Collaborative action research through technologically mediated agoras

The study presented in this article forms part of a wider project promoting collaboration between junior researchers from different universities with the objective of rethinking and improving teaching practice in relation to the use of technology. The article describes research carried out during the 2012/13 academic year aimed at developing collaborative action research through technologically mediated agoras involving students from three Spanish universities. The main results of this study show that junior researchers improved their teaching practice through technologically mediated inside and outside agoras. In addition, the transformation of university classrooms into agoras enabled the negotiated reconstruction of knowledge for the analysis of good practice in the use of technology. Likewise, these agoras helped reduce limitations by breaking down the barriers of time, distance and resources for sharing findings and limitations between junior researchers. Furthermore, they pave the way for improvements and their implementation in learning processes during initial teacher training.     

Self-protection profiles of worth and academic goals in university students

European Journal of Psychology of Education - This work analyzes the possible existence of self-protection profiles based on a combination of self-handicapping (behavioral and claimed) strategies...     

Writing week-journals to improve the writing quality of fourth-graders’ compositions

Students’ writing problems are a global educational concern and is in need of particular attention. This study aims to examine the impact of providing extra writing opportunities (i.e., writing journals) on the quality of writing compositions. A longitudinal cluster-randomized controlled design using a multilevel modeling analysis with 182 fourth grade students was conducted. We examined whether students’ writing quality differed when writing journals on a weekly basis for 12 weeks, compared with a control group. Three covariates were analyzed, namely: (i) the students’ attitudes towards writing; (ii) their self-efficacy in writing; (iii) and their use of self-regulation (SRL) strategies while writing. Findings have shown that students who wrote week-journals significantly improved the writing quality of their compositions and reported a higher use of SRL strategies in writing. Nevertheless, self-efficacy and attitude towards writing were found to not be related to the quality of the compositions. Moreover, data indicated that the writing quality of compositions improved along with the writing quality of the week-journals. Findings suggest the use of week-journals in class to promote writing.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on Perspectivesand Experiences on Mentoring Undergraduate Students in Research: Part II

Abstract

This issue is the second of a special PRIMUS two-part issue collecting articles on undergraduate research from experienced faculty mentors. We offer it as a valuable resource for faculty leading undergraduate research programs. This issue presents a collection of papers offering advice on a variety of specific topics important for leaders of undergraduate research programs. Issues of finding and designing appropriate and accessible research projects, assessing undergraduate research, and publicizing it in the media are addressed.     

The European university landscape: A micro characterization based on evidence from the Aquameth project

This paper provides a new and systematic characterization of 488 universities, from 11 European countries: Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and UK. Using micro indicators built on the integrated Aquameth database, we characterize the European university landscape according to the following dimensions: history/foundation of university, dynamics of growth, specialization pattern, subject mix, funding composition, offer profile and productivity.     

Public libraries embrace citizen science: Strengths and challenges

Can public libraries become hubs for citizen science? In line with the principles of citizen science, this question was answered collaboratively with librarians from the Barcelona Network of Public Libraries who performed two hands-on activities. One activity was a training course taken by 30 librarians from 24 different libraries which enabled them to envisage citizen science implementation at each library. The other activity consisted of co-creating a citizen social science project and involved 40 library users, seven librarians from three different cities, and professional scientists. The analysis considers the perspectives of both librarians and users, through participant observation, surveys, and a focus group to identify strengths and challenges. The overall results suggest that public libraries can offer leadership in the promotion of citizen science and contribute to the mission of public libraries to act as local community hubs. The main challenges identified were related to the complexity of collaboration, uncertainty regarding research co-creation, and participant retention strategies.     

Citizen reactions to municipalities’ Instagram communication

In this paper, we explore how local governments are using Instagram as a communication tool to engage with their citizens, using data from the municipalities of Andalusia (Spain). We seek to identify the determinants of local government use of Instagram, the determinants of activity in this channel and the determinants of citizen reactions in order to understand the influence of media types (picture, video or album) used in municipality posts, and to understand content type (what the post is about). Instaloader, an open source intelligence (OSINT) tool for Instagram, was applied. It made it possible to automatically extract all posts of the analysed municipalities (14,742 posts). These were later automatically analysed using R, an open source software. It was determined that of the 29 Andalusian local governments with the highest populations, only those that maintain an account on Instagram, totalling 17 municipalities (58.62%), would be part of the final analysis. Our findings demonstrate that when local governments have a high level of debt, they do not maintain and actively use Instagram accounts. We also found that quality of posts’ content is more important than quantity of followers, since there is no significant relationship between citizen reactions and the number of inhabitants of a municipality or the number of followers (audience), while there is a significant negative relationship between the number of posts (activity) and reactions. Our results also highlight that the level of reactions can be stimulated by certain media and content types.     

Errors of programming and ownership of the robot concept made by trainee kindergarten teachers during an induction training

Education and Information Technologies - Computational thinking in the educational environment has awaken a rising interest, having been included as part of the curricula from the very beginnings...