Este estudo evidencia o modo como se organizam as estratégias de cortesia que se manifestam na ocorrência dos marcadores discursivos pues, ya e claro em intervenções orais de adolescentes de duas capitais, Madri e Santiago do Chile, presentes no Corpus de Lenguaje Adolescente (COLA). Considerando a diversidade sociocultural (Bravo, 2004) e que os marcadores discursivos sinalizam a direção em que se deve buscar a relevância dos enunciados (Escandell-Vidal, 1998), esta pesquisa também analisa se adolescentes brasileiros, estudantes de língua espanhola, da região de São Paulo, constroem uma interpretação adequada quanto à presença ou ausência da cortesia, ao entrar em contato com as conversações do material de análise. Como resultado, foram descritos os contrastes entre as amostras das variedades - a santiaguina e a madrilena - de língua espanhola quanto ao uso das partículas pues, ya e claro. Observou-se que essas diferenças se relacionam ao contexto de enunciação e ao processamento discursivo, semântico e pragmático desses marcadores, comprovando que a cortesia apresenta particularidades e possui um valor relativo de acordo com a interação verbal, os traços culturais e o tipo de relação social entre os interlocutores. Através da escuta de alguns diálogos extraídos do corpus e guiados por um questionário, a maioria dos estudantes brasileiros construiu interpretações equivocadas das formações discursivas. Verificou-se que estas construções de sentido concerniram ao desconhecimento da forma ou do uso dos marcadores, que impediu que estes orientassem o processo de interpretação, e à desconsideração das diferenças interculturais e dos modelos de cortesia em diferentes interações verbais. / This study shows how strategies of politeness occurring when discourse markers are used in oral interventions of teenagers from the two capital cities of Madrid and Santiago de Chile contained in the Corpus de Lenguaje Adolescente (COLA) are organized. Considering the socio-cultural diversity (Bravo, 2004) and discourse markers indicate in which direction we should look for the relevance of utterances (Escandell-Vidal, 1998), this research also analyzes if Brazilian teenagers, students of Spanish language in São Paulo region, have a proper interpretation regarding the presence or the absence of politeness when they are exposed to the conversations of the material analyzed. As a result, the differences between samples of Spanish language varieties from Santiago and from Madrid regarding the use of the particles pues, ya and claro were described. Such differences were seen to be related to the context of enunciation and the discursive, semantic, and pragmatic processing of the markers, which confirms that the politeness shows particularities and has a relative value according to the verbal interaction, cultural traits, and the type of social relationship between interlocutors. By hearing some of the dialogs extracted from the corpus and guided by a questionnaire, most Brazilian students had wrong interpretations of discursive formations. Such constructions of meaning were seen to be related to the lack of knowledge of the markers form or usage, which prevented the markers to guide the interpretation process, and the disregard of intercultural differences and models of politeness in various verbal interactions.

O desencanto dos estudantes pela ciência escolar e pela carreira científica tem provocado um movimento na área acadêmica em prol de se ouvir o que os alunos têm a dizer das suas aulas de ciências, de seus temas científicos de maior interesse e de sua posição frente a diversas questões relacionadas à ciência e à tecnologia. Um desses movimentos é o projeto The Relevance of Science Education (ROSE), sediado na Universidade de Oslo, Noruega, e implementado em mais de 40 países. No Brasil, o ROSE foi aplicado pela primeira vez em 2007, envolvendo 625 estudantes de dois municípios dos estados de São Paulo e Mato Grosso. Diante das primeiras observações junto ao ROSE, verificou-se a necessidade de se conhecer quais são os interesses, atitudes e preferências dos jovens em relação à ciência e à tecnologia em âmbito nacional. Assim, a pesquisa aqui descrita teve como objetivo implementar o projeto ROSE no Brasil em uma amostra de representatividade nacional, consolidando o perfil dos jovens brasileiros em relação à ciência e tecnologia e, a partir desses dados, discutir de que forma conhecer a relevância que o conhecimento científico tem para os jovens pode influenciar no ensino de ciências que hoje é apresentado nas escolas. A pesquisa, de natureza essencialmente quantitativa, encontra- -se dentro do campo da avaliação educacional, e utilizou como instrumento de coleta de dados um questionário fechado com 245 itens cujas respostas são expressas em uma escala de Likert de 4 pontos. O estudo amostral foi desenhado através de uma amostragem estratificada pelos 26 estados e o Distrito Federal com alocação proporcional, tendo como universo amostral a amostra do Programa Internacional de Avaliação de Estudantes (PISA) no Brasil no ano de 2009. Ao todo, 2365 estudantes participaram da pesquisa, oriundos de 84 escolas localizadas em todos os estados brasileiros. Os dados obtidos revelam que o brasileiro, de modo geral, possui grande interesse pelos temas científicos abordados na escola. Dentre esses, os que mais despertam seu interesse são os relacionados ao corpo humano. Em relação à posição dos jovens frente aos desafios ambientais, consideramos que os brasileiros apresentam atitudes preditoras de comportamento ambiental positivo. Por exemplo, nossos jovens possuem uma visão otimista quanto ao futuro, especialmente as meninas, e consideram fortemente que podemos encontrar soluções para os problemas ambientais. Em relação à ciência escolar, os