Fachdidaktisches Wissen von Lehrkräften und multiple Ziele im naturwissenschaftlichen Sachunterricht

Recent investigations in the field of mathematics have demonstrated that teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, as a central component of teachers’ professional knowledge, plays a significant role in high-quality instruction and students’ learning gains. The study presented here explores the significance of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for gains in pupils’ understanding of scientific concepts and for motivational and self-related outcome criteria in primary science education in Germany. It reports on findings from a study with a pre-post-design comprising 60 primary school teachers and their 1326 pupils. Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and pupils’ learning gains as well as motivational and self-related outcome criteria were directly assessed with paper-and-pencil tests. Two-step models controlling for several relevant variables at the individual and the class level were specified. Results revealed a substantial positive effect of the measured pedagogical content knowledge on pupils’ achievement gains as well as on pupils’ situational interest and perceived competence.     

Wie lässt sich die Experimentierstrategie-Nutzung fördern?

Pupils display a production deficiency within self-regulated learning arrangements using experimentation. Available strategy-knowledge does not result in an effective strategy use. This may be due to a lack of metacognitive capabilities and motivation. These aspects should be supported, then, in order to foster strategy use. Providing prompts is a promising method. The question is how to design them to optimal effect. Two characteristics were investigated in an experimental study, namely the adaptability of prompts and their combination with strategy-related feedback. 93 pupils in year 9 experienced self-regulated learning in a computer-based experiment setting. There was a control group and three experimental groups with non-adaptive prompts, adaptive prompts or a combination of feedback and adaptive prompts, respectively. The dependent variables were the extent of using a strategy for experimentation and pupils’ motivation. Benefits for use of strategy were only observed for the group with a combination of feedback and adaptive prompts. The learners in this group remained also more strongly motivated than in the other groups.     

Bildungsentscheidungen und Unsicherheit

Zusammenfassung In gesellschaftlichen wie sozialwissenschaftlichen Diskussionen rücken Ph?nomene der Unsicherheit zunehmend ins Blickfeld, auch in Bezug auf das Bildungsverhalten. Allerdings ist das Themenfeld Unsicherheit sehr heterogen. Der vorliegende Beitrag liefert einen überblick über ausgew?hlte soziologische Zusammenh?nge mit Unsicherheiten im Rahmen von Bildungsprozessen und -entscheidungen. Hierfür wird zun?chst auf Grundelemente theoretischer Modelle der Bildungsentscheidung zurückgegriffen, die zur schematischen Erkl?rung sozialer Unterschiede im Bildungsverhalten verwendet worden sind. Daran anknüpfend werden Erweiterungen diskutiert, mit deren Hilfe die Bedeutung gesellschaftlicher Unsicherheiten für Bildungsverl?ufe besser erfasst werden kann. Diese Erweiterungen betreffen insbesondere die Rolle von Institutionen, die dynamische Erfassung von Lebensverl?ufen und Entscheidungsprozessen und die empirische Analyse des konkreten Entscheidungsverhaltens in sozialen Kontexten.      

The 2012 Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge

This year the Acquisitions Institute was held May 19 through May 22, 2012, and brought together approximately eighty people from around the country. Seventeen presentations on acquisitions, collection development, and collection management were delivered over two days, with breaks, meals, and optional fun events providing ample opportunity to socialize and network. Written by a first-time attendee, this article describes the sessions of the 2012 institute.     

ticTOCs: A New Service for “Keeping Current”

ticTOCs, a new journal table of contents service, provides users a free resource for managing RSS feeds for new content from selected journals. This service could be used as a complement and in some cases as an alternative to other table of contents providers. Using RSS feeds provided by publishers, ticTOCs provides an easy-to-use interface for finding, viewing, and saving current tables of contents. The service also provides OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) file exports so that users can incorporate the feeds they find in ticTOCs into a feed reader of their choice.     

Household‐level demand for cable television: A probit analysis.

The authors explore demand for cable services in individual households and find that the quality of over‐the‐air reception, interest in nonprogramming entertainment services, and service quality directly affect that demand. The study also explores demographic and behavioral differences in demand for basic and pay services and outlines their implications for cable systems operators.     

Cable's economic impact on over‐the‐air broadcasting

The author argues that cable industry is having increasingly negative impact on broadcast television as its power in both the programing and advertising markets increase. Cable system operaters are having increasing incentives to drop or refuse to add broadcast stations or to relocate them to less desirable channel locations as a means of improving their performance in the markets. The author warns that current trends could be harmful to many broadcast stations, but he is especially pessimistic about the future of independent UHF stations.     

College Student Success: A Qualitative Modeling Approach

This qualitative study highlighted student perspectives on barriers to success at a community college located in a south Texas city. The study examined barriers to student success, the knowledge that successful students possess to overcome the barriers, and the actions that successful students undertake to overcome the barriers. Padilla's (2004 Padilla , R. V. ( 1999 ). College student retention: Focus on success . Journal of College Student Retention , 1 ( 2 ), 131 – 145 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) theoretical framework and methods for modeling student success provided the conceptual framework for the study. The data analysis resulted in the development of a local student success model and an implementation model for student services at the subject campus.     

Increase of Total Body Water With Decrease of Body Mass While Running 100 km Nonstop—Formation of Edema?

We investigated whether ultraendurance runners in a 100-km run suffer a decrease of body mass and whether this loss consists of fat mass, skeletal muscle mass, or total body water. Male ultrarunners were measured pre- and postrace to determine body mass, fat mass, and skeletal muscle mass by using the anthropometric method. In addition, bioelectrical impedance analysis was used to determine total body water, and urinary (urinary specific gravity) and hematological parameters (hematocrit and plasma sodium) were measured in order to determine hydration status. Body mass decreased by 1.6 kg (p < .01), fat mass by 0.4 kg (p < .01), and skeletal muscle mass by 0.7 kg (p < .01), whereas total body water increased by 0.8 L (p < .05). Hematocrit and plasma sodium decreased significantly (p < .01), whereas plasma urea and urinary specific gravity (USG) increased significantly (p < .01). The decrease of 2.2% body mass and a USG of 1.020 refer to a minimal dehydration. Our athletes seem to have been relatively overhydrated (increase in total body water and plasma sodium) and dehydrated (decrease in body mass and increase in USG) during the race, as evidenced by the increased total body water and the fact that plasma sodium and hematocrit were lower postrace than prerace. The change of body mass was associated with the change of total body water (p < .05), and we presume the development of     

Joint kinetic determinants of starting block performance in athletic sprinting

The aim of this study was to explore the relationships between lower limb joint kinetics, external force production and starting block performance (normalised average horizontal power, NAHP). Seventeen male sprinters (100 m PB, 10.67 ± 0.32 s) performed maximal block starts from instrumented starting blocks (1000 Hz) whilst 3D kinematics (250 Hz) were also recorded during the block phase. Ankle, knee and hip resultant joint moment and power were calculated at the rear and front leg using inverse dynamics. Average horizontal force applied to the front (r = 0.46) and rear (r = 0.44) block explained 86% of the variance in NAHP. At the joint level, many “very likely” to “almost certain” relationships (r = 0.57 to 0.83) were found between joint kinetic data and the magnitude of horizontal force applied to each block although stepwise multiple regression revealed that 55% of the variance in NAHP was accounted for by rear ankle moment, front hip moment and front knee power. The current study provides novel insight into starting block performance and the relationships between lower limb joint kinetic and external kinetic data that can help inform physical and technical training practices for this skill.