Understanding productivity dynamics: A task taxonomy approach

As job markets have been polarizing, firms have been changing their labor inputs. By using matched employer–employee data for Portugal, we examine whether labor market polarization has occurred within or across firms and how labor input upgrades have contributed to overall productivity growth. We develop a firm taxonomy based on worker's occupational data. Firms can be focused on one task – Abstract, Manual or Routine – on a combination of tasks, or none. Results show that Abstract firms are the most productive and their share has increased over time. Manual firms, the least productive, have had a stable share throughout the period. Routine firms have seen their share decline over time. The dynamic decomposition of the estimated productivity reveals that productivity growth is propelled by increased market shares of the most productive incumbents and exiting of the least productive, especially for Abstract firms. Notwithstanding these productivity growth drivers, they fail to avert the productivity stagnation observed in Portugal between 2004 and 2009 due to the overall decline in productivity of incumbent firms, especially Routine. We discuss the policy implications of our results which are relevant to other European economies also lagging behind in terms of knowledge and innovation capabilities.     

Can young students understand the mathematical concept of equality? A whole-year arithmetic teaching experiment in second grade

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Ensuring students correctly understand the notion of equality is a fundamental problem in teaching mathematics. Is it possible to teach arithmetic in...     

Physico-chemical characterization of a farmland affected by wastewater in relation to heavy metals

This study investigated selected properties of soils affected by wastewater and its relationship with some heavy metals A free survey technique involving target sampling was used in siting soil profile pits. Soil samples were collected based on horizon differentiation and analyzed using routine and special analytical techniques. Soil data were subjected to correlation analysis using SAS program. Results show that all heavy metals studied had values above critical limits in the polluted soils using known standards and that these biotoxic metals decreased with soil depths. Highly significant （P=0.01 and 0.05） relationships were established between investigated heavy metals and some soil properties, especially soil pH and organic matter. Further studies involving more edaphic properties, biotoxic metals and their bioaccessibility in crops growing on wastewater soils will surely enhance knowledge and management of these highly anthropogenically influenced soils of the study site.     

Leadership roles and sustainable public–private partnership between technical universities and industry in Ghana

Tertiary Education and Management - Public–private partnership (PPP) between Technical Universities (TUs) and industry is important for development. Although the typologies, benefits and the...     

Using modelling to make culturally responsive pedagogy explicit in preservice teacher education in Finland

Despite multiculturalism being discussed in teacher education, teachers still often feel insecure in the classroom around developing meaningful practices. This might be due to several issues about how preservice teachers are taught. In this article, modelling culturally responsive pedagogy is demonstrated as a promising strategy in shaping preservice teachers’ learning experiences and facilitating the finding of pedagogical responses in their future work. The article examines preservice teachers’ awareness of modelling as a teaching strategy in a multicultural education course in Finland, and the ways in which they connected the modelled strategy to their own learning and intentions for future teaching. A total of 246 reflective learning journals were analysed qualitatively, using a constant comparison approach. The results indicate that preservice teachers recognised and reflected on modelling culturally responsive pedagogy. They highlighted several aspects of the culturally responsive activities, environment and teacher educator behaviours modelled for them. For some preservice teachers, this recognition stayed at the level of personal awareness of own learning on the course, but for others these revelations were springboards to start forming ideas about future teaching practice. Preservice teachers articulated their intentions about the kind of teachers they would like to become, their principles in teaching, as well as specific teaching/learning activities. We present how the modelling of culturally responsive pedagogy strategies allowed preservice teachers to self-reflect, critique and connect their own learning experiences to future practice. Therefore, modelling culturally responsive pedagogy is argued to be a fruitful strategy in teacher education.     

Stability of nonlinear teleoperators using PD controllers without velocity measurements

This paper presents two Proportional-Derivative (PD) like controllers for nonlinear bilateral teleoperation systems. Compared to previous controllers of this kind, these schemes do not make use of velocity measurements. Under the assumptions that the human operator and the environment define passive maps from velocity to force, both controllers can ensure boundedness of velocities and position error. Moreover, in the case that the human and environment forces are zero, the controllers ensure velocity and position synchronization. Furthermore, the paper also presents a generalization to the case of teleoperation of networks of multiple robots. Simulations and real experiments, comparing the performance on free motion and interacting with a stiff wall, support the performance of the reported schemes. The experiments have been performed using two 3-degree-of-freedom nonlinear manipulators.     

Teacher factors and perceived assessment practices needs of social studies teachers in Cross River State, Nigeria

This study evaluated perceived assessment practices needs among social studies teachers in Cross River State, Nigeria, in relation to some teacher factors (attitude towards social studies, sex, teaching experience and educational qualification). Subjects who participated in this study were 297 social studies teachers (144 males and 153 females) from 116 secondary schools in the state. Teacher Classroom Assessment Practices Needs Questionnaire (TCANQ) and Teacher Attitude towards social studies Inventory were used for data collection in the study. Cronbach coefficient alpha of .81 and .93 were obtained as estimate of construct validity and internal consistency reliability for the Teacher Classroom Assessment Practices Needs Questionnaire and the Teacher Attitude towards social studies Inventory respectively. Independent t-test, one way analysis of variance and Pearson Product Moment correlation were used to test the hypotheses. Results indicated that gender and teacher qualification significantly influence perceived assessment practices needs of social studies teachers. Significant positive relationship was observed between years of teaching experience and expressed assessment practices needs; and between attitude towards social studies and assessment needs. It was concluded that factors such as years of teaching experience, attitude towards social studies, gender and educational qualification significantly influence social studies teachers perceive priority needs in assessment practices.     

Project DyAdd: Implicit learning in adult dyslexia and ADHD

In this study of the project DyAdd, implicit learning was investigated through two paradigms in adults (18–55 years) with dyslexia (n?=?36) or with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, n?=?22) and in controls (n?=?35). In the serial reaction time (SRT) task, there were no group differences in learning. However, those with ADHD exhibited faster RTs compared to other groups. In the artificial grammar learning (AGL) task, the groups did not differ from each other in their learning (i.e., grammaticality accuracy or similarity choices). Further, all three groups were sensitive to fragment overlap between learning and test-phase items (i.e., similarity choices were above chance). Grammaticality performance of control participants was above chance, but that of participants with dyslexia and participants with ADHD failed to differ from chance, indicating impaired grammaticality learning in these groups. While the main indices of AGL performance, grammaticality accuracy and similarity choices did not correlate with the neuropsychological variables that reflected dyslexia-related (phonological processing, reading, spelling, arithmetic) or ADHD-related characteristics (executive functions, attention), or intelligence, the explicit knowledge for the AGL grammar (i.e., ability to freely generate grammatical strings) correlated positively with the variables of phonological processing and reading. Further, SRT reaction times correlated positively with full scale intelligence quotient (FIQ). We conclude that, in AGL, learning difficulties of the underlying rule structure (as measured by grammaticality) are associated with dyslexia and ADHD. However, learning in AGL is not related to the defining neuropsychological features of dyslexia or ADHD. Instead, the resulting explicit knowledge relates to characteristics of dyslexia.