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Introduction: A number of theoretical works focus on the potential revolutionary impact of the Internet and other Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) upon Competitive Intelligence, but only a few empirical research papers can be found on it. Is the real impact still unknown, or is it too insignificant to talk about? The present paper searches for the answers to this question both in literature and on the field, focusing on the point where the impact is expected to be the greatest: Information Gathering. Method: Important empirical essays in academic literature were overviewed, including American and also French surveys. Based on literature, hypotheses were established and tested on an existing database, containing information on more than 500 firms collected over two consecutive years. The sample was constructed through telephone interviews and was destined to test the effect of information and communication technologies on several aspects of management. Analysis: Hypotheses were classed into seven groups with respect to the influence of external environment, internal structure and development of IT on the information acquisition activities of firms. Quantitative methods were used to carry out tests on the sample. Results: Internal structure shows only partial influence, but for IT and external environment, the correlation was high. On the other hand, firms are still underdeveloped. Conclusion: The presented results provide better understanding of the level of development of Information Gathering in firms and of the factors influencing it, and suggest new ways for further research in order to understand why firms are still underdeveloped.

Introduction: Whether Wikipedia is to be considered a trusted source is frequently questioned in France. This paper reports the results of a survey examining the levels of trust shown by young people aged eleven to twenty-five. Method: We analyse the answers given by 841 young people, aged eleven to twenty-five, to a questionnaire. To our knowledge, this is the largest study ever published on the topic. It focuses on (1) the perception young people have of Wikipedia; (2) the influence teachers and peers have on the young person's own opinions; and (3) the variation of trends according to the education level. Analysis: All the analysis is based on ANOVA (analysis of variance) to compare the various groups of participants. We detail the results by comparing the various groups of responders and discuss these results in relation to previous studies. Results: Trust in Wikipedia depends on the type of information seeking tasks and on the education level. There are contrasting social judgments of Wikipedia. Students build a representation of a teacher's expectations on the nature of the sources that they can use and hence the documentary acceptability of Wikipedia. The average trust attributed to Wikipedia for academic tasks could be induced by the tension between the negative academic reputation of the encyclopedia and the mostly positive experience of its credibility. Conclusion: Our survey demonstrates significant differences between the levels of education, both for Wikipedia use and its representation. This variable should be included in studies related to information behaviour by the young to avoid generalisations that deny the disparities between ages.

This paper presents the "Multi-Role Project" method (MRP), a broadly applicable project-based learning method, and describes its implementation and evaluation in the context of a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) course. The MRP method is designed around a meta-principle that considers the project learning activity as a role-playing game based on two projects: a learning project and an engineering project. The meta-principle is complemented by five principles that provide a framework to guide the working practices of student teams: distribution of responsibilities; regular interactions and solicitations within the team; anticipation and continuous improvement; positive interdependence and alternating individual/collective work; and open communication and content management. This paper presents the implementation of MRP in a course teaching software engineering, UML language, and project management. The results show that MRP helped the course's students to acquire important professional knowledge and skills, experience near-real-world professional realities, and develop their abilities to work both in teams and autonomously.

This paper is based on work done at IdeaSquare, a new innovation experiment at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The paper explores the translation of fundamental research into societal applications with the help of multidisciplinary student teams, project- and problem-based learning and design thinking methods. The theme is approached through challenge based innovation (CBI), a pilot course coordinated by IdeaSquare in 2013-2014 in collaboration with three universities. The approach, including a visit to CERN, appears to motivate the participating students to really strong, self-directed learning and can produce new, innovative concepts for societal applications with an inspirational connection to CERN. As a result of their iterative development, the student teams created two concepts: EDUMIND to help autistic kids to communicate through augmented reality technology, and CMPRSSD to use advanced data processing to record and compress project meetings. Both of the projects were also developed further by their stakeholders after the course.

