The study of the pupil’s cognitive structure: the concept of angle

The present research approached a problem which has a twofold aspect: the concept of angle and the techniques needed to represent how pupils construct that concept in their cognitive structure during their years in school. In order to access the knowledge of the concept of angle, we used the pathfinder associative networks. This technique provided us with the data of the 458 networks of the participating students, using 11 concepts related to the general concept of angle. We used quantitative indicators on the network characteristics: coherence, complexity, and similarity with others. Results showed how the pupil’s cognitive structure evolutioned during instruction and what were the most relevant concepts for them. On the basis of the results, we have proposed what we call the “Theory of Nuclear Concepts” which offers a new focus to understanding how the processes of teaching and learning occur.     

A Cross-age Study of Senior High School Students' Conceptions of Basic Astronomy Concepts

Senior high school students' astronomy conceptions were analysed by means of a written questionnaire presented to them during the beginning of the first semester. The main findings were: (1) Most students answered correctly the questions dealing with the following subjects: the day-night cycle, the reason for the different seasons, and the time of the Moon's revolution around the Earth and the Sun. (2) Most students chose their best account for changes in the Moon's phases as the Moon moving around the Earth. Despite that, most students thought that the Moon must be in its full phase in order to get a total solar eclipse. (3) Most students underestimated distances in the Universe and overestimated the Earth's diameter. (4) Most students answered incorrectly the questions dealing with the following subjects: Sun overhead at noon, longitude time zones, and Moon's rotation. (5) Students studying physics succeeded significantly better than their colleagues in some of the subjects that were taught as a part of their optics and mechanics courses.     

Adjunctive behaviors are operants

Adjunctive behaviors such as schedule-induced polydipsia are said to be induced by periodic delivery of incentives, but not reinforced by them. That standard treatment assumes that contingency is necessary for conditioning and that delay of reinforcement gradients are very steep. The arguments and evidence for this position are reviewed and rejected. In their place, data are presented that imply different gradients for different classes of responses. Proximity between response and reinforcer, rather than contingency or contiguity, is offered as a key principle of association. These conceptions organize a wide variety of observations and provide the rudiments for a more general theory of conditioning.     

On the Concept of Force: How Understanding its History can Improve Physics Teaching

Some physicists have pointed out that we do not know what force is. The most common definition of force in textbooks has been criticized for more than two centuries. Many studies have shown that the concept of force is a problem for teaching. How to conceive force on the basis of the concepts and criticism of force in the works of Newton, Euler, d’Alembert, Lagrange, Lazare Carnot, Saint-Venant, Reech, Kirchhoff, Mach, Hertz and Poincaré is the question of the present article. This part of the article is followed by an overview of definitions of force in contemporary textbooks. In the next part, an answer to the question is given: how to understand force within the framework of the laws of motion and in applications. Finally, some educational implications are considered.     

The Aula EspaZio Gela and the Master of Space Science and Technology in the Universidad del País Vasco (University of the Basque Country)

We present the Aula EspaZio Gela, a facility dedicated to teaching Space Science and Technology at the master and doctorate level at the University of the Basque Country (Spain), and to promoting the development of this field in both public and private sectors. The one-year master's degree in Space Science and Technology (60 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System)) offers a group of compulsory courses which give way afterwards to a set of elective matters in which students choose one of two tracks: the scientific, primarily oriented to basic research at the University, or the technological, leading to the space industry and space agencies. After completion of the master thesis, our students have direct access to a PhD in both curricular lines. Here we detail the main features of the master's degree and the experience acquired in three years, including a comparative opinion survey to the students. We also describe the facilities at the Faculty of Engineering consisting of a specific classroom (Aula EspaZio Gela), an Astronomical Observatory, and different laboratories.     

Dialogue in a distance education physics course

This study investigated the kinds of dialogues utilized by Open University students while studying an intermediate level physics course. Research objectives were twofold: to document what dialogue types, mediated through which resources, were (1) generally utilized by students as they learned; and (2) were specifically utilized by students to overcome conceptual difficulties. It was found that all students initially chose individual study characterized by intrapersonal dialogue. Only when individual study failed did students opt for interpersonal dialogue. This finding conflicts with the assumed importance often ascribed to interpersonal dialogue by some distance education theorists.     

Behavior of descriptive fit indexes in confirmatory factor analysis using ordered categorical data

The purpose of this study was to examine the behavior of 8 measures of fit used to evaluate confirmatory factor analysis models. This study employed Monte Carlo simulation to determine to what extent sample size, model size, estimation procedure, and level of nonnormality affected fit when polytomous data were analyzed. The 3 indexes least affected by the design conditions were the comparative fit index, incremental fit index, and nonnormed fit index, which were affected only by level of nonnormality. The measure of centrality was most affected by the design variables, with values of n2>. 10 for sample size, model size, and level of nonnormality and interaction effects for Model Size x Level of Nonnormality and Estimation x Level of Nonnormality. Findings from this study should alert applied researchers to exercise caution when evaluating model fit with nonnormal, polytomous data.