Flattening generalization gradients, context, and perceptual learning

The present research investigated the effects of physical context change and perceptual learning on generalization. In a video game, participants learned to suppress their mouse-clicking behavior in the presence of one stimulus (AX). Generalization was observed between the AX stimulus and another stimulus (BX) that was designed to be similar. When testing was conducted in a context different from that in which AX was used in training, responding to AX was attenuated, and responding to BX was enhanced. That is, the generalization gradient flattened. The latter effect was only evident in groups for which generalization had been reduced through a preexposure manipulation believed to produce perceptual learning. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the increase in generalization observed in the first experiment was due to the context change between the preexposure and test rather than to a change between the conditioning and test contexts. Implications for flattening generalization gradients and mechanisms of perceptual learning are discussed.     

The construction of parents and teachers as agents for the improvement of municipal schools in Chile

This article examines how teachers and parents in 10 municipal schools serving students growing up under conditions of social vulnerability represented themselves, and others, as valid agents for charting school improvement. In four schools parents and teachers saw each other as trustworthy and collaborating to provide an education that could transform students’ life chances. In the other six schools, social relations were marked by distrust, staff constructed students as lacking the resources necessary to benefit from a rigorous academic programme, and parents in leadership positions shared with teachers the belief that school failure could largely be attributed to uncommitted parents. These results suggest that the impact of quality assurance policies tends to be associated with the social capital of municipal schools, thus educational policy needs to consider developing and strengthening social capital within schools.     

Women students in engineering in Mexico: exploring responses to gender differences

The percentage of women students in engineering in Mexico is still low compared to the percentage of women enrolled in higher education institutions in the country, which has achieved parity with male enrollment. It is thus important to understand how gender can shape the experiences of female college students in engineering programs, which was the focus of this study. Findings for this study are presented in two sections. We first describe how female students have an extra burden dealing with the possibility that their performance might confirm the stereotype of female inferiority in math and science and that they may be judged according to that stereotype. Secondly, we describe the challenges faced by female students in engineering colleges in Mexico, namely, a demanding academic curriculum, and competitive and individualistic environment. This study illustrates how successful female students negotiated the gendered expectations in engineering in Mexican engineering programs, and how they use resistance strategies like academic success to become accepted in the male-dominated engineering environment.     

Prevalence of vulnerability and protective factors of sexual victimization

English language abstract not available at time of publication.     

Responding to external accountability in high-performing,high-capacity public secondary schools in Chile

The qualitative study on which this article reports explored how senior leaders, mathematics and Spanish language teachers (N = 72) in four high-performing, high-poverty, public secondary schools in Chile enact performance-based accountability policies related to standardised assessments. These four public schools were selected because prior to when the study was conducted all were part of the Bicentennial Schools Programme led by the Ministry of Education from 2010 to 2014. The aim of the programme was to develop effective secondary schools to serve low-income students. A thematic analysis of data produced through individual and group interviews and observations of departmental meetings shows that the enactment of performance-based accountability involved two dimensions of learning-centred leadership, distributed among senior leaders and department heads. An aim shared by parents, students, teachers and senior leaders was to ensure students' access to, and completion of, studies in higher education. Attaining good scores in national standardised SIMCE tests was key to meeting the vision. Collective trust among all actors and macro level trust in standardised testing served as a resource for strong collaboration to improve instruction and learning as well as teachers' collective efficacy. The discussion focuses on school-level practices and policy-level decisions that create conditions for the effective use of information produced from standardised assessments. A key point supported by our findings is that successful performance in external assessments is resourced by, and fosters, trust formation in schools.     

A model for designing hypervideo-based instructional scenarios

In this article, we provide a conceptual model for the design of instructional scenarios integrating hypervideo as an instructional tool. The model provides a structural aid for making design decisions about using hypervideo in instruction. We start by introducing the theoretical rationale for hypervideo as a tool, exploiting three different interactivity functions. We then examine the cognitive and socio-cognitive theories that can inform the design and usage of hypervideo. Next, we present the instantiation of these functions and theories in a software interface, after which we present the model, which is based on the following two layers of design decisions: the first pertains to the interactivity features and the second is connected with the instructional strategy. Three main design steps are presented in the form of guidelines, corresponding to a preparation phase, a production phase, and a use phase. Finally, a set of cases exhibiting exemplary implementations of a hypervideo-based instructional scenario are described.     

“Nothing is impossible”: characteristics of Hispanic females participating in an informal STEM setting

Cultural Studies of Science Education - Factors that influence the underrepresentation of females in STEM careers begin early in childhood when gender biases and stereotypes emerge. Stereotypes...     

Becoming an interdisciplinary scientist: an analysis of students’ experiences in three computer science doctoral programmes

The aim of this study was to identify how and why doctoral students do interdisciplinary research. A mixed-methods approach utilising bibliometric analysis of the publications of 195 students identified those who had published interdisciplinary research. This objective measurement of the interdisciplinarity, applying the Rao-Stirling index to Web of Science and Scopus citations, allowed for a comparison of students’ interdisciplinary research outcomes from three different computer science programmes: a traditional programme, a multidisciplinary doctoral school and an interdisciplinary doctoral college. Applying a sociocultural approach, interviews with the 15 most interdisciplinary students were analysed to understand how dispositions and experiences of students and factors of the different programmes affect the circumstances and processes of becoming an interdisciplinary early career scientist. The data indicate that student motivations, previous skills and knowledge interacted with policies and programme structures including type of funding and supervisor expectations to play a crucial role in interdisciplinarity at the doctoral level. These factors can give rise to interdisciplinary research even in programmes without interdisciplinary focus and compromise the interdisciplinary goals of interdisciplinary programmes.     

Effect of the implicit combinatorial model on combinatorial reasoning in secondary school pupils

Elementary combinatorial problems may be classified into three different combinatorial models (selection, partition and distribution). The main goal of this research was to determine the effect of the implicit combinatorial model on pupils' combinatorial reasoning before and after instruction. When building the questionnaire, we also considered the combinatorial operation and the nature of elements as task variables. The analysis of variance of the answers from 720 14–15 year-old pupils showed the influence of the implicit combinatorial model on problem difficulty and the interaction of all the factors with instruction. Qualitative analysis also revealed the dependence of error types on task variables. Consequently, the implicit combinatorial model should be considered as a didactic variable in organising elementary combinatorics teaching.