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Poisoning the Mind : Arsenic Contamination and Cognitive Achievement of Children
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Year: 2008 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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Bangladesh has experienced the largest mass poisoning of a population in history owing to contamination of groundwater with naturally occurring inorganic arsenic. Continuous drinking of such metal-contaminated water is highly cancerous; prolonged drinking of such water risks developing diseases in a span of just 5-10 years. Arsenicosis-intake of arsenic-contaminated drinking water-has implications for children's cognitive and psychological development. This study examines the effect of arsenicosis at school and at home on cognitive achievement of children in rural Bangladesh using recent nationally representative school survey data on students. Information on arsenic poisoning of the primary source of drinking water-tube wells-is used to ascertain arsenic exposure. The findings show an unambiguously negative and statistically significant correlation between mathematics score and arsenicosis at home, net of exposure at school. Split-sample analysis reveals that the effect is only specific to boys; for girls, the effect is negative but insignificant. Similar correlations are found for cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes such as subjective well-being, that is, a self-reported measure of life satisfaction (also a direct proxy for health status) of students and their performance in primary-standard mathematics. These correlations remain robust to controlling for school-level exposure.


Book
Poisoning the Mind : Arsenic Contamination and Cognitive Achievement of Children
Authors: ---
Year: 2008 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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Abstract

Bangladesh has experienced the largest mass poisoning of a population in history owing to contamination of groundwater with naturally occurring inorganic arsenic. Continuous drinking of such metal-contaminated water is highly cancerous; prolonged drinking of such water risks developing diseases in a span of just 5-10 years. Arsenicosis-intake of arsenic-contaminated drinking water-has implications for children's cognitive and psychological development. This study examines the effect of arsenicosis at school and at home on cognitive achievement of children in rural Bangladesh using recent nationally representative school survey data on students. Information on arsenic poisoning of the primary source of drinking water-tube wells-is used to ascertain arsenic exposure. The findings show an unambiguously negative and statistically significant correlation between mathematics score and arsenicosis at home, net of exposure at school. Split-sample analysis reveals that the effect is only specific to boys; for girls, the effect is negative but insignificant. Similar correlations are found for cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes such as subjective well-being, that is, a self-reported measure of life satisfaction (also a direct proxy for health status) of students and their performance in primary-standard mathematics. These correlations remain robust to controlling for school-level exposure.


Book
What Did You Do All Day ? : Maternal Education and Child Outcomes
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Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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Female education levels are very low in many developing countries. Does maternal education have a causal impact on children's educational outcomes even at these very low levels of education? By combining a nationwide census of schools in Pakistan with household data, the authors use the availability of girls' schools in the mother's birth village as an instrument for maternal schooling to address this issue. Since public schools in Pakistan are segregated by gender, the instrument affects only maternal education rather than the education levels of both mothers and fathers. The analysis finds that children of mothers with some education spend 75 minutes more on educational activities at home compared with children whose mothers report no education at all. Mothers with some education also spend more time helping their children with school work; the effect is stronger (an extra 40 minutes per day) in families where the mother is likely the primary care-giver. Finally, test scores for children whose mothers have some education are higher in English, Urdu (the vernacular), and mathematics by 0.24-0.35 standard deviations. There is no relationship between maternal education and mother's time spent on paid work or housework - a posited channel through which education affects bargaining power within the household. And there is no relationship between maternal education and the mother's role in educational decisions or in the provision of other child-specific goods, such as expenditures on pocket money, uniforms, and tuition. The data therefore suggest that at these very low levels of education, maternal education does not substantially affect a mother's bargaining power within the household. Instead, maternal education could directly increase the mother's productivity or affect her preferences toward children's education in a context where her bargaining power is low.


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Do Value-Added Estimates Add Value ? : Accounting for Learning Dynamics
Authors: --- --- ---
Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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Evaluations of educational programs commonly assume that what children learn persists over time. The authors compare learning in Pakistani public and private schools using dynamic panel methods that account for three key empirical challenges to widely used value-added models: imperfect persistence, unobserved student heterogeneity, and measurement error. Their estimates suggest that only a fifth to a half of learning persists between grades and that private schools increase average achievement by 0.25 standard deviations each year. In contrast, estimates from commonly used value-added models significantly understate the impact of private schools' on student achievement and/or overstate persistence. These results have implications for program evaluation and value-added accountability system design.


