concerning their beliefs about their task performance specific to each ability, as well as measures of both generalized and intellectual self‐efficacy, everyday cognitive failures, and concerns about illness and aging. Cortisol was measured as an indicator of anxiety and Epstein‐Barr virus levels were assessed to determine nonspecific physiological changes. Results indicated that in the self‐selected “anxious” sample, there was a significant negative correlation between cortisol and self‐efficacy related to the most difficult measure of Gf. The only other significant (negative) correlation was between cortisol and generalized self‐efficacy. As expected, EBV levels were not correlated with any of the performance or self‐efficacy measures taken. Possible explanations of these findings are discussed as they relate to varying levels of performance and concerns about the loss of skills among older adults.     

开放式创新网络形成及演化的探索性案例研究

企业如何在战略阶段演进中构建与战略网络与商业生态系统相互融合与共同演化的开放式创新网络,已成为开放式创新能否取得成效的关键。本文揭示了开放式创新网络与战略网络、商业生态系统的关联性及内在逻辑,运用探索性案例研究方法,以"每20分钟产生一项专利"的荷兰埃因霍芬高科技园区为研究对象,将园区开放式创新网络形成及演化3阶段的开放式创新网络概括为"1+0"、"1+N"、"N+N"3种形式,得出开放式创新网络的形成及演化取决于战略网络的类型和动态变化趋势以及商业生态系统中核心物种的生态位进化。     

Reading for meaning: the effects of Developmental Education on reading achievements of primary school students from low SES and ethnic minority families

The appropriateness of innovative educational concepts for students from a low socioeconomic status (SES) or ethnic minority background is sometimes called into question. Disadvantaged students are supposed to benefit more from traditional approaches with Programmatic Instruction (PI). We examined Developmental Education (DE), an innovative approach, inspired by Vygotskian theory, in which reading skills are developed through meaningful reading of texts corresponding to students’ self-generated problems. The effectiveness of DE is compared to PI in terms of reading comprehension, strategy knowledge, and reading motivation of 4th-grade students; 170 students from ethnic minority or low SES background participated in a pretest-posttest natural 2-group design. Outcomes were similar in both approaches, with one exception: Students with an ethnic minority background in DE performed better on strategy knowledge than similar students in PI. These results are discussed in relation to previous studies on the appropriateness of innovative curricula for disadvantaged students.     

Contextual factors and effective school improvement

This research provides policy-makers, researchers, and educators at all levels with a glimpse of the contextual influence on effective school improvement (ESI) in 8 European countries. What are the factors at the contextual level, particularly at the national level, which influence ESI? Are there any similarities or differences between the influences they exert on ESI in different countries? Can common traits be identified? These are the core questions this paper tries to explore. It has drawn on insights from 5 areas of research: school effectiveness; school improvement; curriculum; public choice (marketization); organization, organizational learning, and learning organization. This yields a “goal – pressure – support” conceptual framework accompanied by 10 contextual factors and 48 indicators. Given the original conceptual framework and the empirical support of 31 case studies contributed by 8 European countries, the findings of this study may have significant implications for policy, practice, school effectiveness, and school improvement.     

Towards Greater Collaboration in Educational Neuroscience: Perspectives From the 2018 Earli‐SIG22 Conference

The special issue resulting from the 2018 Earli‐SIG22 conference reflects the current state of the field, the diversity of methods, the persevering limitations and promising directions towards solutions. About half of the empirical papers in this special issue that consist of three parts, uses behavioral, self‐report or qualitative measures to understand the “mind” level of Mind, Brain, and Education. The other half investigates the “brain” level, using neuroimaging but also genetics or eye‐tracking to gain access to the wider range of biological substrates of learning and cognition. These biological studies mostly have added value by refining psychological theories, such that these inspire new hypotheses to test in the field, to ultimately better inform teaching. Importantly, the special issue presents several approaches to more intensive, bi‐directional and systematic practice‐research collaborations to better connect the “mind” and “brain” levels to education, and to equip researchers to realize such collaborations successfully in the future.