School Characteristics,Child Work,and Other Daily Activities as Sleep Deficit Predictors in Adolescents from Households with Unsatisfied Basic Needs

Sleep in adolescents has been shown to be an important factor when looking at physical, mental, and social well‐being. Little evidence is found regarding sleep patterns in adolescents from households facing extreme poverty, where conditions such as crowding, poor housing, sanitation or education, and precarious employment set an adverse environment for sleep. In this study, we sought to assess in a nationwide sample comprised of 1,682 adolescents from Argentina, how the presence of extreme poverty—as defined by the presence of unsatisfied basic needs (UBN)—affects the relationship of sleep duration with school, work, and other daily activities. A global high prevalence of short sleeping time, a slight increase of sleep time in adolescents with UBN, and different patterns of wake activities that predict sleep deficit, depending on the presence of UBN, were found. The poor academic achievement, increased risk of accidents, and adverse health outcomes associated with sleep deprivation support the view that sleep is an additional unsatisfied basic need that worsens living conditions at this age. The results may help to design public health policies that contribute to ameliorate this adverse situation.     

Innovation,growth and the transition to net-zero emissions

The climate crisis and the global economic impact of the Covid-19 crisis occur against a background of slowing growth and widening inequalities, which together imply an urgent need for a new environmentally sustainable and inclusive approach to growth. Investments in “clean” innovation and its diffusion are key to shaping this, accompanied by investments in complementary assets including sustainable infrastructure, and human, natural and social capital which will not only help achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, but will also improve productivity, living standards and the prospects of individuals. In this article, we draw on the theoretical and empirical evidence on the opportunities, drivers and policies for innovation-led sustainable growth. We highlight the importance of a coordinated set of long-term policies and institutions that can enable and foster private sector investments in clean innovation and assets quickly and at scale. In doing so, we draw inspiration from Chris Freeman's work on the system-wide drivers of innovation, and his early vision of achieving environmental sustainability by reorienting growth.     

Student teacher challenges: using the cognitive load theory as an explanatory lens

Cognitive load theory (CLT) can explain the challenges faced by student teachers. This study, guided by the CLT, included 26 pre-service teachers. Participants completed a cognitive load self-report questionnaire and were interviewed at two points during their student teaching. Results revealed that student teachers decreased mental effort related to monitoring their students’ level of attention, meeting needs of diverse learners, and managing internal and external distractions. Qualitative analysis revealed: (1) student teachers became aware of limited cognitive resources; (2) lesson planning imposes cognitive load during student teaching; and (3) cognitive overload limits the ability to make modifications during teaching.     

Experience and Explanation: Using Videogames to Prepare Students for Formal Instruction in Statistics

Well-designed digital games can deliver powerful experiences that are difficult to provide through traditional instruction, while traditional instruction can deliver formal explanations that are not a natural fit for gameplay. Combined, they can accomplish more than either can alone. An experiment tested this claim using the topic of statistics, where people’s everyday experiences often conflict with normative statistical theories and a videogame might provide an alternate set of experiences for students to draw upon. The research used a game called Stats Invaders!, a variant of the classic videogame Space Invaders. In Stats Invaders!, the locations of descending alien invaders follow probability distributions, and players need to infer the shape of the distributions to play well. The experiment tested whether the game developed participants’ intuitions about the structure of random events and thereby prepared them for future learning from a subsequent written passage on probability distributions. Community-college students who played the game and then read the passage learned more than participants who only read the passage.     

Effective,Sustained Inquiry-Based Instruction Promotes Higher Science Proficiency Among All Groups: A 5-Year Analysis

Student’s performance in science classrooms has continued to languish throughout the USA. Even though proficiency rates on national tests such as National Assessment of Educational Progress are higher for Caucasian students than African-Americans and Hispanics, all groups lack achieving desired proficiency rates. Further, the Next Generation Science Standards detail a new higher benchmark for all students. This study analyzes a professional development (PD) project, entitled Inquiry in Motion, designed to (a) facilitate teacher transformation toward greater quantity and quality of inquiry-based instruction, (b) improve student achievement in science practices and science concepts, and (c) begin to narrow the achievement gap among various groups. This 5-year PD study included 11 schools, 74 middle school teachers, and 9,981 students from diverse, high minority populations. Findings from the quasi-experimental study show statistically significant gains for all student groups (aggregate, males, females, Caucasians, African-Americans, and Hispanics) on all three science Measure of Academic Progress tests (composite, science practices, and science concepts) when compared to students of non-participating teachers. In addition to an increase in overall performance for all groups, a narrowing of the achievement gap of minority students relative to Caucasian students was seen. When combined with other studies, this study affirms that, when facilitated effectively, inquiry-based instruction may benefit all students, for all demographic groups measured.     

