Listening to young children's voices: the evaluation of a coding system

Listening to young children’s voices is an issue with increasing relevance for many researchers in the field of early childhood research. At the same time, teachers and researchers are faced with challenges to provide children with possibilities to express their notions, and to find ways of comprehending children’s voices. In our research we aim to provide a method for listening to, and analyzing young children’s voices on educational issues. In this article we describe a new step in our research in which we are dealing with the issues of validity and reliability for the evaluation of our coding system: is our coding system for analyzing young children’s voices valid and reliable? Escuchar las voces de niños pequeños es un tema de creciente relevancia para muchos investigadores en el campo de estudios sobre la infancia. Al mismo tiempo, profesorado y personal investigador se encuentran con retos para dar a los niños posibilidades de expresar sus nociones y encontrar formas de comprender sus voces. En nuestra investigación nos proponemos proveer un método para escuchar y analizar las voces de los niños acerca de temas educativos. En este artículo describimos un nuevo paso en nuestra investigación en la que estamos trabajando cuestiones de validez y fiabilidad para la evaluación de un sistema de codificación: Es nuestro sistema de codificación para analizar las voces de los niños válido y fiable

Towards a knowledge-rich learning environment in preparatory secondary education

In this case study a novel educational programme for students in preparatory vocational education was studied. The research questions were: (1) Which teaching/learning processes occur in a simulated workplace using the concept of a knowledge-rich workplace? (2) What is the role of models and modelling in the teaching/learning processes? The curriculum project consisted of design and construction tasks. The students were collaboratively involved in the process of designing a tricycle for a real customer. This real-life activity creates opportunities for students to develop and use models, which can be used in more than in one context. The case study explored how the teachers deal with the students' explicit and implicit need for knowledge and skills. The main findings are that teachers more often provide this knowledge, rather than guide the students in reconstructing it, and towards the end of the project, knowledge tended to remain situated

Dynamic Assessment of Narrative Competence

In Developmental Education, language plays an essential role as a tool for communication (and thinking). Learning to produce coherent messages (“narratives”) with both cultural and personal value in the context of meaningful socio-cultural practices is considered as an important goal of Developmental Education. Narratives are essential for human action as they function as a tool for giving meaning to reality. Therefore, close observation and assessment of children’s narratives is essential in the context of Developmental Education. Over the past years we have developed a Dynamic Assessment (DA) instrument for assessing children’s narrative competence. This instrument combines two common approaches to DA, namely standardised interventionist DA and interactionist DA. With the help of this instrument, teachers are able to gain insight into children’s actual narrative competence as well as their developmental potential and their receptivity to certain forms of assistance to reach this potential. Our experience up to now shows that it is possible to assess children’s narrative competence in a valid and reliable manner

Reverse stress testing: A framework to identify stress scenarios

Reverse stress tests can be used to identify the scenarios that exhaust the capital buffer of a bank and cause the default of the bank. This report presents a framework to apply a quantitative reverse stress test on the portfolio of a bank. The framework includes the selection of appropriate risk factors, the identification of the distribution of these risk factors, including dependency, estimation of the influence of these risk factors on the occurrence of a default and a grid search to identify the set of stress scenarios. Applying this framework to a standardized portfolio leads to a set of stress scenarios, that can be used as early warning signs or as input for a traditional stress test. Furthermore, to decrease the computation time needed in the grid search used in this framework, the application of scenario reduction algorithms is analyzed. However, due to computational limits, it is not possible yet to reduce the scenario set in an efficient manner. Furthermore, the incorporation of higher frequency data for the risk factors is evaluated, using a Mixed Data Sampling (MIDAS) extension. As a result of assumptions made to prevent the scenarios set to increase even further, the more extreme scenarios are smoothed out, so no stress scenarios were identified using this extension

Parity Violation in Proton-Proton Scattering at 221 MeV

TRIUMF experiment 497 has measured the parity violating longitudinal analyzing power, A_z, in pp elastic scattering at 221.3 MeV incident proton energy. This paper includes details of the corrections, some of magnitude comparable to A_z itself, required to arrive at the final result. The largest correction was for the effects of first moments of transverse polarization. The addition of the result, A_z=(0.84 \pm 0.29 (stat.) \pm 0.17 (syst.)) \times 10^{-7}, to the pp parity violation experimental data base greatly improves the experimental constraints on the weak meson-nucleon coupling constants h^{pp}_\rho and h^{pp}_\omega, and has implications for the interpretation of electron parity violation experiments.Comment: 17 pages RevTeX, 14 PostScript figures. Revised version with additions suggested by Phys. Rev.

Model Calculations for the Two-Fragment Electro-Disintegration of 4^4He

Differential cross sections for the electro-disintegration process $e + {^4He} \longrightarrow {^3H}+ p + e'$ are calculated, using a model in which the final state interaction is included by means of a nucleon-nucleus (3+1) potential constructed via Marchenko inversion. The required bound-state wave functions are calculated within the integrodifferential equation approach (IDEA). In our model the important condition that the initial bound state and the final scattering state are orthogonal is fulfilled. The sensitivity of the cross section to the input $p{^3H}$ interaction in certain kinematical regions is investigated. The approach adopted could be useful in reactions involving few cluster systems where effective interactions are not well known and exact methods are presently unavailable. Although, our Plane-Wave Impulse Approximation results exhibit, similarly to other calculations, a dip in the five-fold differential cross-section around a missing momentum of $\sim 450 MeV/c$, it is argued that this is an artifact of the omission of re-scattering four-nucleon processes.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication by Phys.Rev.