Why Rational People Polarize

I argue that several of the psychological tendencies that drive polarization could arise from purely rational mechanisms, due to the fact that some types of evidence are predictably more ambiguous than others

An investigation of first grade elementary teacher candidates’ perceptions of their teaching profession competencies: A mixed method study

Although teaching profession has lost its prestige over the years, the recent studies demonstrate that teaching still ranks among the top of most respected of professions. Teacher candidates’ individual characteristics play a crucial role in choosing teachers and designing curriculum for educating teacher candidates. The present study is of vital importance to identify the perceptions of first grade teacher candidates enrolled in Faculty of Education towards teaching profession and whether they have teaching competencies needed or not. In this research, a mixed research, sequential explanatory mixed design was utilized in which both quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed together. The quantitative data were collected through using teaching competency scale for teacher candidates and afterwards quantitative data was statistically analyzed. It was thus attempted to draw a general picture of the research problem. According to the results obtained, an in-depth analysis of teacher candidates’ perceptions of teaching competencies was required. Employing quantitative data, purposive sampling was identified and semi-structured interviews were carried out with the participants in the purposive sampling. The unidimensional scale developed by [1] and adapted into Turkish by [2] was employed for data collection in the quantitative stage of the research. When viewing teacher candidates’ perceptions on their teaching competencies, first grade teacher candidates stated that they perceive themselves competent in terms of attitude and values and vocation skills. © 2018 by authors, all rights reserved

Comprehensive Review of Opinion Summarization

The abundance of opinions on the web has kindled the study of opinion summarization over the last few years. People have introduced various techniques and paradigms to solving this special task. This survey attempts to systematically investigate the different techniques and approaches used in opinion summarization. We provide a multi-perspective classification of the approaches used and highlight some of the key weaknesses of these approaches. This survey also covers evaluation techniques and data sets used in studying the opinion summarization problem. Finally, we provide insights into some of the challenges that are left to be addressed as this will help set the trend for future research in this area.unpublishednot peer reviewe

Education’s not black and white, it’s vibrant grey

This paper offers a learner’s eye-view of a journey through education, written in an auto-narrative style. Sarah’s story spans from Secondary School to College and through University finishing at the point of Graduation. Revealed in this open and honest account is an insight to coping with home life whilst navigating the trials of the Education system. Sarah makes criticisms of her peers at every level reminding us how competitive some students have to be to get on and achieve success in their education. Critical judgements are also made about Sarah’s School teachers and University lecturers, which are at times as rewarding as they are uncomfortable, but always truthful. Consequently, there is much to learn by both academics and students from this sensitive and vulnerable personal revelation. Sarah’s evidence in turn points to some fundamental questions about the genuine outcomes of the Educational system, e.g. what are we actually teaching young people to be like? And do we like the product in terms of their values, beliefs and motives? A concluding message from Sarah’s perspective is that greater independence in learning, freedom in thinking and equipping people to reason, judge and make decisions in whatever realm, may be defining steps towards becoming educated