Book
What Did You Do All Day ? : Maternal Education and Child Outcomes
Authors: --- ---
Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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Abstract

Female education levels are very low in many developing countries. Does maternal education have a causal impact on children's educational outcomes even at these very low levels of education? By combining a nationwide census of schools in Pakistan with household data, the authors use the availability of girls' schools in the mother's birth village as an instrument for maternal schooling to address this issue. Since public schools in Pakistan are segregated by gender, the instrument affects only maternal education rather than the education levels of both mothers and fathers. The analysis finds that children of mothers with some education spend 75 minutes more on educational activities at home compared with children whose mothers report no education at all. Mothers with some education also spend more time helping their children with school work; the effect is stronger (an extra 40 minutes per day) in families where the mother is likely the primary care-giver. Finally, test scores for children whose mothers have some education are higher in English, Urdu (the vernacular), and mathematics by 0.24-0.35 standard deviations. There is no relationship between maternal education and mother's time spent on paid work or housework - a posited channel through which education affects bargaining power within the household. And there is no relationship between maternal education and the mother's role in educational decisions or in the provision of other child-specific goods, such as expenditures on pocket money, uniforms, and tuition. The data therefore suggest that at these very low levels of education, maternal education does not substantially affect a mother's bargaining power within the household. Instead, maternal education could directly increase the mother's productivity or affect her preferences toward children's education in a context where her bargaining power is low.


Book
Do Value-Added Estimates Add Value ? : Accounting for Learning Dynamics
Authors: --- --- ---
Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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Abstract

Evaluations of educational programs commonly assume that what children learn persists over time. The authors compare learning in Pakistani public and private schools using dynamic panel methods that account for three key empirical challenges to widely used value-added models: imperfect persistence, unobserved student heterogeneity, and measurement error. Their estimates suggest that only a fifth to a half of learning persists between grades and that private schools increase average achievement by 0.25 standard deviations each year. In contrast, estimates from commonly used value-added models significantly understate the impact of private schools' on student achievement and/or overstate persistence. These results have implications for program evaluation and value-added accountability system design.


Book
Processing Mathematics Through Digital Technologies
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ISBN: 9460916252 9460916279 9786613695963 1280785578 Year: 2011 Publisher: Rotterdam : SensePublishers : Imprint: SensePublishers,

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Digital technologies permeate our lives. We use them to communicate, research, process, record, and for entertainment. They influence the way we interact in the world, the way we live. Digital technologies also offer the potential to transform the nature of the learning process in mathematics. The learning environment, the types of tasks learners can engage with, and the nature of that engagement differs from working in other environments. The Internet, for instance, presents greater scope for child-centered, inquiry-based learning. Dynamic geometry software and GoogleEarth offer interactive ways of exploring shape, position and space that is not possible with the pencil-and-paper medium. This book provides insights into how mathematical understanding emerged for primary-aged children (5-13 years) when they investigated mathematical tasks through digital media. It considers learning theories that are frequently used in mathematics education, and situates a contemporary interpretive approach within those perspectives. A key purpose was to provide some practical tasks for teachers/teacher educators to incorporate digital technologies into their mathematics programmes, tasks that have been used successfully for learning. This is a significant reference book for primary-school teacher education and a valuable resource for all schools teaching at that age.


Book
Historical Dynamics : Why States Rise and Fall
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ISBN: 1400889316 9781400889310 9780691116693 Year: 2018 Publisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press,

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Many historical processes are dynamic. Populations grow and decline. Empires expand and collapse. Religions spread and wither. Natural scientists have made great strides in understanding dynamical processes in the physical and biological worlds using a synthetic approach that combines mathematical modeling with statistical analyses. Taking up the problem of territorial dynamics--why some polities at certain times expand and at other times contract--this book shows that a similar research program can advance our understanding of dynamical processes in history. Peter Turchin develops hypotheses from a wide range of social, political, economic, and demographic factors: geopolitics, factors affecting collective solidarity, dynamics of ethnic assimilation/religious conversion, and the interaction between population dynamics and sociopolitical stability. He then translates these into a spectrum of mathematical models, investigates the dynamics predicted by the models, and contrasts model predictions with empirical patterns. Turchin's highly instructive empirical tests demonstrate that certain models predict empirical patterns with a very high degree of accuracy. For instance, one model accounts for the recurrent waves of state breakdown in medieval and early modern Europe. And historical data confirm that ethno-nationalist solidarity produces an aggressively expansive state under certain conditions (such as in locations where imperial frontiers coincide with religious divides). The strength of Turchin's results suggests that the synthetic approach he advocates can significantly improve our understanding of historical dynamics.

