Nonformal Education,Distance Education and the Restructuring of Schooling: Challenges for a New Basic Education Policy

This article argues that the present crisis of basic education for young people in Africa reveals problems that are more fundamental than enrollments, inputs and costs. They are related to the very structure and substance of educational provision. Of particular concern is the fact that schools find it difficult to respond to the different needs and circumstances of their pupils and to organize learning experiences that are sensitive to the social, cultural and economic environment. The author maintains that non-conventional approaches to learning, associated with nonformal education and distance education, have important but distinct contributions to make to the reform of mainstream schooling and could help to open up the formal system from within.     

Does (Non‐)Meaningful Sensori‐Motor Engagement Promote Learning With Animated Physical Systems?

Previous research indicates that sensori‐motor experience with physical systems can have a positive effect on learning. However, it is not clear whether this effect is caused by mere bodily engagement or the intrinsically meaningful information that such interaction affords in performing the learning task. We investigated (N = 74), through the use of a Wii Balance Board, whether different forms of physical engagement that was either meaningfully, non‐meaningfully, or minimally related to the learning content would be beneficial (or detrimental) to learning about the workings of seesaws from instructional animations. The results were inconclusive, indicating that motoric competency on lever problem solving did not significantly differ between conditions, nor were response speed and transfer performance affected. These findings suggest that adult's implicit and explicit knowledge about physical systems is stable and not easily affected by (contradictory) sensori‐motor experiences. Implications for embodied learning are discussed.     

Does tagging improve the navigation of online recorded lectures by students?

Students more and more have access to online recordings of the lectures they attend at universities. The volume and length of these recorded lectures however make them difficult to navigate. Research shows that students primarily watch the recorded lectures while preparing for their exams. They do watch the full recorded lectures, but review only the parts that are relevant to them. While doing so, they often lack the required mechanisms to locate efficiently those parts of the recorded lecture that they want to view. In this paper, we describe an experiment where expert tagging is used as a means to facilitate the students' search. In the experiment, 255 students had the option to use tags to navigate 18 recorded lectures. We used the data tracked by the lecture capture system to analyze the use of the tags by the students. We compared these data to students who did not use the tagging interface (TI). Results show that the use of the TI increases in time. Students use the TI more actively over time while reducing the amount of video that they view. The experiment also shows that students who use the TI score higher grades when compared with students who use the regular interface.     

Improper use of linear reasoning: An in-depth study of the nature and the irresistibility of secondary school students' errors

Several recent ascertaining studies revealed a deep-rooted and almost irresistible tendency among 12–16-year old students to improperly apply the linear or proportional model in word problems involving lengths, areas and volumes of similar plane figures and solids. While these previous studies showed to what extent students' improper use of linear reasoning is affected by different characteristics of the task, it remained largely unclear what aspects of their knowledge base are responsible for the occurrence and strength of this phenomenon and how these aspects relate to other more general misconceptions and buggy rules identified in the literature. This paper reports an in-depth investigation by means of individual semi-standardised interviews aimed at analysing the thinking process underlying students' improper linear reasoning and how this process is affected by their mathematical conceptions, beliefs and habits. During these interviews,students' solution processes were revealed through a number of well-specified questions by the interviewer with respect to one single non-linear application problem, as well as through their reactions to subsequent kinds of cognitive conflict. The interviews provided a lot of information about the actual process of problem solving from students falling into the ‘linearity trap’ and the mechanism behind it. Although some students seem to really ‘believe’ that quantities are always linked proportionally, their improper use of linearity often results from superficial and intuitive reasoning, influenced by specific mathematical conceptions, habits and beliefs leading to a deficient modelling process. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

SCHOLASTIC APTITUDE,MATRICULATION GRADES,AND GROUP INTERVIEW AS PREDICTORS OF PERFORMANCE IN NURSING SCHOOL

This study examines the predictive validity of three commonly used nursing school admission indices, that is, scholastic aptitude test scores, matriculation grades, and evaluations of performance in a group interview situation, in a sample of 321 Israeli nursing school students. Grade point average, supervisor evaluation of clinical internship, and scores on a government certification exam served as primary indices of criterion performance. Whereas composite aptitude test scores correlated moder ately with both grade point average and certification exam scores, matriculation grades correlated negligibly with all three criterion measures. Group interview ratings correlated moderately with clinical performance, but negligibly with the remaining criteria. Aptitude test scores were not found to be biased predictors of criterion performance by ethnicity or social background. The implications of these findings for the selection of nursing school candidates in Israel are discussed.     

Training in phonemic segmentation: The effects of visual support

Two experimental studies examined the effects of different types of phonemic segmentation training on phonemic segmentation, reading and spelling. Children with learning disabilities, who were weak in phonemic segmentation, were trained with the use of diagrams and alphabet letters, with alphabet letters only, or with no visual support at all (the control condition). For this purpose three computer-assisted training programs were developed. In the first experiment, 48 children were assigned to one of the three programs. The training period lasted five weeks. Although in each training program the children improved their phonemic segmentation skill, there were no significant differences among the three training programs. This result may have been influenced by the different types of feedback that were provided in the three training programs. In a second experiment, therefore, these differences in feedback were eliminated and 49 different children were trained with the same three programs. The results of this experiment, however, were the same as those of the first experiment. The finding that visual support had no beneficial effects could therefore not be attributed to differences in explicit feedback. It was concluded that with these children, in contrast to preschoolers, phonemic segmentation training using visual support does not have any advantage over auditory training alone. The results of this study indicate that preschoolers and children with reading and spelling problems cannot be treated in the same way. It underlines the importance of further examination of the problems that poor readers and poor spellers encounter in grasping the structure of spoken language.