What Is Inside the Earth?

This article studies the conceptions of the interior of the Earth held by Portuguese elementary school children and senior citizens. Several studies were conducted regarding conceptions related to Earth sciences, such as rocks, minerals, earthquakes geological time, and Earth structure. Most of these studies involved students enrolled in compulsory education, some involved higher education students, several involved teachers, and only a few involved adults. The majority of the results showed that many misconceptions are held by people of all ages. Similar results were found in this study, as both children and senior citizens revealed several misconceptions. The research resorted to a questionnaire based on a drawing task so as to find out the way that children and senior citizens imagine the structure and composition of the interior of our planet. A comparison between children’s and senior citizens’ drawings was made, as well as a comparison between those drawings and the historical models of the internal structure of the Earth. We found that only a small number of children and even a smaller number of senior citizens recognize that the interior of the Earth is organized in concentric layers. They assume that soil and water are a common part of the internal composition of our planet. Similarities between the drawings and the historical models were identified, particularly similarities related to Gautier’s model, which accepts the possibility of the existence of life in the interior of the planet as it happens on its surface.     

Engaging Students in Active Learning: Use of a Blog and Audience Response System

Librarians provide instruction to medical students as part of a core course in the medical school curriculum. Instruction was provided, in part, through didactic sessions covering professional-level medical information resources, PubMed search skills, psychosocial information, and evidence-based medicine. Librarians redesigned instructional sessions with the goals of increasing student engagement and minimizing the lecture format, maximizing the number of students receiving feedback on their search and evaluation skills, and permitting students to see a variety of possible responses as well as engage in peer- and self-evaluation. Librarians integrated the use of a blog and an audience response system (ARS) into the instruction to help accomplish these goals.     

Rethinking our mobility: supporting our patrons where they live

This article describes initiatives undertaken by one academic medical library to support patrons using handheld mobile devices. These initiatives included efforts to assist patrons with installation and use of mobile information resources, educate librarians regarding content and navigation of mobile apps and websites, and leverage tools to promote the library in a mobile environment.     

Tackling early school leaving: Principals’ insights into Portuguese upper secondary schools

This article addresses Early School Leaving (ESL) as a phenomenon that is identified in the EU and European countries such as Portugal as being the result of school disaffection that can be associated with social and educational problems. The relevance of this problem at the European level is highlighted by the large number of European guidelines on the matter and by the inclusion of ESL as one of the main questions to be addressed by the Horizon 2020. Based on interviews, this article questions possible relationships between how principals perceive both ESL and the measures to deal with it and the culture of the school as an identity of differentia specifica (ethos). It should be emphasised that the approaches of these principals to ESL and the school‐based practices addressing it are quite diverse and relate to the ethos of the schools; students’ trajectories and the complex relationship between education and the labour market. The principals manifest their investment and implication in the provision of adequate measures for their specific contexts and see teachers and external partners as key actors.     

Counselor educators’ views on cognitively complex trainees: A Q method study

Our Q method exploration of counselor educators’ perspectives of minimally acceptable cognitive complexity (CC) in trainees at the end of internship yielded two factors: Trainee's Conceptual Integration Ability and Trainee's Ability to Apply Integrated Knowledge. Implications for teaching, supervision, and research pertinent to assessment of and enhancement of CC conclude.     

Discrimination and Ethnic-Racial Socialization Among Youth Adopted From South Korea Into White American Families

The current study examined how discrimination relates to adjustment outcomes in a sample of internationally, transracially adopted Korean Americans from the Minnesota Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (N = 456 adoptees; M_age at T1 = 14.9, M_age at T2 = 18.3, M_age at T3 = 22.3). The moderating roles of ethnic socialization and preparation for bias by parents (i.e., ethnic-racial socialization) were also examined. Results indicated that discrimination predicted higher levels of depressive and externalizing symptoms in youth who reported less preparation for bias. In those experiencing more preparation for bias, associations were not significantly different from zero. Ethnic socialization did not moderate these associations. Such findings provide important information for adoptive parents regarding how to prepare their children to cope with discrimination.     

Planning the Future in an Uncertain Present: Postsecondary Possibilities for Accompanied Youth of Color Experiencing Homelessness

The Urban Review - Research suggests diverse experiences with homelessness can affect students’ PK-12 school success and, relatedly, postsecondary opportunities. Exploring postsecondary...     

Comparing Factors Related to Reading Comprehension in Adolescents Who Speak English as a First (L1) or Second (L2) Language

This study examined factors related to reading comprehension in adolescents who spoke English as a first language (L1) and English as a second language (L2). Measures of decoding, vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension were administered to 31 L1 and 44 L2 speakers. English L2 adolescents scored significantly lower than their L1 peers on all measures. Factor analyses produced different configurations of variables for each group. For L1 learners, measures of decoding and vocabulary were separate factors but were one factor for English L2 learners. For the L1 learners, it was only the measure of vocabulary that was a significant predictor of reading comprehension. For L2 learners, decoding, vocabulary, and the interaction of decoding and vocabulary were all significant predictors of reading comprehension. Relations among these variables in adolescents who are beginning to learn English as an L2 are explored.