Personality traits as a predictor of academic achievement in adolescents

The study examined the predictive value of adolescents’ personality trait ratings by different groups of informants in explaining academic achievement [grade point average (GPA)] while controlling for students’ sex and their mothers’ education. The Inventory of Child/Adolescent Individual Differences was employed as a measure of students’ personality traits at the end of elementary schooling (mean age = 14.7 years) and two years later when the participants attended secondary schools. The trait ratings were obtained through self‐, maternal and peer reports at both measurement occasions. They explained substantial portions of unique variance in the students’ GPA concurrently, and over time. Ratings by each of the three groups of informants had an incremental validity over one another in predicting school grades. Among personality variables, conscientiousness and low extraversion were consistently predictive of GPA.     

基于互联网社区的消费者需求信息采集策略

从互联网社区参与者角色--社区建设者、主题发布者、话题讨论者出发,提出企业在互联网社区上采集消费者需求信息的基本方针,分析在互联网社区上消费者需求信息表现形式的转化过程,构建在互联网社区上采集消费者需求信息的具体路线,以此为企业制定在互联网社区上采集消费者需求信息策略提供借鉴。     

基于同被引分析的我国图书馆学情报学期刊关系与结构研究

本文在选取我国图书馆学情报学领域24种典型期刊的基础上,利用期刊同被引分析方法对从CNKI中检索出的1999—2009年的期刊同被引数据进行了分析,包括聚类分析、多维尺度分析和因子分析,得出了期刊的关系与结构及其在图书馆学情报学领域中的地位。     

The mathematics teacher identity of two early career mathematics teachers and the influence of their working communities on its development

Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education - To better understand the critical early years of teaching and teacher identity development, this study explored the mathematics teacher identity of two...     

Student teachers’ mathematics attitudes,authentic investigations and use of metacognitive tools

Based on findings from a semester-long study, this article examines the development of Samoan prospective teachers’ mathematical understandings and mathematics attitudes when investigating authentic contexts and applying working mathematically processes, mental computations and problem-solving strategies to find solutions of problems. The prospective teachers had enrolled for the second time (having failed their first attempt), in the first-year mathematics methods course of a 2-year Diploma of Education (Primary) programme. The group also included those enrolled in the Diploma of Education (Early Childhood and Special Needs) programmes, who recognizing their own limited understanding of mathematics would ordinarily shy away from opportunities for improvement. Given the negative mathematical and learning experiences, this group was ideal to engage in innovative and creative approaches that would make mathematics learning more meaningful and contextual in a Samoan environment. Only data from the attitudinal questionnaires and interviews are presented in this article. Main findings have implications for teaching and learning mathematics.     

Defining student diversity: categorizing and processes of marginalization in Swedish schools

The article presents an analysis of how diversity is defined and attended to in Swedish schools. The research reported has been carried out as a case study of categorizing practices that concern the uses of neuropsychiatric diagnoses, notably ADHD. The data were collected as part of a larger study. The interaction over a two-year period between the parents of a boy (William, aged 5.5 years) and representatives of the school (school psychologist, principal, teacher etc.) has been analysed. It is shown that parents and professionals provide different accounts of William’s difficulties. The parents, while not denying that their son causes problems in class, argue that the boy will mature and that the problems will disappear. The representatives of the school try to convince the parents that a neuropsychiatric examination of the boy will be beneficial to all parties. The long process of negotiation can be understood as a rhetorical drama, where the category ‘ADHD’ serves as the resolution of a complex institutional problem in the modern welfare state.     

Mathe mit der Matte – Verkörperlichtes Training basisnumerischer Kompetenzen

Basic numerical representations are seen as the building block for the successful development of more complex numerical and arithmetic competencies. Extending previous studies focusing on improving basic numerical representations by means of embodied training schemes, the current study focused on an embodied training of children’s place-value understanding. In this vein, 49 secondgraders were trained on solving a number line estimation task by stepping on different fields of a dance mat allowing for separate estimations of tens and units with more effort needed to step on the tens. In a partially randomized cross-over design, two control conditions were used to controll for training effects caused exclusively by the numerical content trained or the use of the dance mat. Interestingly, results revealed specific training effects after both the embodied and the control conditions. However, training effects were significantly more pronounced after the embodied training, thereby providing further evidence for the benefit of an embodied training of the place-value structure of the Arabic number system.     

NEW LAW ON HIGHER EDUCATION IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA

The Federal Assembly of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic approved, on 10 April 1980, the new law (Nr.39/80) on higher education. This law was under preparation nearly three years by the Czech and Slovak ministries of education and representatives of universities and other institutes of higher education as we'll as experts in charge of economic and social development. Starting from 1 September 1980 it will replace the previous law on higher education (Nr. 19/66) that has been in effect since 1966.

The following article, written for “Higher Education in Europe” by Professor Jiri M#akeri?ka, Director of the Research Institute on Engineering Studies in Prague, presents the main elements of this new law.     

Information and communication: An outline of a possible general theory of sign information

All live systems acquire and use knowledge to ensure appropriate efficiency in the mutual intercourse with the surrounding environment. Knowledge can be communicated only when the subject's internal model of the object of reality is objectified by means of a certain set of physical signs. Such an externalized model, a communicate, is to be accepted, adequately understood and evaluated by other relevant live systems. The information value of a communicate is therefore a function not only of the communicate itself but of the needs, aims, expectations and possibilities of relevant live systems as well. The information value of the same communicate can vary within a set of those systems. The determination of regularities in the relations between the information value of communicates, their content similarity and distinctive features of live systems producing and using them is a problem for experimental and empirical studies.