Based on previous research and the limitations of existing questionnaires on teachers' value orientations (VOs), the purpose of this study was to develop and provide validity evidence of two French-language versions of a physical education (PE) teachers' VO questionnaire (OVEPS). The two versions are based on a model of 3 VOs (i.e., motor skills, self-awareness, and social knowledge). This paper describes the development of two forms of the OVEPS, i.e., a Likert-scale OVEPS and a forced-choice OVEPS. Two studies were conducted; the first developed evidence of the internal structure (reliability and factorial structure) of the Likert-scale OVEPS. The second presented evidence of the internal structure of the forced-choice OVEPS and its relations to other variables (convergent and divergent correlations). The results showed that the forced-choice OVEPS was the best solution and revealed three distinct PE teacher priorities in France. This questionnaire is expected to be useful for developing future studies.

The ECO European Project funded by the European Commission is dedicated to bringing MOOCs to a new dimension by taking advantage of the new possibilities offered by the Social Web (O'Reilly, 2005). This paper focuses on the intercreative aspects of MOOCs. It takes a look at the characteristics of the new ECO MOOCs to see if they are designed and implemented within an intercreative environment. The methodology is quantitative and data collection was conducted using self-administered questionnaires with closed or semi-closed questions. This study includes the so-called sMOOCs, which stress intercreativity to work towards collective intelligence.

What collaborative process can teachers offer in order to stimulate their students' reading of and writing on Shakespeare's plays? How can new technologies contribute to facilitating the classroom experience? The eZoomBook (eZB) template was designed for teachers to create and share multi-level digital books called "eZoomBooks" that allow readers to access enriched versions of the original, organized according to different tabs related to places mentioned in the original text. A zooming in and out function enables the readers of the eZoomBooks to navigate freely between the original and the enriched tabulated versions. This paper focuses on a pilot study of the methodology using a simplified version of the template. The targeted learners were English as a Second Language engineering students. Our objective is to show that the eZB framework and pedagogical applications are especially appropriate in making a difficult subject easier to teach (giving and correcting group assignments) and learn by providing learners an innovative and motivating approach to reading literature.

Qualitative research conducted with 237 pupils from Canada, France, and Morocco, between 10 and 12 years of age, on the setting and functioning of simple electric circuits, demonstrates that similar explanatory systems of the students. For this, we had given them a paper and pencil questionnaire of a sixty minutes duration. The first question was related to power a light bulb using wires and battery. The second issue was intended to determine whether pupils are conscious of the danger associated with a polarity battery. The third is related to the flow of electric current between the + and - terminals of a battery in an electric circuit. The last question requires an understanding of the law of conservation of the charge in a circuit constituted by a battery and a bulb. This research provides an answer to the question of ethnocentricity and universality of students' conceptions from different cultures and linguistic communities. In this research, the thesis of the universality was establish from the students' responses to a questionnaire.

This paper examines the effectiveness of a mobile assisted blended learning scenario for pronunciation in Korean language. In particular, we analyze how asynchronous oral communication between learners of Korean and native speakers via "kakaotalk" (an open source mobile phone application) may be beneficial to the learner in terms of pronunciation. Our methodological approach is based on task resolution (Ellis, 2003) in peer-to-peer collaborative settings and the spaced repetition concept (Ebbinghaus, 1885, cited by Dempster, 1988). The outcomes of our study show that the learners appreciated the possibility to interact with native speakers but most of them preferred synchronous communication for training their pronunciation skills.

A qualitative research approach was chosen to analyse the conceptions of pupils attending elementary school from Canada (N = 135), France (N = 30) and Morocco (N = 92) between 10 and 12 years of age. Their conceptions were identified while being mobilised on energy transformations during the working of a simple electric circuit made of a battery, a bulb and electric wires: light, thermal, electrical and chemical. With paper and pencil, they completed a questionnaire made up of six questions during a forty-five minute period. The analysis of the data of the experimentation demonstrates that the majority of the conceptions identified are naïve compared to those constructed by the scientists. It also shows that their conceptions are similar in spite of the different cultures. The results confirm the findings of the international community of researchers in didactics of sciences regarding the universality of children's conceptions about the working of simple electrical circuits. These findings have implications on teacher training, science teaching and learning in a multiple cultural environment.

