Prediction model for the inclusion of key competences in the primary school curriculum through the teachers’ perceptions in the Region de Murcia / Modelo de predicción para la inclusión de las competencias en el currículo de educación primaria según la percepción del profesorado de la Región de Murcia

The purposes of this paper were twofold: (a) to analyse primary school teachers’ perceptions of the inclusion of the key competences in the curriculum; and (b) to test a hypothetical prediction model about the inclusion of the key competences in the curriculum according to their perceptions. The participants were 1,010 teachers from 110 schools. The results showed that the teachers need training on this new competency-based approach to teaching, learning and evaluation. The hypothetical prediction model confirmed the high predictiveness of pre-service teacher education and continuous professional development regarding the proper development of the main elements of competency-based learning which contribute to achieving the purposes of today’s education. One of the possible recommendations that could facilitate the inclusion of the key competences in the curriculum according to their perception is teacher training geared towards pedagogical models adapted to the reality of teaching today which optimize teachers’ professional performance and students’ academic achievement.     

Does teacher homework feedback matter to 6th graders’ school engagement?: a mixed methods study

Metacognition and Learning - The effectiveness of homework on improving student academic achievement depends on several factors; for example, feedback provided by the teacher (i.e. grading) and...     

Automated summary evaluation with inbuilt rubric method: An alternative to constructed responses and multiple-choice tests assessments

Automated summary evaluation is proposed as an alternative to rubrics and multiple-choice tests in knowledge assessment. Inbuilt rubric is a recent Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) method that implements rubrics in an artificially-generated semantic space. It was compared with classical LSA’s cosine-based methods assessing knowledge in a within-subjects design regarding two validation sources: a comparison with the results of rubric scores and multiple-choice tests, and the sensitivity of predicting the academic level of the test-taker. Results showed a higher reliability for inbuilt rubric (from Pearson correlation coefficient .81 to .49) over the classical LSA method (from .61 to .34), and a higher sensitivity using binary logistic regressions and effect sizes to predict academic level. It is concluded that inbuilt rubric has a qualitatively higher reliability and validity than classical LSA methods in a way that is complementary to models based on semantic networks. Thus, it is concluded that new automated summary evaluation approaches such as the inbuilt rubric method can be practical in terms of reliability and efficiency, and, thus, they can offer an affordable and valuable form of knowledge assessment in different educational levels.     

Meaningful actions and motivated projects in the transition to adulthood: two case illustrations

A framework for understanding career transitions based on the joint processes and goals of those engaged in the transition and significant others in the person’s social network was used to study the transition to adulthood of youth aged 17–19 years and their families. Twenty parent-youth dyads participated in this study in which a transition project was identified and monitored for 6 months. Two cases are used to illustrate the characteristics of the motivated transition project at the levels of meaning, functional processes, and conscious and unconscious behaviour and structural support and resources.     

The new educational pluralism in Latin America

Conclusion Education is, however, already beginning to reflect the whole range of pluralisms that constitute the relatively complex, urbanized and semi-industrialized societies of most of Latin America.Modernity in these societies assumes the form of cultural pluralism with a centrifugal and fragmented social basis, in which deep divisions of class and social strata still exist alongside emerging tensions due to the spread of markets, privatization in civil society, the disintegration of the traditional state, the rapid internationalization of communications and expectations, and the consolidation of liberal-democratic regimes that enable all this diversity to be expressed more freely.The new pluralism of Latin American education has therefore more to do with the modernization of societies and their cultures than with the more restrictive notion of complementarity among well-structured socio-cultural elements that fight to preserve their identity and that attain a form of expression recognized by the state in the field of education. The latter type of pluralism, found in more stable and better structured societies, is replaced in Latin America by a more fluid and ambiguous educational pluralism which, in the final analysis, reflects a process of construction of modernity that began only recently but is now in full swing. Specialist in the sociology of education. Professor-researcher at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), vice-president of the Chilean Higher Council of Education, where he chaired the Presidential Study Commission on Higher Education. Member of the Executive Committee of the Latin American Social Sciences Council. His most recent books are: Educación superior en América latina: cambios y desafíos (1990), Chile: transformaciones culturales y modernidad(1989), and Recursos humanos para la investigación en América latina (1989).     

AIDA: An integrated authoring environment for educational software

This paper describes an integrated authoring environment, AIDA (Ambiente Integrado de Desenvolvimento de Aplicações educacionais). It is an open tool, giving the author a high degree of freedom both in package characteristics and design methodologies used. This environment integrates several modules. The core of the design module is a prototyping tool, allowing the creation of evolutionary prototypes. These prototypes can include several types of multimedia components and can be used as part of the final package. The AIDA environment also includes other options that support evaluation, learning materials re-use, communication between authoring team members and translation and cultural adaptation of packages to work in different environments. An experimental version of this authoring environment was implemented and the results of its evaluation are encouraging. In this paper we also present an example of a package created with the AIDA authoring environment.