Internet,Multimedia and Virtual Laboratories in a 'Third World' Environment

Electronic education faces similar difficulties in low-budget institutions throughout the world (many of them in common with developed nations), including mainly rejection or disinterest from staff and students, insufficient funds, outdated hardware, incompatible software and poor Internet access. Over the past five years, with low budgets and considerable limitations in the equipment available, the Universidad Estatal a Distancia in Costa Rica has produced multimedia courses and materials for use on the Internet, as well as designing virtual laboratories that can be run on cheap computers. The authors recount their experiences in the hope that these will prove useful to others. They explain how simultaneous production of traditional materials (mainly printed textbooks) and online courses, together with simple automatic evaluation and 'outsourcing', reduce costs significantly. They conclude that HTML and JAVA are currently the choice computer languages to reach the greatest number of users without need of a specific computing platform, powerful computers or expensive software.     

Successful secondary school principalship in disadvantaged contexts from a leadership for learning perspective

The paper we present here is part of the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP), which is designed to analyse the characteristic traits of successful leadership in different contexts and countries [Day, C., and K. Leithwood. 2007. Successful School Leadership in Times of Change. Dordrecht: Springer-Kluwer; Day, C., and D. Gurr. 2014. Leading School Successfully. Stories from the Field. London: Routledge]. One subgroup of the Spanish research team participating in the ISSPP at the University of Granada has contributed to the project by carrying out a comparative study of the type of leadership for learning at four secondary schools in disadvantaged contexts. Following ISSPP data collection protocols and using a category system specially designed to analyse the leadership for learning carried out by the four principals, the results show that four secondary schools have principals with a similar traits, dispositions and value systems; however, the secondary schools with the best academic results employed practices and strategies more closely associated with leadership for learning than schools with poorer academic results. The data provided by this study confirm the traits and strategies that the ISSPP has been identifying in successful principals in disadvantaged contexts in various countries. It also serves as a source of reflection and discussion on the type of leadership for learning present in some disadvantaged secondary schools in Spain.     

Meeting the Discipline-Culture Framework of Physics Knowledge: A Teaching Experience in Italian Secondary School

The paper deals with physics teaching/learning in high school. An investigation in three upper secondary school classes in Italy explored the reactions of students to a structuring lecture on optics within the discipline-culture (DC) framework that organises physics knowledge around four interrelated fundamental theories of light. The lecture presented optics as an unfolding conceptual discourse of physicists regarding the nature of light. Along with the knowledge constructed in a school course of a scientific lyceum, the students provided epistemological comments, displaying their perception of physics knowledge presented in the classroom. Students’ views and knowledge were investigated by questionnaires prior to and after the lecture and in special discussions held in each class. They revealed a variety of attitudes and views which allowed inferences about the potential of the DC framework in an educational context. The findings and interpretation indicate the positive and stimulating impact of the lecture and the way in which DC-based approach to knowledge organization makes physics at school cultural and attractive.     

Secondary School Students’ Errors in the Translation of Algebraic Statements

In this article, we present the results of a research study that explores secondary students’ capacity to perform translations of algebraic statements between the verbal and symbolic representation systems through the lens of errors. We classify and compare the errors made by 2 groups of students: 1 at the beginning of their studies in school algebra and another 1 completing their studies on algebra in compulsory education. This comparison allows us to detect errors which require specific attention in instruction due to its persistence and to identify errors that disappear as students advance in their study of algebra. The results and conclusions have a pedagogic value to inform instruction and also lead to backed conjectures and research questions to push forward research on student’s translation capacity and students’ knowledge of algebraic symbolism.     

Some Learning Problems Concerning the Use of Symbolic Language in Physics

This paper aims to draw the attention of teachers of basic university physics courses towards students' problems concerning the interpretation of the symbolic language used in the discipline. Specific difficulties found in the first course of physics, related to different kinds of statements expressed in mathematical language, are pointed out and analysed, and some suggestions are made to cope with them during instruction. It could be concluded that teachers may need only to reflect and comment on the virtues of making explicit the semantic and syntactic aspects of formal languages as they teach physics.     

Reading prosody development in Spanish children

Reading prosody is considered one of the essential markers of reading fluency, alongside accuracy and speed. The aim of our study was to investigate how development of reading prosody in Spanish children varies with sentence type and length. We compared primary school children from the third and fifth grades with an adult sample. Participants were recorded reading aloud a narrative text including short and long declarative, exclamatory and interrogative sentences. Recordings were analysed using Praat software to measure several prosodic features (i.e., pauses, duration, pitch and intensity). We found that third-grade children had not yet developed an adult-like prosody: they made more pauses, had a flatter melodic contour and had difficulty anticipating sentence structure. Fifth-graders displayed some features of adult prosody. Both length and type of sentence influenced the expressiveness of reading in the three groups. We conclude that reading expressiveness is closely related to reading experience and develops in a similar way to decoding and reading speed.     

The Spanish Version of the Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue): Evidence for Longitudinal Measurement Invariance and Relationship With Emotional Regulation

Research Findings: Empathy, or the ability to understand what others are thinking or feeling, can be observed in early developmental stages. The purpose of this study was to validate the Spanish version of the Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue) and examine its longitudinal measurement invariance (LMI) at 2 time points. Parents of 103 children completed the EmQue when their children were 3 (M = 41.76) and 4 (M = 51.65) years old. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that Grazzani, Ornaghi, Pepe, Brazzelli and Rieffe’s (2016) 3-factor model of emotional contagion (EC), attention to others’ feelings, and prosocial actions (PA) presented the best fit indices at both time points (Time 1: CFI = .931, TLI = .914, and RMSEA = .070; Time 2: CFI = .941, TLI = .935, and RMSEA = .064). Moreover, preliminary evidence was obtained for the LMI of this model. PA scores increased over time. Score reliability ranged from .60 (EC) to .83 (PA). Positive correlations were found between PA and emotional regulation at each time point and across time.Practice or Policy: The great relevance of empathy and prosocial behavior in academic achievement and psychological adjustment justifies the development of reliable instruments to evaluate these constructs from early ages.