The effect of teaching strategies on student achievement: An analysis using TALIS-PISA-link

The present study investigates the effects of different teaching strategies on student achievement using data from the so-called TALIS-PISA link created by the OECD. This is a recently developed instrument that allows for connecting data about teacher characteristics and practices collected in the TALIS (Teaching and Learning International Survey) survey with students’ academic performance measured in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). Our empirical strategy is based on an instrumental variable (IV) approach. Our results suggest that traditional teaching methods have a positive influence on students’ proficiency in mathematics, while the implementation of more innovative active learning strategies seem to have a negative impact on student achievement.     

Rethinking social work ethics: what is the real question? Responding to Stephen Webb's ‘Against difference and diversity in social work’

Jose J. Rethinking social work ethics: what is the real question? Responding to Stephen Webb's ‘Against difference and diversity in social work’ Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 246–252 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. In his recent article, Stephen Webb argued that the real question for social work ethics concerns ‘recognising the Same and of restoring the principles of equality and social justice’. This argument also included raising questions about what should be considered an appropriate philosophical basis for progressive social work ethics. In his view, social work's emancipatory potential has been blunted by overstated and philosophically ill‐informed human rights claims about difference and diversity. He suggested that French philosopher Alain Badiou offers social workers a ‘set of conceptual devices for rethinking social work ethics’. I argue that pressing his points into Badiou's philosophical mould is unlikely to lead to a progressive social work practice, let alone solve the issues identified by Webb. Badiou's philosophical pronouncements about ethics are of questionable value and offer little or no assistance to social workers seeking to establish an ethical grounding for their professional practice.     

Stochastic Measures of Network Resilience: Applications to Waterway Commodity Flows

Given the ubiquitous nature of infrastructure networks in today's society, there is a global need to understand, quantify, and plan for the resilience of these networks to disruptions. This work defines network resilience along dimensions of reliability, vulnerability, survivability, and recoverability, and quantifies network resilience as a function of component and network performance. The treatment of vulnerability and recoverability as random variables leads to stochastic measures of resilience, including time to total system restoration, time to full system service resilience, and time to a specific α% resilience. Ultimately, a means to optimize network resilience strategies is discussed, primarily through an adaption of the Copeland Score for nonparametric stochastic ranking. The measures of resilience and optimization techniques are applied to inland waterway networks, an important mode in the larger multimodal transportation network upon which we rely for the flow of commodities. We provide a case study analyzing and planning for the resilience of commodity flows along the Mississippi River Navigation System to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed metrics.     

A generalization of an identity of hoeffding and some applications

Summary We generalize a well-known identity due to Hoeffding and use this generalization to prove a result of Cambanis, Simons and Stout under somewhat different hypotheses and to extend some results of Lehmann concerning bivariate distributions with quadrant dependence.     

A Characterization for the Spherical Scoring Rule

Strictly proper scoring rules have been studied widely in statistical decision theory and recently in experimental economics because of their ability to encourage assessors to honestly provide their true subjective probabilities. In this article, we study the spherical scoring rule by analytically examining some of its properties and providing some new geometric interpretations for this rule. Moreover, we state a theorem which provides an axiomatic characterization for the spherical scoring rule. The objective of this analysis is to provide a better understanding of one of the most commonly available scoring rules, which could aid decision makers in the selection of an appropriate tool for evaluating and assessing probabilistic forecasts.      

Efficacy of a brief intervention on attitudes to reduce school violence: A randomized clinical trial

There is growing interest in the phenomenon of school violence, which has been associated in diverse works with youth's attitudes towards violence, and it has been the focus of many intervention programs. However, the high human and economic cost entailed can impede its administration in some school centers. Therefore, the goal of the present study is to assess the efficacy of a brief intervention aimed at modifying attitudes towards violence to reduce the phenomenon of school bullying. The sample was obtained from a Secondary Education Institute during the 2010–2011 school term, and was made up of 252 students aged between 12 and 15 years. A controlled and randomized design was used in order to assess the effects of the program “Count on Me.” Ten classrooms were randomly assigned either to the intervention or to a waiting-list. Results show a significant reduction of playground violence perceived by the students, especially among the girls. Implications for the development of future brief programs for the prevention of school violence are discussed.     

Multidimensional Poverty in Paraguay: Trends from 2000 to 2015

The paper discusses Kenneth C. Land and Alex C. Michalos’ review and assessment of the evolution of research on social indicators, quality of life and well-being over the past fifty years. The contribution deals with the impacts of three major societal changes on the future research agenda of social indicators research: firstly, impacts of the changing class structure of post-industrial society, secondly, globalization impacts, including its economic, political, cultural and institutional dimensions, and thirdly, the impacts of an increasingly networked digitalization of production and consumption.     

Does Premarital Cohabitation Predict Subsequent Marital Stability and Marital Quality? A Meta‐Analysis

Cohabitation with a romantic partner has become common in recent decades. This meta‐analysis examined the link between premarital cohabitation and marital stability ( k = 16) and marital quality ( k = 12). Cohabitation had a significant negative association with both marital stability and marital quality. The negative predictive effect on marital stability, however, did not remain when only cohabitation with the eventual marital partner was analyzed, suggesting that these cohabitors may attach more long‐term meaning to living together. Moderator analyses demonstrated that effects of cohabitation have remained consistent over time, despite the fact that cohabitation has become more normative.