Does Our Humor Affect Us?: An Examination of a Dyad's Humor Orientation

In this article, researchers explain how individuals' similarities in humor orientation influence dyadic cohesion and satisfaction. The researchers in this study investigated the impact of communication appropriateness as a mediating variable in relationships. Relational partners (n = 151 dyads) completed measures of both self and other regarding humor orientation, cohesion, and satisfaction. A couple's humor orientation was positively correlated with both dyadic satisfaction and cohesion. Communication appropriateness was a mediating factor in both the relationship between a couple's humor orientation and dyadic cohesion, and humor orientation and satisfaction. The overall dyadic humor orientation was more important than a couple's humor discrepancy, or either partner's scores.     

Towards a Competency Model for Teaching Computer Science

To address the special challenges of teaching computer science, adequate development of teachers’ competencies during their education is extremely important. In particular, pedagogical content knowledge and teachers’ beliefs and motivational orientations play an important role in effective teaching. This research field has been sparsely investigated up to now and there exists no consistent competency model for teaching computer science in Germany. Therefore, this paper describes the development of competency in the areas of pedagogical content knowledge, teachers’ beliefs, and motivational orientations with regard to computer science. Competency-relevant factors for teaching computer science are theoretically derived and concretely formulated with the help of expert interviews conducted according to the critical incident technique and analyzed using techniques of qualitative content analysis.     

Development of Intra‐ and Intergroup Judgments in the Context of Moral and Social‐Conventional Norms

Children and adolescents evaluated group inclusion and exclusion in the context of generic and group‐specific norms involving morality and social conventions. Participants (N = 381), aged 9.5 and 13.5 years, judged an in‐group member's decision to deviate from the norms of the group, whom to include, and whether their personal preference was the same as what they expected a group should do. Deviating from in‐group moral norms about unequal allocation of resources was viewed more positively than deviating from conventional norms about nontraditional dress codes. With age, participants gave priority to group‐specific norms and differentiated what the group should do from their own preference about the group's decision, revealing a developmental picture about children's complex understanding of group dynamics and group norms.     

Explaining the mathematical creativity of a young boy: an interdisciplinary venture between mathematics education and psychoanalysis

Curriculum documents for mathematics emphasise the importance of promoting depth of knowledge rather than shallow coverage of the curriculum. In this paper, we report on a study that explored the analysis of junior secondary mathematics textbooks to assess their potential to assist in teaching and learning aimed at building and applying deep mathematical knowledge. The method of analysis involved the establishment of a set of specific curriculum goals and associated indicators, based on research into the teaching and learning of a particular field within the mathematics curriculum, namely proportion and proportional reasoning. Topic selection was due to its pervasive nature throughout the school mathematics curriculum at this level. As a result of this study, it was found that the five textbook series examined provided limited support for the development of multiplicative structures required for proportional reasoning, and hence would not serve well the development of deep learning of mathematics. The study demonstrated a method that could be applied to the analysis of junior secondary mathematics in many parts of the world.     

Context and history: Using a capabilities-based social justice perspective to explore three generations of western Turkish female teachers’ lives

The purpose of this paper is to understand historically and contextually the well-being and agency of selected female teachers in Turkey. The paper develops a justice model based on the capability approach to build on the relation between freedom and equality, and to take gender and cultural diversity as a key element. The research draws on results from in-depth biographical narratives of 15 participants from west Turkey, examining the real freedoms and opportunities of three different generations of female teachers through constructing a gendered look into women's lives. The study begins by developing a framework linking women's opportunities and freedoms drawing its normative compass from Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach. It explores how female teachers’ well-being can be understood in relation to key capabilities that individuals, communities and society have reason to value and how these capabilities and functionings can be expanded or constrained. The paper argues for the significance of thinking about capabilities in the professional lives of teachers who work for social change. Through a historical and generational sequence, it captures the egalitarian aspects of the capability approach, and strengthens its emphasis on freedoms of women. The findings of this enquiry indicate that there are persistent economic, cultural, ethnical, structural and gendered inequalities in women's lives, but that women also have agency to bring changes in their lives and through their teaching.     

Domestic science: making chemistry your cup of tea

In the early Victorian home, there were plenty of scientific lessons to be uncovered. With the appropriate interrogation, everyday objects could transform seemingly mundane activities such as eating breakfast, washing clothes or reading by candle-light into household lectures that gave children a familiar base from which to explore the hidden properties and marvellous histories of common commodities. Responding to an unprecedented hunger for scientific knowledge, a profusion of introductory texts appeared in the mid-nineteenth century that directed lessons into homes across Britain and beyond. In particular, the science of chemistry found its way into this domestic setting, as writers promoted its practice and practitioners as a source of authoritative expertise on everyday life. One of the most compelling illustrations of this encounter between the public and chemistry took place over a simple cup of tea.     

The Teaching of English in Puerto Rico: One Hundred Years of Degrees of Bilingualism

The bilingual policies of the University of Puerto Rico are described in the context of bilingualism in Puerto Rico as a whole, given that the second language, English, was a relatively recent imposition coming after several centuries of thorough Hispanization. Although Puerto Rico is profoundly Hispanic in terms of both language and culture, its people understand the need to be proficient in English. Thus the University of Puerto Rico is taking many steps to make sure that its students become proficient in both Spanish and English. A number of programmes are described, and the results in terms of improved knowledge of English, in particular, are detailed.     

Measuring the Language Demands of Mathematics Tests: The case of the statutory tests for 11-year-olds in England and Wales

The study reported here investigates various methods for measuring the readability of the language of mathematics test questions used in the national testing programme for 11-year-olds in England and Wales. It is argued that the language used in the questions has a direct influence on test validity. It explores the use of Kane's Formula II and other selected formulae: Dale-Chall, Flesch, FOG and Fry's adaptation of his 1977 formula. These outcomes are compared with an assessment of the reading difficulty of the questions as judged by experienced primary mathematics teachers. The results indicate high levels of agreement between all the formal measures used, but very little agreement between the formal measures and the judgements of teachers. Individual questions are analysed to highlight some of the discrepancies. The conclusion is that there is currently no satisfactory way of measuring the ease or difficulty of the language of mathematics test questions and that further research is urgently needed.