The System of Development Programmes on Pre-School and School Education in the Republic of Kazakhstan

This article addresses preschool education as an integral part of the general education system in the Republic of Kazakhstan. This article describes problems related to preschool and certain areas of school development, such as early childhood development, communication, socialisation, creative thinking and leadership. The three studies described below illustrate efforts to increase the early literacy of low-income pre-schoolers: Training child care providers to implement early literacy curriculum, comparing materials and coaching to support early literacy, and assessing the impact of a statewide multipronged teacher support strategy to improve early literacy. Consequently, high school has a powerful potential for developing the leadership potential of students. Because further development of society depends on people with innovative thinking, imagination, and different ideas, there is a need for an ability as well as opportunity to develop leadership within school in order to allow students to see life prospects, to achieve specific goals, and to learn independently.     

Emotional labor and burnout among Turkish primary school teachers

Emotions play a critical role in teaching, especially in primary schools. Teachers have to manage their feelings in order to sustain a positive classroom climate. Managing feelings as a requirement of work is called emotional labor, which is a relatively new area of research in teaching. The main aim of this research was to investigate the type of emotional labor strategies Turkish primary school teachers often use and whether emotional labor is a predictor of burnout for primary teachers in a Turkish context. Also, the authors explore if there is a significant variation in emotional labor in terms of gender and school type (public/private). A survey was conducted with the participation of 370 primary school teachers from Ankara, Turkey. Results indicated that Turkish primary school teachers mostly engage in genuine emotions in their relationships with students. Female teachers use deep and surface acting strategies more often than males. Also, private school teachers were found to use deep acting strategies and display genuine emotions more often than public school teachers. Finally, it was found that emotional labor is a significant predictor of burnout among Turkish primary school teachers.     

A Simulation-based Approach to Evaluating Design-Manufacturing Process

Product design and evaluation require a broad and varied set of information and analysis tools, and effective design and evaluation of a product during its design phase is critical if production costs are to be minimized. A system is described that integrates product design specifications with material and process databases, and a simulation-based analysis module. The system allows product design specifications to be evaluated in terms of economic and technical criteria. The system will serve as a training tool in the computer-integrated manufacturing courses in our undergraduate curriculum. It allows students to investigate ways to design better products through integration of design and manufacturing, and to explore trade-offs between design and manufacturing     

Iterative algorithms for optimal design of columns subject to a stress constraint

Two algorithms based on an integral equation formulation of the buckling optimization problem are formulated and implemented. The objective of the optimization is to maximize the buckling load of an elastically restrained column by optimally designing the cross-sectional area subject to a minimum cross-section or maximum stress constraint. The first approach involves solving the resulting integral equations iteratively taking into account the boundary conditions, the optimality criterion and the imposed constraints. In the second approach an iterative finite difference approximation scheme is developed.The column is elastically restrained at both ends which produce the simple support and clamped end conditions for the limiting cases leading to the optimal design of columns under general boundary conditions. The above problems do not have analytical solutions due to the complexity of the boundary conditions, constraints and the optimality conditions necessitating the formulation of computational schemes for their solution. Several numerical results are given and compared with available results in the literature. Moreover the accuracy of the methods is studied by comparing the iterative solutions with finite element ones and with exact results when available.     

甄别多项选择题考试中答案抄袭的不同方法的比较

在美国,各个考试公司都会用不同的统计方法来检测考试中的舞弊现象。本文研究了两个检测舞弊的指数:基于经典考试理论的g2指数和基于项目反应理论的w指数。文章模拟了四种真实测试情形中常见的抄袭模式和几个可能影响指数的变量,研究结果表明,对于g2和w指数,在各种情形下,按照有偏差的估计参数以及真实参数计算出来的第一类错误率都是类似的,并且较低。因此,用有偏差的估计参数来计算g2和w指数不会增加将被抄袭者误认为抄袭者的可能性。而基于有偏差的估计参数的g2和w指数,只有在抄袭题目百分比较高且测试长度较长的情况下,才可能实现较低的第二类错误率。当抄袭题目百分比较低时,即便使用真实参数,g2和w指数都会造成较高的第二类错误率。     

Improving spatial thinking skills among undergraduate geology students through short online training exercises

ABSTRACT

Spatial reasoning is a critical skill in the Geosciences. Using a randomized control study with 592 undergraduate students enrolled in introductory and advanced Geology courses, our data indicates that regular, short interventions throughout an academic semester improve students’ spatial thinking skills significantly with a moderate to large effect size when compared to an instruction-as-usual control group. We found evidence for additional gains in students who participated also in hands-on training interventions. We found even larger training effects on students who achieved correct scores of >50% on the practice modules, with gains of almost three-quarter of a standard deviation relative to their baseline scores. Male and female students display significant differences in spatial skills, with males outperforming females. Training resulted in similar magnitudes of improvement in both genders, so we see no evidence that the interventions closed the gender gap. Using the initial performance as a baseline, poor performers’ spatial skills appear to improve through practice at the same rate as their peers. We argue that 15.4% of students improve their spatial skills through participation in the training towards a threshold that appears to be critical for participation in STEM careers. On a reflection survey, half of the students reported that they felt their spatial thinking skills improved through their participation, and over a third found the training beneficial for their overall learning in Geology or other classes. We hypothesise that formal training opportunities for spatial reasoning could increase the potential pool of students who successfully enter and succeed in Geoscience careers.     

Participation in technology standards development: A decision model for the information and communications technology (ICT) industry

This study presents a framework to guide managers in the ICT industry in assessing the factors that inform the decision to participate in the development of technology standards. Using multi-criteria decision analysis and judgment data from panels of experts, a robust model is developed that comprehends the essential criteria and outcomes within the context of computer interconnect technologies. The resultant, generalizable model is validated against the case of the extant Universal Serial Bus (USB) interconnect standard and found to be congruent with the assessment of the experts.     

Problem solving and classical genetics: Successful versus unsuccessful performance

Expert-novice problem-solving research is extended in this study to include classical genetics. Eleven undergraduates (novices) and nine graduate students and instructors (experts) were videotaped as they solved moderately complex genetics problems. Detailed analysis of these “think aloud” protocols resulted in 32 common tendencies that could be used to differentiate between successful and unsuccessful problem solvers. Experts perceive a problem as a task requiring analysis and reasoning and they tend to use a knowledge-development (forward-working) approach. They make frequent checks on the correctness of their work, use accurate and detailed bookkeeping procedures, and have a broader range of heuristics to apply to the problem. It is clear that studying problem solving using the expert/novice design requires that the problems be difficult enough to require more than more recall and yet simple enough to allow novices a chance for solution. Applying elementary probability concepts seemed to be the most difficult aspect of many of the genetics problems, even for the experts.     

《福建师大福清分校学报》2006-2010年载文、作者和引文统计分析

采用文献计量学的研究方法,对《福建师大福清分校学报》2006-2010年的载文、作者和引文的情况进行统计分析,并与相关的文献进行了比较。结果表明：该刊30期共载文731篇,基金项目论文占11.49%,篇均页码4.51页;论文合著率28.3%,合作指数1.41;第一作者中具有高级职称的占29.8%,女性占45.28%,年龄在35岁以下的占48.84%;篇均引文8.2条,英文引文占10.02%,期刊类引文占44.64%,引文质量有待于提高。并以此为依据,就《福建师大福清分校学报》在如何提高办刊质量、培育作者队伍以及引导文献引用等方面提出了几点建议。