Does grade retention affect achievement? Some evidence from PISA

Grade retention practices are at the forefront of the educational debate. In this paper, we use PISA 2009 data for Spain to measure the effect of grade retention on students achievement. One important problem when analyzing this question is that school outcomes and the propensity to repeat a grade are likely to be determined simultaneously. We address this problem by estimating a Switching Regression Model. We …find that grade retention has a negative impact on educational outcomes, but we confi…rm the importance of endogenous selection, which makes observed differences between repeaters and non-repeaters appear 14.6% lower than they actually are. The effect on PISA scores of repeating is much smaller (-10% of non-repeaters average) than the counterfactual reduction that non-repeaters would suffer had they been retained as repeaters (-24% of their average). Furthermore, those who repeated a grade during primary education suffered more than those who repeated a grade of secondary school, although the effect of repeating at both times is, as expected, much larger.Grade retention, educational scores, PISA

Does grade retention affect achievement? Some evidence from Pisa

Grade retention practices are at the forefront of the educational debate. In this paper, we use PISA 2009 data for Spain to measure the effect of grade retention on students’achievement. One important problem when analyzing this question is that school outcomes and the propensity to repeat a grade are likely to be determined simultaneously. We address this problem by estimating a Switching Regression Model. We find that grade retention has a negative impact on educational outcomes, but we confirm the importance of endogenous selection, which makes observed differences between repeaters and non-repeaters appear 14.6% lower than they actually are. The effect on PISA scores of repeating is much smaller (-10% of non-repeaters’average) than the counterfactual reduction that non-repeaters would suffer had they been retained as repeaters (-24% of their average). Furthermore, those who repeated a grade during primary education suffered more than those who repeated a grade of secondary school, although the effect of repeating at both times is, as expected, much larger.Grade retention, educational scores, PISA

Estimating Human Capital Externalities:The Case of Spanish Regions

We estimate the strength of schooling externalities for Spanish regions over the 1981-2001 period. Our empirical work employs both main approaches available in the literature. Both methodologies yield significant externalities. Using a growth accounting exercise, we find that human capital externalities account for one half of the increase in real wages for the period between 1981 and 2001.externalities, human capital, constant composition.

Family education and support for families at psychosocial risk in Europe: Evidence from a survey of international experts

First published online: 11 October 2018There is overwhelming consensus among policy makers, academics, and professionals about the need to support families in their childrearing tasks. Consequently, European countries have been encouraged to develop family support interventions aimed at guaranteeing children's rights, targeting particularly those children in situations of psychosocial risk. While a certain amount of evidence exists regarding how family support is generally delivered in certain European countries, with a particular focus on parenting initiatives, this paper aims to take existing evidence one step further by providing an updated review focusing on two core components of the Council of Europe's Recommendation on Positive Parenting: families at psychosocial risk as the target population, and family education and support initiatives as the delivery format. The scope of the study was therefore broad, in both geographical and conceptual terms. An online survey was conducted with experts from 19 European countries to gather information regarding how they perceive family education and support initiatives for families at psychosocial risk. Both quantitative and qualitative data were analysed by computing frequencies/percentages and by following a thematic synthesis method, respectively. The results revealed both similarities and disparities as regards provider profiles, intervention characteristics, and quality standards. Practical implications are discussed, such as the need to diversify initiatives for at‐risk families in accordance with the tenets of progressive universalism, the ongoing need for an evidence‐based, pluralistic approach to programmes, and the skills and qualifications required in the family support workforce. This study constitutes a first step towards building a common family support framework at a European level, which would encompass family support and parenting policies aimed at families at psychosocial risk.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España EDU2013‐41441‐

Madres adultas y madres adolescentes: un análisis comparativo de las interacciones que mantienen con sus bebés

