Harmony and disharmony in an educational reform concert: towards a Parsons’ inspired dynamic model of tuning

In large-scale educational reforms, many actors play their roles. The diversity of contributions and lack of harmonization prove to be frequently found to cause educational reform failures. Many explanations for these failures focus on differences between the actors and on differences in their contributions to the reform process. In this article, we examine the effects of these differences and emphasize on the need to harmonize these contributions to the reform process. Contributions by several actors to a large-scale curriculum reform undertaken in the Netherlands in the 1990s are mapped for this purpose. This curriculum reform is part of a larger educational reform aimed to introduce a constructivist approach. Education is conceptualised as a social system, and educational reform as the manner in which this social system adapts to immanent and emmanent changes. The actors in the education system are distributed across functional subsystems. In the present analyses, teacher acting within a particular subsystem stands central. The results show adequate exchange and harmonization of the contributions from the different subsystems to be a necessary condition for successful educational reform. To achieve a good exchange and harmonization, the use of an Educational Impact Assessment is recommended.     

Prison Inmates' Educational Motives: Are They Pushed or Pulled?

The aim of the present study was to examine inmates' educational motives. The participants were 467 inmates who attended education in Norwegian prisons. Three motive categories were identified: “To prepare for life upon release” (Factor 1), “social reasons and reasons unique to the prison context” (Factor 2), and “to acquire knowledge and skills” (Factor 3). Factor 1 explained more of the variance than the sum of the other factors, and educational level was not related to scores on this first factor. Inmates with long sentences were more likely than those with short sentences to start an education in prison to prepare for life upon release. Inmates with low education scored significantly higher on Factor 2 than those with high education, but significantly lower on Factor 3 than the latter group.     

An environmental ethical conceptual framework for research on sustainability and environmental education

This article suggests that environmental ethics can have great relevance for environmental ethical content analyses in environmental education and education for sustainable development research. It is based on a critique that existing educational research does not reflect the variety of environmental ethical theories. Accordingly, we suggest an alternative and more nuanced environmental ethical conceptual framework divided into Value-oriented Environmental Ethics and Relation-oriented Environmental Ethics and present two pragmatic schedules for analyses of the value and relation contents of e.g. classroom conversations, textbooks and policy documents. This framework draws on a comparative reading of some 30 key books and 20 key articles in academic journals in the field of environmental philosophy and reflects main traits in environmental ethics from the early 1970s to the present day.     

A longitudinal study of multidimensional performance characteristics related to physical capacities in youth handball

Abstract

Longitudinal research provides valuable information about change and progress towards elite performance. Unfortunately, there is a lack of longitudinal research in handball. In this study, 94 youth handball players (oldest group: n = 41; age 15–17 and youngest group: n = 53; age 13–15) were followed over a three-year period. Repeated Measures ANCOVA was conducted to reveal longitudinal changes in anthropometry and physical performance between elite and non-elite players, controlling for maturation. Maturation effects were found for anthropometry (P < 0.01) and some physical performance measures in strength and speed (P < 0.05). The lack of significant interaction effects revealed that during the three years of the study the elite players did not improve their physical performance more rapidly than the non-elites. Furthermore, they had a similar anthropometric profile to the non-elites. Elite players performed better on the Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery test (P < 0.01; on average 24.0 in the youngest group and 25.2% in the oldest group over the three years) and on the speed and coordination items (P < 0.05; shuttle run: 3.6 and 5.1%; cross hopping: 11.0 and 14.8%, handball-specific shuttle run: 7.6 and 7.7%; slalom dribble test: 10.7 and 8.9%; sprint 30 m: 4.9 and 3.9%). Additionally, Yo-Yo performance and coordination with and without a ball were the most discriminating factors between the playing levels. In conclusion, youth coaches and scouts within team handball should recognise the importance of good skills and an excellent endurance for talent identification purposes.     

A research framework for creative and imitative reasoning

This conceptual research framework addresses the problem of rote learning by characterising key aspects of the dominating imitative reasoning and the lack of creative mathematical reasoning found in empirical data. By relating reasoning to thinking processes, student competencies, and the learning milieu it explains origins and consequences of different reasoning types.