Keywords

Historiometry. --- History --- Historical models --- Historiometry --- Historiometrics --- Biography --- Psychohistory --- Mathematical models. --- Methodology --- Psychological aspects --- Mathematical models --- Statistical methods --- Demography --- Asia Minor. --- Black Death. --- English Revolution. --- Europe. --- France. --- Russia. --- agrarian polities. --- asabiya. --- autocatalytic model. --- boom–bust dynamics. --- boundless growth. --- class structure. --- cliodynamics. --- collective solidarity. --- collectivism. --- commoners. --- conflict legitimacy dynamics. --- cultural regions. --- demographic-fiscal model. --- demographic-structural theory. --- dynamical processes. --- elites. --- empires. --- endogenous systems. --- equilibrium. --- ethnic assimilation. --- ethnic identity. --- ethnies. --- ethnogenesis. --- ethnokinetic model. --- ethnokinetics. --- frontier index. --- frontiers. --- geopolitics. --- group dynamics. --- group solidarity. --- hierarchical modeling. --- historical dynamics. --- historical sociology. --- imperial boundaries. --- individualism. --- internal warfare. --- linguistic assimilation. --- marchland position. --- mathematical modeling. --- mathematical models. --- mathematical theory. --- metaethnic fault lines. --- metaethnic frontier theory. --- metaethnic frontiers. --- metaethnie. --- metastable dynamics. --- noninteractive model. --- nonlinear dynamics. --- political cycles. --- political instability. --- polity dynamics. --- population density. --- population dynamics. --- population numbers. --- population oscillations. --- primary data. --- process order. --- quantitative theories. --- religious conversion. --- secondary data. --- secular cycles. --- secular oscillations. --- social capital. --- socioeconomic dynamics. --- sociopolitical stability. --- state breakdown. --- sustained oscillations. --- territorial dynamics. --- threshold model. --- vulnerability.


Book
Handbook of meta-analysis in ecology and evolution
Authors: --- ---
ISBN: 9781400846184 9780691137285 9780691137292 Year: 2013 Publisher: Princeton, N.J. : Princeton Univ. P.,

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Meta-analysis is a powerful statistical methodology for synthesizing research evidence across independent studies. This is the first comprehensive handbook of meta-analysis written specifically for ecologists and evolutionary biologists, and it provides an invaluable introduction for beginners as well as an up-to-date guide for experienced meta-analysts. The chapters, written by renowned experts, walk readers through every step of meta-analysis, from problem formulation to the presentation of the results. The handbook identifies both the advantages of using meta-analysis for research synthesis and the potential pitfalls and limitations of meta-analysis (including when it should not be used). Different approaches to carrying out a meta-analysis are described, and include moment and least-square, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian approaches, all illustrated using worked examples based on real biological datasets. This one-of-a-kind resource is uniquely tailored to the biological sciences, and will provide an invaluable text for practitioners from graduate students and senior scientists to policymakers in conservation and environmental management. Walks you through every step of carrying out a meta-analysis in ecology and evolutionary biology, from problem formulation to result presentation Brings together experts from a broad range of fields Shows how to avoid, minimize, or resolve pitfalls such as missing data, publication bias, varying data quality, nonindependence of observations, and phylogenetic dependencies among species Helps you choose the right software Draws on numerous examples based on real biological datasets

Keywords

Meta-analysis. --- Evolution --- Ecology --- Philosophy --- Creation --- Emergence (Philosophy) --- Teleology --- Medicine --- Psychometrics --- Social sciences --- Mathematical models. --- Statistical methods. --- Research --- Evaluation --- Statistical methods --- Bayesian analysis. --- Bayesian approach. --- Lepidoptera mating. --- allometric scaling. --- average trends. --- biodiversity. --- collaborative research. --- computer software. --- conceptual tool. --- conservation. --- conventional wisdom. --- data analysis. --- data appraisal. --- data collection. --- data extraction. --- data gathering. --- data quality. --- ecology. --- effect size. --- effect sizes. --- evolution. --- evolutionary biology. --- exemplar studies. --- forest plots. --- imputation methods. --- insufficient data. --- interaction effects. --- invasive plants. --- knowledge gaps. --- large-scale monitoring. --- least-squares method. --- literature search. --- management intervention. --- maximum likelihood estimation. --- medicine. --- meta-analysis database. --- meta-analysis. --- meta-analytic process. --- meta-regression plots. --- missing data. --- moment-based approach. --- non-independence. --- parameter estimation. --- partial information. --- phylogenetic nonindependence. --- phylogenetic relationships. --- plant abundance. --- primary data. --- problem formulation. --- publication bias. --- published studies. --- quantitative research synthesis. --- research evidence. --- research pooling. --- research practice. --- research synthesis. --- sample error. --- sampling. --- scatter plots. --- scientific literature. --- scientific publications. --- scoping search. --- sex ratio theory. --- sexual selection. --- small-scale surveys. --- social sciences. --- statistical analysis. --- statistical inference. --- statistical methodology. --- statistical models. --- statistical power. --- statistical software. --- statistical tool. --- study quality. --- study replication. --- study selection. --- subjectivity. --- systematic research synthesis. --- systematic review. --- systematic reviews. --- systematic search. --- temporal change. --- temporal trends. --- visualization.


