Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a newly developed dynamic screener to assess first year secondary school students’ potential for learning. Participants included 52 children ...Show moreThis study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a newly developed dynamic screener to assess first year secondary school students’ potential for learning. Participants included 52 children (mean age = 13.14) from different Dutch educational tracks. The dynamic screener consists of the subtests reading, mathematics, working memory, planning, divergent thinking, and inductive reasoning. Each subtest employs a test-training-test design. Based on randomized blocking, half of the children received a graduated prompts training between pre-test and post-test, while the other half did not. On some, but not all, subtests training seems to lead to an increase in performance. Additionally, some constructs measured through the dynamic screener relate to current school performance. This pilot study provides preliminary support to the use of such an instrument to gain more insight into children’s learning potential and instructional needs. Directions for future research are discussed.Show less
Secondary history education is only one of the many ways for a state apparatus to influence and be involved in constructing historical narratives and public memory. Yet, the state-sponsored history...Show moreSecondary history education is only one of the many ways for a state apparatus to influence and be involved in constructing historical narratives and public memory. Yet, the state-sponsored history aspect of compulsory secondary education plays a highly important role considering its target audience - a country's youth - and because of the clear articulation, widespread distribution and compelling moral framework of state-sponsored textbooks. In this thesis, the recent standardisation and nationalisation policy in Russia serves as a clear example of the increase of state control on history education. Adding to the existing state-sponsored history research on Russian secondary textbooks, this thesis approaches state-sponsored history from a historical perspective by examining the historical background of Russian state-sponsored history, while diving into an in-depth case study of one historical event: the revolutionary period of Russia in 1905, also referred to as the Russian Revolution of 1905. The re-evaluation of this short period of time could be summarised by three successive dominant perspectives in Russian state-sponsored history: two ideological perspectives (traditional socialism and Russian patriotism served by Great Russian nationalism) and one perspective characterised by pluralist revisionism that represents the re-evaluation of Russian history education during the 1990s. In regard to the standardisation period since the early 2000s, the state document called Kontseptsiya appeared to function as the cornerstone of the current educational policy, which is focused on instilling patriotism and re-affirming the status of Great Russia, while legitimising authoritarian values is promoted by certain historical interpretations of particularly tsar Nicholas II and Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin. As a final point, the Kontseptsiya included the political motivation to apply a new approach to the history of Russian culture as a continuous process of acquiring a national identity that is formed by its political and socio-economic development, which affirmed the role of state-sponsored history in the Russian state policy of social engineering or cultural reproduction to find a post-communist national identity that could measure up to the great power status of the former Russian Empire and Soviet Union. The conclusion of this historical case study of Russia in the theoretical framework of state-sponsored history leads to the awareness of state control on compulsory history education and raises the question of the desirability of international agreement on a universal basic understanding of history in secondary education.Show less
