“The Day That Changed My Life,Again”: The Testimonio of a Latino DACAmented Teacher

This article, based on the testimonio of a Latino DACAmented teacher, underscores the impacts and benefits of immigration policies for individuals and their communities. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) has benefitted about 750,000 people; most have used the benefits to pursue higher education and to enter public service careers, including teaching and nursing. Mr. Juárez’s testimonio walks us through his educational trajectory and current role as an educator. This testimonio contributes to current debates and struggles demanding the new U.S. presidential administration to maintain DACA. As researchers, we urge students, educators, policymakers, and the incoming administration to listen to the testimonios of DACA beneficiaries prior to making hasty decisions that will have dire consequences for individuals, families, and the nation, as a whole.     

Technology as ‘a human practice with social meaning’–a new scenery for engineering education

In a world sustained and interconnected by technology, people make choices. Therefore, they have to consider that technology is subject to analysis and interpretation because it is designed by humans with varied histories, experiences and cultures. To generate an understanding of the technological phenomenon, this article proposes to view the technology as a human practice, with social meaning and an attending change in classical technology-related education. The hidden resumé of the professors, the development of contents and didactic methods to be used in the educational process are fundamental elements in the appropriation of knowledge. Modifying these elements requires paradigmatic shifts, especially in the education of engineers, which would have to be focused on the knowledge acquisition and capabilities to allow an adequate practice of the technology management.     

Postretirement work from a gender perspective: in-depth analysis of the Chilean case

ABSTRACT

Due to the ever-increasing life expectancy rates worldwide, there has been an emerging need to conduct more research on older adults’ participation in the labor market after reaching the state pension age. This study aims to analyze the factors associated with postretirement work in Chile, a country characterized by a strong persistence of a male-breadwinner model endorsed by deeply-rooted traditional gender roles, and at the same time characterized by a dual-earner model strongly encouraged by a neoliberal system. Relying on a gendered life course perspective and using a nationally representative survey, we conducted logistic regression analyses to explore how a number of cumulative advantages and disadvantages (such as work trajectory, job satisfaction, and caregiving duties) shape working beyond legal retirement age and the intrinsic motivation to continue working among economically active older adults in Chile. One of the main findings of the present study is that intrinsic motivation to continue working was a remarkably significant predictor of postretirement work among older Chilean adults, especially among women. The results also suggest that even though older women are motivated to continue working, the national labor market is unlikely to offer such possibility. The findings of this study have implications for practice in the sense that they demonstrate the imperative need for organizations to focus on intrinsic motivation-related factors in striving to improve employees’ willingness to stay within the company after the state pension age.     

Dynamic profiles using sentiment analysis and twitter data for voting advice applications

Nowadays, political campaigns combine traditional media channels with social media platforms, opening new and promising possibilities for parties and candidates looking for better political strategies and visibility. Voting advice applications (VAAs) recommend parties and candidates that are close to a citizen's political preferences and require the constrution of candidate and party profiles. Profile generation is an essential task in the development of VAAs and requires two steps: an unbiased design of political questionnaires and the collection of all candidates' answers. This paper presents an extension of a VAA, implemented in within the project Participa Inteligente (PI), a social-network platform designed for the 2017 Ecuadorian national elections. This work concentrates on the implementation of dynamic candidate profiling using Twitter data and sentiment analysis as an additional element to the static profile generation of VAAs. The implementation of a dynamic element for VAAs could help mitigate the effect of biased recommendations given during the construction of candidate and party profiles. At the end of this work, the dynamic profile is compared with the classic static elements developed within the PI project. The results show the level of similarities and differences between each of the elements in profile generation. This work provides an ideal basis for future research in the area of VAAs and their interfaces. Additionally, it opens up a broader spectrum of applications for policymakers including decision-making and collaborative working environments toward e-empowerment.     

Survey development to assess parental satisfaction with adapted physical education teachers' abilities working with children with autism

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to systematically develop and validate an instrument to assess parental perceptions toward adapted physical education (APE) teachers, who work with children with autism.

Methods: Participants included two expert panels and parents of children and youth with autism. The survey used a Likert-scale design where parents rated their level of satisfaction regarding communication with, qualifications of, and rapport with the APE teachers.

Results: Based on α coefficients for each of the three subscales, it was concluded that the survey had high internal validity. Split-half reliability determined by the Spearman Brown Prophecy coefficient indicated high reliability.

Conclusion: Preliminary evidence demonstrated that the survey may be a useful tool in assessing parental perceptions of their child's APE teacher.     

Assessing the unidimensionality of the School and College Ability Test (SCAT,Spanish version) using non-parametric methods based on item response theory

The aim of this work is to analyze the dimensional structure of the Spanish version of the School and College Ability Test, employed in the process for the identification of students with high intellectual abilities. This test measures verbal and mathematical (or quantitative) abilities at three levels of difficulty: elementary (3rd, 4th, and 5th years in Primary school), intermediate (6th year in Primary school plus the 1st and 2nd years of Compulsory Secondary School or ESO), and advanced (3rd and 4th years of ESO plus the 1st and 2nd years of bachillerato – equivalent to High school). For each level there are two forms, X and Y. The research was undertaken with the results obtained from the application carried out for the validation and norming of the Spanish version of the test, and for which a representative sample of students from Navarre at these mentioned levels was taken. This study assessed the possible unidimensionality of the simplicity or the complexity of the structure of this test as an essential aspect of construct validity. To this end, the results were triangulated for the classic factorial techniques and non-parametric methods based on the item response theory.     

What’s in a word? Effects of morphologically rich vocabulary instruction on writing outcomes among elementary students

Reading and Writing - We examined effects of a 12-week, teacher-delivered, morphology-infused vocabulary intervention on writing outcomes for 4th and 5th grade U.S. students. The intervention (1)...