On-line Learning at Universities in Developing Countries: From Leap-frogging to Antelope-jumping—Specific Needs and Solutions

Virtual universities, or at least the on-line delivery of tertiary-level courses, offer tremendous possibilities to the developing countries of the South to raise their educational levels. Countries that lack a sound higher education infrastructure can thereby tap the resources of the more developed countries. They can also use the resources of the information and communication technologies to transmit educational offerings to isolated areas and/or areas in which local higher education possibilities are not available. But there are problems. The telecommunications networks, which are almost always owned and headquartered in the developed countries of the North, charge exorbitant rates for their services. Courses and courseware designed in developed countries are frequently not suitable, from a cultural point of view, for use in the developing countries in the South. These should be designed locally, and local teachers need to be retrained to work in a virtual teaching environment. Despite problems, virtual learning offers a chance for the developing world to surge ahead.     

发展极理论与梯度开发理论在桂北经济建设中的运用

笔者从发展极理论和梯度开发理论出发，论证了桂北经济的发展是综合运用发展极与梯度开发理论并实现两者高度结合的结果，为发展桂北经济而提出了“旅游立市、工业强市、商贸富市、科教兴市、外向带动”战略方针正是发展极理论与梯度开发理论在实际中的应用，在运用中必须把握极理论与梯度开发理论的政策要点。     

A two‐component growth mindset intervention for young people with SEND

Interventions to increase the endorsement of the growth mindset (the belief that intelligence can be improved with effort) have been successfully implemented in schools. However, they rarely target children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), a group who are more likely to endorse a fixed mindset, experience lower academic self‐concept and academic resilience, and be at risk of negative stereotyped attitudes. This quasi‐experimental study implemented a 10‐week PSHE programme as well as dedicated lessons with adapted classroom practices, for example, task framing and feedback, to promote the growth mindset message to young people with SEND (N = 18). Analyses of pre‐ to post‐intervention measures demonstrated moderate evidence for the intervention having increased students’ endorsement of the growth mindset, as well as anecdotal evidence for increased academic self‐concept, academic resilience and positive attitudes to disability. However, these effects were not sustained in follow‐up measures conducted 7 weeks post‐intervention. The intervention did not improve students’ academic performance. Although preliminary, findings demonstrate the viability of growth mindset interventions for children and young people with SEND, but suggest that interventions should be maintained for longer‐lasting effects.     

Educating women about HIV/AIDS: some international comparisons

This paper describes current trends in the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It looks at issues and strategies involved in educating women about HIV/AIDS in the context of the global pandemic, focusing particularly on Canada and Vietnam. These strategies are essential steps in preventing the spread of HIV and in caring for those who have already developed AIDS. The strategies identified include the formulation of public policy within Canada, Vietnam, and the UK which would strive to eliminate inequality and discrimination, while at the same time positioning HIV/AIDS education within a gender‐sensitive perspective. Other educational strategies include teaching women how to practise negotiated safety while understanding the power dynamics within which safer sex must occur, being sensitive to local cultures and moving away from individualistic programmes towards programmes that focus on structural inequalities.     

Factors affecting student success at the National Open University of Venezuela

This study analyzed the effect of selected variables on attrition in the Introductory Course of the National Open University of Venezuela. The findings suggested that noninstitutional variables accounted for the largest proportion of variance of student completion. Counseling and course redesign may enhance students’ motivation to persist successfully.     

Eye-Movement Control in RAN and Reading

The present study examined the visual scanning hypothesis, which suggests that fluent oculomotor control is an important component underlying the predictive relationship between Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) tasks and reading ability. Our approach was to isolate components of saccadic planning, articulation, and lexical retrieval in 3 modified RAN tasks. We analyzed 2 samples of undergraduate readers (ages 17–27). We evaluated the incremental contributions of these components and found that saccadic planning to nonlinguistic stimuli alone explained roughly one third of the variance that conventional RAN tasks explained in eye movements registered during text reading for comprehension. We conclude that the well-established predictive role of RAN for reading performance is in part due to the individual ability to coordinate rapid sequential eye movements to visual nonlinguistic stimuli.     

Integrating assessment tasks in a problem‐based learning environment

The purpose of this study was to get more insight in the effects of written assessment tasks integrated in a problem‐based learning environment. Both the influence on students' performances and students' perceptions were investigated. Students' final exam results were used to find out whether students who make the assessment tasks do better than students who do not. Answers from questionnaires and semi‐structured interviews were used to discover the most important concerns in students' and teachers' perceptions of the assessment tasks. The results indicate that making the assessment tasks had positive influence on the students' overall performance. From the questionnaires and interviews it appears that both the students and the teachers see the benefits of the assessment tasks. It is concluded that small steps in the change of the assessment system can result in relatively big changes in students' learning and results.     

The role of teacher trust in segregated elementary schools: a multilevel repeated measures examination

This study aims to investigate how teachers’ trust in their students relates to reading comprehension achievement in socially and ethnically segregated elementary schools in Flanders (Belgium) by taking into account class composition characteristics. It is examined how student variables, ethnic diversity and the proportion of non-native students in the class, and teachers’ trust in their students relate to reading comprehension achievement and learning growth. A 3-level multivariate repeated measures analysis was conducted. At 2 measurement occasions, reading tests and questionnaires were administered to a sample (n = 417) of 7- and 8-year-old students in 32 classes. Teachers’ trust in their students was found to be a key factor relating to learning growth in reading comprehension, and mediated the relationship between the level of ethnic diversity in the class and learning growth. Teachers with a higher level of trust in their students seem to foster more learning growth in reading comprehension.     

Studying activities that take place in speech interactions: a theoretical and methodological framework

The paper proposes a theoretical and methodological framework based on a pluralistic, concerted approach to the study of activities that take place in and through speech interactions. The framework has a general scope, applying to any collective activity taking form through language interactions. It contributes to a fuller understanding of the dynamics of activity and the emergence of the phenomena observed. The framework fits a constructivist and interactionist paradigm. It allows an approach to different dimensions of the activity: communicational, functional, discursive and interlocutory. The theories, models, concepts and methods chosen to address each of the dimensions are presented. From the study of a collaborative philosophical inquiry produced in the first year of a French primary school, we illustrate the use of the framework and show how it can be enriched according to the nature of the activity studied and researchers’ aims.