This paper reports on findings derived as part of a two-year project funded by the European Union's Daphne III scheme, involving collaboration between seven partner organisations across six European countries. The project involved an evaluation, using questionnaires and focus groups, of domestic abuse prevention education programmes delivered in schools in the UK, France and Spain. This paper presents the findings from the UK focus group discussions, conducted with young people aged 10-11 years, and 13-14 years to explore their opinions about the intervention delivered in their school. The focus groups revealed the following challenges for service providers in this area: young people can misunderstand issues related to domestic abuse, especially the role of power and control within relationships; there is a tension between educators giving young people free expression to share their opinions and challenging sexism and other prejudices; and boys can become disengaged with gender-based interventions. These issues point towards three key considerations when implementing a domestic abuse prevention education intervention: programme content (the what); the teaching methods used (the how); and whether teachers or external organisations should deliver the programme (the who).

This paper presents the findings of an experiment in which a group of 17 French post-secondary EFL learners used Google to self-correct several "untreatable" written errors. Whether or not error correction leads to improved writing has been much debated, some researchers dismissing it is as useless and others arguing that error feedback leads to more grammatical accuracy. In her response to Truscott (1996), Ferris (1999) explains that it would be unreasonable to abolish correction given the present state of knowledge, and that further research needed to focus on which types of errors were more amenable to which types of error correction. In her attempt to respond more effectively to her students' errors, she made the distinction between "treatable" and "untreatable" ones: the former occur in "a patterned, rule-governed way" and include problems with verb tense or form, subject-verb agreement, run-ons, noun endings, articles, pronouns, while the latter include a variety of lexical errors, problems with word order and sentence structure, including missing and unnecessary words. Substantial research on the use of search engines as a tool for L2 learners has been carried out suggesting that the web plays an important role in fostering language awareness and learner autonomy (e.g. Shei 2008a, 2008b; Conroy 2010). According to Bathia and Richie (2009: 547), "the application of Google for language learning has just begun to be tapped." Within the framework of this study it was assumed that the students, conversant with digital technologies and using Google and the web on a regular basis, could use various search options and the search results to self-correct their errors instead of relying on their teacher to provide direct feedback. After receiving some in-class training on how to formulate Google queries, the students were asked to use a customized Google search engine limiting searches to 28 information websites to correct up to ten "untreatable" errors occurring in two essays completed in class. The findings indicate that a majority of students successfully use material from the various snippets of texts appearing on the Google results pages to improve their writing.

This paper investigates the potential of mobile learning for creativity in and out of school with a focus on media production. In doing so it attempts to move beyond binary choices around the nature of creativity (e.g., individual vs social) and the role of technologies for creative learning. To this end, it presents the literature on how creativity has been conceptualized, especially in education, and provides the theoretical underpinnings that supported the study by referring to the Vygotskyan perspective of creativity as a transformative process of culture and the self. It then moves to a description of three experiences addressing young people and entailing the creation of digital artifacts through mobile devices. It also presents some results, exploring learners' and teachers' perspectives and showing how mobile devices serve as cultural resources that young people use for meaning making and transforming themselves. The paper concludes with some recommendations for future research.

This paper discusses the results of a study of the requirements for developing a remote radio frequency (RF) laboratory for electrical engineering students. It investigates students' preferred usage of the technical content of a state-of-the-art RF laboratory. The results of this study are compared to previous findings, which dealt with other user groups (technicians in technical colleges and engineers in the RF domain). Based on the results of these analyses, seven essential principles for designing and developing such a laboratory were identified. As a case study, these principles were then implemented into a remote laboratory system. In this paper, the implementation examples are also provided and discussed. The primary aim of this study is to guide remote laboratory platform developers toward the most effective instructional design. This study also determined, from the remote laboratory system case study, what the requirements are of such a laboratory from the students' perspective. (Contains 11 tables and 4 figures.)

