Pupils’ voices about citizenship education: comparative case studies in Finland,Sweden and England

The aim of the article is to present and discuss a study in which Finnish, English and Swedish pupils’ understanding of citizenship education with regard to: (a) political literacy; and (b) attitudes and values was explored. The study was a cross‐national, multiple case study and data were collected through 18 focus group dialogues with 15‐year‐old pupils. Results showed that English pupils were much more well‐informed about rights and responsibilities than their Nordic counterparts and also more skilled rhetorically, but appeared less accustomed to open and confident relationships with adults than the Swedish pupils. Finnish pupils did not seem to be encouraged to talk; instead they kept their thoughts and feelings to themselves. One conclusion, among others, was that the study illuminates conditions for the development of a so‐called key competence – i.e., ‘interpersonal, intercultural, social and civic competence’.     

Spatial Ability: Its Influence on Learning with Visualizations—a Meta-Analytic Review

This meta-analytical review focuses on the role of spatial ability when learning with pictorial visualizations. By means of selective theoretical review and meta-analysis (the latter regarding 27 different experiments from 19 studies), several sub-factors of spatial ability are considered as well as dynamic and non-dynamic, interactive and non-interactive visualizations. An overall effect of r = 0.34 (95%-CI 0.28 to 0.39) demonstrating a medium advantage for high-spatial-ability learners when working with visualizations is calculated. More importantly, two moderators could be identified: Learners with low spatial ability can be significantly supported by a dynamic instead of a non-dynamic visualization as well as by 3d- instead of 2d-illustrations. Results are discussed in consideration of contemporary theories of multimedia learning.     

How Effective are Instructional Explanations in Example-Based Learning? A Meta-Analytic Review

The worked example effect within cognitive load theory is a very well-established finding. The concrete effectiveness of worked examples in a learning situation, however, heavily depends on further moderating factors. For example, if learners improve their processing of worked examples by actively explaining the worked examples to themselves, they are usually better able to solve transfer problems. Another way to enhance example processing is to present learners with instructional explanations instead of prompting them to produce these explanations on their own. In this article, we review 21 experimental studies to address the issue whether instructional explanations support example-based learning. Meta-analytic results lead to three important conclusions: First, the benefits of instructional explanations for example-based learning per se are minimal. Second, instructional explanations are more helpful for acquiring conceptual knowledge than for acquiring procedural knowledge. Third, instructional explanations are not necessarily more effective than other methods supporting example processing such as self-explaining.     

Prenatal parental education from the perspective of fathers with experience as primary caregiver immediately following birth: a phenomenographic study

The aim of this phenomenographic study was to capture fathers' conceptions of parental education topics, illuminated by their experiences as primary caregiver of their child immediately following birth. Fifteen fathers were interviewed between 8 days and 6 weeks after the birth of their child. Three categories, five subcategories, and 12 qualitatively different conceptions emerged from the study's findings. The first category showed that parental education emphasizes the importance of normal birth. The second category illustrated that parental education defuses the issue of complicated births. The third category demonstrated that parental education preserves traditional gender roles. The study's results may facilitate efforts to integrate fathers into parental education toward the aim of achieving parity between mother and father in their role as parents.     

Die Transferproblematik im Kontext von Modellversuchen und Modellversuchsprogrammen

In this article the results of transfer research, which were acquired in the context of pilot programs, will be presented. The problem of transfer gained special attention in relation to pilot projects during the late 1980s and was one of the major reasons for a change of focus from financing pilot projects to financing pilot programs. However, in research the transfer problem has not as yet gained the attention it deserves. Reliable conclusions on the effects of the great variety of available transfer concepts are rare. The selected results of the transfer program “Transfer 21” that are presented in this article, however, exemplify some positive effects.     

Betriebliche Mitarbeitervorsorge/Abfertigung für UniversitätsmitarbeiterInnen (Teil 2)

Ebenso wie die Anspruchsgrundlagen für Abfertigungen von Universit?tsmitarbeiterInnen sind die Bestimmungen zur Rückforderung in hohem Ma?e inhomogen. Auch mit In-Kraft-Treten des Universit?ten-Kollektivvertrages hat sich die Situation nur unwesentlich ge?ndert. Vor allem bei den Schnittstellen zu neuen Arbeitsverh?ltnissen mit der Universit?t kommt es zu unterschiedlicher Berücksichtigung alter Abfertigungsanwartschaften.     

Betriebliche Mitarbeitervorsorge/Abfertigung für UniversitätsmitarbeiterInnen (Teil 1)

Im Universitätspersonalrecht findet sich eine Reihe von zeitlichen und systemischen Schnittstellen hinsichtlich des Anspruchs auf Abfertigung. Als mögliche Rechtsgrundlagen für die Abfertigung kommen das AngG, das BMSVG, das VBG, das BDG, das UniAbgG und der Universitäten-Kollektivvertrag in Frage. Diese Anspruchsgrundlagen wechseln nicht nur entsprechend der Art des Arbeitsverhältnisses, sondern stehen auch in Relation zum In-Kraft-Treten des UG und des Universitäten-KV. In Summe ergibt dies eine Fülle von Problemlagen, die der Gesetzgeber keiner eindeutigen Lösung zugeführt hat.     

Reading, arithmetic, and task orientation—How are they related?

A sample of 60 children in Grade 3 was followed over one year. In the first year, an extensive battery of assessments was used including aspects of reading, arithmetic, and working memory. Teachers rated the children on 7-point scales on various motivational dimensions summarized to a total score tentatively called task orientation. In the follow-up assessment one year later, the testing and teacher ratings were repeated. The cross-sectional correlations between reading, arithmetic, and task orientation were all high (about +.70). The high correlation between reading and arithmetic decreased significantly when task orientation was partialed out, and it was further reduced when working memory as assessed by backward digit span was added to the controlling factors. Also, teacher ratings of cognitive ability and language development accounted for some of the common variance between reading and arithmetic. The correlation between task orientation and school achievement cannot be causally interpreted in cross-sectional designs. Some support for a “causal” hypothesis, however, was obtained in crosslagged correlation analyses indicating that task orientation in Grade 3 may have a causal impact on the level of performance in reading, and in arithmetic in Grade 4. Most likely, however, there is also a reciprocal relationship.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of content-oriented XML retrieval methods

Content-oriented XML retrieval approaches aim at a more focused retrieval strategy: Instead of retrieving whole documents, document components that are exhaustive to the information need while at the same time being as specific as possible should be retrieved. In this article, we show that the evaluation methods developed for standard retrieval must be modified in order to deal with the structure of XML documents. More precisely, the size and overlap of document components must be taken into account. For this purpose, we propose a new effectiveness metric based on the definition of a concept space defined upon the notions of exhaustiveness and specificity of a search result. We compare the results of this new metric by the results obtained with the official metric used in INEX, the evaluation initiative for content-oriented XML retrieval.