Measures of long-term trends in mathematics: linking large-scale assessments over 50 years

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability - International comparative assessments of student achievement are constructed to assess country-level differences and change over time. A...     

Body dissatisfaction in women’s artistic gymnastics: A longitudinal study of psychosocial indicators

Body dissatisfaction is prevalent in women’s artistic gymnastics (WAG). Cross-sectional research points to social and individual risk factors, however it does not account for potential changes in body dissatisfaction during an athletic season. This study aimed to determine how gymnasts’ body dissatisfaction, risk factors for eating disorders, media internalisation, perfectionism and mood state change during pre-competition, competition and post-competition seasons and to identify how these psychosocial indicators impact on body dissatisfaction during the athletic year. The sample consisted of 20 Brazilian elite women’s artistic gymnasts aged 10–16 years. Data were obtained from a 9-month study using: Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ); Eating Attitude Test-26; Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire-3 (SATAQ-3); Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS); Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS) and triceps and subscapular skinfolds. Body dissatisfaction was higher during the competition season and disordered eating, perfectionism and vigour values were higher in the pre-competition season. Disordered eating has been found as the strongest predictor of body dissatisfaction during all seasons, and mood state partly contributed to body dissatisfaction in the competitive season. Stakeholders should understand that body dissatisfaction and the prevalence of disordered eating may change over time.     

Bilingualism and phonological awareness: the case of bilingual (French–Occitan) children

The present study investigated the development of linguistic awareness in children exposed to the early learning of a second language in Grades 3–5 of primary school, i.e. between the ages of 8 and 10. The aim was to determine whether this bilingual experience enhanced the development of phonological awareness in beginning readers in a bilingual French-regional language school programme compared with a population of monolingual children receiving traditional education. More specifically, in light of research promoting the hypothesis of a “bilingual advantage”, we set out to determine exactly how long children need to be exposed to a second language before bilingualism starts to influence the development of their phonological awareness. Tasks designed to assess phonological awareness were administered to more than a hundred children. Results suggest that children who have undergone a bilingual school programme display a more highly developed phonological awareness than their monolingual peers from age 9 onwards, i.e. in Grade 4. These results are discussed in the light of ongoing research on bilingualism, bilingual education and threshold theory.     

CONTENT FOR TEACHING SUSTAINABLE ENERGY SYSTEMS IN PHYSICS AT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

Understanding energy with a focus on sustainable development requires further knowledge beyond traditional conceptual understanding. This paper presents the result from one main investigation and two smaller follow-up studies. The main study (step 1) consists of an interpreting, iterative analysis of statements made by experts on contents for physics education on energy with focus on sustainable energy systems gathered from a questionnaire, which results in subject-specific contents for physics teaching presented as a category system of objectives. The categories from step 1 are used as means for analyses in steps 2 and 3, which involve the study of educational material and one physics class. The results show that the content of physics for upper secondary, in order for students to reach insight, should comprise certain physical concepts and relations not only in ‘limited contexts’ but also in relation to greater contextual connections, in which problematisation and insight in solutions for the future is necessary. These parts should have a similar weight according to the statements of the experts. This is not to be found in either the typical educational material (textbooks) or in one physics class, which has been studied.     

Disrupting Bias Without Trainings: The Effect of Equity Advocates on Faculty Search Committees

Innovative Higher Education - Many institutions of higher education have implemented workshops for hiring committee members to familiarize them with the pernicious effects of implicit bias and how...     

