The sequencing of instruction and the concept of assimilation-to-schema

The concept of assimilation-to-schema proposes that learning depends on three conditions: (1) the reception of the to-be-learned material, (2) the availability of a cognitive structure to which the new material may be assimilated, (3) the activation of the structure during learning. The concept provides weak (i.e., concerning amount of learning) and strong (i.e. concerning the structure of learning outcomes) predictions with respect to the effects of sequencing of instruction, ordering of instruction and organization of instruction. The present review demonstrates that studies of the role of instructional sequencing provide an important test of the assimilation-to-schema theory, and that many apparent inconsistencies in the literature may be better understood by an analysis of the internal assimilation process.This paper was partially supported by a Faculty Research Grant from the Academic Senate of the University of California, Santa Barbara.     

La géométrie projective à l'école

Sans résuméTravail effectué dans le cadre du groupe de recherche en didactique de la mathématique du Conseil National des Recherches.     

Zoo educators face common and specific demands and resources: an application of the JD-R model

Zoo educators are important communicators of the targets in education for sustainable development and therefore carry great responsibility for global environmental change. However, German zoo educators form a heterogeneous group, many of them working in non-permanent job positions and facing multiple challenges at work. Applying the job demands-resources model, our study aims at revealing factors influencing zoo educators’ job strain. Our data from eight in-depth interviews with German zoo educators confirm that they perceive common factors known from other studies, such as demands (e.g. workload) and resources (e.g. supervisory support). Besides this, job-specific factors were identified (e.g. working with humans and animals). The demands zoo educators mentioned could be classified either as job hindrances (e.g. lack of equipment) or job challenges (e.g. learning). Future studies should quantify these results to facilitate the development of appropriate measures to reduce educators’ job strain, thus enhancing their performance.     

The Transition to Reaching: Mapping Intention and Intrinsic Dynamics

The onset of directed reaching demarks the emergence of a qualitatively new skill. In this study we asked how intentional reaching arises from infants' ongoing, intrinsic movement dynamics, and how first reaches become successively adapted to the task. We observed 4 infants weekly in a standard reaching task and identified the week of first arm-extended reach, and the 2 weeks before and after onset. The infants first reached at ages ranging from 12 to 22 weeks, and they used different strategies to get the toy. 2 infants, whose spontaneous movements were large and vigorous, damped down their fast, forceful movements. The 2 quieter infants generated faster and more energetic movements to lift their arms. The infants modulated reaches in task-appropriate ways in the weeks following onset. Reaching emerges when infants can intentionally adjust the force and compliance of the arm, often using muscle coactivation. These results suggest that the infant central nervous system does not contain programs that detail hand trajectory, joint coordination, and muscle activation patterns. Rather, these patterns are the consequences of the natural dynamics of the system and the active exploration of the match between those dynamics and the task.     

Effect Analysis Using Nonlinear Structural Equation Mixture Modeling

In this article, we present an approach for comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of interventions based on nonlinear structural equation mixture models (NSEMM). We provide definitions of average and conditional effects and show how they can be computed. We extend the traditional moderated regression approach to include latent continous and discrete (mixture) variables as well as their higher order interactions, quadratic or more general nonlinear relationships. This new approach can be considered a combination of the recently proposed EffectLiteR approach and the NSEMM approach. A key advantage of this synthesis is that it gives applied researchers the opportunity to gain greater insight into the effectiveness of the intervention. For example, it makes it possible to consider structural equation models for situations where the treatment is noneffective for extreme values of a latent covariate but is effective for medium values, as we illustrate using an example from the educational sciences.     

Time Constraints in the School Environment: What Does a Sleepy Student Tell Us?

ABSTRACT— In this article, we discuss school schedules and their implications in the context of chronobiological contemporary knowledge, arguing for the need to reconsider time planning in the school setting. We present anecdotal observations regarding chronobiological challenges imposed by the school system throughout different ages and discuss the effects of these schedules in terms of sleepiness and its deleterious consequences on learning, memory, and attention. Different settings (including urban vs. rural habitats) influence timing, which also depends on self-selected sleep schedules. Finally, we criticize the traditional view of a necessary strict stability of sleep–wake habits.     

Dissemination of public health information: key tools utilised by the NECOBELAC network in Europe and Latin America

Background: Open Access (OA) to scientific information is an important step forward in communication patterns, yet we still need to reinforce OA principles to promote a cultural change of traditional publishing practices. The advantages of free access to scientific information are even more evident in public health where knowledge is directly associated with human wellbeing. Objectives: An OA ‘consolidation’ initiative in public health is presented to show how the involvement of people and institutions is fundamental to create awareness on OA and promote a cultural change. This initiative is developed within the project NEtwork of COllaboration Between Europe and Latin American Caribbean countries (NECOBELAC), financed by the European Commission. Methods: Three actions are envisaged: Capacity building through a flexible and sustainable training programme on scientific writing and OA publishing; creation of training tools based on semantic web technologies; development of a network of supporting institutions. Results: In 2010–2011, 23 training initiatives were performed involving 856 participants from 15 countries; topic maps on scientific publication and OA were produced; 195 institutions are included in the network. Conclusions: Cultural change in scientific dissemination practices is a long process requiring a flexible approach and strong commitment by all stakeholders.     

Influence of verb and noun bases on reading aloud derived nouns: evidence from children with good and poor reading skills

Several studies on children and adults with and without linguistic impairment have reported differences between verb and noun processing. The present study assessed whether noun and verb bases affect differently children’s reading of derived words. Thirty-six Italian good readers and 18 poor readers, all 4th or 5th graders, were asked to read aloud nouns derived from either a noun base (e.g., artista, artist) or a verb base (e.g., punizione, punishment). Word and base frequency affected latencies only for deverbal nouns, while an effect of word length emerged for denominal nouns and an inhibitory effect of suffix length was found for both types of stimuli. A high base frequency and a high whole-word frequency both led to higher levels of accuracy. Verb bases led to higher error rates than noun bases. Poor readers, although slower and less accurate than good readers, showed a pattern of results similar to that of typically developing readers. Data confirm that in 4th and 5th graders morphological decomposition may affect reading aloud of long complex words, and that the grammatical class of the base can modulate this effect.