jovens brasileiros consideram a disciplina interessante, apesar de não terem preferência por ela em relação a outras disciplinas. Há uma atitude positiva geral em relação à disciplina, tanto no que se refere à sua importância como à sua utilidade. Apesar de demonstrarem interesse pela ciência escolar, tanto meninas como meninos tem pouco interesse em ingressar na carreira científica.Verificamos também que os jovens brasileiros têm uma atitude geral otimista em relação à ciência e à tecnologia. Diante dos dados aqui obtidos, de maneira a legitimar as considerações manifestas por esses estudantes, cabe uma reflexão sobre as eventuais ações que podem ser tomadas a fim de que suas opiniões dialoguem com professores, currículos, livros didáticos e outros. / The disenchantment of students in science education and career in science has led to a movement in the academic field in favor of listening to what students have to say about their science classes, their scientific topics of greatest interest and its position against several issues related to science and technology. One of these movements is the project The Relevance of Science Education (ROSE), based at the University of Oslo, Norway, and implemented in more than 40 countries. In Brazil, ROSE was first applied in 2007, involving 625 students from two municipalities in the states of São Paulo and Mato Grosso. From the first observations with the ROSE, there was the need to know what are the interests, preferences and attitudes of young people towards science and technology nationwide. Thus, the research described here aimed to implement the ROSE project in Brazil in a nationally representative sample, consolidating the profile of Brazilian youth in relation to science and technology and, from these data, discuss how the comprehension about the relevance of Scientific knowledge for young people can influence the teaching of science being presented nowadays in schools. The research, which is essentially quantitative, lies within the field of educational assessment and used as tool for data collection a closed questionnaire with 245 items whose answers are expressed in a Likert scale of 4 points. The study sample was drawn through a stratified sampling by 26 states and the Federal District with proportional allocation, having as sampling universe the sample of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in Brazil in 2009. In all, 2365 students participated in the survey, coming from 84 schools located in all Brazilian states. The data reveal that the Brazilian, in general, has great interest in the scientific topics covered in school. Among these, the ones that arouse their interest are those related to the human body. Regarding the position of young people with environmental challenges, we consider that the Brazilians have predictive attitudes of positive environmental behavior. For example, our youngsters have an optimistic view about the future, especially girls, and feel strongly that we can find solutions to environmental problems. In relation to science school, the young Brazilians consider discipline interesting, although not having preference for it over other disciplines. There is a positive relation to the general subject, both with respect to its importance as to its usefulness. Although they showed interest in science education, both boys and girls have low interest in joining a scientific career. We also observed that young Brazilians have a generally optimistic attitude towards science and technology. From the data obtained here, in order to legitimize the obvious considerations from these students, it is worth reflecting on the possible actions that can be taken in order that their opinions dialogue with teachers, curricula, textbooks and other.

The increasing reliance of people on computers for daily tasks has resulted in a vast number of digital documents. Search engines were once luxury tools for quickly scanning a set of documents but are now quickly becoming the only practical way to navigate through this sea of information. Traditionally, search engine results are based upon a mathematical formula of document relevance to a search phrase. Often, however, what a user deems to be relevant and what a search engine computes as relevant are not the same. User feedback regarding the utility of a search result can be collected in order to refine query results. Additionally, user feedback can be used to identify queries that lack high quality search results. A content author can then further develop existing content or create new content to improve those search results. The most straightforward way of collecting user feedback is to add a graphical user interface component to the search interface that asks the user how much he or she liked the search result. However, if the feedback mechanism requires the user to provide feedback before he or she can progress further with his or her search, the user may become annoyed and provide incorrect feedback values out of spite. Conversely, if the feedback mechanism does not require the user to provide feedback at all then the overall amount of collected feedback will be diminished as many users will not expend the effort required to give feedback. This research focused on the collection of explicit user feedback in both mandatory (a user must give feedback) and voluntary (a user may give feedback) scenarios. The collected data was used to train a set of decision tree classifiers that provided user satisfaction values as a function of implicit user behavior and a set of search terms. The results of our study indicate that a more accurate classifier can be built from explicit data collected in a voluntary scenario. Given a limited search domain, the classification accuracy can be further improved.

