Gender,Pair Composition and Computer Versus Paper Presentations of an English Language Task

The aim of the study was to compare the verbal and physical interactions of same-gender pairs and mixed-gender pairs when equivalent tasks were presented on a computer and on paper. Children aged between 13 and 14 years old (24 boys and 24 girls) were placed into either same-gender or mixed-gender pairs and worked on a computer presentation and a paper presentation of an English language task. The main finding of the study was that the children's verbal interactions and manipulation of the physical materials were mediated by the mode of presentation. There were no significant differences between mixed-gender pairs and same-gender pairs in the paper presentation of the task. However, in the mixed-gender computer-based pairs, boys dominated both the amount and type of verbal interaction and the control of the mouse. These findings are explained in terms of gender differences in perceived expertise with computers and theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The effect of progressively increased physical efforts on visual evoked potentials in volleyball players and non-athletes

We assessed the effect of physical effort with increasing intensity on neural activity in the visual pathway in volleyball players (n = 10) and non-athletes (n = 10). Participants performed three 10-min tests of increasing intensity on a cycle ergometer. Each participant was assigned individual workloads below the lactate threshold (40% [Vdot]O(2max)), at the lactate threshold (65-75% [Vdot]O(2max)), and above the lactate threshold (80% [Vdot]O(2max)). Four recordings of visual evoked potentials were made: pre-exercise and immediately after each of the three subsequent tests. We assessed neural activity of the visual pathway by examining the amplitude and latency of the N75, P100, and N135 components of the visual evoked potentials waveform. Pre-exercise P100 wave latency was shorter (P < 0.05) in volleyball players than in non-athletes. In non-athletes, the latency of P100 following the first and second effort (40% and 65-75% [Vdot]O(2max)) was reduced compared with pre-exercise (P < 0.01). However, P100 latency increased and P100 amplitude decreased after the third test (80% [Vdot]O(2max)) in non-athletes. In contrast, no significant changes in the latency or amplitude of visual evoked potentials were observed in the athletes in the three tests. Neural conductivity in the visual pathway after exercise might be at least partially dependent on the individual's personal training adaptation status.     

A (Con)text for New Discourse as Semiotic Praxis

Contemporary art requires that art and cultural educators reposition encounters with artefacts, images and performances into a context for new discourses. Whereas digital media and other aspects of visual popular culture predominate the frames of reference of school‐age children, their context (codes) of reference, in large part, do not contain those used by art and cultural education professionals. Most art professionals (con)textualise their interpretations from a more formalistic tradition, unlike school‐age children, whose use of iconographic elements from their experiential subcultures, are projected into the content of their visual encounters. In order to find relevancy for today's art education, interrelationships between the codes of the participant and visual experiences must be built upon the development of new strategies between viewers, artefacts and experts. This article presents the background and use of dialogic strategies for new discourse from the‘Open Dialogue Club’programme between the Department of Art Education at Charles University and the Galerie Rudolfinum, a contemporary art space, in Prague, Czech Republic.     

The Influence of Need for Closure on Learning and Teaching

A primary goal of educational systems is to provide learners with the information, skills, and dispositions needed to be an effective member of a complex and information-rich society. To effectively address this goal, educators and educational psychologists need to understand both the ability and the willingness of learners to grapple effectively with information. A psychological construct that may illuminate heretofore unexplored aspects of learners’ willingness or reluctance to grapple with information is the need for closure (Kruglanski, Psychol Inq 1(3):181–197, 1990; Kruglanski and Webster, Psychol Rev 103:263–283, 1996; Webster and Kruglanski, J Pers Soc Psychol 76(6):1049–1062, 1994). The purpose of this article is to provide educational psychologists with a theoretical overview of need for cognitive closure, highlighting its applicability to instructional settings. We will also discuss what closure needs may look like within the classroom and the conditions under which they may be exhibited. We argue for the relevance of the need for closure construct for improving educators’ understanding of teaching and learning processes.     

Enhancing Force Concept Inventory diagnostics to identify dominant misconceptions in first-year engineering physics

This work presents the results of a study whose aim is to detect systematic errors about the concept of force among freshmen students. The researchers analysed the results of the Force Concept Inventory test, which was administered to two different groups of students. The results show that, although there were significant performance variations between the two groups, they, nonetheless, shared common incorrect answers that were consistently triggered by the same misconceptions. The analysis proposed in this paper could also be applied in other universities to reveal the students’ a priori mindset in Newtonian mechanics and serve as a guideline for developing effective computer simulations or other tools.     

Gender Differences on Research: The perceptions and use of academic time

Tertiary Education and Management - In the last years, the increasing pressure over higher education institutions to promote alternative non-state funding sources has lead to an increasing...     

Race and Color: Two Sides of One Story? Development of Biases in Categorical Perception

Categorical perception is a phenomenon that leads people to group stimuli into categories instead of perceiving their natural continua. This article reviews the literature of two biases connected with categorical perception: categorical color perception and the other‐race effect. Although these two phenomena concern distant targets (colors and faces) and imply different biases (one attentional, one mnemonic), they share at least three commonalities. First, they both involve the chunking of continuous dimensions into categories. Second, adult categories are shaped by cultural processes. Third, infants' discrimination performance seems universal and guided by perception. In this article, it is proposed to look for a common developmental mechanism that clarifies the shift from a perceptual to a sociocognitive knowledge of the environment. New perspectives are discussed.     

A Feminist Posthumanist Multispecies Ethnography for Educational Studies

The animal or more-than-human turn in the humanities and social sciences has challenged nature/culture binaries in the fields of environmental education and early childhood studies, yet the field of educational studies has yet to confront its humanist roots. In this article, I sketch a nascent conceptual framework that outlines how multispecies ethnography, as a methodology informed by critical strands of feminist posthumanism, can begin to address and redress both social and species injustices in educational studies. To do this, I first provide a brief overview of educational humanism to situate the article within the animal and more-than-human turns in education. I then define multispecies ethnography and briefly review educational multispecies ethnographic research. Next, I sketch the conceptual framework, which is guided by feminist posthumanist theories of performativity and intersectionality, providing ethnographic examples from my own research projects and the research literature. I conclude by drawing out the implications for educational studies, with a consideration of how animal performativity and intersectionality open up new lines of inquiry to explore animal concerns, as well as social ones.