Academic self-concept and academic interest measurement: A multi-sample European study

Academic self-concept and academic interest are crucial concepts for understanding students’ academic achievement. Yet, few questionnaires currently exist that have been used and validated in more than one country. This study aimed at assessing these concepts using an academic self-concept questionnaire (Marsh, 1990) and an academic interest questionnaire (Corbière & Mbekou, 1997) with French and Italian student samples. Confirmatory Factor Analyses enabled us to assess the structure of the two questionnaires with regard to two academic subjects — Math and First Language (French or Italian) — and to determine the theoretical directions between the concepts. Results from Confirmatory Factor Analyses of both French and Italian samples supported a theoretical model in which academic self-concept and academic interest were intercorrelated, yet maintaining their unique characteristics. On the other hand, results from Multi-Sample Confirmatory Factor Analyses (French and Italian samples) endorsed a correlational model between the two concepts. Finally, the results indicated a significant and positive correlation between academic self-concept, academic interest, and academic achievement in both academic subjects.     

An account of practice: employing drawings and stories to enable reflective learning

Facilitating reflection for personal growth in a business context requires careful thought and planning. As a learning process, Business-Driven Action Learning (BDAL) has two points of focus. It aims to firstly identify and make recommendations regarding a business challenge, whist secondly facilitating potentially significant individual personal learning and growth. The research reported in this account of practice focused on personal learning by exploring the potential for individuals to experience transformative learning during a BDAL process. During the research I used a number of methods including hand-drawn images and in-depth interviews to enable the writing of interpretive stories. Findings revealed that participants found reflection during and after the BDAL beneficial. They gained insights into what they learnt, what changed since the BDAL experience and also what they still need to focus on. The findings have practical implications for the action learning facilitator of BDAL during management development programmes. One of the ways action learning facilitators can initiate the reflection process of new participants is to share the experience of previous participants. ‘Sandy’s interpretive story’, contained in this article, is such an example and includes hand-drawn images of her learning journey. I argue that the use of interpretative stories helps new participants understand programme challenges and stimulates their individual learning journey.     

Coordination of Knowledge of Numeration and Arithmetic Operations on First Grade Students

The aim of this study was to develop a better understanding of the processes involved in the construction of the oral and written symbolic systems of numbers and to grasp their role in the elaboration of the modeling function of numbers. Tasks related to both spoken and written number sequenceS and to addition and subtraction problems were given to six first graders. Analysis of the children's behavior permits discussion of certain theoretical questions raised by the research results of the construction of number sequence, contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between numeration and arithmetic operations and finally, in light of these results, permits us to propose ideas for teaching.     

Three‐year results of the Friendly Schools whole‐of‐school intervention on children's bullying behaviour

A group randomized controlled trial tested the efficacy of the Friendly Schools program to reduce student bullying behaviour. This socio‐ecological intervention targeted the whole school, classroom, family, and individual students to reduce bullying behaviour. Self‐report data were collected in 29 schools over three years from a cohort of 1968 eight to nine‐year‐olds. Surveys measured frequency of being bullied, bullying others, telling if bullied and observing bullying. Results indicate that intervention students were significantly less likely to observe bullying at 12, 24 and 36 months and be bullied after 12 and 36 months, and significantly more likely to tell if bullied after 12 months than comparison students. No differences were found for self‐reported perpetration of bullying. The findings suggest whole‐of‐school programs that engage students in their different social contexts appear to reduce their experiences of being bullied and increase their likelihood of telling someone if they are bullied.     

Δ-distance: A family of dissimilarity metrics between images represented by multi-level feature vectors

This article presents the Δ-distance, a family of distances between images recursively decomposed into segments and represented by multi-level feature vectors. Such a structure is a quad, a quin or a nona-tree resulting from a fixed and arbitrary image partition or from an image segmentation process. It handles positional information of image features (e.g. color, texture or shape). Δ-distance is the generalized form of dissimilarity measures between multi-level feature vectors. Using different weights on tree nodes and different distances between nodes, distances between trees or visual similarity between images can be computed based on the general definition of Δ. In this article, we present three Δ-based distance families: two families of distances between tree structures, called -distance( for Tree) and -distance ( for Segment), and a family of visual distances between images, called ( for Visual). The -distance visually compares two images using their tree representation and the other two distances compare the tree structures resulting from image segmentation. Moreover, we show how existing distances between multi-level feature vectors appear to be particular cases of the Δ-distance     

My lost museum: User expectations and motivations for creating personal digital collections on museum websites

The recent development of personal digital collections systems on museum websites has prompted researchers to examine the motivations and expectations of museum visitors as they interact with those systems. Results from an online survey completed by visitors to six different museum websites show that users of personal digital collections systems are primarily motivated by a desire to create simple collections of objects and images, and are less influenced by the more complicated features museums have implemented to encourage user participation. The significance of these findings is explored through a discussion of user expectations and motivations with respect to creating personal digital collections, and an attempt is made to reconcile some of the disparities between the perceptions of survey respondents and the experiences of museum professionals developing and implementing personal digital collections systems.     

Capacité cognitive,sentiment d’auto-efficacité et autorégulation

Feelings of self-efficacy have been the object of several studies that have confirmed its ability to predict performance in different contexts. Yet few studies have been conducted using cognitive or academic tasks in which it is more difficult to clearly distinguish self-efficacy from competence. The present study aims to study the moderating role of cognitive capacity in determining the relationship between self-efficacy and on-line self-regulation observed while solving a verbal concept formation task. In order to distinguish self-efficacy from competence, 44 subjects were selected based on the results of their SSPI; these results of which are related to comprehension ability. Analyses of results allow us to observe that, when compared to subjects who consider themselves less efficacious, subjects who have strong feelings of self-efficacy have a higher success rate, are more certain of these successes and reject fewer correct hypotheses, no matter what their cognitive ability. These results once again bring to light the relative independance of cognitive ability and motivational determinants of a person’s actual accomplishments.     

La Psicología de Vygotski: sobre la larga proyección de una corta biografía

RESUMEN

Se presenta el contexto histórico y los antecedentes familiares, culturales y sociales en los que surge la figura de Vygotski y se hace una descripción minuciosa de su obra, de sus implicaciones y contribuciones a la Psicología Científica: su teoría sobre las funciones superiores en el hombre, la actividad instrumental como unidad de análisis de estos procesos superiores, los estudios sobre génesis y desarrollo de los procesos cognitivos y las variaciones culturales, la “zona de desarrollo potencial”, sus aportaciones a la pedagogía y al estudio de las deficiencias, su teoría de la organización neurofisiológica, sus aportaciones a una teoría general del desarrollo y su teoría de la génesis del pensamiento verbal y la función reguladora del lenguaje. Se citan algunas críticas a Vygotski y se formulan algunas implicaciones teóricas no formuladas explícitamente en su teoría.     

Représentations et fonctionnements cognitifs dans une recherche de panne d’un système d’allumage en mecanique-auto

Fault finding is a puzzling task, at work and in technical and professional training. Our purpose is to contribute to an analysis of the required competencies and mainly to a characterisation of the evolution steps in knowledge and action organisation from novice to expert. Eight grown-up preparing a professional certificate in engine mecanics were observed and filmed while they were working out the diagnosis of an ignition trouble on a real equipment. The theory of functionning registers (deducted from Piaget’s theory) is considered as a relevant frame for our activity analysis. So, four competencies patterns has been outlined on the basis of errors extension, circuit functionning representations which were infered from schema interpretations, and trouble-shooting strategies denoted by control procedures. Some consequences about training are examined.