The content of educational technology curricula: a cross-curricular state of the art

The purpose of this study is to analyze the content features of educational technology curricula for primary education developed by national governments. A qualitative cross-case document analysis of the national educational technology curriculum of Norway, Flanders and England was conducted. The analysis focuses on the underlying visions, specific aims and instruction related aspects that are integrated in the national educational technology curricula of the three cases under investigation. The results indicate that specific aims mainly focus on the critical use of educational technology; safe and responsible use of educational technology; information retrieval, processing and production; communication by use of educational technology; and use of educational technology for subject learning. It is possible that a discrepancy exists between the concepts of digital literacy and the specific aims that are addressed in educational technology curricula. Moreover, the rationales that underlie educational technology curricula represent a catalytic and social point of view rather than an economic one. The implications of our findings for curriculum developers and researchers are discussed.     

A method to integrate patterned electrospun fibers with microfluidic systems to generate complex microenvironments for cell culture applications

The properties of a cell’s microenvironment are one of the main driving forces in cellular fate processes and phenotype expression invivo. The ability to create controlled cell microenvironments invitro becomes increasingly important for studying or controlling phenotype expression in tissue engineering and drug discovery applications. This includes the capability to modify material surface properties within well-defined liquid environments in cell culture systems. One successful approach to mimic extra cellular matrix is with porous electrospun polymer fiber scaffolds, while microfluidic networks have been shown to efficiently generate spatially and temporally defined liquid microenvironments. Here, a method to integrate electrospun fibers with microfluidic networks was developed in order to form complex cell microenvironments with the capability to vary relevant parameters. Spatially defined regions of electrospun fibers of both aligned and random orientation were patterned on glass substrates that were irreversibly bonded to microfluidic networks produced in poly-dimethyl-siloxane. Concentration gradients obtained in the fiber containing channels were characterized experimentally and compared with values obtained by computational fluid dynamic simulations. Velocity and shear stress profiles, as well as vortex formation, were calculated to evaluate the influence of fiber pads on fluidic properties. The suitability of the system to support cell attachment and growth was demonstrated with a fibroblast cell line. The potential of the platform was further verified by a functional investigation of neural stem cell alignment in response to orientation of electrospun fibers versus a microfluidic generated chemoattractant gradient of stromal cell-derived factor 1 alpha. The described method is a competitive strategy to create complex microenvironments invitro that allow detailed studies on the interplay of topography, substrate surface properties, and soluble microenvironment on cellular fate processes.     

Development of the self-regulated learning teacher belief scale

The present study describes the development and psychometric properties of the Self-Regulated Learning Teacher Belief Scale (SRLTB). The SRLTB is a self-report teacher scale with 10 items assessing teachers' beliefs about introducing self-regulated learning (SRL) in primary education. The process of item and scale development as well as testing and scale refinement procedure is presented. An explorative study (n=399) revealed a one-factor structure representing adherence of teachers for SRL in primary school. Next, Rasch analysis revealed good fit of the scale to the unidimensional continuum model. In a following study (n=553), construct validity of the SRLTB was confirmed. Finally, implications and limitations of the SRLTB for studying SRL are discussed. In general, the SRLTB appears to be a useful instrument for examining teacher beliefs about self-regulated learning practices in primary schools.     

The economic microgeography of diversity and specialization externalities – firm-level evidence from Swedish cities

We employ finely geo-coded firm-level panel data to assess the long-standing question whether agglomeration economies derive from specialization (within-industry), diversity (between-industry) or overall density. Rather than treating the city as a single unit, we focus our analysis on how the inner industry structures of cities influence firm-level productivity. Our results illustrate the co-existence of several externalities that differ in their spatial distribution and attenuation within cities. First, we find robust positive effects of neighborhood-level specialization on TFP as well as a small effect of diversity at the same fine spatial level. These effects are highly localized and dissipate beyond the immediate within-city neighborhood level. Second, we also find that firms benefit from the overall density of the wider city. The results emphasize the relevance of “opening up” cities to study the workings of their inner organization and support the idea that location in a within-city industry cluster in a diversified and dense city boosts productivity.     

Young people’s conversations about environmental and sustainability issues in social media

Young people’s conversations about environmental and sustainability issues in social media and their educational implications are under-researched. Understanding young people’s meaning-making in social media and the experiences they acquire could help teachers to stage pluralistic and participatory approaches to classroom discussions about the environment and sustainability. The aim of the article is to explore the characteristics of meaning-making in young people’s conversations about environmental and sustainability issue in social media, more precisely in an online community. The study takes a public pedagogy and citizenship-as-practice approach and uses Epistemological Move Analysis. The conversation are shown to be argumentative, sophisticated, elaborative and competitive and create an educational situation in which facts about the world and moral and political values and interests are confronted and argued. The findings raise questions about pluralistic and participatory approaches and the staging of classroom conversations in environmental and sustainability education.