Quantitative Methods in Psychology: Inevitable and Useless

Science begins with the question, what do I want to know? Science becomes science, however, only when this question is justified and the appropriate methodology is chosen for answering the research question. Research question should precede the other questions; methods should be chosen according to the research question and not vice versa. Modern quantitative psychology has accepted method as primary; research questions are adjusted to the methods. For understanding thinking in modern quantitative psychology, two epistemologies should be distinguished: structural-systemic that is based on Aristotelian thinking, and associative-quantitative that is based on Cartesian–Humean thinking. The first aims at understanding the structure that underlies the studied processes; the second looks for identification of cause–effect relationships between the events with no possible access to the understanding of the structures that underlie the processes. Quantitative methodology in particular as well as mathematical psychology in general, is useless for answering questions about structures and processes that underlie observed behaviors. Nevertheless, quantitative science is almost inevitable in a situation where the systemic-structural basis of behavior is not well understood; all sorts of applied decisions can be made on the basis of quantitative studies. In order to proceed, psychology should study structures; methodologically, constructive experiments should be added to observations and analytic experiments

Eessõna

Eesti Haridusteaduste Ajakirja teises erinumbris käsitletakse arengut ja õppimist laias vanusevahemikus alates esimese klassi õpilastest ja lõpetades õpetajakoolituse üliõpilastega. Uurimise all on õpetajate uskumused ja tegevused ning õpilaste arenguvaldkonnad. Tööde teoreetilise aluse moodustab sotsiaalkultuuriline käsitlusviis, mille kohaselt eeldatakse, et areng ja õppimine on komplekssed – erinevate arenguvaldkondade näitajad mõjutavad üksteist vastastikku, olles omakorda seotud keskkonnanäitajatega. Uurimused on pikilõikelised, analüüsitud on nii õpilase kui ka õpetajaga seotud näitajaid, peale variaablikesksete analüüside on kasutatud ka indiviidikeskseid analüüsimeetodeid. Uurimused peegeldavad Eesti kooli ja ülikooli hetkeolukorda ning loodetavasti ärgitavad lugejaid mõtlema, mida ja kuidas edasi uurida, samuti annavad ideid, mida õpetamisel kasutada

Eesti põhikooli efektiivsus

Eesti Vabariigi Haridus- ja Teadusministeerium toetas aastatel 2006-2009 läbiviidud laste arengu uuringut Eesti põhikoolis. Uuringute eesmärgiks oli haridussüsteemis esinevate probleemide täpne kirjeldamine, probleemide põhjuste väljaselgitamine ning võimaluste otsimine probleemide efektiivseks lahendamiseks. Uuringute tulemusena saadi teaduspõhist informatsiooni põhjendatud otsuste tegemiseks erineval tasemel—alates riigi tasemel tehtavatest hariduspoliitilistest otsustest kuni õpilase tasemel tehtavate otsusteni. Käesolevas lõpparuandes kirjeldatakse uuringute tulemusi ja esitatakse vastused lepingus ettenähtud küsimustele

Vygotskian (but only partly Vygotsky’s) understanding of special education = A compreensão Vygotskyana (mas só em parte de Vygotsky) da educação especial = La comprensión Vygotskyana (pero sólo en parte de Vygotsky) de la educación especial

Neste artigo, os princípios gerais da educação especial são discutidos a partir da perspectiva Vygotskyana. Em primeiro lugar, sugere-se que, para a compreensão da educação especial em particular e da psique e seu desenvolvimento em geral, a epistemologia estrutural-sistêmica deve ser aplicada. Para entender a educação especial, a psique e seu desenvolvimento devem ser entendidos em diferentes níveis de análise. Neste artigo, a primeira vida é definida com o intuito de definir a psique como uma forma especial de vida. A psique, no nível seguinte e mais específico da análise, é diferenciada em partes complementares, do indivíduo e de seu ambiente. O ambiente é definido em seguida, e distinguido teoricamente em quatro tipos. Nesta base teórica, a pedagogia e a educação especial são definidas. A educação especial deve basear-se na compreensão completa do aprendiz em diferentes níveis de análise: de acordo com estágios gerais de desenvolvimento, de acordo com o desenvolvimento durante o estágio, e no nível da estrutura do conhecimento. Destacam-se dois alvos principais da educação especial e três estratégias básicas de reabilitação neuropsicológica e educação especia

Muukeelne laps Eesti koolis

Projekti "Muukeelne laps Eesti koolis" lõpparuanne.Eesti Vabariigi Haridus- ja Teadusministeerium toetas aastatel 2009-2011 läbi viidud muukeelsete laste arengu uuringut Eesti põhikoolis. Uuringute eesmärgiks oli eestikeelses koolis õppivate mitteeestikeelsete laste arengut ja toimetulekut puudutavate küsimuste vastamine. Uuringute tulemusena saadi teaduspõhist informatsiooni põhjendatud otsuste tegemiseks erineval tasemel—alates riigi tasemel tehtavatest hariduspoliitilistest otsustest kuni õpilase tasemel tehtavate otsusteni. Käesolevas lõpparuandes kirjeldatakse uuringute tulemusi ja esitatakse vastused lepingus ettenähtud küsimustele

