Evaluating student allocation in the Portuguese public higher education system

This paper characterizes and evaluates the student allocation in the Portuguese public higher education system. It describes the supply and demand sides of the system by looking at the numerus clausus across areas of study and institutions, institutions’ degree of diversity, and performance and adjustment indicators based on students’ revealed preferences. Performance indicators quantify the adequacy between demand and supply, across institutions and fields of study, and gauge the performance of public higher education institutions in the competition for candidates. Adjustment indicators allow us to predict the potential impact of changes in higher education regulations on student allocation and its stability. According to these indicators, such changes could result in an expansion for some institutions and fields of study, whereas other institutions might face a reduction.

The role of word recognition,oral reading fluency and listening comprehension in the simple view of reading: a study in an intermediate depth orthography

Empirical research has provided evidence for the simple view of reading across a variety of orthographies, but the role of oral reading fluency in the model is unclear. Moreover, the relative weight of listening comprehension, oral reading fluency and word recognition in reading comprehension seems to vary across orthographies and schooling years. This study aims to examine the direct effects of these three variables on reading comprehension and to test for the existence of indirect effects of word recognition and listening comprehension on reading comprehension via oral reading fluency in European Portuguese, an orthography of intermediate depth. A sample of 264 students was assessed at the end of grades 2 and 4. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that listening comprehension, word recognition and oral reading fluency predicted reading comprehension in both grade 2 and grade 4. Moreover, the three variables measured in grade 2 predicted later reading comprehension in grade 4. Listening comprehension was always the strongest predictor. Oral reading fluency mediated the relationship between word recognition and reading comprehension, but it was not a mediator variable in the relationship between listening comprehension and reading comprehension. These findings indicate that, similarly to what has been found for other orthographies, the simple view of reading is a valid framework to account for reading comprehension variability in European Portuguese and that interventions to increase reading comprehension levels should focus on word recognition, fluency, and, especially, listening comprehension.     

George Glasson and George Bogg��s prospects on the environmental friendly relationship and ecojustice

This rejoinder to George Glasson and George Bogg’s papers provides additional conversation for considering the idea that we try to develop: leaving the classroom to continue teaching. Converting the teaching–learning process into research experiences brings our students not only scientific knowledge, but also an understanding of the research procedures. To be involved in field work, students can connect more personally the local action with global issues. On the ground in which we operate, environmental science, teaching of knowledge is insufficient if not accompanied by ecological experiences where students can see and share the needs of environmental protection and the idea of sustainability. Both response authors tell us about their own experiences in research in this regard. In their essays we can appreciate the desire to investigate human activities on ecosystems. Reading it makes us look with passion and awareness at the different consequences for our ecological environments: if we develop environmentally consequential behavior or harmful lifestyles for the planet. Furthermore, they warn us of the need to follow the development of students learning and reflect on the ways in which it produces time-causal relationship between persons and the environment.     

Special issue on computational models of classical conditioning guest editors’ introduction

In the present special issue, the performance of current computational models of classical conditioning was evaluated under three requirements: (1) Models were to be tested against a list of previously agreed-upon phenomena; (2) the parameters were fixed across simulations; and (3) the simulations used to test the models had to be made available. These requirements resulted in three major products: (a) a list of fundamental classical-conditioning results for which there is a consensus about their reliability; (b) the necessary information to evaluate each of the models on the basis of its ordinal successes in accounting for the experimental data; and (c) a repository of computational models ready to generate simulations. We believe that the contents of this issue represent the 2012 state of the art in computational modeling of classical conditioning and provide a way to find promising avenues for future model development.     

Guidance and education,an analysis of young peoples’ discontinuous school pathways: the guidance-oriented approach of educational institutions

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - This article presents results of an investigation that explored the school pathways of young Argentine unskilled workers without a...     

Gendered family lives through the eyes of young people: diversity,permanence and change of gender representations in Portugal

This article examines gender representations of family and parental roles among young people aged 11 to 14 years. It is based on the qualitative analysis of 792 essays written by Portuguese girls and boys attending compulsory education. The adolescents' texts express normative images and cultural representations about gender that are plural and indicative of several displacements and incongruences. When considering the most important representational patterns, both girls and boys emphasise what they conceive as a set of gaps between the culturally transmitted norms of gender equality and the concrete realities they observe in various daily circumstances, notably in the family, which is still marked by inequity and gendered dichotomised patterns.     

Assessment in the Evaluation of Self-Regulation as a Process

The role of assessment is central to the current work in the field of self-regulation research, to the conceptualizations derived from empirical work, and to the operationalisation of its concepts in individual and classroom implementations. The various instantiations of the concept of self-regulation, all presuppose a detailed accounting of many different components, with each of them being represented by a variety of proxy variables which can be measured to establish the appropriate level at which the individual or group in question is functioning or performing. A review of the literature reveals a very diverse set of models and assessment instruments, many attempting to establish constructs with serious definitional problems, and conceptual overlaps. It is necessary then to establish their validity and the exact nature of their participation, as well as a clear differentiation between them. The assessment instruments which have been used so far are equally diverse, addressing the demands of the various components of the self-regulation models used and the different aspects emphasized in the research, including socio-cultural, cognitive, and volitional aspects. It is essential, to study carefully the relationship between assessment and the elements of the self-regulation process. This careful analysis will lead to a refinement of the instruments used, to the development of appropriate assessment methodologies and strategies, and to a richer conceptualization of the self-regulatory process (SR) based on empirical assessment data to inform the theory and model construction.     

Nuclear power plants? Yes or no? Thank you! The argumentative use of tables and graphs / ¿Centrales nucleares? ¿Sí o no? ¡Gracias! El uso argumentativo de tablas y gráficas

Abstract

The present paper deals with how eleventh grade high school students and university undergraduate students studying environmental science use evidence to write an argumentative text. They were presented with a dilemma with four sets of data (two pro and two anti nuclear energy). Half the sample was given the data in graph format and the other half in table format. The four sets of data differed according to their complexity. We analysed the structure of argument, the use of the evidence (either provided or their own) according to the participants’ position on the dilemma, and the presence of confirmation bias. Our results show a good argumentative competence that does not seem to be affected either by the students’ educational level or data format. We observed an effect of the complexity of the data in relation to the participants’ position.     

Gender differences in social reputation and peer rejection at school / Diferencias de género en la reputación social y el rechazo entre iguales en la escuela

The objectives of this study are twofold: to see if gender differences in social reputation remain stable throughout schooling, and to analyse behavioural differences between boys and girls with rejected status. A sociometric test was carried out and the Allocation of Perceptive Attributes Method was applied to a sample of 777 students in the mid-cycle and upper-cycle of primary education (years three to six) and the first cycle of CSE (Compulsory Secondary Education). The results show that differences in social reputation remain stable throughout schooling, with the exception of a few trends. We also find that rejection in boys is characterized by behavioural attributes, while characteristics associated with rejection in girls seem to be more subtle. It is concluded that gender ought to be taken into account in the design and implementation of intervention programmes aimed at improving the social integration of students.