Incompatibility between pregnancy and educational projects,from the perspective of socially vulnerable adolescent women and men in Mexico

Research focused on adolescent pregnancy reports that this event acquires significance and has different consequences according to the context and social subjects who experience it. In this study, by means of a sample formed by adolescent women and men who are socially vulnerable in Mexico, with and without a history of pregnancy, we can see how this reproductive event turns into a factor of educational vulnerability and how their possibilities and expectations with respect to continuing in school are determined in a differentiated manner, according to gender. The findings show that adolescent pregnancy in vulnerable sectors is scarcely compatible with educational projects and that possibilities and expectations to continue in or re-enter the school system are determined by gender differences; these usually lead to fewer opportunities for adolescent women to return to school during or after pregnancy.     

Stuck Behind the Curve: How the Academic Law Library Can Help Students Who Struggle in Law School

This article examines how academic law libraries can assist law schools in meeting the needs of students who struggle in law school. This article will describe the types of programs currently available to help struggling students within law schools, including academic support programs, and offer suggestions to improve the delivery of services to this growing population.     

Turkish Prospective Chemistry Teachers’ Beliefs about Chemistry Teaching

Given the progressive loss of influence for the school relative to television in youngsters’ everyday lives, this article describes the procedure and the results of including cartoons in the physics curriculum in secondary education. Work was carried out intensively with a small group of pupils and sporadically with a larger group. In the first case, cartoons were used for identifying and discussing fictitious phenomena, problem‐solving, and assessment of the learning. In the second case, for identifying and discussing fictitious phenomena, a quasi‐experimental research design was followed. The results back the use of this didactic tool as an element for motivating and invigorating the classroom, for identifying the pupils’ alternative ideas and the assessment of their learning, as well as for a more critical way of watching television.     

‘Does it answer the question or is it French fries?’: an exploration of language supports for scientific argumentation

ABSTRACT

Reform initiatives around the world are reconceptualising science education by stressing student engagement in science practices. Yet, science practices are language-intensive, requiring students to have strong receptive and productive language proficiencies. It is critical to address these rigorous language demands to ensure equitable learning opportunities for all students, including English language learners (ELLs). Little research has examined how to specifically support ELL students’ engagement in science practices, such as argumentation. Using case-study methodology, we examined one middle school science teacher's instructional strategies as she taught an argumentation-focused curriculum in a self-contained ELL classroom. Findings revealed that three trends characterized the teacher’s language supports for the structural and dialogic components of argumentation: (1) more language supports focused on argument structure, (2) dialogic interactions were most often facilitated by productive language supports, and (3) some language supports offered a rationale for argumentation. Findings suggest a need to identify and develop supports for the dialogic aspects of argumentation. Furthermore, engaging students in argumentation through productive language functions could be leveraged to support dialogic interactions. Lastly, our work points to the need for language supports that make the rationale for argumentation explicit since such transparency could further increase access for all students.     

Statistical Models and Inference for the True Equating Transformation in the Context of Local Equating

Based on Lord's criterion of equity of equating, van der Linden (this issue) revisits the so‐called local equating method and offers alternative as well as new thoughts on several topics including the types of transformations, symmetry, reliability, and population invariance appropriate for equating. A remarkable aspect is to define equating as a standard statistical inference problem in which the true equating transformation is the parameter of interest that has to be estimated and assessed as any standard evaluation of an estimator of an unknown parameter in statistics. We believe that putting equating methods in a general statistical model framework would be an interesting and useful next step in the area. van der Linden's conceptual article on equating is certainly an important contribution to this task.     

La percepción de contingencias y el conocimiento social temprano

Resumen

La «hipótesis del juego» («Game hipothesis»), propuesta por Watson en 1972, establece que la percepción de relaciones contingentes entre acciones y estímulos ambientales es, con independencia de la naturaleza de tales estímulos, un determinante poderoso del desarrollo social del bebé. Se investiga la posible influencia de la naturaleza de los estímulos contingentes mediante el uso de estímulos «sociales» (emisiones lingüísticas) y «no sociales» (música) en una situación de percepción de contingencias, que se estableció para 6 bebés, con una edad media de 3 meses y 2 días. Los resultados demuestran que existen diferencias entre los estímulos sociales y no-sociales tanto en lo referente a los patrones de adquisición de las «operantes» o «respuestas circulares» ante las contingencias, como en las respuestas emocionales que acompañaban a los procesos de adquisición y extinción. Estas diferencias sugieren la necesidad de reconocer la importancia de la naturaleza de los estímulos contingentes en la interpretación del papel social de los procesos de percepción de contingencias.     

