Some issues influencing the planning and implementation of vocational education in Nepal

This study attempted to analyze the perceptions of selected Nepali educators and administrators concerning certain basic issues which have been influencing the planning and implementation of vocational education in Nepal. The issues were determined after a review of the relevant research and literature. A questionnaire with 13 items was mailed to Nepali educators, administrators, experts and headmasters involved with vocational education. A total of 142 (53.18%) usable questionnaires were returned, and two groups of respondents were identified from the nature of their work, namely planners and implementors. The responses were interpreted using the analysis of variance statistical test (ANOVA). Findings indicated that planners and implementors, respectively, had significantly different attitudes concerning issues related to the characteristics of students, employment, and financial aspects of vocational programs. A higher proportion of planners than implementors dissented from the proposition that vocational education should be designed for less intelligent students. Implementors felt that the students could make vocational choices at the age of 14 or 15, whereas the planners were uncertain. The implementors were also more of the opinion that vocational education was too expensive for Nepal, while the planners tended to disagree with them about this. Regarding other matters, however, all the respondents indicated general agreement with the issues as stated.

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Zusammenfassung Diese Studie versuchte, die Vorstellungen ausgewählter nepalesischer Erziehungswissenschaftler und Verwaltungsbeamter in Bezug auf bestimmte Grundfragen zu analysieren, die Planung und Durchführung von Berufsausbildung in Nepal beeinflußten. Nach Durchsicht der Forschungsprojekte und der entsprechenden Literatur, wurden Fragepunkte ausgearbeitet. Ein Fragebogen mit dreizehn Punkten wurde an nepalesische Erziehungswissenschaftler, Verwaltungsbeamte, Experten und Schulleiter geschickt, die mit Berufsausbildung zu tun haben. Insgesamt 142 (53,18%) brauchbare Fragebogen wurden zurückgeschickt und zwei Gruppen von Befragten nach Art ihrer Tätigkeit, nämlich Planer und Durchführer, festgestellt. Die Antworten wurden ausgewertet indem die Analyse statistischer Varianztests (ANOVA) benutzt wurde. Ergebnisse zeigten, daß Planer und Durchführer signifikant unterschiedliche Einstellungen hatten zu Fragen in Bezug auf Merkmale der Schüler, Berufstätigkeit und finanzielle Aspekte des Berufsausbildungsprogramms. Ein höherer Anteil von Planern als Durchführern wich von der Behauptung ab, Berufsbildung sei für weniger intelligente Schüler bestimmt. Durchführer glaubten, daß Schüler im Alter von 14 oder 15 Jahren ihre Berufswahl treffen könnten, wohingegen sich die Planer nicht sicher waren. Durchführer waren auch der Meinung, daß Berufsausbildung für Nepal zu teuer sei, während Planer dazu neigten, mit ihnen darüber nicht übereinzustimmen. Hinsichtlich anderer Punkte jedoch, stimmten alle befragten Personen generell mit den Aussagen, wie angegeben, überein.

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Résumé Cette étude avait pour objectif l'analyse des perceptions de certains éducateurs et administrateurs népalais concernant quelques facteurs fondamentaux qui influencent la planification et la mise en oeuvre de l'éducation professionnelle au Népal. Ces facteurs ont été déterminés après examen des travaux importants de la recherche et de la littérature sur le sujet. Un questionnaire portant 13 points a été envoyé aux éducateurs, administrateurs, spécialistes et directeurs d'école népalais concernés par l'éducation professionnelle. Un total de 142 (53, 18%) questionnaires exploitables ont été retournés et deux groupes de personnes ont pu être identifiés d'après la nature de leur travail, à savoir les planificateurs et les exécutants. Les réponses ont été interprétées d'après l'analyse du test statistique de variance (ANOVA). Les résultats ont montré que les planificateurs et les exécutants avaient des opinions sensiblement différentes quant aux facteurs relatifs aux caractéristiques des étudiants, du chômage et des aspects financiers des programmes professionnels. Une plus grande partie de planificateurs que d'exécutants différait de l'opinion selon laquelle l'éducation professionnelle devrait s'adresser aux étudiants moins intelligents. Les exécutants pensaient que les étudiants pouvaient faire un choix professionnel à l'âge de 14 ou 15 ans, tandis que les planificateurs en étaient incertains. Les exécutants étaient également plutôt de l'avis que l'éducation professionnelle était trop coûteuse pour le Népal, alors que les planificateurs tendaient à penser le contraire. Pour ce qui est des autres questions, cependant, toutes les personnes qui ont répondu étaient d'accord avec les facteurs comme indiqué.

