Multivariate approach to classify research institutes according to their outputs: The case of the CSIC's institutes

This paper attempts to build a classification model according to the research products created by those institutes and hence to design specific evaluation processes. Several scientific input/output indicators belonging to 109 research institutes from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) were selected. A multidimensional approach was proposed to resume these indicators in various components. A clustering analysis was used to classify the institutes according to their scores with those components (principal component analysis). Moreover, the validity of the a priori classification was tested and the most discriminant variables were detected (linear discriminant analysis). Results show that there are three types of institutes according to their research outputs: Humanistic, Scientific and Technological. It is argue that these differences oblige to design more precise assessment exercises which focus on the particular results of each type of institute. We conclude that this method permits to build more precise research assessment exercises which consider the varied nature of the scientific activity.     

Learning to select the correct answer in multi-stream question answering

Question answering (QA) is the task of automatically answering a question posed in natural language. Currently, there exists several QA approaches, and, according to recent evaluation results, most of them are complementary. That is, different systems are relevant for different kinds of questions. Somehow, this fact indicates that a pertinent combination of various systems should allow to improve the individual results. This paper focuses on this problem, namely, the selection of the correct answer from a given set of responses corresponding to different QA systems. In particular, it proposes a supervised multi-stream approach that decides about the correctness of answers based on a set of features that describe: (i) the compatibility between question and answer types, (ii) the redundancy of answers across streams, as well as (iii) the overlap and non-overlap information between the question–answer pair and the support text. Experimental results are encouraging; evaluated over a set of 190 questions in Spanish and using answers from 17 different QA systems, our multi-stream QA approach could reach an estimated QA performance of 0.74, significantly outperforming the estimated performance from the best individual system (0.53) as well as the result from best traditional multi-stream QA approach (0.60).     

Gaining Visitor Consent for Research III: A Trilingual Posted‐Sign Method

When studying museum visitors, researchers sometimes collect data by video‐ and audio‐taping large high‐traffic areas. In order to inform visitors that they are being recorded, researchers post signs in the area. This article describes the Exploratorium's efforts to design and test trilingual signs that would effectively inform visitors when video‐based research is in progress. Interviews with 255 adult museum visitors, conducted across six versions of the recording area's setup and signage, revealed several effective design elements. The posted sign was more noticeable and welcoming when it included a large headline, a realistic camera icon, and a colorful background. The most effective setup of the area contained many cues to videotaping beyond the large posted sign, such as visible recording equipment and small signs on exhibits and cordons. In the most successful trilingual setup we tested, 92% of visitors leaving the research area knew they had been videotaped.     

Institutional v. Technical Environments: Reconciling the Goals of Decentralization in an Evolving Charter School Organization

This article analyzes how macrolevel institutional forces persist and limit the expansion of decentralized schools that attempt to challenge normative definitions and practices of traditional school organizations. Using qualitative case study methodology, the analysis focuses on how one decentralized charter school navigated and reconciled its internal objectives linked to meeting the needs of a Latino, inner-city student population, with the institutional pressures and demands external to the organization. The findings suggest that decentralized school choice options which promise community-based participation and control are constrained by institutionalized rule-based demands that limit the expansion of alternative schooling models which may hold potential for promoting access, voice and equity for parents, students, and teachers.     

An Institutional Theory Analysis of Charter Schools: Addressing Institutional Challenges to Scale

This article presents a conceptual framework derived from institutional theory in sociology that offers two competing policy contexts in which charter schools operate—a bureaucratic frame versus a decentralized frame. An analysis of evolving charter school types based on three underlying theories of action is considered. As charter school leaders pursue new and different forms of schooling, they are challenged by well-established bureaucratic rules and norms that define what it means to be a legitimate school. Microlevel institution-building efforts, however, may represent viable alternatives to the institutional order of public education as charter school leaders attempt to achieve scale.     

