L'Éducation à la Carrière: Une Étude Brésilienne de la Validité Transculturelle du Questionnaire sur l'Éducation à la Carrière

Abstract: Career education: A Brazilian study on transcultural validity of the Career Education Questionnaire. The purpose of this study is to validate a Brazilian version of the Career Education Questionnaire (Questionnaire sur l'éducation à lacarrière) of Dupont and Gingras (1990) and to compare the results with those for the original Quebec and Spanish versions. A Brazilian sample of 390 male and 499 female high school students is used to establish the psychometric properties of the instrument. Results of item analysis, correlations between scales, and factor analysis obtained with this sample strongly corroborate those obtained for the Quebec and Spanish samples. Future studies are needed to further investigate the cross-cultural validity of the instrument. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The COVID-19 epidemic in Brazil: how statistics education may contribute to unravel the reality behind the charts

Educational Studies in Mathematics - The world is now facing the most severe health, social, and economic event of the last hundred years, which has made the need to acquire statistical thinking to...     

Constitutive Pluralism of Chemistry: Thought Planning, Curriculum, Epistemological and Didactic Orientations

Maybe the most difficult aspect of thinking about chemistry arises from the fact that chemistry isn’t an homogeneous subject. As a central science, it draws on a range of philosophical perspectives which in turn can result in different cognitive, learning and teaching styles in chemical education. This idea, apparently non-controversial, needs to be validated by more research. Without assuming this constitutive pluralism, describing it, and determining it, it becomes difficult to think of curricular goals and content. Thus, if we intend to improve the teaching of chemistry it is necessary, first, to assume explicitly this constitutive pluralism, then to map it in order to find the guiding principles: first for the mind (thought process), then for the curriculum and finally for the teaching, in such a way that it is as close as possible to the chemical way of operating and thinking. This is the aim of this paper. It reports the authors’ experiences in drafting structural ideas and planning for the subject “didactic of chemistry” based on the philosophy of chemistry at the University of Porto in Portugal.     

On the Commodification of Science: The Programmatic Dimension

The article is a partial result of a wider research project, in which the commodification of science is interpreted, from one point of view, as a facet of the rise of neoliberalism, and from another, as a set of processes, classified according to a three-category taxonomy. Only one of the taxonomy’s categories is dealt with in this article, the one that concerns the processes that affect the programme of scientific research. First a sketch is presented of the historical background and the periodization of the most relevant epoch for the study of the commodification of science, namely, the one from the end of World War II to the present. The periodization is expressed in the notions of Golden Years science and neoliberal science. The ensuing sections have the aims: to show that, in Golden Years science, the processes shaping research programmes did not include commodification; to characterize the period of transition of the 70 s; to describe the processes of commodification that have impact on the research programmes of neoliberal science; to discuss criticisms that have been levelled against them, as well as proposals for better ways of conducting scientific practices, and their implications for science education (which are of the same nature as that of Science & Education’s editorial line); and finally, to bring to light the differences between developed and emerging countries as far as the commodification of science is concerned.     

Dimensions as Virtual Items: Improving the predictive ability of top-N recommender systems

Traditionally, recommender systems for the web deal with applications that have two dimensions, users and items. Based on access data that relate these dimensions, a recommendation model can be built and used to identify a set of N items that will be of interest to a certain user. In this paper we propose a multidimensional approach, called DaVI (Dimensions as Virtual Items), that consists in inserting contextual and background information as new user–item pairs. The main advantage of this approach is that it can be applied in combination with several existing two-dimensional recommendation algorithms. To evaluate its effectiveness, we used the DaVI approach with two different top-N recommender algorithms, Item-based Collaborative Filtering and Association Rules based, and ran an extensive set of experiments in three different real world data sets. In addition, we have also compared our approach to the previously introduced combined reduction and weight post-filtering approaches. The empirical results strongly indicate that our approach enables the application of existing two-dimensional recommendation algorithms in multidimensional data, exploiting the useful information of these data to improve the predictive ability of top-N recommender systems.     

Active relatives and health-related physical fitness in European adolescents: The HELENA Study

Abstract

High physical fitness in childhood and adolescence is positively associated with favourable health-related outcomes. Our aim was to examine the relationship between relatives’ (father, mother, brother, sister, and best friend) physical activity engagement and encouragement on adolescents’ physical fitness. Adolescents were part of the HELENA study, a multi-centre study conducted in 10 cities from nine European countries in 2006–2008. Participants were 3288 adolescents (48% boys, 52% girls) aged 12.5–17.5 years with valid data on at least one of the three fitness variables studied: muscular strength (standing long jump), speed/agility (4×10 m shuttle run), and cardiorespiratory fitness (20 m shuttle run). The adolescents reported their relatives’ physical activity engagement and encouragement. Analysis of covariance showed that relatives’ physical activity engagement (father, mother, brother, and best friend) was positively related to cardiorespiratory fitness (P < 0.05); and mother's and sisters’ physical activity engagement were positively associated with higher muscular strength in adolescents (P < 0.05). Furthermore, father's physical activity encouragement was positively linked to physical fitness (all fitness components) in adolescents (P < 0.05). Interventions aimed at improving physical fitness in young people might be more successful when family members, particularly mothers and fathers, are encouraged to engage in physical activity and support adolescents’ physical activity.     

