Estimating Nonlinear Structural Models: EMM and the Kenny–Judd Model

How is affective change rated with positive adjectives such as good related to change rated with negative adjectives such as bad? Two nested perfect and imperfect forms of dynamic bipolarity are defined using latent change structural equation models based on tetrads of items. Perfect bipolarity means that latent change scores correlate -1. Meaningful structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses of self-rated affect may require analyzing polychoric correlations, if self-ratings are collected using ordered categories. The models were applied to 6 4-wave datasets from Steyer and Riedl (2004). Results suggest that perfect bipolarity is generally compatible with valence self-ratings, whereas imperfect bipolarity is compatible with tension and energy self-ratings. Methodological and substantive limits of the approach are discussed.     

ATEE Interactive Co-ordination and Educational Monitoring of Socrates Comenius Action 3 Projects

The Comenius Action 3 courses were well accepted and showed high quality. But we need a structure for easily monitoring and evaluating these projects. The authors present in this article a pilot project with this purpose. It should be useful in order to implement a system of co-ordination and communication among the different projects, and to evaluate their effectiveness. It also seems essential in order to determine that the EU funds are well invested in projects that fulfil the objective of enhancing and strengthening the European dimension among teachers and teacher trainers.     

Development of the Beliefs about Primary Education Scale: Distinguishing a developmental and transmissive dimension

In this article the development and validation of the Beliefs about Primary Education Scale (BPES) are described. The BPES is an 18-item scale for assessing primary school teachers’ beliefs toward the nature of good education, subdivided in a transmissive dimension (TD) and a developmental dimension (DD). Both dimensions assess beliefs toward the general orientation and objectives of education, the nature of the educational content, and desirable ways of knowledge acquisition. An explorative study (n=352$n=352$) revealed a two-factor structure. Both dimensions were uncorrelated, which leads to the suggestion that teachers hold layered belief systems. In a following study (n=381), construct validity of the BPES was confirmed. The BPES’ DD and TD were shown to correlate significantly with constructivist and traditional teaching beliefs.     

Professional development of Russian HEIs' management and faculty in CDIO standards application

The paper presents the approach to complex training of managers and faculty staff for system modernisation of Russian engineering education. As a methodological basis of design and implementation of the faculty development programme, the CDIO (Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate) Approach was chosen due to compliance of its concept to the purposes and tasks of engineering education development in Russia. The authors describe the structure, the content and implementation technology of the programme designed by Tomsk Polytechnic University and Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology with the assistance of Chalmers University of Technology and KTH Royal Institute of Technology and other members of the CDIO Initiative. The programme evaluation based on the questionnaire results showed that the programme content is relevant, has high practical value and high level of novelty for all categories of participants. Therefore, the CDIO approach was recommended for implementation to improve various elements of the engineering programme such as learning outcomes, content and structure, teaching, learning and assessment methods. Besides, the feedback results obtained through programme participants’ survey contribute to identification of problems preventing development of engineering education in Russia and thus serve as milestones for further development of the programme.     

‘Because Christian was mean and killed innocent people!’: Swedish primary school students’ causal reasoning about the origins of the nation

The topic of this article is how Swedish primary school students aged 12–13 use causal reasoning when they explain a historical event that is usually considered the ‘origin of the nation’. The study is based on student texts about the rise to power of Gustav Vasa, who is traditionally portrayed as the ‘founding father’ of Sweden. The analysis of the students’ causal reasoning takes into account how many, and what kinds of, causal factors the students use. The main finding of the study is that one category of students give causal explanations that adhere very close to the traditional image of the event, with Vasa as an important and heroic agent pitted against an antagonist, king Kristian II. Another category of students instead give generic explanations with very little historical context. Of these, the former category shows greater causal complexity than the latter. In both categories, there are instances of students failing to causally connect agents to the event, suggesting that teaching practices may need to address this issue.     

