Perception of the level of difficulty by post-secondary Maltese students of the biology advanced level practical examination paper

Maltese students sit for the Matriculation and Secondary Education Certificate (MATSEC) Advanced-level biology exam at the end of a two-year ‘sixth form’ course as a requirement to pursue studies related to science at the University of Malta. The exam consists of four papers, where Paper 1 consists of compulsory structured questions, Paper 2 involves essay-writing, Paper 3 is based on practical work related to theory, and Paper 4 consists of a single experimental design question. A questionnaire based on a Likert five-point scale was administered to students (N=102) two months before they sat for the MATSEC examination. The aim was to investigate the level of difficulty that students encounter with each of the exam papers as well when answering ten typical questions presented in Paper 4. No significant difference in the difficulty rating evaluation for males and females for Paper 1, 2 and 3 was found; however females found Paper 4 significantly more difficult than males. When presented with a test at school modelled on Paper 4, males felt more confident than females however they felt equally nervous. On the other hand, females felt more panicky than males. There was no significant difference between the level of difficulty encountered in each paper and the grade obtained at ‘Ordinary’ level biology (the examination taken at the end of secondary school). Students that were repeating their ‘sixth form’ second year encountered the same level of difficulty in each paper as those who were not. The same questionnaire was administered to tutors (N=13) in order to investigate whether student and tutor perceptions differ. Students and tutors rated the level of difficulty of each paper differently. None of the tutors perceived Papers 2, 3 and 4 as ‘easy’ whereas students did. Another difference in perception was noted in Paper 1: students rated Paper 1 as ‘difficult’ while tutors did not. Students and tutors also differed in the rating of level of difficulty in Paper 4 questions. Students found the question about devising an experiment as presenting the highest level of difficulty while for tutors the most difficult was that concerned was stating the sources of error. Writing a null hypothesis presented the least difficulty for students whereas drawing graphs was rated as least difficult by tutors. These differences in perception imply that tutors may be dedicating more time preparing students for papers and questions they (the tutors) perceive as difficult and thus may not be meeting the real needs of the students.peer-reviewe

Model-independent analysis for determining mass splittings of heavy baryons

We study the hyperfine mass differences of heavy hadrons in the heavy quark effect theory (HQET). The effects of one-gluon exchange interaction are considered for the heavy mesons and baryons. Base on the known experimental data, we predict the masses of some heavy baryons in a model-independent way.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figur

Open Edition Rapport d\u27activité 2021

L\u27année 2021 a été pour Open Edition riche d\u27étapes importantes qui nous assurent un socle solide pour répondre aux perspectives ouvertes pour la prochaine décennie. L\u27infrastructure poursuit son inscription dans une dynamique collective de science ouverte et les services qu\u27elle rend à la communauté de la recherche sont reconnus. En 2021, Open Edition a franchi le cap du million de documents diffusés sur ses plateformes qui ont reçu près de 110 millions de visites

Predicting the Spread of the Corona Virus (COVID-19) in Indonesia: Approach Visual Data Analysis and Prophet Forecasting

The development trend of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in various countries has become a global threat, including in Southeast Asia, such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, and Singapore. In this paper, we propose an Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) model approach and a time series forecasting model using the Prophet method to predict the number of confirmed cases and cases of death in Indonesia in the next thirty days. We apply the EDA model to visualize and provide an understanding of this pandemic outbreak in various countries, especially in Indonesia. We present the trends in the spread of epidemics from the countries of China from which the virus originates, then mark the top ten countries and their development and also present the trends in Asian countries. We present an analytical framework comparing the predicted results with the actual data evaluated using the MAPE and MAE models, where the prophet algorithm produces good performance based on the evaluation results, the relative error rate of our estimate (MAPE) is around 6.52%, and the model average false 52.7% (MAE) for confirmed cases, while case mortality was 1.3% for the MAPE and MAE models around 236.6%. The results of the analysis can be used as a reference for the Indonesian government in making decisions to prevent its spread in order to avoid an increase in the number of death

LA BOLSA DE COMERCIO DE PARÍS [Material gráfico]

PARÍS (FRANCIA)Copia digital. Madrid : Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, 201