Publicidad y consumo simbólico

Resumen

Publicidad y consumo simbólico es un artículo en el que se describe, en primer lugar, la complejidad que engloba hoy cualquier conducta de consumo; para revisar, a continuación, los diversos modelos (económicos, psicológicos, sociológicos y comunicacionales) que han tratado de explicar este proceso, criticando sus limitaciones y proponiendo un nuevo enfoque, relacionado por el autor con el consumo simbólico.

Para fundamentar esta propuesta se revisan las diferentes variables que determinan el desarrollo de este proceso, matizando su funcionamiento y consecuencias sociales más inmediatas.

El artículo, cuyo objetivo principal es la descripción conceptual, termina con unas conclusiones en donde las propuestas planteadas se relacionan con el mundo de la educación y la cultura.     

Sex education in Spain: the relevance of teachers’ training and attitudes / Educación sexual en España: importancia de la formación y las actitudes del profesorado

Abstract

This research has two main aims: a) the study of Spanish teachers’ training and attitudes towards sex education, as well as the delivery of this subject in classrooms, while also exploring the existence of differences according to personal and professional characteristics; and b) to examine the association between teachers’ training and attitudes, and the extent to which these variables predict the delivery of sex education. A total of 3,695 Infant, Primary, Secondary and High school teachers (66.1% women, 33.9% men) throughout the country completed a voluntary online questionnaire that inquired about their training and attitudes towards sex education, their delivery or non-delivery of this subject in classrooms, and other personal and professional characteristics. Analyses indicate that participants show positive attitudes towards sex education, but that 43.3% are not trained in this issue, and 48.6% do not teach it at school. Some significant differences by sex, educational stage and type of school have been found. In addition, trained teachers show more positive attitudes to sex education. Finally, having more positive attitudes and, to a lesser extent, having prior training, positively predicts the delivery of sex education. These results highlight the importance of reviewing and improving teachers’ training on sexuality and sex education, with particular emphasis on attitudinal contents.     

Grade level, study time, and grade retention and their effects on motivation, self-regulated learning strategies, and mathematics achievement: a structural equation model

The present study complements previous research findings with new data to improve our understanding of the relationship between motivational variables and academic performance in math mediated by self-regulated learning (SRL). A structural equation model with predictor (i.e., grade retention, grade level, and study time), process (i.e., perceived usefulness of SRL strategies, self-efficacy for the use of SRL strategies, and reported use of SRL), and product variables (i.e., academic achievement in mathematics) is proposed. The model was analyzed in two samples of data (calibration and validation samples). The first sample served to fit and respecify the model, and the second one was used to analyze the consistency of the findings of the first sample. A sample of 756 middle school Portuguese students participated in the current study. The results indicate that SRL is positively and significantly related to academic achievement and that the latter is, in turn, powerfully determined by perceived usefulness and self-efficacy, although students’ reported use of SRL strategies decreases from 7th to 9th grades. Self-efficacy and perceived usefulness of SRL strategies were also found to decrease as grade retention increased. These results are discussed with regard to the relevance of self-efficacy and perceived usefulness of SRL strategies in increasing academic achievement.     

Differences in the magnitude and reliability of velocity variables collected during 3 variants of the bench press exercise

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to compare the reliability and magnitude of velocity variables between 3 variants of the bench press (BP) exercise in participants with and without BP training experience. Thirty males, 15 with and 15 without BP experience, randomly performed 3 variants of the BP on separate sessions: (I) concentric-only, (II) fast-eccentric and (III) controlled-eccentric. The mean velocity (MV) and maximum velocity (V_max) of the concentric phase were collected against 3 loads (≈30%1RM, 50%1RM, and 75%1RM) with a linear velocity transducer. Reliability was high regardless of the variable, BP variant, and load (coefficient of variation [CV] ≤ 4.47%, intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] ≥ 0.87). The comparison of the CVs suggested a higher reliability for the fast-eccentric BP (8 out of 12 comparisons), followed by the concentric-only BP (5 out of 12 comparisons), and finally the controlled-eccentric BP (never provided a higher reliability). No differences in reliability were observed between experienced (CV ≤ 4.71%; ICC ≥ 0.79) and non-experienced (CV ≤ 6.29%; ICC ≥ 0.76) participants. The fast-eccentric BP provided the highest MV (p < 0.05) and no differences were observed for V_max. These results support the assessment of movement velocity during the fast-eccentric BP even in participants without experience.