To answer questions from text,one has to understand what the question is asking: differential effects of question aids as a function of comprehension skill

Reading and Writing - The present study investigates the effectiveness of question paraphrases in supporting students’ understanding of a specific task. Secondary school students (i.e.,...     

Equity and social exclusion measures in EU lifelong learning policies

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to examine how EU lifelong learning policies are trying to reach the vulnerable by looking at what measures against social exclusion they offer and how equitable these measures are. It is a qualitative study that focuses on policy documents that form the European Union’s legal and political frameworks of reference in the lifelong learning area since 1992. The document analysis has been complemented by semi-structured interviews with EU lifelong learning experts. The findings show that early school leavers and migrants are the main target groups in the policies, leaving many other groups at risk of being excluded from learning opportunities. There is not enough attention to measures addressing wider social phenomena. There is also an overemphasis on basic skills which are understood in a very narrow way as literacy and numeracy when referring to the vulnerable. We argue that a greater variety of measures as well as better targeted measures are needed to address the multiple and complex needs of the vulnerable. Such measures would allow a broader understanding of lifelong learning where those that are hardest to reach are offered learning opportunities independent of their personal and social circumstances     

Predicting transition and adjustment to college: biomedical and behavioral science aspirants’ and minority students’ first year of college

The purpose of this study is to explore key factors that impact the college transition of aspiring underrepresented minority students in the biomedical and behavioral sciences, in comparison with White, Asian students and non-science minority students. We examined successful management of the academic environment and sense of belonging during the first college year. Longitudinal data were derived from the Higher Education Research Institute’s (HERI) 2004 Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshman Survey and the 2005 Your First College Year (YFCY) Survey. Using a reformulation of the integration model (Nora, Barlow, and Crisp, 2005), we find concerns about college financing, negotiating family support and responsibility, and campus racial dynamics (perceived and behavioral) affect student adjustment and sense of integration in the first year. This study was made possible by the support of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH Grant Number 1 RO1 GMO71968-01. This independent research and the views expressed here do not indicate endorsement by the sponsor.     

Mitigating the Effects of Poverty and Crime: the Long-Term Effects of an Early Intervention Programme for Children who were Developmentally Delayed and Prenatally Exposed to Cocaine

This study explores the long-term impact on participation in the Linda Ray Intervention Program (LRIP) for children (n = 54) who were developmentally delayed and prenatally exposed to cocaine. By identifying a group of programme graduates from a high crime/high poverty neighbourhood in Miami-Dade County using ArcGIS 10.2 software, a quasi-experimental design was used to compare children living in this area who participated in the centre-based modality (5 h a day; 5 days a week) to children living in this area who participated in the home-based modality (3 h per week) on their Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) reading and math scale scores in public school. The children who participated in the centre-based modality reported stronger outcomes in both math and reading FCAT scale scores at the p < .05 level and also out-performed their school-age peers on both math and reading FCAT scores at the p < .05 level.     

Innovative moments and narrative change in career counselling: a case study

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - This case study of an undecided university student has two aims: to assess the effect of life design career counselling on...     

Various ways to determine rational number size: an exploration across primary and secondary education

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Understanding rational numbers is a complex task for primary and secondary school students. Previous research has shown that a possible reason is...     

How fast can we read in the mind? Developmental trajectories of silent reading fluency

The silent reading fluency is not an observable behaviour and, therefore, its evaluation is perceived as more challenging and less reliable than oral reading fluency. The present research is aimed to measure the silent reading speed in a sample of proficient students, assessed by an original silent reading fluency task, based on behavioural indicators of the silent reading speed. A total of 325 high school and university skilled students (age range 14–23 years) have been assessed using 3 tasks aimed to evaluate the oral reading speed (lists of words, lists of pseudowords and narrative text) and one task aimed to measure the silent reading speed. The average silent reading speed in our sample was around 12.5 syll/sec, almost double than the oral reading speed rate. The silent reading speed had an increase from 9.13 to 12.38 syll/sec from the first year of high school (ninth grade) to the fifth year of University. Conversely, the oral reading speed remained substantially unchanged for the entire academic course. Our results showed that the reading fluency in silent mode tends to increase up to the last years of University and it may be considered the most rapid and efficient reading mode. This study highlights the importance of including both silent and oral reading modes in the assessment of the older students and young adults, since silent reading is the main reading mode for proficient readers.     

Educational knowledge generation from administrative data

Most universities use Information Systems (IS) to perform their daily administrative activities (student enrollment, data files, accountancy, etc.), and an integrated Learning Management System (LMS) to support teaching and learning. However, although a lot of effort has been put into deploying these computerized systems, the data that they provide are not fully exploited from an educational perspective. In this paper we describe a case in which these data have been used to identify relevant relations between the general use of the LMS, the existence of teaching innovation programs and the quality of education. The method used can be easily generalized and employed in other different contexts, to derive meaningful information on the impact that some variables may have over others.