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar las diferencias en las interacciones que, durante una situación de comida, mantienen un grupo de madres adolescentes y otro de madres adultas con sus bebés de 8-12 meses de edad. Para ello, estudiamos 93 díadas madre-bebé (41 adolescentes y 52 adultas) en 4 dimensiones observacionales: (1) la calidez emocional; (2) la sensibilidad materna; (3) la estimulación del desarrollo lingüístico y de la autonomía; y (4) la organización la situación de comida. Los resultados parecen indicar que las madres adultas se muestran más cálidas y más sensibles durante la interacción. Parecen ser estas madres quienes aprovechan en mayor medida la situación para estimular aspectos relacionados con el lenguaje y la autonomía de sus bebés. Además, el grupo de madres adultas suele dotar de mayor organización a la situación de comida. Los resultados nos permiten concluir que se hace necesaria una intervención ajustada a la realidad que circunda al hecho de convertirse en madre durante la adolescencia.This work analyzes the differences in the interactions of a group of adolescent mothers and another one of adult mothers with their babies of 8-12 months of age during feeding time. In this way, we studied 93 mother-baby dyads (41 adolescents and 52 adults) in 4 observational dimensions: (1) the emotional warm; (2) maternal sensitivity; (3) linguistic development and autonomy stimulation; and (4) feeding time organization. The results indicate that the adult mothers are warmer and more sensible during the interaction than adolescent mothers. Data show that adult mothers who take advantage of in greater measurement the situation to stimulate aspects related to the language and the autonomy of their babies. In addition, the group of adult mothers usually equips from greater the feeding time organization. This results point out that it is necessary a intervention adjust to the fact of becoming mother during the adolescent age

From mother's ideas to the interactions with their children

El objetivo de este trabajo es el de estudiar la relación que pudiera existir entre las ideas que tienen las madres sobre el desarrollo, la crianza y la educación de sus hijos y las interacciones que mantienen estos adultos con sus bebés. Para ello, fue estudiado un grupo de 53 mujeres con sus bebés de un año de edad durante una situación de comida en el hogar. Las ideas evolutivo-educativas fueron evaluadas mediante el CIP (Cuestionario de Ideas de los Padres; Palacios, 1988). Las dimensiones observacionales evaluadas fueron, entre otras, la calidez emocional, la sensibilidad materna y la estimulación del desarrollo lingüístico en los bebés. Los resultados presentados sugieren que hay diferencias importantes en el estilo de las madres durante la interacción de comida cuando controlamos estadísticamente sus ideas sobre el desarrollo, la crianza y la educación de los hijos. Estas diferencias parecen presentar a las madres con ideas evolutivo-educativas modernas con un mayor nivel de competencia que las madres con ideologías más tradicionales. Se discute acerca de los determinantes, la naturaleza y el sentido de la relación idea-conducta.The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between parents’ belief about child development and parent-infant interaction. 53 mother-child interactions during feeding situation at home were analysed. The babies were 12 month-old. Parents’ belief system was evaluated by CIP (Parents’ ideas questionnaire; Palacios, 1988). Interactions were coded using some observational dimensions: emotional warm, maternal sensitivity, strategies to stimulate linguistic and autonomy development, etc. Results show significant differences in interaction style when we controlled parent’s ideas about development child and education. Mothers with modern ideas were warmer and presented more fine-tuning those mothers with traditional ideas. Results and implications belief-behaviour relations are discussed

The role of psychosocial stress on a family-based treatment for adolescents with problematic behaviors

The stressful life events experienced by adolescents with problematic behaviors, should be considered for implementing effective interventions. This study aimed to examine the adjustment of adolescents with problematic behaviors, and to assess the effectiveness of a family-based treatment, namely Scene-Based Psychodramatic Family Therapy (SB-PFT), according to different stress profiles. Ten SB-PFT sessions, over 17 trials were implemented. Stressful life events and adolescent adjustment were evaluated at pretest and posttest, for the SB-PFT participants (n = 104 adolescents) and a control group (n = 106). The adolescents were categorized into three profiles depending on the nature of the stressors: family stress profile, individual and family stress profile, and low stress profile. The individual and family stress group showed worse adjustment. Effectiveness analyses revealed improvements in SB-PFT participants’ emotional intelligence, but not in anger and hostility. Furthermore, adolescents with low and family-related stress profiles showed enhancements in parent attachment. In conclusion, interventions involving adolescents with problematic behaviors must be tailored to the stressful life events experienced. Specific treatments should be used alongside SB-PFT, when adolescents are met with individual-related stress. Nevertheless, SB-PFT seemed to promote emotional intelligence and parent attachment, particularly in adolescents with problematic behaviors that experienced only family stressors.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad EDU2013-41441-PMinisterio de Educación, Cultura y Deportes FPU Program-311

