在动态认知逻辑中融合观察与内省

一直以来,我们使用逻辑系统来描述数学的证明、结构的计算以及语言的意义.近年来,逻辑系统却越来越多地被用来研究理性行动者的很多方面.例如,如何接受单一的信息,多主体间的交流行为,以及更为一般的受目标驱动的主体间的互动.特别是,对观察和交流中的信息流的研究,大家使用所谓的知识更新、信念修正和偏好改变的动态认知逻辑.当新信息进来时,这些逻辑使用信息的"语义意义"作为被更新状态的选择范围.然而,同样重要的是,理性主体的行动也会基于其他信息,譬如,由推理和反省得剑的信息.对这些问题的研究实际上是对信息在更为语法的意义上进行理解的,即,把信息看作是可以由主体阐明的东西.也许有些奇怪,尽管在这一领域已经存在不少的研究方案,但是火家对什么是信息,信息的关键机制是什么等问题更少有一致的意见.可以看出,对"信息"的意义在逻辑中确实有很多不同的理解.本文基于可能世界的语义,给出一个一致的信息模型,同时也赋予可能世界语法的"可及通路".这样,我们就能把外部的"更新信息"和内部的"阐明信息"放在同一个动态逻辑系统中.特别是,我们提出了两个基本的信息行动:纯粹的基于观察的更新("单纯的看")和把不明显的知识变为明显知识的"知觉实现".我们阐明为什么这些行动是自然的,同时我们也提出了一些新的研究问题.其中,很多问题探讨如何使其他的逻辑传统,包括信念修正理论、情景语义学和弗协调逻辑等适用于信息一驱使的理性行动者的图景.     

Why Should States Fund Denominational Schools?

It is generally accepted that liberal states should fund public schools for compulsory education. But whether states should also finance denominational schools is controversial. Does such funding not compromise the principle of liberal neutrality? In this article we evaluate two opposing views on this question. Both views give different interpretations of liberal neutrality and both have contrasting views on the relation between education and conceptions of the good. Arguing that neither view is convincing, we defend an alternative view, which holds that the liberal state under certain conditions should fund denominational schools.     

The Experiences of Foundation Phase Teachers Regarding Reading Literacy Interventions at an Underperforming School in Gauteng Province

South Africa’s education system has been characterized by various curriculum changes since 1997 given that basic education is a priority of this government and policies have specifically been aimed at improving the overall standard of education in the country. Despite these curriculum changes, the findings of tests such as the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) of 2006 revealed that South African learners had obtained the lowest overall reading literacy average out of 45 participating educational systems and the South African Consortium for Measuring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) highlighted that the majority of children in South Africa’s primary schools are not even reading at the minimal required level. In view of the publicised results of PIRLS 2006 and SAQMEQ 2008, several reading literacy interventions, known as the Foundations for Learning (FFL), Annual National Assessments (ANA) and Gauteng Province Literacy and Mathematics Strategy (GPLMS) have been launched in the past few years to improve literacy and numeracy results in the country. Notwithstanding, the increasing prevalence of low reading literacy results in South Africa raised questions about the effectiveness of interventions intended to improve reading results (in: GDE, Gauteng Primary Literacy Strategy, 2010–2014, Government Printer, Pretoria, 2010). Given the background of this study, the primary aim was to establish the essence of the participant FP teachers’ lived experiences regarding the implementation of interventions for reading literacy such as FFL, ANA and GPLMS in order to theorise about the effectiveness of these interventions. The secondary purpose was to add to the body of knowledge concerning FFL, ANA and GPLMS implemented as interventions to improve reading literacy results in South Africa. To achieve these purposes, a phenomenological case study was conducted at one of the 832 identified underperforming schools in Gauteng with eleven Foundation Phase teachers. Three methods were used to collect data namely focus group interviews, non face to face interviews and artefacts. The focus group interviews were held in grade context whilst interview forms were given to each of the eleven participants and they were requested to complete it comprehensively in the absence of the researcher. Data from all interviews were corroborated through selected artefacts which were mentioned during the interviews or discovered by the researcher throughout the study. The key findings of this study show that the participants perceived FFL, ANA and GPLMS as mandatory interventions for reading literacy that are unwanted and repetitious. Most importantly the participants deemed ANA as unreliable and unfair whilst FFL and GPLMS were deemed unsuitable for the diverse needs of the learners at this school. In view of the findings, this study concluded that there is limited value in providing mandatory interventions to teachers with the intent of improving the reading literacy results of learners with diverse needs that are contextually bound.     