This thesis compares four relevance feedback methods. The Rocchio and Ide dec-hi algorithms for the vector space model and the binary independence model and Okapi BM25 within the probabilistic framework. This is done in a custom-made Information Retrieval system utilizing a collection containing 131 896 LA-Times articles which is part of the TREC ad-hoc collection. The methods are compared on two grounds, using only the relevance information from the 20 highest ranked documents from an initial search and also by using all available relevance information. Although a significant effect of choice of method could be found on the first ground, post-hoc analysis could not determine any statistically significant differences between the methods where Rocchio, Ide dec-hi and Okapi BM25 performed equivalent. All methods except the binary independence model performed significantly better than using no relevance feedback. It was also revealed that although the binary independence model performed far worse on average than the other methods it did outperform them on nearly 20 % of the topics. Further analysis argued that this depends on the lack of query expansion in the binary independence model which is advantageous for some topics although has a negative effect on retrieval efficiency in general. On the second ground Okapi BM25 performed significantly better than the other methods with the binary independence model once again being the worst performer. It was argued that the other methods have problems scaling to large amounts of relevance information where Okapi BM25 has no such issues. / Uppsatsnivå: D

L’avènement des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (TIC) représente une véritable opportunité dans la diffusion des ressources numériques et des connaissances pour tous. De nombreux résultats ont déjà été obtenus dans le cadre de l’étude de plates-formes informatiques numériques. Elles visent essentiellement à faciliter la mise à disposition des contenus numériques, accompagner l’utilisateur en lui offrant des modalités d’interaction avec le système et dans un contexte de formation, valider les connaissances acquises. Le déploiement large et massif des systèmes d’information de gestion de contenus numériques constitue une première génération d’outils de gestion. Dans ce cadre, des travaux de thèse ont été réalisés au sein du laboratoire L3I dans l’objectif de permettre à ces environnements de gérer efficacement l’interactivité avec leurs utilisateurs et d’adapter leurs exécutions en fonction des profils et du contexte de leurs utilisateurs. Certains résultats de ces travaux ont été mis en œuvre sur la plate-forme POLARIS du laboratoire. Ce contexte a créé un climat qui favorise la production massive et hétérogène de documents numériques dont la gestion (la conception, l’organisation, la sélection et l’usage) pose de nouveaux problèmes. L’objectif général de la thèse consiste à proposer des solutions permettant aux utilisateurs des applications interactives, de gérer leurs documents numériques afin d’éviter qu’ils ne soient submergés par l’immense quantité de documents qu’ils produisent et utilisent quotidiennement. En effet, pour mieux gérer ces documents, nous les encapsulons dans des structures complexes que nous appelons « ressources numériques ». Cela nous permet de mettre en œuvre nos mécanismes d’adaptation : pré-sélectionner les ressources numériques les plus adaptées aux activités de l’utilisateur et adapter les ressources numériques sélectionnées en fonction des caractéristiques de l’utilisateur et de son activité. Les contributions des travaux réalisés dans cette thèse se décrivent sur quatre niveaux. Premièrement, nous proposons un modèle de représentation des données qui caractérisent un utilisateur dans un système de gestion de ressources numériques. Deuxièmement, nous proposons des algorithmes et des mécanismes pour permettre à un utilisateur de sélectionner les ressources numériques pertinentes lors de la réalisation d’une activité. Les mécanismes de sélection proposés permettent une gestion consolidée des ressources numériques, parce qu’ils tiennent compte de la cohérence entre les ressources de l’activité afin de permettre une meilleure utilisation et maintenir une exécution cohérente de son activité. Troisièmement, nous proposons un modèle de ressources numériques qui s’adapte en fonction des caractéristiques de l’utilisateur et de l’activité. Quatrièmement, nous proposons un modèle d’architecture logicielle pour la conception d’une application interactive à exécution adaptative centrée sur la gestion des ressources numériques. Pour expérimenter et valider nos propositions, nous avons développé un prototype logiciel d’une plate-forme pour la gestion personnalisée et collaborative de ressources numériques dédié aux chercheurs appelé PRISE (PeRsonal Interactive Research Smart Environment). / The emergence of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) represents a real opportunity for spreading digital resources and knowledge for all. Many results have already been achieved through the study of digital computing environments. They primarily aim at facilitating the provision of digital content, supporting users by ensuring interaction