The “Voice” of Children of Poverty: Candid Insights to Their Career Aspirations and Perceptions of Self-Efficacy

Career development in children largely involves learning about the world of work from family members, peers, and classroom exploration in elementary school. For children of economic disadvantage, a lack of resources and restricted access to information may curtail their ability to envision career attainment. The current qualitative study explored the career aspirations of fourth- and fifth-grade students living in poverty to discern their career interests, knowledge background, understanding of educational and career pathways, and their self-efficacy for achieving their vision for the future. The data collection process involved focus groups and individual case studies. The investigators highlighted the direct verbal exchange with and among students as the most critical approach to understanding children’s aspirations. Study results indicated that the children envisioned a future of educational and occupational prosperity, but their “dreams” were often circumscribed by their limited knowledge of and exposure to employment options.

     

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.     

Effective compiler error message enhancement for novice programming students

Programming is an essential skill that many computing students are expected to master. However, programming can be difficult to learn. Successfully interpreting compiler error messages (CEMs) is crucial for correcting errors and progressing toward success in programming. Yet these messages are often difficult to understand and pose a barrier to progress for many novices, with struggling students often exhibiting high frequencies of errors, particularly repeated errors. This paper presents a control/intervention study on the effectiveness of enhancing Java CEMs. Results show that the intervention group experienced reductions in the number of overall errors, errors per student, and several repeated error metrics. These results are important as the effectiveness of CEM enhancement has been recently debated. Further, generalizing these results should be possible at least in part, as the control group is shown to be comparable to those in several studies using Java and other languages.     

Professions and educational counseling in Mexico and Latin America

Conclusion In these circumstances, the prospect of the counselor for the professions is to play a new and different role inside the field of educational counseling. This new role will rely, in great measure, on the foreseeable behavior of society and, consequently, educational systems.It is relevant to consider the kind of society which is expected to emerge in the next twenty-five years. When this desirable scenario has been defined it becomes possible and necessary to join efforts, open new pathways and formulate new alternative solutions to present problems.Educational counseling should acquire properties that give it a new, more concrete meaning in a way that allows it to be used in a more accurate and effective way institutionally, in relation to the educational system and to career and national planning.Educational counseling should be more aware of and open to what is happening in the sectors that give a mandate to education at the economic, political, and social levels.Educational counseling and counseling for professionals must have continuity inside the educational system, and it may not be reduced to the role of filling in holes and taking responsibility for the contradictions of the national education system. Counseling must have a preventive task. In order to fulfill this, it is important that counselors have a solid background in education, politics, economics, and social areas; so they should be able to establish a connection with fields of work and their development potential.It is essential to systematize and share research on the discipline in order to delineate problems which are immediate, medium, or long-range in the different areas of counseling.     

A Cross-College Age Study of Science and Nonscience Students' Conceptions of Basic Astronomy Concepts in Preservice Training for High-School Teachers

A questionnaire of 19 questions given to a total of 433 students in college preservice training for future high-school teachers showed that science and nonscience majors held a series of misconceptions on several central topics in basic astronomy.     

The determinants of international student mobility flows: an empirical study on the Erasmus programme

The Erasmus Programme for higher education students is supposed to play an important socio-economic role within Europe. Erasmus student mobility flows have reached a relevant level of two million since 1987, boosted in recent years by the enlargement of the programme to eastern countries. Thereafter, it seems that flows have staggered. In this context, the article analyses the determinants of Erasmus student mobility establishing relevant hypotheses, which arise from the migration theory and gravity models. A panel data set of bilateral flows for all the participating countries has been used in order to test the factors influencing these student flows. Country size, cost of living, distance, educational background, university quality, the host country language and climate are all found to be significant determinants. Results also reveal that there are other determinants, like a country’s characteristics and time effects, which can affect mobility flows. Based on these findings, some general recommendations are put forward to enhance these flows.