Learning through chemistry simulations: an analysis of cognitive skill levels

Education and Information Technologies - This paper presents an analysis of cognitive skill levels expressed in high school students’ performance using laboratory simulations. We address...     

How Heritable are Parental Sensitivity and Limit-Setting? A Longitudinal Child-Based Twin Study on Observed Parenting

We examined the relative contribution of genetic, shared environmental and non-shared environmental factors to the covariance between parental sensitivity and limit-setting observed twice in a longitudinal study using a child-based twin design. Parental sensitivity and parental limit-setting were observed in 236 parents with each of their same-sex toddler twin children (M_age = 3.8 years; 58% monozygotic). Bivariate behavioral genetic models indicated substantial effects of similar shared environmental factors on parental sensitivity and limit-setting and on the overlap within sensitivity and limit-setting across 1 year. Moderate child-driven genetic effects were found for parental limit-setting in year 1 and across 1 year. Genetic child factors contributing to explaining the variance in limit-setting over time were the same, whereas shared environmental factors showed some overlap.     

In search of good citizenship education: A normative analysis of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS)

In the last two decades, calls to place citizenship education (CE) at the top of national and European educational policy and research agendas have been gaining in prominence. Large‐scale comparative studies, such as the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), are often considered the main evidence base for setting these agendas and improving CE policies and practices. This article therefore considers the ICCS study as an inherent part of the process of translating general, educational aims into curricular policies and practices of CE. However, while critical voices about comparative educational studies have become paramount, a detailed analysis of their contents, of what and how they measure and what they promote as the aims of education is often lacking. This article aims to fill this gap by analysing the main research documents, design and items of the 2009 ICCS study. To find out what ICCS promotes as the goals of citizenship education, we examined its normative assumptions in terms of qualification, socialisation and/or subjectification. Our analysis shows that the qualification and socialisation functions are dominantly validated in all aspects of the study, whilst there is only marginal attention to subjectification. This implies that ICCS misses an important potential to document and/or promote pupils becoming autonomous and critical democratic citizens, whilst this is often considered a central aim of citizenship education by policymakers, practitioners and teachers.     

Does students' machismo fit in school? Clarifying the implications of traditional gender role ideology for school belonging

How much students feel at home in school predicts academic outcomes. In view of the gender achievement gap, it is worth examining the gendered pattern of this school belonging. Studies on school belonging, however, have barely acknowledged possible obstructive effects of traditional gender role attitudes of individual students and student cultures. This study examines the relationship between gender role attitudes and a sense of school belonging among a sample of 6380 students from 59 Flemish schools at the start of their secondary education. The results of multilevel analyses indicate that boys show less sense of school belonging than girls, as do students with more traditional beliefs about gender roles. Moreover, student attitudes related to gender roles are strongly shared at the school level, so that we can speak of a gender role student culture. Students enrolled in more traditional gender role student cultures reveal less school belonging.     

Inter-individual differences in stride frequencies during running obtained from wearable data

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the present study was to identify factors that underlie differences among runners in stride frequency (SF) as a function of running speed. Participants (N = 256; 85.5% males and 14.5% females; 44.1 ± 9.8 years; 181.4 ± 8.4 cm; 75.3 ± 10.6 kg; mean ± SD) shared their wearable data (?Garmin Inc). Individual datasets were filtered to obtain representative relationships between stride frequency (SF) and speed per individual, representing in total 16.128 h of data. The group relationship between SF (72.82 to 94.73 strides · min^?1) and running speed (V) (from 1.64 to 4.68 m · s^?1) was best described with SF = 75.01 + 3.006 V. A generalised linear model with random effects was used to determine variables associated with SF. Variables and their interaction with speed were entered in a stepwise forward procedure. SF was negatively associated with leg length and body mass and an interaction of speed and age indicated that older runners use higher SF at higher speed. Furthermore, run frequency and run duration were positively related to SF. No associations were found with injury incidence, athlete experience or performance. Leg length, body mass, age, run frequency and duration were associated with SFs at given speeds.

KEY POINTS

• On a group level, stride frequency can be described as a linear function of speed: SF (strides · min^?1) = 75.01+ 3.006·speed (m · s^?1) within the range of 1.64 to 4.68 m · s^?1.

• On an individual level, the SF-speed relation is best described with a second order polynomial.

• Leg length and body mass were positively related to stride frequency while age was negatively related to stride frequency.

• Run frequency and run duration were positively related to stride frequency, while running experience, performance and injury incidence were unrelated.

     

KNOWLEDGE ON ACCELERATED MOTION AS MEASURED BY IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT TASKS IN 5 TO 16 YEAR OLDS

The present study aimed at investigating children's and adolescents' understanding of constant and accelerated motions. The main objectives were (1) to investigate whether different task formats would affect the performance and (2) to track developmental changes in this domain. Five to 16 year olds (N = 157) predicted the distances of a moving vehicle on the basis of its movement durations on both a horizontal and an inclined plane. The task formats involved: (1) nonverbal action tasks, (2) number-based missing-value word problems, and (3) verbal judgments. The majority of participants of all age groups based their reactions in the first two task types on the assumption of a linear relationship between time and distance—which is correct for motions with constant speed but incorrect for accelerated motions. However, in the verbal judgments that tapped conceptual understanding, children from the age of 8 years onwards correctly assumed that an object rolling down an inclined plane would accelerate. The role of the task format in evoking erroneous beliefs and strategies is discussed.