Teachers’ motivations for master’s degree programs in education in Israeli teacher training institutions and the implications for government policy-making concerning those programs

ABSTRACT

The study aimed to identify teachers’ motivations to study Master of Education (M.Ed.) programs offered by teachers’ training colleges. M.Ed. degree programs have become available in Israel since 2004, with a rapid increase since then in the number of colleges offering various programs and a consequent increase in the number of graduates. M.Ed. degrees follow one of two teaching approaches: (1) top-down/transmission of knowledge (2) bottom-up transformative studies to support teachers’ professional autonomy. The first approach complies with the policy of the Council for Higher Education (CHE). The other is promoted by the Israeli Ministry of Education as an integral part of teachers’ professional development. The study’s methodology included examining data from multiple sources: documentation concerning the academic programs, government policy statements, and surveys administered to teachers who had graduated successfully from M.Ed. programs over the past decade and are now working in the field. We found that after the first decade of M.Ed. courses in Israel, significantly more programs incline towards the bottom-up/transformative approach, aiming to promote individual, personal and professional development instead of adopting the transmission approach. Teachers prefer M.Ed. programs at universities that include research. Yet their motivation to study is primarily intrinsic motivation, whether they aspire to study at universities or at teachers’ training colleges. Results are pertinent for government planning of teachers’ professional development. Further study into the needs of teachers is required to endorse these conclusions.     

Facilitating integrated agricultural technology development through participatory research

Purpose: In this paper, we discuss the role of participatory research in integrated agricultural technology development using the example of a solar fruit drying project in Mozambique.

Design/methodology/approach: We engage in seven participatory exercises with groups of farmers from two farmers’ associations in Inharrime district in Mozambique to identify their needs for solar fruit drying that are crucial for solar dryer technology design. We focus in the analysis on three of these exercises including a daily schedule exercise, SWOT (Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats) analysis and technology requirement exercise.

Findings: Participatory research takes a dual function for integrated agricultural technology development. First, it can help to identify the technology needs of farmers and second it can enable the exchange and creation of different sets of knowledge for agricultural technology development between multiple stakeholders.

Practical implications: Participatory research provides a tool for joint knowledge exchange and creation, which allows the identified technology requirements to be translated into practical technology design.

Theoretical implications: This paper extends the concept of integrated research to integrated agricultural technology development and shows how participatory research is a tool that enables transdisciplinarity, which presents the most desired form of integrated research.

Originality: This research is highly relevant for researchers working in an interdisciplinary environment with agricultural technology development in cross-cultural contexts. From a meta-level perspective, it provides insights for joint and integrated technology development.     

Communication systems simulator with error correcting codes using MATLAB

In this work, the characteristics of a simulator for channel coding techniques used in communication systems, are described. This software has been designed for engineering students in order to facilitate the understanding of how the error correcting codes work. To help students understand easily the concepts related to these kinds of codes, a user-friendly interface has been developed using the MATLAB environment, since it provides many toolboxes related to communication systems.     

Scoring mode and age-related effects on youth soccer teams’ defensive performance during small-sided games

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to examine the scoring mode (line goal, double goal or central goal) and age-related effects on the defensive performance of youth soccer players during 4v4 small-sided games (SSGs). Altogether, 16 male players from 2 age groups (U13, n = 8, mean age: 12.61 ± 0.65 years; U15, n = 8, 14.86 ± 0.47 years) were selected as participants. In six independent sessions, participants performed the three SSGs each during 10-min periods. Teams’ defensive performance was analysed at every instant ball possession was regained through the variables: ball-recovery type, ball-recovery sector, configuration of play and defence state. Multinomial logistic regression analysis used in this study revealed the following significant main effects of scoring mode and age: (1) line goal (vs. central goal) increased the odds of regaining possession through tackle and in the defensive midfield sector, and decreased the odds of successful interceptions; (2) double goal (vs. central goal) decreased the odds of regaining possession through turnover won and with elongated playing shapes; (3) the probability of regaining possession through interception significantly decreased with age. Moreover, as youth players move forward in age groups, teams tend to structurally evolve from elongated playing shapes to flattened shapes and, at a behavioural level, from defending in depth to more risky flattened configurations. Overall, by manipulating the scoring mode in SSGs, coaches can promote functional and coadaptive behaviours between teams not only in terms of configurations of play, but also on the pitch locations that teams explore to regain possession.     

