“Do I need research skills in working life?”: University students’ motivation and difficulties in quantitative methods courses

This study explored university students’ views of whether they will need research skills in their future work in relation to their approaches to learning, situational orientations on a learning situation of quantitative methods, and difficulties experienced in quantitative research courses. Education and psychology students in both Finland (N = 46) and the USA (N = 122), who thought that they would need research skills in their future work, differed significantly from the students who were not sure whether they would need these skills. The students, who considered research skills important for their future work, were more task-oriented, used a deeper approach to learning and experienced fewer difficulties in the learning of research skills than other students. This finding implies that experiences in learning, learning approaches and situational orientations are related to expectations about future work. For instruction, this means that if we were somehow able to change students’ experiences and orientations towards research into a more positive direction, students might be better prepared for their future work.     

Concept formation of triangles and quadrilaterals in the second grade

In order to understand the concept of an n-gon it can be characterized by a commutative diagram which is composed of four ways of judging a given figure as an n-gon, and it is examined through some cases on the introductory instruction on the concept of triangles and quadrilaterals. In each of these cases, it was observed that some children gave persuading arguments containing a critical idea and the concept formation corresponded to a structure-preserved transformation in the diagram. Following the diagram, four stages on the concept formation and its development are introduced. According to two operations in the diagram, essentially two kinds of teaching tools can be distinguished. Putting these issues together, an experimental instruction is designed and implemented.     

在研药物关联专利的判别指标

日本版NIH及其制药企业,政策制定·战略规划需要佐证。本研究尝试基于新的指标体系对制药行业现状进行俯瞰与预测未来。连载第四篇,为了基于专利把握医药品产业的基础研究能力,定位与制药企业各个研发项目的进展状况【临床前实验】→【Ⅰ期临床试验】→【Ⅱ期临床试验】→【Ⅲ期临床试验】→【批准申请】→【批准】→【上市】密切相关的专利,尝试导出其新型指标。明确了作为指标,IPC分类、被引专利数、专利引用非专利文献数有效。基于专利的这些新指标,不但是通过在研药物（pipeline）,也可以通过专利把握医药品产业新药创出力以及未来新药的创出力。     

药物创新体制中的知识流

AMED（日本版NIH）及其制药企业,政策制定与战略规划需要循证。为此,本研究尝试基于新的指标体系进行制药行业的现状俯瞰与未来预测。本篇面向与在研药物及药物密切关联的专利,针对此专利的审查官和申请人所引用的专利及文献,并着眼于被引专利的技术领域,分析贯穿专利申请过程的知识流。     

A neurodevelopmental profile of the rural hearing‐impaired child in the QwaQwa region,South Africa

Being hearing impaired does not only affect a child's academic performance, but can also influence a child's overall development and ability to succeed academically. Children with hearing impairment often experience delays in other areas of their development and an understanding of the inter‐relatedness of these delays are important in order to address all these aspects, and thus minimise the impact on a child's overall development. The paper provides a neurodevelopmental profile of 4‐year‐old to 8‐year‐old rural hearing‐impaired children based on the result of a psychometric assessment. Eighteen children were selected from a special needs school in the rural QwaQwa Free State area of South Africa and underwent a psychometric assessment using two test batteries (Griffiths mental developmental scales – extended revised and a neurodevelopmental evaluation scale). The neurodevelopmental profile will contribute to knowledge of the nature of the challenges faced by the hearing‐impaired child in rural education and the neurodevelopmental origin of these challenges.     

Recruitment to Teaching: The Changing Impact of Social Origins in Norway 1975–2010

Concerns about the status of the teaching profession are widespread. In this paper, the social selection to teacher education is compared with the social selection to other higher education courses in Norway from 1975 to 2010. This comparison can shed light on changes in the status of teaching relative to other types of higher education. Using enrolment data supplied by educational institutions, this study examines whether the recruitment to teacher education has changed in a manner that reflects a unique decline in teacher status. The analyses show that the social selection to teacher education has declined. However, a similar decline is found for recruitment to other educational fields. Thus, the results suggest that the declining status of teaching is part of a larger trend in which the status of bachelor’s level applied educational fields declined relative to traditional university courses.     

Web geometry laboratory: case studies in Portugal and Serbia

The role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education is well recognised – learning environments where the ICT features included are being proposed for many years now. The Web Geometry Laboratory (WGL) innovates in proposing a blended learning, collaborative and adaptive learning Web-environment for geometry. It integrates a well-known dynamic geometry system providing an adaptive environment where face-to-face activities can be combined with computer-mediated activities, in a collaborative or stand-alone, synchronous or asynchronous, classroom or homework way. The WGL collaborative environment allows each student to capitalise on one another's resources and skills. Its adaptive module gives to each teacher the ability to assess the geometric level of each student, allowing the teacher to build the individual profile and/or learning paths. In this paper we begin describing what are the goals that support the development of such an environment, the goals that support our beliefs in the usefulness of such an environment for the teaching and learning of geometry, after which we describe the environment and the case studies already conducted.