Visual Literacy in Primary Science: Exploring Anatomy Cross-Section Production Skills

Are children competent producing anatomy cross-sections? To answer this question, we carried out a case study research aimed at testing graphic production skills in anatomy of nutrition. The graphics produced by 118 children in the final year of primary education were analysed. The children had to draw a diagram of a human cross section, integrating knowledge of anatomy acquired from longitudinal sections. The results show that they have very limited skills in producing these graphics judging by the dimensions (scale, shape, organs represented and its organization inside the section) and their conception of human anatomy at thoracic level (location of the organs, elements in the spaces between them and connections between organs). The results also indicate that the only exposure to cross-sections in daily life is not enough by itself to draw them correctly, so this type of graphic production should be addressed from the earliest stages of education, since it contributes to the development of visual literacy, and this is a crucial skill when it comes to learning science concepts and developing scientific literacy.     

Young Children Are Wishful Thinkers: The Development of Wishful Thinking in 3- to 10-Year-Old Children

Previously, research on wishful thinking has found that desires bias older children’s and adults’ predictions during probabilistic reasoning tasks. In this article, we explore wishful thinking in children aged 3- to 10-years-old. Do young children learn to be wishful thinkers? Or do they begin with a wishful thinking bias that is gradually overturned during development? Across five experiments, we compare low- and middle-income United States and Peruvian 3- to 10-year-old children (N = 682). Children were asked to make predictions during games of chance. Across experiments, preschool-aged children from all backgrounds consistently displayed a strong wishful thinking bias. However, the bias declined with age.     

Optimal pricing and grant policies for museums

The “free access” policy designed by the British Government has encouraged interest in museum financial issues. We define a principal-agent model for museum administration where there are two income sources: public grants and ticket revenues. This model allows us to define the optimal contract determining public grants, ticket prices, budget and managerial effort. We find a theoretical explanation for the inelastic pricing strategy commonly adopted in cultural economics. We further find that museum manager should never have any control over the price of tickets. The model can also be applied to other institutions, such as schools or NGOs, which are able to raise funds directly from private (e.g., ticket revenues or membership fees) or public sources. JEL Classification number H20, H42, C70, D80, Z10     

Openness of Spanish scholarly journals as measured by access and rights

Metrics on open access (OA) availability of content published in scholarly journals (i.e. content licences, copyright ownership, and publisher‐stipulated self‐archiving permissions) are still scarce. This study implements the four core variables of the recently published Open Access Spectrum (OAS) (reader rights, reuse rights, copyright, and author posting rights) to measure the level of openness in all 1,728 Spanish scholarly journals listed in the Spanish national DULCINEA database at the end of 2015. Data exported from the database and used as variables for the analysis were: journal research area, type of publisher, type of access, self‐archiving and reuse policy, and type of Creative Commons (CC) licence used. Out of the total number of journals (1,728), 1,285 (74.5%) published their articles OA immediately after initial publication and thus received the maximum OAS score for reader rights; 37.5% of all journals used CC licences, and 79.5% allowed self‐archiving in some form. In 72% of journals, authors retained or publishers granted broad rights, which included author reuse and authorization rights (for others to reuse), whilst 13.5% did not specify any terms for copyright transfer. Similar studies could be carried out on other countries as this would enable comparisons of the general adoption and form of openness in different parts of the world.     

La expresión facial en los ciegos congénitos

Resumen

El presente informe analiza la expresión emocional de los ciegos congénitos mediante una codificación muscular de los movimientos faciales. Esta expresión, de carácter más involuntario, es semejante a la de los videntes. En cambio, los sujetos invidentes tienen una expresividad menor y menos diferenciada en las poses voluntarias. Los resultados, que confirman los hallazgos de autores anteriores, apoyan la existencia de dos fuentes de información en el desarrollo emocional: una de naturaleza genética, que explicaría las semejanzas en la expresión emocional o involuntaria, y otra ambiental, que daría cuenta de las diferencias en la expresión voluntaria. Por último, se plantean las consecuencias de este trabajo para las distintas disciplinas psicológicas.     

Do men and women perform academic work differently?

Tertiary Education and Management - Why is the gender gap so large in researchers’ career progression? Do men and women have different priorities in their academic careers? This study...     

Beneath the tip of the iceberg: exploring the multiple forms of university–industry linkages

This article focuses on the wide variety of channels through which the process of knowledge transfer occurs. The overall objective is to show the complexity of relationships between researchers and firms in a university system, and to identify some specific factors that influence such interactions. Our case study involves a face-to-face survey of 765 heads of research teams in a regional system to contrast the multiple forms of university?Cindustry collaborative linkages. Drawing on the exploitation of a data set developed for the purpose, we show that for a majority of universities the thrust of their collaborative experiences is devoted to tacit knowledge rather than to intellectual property rights. Researchers actively engage in the provision of different services to firms such as consulting work, commissioned or joint research projects, and human resources training. Research teams also participate in non-academic knowledge dissemination and informal networking. The results of our study enable us to draw some policy implications for university administrators and policymakers. A focus on patents and spin-offs as indicators of collaborative research ignores the limits of many of the economic and productive contexts in which universities are embedded. It may also be detrimental to the strengthening of emerging trends that are oriented towards softer collaborative experiences and other forms of knowledge transfer.     

Faculty attitudes and training needs to respond the new European Higher Education challenges

The main objective of the Bologna Process is to create a “European space” for higher education that allows for comparability, compatibility, and coherence between the existing systems of higher education across Europe. This objective is commonly known as the European higher education area (EHEA). The creation of the EHEA is a new and specific challenge for higher education in Europe, one that depends upon improved faculty development and training across Europe. The integration of Spain and other European countries into European higher education more generally entails these challenges. In order for necessary changes in faculty development and training to take place, university managers and policy makers must account for designing training plans, as well the knowledge, attitudes and needs of faculty members. This investigation was undertaken with these themes in mind. Conducted in Madrid, Spain, it included 257 professors from ten different schools of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. The aim of the investigation was to understand faculty knowledge and attitudes about changes in higher education in Europe. Moreover, with an eye to helping faculty members cope with the change that is accompanying the creation of EHEA, the investigators sought to understand the importance that faculty members place upon professional development and how current approaches to professional development at the university level could be improved. The results indicate a degree of ignorance regarding changes in European higher education as well as a feeling of resistance on the part of many faculty members. While many faculty members consider knowledge of change processes and adaptability to be important qualities, faculty responses also indicate a clear need for guidance if they are going to integrate new learning models and adequate coping strategies into their work in higher education.