     

Korean deaf adolescents' awareness of thematic and taxonomic relations among ordinary concepts represented by pictures and written words

Individuals' relative awareness of thematic and taxonomic relations is influenced by factors such as language and background knowledge. Relatively weak in Korean language skills and also having relatively limited social opportunities, Korean deaf adolescents might be different from hearing adolescents in how they make decisions in taxonomically and thematically associated entities represented by pictures and words. Experiment 1 indicated that deaf adolescents had longer reaction times than hearing adolescents in a forced-choice decision-making task. Both deaf and hearing adolescents had shorter reaction times and higher accuracies with pictures than with words, but deaf adolescents' differences were bigger than those of hearing adolescents. Experiment 2 further showed that deaf adolescents had lower accuracies than hearing adolescents in a priming task of living-nonliving categorization. Both deaf and hearing adolescents had shorter reaction times with taxonomic than with thematic categories, but deaf adolescents' difference was bigger than that of hearing adolescents. In conclusion, Korean deaf adolescents were aware of thematic and taxonomic relations less than hearing adolescents in general. They were more likely than hearing adolescents to show the advantage of pictures over words in their performance in conceptual activities and to prefer taxonomic to thematic associations for written words in Experiment 2.     

布兰奇的“他者”之路

"他者"理论是后殖民理论的一个重要概念,具有举足轻重的地位。本文主要运用"他者"理论对《欲望号街车》中的两个主要人物斯坦利和布兰奇进行分析,分别从性别上、社会地位和文化上等方面分析布兰奇"他者"地位的建构过程。     

Modeling presentations: toward an assessment of emerging classroom cultures of modeling

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Though there is an extensive research literature on understanding and assessing individual modeling competencies, less attention has been given to...     

When Does Tool Use Become Distinctively Human? Hammering in Young Children

This study examines the development of hammering within an ontogenetic and evolutionary framework using motion‐capture technology. Twenty‐four right‐handed toddlers (19–35 months) wore reflective markers while hammering a peg into a peg‐board. The study focuses on the motor characteristics that make tool use uniquely human: wrist involvement, lateralization, and handle use. Older children showed more distally controlled movements, characterized by relatively more reliance on the wrist, but only when hammering with their right hand. Greater age, use of the right hand, and more wrist involvement were associated with higher accuracy; handle use did not systematically change with age. Collectively, the results provide new insights about the emergence of hammering in young children and when hammering begins to manifest distinctively human characteristics.     

Relative effects of three questioning strategies in ill-structured,small group problem solving

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relative effectiveness of using three different question-prompt strategies on promoting metacognitive skills and performance in ill-structured problem solving by examining the interplay between peer interaction and cognitive scaffolding. An ill-structured problem-solving task was given to three groups. One group (Type QP) received instructor-generated question prompts that guided the problem-solving process; the second group (Type PQ) developed their own peer-generated questions; another group (Type PQ-R) developed their own question prompts first and revised them later with an instructor-generated question list. In this study, students in the QP group outperformed those in any other groups. The results revealed that providing instructor-generated question prompts was more effective than letting students develop their own questions, with or without revision, in ill-structured problem solving. Analysis of each of the four problem-solving stages revealed that the provided question prompts were more helpful in the stages of justification, and monitoring and evaluating than student-generated prompts. The difference between PQ and PQ-R groups is not statistically significant either overall or in any of the problem-solving stages.     

Teaching Kindergartners Racial Diversity Through Multicultural Literature: A Case Study in a Kindergarten Classroom in Korea

Research Findings: This qualitative case study examines Korean kindergartners’ literary discussions about racial/cultural diversity during a whole-group read-aloud. Using multiple sources of data, including observations, open-ended interviews, and written materials and children’s artifacts, this study found that (a) the children exhibited a biased attitude toward African characters, and their stereotypical views reflected their allegiance to their social/cultural contexts; (b) literary discussions about race provided the children with valuable opportunities to explore racial diversity, equality, injustice, and freedom; and (c) reading multicultural literature helped the children develop and practice their racial language and literacy skills. Practice or Policy: The findings of the study add several important contributions related to teaching young children multicultural literature. Reading literature should be used to provide a chance to explore real-life problems and critically analyze all of the differences children encounter on a daily basis. Teachers should encourage young children to freely share their views about diverse social issues by creating a space where children feel secure in exchanging different views. In order to create a more supportive literacy surrounding, teachers should understand how profoundly children’s social and cultural environments affect their reading practices.     

Primacy of Broadcast News: A Mediation Analysis of Recall,Attitudes, and Voting Intentions

This study examines how the order and proportion of scene valence within a television news story influence viewers' processing of political information. The results of the study, based on structural equation modeling and Sobel's mediation analysis, suggest that, in a news story about a political candidate, positive information on the candidate is recalled better if he or she is praised at the beginning of the story and then criticized at the end than if he or she is criticized first and praised later. In addition, there was a strong proportion effect. Stories with a high proportion of positive scenes were more likely to increase the participant's recall of positive information and induce his or her favorable attitudes and voting intentions than those with a low proportion of positive scenes.     

The Influence of Thinking Styles on Responses to Supportive Messages

Cognitive-experiential self-theory suggests that individuals with different thinking styles may respond differently to various forms of support during times of stress or difficulty. This possibility was examined in an experiment in which 365 participants read a hypothetical scenario in which they were experiencing a problematic situation, and a friend offered one of three forms of support (advice, emotional support, or emotional support plus advice). The results of the study indicated that highly rational participants tended to respond to advice more positively than less rational participants. In addition, highly experiential participants tended to rate emotional support as higher in quality than less experiential participants.