means with the system, and validating the knowledge acquired. The broad and massive deployment of digital content management information systems has left its mark as first generation of digital document management tools. In this context, PhD thesis researches have been carried out in the laboratory L3i to enable these environments to manage interactivity with their users and adapt their performances to users’ profiles and usage contexts. Some results of these works have been implemented within the laboratory platform called POLARIS. This latter has created a climate that fosters the production of massive heterogeneous digital resources which their management (organization, selection, and use) raises new challenges. The main aim of the thesis is to propose solutions that enable users of interactive applications to manage their digital documents in such a way that they are not overwhelmed by the large amount of material they produce and use everyday. In other terms, to better manage these documents, we encapsulate them in complex structures named digital resources. That allows us to implement our adaptation mechanisms : to pre-select the most relevant digital resources to the user’s activities and adapt the selected digital resources to both user and activity characteristics.The contributions of our thesis can be described in four levels. First of all, we propose a data representation model that characterizes a user in a digital resources management system. Secondly, we propose algorithms and mechanisms to enable a user to select relevant digital resources when performing an activity. Selection mechanisms we proposed allow consolidated management of digital resources, since they take into account the consistency among the resources being used in a given activity to enable better use and maintain coherent execution of the activity. Thirdly, we propose a model for digital resources that adapts itself based on both user and activity characteristics. Finally, we propose a software architecture model for the design of an interactive application with adaptive execution centered on digital resource management. To experiment and validate our proposals, we developed a prototype of a platform for personalized and collaborative management of digital resources dedicated to researchers called PRISE (PeRsonal Interactive Research Smart Environment).

Este estudo contribui para a literatura existente de value relevance relacionada ao papel do patrimônio líquido contábil e do resultado contábil por intermédio de dados brasileiros em um contexto de reavaliação de ativos e contabilidade em moeda constante. Além disso, são efetuadas discussões a partir de resultados empíricos sobre dois importantes assuntos relacionados à informação contábil: relevância e confiabilidade. É aplicada uma metodologia de value relevance, sendo que a variável dependente é o valor de mercado da empresa e as variáveis independentes são o patrimônio líquido e o resultado. A primeira hipótese é a de que a informação contábil pelo custo histórico é menos value relevant do que a informação contábil com práticas de reavaliação de ativos imobilizados. Para o período 1996-2007, as companhias tinham a opção de reavaliar alguns ativos tangíveis de longo prazo. A participação de avaliadores externos nos processos de reavaliações no Brasil provavelmente proporciona um grau de confiabilidade sem muita imperfeição. No entanto, evidências empíricas mostram que as informações contábeis de empresas que efetuaram reavaliações de ativos não são mais value relevant em relação às empresas que não efetuaram. Análises adicionais baseadas em uma especificação de value relevance incremental mostraram que, se os processos de reavaliação não tivessem ocorrido, então a value relevance seria praticamente a mesma para estas empresas. Em outras palavras, a reserva de reavaliação não foi value relevant, apesar de provavelmente ser confiável. Uma explicação possível para esse resultado é uma falta de relevância para as práticas de reavaliação de ativos observadas. A segunda hipótese é a de que a informação contábil pelo custo histórico é menos value relevant do que a informação contábil pela correção monetária integral. No Brasil, a correção monetária era regra até 1995. A partir de 1996, com a inflação atingindo menores patamares, o Governo Brasileiro proibiu práticas de atualização monetária para fins tributários e societários. Apesar disso, algumas empresas evidenciaram informações adicionais em moeda constante para o período 1996-2007. Evidências empíricas mostram que estas informações não são mais value relevant em comparação às informações sem correção monetária publicadas por estas mesmas empresas. Uma explicação possível para este resultado é a confiabilidade subjacente dos indicadores de inflação utilizados por estas companhias. No geral, as evidências empíricas mostram que a informação contábil pelo custo histórico não é menos value relevant. No entanto, é importante enfatizar que os resultados se relacionam com as práticas contábeis das empresas analisadas, e não com os modelos contábeis propriamente ditos. / This study contributes to extent value relevance literature relating to the role of book value and earnings through Brazilian