Organizational Capacity Building for Sexual Health Promotion

We present an organizational capacity building program that is a systemic approach to training professionals, creating organizational policies and practices, and enhancing the physical environment with materials about sexual and reproductive health. The evaluation of four different organizations showed increases over six months in: staff reports of administrative support for providing materials and referrals to clients, as well as having sexual health conversations with clients; positive staff attitudes about, and preparedness for, providing sexual health information; and knowledge about sexual health. All were sustained at twelve months. Environmental enhancement with educational materials and condom distribution also increased.     

Health Literacy of Students with and without Individualized Education Programs: A Brief Report

While much is known about the educational, behavioral, and social needs of adolescents receiving school-based special education services, one critical domain, health literacy, has been largely unexamined. Given the impact of health and health management on the well-being of all persons, and the likelihood of additional challenges for students receiving special education supports, this study sought to examine and compare the health needs and transition preparedness of 341 adolescents with and without Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). Survey items were selected from widely used health literacy, health risk, and health related quality of life measures. Findings revealed that for students with IEPs, the risk for having limited health literacy was 128% higher than for their peers without IEPs. Students with IEPs were also significantly more likely to demonstrate risk across indicators of health related quality of life, health risk, and access. Limitations, research recommendations, and implications are addressed.     

Teaching socio-cultural impacts of technology in advanced technical courses: a case study

ABSTRACT

Engineering education has traditionally focused on the development of technical skills and knowledge. Nowadays, the need for educating engineers in non-technical skills, such as reflective thinking, is being recognised internationally. This paper proposes that socio-cultural impacts of technology be studied together with the technology itself through the integration of social awareness modules into advanced technical courses, providing a venue for students to exercise their reflective thinking skills in the context of technologies that are of interest to them. The paper presents an exploratory study of the essays of senior year engineering students on the socio-cultural impacts of computer vision technologies. It provides insights on the themes that are of interest to the students and on the students’ strengths and weaknesses relating to their reflective thinking abilities. Similar modules would apply well to other advanced courses in the engineering curriculum, to help contextualise technology and enhance the reflective abilities of engineering graduates.     

Religious education in Russia: a critical analysis of a widely used textbook

Religious education (RE) has been recently introduced into the Russian educational system as a compulsory regular school subject. The present study offers a critical analysis of one of the most popular Russian textbooks of RE. This critical analysis supports our earlier findings regarding the controversial character of RE in Russia. Despite the official cultorological and religious studies approach to RE, the textbook on the module of Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture is catechetical in content and approach and also serves the political indoctrination of students. The textbook enhances patriotism and turns Russian RE into a specific kind of citizenship education.     

Measuring Relational Reasoning

Relational reasoning is the foundational cognitive ability to discern meaningful patterns within an informational stream, but its reliable and valid measurement remains problematic. In this investigation, the measurement of relational reasoning unfolded in three stages. Stage 1 entailed the establishment of a research-based conceptualization of the construct and the development of a corresponding Test of Relational Reasoning (TORR). Stage 2 focused on the reliability and validity of data from the TORR. Analyses showed the data from the TORR to be reliable indicators of students' ability to reason relationally, and TORR performance predicted students' performance on SAT verbal and math problems. Stage 3 examined the underlying structure of the construct through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Of the three CFA models tested, models with dedicated factors for analogical, anomalous, antinomous, and antithetical reasoning were deemed the best fit for the data.     

Representation of morality in children: A qualitative approach

ABSTRACT

Previous research on children’s moral reasoning usually used a quantitative approach and a pre-determined set of methods in order to establish early moral landmarks. We proposed a qualitative perspective on the basis of which we have formulated three main objectives: 1) to identify the main categories of behaviors that children spontaneously associate with the notion of morality, in line with Turiel’s Domain Theory; 2) to investigate children’s conceptions of moral and social-conventional rules and 3) to assess the gender differences in the use of care and justice reasoning, in line with Gilligan’s assertion that females are care-oriented and that males consistently use the justice orientation and infrequently use the care orientation. Ninety-two children (57% boys, mean age was 8.19 years) were required to describe morality in behavioral terms without being guided by specific indications from the researchers. Our results reflected a tendency towards morality perceived through behaviors directed towards others, namely through altruism, and also the domination of moral norms as compared to social ones, partially confirming Gilligan’s theory concerning gender specificities regarding moral reasoning in the questions of care and justice.     

Calibration in multiple text use

Metacognition and Learning - The literature on calibration suggests that students consider a multitude of factors when they self-evaluate task performance. Nevertheless, few studies have focused on...     

Conceptual Blending Monitoring Students’ Use of Metaphorical Concepts to Further the Learning of Science

Research in Science Education - The aim of this study is to explore how tertiary science students’ use of metaphors in their popular science article writing may influence their understanding...     

Analyzing and Integrating Models of Multiple Text Comprehension

We introduce a special issue featuring four theoretical models of multiple text comprehension. We present a central framework for conceptualizing the four models in this special issue. Specifically, we chart the models according to how they consider learner, texts, task, and context factors in explaining multiple text comprehension. In addition, the models are contrasted along three dimensions capturing different orientations toward multiple text comprehension. Models in the special issue are described as more behaviorally or cognitively focused, as conceptualizing multiple text comprehension as an internally driven or an externally triggered process, and as directly responsive to or indirectly influenced by task. The importance and relevance of this special issue for research on multiple text comprehension are discussed.