Muukeelne laps Eesti koolis: Jätkuuuring. LÕPPARUANNE

Aruanne kajastab HTMI tellimusel 2012-2014 läbiviidud projekti, mis uuris muukeelste laste arengut Eesti põhikoolis. See projekt oli omakorda jätkuprojektiks 2009-2011 läbiviidud projektile. Uuringusse kaasati projekti eelnevas faasis osalenud eesti õppekeelega koolid (kokku 10), osalesid kõik 6. klasside õpilased (andmete kogumine 2012 ja 2013). Otsiti vastuseid uurimisküsimustele, mis puudutasid taustategurite mõju õpilase akadeemilisele edasijõudmisele ja sotsiaalsele kohanemisele, võrreldi akadeemilist edasijõudmist, eesti keele oskuse arengut ja emakeele osakuse arengut, erinevate emakeelega õpilaste sotsiaalseid suhteid ja enesehinnangut. Projekti tulemusena leiti nii neile küsimustele detailsed vastused kui ka sõnastati hariduspoliitilsied soovitused

Õppimine ja õpetamine kolmandas kooliastmes. Üldpädevused ja nende arendamine

Käesolev kogumik toetub tugevalt uuringule „Üldpädevused ja nende hindamine” (2011−2014). Kogumik koosneb kahest osast. Esimese osa eesmärk on täpsustada üldpädevuste sisu ja kirjeldada nende hindamise võimalusi kolmandas kooliastmes. Selleks, et konkreetsete pädevuste kohta kirjutatut paremini mõista, alustatakse üldisest teoreetilisest alusest ning kirjeldatakse arengu ja õppimise aluseks olevaid psüühilisi protsesse. Kolmandas peatükis esitatakse sissejuhatus üldpädevuste käsitlusse ja hindamisse, järgmistes peatükkides peatutakse igal pädevusel põhjalikumalt. Teise osa eesmärk on kirjeldada üldpädevuste arengut ja sellega seotud tegureid kolmandas kooliastmes ning näidata võimalusi nende arendamiseks erinevates ainetundides

Why Behavioral Indicators May Fail to Reveal Mental States: Individual Differences in Arousal-Movement Pattern Relationships

It is commonly assumed that behavior reflects the mental states of individuals. However, recent attempts to detect human states of mind via behavioral indicators have not always been successful; behavioral indicators may be unreliable and invalid. In this study we show that one of the common behavioral indicators, change in the overall amount of movement, correlated well with changes in the skin conductance level (SCL) at the group level, which reflects changes in arousal. At the individual level, however, changes in the SCL were related to movement patterns only in about half of the individuals. It is also noteworthy that the level of movement-SCL correlation was very highly predictable by certain social and cognitive characteristics of the individuals. Our results suggest that behavioral indicators may in many cases fail to predict mental states at the individual level

LSTM-CNN: An efficient diagnostic network for Parkinson's disease utilizing dynamic handwriting analysis

Background and objectives: Dynamic handwriting analysis, due to its non-invasive and readily accessible nature, has recently emerged as a vital adjunctive method for the early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. In this study, we design a compact and efficient network architecture to analyse the distinctive handwriting patterns of patients' dynamic handwriting signals, thereby providing an objective identification for the Parkinson's disease diagnosis. Methods: The proposed network is based on a hybrid deep learning approach that fully leverages the advantages of both long short-term memory (LSTM) and convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Specifically, the LSTM block is adopted to extract the time-varying features, while the CNN-based block is implemented using one-dimensional convolution for low computational cost. Moreover, the hybrid model architecture is continuously refined under ablation studies for superior performance. Finally, we evaluate the proposed method with its generalization under a five-fold cross-validation, which validates its efficiency and robustness. Results: The proposed network demonstrates its versatility by achieving impressive classification accuracies on both our new DraWritePD dataset ($96.2\%$) and the well-established PaHaW dataset ($90.7\%$). Moreover, the network architecture also stands out for its excellent lightweight design, occupying a mere $0.084$M of parameters, with a total of only $0.59$M floating-point operations. It also exhibits near real-time CPU inference performance, with inference times ranging from $0.106$ to $0.220$s. Conclusions: We present a series of experiments with extensive analysis, which systematically demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed hybrid neural network in extracting distinctive handwriting patterns for precise diagnosis of Parkinson's disease

USE OF CONCEPTS AND SCHOOLING PROCESS: THE CASE OF ILLITERATE AND LITERATE ADULTS

This paper examines the forms of relations that people establish with their schooling processes. The question about the possibility of developing a literate standard in the orality of illiterate adults will be discussed from two angles: a) first, we will argue the extent to which engaging in everyday activities, without completing the formal cycles of schooling, allowed the study’s illiterate participants to develop a standard that we assume as literate in its orality; b) then, we will analyze how the level of abstraction in the concepts with scientific structure formulated by illiterate participants differ from that presented by literate participants