This paper reports on a questionnaire survey of 16 national libraries designed to clarify how national libraries attempt to justify their web archiving activities. Results indicate they envisage that a) the benefits brought about by their initiatives are greater than the overall costs, b) the costs imposed on libraries are greater than the costs imposed on stakeholders, and c) all of them are making efforts to respond to legal risks in various ways (e.g. legislation, contracting and opt-out policies) although there are trade-off relations in terms of costs for negotiation, scope of access and size and scope of the web archive. The paper discusses whether a basic logic for justification of their web archiving is valid from the perspective of balancing cost-benefit. Further, it highlights the potential, underlying premises of the logic that motivates the intervention of national libraries as public sector organizations. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

This paper examines the sociopragmatic character of intercultural communication between English Language Assistants (ELAs) and their "mentors" in French primary and secondary schools. With reference to Levinson's notion of "activity type", it argues that judgements by mentors as to what constitutes "allowable contributions" on the part of ELAs are determined by the extent to which mentors themselves have internalised French State regulations. The degree of internalisation can thus serve as a means of distinguishing between "the political" and "the cultural". Awareness of this distinction and an insight into its social significance exemplifies what Spencer-Oatey describes more generally as a "sociopragmatic interactional principle" or SIP. According to Spencer-Oatey, "SIPs" are key elements in the successful management of "rapport" in intercultural situations. By applying a methodology derived from Sinclair and Coulthard's analysis of oral discourse to recordings of ELA-mentor interactions, we identify specific sequences of moves that illustrate the relationship between political and cultural factors, SIPs and sociopragmatic misunderstandings in Anglo-French intercultural communication. (Contains 1 note.)

Most studies on reusable digital learning materials, learning objects (LOs), relate to their use in universities. Few empirical studies exist to explore the impact of LOs on pedagogy, especially in schools. This paper provides evidence from an evaluation of the use of LOs in schools. The evidence is from a European Union-funded project, Context eLearning with Broadband Technologies (CELEBRATE), involving 500 schools in six countries across Europe, in a pilot to examine the impact of LOs on pedagogy. It brought together producers and users to try out technically and pedagogically sound ways of producing, making available through a portal, and using LOs. This paper reports data from both quantitative and qualitative studies conducted during 2004, including: online surveys (of all the teachers involved), routine data from the portal and semi-structured interviews in 40 schools in all six countries. (Contains 1 table, 4 figures, and 12 notes.)

This paper presents findings of a pilot qualitative study of Caribbean students undertaking overseas immersion primarily for the purpose of perfecting their knowledge of a language and understanding of a culture other than their own. The participants were a group of eleven University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill (Barbados) graduates, five in Colombia, six in France, all working as English-language assistants for eight to ten months during the 2007-2008 academic year. Three data collection instruments were used: (1) diaries kept by participants throughout the sojourn; (2) eleven semi-structured interviews averaging 56 minutes duration, with eight of these being after the sojourn and three during (after three months); and (3) a questionnaire administered six months after return. One of the principal functions of this study is to fill a gap in the research by assessing how the relative size and "recognizability" of the home and host states may affect the sojourner's experience. The results of this study are discussed. (Contains 1 note.)

The question of how to teach energy has been renewed by recent studies focusing on the learning and teaching progressions for this concept. In this context, one question has been, for the most part, overlooked: how should energy be defined throughout schooling? This paper addresses this question in three steps. We first identify and discuss two main approaches in physics concerning the definition of energy, one claiming there is no satisfactory definition and taking conservation as a fundamental property, and the other based on Rankine's definition of energy as the capacity of a system to produce changes. We then present a study concerning how energy is actually defined throughout schooling in the case of France by analyzing national programs, physics textbooks, and the answers of teachers to a questionnaire. This study brings to light a consistency problem in the way energy is defined across school years: in primary school, an adapted version of Rankine's definition is introduced and conservation is ignored; in high school, conservation is introduced and Rankine's definition is ignored. Finally, we address this consistency problem by discussing possible teaching progressions. We argue in favor of the use of Rankine's definition throughout schooling: at primary school, it is a possible substitute to students' erroneous conceptions; at secondary school, it might help students become aware of the unifying role of energy and thereby overcome the compartmentalization problem.

