The mathematical textbook for young students

The mathematical textbook has always been an important influence in mathematics teaching. However, as more modern methods of teaching aim to engage the pupil in mathematical activity the textbook's role has become more problematical. In this paper the author analyses that problem and offers principles and examples from new Polish textbooks which illustrate some possible solutions.     

Prevalence of childhood sexual abuse among incarcerated males in county jail

OBJECTIVE: The current study examined the prevalence and characteristics of childhood sexual abuse in a jailed-based population. METHODOLOGY: A retrospective, self-reported survey was administered over an 8-week period to a random sample of 100 men who were incarcerated in a county jail in Southeastern Texas. The survey included questions about childhood sexual experiences before and after puberty, drug history and use, and sexual risk-taking behaviors. RESULTS: Of the 100 male inmates who participated in this study, 59% reported experiencing some form of sexual abuse before puberty, and all such instances occurred before or at the age of 13 years. The first episode of childhood sexual abuse began at an average age of 9.6 years (SD = 2.4), and ended at an average age of 13.0 years (SD = 2.3). Kissing and touching without intercourse (64%) was the common pattern of sexual abuse experience reported. The total number of perpetrators was 165, with 10% male and 90% female. Friends (n = 72) and family (n = 56) were the most frequent perpetrators. CONCLUSION: Childhood sexual abuse may be more prevalent among inmates than among males in the general population. These results show a high percentage of inmates who report a history of childhood sexual abuse; this rate is higher than those reported by other studies for incarcerated males. The findings support the belief held by professionals in the criminal justice field that a significant number of incarcerated males may have been victims of sexual abuse.     

Effectiveness of the Student Success Course on Persistence,Retention, Academic Achievement,and Student Engagement

ABSTRACT

Despite a great increase in the numbers of students enrolling in higher education, specifically at community colleges, the successful completion rates for these students has remained static since the 1970s. When reviewing strategies to increase student retention and successful completion, the Student Success Course (SSC) has emerged as a promising and prominent strategy for community colleges. Given that, the purpose of this sequential mixed methods study was to determine if participation in a SSC influences persistence, retention, academic achievement, and student engagement on a community college campus. Data were collected from a purposeful sample of 197 SSC participants at a middle sized community college in southeast Texas and compared to a matched sample of 235 non-SSC participants. Twelve former SSC participants were also interviewed in an attempt to build a more empirical understanding of the impact of the SSC on student engagement and, thus, the students’ decisions to remain in college. Results of this study indicate that a relationship exists between participation in the SSC and persistence, retention, academic achievement in English and mathematics, and student engagement. Additionally, participants claim that taking the SSC not only altered their perceptions of the importance of the course, but their social and study skills as well.     

Structure and development of pre-service physics teachers’ professional knowledge

ABSTRACT

Teachers’ professional knowledge is considered one of the most important predictors of instructional quality. According to Shulman, such professional knowledge includes content, pedagogical content and pedagogical knowledge. Although recent research shed some light on the structure of the dimensions of professional knowledge, little is known how teacher education impacts pre-service physics teachers’ professional knowledge. In an effort to address this issue, we examined the content, pedagogical content and pedagogical knowledge of N?=?200 pre-service physics teachers enrolled in different years of teacher education at 12 major teacher education universities in Germany. We used structural equation modelling (1) to examine the relations amongst pre-service physics teachers’ content, pedagogical content and pedagogical knowledge, (2) to explore how the three kinds of knowledge and their relations differ across different stages of teacher education and (3) to identify factors affecting the level of each component of professional knowledge. Our findings suggest that content, pedagogical content and pedagogical knowledge represent distinct types of knowledge. Furthermore, our findings show that in the first years of professional education, pedagogical content knowledge is more closely related with general pedagogical knowledge while in later years, it is more closely related with content knowledge, suggesting that it develops from a general knowledge about teaching and learning into knowledge about the teaching and learning of specific content. Finally, beyond school achievement and years of enrolment as predictors, we find in particular the amount of classroom observations to have a positive impact on the professional knowledge of pre-service physics teachers.     

Center Stage: Performing a Needs Assessment of Campus Research Centers and Institutes

Outreach to research centers and institutes is often overlooked in academic libraries. This article discusses a needs assessment conducted by the Liaison Services Department at the University of Houston Libraries that reviewed library services to centers and institutes at the University of Houston's main campus. The assessment was conducted for two purposes: to build collaborations with centers and to determine how the libraries might create new services and/or market existing services to meet the centers and institutes' growing research needs.     

Managing and Coding References for Systematic Reviews and Scoping Reviews in EndNote

This article describes a novel approach for using EndNote to manage and code references in the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews and scoping reviews. The process is simple and easy for reviewers new to both EndNote and systematic reviews. This process allows reviewers to easily conduct and report systematic reviews in line with the internationally recognized PRISMA reporting guidelines and also facilitates the overall task of systematic or scoping review conduct and reporting from the initial search through to structuring the results, discussion, and conclusions in a rigorous, reproducible, and user-friendly manner.     

Identifying Children with Persistent Developmental Dyscalculia from a 2‐min Test of Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Numerical Magnitude Processing

Developmental dyscalculia (DD) is a mathematical learning disability that occurs in around 5%–7% of the population. At present, there are only a handful of screening tools to identify children that might be at risk of developing DD. The present study evaluated the classification accuracy of one such tool: The Numeracy Screener, a 2‐min test of symbolic (Arabic numerals) and nonsymbolic (dot arrays) discrimination ability. A sample of 222 children who demonstrated persistent deficits (n = 55), inconsistent deficits (n = 51), or typical performance (n = 116) on standardized tests of math achievement over multiple observations was tested. The Numeracy Screener correctly classified children in all three groups. Notably, the symbolic condition has greater sensitivity in discriminating children with persistent DD from the other two groups. Screening tools that assess early numeracy skills may be promising for identifying children at risk for developing severe mathematical difficulties.     

HUMANIZING EDUCATION AND THE EDUCATIONALIZATION OF HEALTH

Abstract Theorists often take a condescending stance when speaking about the educationalization of social problems. Given their confidence with postmodern and poststructuralist perspectives, the educationalization of social problems is easily perceived as a set of questionable interventions by governments into educational practices. In this essay, Bert Lambeir and Stefan Ramaekers question the extent to which one can conceive of social problems without an understanding of education or, put more sharply, the extent to which social problems are conceivable without some form of educationalization. After describing four meanings of the concept of educationalization, Lambeir and Ramaekers discuss three popular criticisms of it. With these criticisms as context, the authors use the example of concerns about and initiatives in health education to investigate whether education can be completely freed from the educationalization of social issues. They conclude that it cannot.