When the atmosphere warms it rains and ice melts: seventh grade students’ conceptions of a climate system

Although many environmental and science educators have explored students’ conceptual understandings, misconceptions, and knowledge of the greenhouse effect, global warming, and climate change, few have investigated the ways students conceptualize climate as a system or how components of the system influence climate. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to begin the process of understanding how US students conceptualize a climate system. A total of 42 seventh grade students (ages 12–13) from the Midwest completed an open-response task. From the inductive analysis of student written responses, 22 codes emerged that reflected students’ conceptions of the climate system. From these codes, three path diagrams were constructed that illustrate these students’ conceptions about how a climate system influences climate and how greenhouse gases and global warming impact the climate system. A generalized model of students’ conception of a climate system was generated. Students in this study conceptualized a climate system in a unidirectional, linear, cause and effect relationship that emphasized the atmospheric component of the climate system.     

Analysekompetenz von Lehrpersonen – Modellierung und Messung

This article reports on a project in which the analytical competence of teachers and trainee teachers is measured. The term analytical competence refers to the ability to assess and evaluate the quality of lessons which are observed. The sample consists of 800 teaching staff (200 students, 200 probationary teachers, 200 qualified teachers, 200 teacher training personnel). They are shown a video of a school lesson (in Physics) and then given a test in the form of a questionnaire in which they are asked to analyse the lesson. In the evaluation, the item scale of the test is checked for Rasch homogeneity. In the medium term, the results of this study should lead to consequences for the development of analytical competence in the various phases of teacher training.     

Sex education,first sex and sexual health outcomes in adulthood: findings from a nationally representative sexual health survey

This study investigated the relationship between school sex education and sexual health behaviours at first sex and later in adulthood, using nationally representative data. Respondents were adults from the 2010 Irish Contraception and Crisis Pregnancy Survey, a cross-sectional survey designed to assess knowledge, attitudes and behaviours relating to sex, contraception and pregnancy in Ireland. Results indicate that respondents who received sex education were more likely to have first sex at an older age and use contraception on this occasion. Sex education also significantly increased the likelihood of using contraception at first sex, when first sex occurred before 17 years of age. The effect of sex education and sexual health behaviours into adulthood was also investigated. Sex education increased the likelihood of having a history of sexually transmitted infection testing and decreased the likelihood of having experienced a crisis pregnancy. No association was found between sex education and contraception use over the past year. Findings suggest that sex education is an important factor in the context of first sex and later sexual health, and programmes should continue to equip young people as they make immediate sexual behaviour decisions and further sexual health-related decisions throughout their lifespan.     

Synthesizing antipodal chaotic waveforms

Chaotic waveforms are natural information carriers since a correspondence can be established between the symbolic dynamics of a chaotic oscillator and the symbols of a message. Message symbols can be efficiently encoded in a chaotic waveform by applying vanishingly small perturbations to an oscillator to guide its symbolic dynamics to follow a desired course. Recently, two chaotic hybrid dynamical systems were shown to have matched filters enabling robust reception of chaotic communication waveforms in the presence of noise. The first of these, the exact shift oscillator, produces waveforms with desirable properties similar to antipodal signaling, but a physical implementation may be difficult to control using small perturbations. The second oscillator, the exact folded-band oscillator, produces less optimal waveforms but is more easily controlled. Here we introduce a method for generating waveforms of the exact shift oscillator by summing waveforms from a bank of easily controlled exact folded-band oscillators. We show that any solution of the exact shift oscillator can be so constructed using only three folded-band oscillators. Thus, this scheme allows us to realize the advantages of both chaotic systems while overcoming their individual disadvantages, thereby enabling practical chaos communications.