A Decade of Transformation: Educational Policies in Central and Eastern Europe

The changes in Central and Eastern Europe caused by upheavals at the beginning of the 1990s had great impact on the formation and implementation of educational policies. A comparison of patterns in Russia, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic shows common features which were rooted in the collapse of the communist system. At the same time these transformation processes were marked by considerable diversity. To elucidate these commonalities and differences, the following problem areas are examined: (a) decentralisation of responsibilities; (b) financing and privatisation; (c) structural reforms; (d) curricular reforms; and (e) evaluation, assessment and examinations. These developments are considered in the light of various theories about how periods of social transformation unfold. The article helps to throw light on the differences between the countries of the region in terms of how the educational changes were perceived and carried out.     

The knowledge base and text recall: Evidence from a short-term longitudinal study

In a short-term longitudinal study, we investigated how domain-specific knowledge in soccer influences the amount of text recall and comprehension in elementary school and junior high school children of high and low overall aptitudes. Both level of soccer knowledge and overall aptitude were varied in a factorial design. Third, fifth, and seventh grade children were given several measures of text recall and comprehension and were retested on these measures about 1 year later. Performance was more a function of soccer knowledge than of aptitude level.     

Channel adaptive rate control for energy optimization

Low energy consumption is one of the main challenges for wireless video transmission on battery limited devices. The energy invested at the lower layers of the protocol stack involved in data communication, such as link and physical layer, represent an important part of the total energy consumption. This communication energy highly depends on the channel conditions and on the transmission data rate. Traditionally, video coding is unaware of varying channel conditions. In this paper, we propose a cross-layer approach in which the rate control mechanism of the video codec becomes channel-aware and steers the instantaneous output rate according to the channel conditions to reduce the communication energy. Our results show that energy savings of up to 30% can be obtained with a reduction of barely 0.1 dB on the average video quality. The impact of feedback delays is shown to be small. In addition, this adaptive mechanism has low complexity, which makes it suitable for real-time applications.     

Leseleistungen deutscher Schülerinnen und Schüler im internationalen Vergleich (PISA)

Zusammenfassung Der Vergleich der Lesekompetenz 15-j?hriger Schülerinnen und Schüler steht im Mittelpunkt des ersten Zyklus der PISA-Studie (Baumert u.a. 2001). Im Rahmen dieses Artikels wird ein überblick über die zentralen Befunde des 31 Staaten umfassenden internationalen Vergleichs gegeben. Neben den Leistungsverteilungen in den L?ndern wird der Anteil von Schülerinnen und Schülern auf verschiedenen Kompetenzstufen analysiert. Der relativ hohe Anteil an schwachen Lesern in Deutschland wird zum Anlass genommen, potenzielle F?rderm?glichkeiten von Lesekompetenz zu untersuchen. Hierzu werden auf Basis eines Vorhersagemodells die Effekte interventionsnaher Schülermerkmale (Lernstrategiewissen und Interesse) bei statistischer Kontrolle der Effekte der kognitiven Grundf?higkeit sowie der Dekodierf?higkeit der Schülerinnen und Schüler spezifiziert. Der relativ hohe Effekt des Lernstrategiewissens und der ebenfalls noch nachweisbare Effekt des Leseinteresses weisen darauf hin, dass eine F?rderung im Bereich der Informationsverarbeitungskompetenz sowie der Motivation vielversprechend ist. Zus?tzliche empirische Evidenz hierfür ergibt sich aus dem Befund, dass Schüler am unteren Ende der Leistungsverteilung über eine vergleichsweise geringe Informationsverarbeitungskompetenz und-bereitschaft verfügen.

