Primary and secondary teachers’ conceptions about heritage and heritage education: A comparative analysis

This study describes and analyses the conceptions of primary teachers and secondary teachers of Physics–Chemistry, Biology–Geology and Geography–History with respect to the concept of heritage and its teaching and learning, taking the model of teacher-researcher as the theoretical referent. The data collection instrument used was a questionnaire, designed on the basis of categories that in turn were used for the analysis of the resulting data. The results show a high degree of homogeneity in pedagogic content knowledge, in contrast to the heterogeneity of the conceptions with respect to purely content knowledge.     

Development of higher education and employment in the Federal Republic of Germany

In the Federal Republic of Germany — as in many other industrialized countries higher education has, under the influence of social, economic and political forces, developed from a relatively small, selective and elite-oriented to a large system of mass education. The increasing number of students and university teachers, and the expansion of scientific and technological methods and knowledge has brought about claims for genuine organizational transformations and for massive financial resources. This development has created a number of severe problems in the relationship of the respective socio-economic and political sub-systems; in particular, the relationship between higher education and the labour market has to be considered as a vital but unresolved problem.This article gives a short account of the quantitative development of the German universities and the labour market in the last two decades. It also describes the organizational transformations which followed the federal framework law on higher education (Hochschulrahmengesetz) of January 1976, and deals with some aspects of research in relation to such problems.     

Teachers' embodied presence in online teaching practices

This study aims to examine teachers' embodiments online. The analysis is based on online ethnographic data from two online courses in higher education settings using different information and communication technologies. The perspective of practice theory and the concepts of being a body, having a body and the instrumental body were used to analyse how teachers step into an embodied presence. The embodied presence depends on both teacher judgements and what the technology offers. The finding adds to the understanding of the concept of teacher presence online, in showing that teacher embodiment occurs online and furthermore that the body could be understood as multiple. The result also shows how online and offline bodies hang together, actualising the offline body in the online setting, which in turn raises questions on the dualism of online and offline. Teachers also deliberately used their embodiments and bodily traces online in order to sustain presence and to bring about certain teaching practices. Their bodily positioning signalled what kind of teaching that would take place. A deliberate positioning of the online body in a virtual world also helped to reduce the complexity of the arrangements for the students.     

青年毛泽东与颜元的教育思想

青年毛泽东深受颜元教育思想的影响 ,在从事革命和教育活动的过程中 ,吸收了颜元教育思想的合理内核 ;可以说 ,既批判其糟粕 ,又继承其精华 ,这正是毛泽东对待中国传统文化所采取的正确态度。     

Gender differences in reading performance on documents across countries

Females are known to excel over males in most reading tasks, but notconsistently so in tasks that require processing information from maps,tables, charts and diagrams, so called `Documents'. The IEA ReadingLiteracy data provides possibilities to investigate gender differencesacross countries in such tasks in two age groups, 9-year-olds and14-year-olds. The general question about cultural influences vs. aninvariant pattern of gender differences is of great interest for genderresearch, and central in this study. The aim of the paper is to describeand analyze gender differences on Document tasks, and investigate if andhow the pattern of differences varies over countries. Another aim is todemonstrate the power of using a multivariate analysis technique bycontrasting it against traditional univariate approaches. The univariateanalysis indicates female advantage as the most common in the youngergroup and a mixed pattern in the older. The multivariate analysisindicate that Document tasks are not unidimensional, because bothgeneral and specific dimensions can be extracted from the raw scores.The traditional univariate analysis often disguised true patterns ofdifferences in the data, both in terms of country differences and interms of the direction of the gender differences. Raw score differencesbetween the genders proved to be due to differences in both general andpassage specific dimensions. Ten of the countries showed genderdifferences in both directions in the general dimension among9-year-olds, while an almost consistent pattern of female advantage wasfound among 14-years-olds. Many of the specific passage dimensionsturned out to favor either males or females. This complex pattern variedover both age groups and across countries, although commonalities in thepattern among subgroups of countries were common.     

Hollow dimension of modules

In this paper, we are interested in the following general question: Given a module Mwhich has finite hollow dimension and which has a finite collection of submodules Ki (1≤i≤n) such that M=K1 ... Kn, can we find an expression for the hollow dimension of Min terms of hollow dimensions of modules built up in some way from K1 Kn? We prove the following theorem:Let Mbe an amply supplemented module having finite hollow dimension and let Ki (1≤i≤n) be a finite collection of submodules of Msuch that M=K1 ... Kn. Then the hollow dimension h(M) of Mis the sum of the hollow dimensions of Ki (1≤i≤n) ifand only if Ki is a supplement of K1 ... Ki-1 Ki 1 ... Kn in Mfor each 1≤i≤n.     

Opening dimensions of variation: An empirical study of learning in a Web-based discussion

The discussions held in specifying an automaticvehicle as a project in a distance work-relatedcourse are in focus for an analysis of learningin networked discussions. Learning ischaracterised as coming to experience things indistinctly new ways, in keeping with theunderlying phenomenographic research approachfor the study. Group discussions are seen asone feature in the experience of, and theformation of, the context for learning, in anexperiential interpretation of activitysystems. The analysis has led to theidentification of pivotal contributions todiscussions that can be said to afford learningwithin the group, in the sense of openingdimensions of variation around criticalfeatures of the task. This is developed toproduce a taxonomy of contributions, withparticipatory, factual, reflective and learningcontributions, suggested to be necessary,though not sufficient, conditions for learning.The taxonomy is illustrated and discussed, asare its implications for tutoring in networkedcourses of this type.     

The new student loan system in Chile’s higher education

Chile’s higher education system stands out as being one of the most privatized and open to the market in the world. Recently, the Chilean Congress passed Law # 20.027 of 2005, which provides the legal framework for the creation of a student loan system guaranteed both by the State and by higher education institutions (HEIs), financed by the private capital market through the securitization of the loans. The system operated for the first time in 2006, where approximately 21,000 students were able to access financing of their higher education for the remainder of their careers. It is expected that as the system matures, more and better information will be available, which will benefit the students and the HEIs; and it is highly likely that the current number of financed students could grow significantly in the next few years. The purpose of this article is to describe the outstanding characteristics of this system, explain its conceptual basis and analyze the public policy choices available in its design.

State and trait goals of achievement and well-being: structure,validity, and stability

Both school achievement goals (mastery, performance approach, performance avoidance goals) and well-being goals (work avoidance, affiliation goals) are important predictors of learning and achievement related outcomes. However, disagreement exists regarding the definition of goals as relatively stable traits versus situational states that react sensitive to contexts. This paper presents the development of an inventory for the assessment of students’ multiple state and trait goals. In Study 1, students (N?=?196) answered the trait items. The results of an exploratory factor analysis indicated the construct validity of the goals. In Study 2, students completed trait and state scales in different weeks (N?=?542) and repeatedly after 12 weeks each. Confirmatory factor analyses as well as correlations with state and trait reference constructs confirmed the convergent and differential validity of both the trait and the state goal factors. The instrument offers a brief, reliable, and valid measure of multiple state and trait goals. Latent state trait analyses revealed that some state goals are surprisingly robust against situational influences and equally stable across time as corresponding trait goals, whereas other goals are more dependent on the learning situation.