Background: Reliability of nonprobability online volunteer panels for epidemiological purposes has rarely been studied. Objectives: To assess the quality of a questionnaire on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) administered in a nonprobability Web panel and in a random telephone survey (n = 8,992; n = 8,437, age 16-49 years). Especially, we were interested in the possible difference in the association of sociodemographic variables and some outcome variables in the two surveys that are in the reliability of analytical epidemiological studies conducted in such panels. Methods: Interventions to increase response rate were used in both surveys (four e-mail reminders, high number of call attempts and callbacks to refusals). Both were calibrated on the census population. Sociodemographic composition, effects of reminders, and prevalence were compared to their telephone counterpart. In addition, the associations of sociodemographic and sexual behaviors were compared in the two samples in multivariate logistic regressions. Results: The online survey had a lower response rate (20.0 percent vs. 44.8 percent) and a more distorted sociodemographic structure although the reminders improved the representativeness as did the analogous interventions on the telephone survey. Prevalences of SRH variables were similar for the common behaviors but higher online for the stigmatized behaviors, depending on gender. Overall, 29 percent of the 63 interactions studied were significant for males and 11 percent for women, although opposite effects of sociodemographic variables were rare (5 percent of the 171 tested for each gender). Conclusion: Nonprobability online panels are to be used with caution to monitor SRH and conduct analytical epidemiological studies, especially among men. [This paper was written with the FECOND research Team.]

This paper describes, by focusing on factor analytic structures, pupils' reactions towards the utilisation and preservation of nature. A previously hypothesised model based on these two domains (comprised of 5 primary factors) was shown to be valid for four different Western European pupil samples: CH, D, DK, IRL. The empirical basis of this present paper comprises a survey of about 900 French pupils of both genders aged between 11 and 16 years from rural areas who responded to a paper-and-pencil questionnaire. Data from the remaining European samples added some 4000 respondents based on the same objective test each. The purpose of the present study was five-fold: Firstly, to test and confirm the hypothesised primary and secondary factor structure for the combined data set. Secondly, to apply the methods of linear structural relationship analysis to test the existence of two higher-order factors (the domains: "Preservation" and "Utilisation"). Thirdly, to investigate any age or gender effect in the primary factors. Fourthly, to provide an age-adjusted empirical instrument for evaluation purposes of educational programmes featuring conservation and environmental protection. Finally, to compare the means within-region factor scores in anticipation of substantial between-region differences. These differences followed a rather consistent pattern supporting the interpretation that "utilising" nature is negatively correlated with positive environmental reactions. (Contains 7 tables and 3 figures.)

Health education is a part of the primary school science curriculum in France. Teachers often consider sexuality education and sexually transmitted diseases prevention as a topic they cannot teach without the help of partners. This paper is an account of a research carried out to study the representations of primary school pupils (Key Stage 2, French children, from 9-11) about HIV/AIDS and to analyse the impact of an educational programme on these representations. The Programme was based on a socio-constructivist approach to learning. It aimed to modify pupils' representations through regular teacher's activities and interventions of health educators. The results indicate that after the intervention, pupils' scientific knowledge was more precise, and communication about HIV/AIDS between members of the family improved. The representations shifted from a sense of powerlessness and fatality towards a sense of the possibility of acting to forestall infection. Nevertheless, the impact of the intervention was weaker on under-privileged pupils.