Understanding Heterogeneity in the Impact of Public Preschool Programs

We examine the North Carolina Pre-K (NC Pre-K) program to test the hypothesis that observed variation in effects resulting from exposure to the program can be attributed to interactions with other environmental factors that occur before, during, or after the pre-k year. We examine student outcomes in 5th grade and test interaction effects between NC's level of investment in public pre-k and moderating factors. Our main sample includes the population of children born in North Carolina between 1987 and 2005 who later attended a public school in that state, had valid achievement data in 5th grade, and could be matched by administrative record review (n = 1,207,576; 58% White non-Hispanic, 29% Black non-Hispanic, 7% Hispanic, 6% multiracial and Other race/ethnicity). Analyses were based on a natural experiment leveraging variation in county-level funding for NC Pre-K across NC counties during each of the years the state scaled up the program. Exposure to NC Pre-K funding was defined as the per-4-year-old-child state allocation of funds to a county in a year. Regression models included child-level and county-level covariates and county and year fixed effects. Estimates indicate that a child's exposure to higher NC Pre-K funding was positively associated with that child's academic achievement 6 years later. We found no effect on special education placement or grade retention. NC Pre-K funding effects on achievement were positive for all subgroups tested, and statistically significant for most. However, they were larger for children exposed to more disadvantaged environments either before or after the pre-k experience, consistent with a compensatory model where pre-k provides a buffer against the adverse effects of prior negative environmental experiences and protection against the effects of future adverse experiences. In addition, the effect of NC Pre-K funding on achievement remained positive across most environments, supporting an additive effects model. In contrast, few findings supported a dynamic complementarity model. Instrumental variables analyses incorporating a child's NC Pre-K enrollment status indicate that program attendance increased average 5th grade achievement by approximately 20% of a standard deviation, and impacts were largest for children who were Hispanic or whose mothers had less than a high school education. Implications for the future of pre-k scale-up and developmental theory are discussed.     

Overshadowing and blocking between landmark learning and shape learning: the importance of sex differences

Rats were trained in a triangular-shaped pool to find a hidden platform that maintained a constant relationship with two sources of information, an individual landmark and one part of the pool with a distinctive shape. In Experiment 1, shape learning overshadowed landmark learning but landmark learning did not overshadow shape learning in males, while landmark learning overshadowed shape learning but shape learning did not overshadow landmark learning in females. In Experiment 2, rats were pretrained either with the single landmark relevant or with the shape relevant, in the absence of the alternative cue. Final test trials, without the platform, revealed reciprocal blocking only in females; in males, shape learning blocked landmark learning, but not viceversa (Experiment 2a). In Experiment 2b, male rats received a longer pretraining with the single landmark relevant, and now landmark learning blocked shape learning. The results thus confirm the claim that males and females partially use different types of spatial information when solving spatial tasks. These results also agree with the suggestion that shape learning interacts with landmark learning in much the same way as does learning about any pair of stimuli in a Pavlovian conditioning experiment.     

Redefining Access: Embracing multimodality,memorability and shared experience in Museums

The authors discuss the principles of “access for all” in museums, both physical and intellectual access. They explore this question of multisensory processing in neurologically typical individuals, and case studies of two Portuguese museums that experimented with implementation of an “access for all” approach to the presentation of their permanent collections. The study was designed with three phases: addressing architectural barriers to access, preparation of accessible information about space and objects, and testing of alternative formats to convey this information to learn how to meet diverse needs in different ways. Set in the context of research on multisensory learning, this article discusses why an access for all principle is a majority issue as well as a moral and legal concept. It discusses two case studies where an “access for all” museological approach has been applied to access to the collections, with differing success. The discussion focuses on how an “access for all” approach could enhance learning, long‐term memorability and the ‘cultural value’ of a museum experience for all visitors.     

‘Will I learn what I want to learn?’ Usable representations, ‘students’ and OECD assessment production

Amid growing debates around international assessment tools in educational policy, few have critically examined how students themselves are cast in policy tool production processes and discourse. Drawing on Stuart Hall's concept of representation, we show how higher education (HE) ‘students’ are constructed, fixed and normalized by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) initiative. Based on an analysis of AHELO texts, we argue that the OECD, during the early stages of test production, fixes and circulates the meaning of ‘students’ as represented objects. We identify and analyze two distinct representational practices at work in AHELO texts: classifying and organizing, and marking. We posit that by fixing images of the student as an object of learning and as a consumer–investor subject, the OECD creates ‘usable’ representations of ‘students’ to claim jurisdiction over teaching and learning in HE and to justify intervention through standardized testing.