Detection of Misconceptions about Colour and an Experimentally Tested Proposal to Combat them

We study the misconceptions about colour that most people hold, determining the general phenomenological laws that govern them. Concept mapping was used to combat the misconceptions which were found in the application of a test specifically designed to determine these misconceptions, while avoiding the possible misleading inductions that could have arisen from the use of everyday language. In particular, care was taken to avoid the distorting effect that the use of the verb ‘to be’ applied to coloured objects could have on the responses. The misconceptions found were shown to have an internal consistency in the form of authentic mini-theories (implicit theories). We compared experimentally the results of two different teaching methods applied to combat these misconceptions. This study was conducted with 470 undergraduates of the University of Extremadura. We analysed the persistence over time of their learning made to overcome those misconceptions. The students were divided randomly into an experimental group (EG) and a control group (CG). To combat their misconceptions, EG were taught following a method based on the use of concept maps, and CG were taught following traditional teaching methods. The results of a pre-test and a post-test were compared for the two groups, finding statistically significant differences. The results allowed the principal working hypothesis to be accepted—concept maps are learning tools which foster conceptual change and allow misconceptions to be eradicated via meaningful learning maintained over time, i.e. EG acquired a relative long-lasting gain in learning that was superior to that acquired by CG.     

Thin versus thick democracy in education: Porto alegre and the creation of alternatives to neo-liberalism

In this article, the authors describe the ways in which a set of policies has had what seem to be extensive and long lasting effects precisely because these policies are coherently linked to larger dynamics of social transformation and to a coherent strategy that aims to change the mechanisms of the state and the rules of participation in the formation of state policies. They describe and analyze the policies of the 'Popular Administration' in Porto Alegre, Brasil but, more specifically, they focus on the 'Citizen School' and on proposals that are explicitly designed to radically change both the municipal schools and the relationship between communities, the state, and education. This set of polices and the accompanying processes of implementation are constitutive parts of a clear and explicit project aimed at constructing not only a better school for the excluded, but also a larger project of radical and thick democracy. The reforms being built in Porto Alegre are still in formation, but the authors argue that they have crucial implications for how we might think about the politics of education policy and its role in social transformation.     

Illinois Project for Democratic Accountability

Education is experiencing a case of misplaced accountability, where an exclusive reliance on high stakes tests overlooks the more subtle judgments of teachers and professional educators and, because of its simplicity, passes as democratic. This article investigates the theoretical underpinnings of current accountability initiatives and draws upon extensive teacher interviews to reveal the practical aspects of accountability pressures in schools today. We provide a discussion of local teacher knowledge that exposes teachers' commitments to a deeper sense of successful education that is eclipsed by testing and that offers a richer resource for improving classrooms and educational outcomes. We provide a discussion of educational foundations and policy that rethinks democratic goals and encourages educationists to shift the current debate in order to make accountability truly democratic. This article suggests that the contemporary climate of accountability may be misplaced in its intentions.     

A Structural Equation Model of Parental Involvement,Motivational and Aptitudinal Characteristics,and Academic Achievement

The authors used the structural equation model (SEM) approach to test a model hypothesizing the influence of parental involvement on students' academic aptitudes, self-concept, and causal attributions, as well as the influence of the 3 variables on academic achievement. The theoretical model was contrasted in a group of 12- to 18-year-old adolescents (N = 261) attending various educational centers. The results indicate that (a) parental involvement had a positive and significant influence on the participant's measured characteristics; (b) causal attribution was not causally related to self-concept or academic achievement when the task involved finding causes for success, but, self-concept and causal attributions were found to be significantly and reciprocally related when the task involved finding causes accounting for failure; (c) self-concept was statistically and predominantly causally related to academic achievement, but not vice versa; and (d) aptitude and self-concept accounted for academic achievement, although the effect of self-concept was predominant. These results suggest that in adolescence, cognitive-affective variables become crucial in accounting for academic behavior.