The impact of social capital on student wellbeing and university life satisfaction: a semester-long repeated measures study

ABSTRACT

University participation has increased in many countries in recent years in response to the requirement for a strong knowledge economy. While this has provided additional access opportunities, not all students enter university with the same transferrable social capital. To counter this, educational institutions could play a strategic role in the development of networks and connections that provide students with valuable information, support and a sense of belonging. This research project explored the development of social capital, and its impact upon university life satisfaction and wellbeing, within an Australian university course undertaken by all first-year students regardless of programme or discipline. A survey of students was conducted three times over one semester. The results suggested that peer-level social capital indicators of trust, social support and relatedness changed over the semester, while other social capital indicators begin high and remain stable. Bridging social capital and peer social support predicted university life satisfaction. The relationship between social capital and wellbeing was found to be more complex. In a competitive, global tertiary environment, institutions could maximise the satisfaction and success of increasingly diverse student cohorts through strategies that facilitate social capital development.     

Social support and the relationship between family and community violence exposure and psychopathology among high risk adolescents

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to examine the protective effect of social support in the relationship between exposure to violence and psychopathology. Exposure to violence in the family and exposure to violence in the community were examined separately. Exposure to violence was further divided according to whether violence was experienced as a victim or as a witness. Internalizing and externalizing forms of psychopathology, as well as post-traumatic stress symptomatology were examined. METHOD: Participants consisted of 65 high-risk adolescents admitted consecutively to psychiatric inpatient units. Data were collected by means of individual interviews, self-report questionnaires, and hospital charts. RESULTS: Social support emerged as a protective factor with respect to the maladaptive effects of family violence, experienced as either a victim or as a witness. In contrast, social support did not appear to buffer the maladaptive effects of community violence, regardless of whether violence was experienced as a victim or as a witness. In fact, the relationship between community violence and psychopathology was found to be generally nonsignificant regardless of social support status. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that exposure to family violence may affect development differently than exposure to community violence, allowing social support to effectively buffer the effects of family, but not community violence. This finding highlights the importance of examining violence exposure that occurs within the family separately from violence exposure that occurs within the community.     

The antithesis of inclusion? The emergence and functioning of ADHD special education classes in the Swedish school system

The neuropsychiatric paradigm has substantial impact on schools. The increase in the number of pupils being diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is an expression of the medicalisation of deviance. There is also an increase in educational classes specially designed to meet the needs of children with ADHD. This is contrary to the notion of inclusion and in conflict with the Swedish school law. Thus, it is important to obtain knowledge about Swedish ADHD classes. A questionnaire was sent to all Swedish municipalities (290, response rate 76%) regarding schooling for pupils with ADHD. As many as 40 Swedish municipalities have classes specifically designed for pupils with ADHD. Although the classes are said to be specifically designed for ADHD problems, they are not properly evaluated. Municipalities with ADHD classes also exhibit ambivalence towards these classes. The emergence, prevalence and functioning of the ADHD classes are discussed in light of the notion of inclusive education.     

Adding community and dynamic to topic models

The detection of communities in large social networks is receiving increasing attention in a variety of research areas. Most existing community detection approaches focus on the topology of social connections (e.g., coauthor, citation, and social conversation) without considering their topic and dynamic features. In this paper, we propose two models to detect communities by considering both topic and dynamic features. First, the Community Topic Model (CTM) can identify communities sharing similar topics. Second, the Dynamic CTM (DCTM) can capture the dynamic features of communities and topics based on the Bernoulli distribution that leverages the temporal continuity between consecutive timestamps. Both models were tested on two datasets: ArnetMiner and Twitter. Experiments show that communities with similar topics can be detected and the co-evolution of communities and topics can be observed by these two models, which allow us to better understand the dynamic features of social networks and make improved personalized recommendations.     

Challenging science teachers' beliefs and practices through a video-case-based intervention in China's primary schools

The present study aims to challenge primary school science teachers' beliefs about education and teaching efficacy, as well as their teaching practices, through a video-case-based intervention programme in a Chinese educational setting. A total of 46 in-service teachers were involved in this study (experimental group = 23, control group = 23). Pre- and post-intervention surveys were administered to examine possible changes in the participants' beliefs about education and science teaching efficacy. Video data were gathered through classroom observations of 9 participants from the experimental group and 9 participants from the control group. The results of one-way analysis of covariance indicate that the reported post-intervention beliefs of teachers who participated in the programme differed significantly from their pre-intervention beliefs. More specifically, teachers in the experimental groups reported fewer traditional and more constructivist beliefs after the intervention, as well as stronger personal science teaching efficacy beliefs. One exception included beliefs about science teaching outcome expectancy. The video data showed that teaching practices became more constructivist in terms of both practical activities and student ICT use.     