Postwar abandoned children: psychology and pedagogy at the service of the Franco Regime

ABSTRACT

This article explores the political, religious, and ideological backdrop to psychology and pedagogy under Franco’s dictatorship. To this end, it analyses the important research carried out between 1940 and 1944 by the psychologist and pedagogue José J. Jover y Piquer into the intelligence, mentality, and moral judgement of a large number of abandoned and vulnerable postwar children. The article demonstrates how, although the approach adopted by Piquer was a scientific one – with the usual aims, techniques, and methods – the research contents were subordinated to ideological and religious considerations and aimed to determine the extent to which these children could be re-educated and integrated into the new regime. Thus, psychology became the scientific packaging for studies that were eminently ideological and politically subservient, turning pedagogy into a key instrument of the biopolitics aimed at building Franco’s New Spain.     

Does rhetorical competence moderate the effect of rhetorical devices on the comprehension of expository texts beyond general comprehension skills?

Many studies have demonstrated the facilitating role of rhetorical devices in text comprehension, but there are also studies where rhetorical devices have not shown such effect. The present study sets out to explore whether readers’ knowledge of rhetorical devices (that is, rhetorical competence) moderates their effectiveness beyond general comprehension skills and, consequently, whether rhetorical competence may be considered a component skill of reading comprehension. 192 sixth- to seventh-grade students were assessed on rhetorical competence and were required to read a difficult marked text with specific rhetorical devices (a refutation, an objective, and four organizational signals) or the same text without them. After reading, students produced a summary in order to obtain three dependent variables: main ideas (as a measure of participants’ ability to select relevant information from the text), causal links between them (as an indicator of participants’ ability to grasp the logical structure of the text and to organize its ideas), and the combination of main ideas plus causal links (as an indicator of participants’ global comprehension of the text). Analyses controlling for general comprehension skills and other important variables (working memory, prior knowledge, decoding) demonstrated that: (a) readers of the marked text scored higher in terms of all dependent variables, and (b) rhetorical competence level moderated the effect of rhetorical devices on the composite measure (main ideas plus causal links) and on the organization of the summary by means of causal links.     

A Participatory Social A/r/tography: Bodies and Houses Metamorphosing from Schools in Tegucigalpa to a Liverpool Tate Exchange Event

Social a/r/tography combines three dimensions of a/r/tography (artistic creation, education and research) incorporating a fourth collaborative, participatory community‐based approach. This ongoing project began in two primary and secondary schools located in the slums of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, as cooperative action for curricular development in art education. As participatory action, students created a mural drawing inspired by Sol Lewitt's wall drawings, as well as photo pairs on the theme of body and nature inspired by a lithograph by Uta Barth. The drawings and photographs created by the students in Honduras were presented at an event in the Exchange space of the Tate gallery in Liverpool as visual provocation for the creation of drawings and visual metaphors. The concept of visual dialogue, which we define as ‘to teach human beings to have visual conversations with other humans through the visual content of images’, helps us to consider images as questions which are answered with new images whose meaning is subsequently transformed in function of artistic, school and social contexts.     

Information seeking,technology use,and vulnerability among migrants at the United States–Mexico border

Through interviews with migrants and migrant aid-workers at a shelter in the border town of Nogales, Mexico, we examine how undocumented migrants are seeking, acquiring, understanding, and using information prior to, and during, migration across the United States–Mexico border. Our study examines migrants' perceptions of humanitarian service and the use of so-called “border disturbance technologies” by activists to help prevent the death of migrants in the desert, finding that migrants appreciate water-caching efforts but generally distrust technologies they feel could subject them to surveillance by border agents. Exploratory in nature and based on a small sample, our findings are not necessarily representative of the broader population, but provide rich evidence of the prevalence of word-of-mouth information seeking and use of cell phones over other information technologies, and explore the ambivalent nature of information technology use in the vulnerable setting of life at the border. In particular, we find that mobile phones help migrants meet their communication needs, but also increase their exposure to crime and abuse.     

Velocity- and power-load relationships in the half,parallel and full back squat

This study aimed to compare the load-velocity and load-power relationships of three common variations of the squat exercise. 52 strength-trained males performed a progressive loading test up to the one-repetition maximum (1RM) in the full (F-SQ), parallel (P-SQ) and half (H-SQ) squat, conducted in random order on separate days. Bar velocity and vertical force were measured by means of a linear velocity transducer time-synchronized with a force platform. The relative load that maximized power output (Pmax) was analyzed using three outcome measures: mean concentric (MP), mean propulsive (MPP) and peak power (PP), while also including or excluding body mass in force calculations. 1RM was significantly different between exercises. Load-velocity and load-power relationships were significantly different between the F-SQ, P-SQ and H-SQ variations. Close relationships (R² = 0.92–0.96) between load (%1RM) and bar velocity were found and they were specific for each squat variation, with faster velocities the greater the squat depth. Unlike the F-SQ and P-SQ, no sticking region was observed for the H-SQ when lifting high loads. The Pmax corresponded to a broad load range and was greatly influenced by how force output is calculated (including or excluding body mass) as well as the exact outcome variable used (MP, MPP, PP).