Practicum experiences as sources of pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy

This study examines physical education pre-service teachers’ (PTs) self-efficacy and practicum experiences as self-efficacy sources through a mixed-method approach. For the quantitative phase, a self-efficacy questionnaire was applied to 141 PTs. Results showed a stronger self-efficacy in the relationship with students and discipline promotion. Lower self-efficacy was linked to instructional strategies. Concerning the qualitative phase, eight PTs were interviewed. PTs with higher self-efficacy reported professional experiences before practicum as mastery experiences. During the practicum they highlighted as mastery experiences: classes’ characteristics, planning and teaching practice; lesson observation as vicarious experiences; and post-lesson conversations as verbal persuasion. PTs with lower self-efficacy reported classes’ characteristics and teaching practice as failure experiences. Lesson observation was linked to negative vicarious experiences and post-lesson conversations were associated to negative emotions and the absence of verbal persuasion. This study’s results have implications inasmuch as they confirm the role of the practicum in teacher education programmes and the importance of training supervisors in the implementation and management of the training experience, thus contributing to PTs’ self-efficacy development.     

A user-centred approach to the design of an expert system for training

This paper reports the objectives, design approach and first results of a research project that aims to develop an intelligent computer-based learning environment for industrial applications. Jonas , an expert system, is part of a modelling/simulation environment which enables shopfloor workers to test and to put new philosophies of work into practice in the context of manufacture. Our approach is focused on three main ideas: the Intelligence Augmentation paradigm, user-centred system design and the constructionist theory of learning. The architecture of the modelling environment and the main features of Jonas are presented as an illustration of the design ideas discussed in the paper.     

Effects of resistance training in HIV-infected patients: A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

The relative effects of resistance training (RT) upon muscle fitness and immune function among HIV-infected patients are uncertain. The purpose of this study was to perform a meta-analysis to determine the effects of RT upon muscle strength, muscle mass and CD4 cells count and to identify potential moderators of those outcomes in HIV-infected patients. Meta-analyses use random or fixed-effects model depending on the heterogeneity of effect sizes, complemented with Hedge’s g correction factor. Thirteen trials were meta-analysed. Overall, RT increased muscle strength (35.5%, P < 0.01) and CD4 cell count (26.1%, P = 0.003) versus controls (P < 0.03), but not muscle mass (P = 0.051). Meta-regression followed by subgroup moderator analysis showed that gains in muscle strength followed a dose–response pattern with largest increase detected among trials with longer (24 weeks; 49.3%) than shorter intervention (<12 weeks; 39%), higher (Physiotherapy Evidence-Based Database [PEDro] scale = 6; 38.3%) than lower (PEDro = 5; 28.1%) quality, and longer (12 months; 59.7%) than shorter time under highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) (<6 months; 37.1%), (P < 0.01). RT appears to be efficacious to improve muscular strength (~35.5%) and CD4 cell count (~26.1%), but not muscle mass of HIV-infected patients. Effects upon strength were greater in studies with higher quality and among trials with longer RT and HAART.     

Mediation role of cardiorespiratory fitness on the association between fatness and cardiometabolic risk in European adolescents: The HELENA study

PurposeThis study was aimed to analyze the mediation role of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) on the association between fatness and cardiometabolic risk scores (CMRs) in European adolescents.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in adolescents (n = 525; 46% boys; 14.1 ± 1.1 years old, mean ± SD) from 10 European cities involved in the Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence study. CRF was measured by means of the shuttle run test, while fatness measures included body mass index (BMI), waist to height ratio, and fat mass index estimated from skinfold thicknesses. A clustered CMRs was computed by summing the standardized values of homeostasis model assessment, systolic blood pressure, triglycerides, total cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio, and leptin.ResultsLinear regression models indicated that CRF acted as an important and partial mediator in the association between fatness and CMRs in 12–17-year-old adolescents (for BMI: coefficients of the indirect role β = 0.058 (95% confidence interval (95%CI): 0.023–0.101), Sobel test z = 3.11 (10.0% mediation); for waist to height ratio: β = 4.279 (95%CI: 2.242–7.059), z =3.86 (11.5% mediation); and for fat mass index: β = 0.060 (95%CI: 0.020–0.106), z = 2.85 (9.4% mediation); all p < 0.01).ConclusionIn adolescents, the association between fatness and CMRs could be partially decreased with improvements to fitness levels; therefore, CRF contribution both in the clinical field and public health could be important to consider and promote in adolescents independently of their fatness levels.