Introduction: The aim of this paper is to deal with the information seeking and use problem in a professional context and understand how activity can influence practices, by taking as examples, the research undertaken by economic analysts. We analyse the relationship between the situational approach, described by Cheuk, the work environment complexity (with social, technological and personal aspects), and the information seeking and use strategies, which relied on Ellis and Wilson's model, with Bates's comments. Method: We interviewed eight economists, using a questionnaire and the SICIA (Situation, Complexity and Information Activity) method. The SICAI method is a qualitative approach, which underlines the relationship between situations, professional contexts and strategies. Both methods allow better understanding of how investment analysts find out what they need for their job. We can clarify their information sources and practices of information seeking, which are very particular because of their activities. We complete our analysis by interviewing analysts from financial institutions. Analysis: A qualitative mode of analysis was used to interpret the interviewees' comments, within the research framework adopted. Results: We find similarity in information seeking and use strategies used by these two groups and environmental levels meet in most situations. But some differences can be also found, explained by the activity frameworks and goals. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the activity and also the professional context (here the financial context) can directly influence practices.

It is widely recognised that tertiary education does not provide all of the knowledge and skills required to succeed in modern societies. Personal and interpersonal skills--so-called "soft skills"--are also needed to complement professional skills and expertise, and become an essential part of an individual's personality. One way of acquiring soft skills is volunteering with associations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This paper discusses the involvement of French third-level students in voluntary activities and the skills they acquire as a result. The author presents the findings of a study involving a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Results show that many students develop skills linked to their future professional career, that they reflect on this consciously and feel enriched by the experience. The author argues that "non-professional" activities like volunteering can be actively incorporated into students' learning process, making their overall experience of higher education more active, enjoyable and relevant. Learning through action was found to be the most important factor in the acquisition of soft skills. This article aims to contribute to research on the educational dimension of volunteering, demonstrating that it benefits both personal and professional development.

Field courses are essential for subjects like Earth Sciences, Geography and Ecology. In these topics, GIS is used to manage and analyse spatial data, and offers quantitative methods that are beneficial for fieldwork. This paper presents changes made to a first-year Earth Sciences field course in the French Alps, where new GIS methods were introduced. Students use GIS in preparation to explore their research area using an elevation model and satellite images, formulate hypotheses and plan the fieldwork. During the fieldwork, a pilot group managed their field-observations using GIS and made digital maps. Students praise the use of quantitative digital maps in the preparation. Students made use of the available techniques during the fieldwork, although this could be further intensified. Some students were extra motivated due to the technical nature as well as the additional analytical possibilities. The use of GIS was experienced as a steep learning curve by students, and not all staff members are confident in supervising students using GIS, which calls for a sufficient preparation and training of both students and staff. The use of GIS adds abstract analyses and quantitative assessment, which is a complementary learning style to fieldwork that mostly focuses on practical skills.

This paper estimates the treatment effect of grade repetitions in French junior high schools, using a value-added test score as outcome and quarter of birth as instrument. With linear two-stage least squares, local average treatment effect is estimated at around 1.6 times the standard deviation of the achievement gain. With non-linear full-information maximum likelihood, average treatment on the treated ranges between one and one-quarter of the standard deviation of the outcome. Grade repetition in junior high school is also shown to increase the probability of graduating from junior high school by 2.5 probability points.

This paper presents the main findings of an action-research study that took place in seven European countries in order to develop effective educational responses to prevent and combat discrimination. The study entailed the design of media and citizenship education activities, their implementation in the different educational contexts and the evaluation of their effectiveness in raising young people's awareness of discrimination. The results of the study shed light both on the advantages and constraints of educational practice, variations that often depend on the specific cultural and social context. On the one hand, the analysis and the evaluation of educational experiences suggest that critical media literacy can enable the development of critical reading/viewing skills as well as acts of participatory and inclusive citizenship that question derogative and essentialist media representations of the Other. On the other hand, the results highlight the difficulty of promoting young people's awareness of discrimination through active methods of teaching and learning or through media content which is far from young people's experience, interests and concerns.