Book
Employer Voices, Employer Demands, and Implications for Public Skills Development Policy Connecting the Labor and Education Sectors
Authors: ---
Year: 2016 Publisher: Washington, D.C. : The World Bank,

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Educators believe that they are adequately preparing youth for the labor market while at the same time employers lament the students' lack of skills. A possible source of the mismatch in perceptions is that employers and educators have different understandings of the types of skills valued in the labor market. Using economics and psychology literature to define four skills sets-socio-emotional, higher-order cognitive, basic cognitive, and technical-this paper reviews the literature that quantitatively measures employer skill emand, as reported in a preference survey. A sample of 27 studies reveals remarkable consistency across the world in the skills demanded by employers. While employers value all skill sets, there is a greater demand for socio-emotional skills and higher-order cognitive skills than for basic cognitive or technical skills. These results are robust across region, industry, occupation, and education level. Employers perceive that the greatest skills gaps are in socio-emotional and higher-order cognitive skills. These findings suggest the need to re-conceptualize the public sector's role in preparing children for a future labor market. Namely, technical training is not equivalent to job training; instead, a broad range of skills, many of which are best taught long before labor market entry, should be included in school curricula from the earliest ages. The skills most demanded by employers-higher-order cognitive skills and socio-emotional skills-are largely learned or refined in adolescence, arguing for a general education well into secondary school until these skills are formed. Finally, the public sector can provide programming and incentives to non-school actors, namely parents and employers, to encourage them to invest in the skills evelopment process. Skills, labor demand, cognitive, non-cognitive, behavioral skills, competences, employer surveys, skills policy, education policy, training policy.

Keywords

Ability. --- Academic Learning. --- Access and Equity in Basic Education. --- Achievement. --- Adolescence. --- Adolescents. --- Adult Literacy. --- Adults. --- Applied Skills. --- Attitudes. --- Basic Knowledge. --- Basic Literacy. --- Basic Numeracy. --- Basic Skills. --- Body Language. --- Caregivers. --- Child Development. --- Childhood Evelopment. --- Children. --- Classroom. --- Cognition. --- Cognitive Development. --- Cognitive Skills. --- Cognitive Test. --- Communication. --- Computer Literacy. --- Computer Skills. --- Concepts. --- Creativity. --- Critical Thinking. --- Curricula. --- Curriculum. --- Decision Making. --- Developmental Psychology. --- Disadvantaged Children. --- Early Childhood Development. --- Early Childhood. --- Early Enrichment. --- Early Stimulation. --- Educated Workers. --- Education for All. --- Education Institutions. --- Education Policy. --- Education Providers. --- Education Sector. --- Education System. --- Education. --- Educational Achievement. --- Educational Infrastructure. --- Educational Sciences. --- Educators. --- Effective Schools and Teachers. --- Effort. --- Elementary School. --- Emotional Development. --- Ethics. --- Exams. --- Experience. --- General Education. --- Girls. --- Global Education. --- Groups. --- Head Start. --- High School. --- Higher Education Institutions. --- Higher Education. --- Human Development. --- Information Processing. --- Instruction. --- Intelligence. --- Interventions. --- Investment. --- Job Training. --- Knowledge. --- Language. --- Leadership. --- Learning Outcomes. --- Learning. --- Levels of Education. --- Life Skills. --- Literacy Survey. --- Literacy. --- Memory. --- Needs. --- New Entrants. --- Numeracy. --- Nutrition. --- Oral Communication. --- Participation. --- Pedagogical Methods. --- Perception. --- Performance. --- Personality Traits. --- Personality. --- Preschool Education. --- Primary Data. --- Primary Education. --- Primary School. --- Primary Schooling. --- Problem Solving. --- Professional Knowledge. --- Psychology. --- Reasoning. --- Regional Education. --- School Activities. --- School Climate. --- School Clubs. --- School Curricula. --- School Curriculum. --- School Improvement. --- School Schools. --- School Setting. --- School. --- Schooling. --- Schools. --- Science. --- Secondary Education. --- Secondary School. --- Skill Acquisition. --- Skill Evelopment. --- Skilled Workers. --- Skills Acquisition. --- Skills Evelopment. --- Skills for Employment. --- Skills. --- Students. --- Study. --- Teacher Qualifications. --- Teacher. --- Teaching Methods. --- Teaching. --- Thinking. --- Training Programs. --- Training. --- Understanding. --- Values. --- Vocational Education. --- Women. --- Work Experience. --- Writing. --- Youth.

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