Exploring Neuroscience: A Guide for Getting Started

Neuroscience becomes more relevant for disciplines pertaining to children's development and education with each passing year. Thus, there is an urgent need for scholars and practitioners in these disciplines to educate themselves about the structure, function, and development of the brain, and to explore the neuroscience literature connected with their areas of professional expertise. A detailed rationale, study strategies, and resources for beginning this process are presented, based on the author's recent experiences. They provide a framework and specific guidelines for those who wish to begin to integrate a neuroscience perspective into their teaching, research, and interactions with the community, and they may arouse the curiosity of those who are not yet interested. Numerous examples of pertinent neuroscience research are included.     

Exploring the Space Between Good and Poor Spelling: Orthographic Quality and Reading Speed

ABSTRACT

Variations in the accuracy and stability of a word’s spelling can be used to gauge the quality of its underlying orthographic representation. The Lexical Quality Hypothesis (LQH) contends that words with higher quality cognitive representations should be accessed more efficiently than those with lower quality representations. If this is the case, deviations in spelling accuracy and stability should be reflected in differences in reading times. Here, 90 teenage participants read 30 words; reading times were recorded. After a 2-week delay, the students spelled these same words 3 times each to gain a measure of orthographic quality. In line with the LQH, faster reading speeds were observed for words with higher spelling accuracy and stability, even for words that were not always spelled perfectly. To our knowledge, our findings provide the first empirical support for the notion that orthographic quality exists along a continuum, both within and across individuals.     

Exploring Early Childhood Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices About Preschool Outdoor Play: A Qualitative Study

This qualitative case study explored how early childhood teachers’ beliefs and practices influence the function of preschool outdoor play. Teachers believed that supervision was paramount. They perceived that the physical design of the outdoor environment posed limitations for planning, preparation, and implementation. Teachers’ recollections of their own childhood outdoor activities provided a shared value of freedom during play. Yet, during outdoor play teachers displayed an adherence to rules or a “philosophy-reality conflict” (Hatch & Freeman, 1988, p. 158). Teachers believed that outdoor play is important to the development of young children; however, minimal knowledge of outdoor play and motivation to promote it was not evident.     

La inteligencia artificial y su aplicación en la enseñanza

Podríamos decir que un educador es una «inteligencia natural» que moviliza sus recursos cognitivos para enseñar lo mejor posible. ¿Hasta dónde ha llegado hay la ciencia en ese ambicioso objetivo de copiar la mente humana? ¿Puede simularse la mente natural de un profesor experto y competente y situarla en un programa que eduque a través del ordenador? Este artículo introduce el tema y hace un balance de las posibilidades.     

Pre-service teachers' performance from teachers' perspective and vice versa: behaviors,attitudes and other associated variables

In a rapidly changing world, the mission of education deserves some reflection. Mutual understanding and assessment between trainers and trainees offers a way to promote discussion concerning goals, values, and strategies that should be promoted at schools. This study offers the views of 153 pre-service teachers and their respective trainers during their practicum. We aimed to determine if an association exists between the scores of pre-service teachers and teachers regarding behaviors and attitudes shown by the first. We also want to analyze the extent to which pre-service teachers rate the importance of different educational strategies as well as the extent to which teachers use these strategies in their daily work. We also aim to determine to what extent self-rated behaviors and attitudes of pre-service teachers are associated to their ratings on importance and utilization of different educational strategies. Two questionnaires were utilized to gather the data. Results revealed higher scores on self-evaluation than others’ evaluations; utilization of diverse educational strategies was associated to evaluations on pre-service students’ responsibility, ability to detect and meet students’ needs, and final grade in practicum. Association between pre-service teachers’ self-evaluation and evaluation on the importance of different educational strategies revealed large associations between climate for the expression of ideas, teaching methodology, and the importance given to using language appropriate to the level of the students. Average ratings on importance and utilization of different teaching strategies resulted in high scores, with utilization of teaching methodologies obtaining the lowest scores. Gender resulted in significant differences on importance, with women scoring higher than men. Importance scores were significantly higher than utilization scores. High associations were found between self- and others’ evaluations on values related to compliance with rules, as well as on behaviors associated to maintain order and discipline in the classroom. Differences in views of teaching, importance, and utilization of different teaching strategies should be debated in order to advance our understanding of effectiveness of educational practices.     

An Investigation of the Support Process: Decision,Enactment, and Outcome

This study examines factors influencing the effectiveness and relational consequences of emotional support through three phases: decision, enactment, and outcome. Participants (N = 428) completed a questionnaire asking them to identify a time they faced a traumatic event, to identify whom they turned to for support, to complete measures of trust and solidarity before and after the support episode, and to complete measures assessing the efficacy of the support exchange. Analyses revealed the type of event influenced selection of a support target, severity of event was correlated with pre-episode trust and solidarity levels, and females provided more effective support than did males. Trust and solidarity levels after the support episode were predicted, in part, by the efficacy of the support episode. Implications of the phasic model for future research on support following a traumatic event are discussed.     

Review of The 2009 UNESCO framework for cultural statistics

The main goal of the 2009 UNESCO Framework for Cultural Statistics is to facilitate comparisons through a common understanding of culture and the use of standardized definitions and classifications. This review contains an in-depth analysis of the 2009 Framework's contribution to the existing literature on measuring the economic impact of culture, and it concludes by suggesting future avenues of research. By achieving international consensus on the concept of culture and its measurement, we will be able to progress in our studies of the competitive advantages that allow cultural firms to generate wealth nowadays.     

In search of intangible connections: intellectual capital,performance and quality of life in higher education institutions

Higher Education - This study explores the contributions of different dimensions of the intellectual capital of higher education institutions (ICHEIs) to their performance, incorporating the...