Performance Versus Objective Testing and Gender: An Exploratory Study of an Advanced Placement History Examination

To explore a phenomenon of gender differences in Advanced Placement examinations, random samples of free-response test booklets were taken from the 1986 examination in U.S. History. These examinations were chosen because they consistently show significant gender differences in objective scores but no gender differences in free-response scores. A rescoring of the free responses was conducted that focused on their historical content. This rescoring was conducted by readers other than those who conducted the original scoring and involved tallies of specific historical points made, supporting evidence given, and factual errors. Ratings were also made of handwriting quality, neatness, and English composition quality of the free responses. Analyses conducted indicate that free-response tasks of the type examined may have inherent characteristics that reward English composition abilities, and that some females may compensate for inferior historical knowledge with superior English composition abilities.     

多媒体学习研究的演进

在起源于教育领域之外的多媒体学习责源（像光盘和网络）大规模涌入之前，关于多媒体对学习的影响方面的实验研究已经有几十年的时间。尽管研究的结果并不是决定性的，但是前两代多媒体研究帮助我们确定了影响有效多媒体设计的要素。本文总结了现有研究的结论．评述了每一代多媒体研究的主要理论问题、研究方向以及不足之处。论文还讨论了已经开始受到人们关注的第三代多媒体设计和学习研究新动向，也提出了若干未来发展趋势的建议。     

A Review of Play Interventions for Children with Autism at School

Play is an important aspect of children’s development and its value to education has been widely explored. However, play in children with disabilities and especially children with autism may be restricted when compared to that of their non-disabled peers of similar age and abilities. Moreover, play has been neglected to a certain extent in school practice due to the focus many teachers place on academic attainments and the difficulty in engaging autistic children in play activities. Children spend most of their time in schools as opposed to attending interventions individually. School based research can improve the educational outcomes for autistic children and, therefore, there is a pressing need for more research to be conducted in school settings. The current literature review aims to: (i) identify empirical studies using interventions to develop play skills in autistic children at school, and (ii) explore the features of play skills targeted in these studies. A systematic search of two electronic databases: (i) PsycINFO, and (ii) Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) has been conducted between 2000 and 2014. Fourteen papers were collected and the findings suggest that a significant number of studies have been conducted in schools exploring a wide range of play skills. Strengths and limitations of the reviewed studies are given as well as implications for practice and future research. Conclusions are discussed in the light of the high ecological validity of real world studies and the need to bridge the gap between academic research and school practice.     

Lexical stress assignment in Italian developmental dyslexia

Stress assignment to Italian polysyllabic words is unpredictable, because stress is neither marked nor predicted by rule. Stress assignment, especially to low frequency words, has been reported to be a function of stress dominance and stress neighbourhood. Two experiments investigate stress assignment in sixth-grade, skilled and dyslexic, readers. In Experiment 1, skilled readers were not affected by stress dominance. Dyslexic children, although affected by word frequency, made more stress regularisation errors on low frequency words. In Experiment 2, stress neighbourhood affected low frequency word reading irrespective of stress dominance for both skilled and dyslexic readers. Words with many stress friends were read more accurately than words with many stress enemies. It is concluded that, in assigning stress, typically developing and developmental dyslexic Italian readers are sensitive to the distributional properties of the language.     

An examination of middle school students’ representation practices in mathematical problem solving through the lens of expert work: towards an organizing scheme

Representation is viewed as central to mathematical problem solving. Yet, it is becoming obvious that students are having difficulty negotiating the various forms and functions of representations. This article examines the functions that representation has in students’ mathematical problem solving and how that compares to its function in the problem solving of experts and broadly in mathematics. Overall, this work highlights the close connections between the work of experts and students, showing how students use representations in ways that are inherently similar to those of experts. Both experts and students use representations as tools towards the understanding, exploration, recording, and monitoring of problem solving. In social contexts, experts and students use representations for the presentation of their work but also the negotiation and co-construction of shared understandings. However, this research also highlights where students’ work departs from experts’ representational practices, hence, providing some directions for pedagogy and further work.     

Primary Mathematics Teacher Education in Greece: Reality and Vision

This paper focuses on two main issues concerning the mathematics education of prospective primary school teachers in Greece: the integration of mathematics and pedagogy and the relation of theory to practice. In particular, specific teaching approaches are discussed concerning the problem of integration both in mathematics and in mathematics education courses. The problem of "theory – practice" is examined through an analysis of the kind of teaching practice in which the prospective teachers are involved. Finally, the constraints that the mathematics educators face and the impact of their work on the professional life of the teachers in the future are discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Tackling Complexity In Mathematics Teaching Development: Using the Teaching Triad as a Tool for Reflection and Analysis

This paper reports research that attempts tomake sense of the complexity of mathematicsteaching and its development at secondaryschool level. The research was conducted inpartnership between two teachers and twoeducator/researchers over one school term intwo U.K. schools. A theoretical construct, theteaching triad, was used as an analyticaldevice (by the researchers) and as a reflectiveagent for teaching development (by theteachers). The focus of analysis was theinteractions between teacher and students atwhole class and small group level. Both micro-and macro-analyses were undertaken. We presentdetails of the processes involved in examplesfrom the teaching of one teacher as shetranslated theoretical aims into classroompractice. The use of the triad allowed accessto complexity, involving both psychological andsociological elements, and to the position of asincere teacher with respect to competingforces in the educational system. Thepotential of the triad for teacher and teachingdevelopment is discussed.     

Students' argumentation in decision-making on a socio-scientific issue: implications for teaching

This study explores the arguments used by 14-year-old students in making decisions about the design of a road in their area. The whole activity was based on an actual problem at the time the research took place. The procedure was a sequence, where students worked first individually, then in groups and finally they had to take a class decision. Then they had to realize one of the final proposals and design the construction of a bridge that their planning had involved. This paper first elaborates the general perspective of such an approach; it then describes the process of argumentation and analyses the nature of the students' arguments, which are discussed on the basis of a specifically constructed network.     

SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICAL INDUCTION: STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS AND THE PROCESS OF PROOF CONSTRUCTION

In this study, we investigate the meaning students attribute to the structure of mathematical induction (MI) and the process of proof construction using mathematical induction in the context of a geometric recursion problem. Two hundred and thirteen 17-year-old students of an upper secondary school in Greece participated in the study. Students’ responses in 3 written tasks and the interviews with 18 of them are analyzed. Though MI is treated operationally in school, the students, when challenged, started to recognize the structural characteristics of MI. In the case of proof construction, we identified 2 types of transition from argumentation to proof, interwoven in the structure of the geometrical pattern. In the first type, MI was applied to the algebraic statement that derived from the direct translation of the geometrical situation. In the second type, MI was embedded functionally in the geometrical structure of the pattern.     

JMTE: A Time to Reflect

Editorial Introduction

JMTE: A Time to Reflect