Learning chemistry includes learning the language of chemistry (names, formulae, symbols, and chemical equations) which has to be done in connection with the other areas of chemical knowledge. In this study we investigate how French students understand and use names (of chemical species and common mixtures) and chemical formulae. We set a paper and pencil test composed of open-ended and multiple choice questions (5 questions in total) to students (N = 603) who have been learning chemistry for 2 years (age 14) and others for up to 7 years (age 19, first year university). For all grade levels we found that the students have great difficulties understanding notions introduced right from the first two years of chemistry teaching. The scientific name opposed to a common name does not seem to be a relevant tool used by the students to classify chemical species and mixtures. They struggle to decode a chemical formula out of the context of a chemical equation and fail to decode them in that context. The students surveyed are not able to correctly associate with a name or a formula, both macroscopic (a pure substance or a mixture) and microscopic (an atom or a molecule) criteria. They seem to have mainly a microscopic reading of the names and the chemical formulae. Therefore we think that the language of chemistry could be a source of trouble for the learning of the notion of substance. These results confirm the need to offer teachers new didactical tools to develop the teaching of the language of chemistry.

The aim of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of higher education and the graduate labour markets in selected European countries (France, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom) in the context of the expectations of graduates and prospective employers, and respective recruitment and selection practices. Expectations of graduating students from a number of European collaborating universities are sought and analysed in order to find out about a match between the knowledge and skills of graduates and the needs of European employers. The study examines the process of graduate recruitment, employee and employer expectations, and the role of higher education institutions in meeting such expectations. Primary data was gathered from 252 employers and 485 final year (graduating) students through the use of questionnaires. The analysis of the data collected has revealed different approaches to but similar methods of graduate recruitment between the four countries. Despite the current differences in higher education systems and labour market trends, the expectations of employers and graduating students are more similar than different. It is concluded that EU graduates will have good employment prospects in an integrated labour market.

In this paper an analysis is carried out whether objective tests and subjective self-assessments in international large-scale studies yield similar results when looking at cross-national differences in the effects of skills on earnings, and skills patterns across countries, fields of study and gender. The findings indicate that subjective skills measures do not correlate well with objective measures of similar constructs when looking at cross-national differences. Countrywise associations between subjective skills measures and earnings do not correlate well with those found using objective skills measures. Moreover, cross-national differences in the level of subjective skills measures do not correlate well with cross-national differences in skill levels based on objective tests. Nor do gender differences found using subjective skills measures correlate with those found using objective skills measures. This does not mean that self-assessments cannot be used, but they need to be restricted to analysing within-country differences. Within countries, self-assessments do a good job in predicting skills differences across fields of study and also in predicting the effect of skills on earnings. When comparing gender differences in skills levels within countries, however, one needs to be aware that females tend to overestimate their skills levels in typical "female" domains like literacy.

When students look at their classmates in the classroom, consciously or unconsciously, they see competitors both for academic recognition and social success. How do they fit in relation to others and how do they succeed in achieving both? Traditional views on the drive to succeed and the fear of failure are well known as motivators for achieving academic success but is it that simple a dichotomy? Do students also view success through a fear of success and a purposeful intent to fail--referred to in this text as the drive to fail? Students recognize the importance of social position in class but how is this perceived and will they sacrifice social position for academic standing or vice versa? This paper considers these issues by analyzing the results of a student survey and opinions offered by the students. The discussion considers the survey, academic standing, social position, cultural variables, perception of success and failure, and concluding comments.

Language students in the UK undertake their "year abroad" with high hopes for a linguistic and social "immersion" experience. However, past research shows that language learning success, while real, can be uneven, and that many Erasmus exchange students form social relations largely with other international students. New virtual media make it easy and cheap for the current student generation to sustain existing social networks, blurring previous clear distinctions between "home" and "abroad". This paper draws on data from a larger two-year study of UK students undertaking residence abroad in France, Spain and Mexico (the LANGSNAP project). The participants were involved in three different placement types: teaching assistants, exchange students and workplace interns. A series of pre-sojourn and in-sojourn interviews with 28 students spending an academic year in France are analysed, to identify both the social networking opportunities available and the actual social relationships which were developed. The analysis shows that all three placement types offered structured opportunities for interaction with French nationals which led for almost all participants to moderate degrees of social networking. However, only a minority of participants developed closer relationships or friendship with locals, from which they drew emotional support.

