Educational Assessments in Latin America: The State of the Art

On s'intéresse de plus en plus à travers le monde aux évaluations dans la domaine de l'éducation. Cet article décrit les progrès que plusieurs pays d'Amérique latine ont réalisé dans ce secteur, y compris la participation de l'Amérique latine à un ensemble d'initiatives internationales. L'article expose quelques questions et problèmes et indique comment les programmes d'évaluation de ces pays pourrait être mieux exploités pour améliorer la qualité de l'éducation.
Interest in educational assessments has grown throughout the world. This paper examines advances in educational assessments in several countries of Latin America, including Latin American participation in a variety of international efforts. The paper identifies issues and problems and suggests how assessment programs in this region can be used more effectively to improve the quality of education. ¹     

Dual imputation model for incomplete longitudinal data

Missing values are a practical issue in the analysis of longitudinal data. Multiple imputation (MI) is a well‐known likelihood‐based method that has optimal properties in terms of efficiency and consistency if the imputation model is correctly specified. Doubly robust (DR) weighing‐based methods protect against misspecification bias if one of the models, but not necessarily both, for the data or the mechanism leading to missing data is correct. We propose a new imputation method that captures the simplicity of MI and protection from the DR method. This method integrates MI and DR to protect against misspecification of the imputation model under a missing at random assumption. Our method avoids analytical complications of missing data particularly in multivariate settings, and is easy to implement in standard statistical packages. Moreover, the proposed method works very well with an intermittent pattern of missingness when other DR methods can not be used. Simulation experiments show that the proposed approach achieves improved performance when one of the models is correct. The method is applied to data from the fireworks disaster study, a randomized clinical trial comparing therapies in disaster‐exposed children. We conclude that the new method increases the robustness of imputations.     

Antiphasis as Homonym in Aristotle

Antiphasis is a case of core-dependent homonymy, and has three significations in Aristotle's philosophy: (1) antiphasis as an opposition between propositions (a propositional signification); (2) antiphasis as the opposition between ‘subject’ and ‘not a subject’ in coming-to-be and perishing (an ontological signification); and (3) antiphasis as the opposition between possession and privation (an ontological signification). Argument based on the fifth type of priority described in Cat. 12 shows that, for Aristotle, the ontological significations are prior to the propositional.     

Toward a Culturally Responsive Model of Mental Health Literacy: Facilitating Help‐Seeking Among East Asian Immigrants to North America

Studies have consistently found that East Asian immigrants in North America are less likely to use mental health services even when they experience levels of distress comparable to Euro‐Americans. Although cultural factors that may prevent East Asian immigrants from seeking mental health care have been identified, few studies have explored ways to foster appropriate help‐seeking and use of mental health services. Recent work on mental health literacy provides a potential framework for strategies to increase appropriate help‐seeking and use of services. This paper reviews the literature on help‐seeking for mental health problems among East Asian immigrants living in Western countries to critically assess the relevance of the mental health literacy approach as a framework for interventions to improve appropriate use of services. Modifications needed to develop a culturally responsive framework for mental health literacy are identified.     

Social influence on metacognitive evaluations: The power of nonverbal cues

Metacognitive evaluations refer to the processes by which people assess their own cognitive operations with respect to their current goal. Little is known about whether this process is susceptible to social influence. Here we investigate whether nonverbal social signals spontaneously influence metacognitive evaluations. Participants performed a two-alternative forced-choice task, which was followed by a face randomly gazing towards or away from the response chosen by the participant. Participants then provided a metacognitive evaluation of their response by rating their confidence in their answer. In Experiment 1, the participants were told that the gaze direction was irrelevant to the task purpose and were advised to ignore it. The results revealed an effect of implicit social information on confidence ratings even though the gaze direction was random and therefore unreliable for task purposes. In addition, nonsocial cues (car) did not elicit this effect. In Experiment 2, the participants were led to believe that cue direction (face or car) reflected a previous participant's response to the same question—that is, the social information provided by the cue was made explicit, yet still objectively unreliable for the task. The results showed a similar social influence on confidence ratings, observed with both cues (car and face) but with an increased magnitude relative to Experiment 1. We additionally showed in Experiment 2 that social information impaired metacognitive accuracy. Together our results strongly suggest an involuntary susceptibility of metacognitive evaluations to nonverbal social information, even when it is implicit (Experiment 1) and unreliable (Experiments 1 and 2).     

