New Exams for New Professional Styles

Recruiting professionals for schools’ media resources centres needs to take into account the new dimensions of the information society. This article describes the radical reform of the very high‐stakes and competitive national selection of those professionals in France. The new exam is now driven by a problem‐solving approach and based on an extensive use of electronic resources. This has raised very serious issues in terms of fairness, reliability and security. This article describes how those issues have been addressed.

De nouveaux examens pour de nouveaux styles professionels. Recruter les personnels en charge des centres de documentation des établissements scolaires exige de prendre en compte les nouvelles dimensions de la Société de l’Information. Cet article décrit la transformation radicale de ce difficile concours de recrutement en France. Les nouvelles épreuves sont désormais conçues selon une approche de résolution de problèmes et fondées sur l’utilisation systématique des ressources électroniques. Ce qui a soulevé de délicats problèmes d’équité, de fiabilité et de sécurité. Cet article explique comment ils ont été résolus.

Neue Prüfungen für neue Berufsanforderungen. Mitarbeiter für die Medien Ressource Zentren der Schulen einzustellen, erfordert, die neuen Dimensionen der Informationsgesellschaft mit in Betracht zu ziehen. Dieser Artikel beschreibt die radikale Reform der mit hohem Einsatz und konkurrenzbetont ablaufenden nationalen Auswahl dieser Berufstätigen in Frankreich. Die neue Prüfung basiert jetzt auf einem Problemlöse‐ Ansatz und wird von umfassender Verwendung elektronischer Ressourcen bestimmt. Damit ergaben sich sehr ernste Fragen in Bezug auf Gerechtigkeit, Zuverlässigkeit und Sicherheit. Dieser Beitrag beschreibt, wie diese Problemstellungen angesprochen worden sind.     

Strong Genetic Contribution to Peer Relationship Difficulties at School Entry: Findings From a Longitudinal Twin Study

This study assessed the genetic and environmental contributions to peer difficulties in the early school years. Twins' peer difficulties were assessed longitudinally in kindergarten (796 twins, M_age = 6.1 years), Grade 1 (948 twins, M_age = 7.1 years), and Grade 4 (868 twins, M_age = 10 years) through multiple informants. The multivariate results revealed that genetic factors accounted for a strong part of both yearly and stable peer difficulties. At the univariate level, the genetic contributions emerged progressively, as did a growing consensus among informants with respect to those who experienced peer difficulties. These results underline the need to intervene early and persistently, and to target the child and the peer context to prevent peer difficulties and their consequences.     

Improving ‘at-action’ decision-making in team sports through a holistic coaching approach

This article draws on Game Sense pedagogy and complex learning theory (CLT) to make suggestions for improving decision-making ability in team sports by adopting a holistic approach to coaching with a focus on decision-making ‘at-action’. It emphasizes the complexity of decision-making and the need to focus on the game as a whole entity, where players, individually and collectively, attempt to manage disorder in the face of an opposition. It rejects the complicated, mechanistic approach to learning and cognitivist views that dominate the literature on decision-making in team sports that see it as being a linear process of conscious thinking limited to the individual mind. It offers an alternative, holistic view grounded in a practical example of how this might be achieved in coaching rugby union football and theorized within a CLT framework.     

The Effect of Changes in Environmental Conditions on the Mechanical Behaviour of Selected Paint Systems

ABSTRACT

The impact of relative humidity (RH) and temperature variation on the mechanical behaviour of paintings on canvas was investigated, based on the various environmental recommendations that are applied by museums and institutions worldwide. Paint samples were constructed based on the works of twentieth-century artists such as Soulages and Riopelle. The various samples are based on criteria such as paint media, additives, pigment type, canvas type, thickness, type of application, and drying time. Once they are fully dry, paint films behave as elastic, viscoelastic, or viscoplastic materials depending on the chemical nature of their components. These properties, as well as tensile strength, were determined by a series of tensile tests. Other samples were included, originating from discarded oil paintings on canvas from the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. To carry out mechanical tests under controlled conditions of temperature and RH, a climatic chamber was built around the column of a universal testing machine. Samples were submitted to stress relaxation tests to observe their response to changes in environmental conditions. RH was increased from 20 to 90% and temperature from 15 to 60°C. Reactivity diagrams were drawn based on the results. The endurance limit under mechanical fatigue was determined from the diagrams and helped define the risks associated with each painting type when exposed to the accepted environmental recommendations.     

