Working memory updating as a predictor of academic attainment

There is growing evidence supporting the importance of executive functions, and specifically working memory updating (WMU), for children’s academic achievement. This study aimed to assess the specific contribution of updating to the prediction of academic performance. Two updating tasks, which included different updating components, were administered to 97 fourth-grade children. The keeping track task involves retrieval and substitution of information, while the numerical updating task also includes a transformation component. Academic attainment was assessed through standardised tests of verbal comprehension, arithmetic operations, mathematical problems and an assessment made by the teacher. The relative contribution to academic attainment, of the updating measures and measures related to intelligence, was compared. Results showed that both updating tasks are predictive measures of academic attainment, although the numerical updating task appeared to be a more consistent predictor of children’s performance. The relationship between updating and academic attainment is discussed, and possible educational implications are considered. The role of the transformation component of WMU is highlighted. This component could make a distinct and independent contribution to performance and, by extension, could be particularly relevant to the prediction of academic achievement.     

Arithmetic word problem solving. Are authentic word problems easier to solve than standard ones? / Resolución de problemas aritméticos verbales. ¿Se resuelven mejor si se presentan como problemas auténticos?

This study analysed the effectiveness of presenting mathematical problems as ‘authentic’, which simulated the main aspects of situations in which students are usually involved. To do so, four independent variables were considered: level of mathematical difficulty (easy or difficult); rewording: standard problems (similar to those presented in textbooks), authentic and containing irrelevant situational information; mathematical ability (measured by means of the BADyG test); and reading comprehension level (measured with the comprehension task from the PROLEC-R test). The dependent measure was the success rate of a sample of 156 primary education children (grades four, five and six) in solving each kind of word problem. The results showed that the authentic versions of difficult problems were solved more successfully than other versions by students with high levels of mathematical aptitude and reading comprehension. That means that authentic wording is useful when children are able to understand the added information and have the mathematical knowledge necessary to interpret it.     

Sport Versus Bullfighting: The New Civilizing Sensitivity of Regenerationism and its Effect on the Leisure Pursuits of the Spanish at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This article analyzes the influence of the new civilizing sensitivity of the Spanish regenerationists in the introduction of sport, in place of bullfighting, during the first third of the twentieth century. Following the colonial collapse of the late nineteenth century and the subsequent demoralization of the country, the regenerationists saw in physical education and sport a way to reform the broken Spanish population. Sport had arrived in Spain in the mid-nineteenth century by way of the aristocracy and would then spread to the urban middle classes, imbued with the reformist sense of the regenerationists. It came in the form of amateur sport, with values of modernity and a civilizing sensitivity which were diametrically opposed to activities such as bullfighting that had such great support from the Spanish public. Amongst the urban middle classes, sport developed as a kind of amateur practice, used for the formation of a more civilized character and the expression of individuality; on the contrary, amongst the working classes, sport spread primarily in its professional form, by way of mass spectator sports (football and boxing), representing a civilizing spurt in severing the link between entertainment and death which was central to bullfighting.     

The British Influence in the Birth of Spanish Sport

Sports started to gain relevance in Spain around the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century as a leisure and health option of the upper classes imported from Britain. Its early development was intertwined with the spread of other kinds of physical activities with much more tradition on the continent: gymnastics and physical education. First played by the ruling classes – aristocracy and high bourgeoisie – sports permeated towards petty bourgeoisie and middle classes in urban areas such as Madrid, Barcelona, San Sebastián and Santander. This pattern meant that the expansion of sports was unavoidably tied to the degree of industrialisation and cultural modernisation of the country. Since 1910, and mainly during the 1920s, sport grew in popularity as a spectacle and, toa much lesser degree, as a practice among the Spanish population.     

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.     

Factors affecting perceived learning of engineering students in problem based learning supported by business simulation

Although literature about problem based learning (PBL) is not scarce, there is little research on experiences about learning methodologies that combine PBL and the use of simulation tools. This lack of studies is even more notable in the case of engineering courses. The motivation for this study is to show how such a combination of PBL and simulation has been designed in a group work course for engineers and to analyze how the underlying factors of this methodology are related to perceived learning. This exploratory study focuses on how perceived enjoyment, interaction, collaborative learning, perceived satisfaction, and time dedicated to the course affect the learning perceived by the students in an engineer's degree course. The outcomes of this pilot study show that only three of these factors (satisfaction, time dedication, and collaborative learning) affect the students' perceived learning. Despite the high ratings obtained for interaction and perceived enjoyment, no significant relation between these factors and perceived learning was found. The reasons behind these findings are discussed.     

BABEL (Batería para Aprendizaje Básico de Estimulación Lectora). Implicaciones cognitivas de un programa informático para entrenamiento en el proceso lector

Los procesos cognitivos que se automatizan en la lectura pueden ser enseñados y adiestrados uno a uno con ciertas ventajas por un ordenador-tutor. Se presenta aquí un programa junto con las sugerencias para utilizarlo eficazmente para agilizar y corregir la lectura.     

Balancing finances,politics, and public health: international student enrollment and reopening plans at US higher education institutions amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Higher Education - Drawing from resource dependence theory, this study explores the extent to which international student enrollment related to institutional decisions to shift to in-person...     

Effect of sulphurous mineral water in haematological and biochemical markers of muscle damage after an endurance exercise in well-trained athletes

Abstract

To investigate the effects of sulphurous mineral water (SMW) after a hydroponic treatment on muscle damage, antioxidant activity and peripheral blood changes induced by submaximal exercise. Thirty well-trained male triathletes were supplemented with SMW or placebo: 3 weeks of placebo, 30 days of wash out and 3 weeks of SMW. After both periods, participants ran for 2 h at 70% maximal aerobic speed. Antioxidant enzymes, lipid peroxidation, antioxidant capacity and blood cell markers were compared between placebo and SMW at pre-exercise (T₀), immediately post-exercise (T₁), 24 h post-exercise (T₂) and 48 h post-exercise (T₃). Total thiols decreased until T₃ vs. T₀ for both placebo and SMW; transient red blood cells, haemoglobin and haematocrit increased were shown at T₁ vs. T₀ and for leucocytes until T₂ vs. T₀, only for placebo group. Total thiols increased significantly in SMW vs. placebo at T₀; Thiobarbituric acid reactive species was significantly higher at T₀, T₁, T₂ and T₃; catalase increased significantly at T₁; creatine phosphokinase decreased significantly at T₁, T₂ and T₃, although no significant differences were found at T₀. Furthermore, red blood cells, haemoglobin and haematocrit were significantly higher and leucocytes were significantly lower at T₀ and T₁ in SMW group vs. placebo group. This study suggests that three weeks of SMW supplementation may protect from exercise-induced muscle damage.     

Are instructional explanations more effective in the context of an impasse?

Effective instructional explanations help the students to construct coherent mental representations. To do so, one condition is that they must be tailored to students’ needs. It is hypothesized that explanations are more helpful if they also explicitly aid the students to detect problems in their mental representations, as this provokes an impasse that motivates students to process the explanation deeply. Participants were provided with a computer-based material on plate tectonics and then with explanatory support in the form of either a tailored explanation preceded by an impasse-trigger (I + E group) or an identical explanation without the impasse-trigger (noI + E group). After the reading of the materials they solved retention and transfer tests; their flawed ideas were also counted. Participants in the I + E group recalled more correct information, generated more transfer solutions, and showed fewer flawed ideas than those in the noI + E group. This indicates that tailored explanations combined with impasse-triggers that make explicit conflicts between the text model and the students′ models can indeed foster deep learning.