Intuitive Dualism and Afterlife Beliefs: A Cross-Cultural Study

It is widely held that intuitive dualism—an implicit default mode of thought that takes minds to be separable from bodies and capable of independent existence—is a human universal. Among the findings taken to support universal intuitive dualism is a pattern of evidence in which “psychological” traits (knowledge, desires) are judged more likely to continue after death than bodily or “biological” traits (perceptual, physiological, and bodily states). Here, we present cross-cultural evidence from six study populations, including non-Western societies with diverse belief systems, that shows that while this pattern exists, the overall pattern of responses nonetheless does not support intuitive dualism in afterlife beliefs. Most responses of most participants across all cultures tested were not dualist. While our sample is in no way intended to capture the full range of human societies and afterlife beliefs, it captures a far broader range of cultures than in any prior study, and thus puts the case for afterlife beliefs as evidence for universal intuitive dualism to a strong test. Based on these findings, we suggest that while dualist thinking is a possible mode of thought enabled by evolved human psychology, such thinking does not constitute a default mode of thought. Rather, our data support what we will call intuitive materialism—the view that the underlying intuitive systems for reasoning about minds and death produce as a default judgment that mental states cease to exist with bodily death.     

What happens to our representation of identity as familiar faces age? Evidence from priming and identity aftereffects

Matching identity in images of unfamiliar faces is error prone, but we can easily recognize highly variable images of familiar faces – even images taken decades apart. Recent theoretical development based on computational modelling can account for how we recognize extremely variable instances of the same identity. We provide complementary behavioural data by examining older adults’ representation of older celebrities who were also famous when young. In Experiment 1, participants completed a long-lag repetition priming task in which primes and test stimuli were the same age or different ages. In Experiment 2, participants completed an identity after effects task in which the adapting stimulus was an older or young photograph of one celebrity and the test stimulus was a morph between the adapting identity and a different celebrity; the adapting stimulus was the same age as the test stimulus on some trials (e.g., both old) or a different age (e.g., adapter young, test stimulus old). The magnitude of priming and identity after effects were not influenced by whether the prime and adapting stimulus were the same age or different age as the test face. Collectively, our findings suggest that humans have one common mental representation for a familiar face (e.g., Paul McCartney) that incorporates visual changes across decades, rather than multiple age-specific representations. These findings make novel predictions for state-of-the-art algorithms (e.g., Deep Convolutional Neural Networks).     

Beyond gains and losses: the effect of need on risky choice in framed decisions

Substantial evidence suggests people are risk-averse when making decisions described in terms of gains and risk-prone when making decisions described in terms of losses, a phenomenon known as the framing effect. Little research, however, has examined whether framing effects are a product of normative risk-sensitive cognitive processes. In 5 experiments, it is demonstrated that framing effects in the Asian disease problem can be explained by risk-sensitivity theory, which predicts that decision makers adjust risk acceptance on the basis of minimal acceptable thresholds, or need. Both explicit and self-determined need requirements eliminated framing effects and affected risk acceptance consistent with risk-sensitivity theory. Furthermore, negative language choice in loss frames conferred the perception of high need and led to the construction of higher minimal acceptable thresholds. The results of this study suggest that risk-sensitivity theory provides a normative rationale for framing effects based on sensitivity to minimal acceptable thresholds, or needs.     

Johann Christian August Heinroth (1773–1843): the first professor of psychiatry as a psychotherapist

Heinroth is known as the first professor of psychiatry. His chair was established 200 years ago on the 21st of October 1811. His major importance for the history of psychotherapy has not yet been acknowledged. Heinroth regarded restriction as well as activation as fundamental remedies for mental illnesses. Restriction meant making a voluntary decision to live a life based on religious faith and to abstain from earthly satisfaction. Within his specific psychotherapeutical module—the ‘‘direct-psychic’’method—he utilized the patient’s mental powers—mood, mind and will, but also his spirituality. His therapeutic approach additionally contained elements of cognitive,behavioral and conversational therapy.