International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS): An analysis of international comparisons of adult literacy

The International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) raises a number of important issues that are inherent in all attempts to make comparisons of cognitive and behavioural attributes across countries. This article discusses both the statistical and interpretational problems. A detailed analysis of the survey instruments is carried out to demonstrate the cultural specificity involved. The data modelling techniques used in IALS are critiqued and alternative analyses performed. The article argues for extreme caution in interpreting results in the light of the weaknesses of the survey.     

Does Preschool Enrichment of Precursors to Arithmetic Influence Intuitive Knowledge of Number in Low Income Children?

In this study, we examine whether preventive enrichment of pre-math skills has an influence on number knowledge in preschool children from low income families. Our data analyses use two methods to examine the influence of two independent programs implemented during junior kindergarten and kindergarten. The first implies the traditional approach comparing the self-selected treated group to a self-selected comparison group. The second approach uses a self-selected dosage approach to the treatment condition, considering that implementation of the program varied across teachers. The results regarding the enrichment program in kindergarten were inconclusive. Nevertheless, the pre-math program implemented in junior kindergarten showed a positive influence on children’s core requisite skills for later learning of arithmetic. Although children were receptive during both preschool years, a junior kindergarten program that elaborates upon conceptual issues beyond the number line appears both feasible and beneficial over the short-term.     

Réformes Des Programmes Scolaires Et Acquisitions Á L’école Primaire En Afrique: Mythes Et Réalités

SCHOOL CURRICULA REFORMS IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN AFRICA: MYTH VS. REALITY - This paper proposes a critical analysis of the introduction and implementation of new school curricula in Africa based on the example of the skills based approach (SBA). In many countries, the SBA has been chosen as the most appropriate and relevant method to change their school curriculum and improve education quality. We analyse the implementation of those new curricula based on the SBA in primary schools in Mauritania. The results show that the main problems affecting pupils’ achievement lie rather in the effective implementation of curricula in the classrooms than in their contents. Additional analyses show that this result is confirmed in other African countries. As a background analysis, we present the origins of SBA, define its purposes and assess its limits from a pedagogical point of view. The weaknesses of this approach in taking into account the needs and the realities of African educational systems are stressed. These various elements lead to the conclusion that if curriculum reforms are often necessary in African countries, this can not be a cure for education quality issues.     

Academic judgment and institutional evaluation made by teachers according to pupils’ explanatory activity

The influence of sixth-graders’ explanatory activity was studied on their teachers’ academic judgment. Concerning the pupils’ explanatory activity, trait-related internal explanations were chosen more to explain positive events than negative ones, whereas the reverse was observed for effort/intention-related internal explanations. In response to positive and negative events, the trait-related and effort/related internal explanations were socially valued, whereas external explanations (Situational factors and others’ traits; Luck and others’ efforts and intentions) were socially devalued. Concerning teachers’ judgment, the more pupils chose traits and the less they chose lack of effort/intention to explain the negative events, and the less they chose traits and the more they chose effort/intention to explain the positive events, the more teachers attributed socially desirable traits to them. The more pupils chose effort/intention to explain the positive and negative events and the less they chose luck and others’ effort/intention to explain the negative events, the more teachers’ attributed socially useful traits to them (if the pupils do not value these internal explanations and devalue these external explanations). The results are discussed in reference to the social functions implied by the academic judgment.