Enjoyment,Boredom, Anxiety in Elementary Schools in Two Domains: Relations With Achievement

This study investigated the enjoyment, boredom, and anxiety of elementary school students and the relations of these emotions with achievement in two domains. Seven-hundred-and-sixty-seven second- and fourth-graders completed an adaptation of the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire-Elementary School (AEQ-ES: Lichtenfeld, Pekrun, Stupnisky, Reiss, & Murayama, 2012) assessing their emotions in their native language and mathematics. The hierarchical model of the instrument was invariant across countries (Italy, Germany, United States), grades, gender, and domains. Anxiety related negatively to achievement, while enjoyment related positively to achievement only in mathematics. Second-graders reported more enjoyment and less boredom and anxiety than fourth-graders. Overall, mathematics resulted in better emotions than native language. The results have implications for future research on achievement emotions in elementary school.     

Conceptions of first‐year university students of the constituents of matter and the notions of acids and bases

Preconceptions of first‐year university students of the constituents of matter and the notions of acids and bases were investigated on a total of 400 students. The procedure used consisted of free interviews, semi‐structured interviews and questionnaires.

It was found that the constituents of matter were well known to students, but that interactions between these constituents were either totally unknown or were the subject of severe misconceptions. The students’ knowledge tended to be qualitative and formal, with a worrying lack of connection with everyday life.     

复杂系统、知识管理与组织学习过程动态模型研究

知识经济时代的组织是一个具有无尺度网络结构的复杂系统。知识管理是知识经济时代的必然要求。组织学习作为组织获取核心竞争力和可持续发展能力的重要手段，是一个动态的过程。本文在系统回顾相关研究成果的基础上，从复杂系统的视角对知识经济时代复杂环境下的组织学习动态复杂过程进行了系统的模型整合和创新，并对构建学习型组织可能遇到的障碍进行了一系列对策分析。     

Impaired acuity of the approximate number system underlies mathematical learning disability (dyscalculia)

Many children have significant mathematical learning disabilities (MLD, or dyscalculia) despite adequate schooling. The current study hypothesizes that MLD partly results from a deficiency in the Approximate Number System (ANS) that supports nonverbal numerical representations across species and throughout development. In this study of 71 ninth graders, it is shown that students with MLD have significantly poorer ANS precision than students in all other mathematics achievement groups (low, typically, and high achieving), as measured by psychophysical assessments of ANS acuity (w) and of the mappings between ANS representations and number words (cv). This relation persists even when controlling for domain-general abilities. Furthermore, this ANS precision does not differentiate low-achieving from typically achieving students, suggesting an ANS deficit that is specific to MLD.     

Cooperative learning: a relevant instructional model for physical education pre-service teacher training?

Background: One of the key questions of physical education teacher educators (PETE) programmes refers to whether future teachers are prepared to build knowledge and skills to feel self-efficacious in teaching physical education (PE). This issue concerns the instructional model of teaching used to help PE pre-service teachers to master both pedagogical knowledge and motor skills. According to this twofold challenge, the direct instruction (DI) is mainly used for pre-service teacher training. Beyond this traditional model, other instructional models as cooperative learning (CL) approach arise in the initial PE teacher education. Nevertheless, surrounding attempts at innovation, little information related to the instructor’s role. Under the social cognitive perspective of self-efficacy and instructional competency building, more information is currently expected with regard to the strategies the instructor uses to scaffold the mastery of skills for PE pre-service teachers’ effective teaching.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to consider whether PE pre-service teachers are trained during short training sessions aimed to discover new physical activities. We examine the influence of a scaffolding procedure (CLS design) on PE pre-service teachers’ knowledge, skills and self-efficacy in comparison to a CL and a DI experience. This leads to consider to what extent this instructional support provided by the instructor would help pre-service teachers to perceive themselves as self-efficacious to teach contents in PE.

Participants and design: After a pre-test, sixty-nine PE pre-service teachers were randomly assigned to one of the three following conditions: CL (14 males and 7 females); CLS (20 males and 8 females) or direct instruction condition (DI; 12 males and 8 females). For the training session a selected CL procedure (Jigsaw) [Aronson, Elliot, and Shelley Patnoe. 1997. The Jigsaw Classroom: Building Cooperation in the Classroom. 2nd ed. Wokingham: Addison-Wesley Educational]) was used to split CL and CLS participants into mixed-sex teams, whereas DI participants practiced the same exercises in dyads. According to the training conditions, the same instructor provided different information to participants along the three 2-hour instructional sessions with regard to: (a) warm-up (DI), (b) CL organization (CL), and (c) scaffolding integrated into a CL implementation (CLS).

Data collection: A Pre-test/post-test design was used to consider PE pre-service teacher’s motor skill, knowledge for practice, and self-efficacy improvements. The post-test also examined participants’ pedagogical knowledge.

Findings: The results showed that the participants in the three conditions progressed on performance, knowledge for practice, knowledge for teaching, and self-efficacy. Although no difference was found in self-efficacy between the three training conditions over time, significant differences appeared on pedagogical knowledge or/and motor skills with an advantage for the CL and CLS participants, respectively.

Conclusion: Although short training sessions dedicated to discovering new sports stay problematic for teacher professional development, implementing CL pre-service teacher training designs would be a relevant alternative. Instructional knowledge would be developed mainly when they have explicitly access to information concerning the teacher intervention. Nevertheless, such a scaffolding procedure integrated into CL training designs would need to be applied repeatedly to various physical activities to have an impact on pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy.     

Ethyl Silicate for Unbaked Earth Tablets Conservation: Evaluation of the Physico-mechanical Aspects

ABSTRACT

Preservation of cuneiform tablets made with clay minerals is an ongoing conservation issue. A treatment based on TEOS consolidation has been used since 1996 at the Louvre museum. The characterization of the tablets pointed out kaolinite, illite, and smectite as the three main clay minerals constituting the objects. In this research, the physico-mechanical aspects of the treatment are investigated. The penetration depth of the TEOS solution and the gradient induced are quantified using laboratory samples. TEOS treatment preserves the macroscopic swelling and the vapour transfer properties, but modifies the clay’s affinity to moisture. Elastic properties are gradually improved for all clays, but only kaolinite’s strength increases significantly. The impact of TEOS treatment on the natural behaviour related to the respective structure of the clays is considered, and the amount of kaolinite required to create adequate reactions appears to be of interest for conservation treatments.     

Robots, jetpacks and time machines: children's ideas of English in the future

This article describes children's views of what English will be like in ten years time. Children from year 2 (6–7 year olds) and year 6 (10–11 year olds) took part in a study which involved discussion, writing activities and interviews. It was found that, on the whole, these children saw English in the future as being a balance between traditional methods of teaching and learning and technological innovations and advancements. For these children, technology will become an essential part of their education and their lives outside school.