The advances in communication networks and web technologies, in conjunction with the improved connectivity of test and measurement devices make it possible to implement e-learning applications that encompass the whole learning process. In the field of electrical engineering, automation or mechatronics, it means not only lectures, tutorials, demos and simulations, but also practical labwork for training with real-world devices that are controlled remotely. To make e-labs attractive, they should be easily implemented and accessed on the web by a client. This keypoint raises technical issues that are recalled in this paper. Nonetheless pedagogical issues are equally important. The benefit of a remote lab must be evaluated and compared to simulation labs or hands-on. Here, to foster student motivation, a game-like scenario embedded in a learning management system is proposed.

A large body of research has shown that incorporating text in the corresponding sections of an illustration facilitates the learning of illustrated documents. More recently, a series of studies has revealed that the use of interactive windows located close to the illustration causes similar effects. The aim of this paper is to help bring about a better understanding of the beneficial effects of these pop-up windows on multimedia learning. The first study shows that the spatial integration of these windows has a positive effect on performances in tasks designed to evaluate, in particular, the quality of the referential connections between the text and the illustration and, additionally, that their interactive characteristics also contribute to learning. The second study shows that this specific advantage seems to be due to the intermittent nature of these windows which makes it possible to reduce the visual perceptual load of the document. (Contains 5 tables and 2 figures.)

This paper deals with English teachers who work with deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HH) students. In France deaf students are required to attend foreign language classes--mostly English classes. The purpose is not to teach them British sign language (BSL) or American sign language (ASL), but written and/or spoken English. Indeed, sign languages are distinct from spoken languages and differ from country to country: there is no universal sign language. English teachers of the deaf are mostly hearing people. They work either in mainstream or special schools. Most of them have no specific qualifications. In this context, they are faced with the tremendous challenge of how to adjust their teaching to their students' impairment and at the same time develop the latter's knowledge and skills in English. In order to analyse teaching practices in English classes, questionnaires, interviews and in-class observations in several special and mainstream schools were conducted. Findings show that different teaching strategies are used in order to make English lessons accessible to D/HH students: teachers have to adapt their teaching language and also use written and visual supports to accommodate D/HH students. Obviously teacher training needs to be improved. (Contains 3 tables and 6 notes.)

e-Learning has entered the mainstream in higher education and many institutions are implementing technology-mediated learning at some level. This paper outlines the case of a course taught jointly in 2010 over three months by two graduate programmes in management at the University of Tsukuba in Japan and the Grenoble Ecole de Management in France through a video-conferencing system and other information and communications technology tools. The authors used a blended learning approach aimed at increasing collaboration among instructors and students remotely located. The results of a questionnaire survey of students conducted during the course provide practical recommendations for developing and managing a hybrid course balancing the positive aspects of e-learning with the benefits of face-to-face instruction, while suiting the participants' cultural learning preferences. Particular insights include selecting a relevant blended learning course topic, addressing student diversity and distinct learning motives, and bringing "tangible diversity" through the exchange of faculty. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

This paper gives a detailed account of an analysis carried out at the French National Skiing and Mountaineering School from August 2008 to June 2009 to assess the language needs of French mountain guides. A targeted literature review highlighted two main points to be taken into account in the design of this language needs analysis: target situations and insiders' expert knowledge. Then, one hypothesis and two research questions were identified. Data gathering methods--including unstructured interviews, non-participant observation of the foreign language certification process and a questionnaire--allowed testing of the questions via triangulation (by sources and methods) to validate the results. (Contains 3 tables.)