Teaching of Energy Issues: A Debate Proposal for a Global Reorientation

The growing awareness of serious difficulties in the learning of energy issues has produced a great deal of research, most of which is focused on specific conceptual aspects. In our opinion, the difficulties pointed out in the literature are interrelated and connected to other aspects (conceptual as well as procedural and axiological), which are not sufficiently taken into account in previous research. This paper aims to carry out a global analysis in order to avoid the more limited approaches that deal only with individual aspects. From this global analysis we have outlined 24 propositions that are put forward for debate to lay the foundations for a profound reorientation of the teaching of energy topics in upper high school courses, in order to facilitate a better scientific understanding of these topics, avoid many students’ misconceptions and enhance awareness of the current situation of planetary emergency. This paper has been conceived as a contribution to the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, established by the UN General Assembly for the period 2005–2014.     

University Policy and Coordination Systems between Governments and Universities: The Experience of the Catalan University System

The co-ordination, control and financing mechanisms for higher education institutions have been the subject of ongoing political analysis and technical debate within university systems over recent years. The interrelationships between governments (as the ones in charge of university policy), universities and society have in recent years undergone a restatement process, due principally to the widespread changes that have occurred in the higher education environment. In this context, the university system of Catalonia (Spain's most advanced and dynamic autonomous region) has, since 1997, been undergoing a new co-ordination experience between the government and universities centred around the programme-based contract formula, which has opened the way to a new system of financing and control of academic outputs for universities. The object of this paper is to critically analyse this experience (completely new to the Spanish university scene) in order to draw conclusions from the debate in progress on higher education co-ordination, financing and university autonomy. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Linguistic differences between well‐established and predatory journals: a keyword analysis of two journals in political science

Predatory publishing has become a much‐discussed and highly visible phenomenon over the past few years. One widespread, but hardly tested, assumption is the idea that articles published in predatory journals deviate substantially from those published in traditional journals. In this paper, we address this assumption by utilizing corpus linguistic tools. We compare the ‘academic‐like’ nature of articles from two different journals in political science, one top‐ranking and one alleged predatory. Our findings indicate that there is significant linguistic variation between the two corpora along the dimensions that we test. The articles display notable differences in the types and usage of keywords in the two journals. We conclude that articles published in so‐called predatory journals do not conform to linguistic norms used in higher‐quality journals. These findings may demonstrate a lack of quality control in predatory journals but may also indicate a lack of awareness and use of such linguistic norms by their authors. We also suggest that there is a need for the education of authors in science writing as this may enable them to publish in higher‐ranked and quality‐assured outlets.     

Over-education and its opportunity cost in Japan

In this paper, we investigate the determinants of over-education in Japan and evaluate its opportunity costs for university graduates. To this end, we use the REFLEX data. Results reveal that over-education level in Japan is high and it brings an important wage penalty for Japanese workers. Large firm and high occupations point toward a significant reduction in the likelihood of over-education. Results for wage regressions for over-education indicate that Japanese workers who achieve jobs in large organizations will experience 20 % increase in their wage due to the firm size and, if over-educated, their increase in wage will remain positive. Results for women are puzzling as there is no significant effect associated with gender.     

Understanding "prior intentions" enables two-year-olds to imitatively learn a complex task

This study investigated children's understanding of others' intentions in a social learning context. Specifically, it investigated whether knowing an adult's prior intention before the adult gives a demonstration influences what children learn from the demonstration. In the five main experimental conditions, ninety-six 2-year-old children watched as an experimenter (E) pulled out a pin and opened the door of a box. Children in two No Prior Intention conditions saw this demonstration alone or paired with an irrelevant action. Children in three Prior Intention conditions knew what E was trying to do before the demonstration: they first saw E either attempt unsuccessfully to open the door, or visit and open several other containers, or they first saw that the door opened. Children opened the box themselves more often in each of these three conditions than in the two No Prior Intention conditions, even though children in all five conditions saw the exact same demonstration of how to open the box.     

A telepresence learning environment for opera singing: distance lessons implementations over Internet2

The Opera eLearning project developed a solution for opera singing distance lessons at the graduate level, using high bandwidth to deliver a quality audio and video experience that has been evaluated by singing teachers, chorus and orchestra directors, singers and other professional musicians. Prior to finding a technological model that suits the user's requirements, several experiments have been conducted, testing and prototyping different technologies, until arriving at a telepresence, immersive sound model. This paper summarises the findings of this pilot stage, and its interest includes the management of innovation exercises across a multidisciplinary team, based on usability and a user-centred design. Some of the technology tested includes professional audio and video equipment, software for A/V signal capturing and transmission on uncompressed formats, A/D converters, and other auxiliary devices. The resultant model has later been successfully used in a formal case study, delivering 14 remote masterclasses.     