---

Summary Reading Literacy of German Students in International Comparison (PISA): Results and Explanations A comparison of the reading comprehension (reading literacy) of 15-year-old students is the central focus of the first cycle of PISA (Baumert et al. 2001). This article provides an overview of the main evidence from the international comparison of 31 countries. Besides the ability distribution of the participating countries, the proportion of students at each competence level is analysed. The relatively high proportion of weak readers in Germany is taken as grounds to investigate opportunities to support reading comprehension. On the basis of a prediction model, the effects of students’ characteristics related to intervention (knowledge of learning strategies, interest) are investigated whilst statistically controlling for basic cognitive ability and the students’ ability to decode written information. The relatively strong effect of knowledge of learning strategies and the effect of interest in reading, indicate that support of information-processing ability and motivation are the most promising support strategies. Additional empirical evidence for this can be found in the fact that students at the bottom of the ability distribution also show signs of weak information-processing ability and lacking motivation.

     

College Counseling Centers With Counselors in Private Practice: Guidelines to Negotiate Ethical Challenges

Several factors shape practices in counseling centers today, including an increased need for referral to external mental health services. Providing external referrals can lead to both practical and ethical implications when counseling center employees also operate private practices. Guidelines to negotiate the potential ethical dilemmas inherent in this scenario are provided.     

Die Bedeutung des pädagogisch-psychologischen Wissens für die Qualität der Klassenführung und den Lernzuwachs der Schüler/innen im Physikunterricht

In the present study it was investigated whether the pedagogical knowledge of teachers has an influence on the process quality of physics instruction and on the learning achievement of students as well. Pedagogical knowledge, conceptualized as knowledge about strategies in classroom instruction that is domain-general and relevant for teaching behaviors, was measured using a paper-and-pencil test with two scales: one scale on declarative knowledge, the other on conditional-procedural knowledge (Lenske et al. 2015). As a basic aspect of the process quality of classroom instruction, classroom management was assessed using video ratings of two lessons from each participating teacher. Students’ learning achievement was assessed using standardized domain-specific knowledge tests in a pretest-posttest design. The sample included 34 teachers from higher-track secondary schools and their students (N?=?993). A complex bootstrapping mediation model shows that teachers’ pedagogical knowledge, mediated by their classroom management, has a positive effect on their students’ learning achievement.     

School systems and social equity in western and communist countries: A historical-comparative appraisal

In outlining the problem of this article the author discusses the conceptual relationship between ‘equality’ and ‘equity’ with regard to educational opportunity and to their controversial interpretation in Western and Soviet sources. After a historical retrospective the analysis is focused on the clarification of ‘equality of educational opportunity’, its implementation in school systems and its differentiating definition by James S. Coleman. The recent development characterised by a turn from exaggerated optimism to disillusion is explained by actual events and trends as well as by reference to sociological and genetic works, published in Western and Communist countries.The outline of some essential obstacles to the realisation of equality of educational opportunity paves the way for concluding remarks in which possible ways of overcoming these obstacles (confined to the Western scene) are proposed. They are rooted in the thesis that ‘equality’ and ‘equity’ are less easy to define as objectives than reduction in unjustifiable deficiencies. Stress is laid on the thesis that the concept of equality of educational opportunity through education is in danger of being reduced to a programme of minimal knowledge and the tyranny of meritocratic examination systems, not of humane and individual personalities, potential good citizens. Admitting, therefore, that ‘equity’ deserves to be given priority over ‘equality’ the author concludes by emphasising that efforts to foster equity must not supersede the inclusion of reduction in inequality in educational programmes.     

Comparative analysis of delayed alternation learning in cats,mice, and guinea pigs

The performance of cats, guinea pigs, and mice in a delayed alternation paradigm was compared both during initial learning and following a 10-day retention interval. The testing situation (a modified T-maze), the length of the delay period (10 sec), and the amount of training per session and per week were kept identical for all three species. The results indicated that (1) animals of all three species acquired the task within similar time spans, (2) a considerable variance was apparent in the performance of individual animals independent of their species, and (3) guinea pigs, as a group, appeared to need a somewhat longer time to acquire delayed alternation than did mice and cats. Relearning of the task following the 10-day interval seemed to follow similar laws in all three species.