Implementing Example-Based Learning and Teaching in the Context of Vocational School Education in Business Administration

Starting from problems of knowledge application in the context of vocational school training in business administration, an instructional approach based on worked-out examples was developed. The effectiveness of additional instructional measures (e.g. an elaboration training) was investigated experimentally. Together with teachers, the approach was adapted to conditions of regular book-keeping lessons at vocational school; then it was implemented and evaluated in practice. The positive results of the first evaluation study in which applicable knowledge was fostered were replicated in additional evaluation studies in which some aspects of the approach were optimised. The main results of the evaluation studies underline the effectiveness of example-based learning and teaching. Furthermore they show that this approach can be transferred successfully to vocational school lessons. In the general discussion, recommendations for further improving and successfully implementing example-based lessons are given. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Temperament, Emotion, and Cognition at Fourteen Months: The MacArthur Longitudinal Twin Study

200 pairs of twins were assessed at 14 months of age in the laboratory and home. Measures were obtained of temperament, emotion, and cognition/language. Comparisons between identical and fraternal twin correlations suggest that individual differences are due in part to heritable influences. For temperament, genetic influence was significant for behavioral observations of inhibition to the unfamiliar, tester ratings of activity, and parental ratings of temperament. For emotion, significant genetic influence was found for empathy and parental ratings of negative emotion. The estimate of heritability for parental report of expression of negative emotions was relatively high, whereas that for expression of positive emotions was low, a finding consistent with previous research. For cognition and language, genetic influence was significant for behavioral indices of spatial memory, categorization, and word comprehension. Shared rearing environment appears influential for parental reports of language and for positive emotions, but not for other measures of emotion or for temperament.     

Empirical Research into Teaching

The paper argues that 100 years of empirical research into teaching has failed to provide a usable account of best practice. This is partly because of conceptual and other logical problems that cannot in practice be resolved, as has been argued before. However, it is further argued that the real reason that no useful rules of good teaching can be established is that there are no substantive and important rules covering human interactions such as teaching. It is not that science cannot get the answers; rather it is that there are not any answers, and that is why there is not a science of teaching. Every teaching event is unique and the way to determine good practice is to be clear about what one is trying to achieve and to know one’s particular audience. This is not simply sound practical advice, but logically the only path to knowledge in this area.     

A Society of Signs? Mediating a Learning Society

This article critiques certain notions of a learning society. These are framed largely in economic and humanist frameworks of competitiveness and social exclusion. This overlooks the implications of information, communications and media technologies, and the linguistic turn in social theory. These suggest a learning society can be framed as a 'society of signs' Some of the possible implications of the latter are outlined.     

A typology of the three-year-old twin sibling relationship drawn from two different environments: School and home

The main purpose of this study was to describe the relational structure of child twins on the basis of their mothers' representations of their behavior in two everyday settings, at school and in the home. This study looks in particular at dependence on the co-twin and the dominant/dominated relationship in these two life environments. Fifty-seven questionnaires were gathered from mothers of twins three months after the children had begun preschool. A multiple correspondence analysis and an automatic classification of the data pointed out several relational structures of the twin sibling relationship, in contrast to the often stereotyped single representation of twinship. A secondary aim was to associate the observed relational structures with (a) the type of twinship and the sex makeup of the twin pair (b) the mothers' child-raising behaviors, which may or may not tend to turn the twins outward (first short separation of the children before preschool). Contrary to predictions, no particular relational structures could be differentiated on the basis of the type of twinship (monozygotic vs. same-sex dizygotic twins). On the other hand, pairs composed of a boy and a girl exhibited a number of specific characteristics. Parents who were in favor of short separations did not have children who were more co-twin independent in the school environment. However these twins showed a dominant/dominated relationship in the home.     

Do altmetrics assess societal impact in a comparable way to case studies? An empirical test of the convergent validity of altmetrics based on data from the UK research excellence framework (REF)

Altmetrics have been proposed as a way to assess the societal impact of research. Although altmetrics are already in use as impact or attention metrics in different contexts, it is still not clear whether they really capture or reflect societal impact. This study is based on altmetrics, citation counts, research output and case study data from the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF), and peers’ REF assessments of research output and societal impact. We investigated the convergent validity of altmetrics by using two REF datasets: publications submitted as research output (PRO) to the REF and publications referenced in case studies (PCS). Case studies, which are intended to demonstrate societal impact, should cite the most relevant research papers. We used the MHq’ indicator for assessing impact – an indicator which has been introduced for count data with many zeros. The results of the first part of the analysis show that news media as well as mentions on Facebook, in blogs, in Wikipedia, and in policy-related documents have higher MHq’ values for PCS than for PRO. Thus, the altmetric indicators seem to have convergent validity for these data. In the second part of the analysis, altmetrics have been correlated with REF reviewers’ average scores on PCS. The negative or close to zero correlations question the convergent validity of altmetrics in that context. We suggest that they may capture a different aspect of societal impact (which can be called unknown attention) to that seen by reviewers (who are interested in the causal link between research and action in society).