University policy and coordination systems between governments and universities: The experience of the Catalan university system

Abstract

The co‐ordination, control and financing mechanisms for higher education institutions have been the subject of ongoing political analysis and technical debate within university systems over recent years. The interrelationships between governments (as the ones in charge of university policy), universities and society have in recent years undergone a restatement process, due principally to the widespread changes that have occurred in the higher education environment. In this context, the university system of Catalonia (Spain's most advanced and dynamic autonomous region) has, since 1997, been undergoing a new co‐ordination experience between the government and universities centred around the programme‐based contract formula, which has opened the way to a new system of financing and control of academic outputs for universities. The object of this paper is to critically analyse this experience (completely new to the Spanish university scene) in order to draw conclusions from the debate in progress on higher education co‐ordination, financing and university autonomy.     

Who attends and completes virtual universities: the case of the open University of Catalonia (UOC)

A highly touted feature of the so-called global “revolution” in higher education is the trend to use information technology to reach a broader clientele. Although there is evidence that students may be learning the material in on-line courses as well as in traditional face-to-face universities, how well students learn content is not the only reason they persist to a degree, and student persistence is an important goal of higher education institutions. In this paper, we make the case that the life conditions for students attending virtual universities are different from those of “traditional” students in face-to-face universities, and that this difference puts a particular (largely non-pecuniary) premium on time to degree. With our data from a Catalan virtual university, the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), we are able to test this hypothesis directly by using the heterogeneous degree structure of the Catalonian/Spanish higher education system to estimate whether the number of courses required to get various degrees (the length of the degree program) is significantly related to student persistence. The study analyzes several cohorts of students (those who entered in 2000–2003) studying in the UOC and estimates the factors that influence their degree completion. We find that the completion rate is generally low, but that students taking shorter degree courses at the UOC are much more likely to complete their degrees. This suggests that, given their clientele, on-line universities operate under very different constraints from their face-to-face counterparts. Our results are important for higher educational researchers, who have mainly focused on younger populations attending face-face universities. They also can serve university administrators who launch distance education degree programs and make high stakes decisions about them with little of no information on the likely behavior of their older students, and can serve employers who are deciding whether to subsidize their employees to take advanced degrees through on-line programs of study.     

Resultados académicos y desarrollo cognitivo en un programa de inmersión dirigido a escolares de nivel socio-cultural bajo

Resumen

Este artículo hace un repaso de las principales características de los programas de inmersión así como de las bases psicopedagógicas en las que se fundamentan, encontrándose argumentos a favor de la aplicación de este tipo de programas a escolares con bajo nivel socio-cultural. Esta investigación ha llevado a cabo la evaluación y seguimiento al final del ciclo inicial de una muestra de alumnos que empezaron a los 4 años un programa de inmersión realizado en una escuela situada en el barrio del Carmel de Barcelona y ha comparado los resultados obtenidos con los de otra escuela, situada en el mismo barrio, que realiza la enseñanza en la lengua familiar de los alumnos (castellano).     

Coping strategies and psychological well-being among teacher education students

The coping strategies used by students play a key role in their psychological well-being. This study examines the relationship between coping strategies and psychological well-being in a sample of 98 undergraduates aged between 19 and 42 years. Coping strategies were evaluated by means of the CRI-A (Moos, 1993), while psychological well-being was assessed using the BSI (Derogatis and Spencer, 1982). The results show a relationship between coping style and psychological well-being. Approach coping strategies as problem solving in teacher education students had a beneficial effect on symptoms of depression, phobic anxiety and overall level of psychological distress. In contrast, cognitive avoidance coping are associated with greater presence of psychological symptoms indicating distress. And behavioural avoidance strategies (search for alternative rewards and emotional discharge) were associated with negative psychological well-being. Coping strategies may help to reduce psychological distress in university students. Specifically, approach-oriented coping is associated with positive scores for psychological well-being, and avoidant emotion-focused coping—above all, behavioural avoidant coping—may be a strong predictor of psychological distress.