Motion planning using synergies : application to anthropomorphic dual-arm robots

Motion planning is a traditional field in robotics, but new problems are nevertheless incessantly appearing, due to continuous advances in the robot developments. In order to solve these new problems, as well as to improve the existing solutions to classical problems, new approaches are being proposed. A paradigmatic case is the humanoid robotics, since the advances done in this field require motion planners not only to look efficiently for an optimal solution in the classic way, i.e. optimizing consumed energy or time in the plan execution, but also looking for human-like solutions, i.e. requiring the robot movements to be similar to those of the human beings. This anthropomorphism in the robot motion is desired not only for aesthetical reasons, but it is also needed to allow a better and safer human-robot collaboration: humans can predict more easily anthropomorphic robot motions thus avoiding collisions and enhancing the collaboration with the robot. Nevertheless, obtaining a satisfactory performance of these anthropomorphic robotic systems requires the automatic planning of the movements, which is still an arduous and non-evident task since the complexity of the planning problem increases exponentially with the number of degrees of freedom of the robotic system. This doctoral thesis tackles the problem of planning the motions of dual-arm anthropomorphic robots (optionally with mobile base). The main objective is twofold: obtaining robot motions both in an efficient and in a human-like fashion at the same time. Trying to mimic the human movements while reducing the complexity of the search space for planning purposes leads to the concept of synergies, which could be conceptually defined as correlations (in the joint configuration space as well as in the joint velocity space) between the degrees of freedom of the system. This work proposes new sampling-based motion-planning procedures that exploit the concept of synergies, both in the configuration and velocity space, coordinating the movements of the arms, the hands and the mobile base of mobile anthropomorphic dual-arm robots.La planificación de movimientos es un campo tradicional de la robótica, sin embargo aparecen incesantemente nuevos problemas debido a los continuos avances en el desarrollo de los robots. Para resolver esos nuevos problemas, así como para mejorar las soluciones existentes a los problemas clásicos, se están proponiendo nuevos enfoques. Un caso paradigmático es la robótica humanoide, ya que los avances realizados en este campo requieren que los algoritmos planificadores de movimientos no sólo encuentren eficientemente una solución óptima en el sentido clásico, es decir, optimizar el consumo de energía o el tiempo de ejecución de la trayectoria; sino que también busquen soluciones con apariencia humana, es decir, que el movimiento del robot sea similar al del ser humano. Este antropomorfismo en el movimiento del robot se busca no sólo por razones estéticas, sino porque también es necesario para permitir una colaboración mejor y más segura entre el robot y el operario: el ser humano puede predecir con mayor facilidad los movimientos del robot si éstos son antropomórficos, evitando así las colisiones y mejorando la colaboración humano robot. Sin embargo, para obtener un desempeño satisfactorio de estos sistemas robóticos antropomórficos se requiere una planificación automática de sus movimientos, lo que sigue siendo una tarea ardua y poco evidente, ya que la complejidad del problema aumenta exponencialmente con el número de grados de libertad del sistema robótico. Esta tesis doctoral aborda el problema de la planificación de movimientos en robots antropomorfos bibrazo (opcionalmente con base móvil). El objetivo aquí es doble: obtener movimientos robóticos de forma eficiente y, a la vez, que tengan apariencia humana. Intentar imitar los movimientos humanos mientras a la vez se reduce la complejidad del espacio de búsqueda conduce al concepto de sinergias, que podrían definirse conceptualmente como correlaciones (tanto en el espacio de configuraciones como en el espacio de velocidades de las articulaciones) entre los distintos grados de libertad del sistema. Este trabajo propone nuevos procedimientos de planificación de movimientos que explotan el concepto de sinergias, tanto en el espacio de configuraciones como en el espacio de velocidades, coordinando así los movimientos de los brazos, las manos y la base móvil de robots móviles, bibrazo y antropomórficos.Postprint (published version