Mindset × Context: Schools,Classrooms, and the Unequal Translation of Expectations into Math Achievement

When do adolescents' dreams of promising journeys through high school translate into academic success? This monograph reports the results of a collaborative effort among sociologists and psychologists to systematically examine the role of schools and classrooms in disrupting or facilitating the link between adolescents' expectations for success in math and their subsequent progress in the early high school math curriculum. Our primary focus was on gendered patterns of socioeconomic inequality in math and how they are tethered to the school's peer culture and to students' perceptions of gender stereotyping in the classroom. To do this, this monograph advances Mindset × Context Theory. This orients research on educational equity to the reciprocal influence between students' psychological motivations and their school-based opportunities to enact those motivations. Mindset × Context Theory predicts that a student's mindset will be more strongly linked to developmental outcomes among groups of students who are at risk for poor outcomes, but only in a school or classroom context where there is sufficient need and support for the mindset. Our application of this theory centers on expectations for success in high school math as a foundational belief for students' math progress early in high school. We examine how this mindset varies across interpersonal and cultural dynamics in schools and classrooms. Following this perspective, we ask:

• 1. Which gender and socioeconomic identity groups showed the weakest or strongest links between expectations for success in math and progress through the math curriculum?
• 2. How did the school's peer culture shape the links between student expectations for success in math and math progress across gender and socioeconomic identity groups?
• 3. How did perceptions of classroom gender stereotyping shape the links between student expectations for success in math and math progress across gender and socioeconomic identity groups?

We used nationally representative data from about 10,000 U.S. public school 9th graders in the National Study of Learning Mindsets (NSLM) collected in 2015–2016—the most recent, national, longitudinal study of adolescents' mindsets in U.S. public schools. The sample was representative with respect to a large number of observable characteristics, such as gender, race, ethnicity, English Language Learners (ELLs), free or reduced price lunch, poverty, food stamps, neighborhood income and labor market participation, and school curricular opportunities. This allowed for generalization to the U.S. public school population and for the systematic investigation of school- and classroom-level contextual factors. The NSLM's complete sampling of students within schools also allowed for a comparison of students from different gender and socioeconomic groups with the same expectations in the same educational contexts. To analyze these data, we used the Bayesian Causal Forest (BCF) algorithm, a best-in-class machine-learning method for discovering complex, replicable interaction effects. Chapter IV examined the interplay of expectations, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES; operationalized with maternal educational attainment). Adolescents' expectations for success in math were meaningful predictors of their early math progress, even when controlling for other psychological factors, prior achievement in math, and racial and ethnic identities. Boys from low-SES families were the most vulnerable identity group. They were over three times more likely to not make adequate progress in math from 9th to 10th grade relative to girls from high-SES families. Boys from low-SES families also benefited the most from their expectations for success in math. Overall, these results were consistent with Mindset × Context Theory's predictions. Chapters V and VI examined the moderating role of school-level and classroom-level factors in the patterns reported in Chapter IV. Expectations were least predictive of math progress in the highest-achieving schools and schools with the most academically oriented peer norms, that is, schools with the most formal and informal resources. School resources appeared to compensate for lower levels of expectations. Conversely, expectations most strongly predicted math progress in the low/medium-achieving schools with less academically oriented peers, especially for boys from low-SES families. This chapter aligns with aspects of Mindset × Context Theory. A context that was not already optimally supporting student success was where outcomes for vulnerable students depended the most on student expectations. Finally, perceptions of classroom stereotyping mattered. Perceptions of gender stereotyping predicted less progress in math, but expectations for success in math more strongly predicted progress in classrooms with high perceived stereotyping. Gender stereotyping interactions emerged for all sociodemographic groups except for boys from high-SES families. The findings across these three analytical chapters demonstrate the value of integrating psychological and sociological perspectives to capture multiple levels of schooling. It also drew on the contextual variability afforded by representative sampling and explored the interplay of lab-tested psychological processes (expectations) with field-developed levers of policy intervention (school contexts). This monograph also leverages developmental and ecological insights to identify which groups of students might profit from different efforts to improve educational equity, such as interventions to increase expectations for success in math, or school programs that improve the school or classroom cultures.