Teaching sustainable entrepreneurship to engineering students: the case of Delft University of Technology

Sustainability, enhancement of personal skills, social aspects of technology, management and entrepreneurship are of increasing concern for engineers and therefore for engineering education. In 1996 at Delft University of Technology this led to the introduction of a subject on sustainable entrepreneurship and technology in the course programmes of Chemical Engineering and Materials Sciences Engineering. This subject combines lectures, project work in which a business plan is written, sustainability and presentation training. This paper shows that it has been possible to combine entrepreneurship, sustainability and project education successfully in a subject for undergraduate engineering students and describes background, assumptions, outline, results and recent adjustments of this subject. It includes a discussion on how to integrate sustainability and entrepreneurship in terms of triple P (People, Profit, Planet) and how to incorporate it pragmatically in the key elements of a business plan: (1) business idea, mission and strategy; (2) context, stakeholder and market analysis; (3) marketing; (4) production; (5) organisation and management; (6) finance and reporting. Attention is paid to results regarding the business plan, spin-off like start-ups and also to the learning results of both students and lecturers. It ends drawing some lessons derived from the subject’s results and the learning experiences of both students and lecturers.     

Outdoor recreation in exergames: a new step in the detachment from nature?

A new teaching aid—exergames—is increasing in popularity in schools and is regarded as an interesting, varied and effective way of improving students’ fitness. These exercise television games often contain references to physical activities carried out in different outdoor landscapes. The purpose of this article is to examine the views of landscape and nature offered by the games and the consequences this may have for students’ relationships with nature and future environmental commitment. The methodological approach used is companion meaning analysis: the meaning of nature that follows when playing the games. The results show a controlled landscape that is perfectly arranged for the activity (functional specialisation). It is an obvious anthropocentric base and commands an instrumental value where nature is valuable because it satisfies our felt preferences (demand value). Exergames can thus be seen as a further step in an ongoing detachment process from the physical landscape (indoorisation).     

The Role of the Intellectual II--This Time as Other-Criticism

In this article, the author reflects on the points raised, twenty-five years ago, about the role of the intellectual in society. He distinguished, then, between the intellectual in search of truth and the intellectual in search of power. He subdivided the latter group into three subgroups: intellectuals arising from large-scale territorialism; large-scale capitalism; and large-scale abstractionism. He has now reached the conclusion that only intellectuals in search of truth are truly intellectuals; the rest are what he calls "intelligentsia". Like J. A. Hobson, the author traces the many ways in which intelligentsia "sell out" to their sponsors. Although the author's previous article had pessimistic conclusions about the continued domination of thought and knowledge generation by special interests, he now expresses cautious optimism as to the tendency of the Internet and the information revolution to democratize knowledge and creativity and to break the monopoly of moneyed power and special interests over the generation of intellectuals and knowledge.     

Teaching university teachers to become better teachers: the effects of pedagogical training courses at six Swedish universities

ABSTRACT

Do pedagogical training courses for university teachers have desirable effects on the participants? We set out to answer this question by following a panel of 183 university teachers from Sweden’s six largest universities, who participated in pedagogical training courses. Our study reveals that the participants’ self-reported confidence in their role as teachers increased slightly, and their self-assessed pedagogical skills increased notably after they had finished their courses. Even though the courses were rather short, we could also observe some changes in fundamental approaches to teaching in some of the subgroups of respondents, both toward more student-centeredness and, perplexingly, toward more teacher-centeredness. Additionally, most respondents (7 out of 10) found the courses useful or very useful. Course satisfaction was most notable among participants with less than three years of teaching experience. Considering the fact that we find the positive effects of pedagogical training courses to be present mainly in the group of participants with less than three years of teaching experience, we discuss whether a policy of making these courses mandatory for all university teachers implies an overestimation of their impact.     

How Infants' Arousal Influences Their Visual Search

The influence of arousal on visual attention was examined in 6.5-month-old infants (N = 42) in the context of a visual search task. Phasic increases in arousal were induced with brief sounds and measured with pupil dilation. Evidence was found for an inverted U-shaped relation between pupil dilation amplitude and visual orienting, with highest likelihood of a target fixation at intermediate levels of arousal. Effects were similar for facial stimuli and simple objects. Together, these results contribute to our understanding of the relation between arousal and attention in infancy. The study also demonstrates that infants have a bias to orient to human eyes, even when presented in isolation.