The case of the Swedish-speaking Finns

Conclusion It has often beeen stated that the Swedish-speaking population in Finland, compared to other linguistic minorities, has achieved a privileged position. Historically the Finnish nation-state was born and grew by the efforts of both language groups, and the constitution was influenced by this unity. The geopolitical situation has gained from the fact that the resources of the whole population have been taken into account in the development of the Finnish nation and state, located in a Northern Europe, where, for centuries, different political, cultural and religions forces have met. The fact that the Orthodox Church together with the predominant Lutheran Church became the state church is another example of the efforts of the young Finnish state to both integrate and mobilize the personal resources.Regarding the future it will be wise to support specific traditions, competencies and creative forces from the whole population. The education, rooted in a language and a specific culture can, in such a perspective, probably not be overevaluated. From the Swedish point of view it is therefore of the greatest importance to maintain fundamental guarantees for a Swedish-speaking education. Only far-going guarantees liberate creative resources for the future challenges nationally and above all internationally. Otherwise too much energy and interest will be needed to guard the specific and in itself justified interests.Today, when the economic prerequisites in a welfare state are not taken for granted it is by all means a wise policy to defend the approved strategy to at the same time integrate and mobilize the total resources from different groups in the society.     

Experiments with Audio-Visual Aids at the Stockholm School of Education

The current educational plans for different school grades consider the use of AV aids as something quite natural and self-evident. But in order to put the plans into action it is important that the various training colleges spend enough time on teaching the use of AV aids.     

Classroom leadership: the effect of a school development programme

Using a cohort longitudinal design, this study examined pupils' perceptions of their teachers' classroom leadership, both before and after implementation of the Respect programme. Pupils in Grades 5–10 (age 11–16) in four Norwegian schools reported their perceptions of their teachers' emotional support, academic support, and monitoring five times over a period of five years. The results revealed increases in the pupils' perceptions of one or more of the three aspects of classroom leadership for all grade levels except Grade 9. Pupils in Grades 5, 7, 8, and 10 reported effect sizes larger than .20 for all three aspects. The largest effect size reported was .80, for increases in Grade 6 pupils' perception of teachers' monitoring. In order to rule out selection bias, which is a major threat to cohort longitudinal designs, pupils' reports of three measures of aggression were used as a control. The results indicated that there were no biases.     

Developmental dynamics of early reading skill,literacy interest and readers’ self-concept within the first year of formal schooling

Previous studies have documented robust relationships between emergent literacy and later reading performance. A growing body of research has also reported associations between motivational factors and reading in early phases of reading development. However, there is less research about cross-lagged relationships between motivational factors and reading skills in beginning readers. To examine relationships between early reading skills, literacy interest and reader self-concept, we tested 1141 children twice during their first year of formal reading instruction in school. Cross-lagged analysis showed strong stability in reading skills and medium stability in literacy interest and reader self-concept over the first school year. We also found bidirectional relationships between reading skills and self-concept and between the motivational components of literacy interest and reader self-concept. In the final part of the article, we address the potential theoretical progress attainable through the use of cross-lagged designs in this field.     

Technique analysis in elite athletes using principal component analysis

The aim of this study was to advance current movement analysis methodology to enable a technique analysis in sports facilitating (1) concurrent comparison of the techniques between several athletes; (2) identification of potentially beneficial technique modifications and (3) a visual representation of the findings for feedback to the athletes. Six elite cross-country skiers, three world cup winners and three national elite, roller ski skated using the V2 technique on a treadmill while their movement patterns were recorded using 41 reflective markers. A principal component analysis performed on the marker positions resulted in multi-segmental “principal” movement components (PMs). A novel normalisation facilitated comparability of the PMs between athletes. Additionally, centre of mass (COM) trajectories were modelled. We found correlations between the athletes’ performance levels (judged from race points) and specific features in the PMs and in the COM trajectories. Plausible links between COM trajectories and PMs were observed, suggesting that better performing skiers exhibited a different, possibly more efficient use of their body mass for propulsion. The analysis presented in the current study revealed specific technique features that appeared to relate to the skiers’ performance levels. How changing these features would affect an individual athlete’s technique was visualised with animated stick figures.     

Approximating Test Statistics Using Eigenvalue Block Averaging

We introduce and evaluate a new class of approximations to common test statistics in structural equation modeling. Such test statistics asymptotically follow the distribution of a weighted sum of i.i.d. chi-square variates, where the weights are eigenvalues of a certain matrix. The proposed eigenvalue block averaging (EBA) method involves creating blocks of these eigenvalues and replacing them within each block with the block average. The Satorra–Bentler scaling procedure is a special case of this framework, using one single block. The proposed procedure applies also to difference testing among nested models. We investigate the EBA procedure both theoretically in the asymptotic case, and with simulation studies for the finite-sample case, under both maximum likelihood and diagonally weighted least squares estimation. Comparison is made with 3 established approximations: Satorra–Bentler, the scaled and shifted, and the scaled F tests.     

Sourcing in professional education: Do text factors make any difference?

The present study investigated the extent to which the text factors of source salience and emphasis on risk might influence readers’ attention to and use of source information when reading single documents to make behavioral decisions on controversial health-related issues. Participants (n = 259), who were attending different bachelor-level professional programs at a university college, generally disregarded source information irrespective of textual manipulations, especially sources cited or embedded within other documents, and mainly relied on their own personal experiences and opinions when making behavioral decisions on the issues. Theoretical as well as educational implications of the findings are discussed.     

Preschool morphological training produces long-term improvements in reading comprehension

We evaluated the effect of morphological awareness training delivered in preschool (8 months before school entry) on reading ability at the end of grade 1 and 5 years later (in Grade 6). In preschool, one group of children received morphological awareness training, while a second group received phonological awareness training. A control group followed the ordinary preschool curriculum. The comparison between each training condition and the control condition is quasi experimental, whereas the comparison between the morphological and phonological treatments is randomized at group level. In Grade 1 children in the morphological awareness training group had significantly higher scores than children in the control group on both word reading and text reading measures, but no differences were found between the experimental groups. In Grade 6 children in the morphological awareness training group had significantly higher scores compared with the control group on a latent measure of reading comprehension, whereas the children in the phonological awareness training group did not differ from the controls; although the experimental groups did not differ significantly from each other. The results suggest that early training in morphological awareness can have long-term effects on children’s literacy skills.