accounting data in an asset revaluation and price level accounting context. Moreover, it brings empirical discussion on two very important issues related to accounting information: relevance and reliability. It is employed a value relevance methodology, with the dependent variable being the equity market value and the independent variables being book value of equity and earnings. The first hypothesis is that historical cost accounting is less value relevant than fixed asset revaluation accounting practices. For the period 1996-2007, companies had the option to revalue some long-lived tangible assets. External appraisals in Brazilian revaluation process likely bring a degree of reliability without too much imperfection. However, empirical evidence shows up that firms that experimented asset revaluations are not more value relevant regarding firms that did not. Further analysis based on an incremental value relevance specification shows that if the revaluation process had not occurred, then the value relevance would be quite the same for those firms. In other words, asset revaluation reserve was not value relevant, in spite of likely being reliable. One possible explanation for this result is the underlying firms\' asset revaluation practices lack of relevance. The second hypothesis is that historical cost accounting is less value relevant than price level accounting. In Brazil, price level accounting was the rule until 1995. From 1996, with inflation rates getting lower degrees, Brazilian Government prohibited price level for tax and financial accounting purposes. Even though, some companies disclosed additional information in price level for the period 1996-2007. Empirical evidence shows that this accounting information is not more value relevant in comparison to the information without price level publicized by the same companies. One possible explanation for this result is the underlying reliability of the inflation index used by the firms. Overall empirical evidence shows that historical cost accounting is not less value relevant. Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize that the results are related to the underlying firms\' accounting practices, not the accounting models themselves.

Les manoeuvres de stationnement représentent une difficulté pour les conducteurs âgés. De ce fait, elles font partie des situations de conduite les plus évitées chez les séniors. L'étude s'intéresse aux difficultés et aux besoins des conducteurs âgés lors des manoeuvres à basses vitesses. Premièrement, une enquête s'intéressant aux différents aspects de l'activité de stationnement sera réalisée auprès des conducteurs âgés du Rhône. Ensuite, la gestion de ressources cognitives chez le conducteur manoeuvrant sera étudiée dans une série d'expériences avec les différents types de manoeuvres de stationnement. Pour ce faire, des places de stationnement de configuration modifiable seront aménagées dans un parking, et les manoeuvres seront effectuées par les participants. L'étude s'intéresse plus particulièrement à la gestion de la ballance saillance-pertinence lors de l'exploration visuelle de l'environnement du parking. Les informations ainsi obtenues devraient contribuer à la conception des systèmes d'aide aux manoeuvres adaptés aux seniors. / One cannot imagine driving without parking manoeuvres since they mark the beginning and the end of each trip. However, physiological and cognitive decline with ageing can increase the difficulty of parking manoeuvring. Our study is organized in two stages. Firstly, a postal survey investigated the parking behaviour among seniors. It provided information about parking habits, needs and difficulties of older drivers. An approach based on Manchester Driving Behaviour Questionnaire lead us to classify four types of parking errors. We also identified factors contributing to the difficulty of parking manoeuvring.Secondly, we studied parking manoeuvring with experimental vehicle and in a driving simulator. In order to examine attentional processes during manoeuvres, we used the MAM model of attention. The salience and the relevance of elements present in the parking were modified. Parking performance was also examined in relation to drivers’ age and their attentional and visual abilities. The salience and the relevance of parking environments interacted with driver’s age and the extent of their total, peripheral and attentional field of view. Drivers with restricted total, peripheral field or attentional field of view can meet more difficulty during manoeuvres when they must share their attention in complex parking environment. A highly salient obstacle can be more easily detected by these drivers. In the presence of a pedestrian, the difficulty of manoeuvring can increase among drivers with restricted total, peripheral field or attentional field of view and decrease among drivers without such restriction. Further research should provide more information on strategies adopted by older drivers during manoeuvring.

O desencanto dos estudantes pela ciência escolar e pela carreira científica tem provocado um movimento na área acadêmica em prol de se ouvir o que os alunos têm a dizer das suas aulas de ciências, de seus temas científicos de maior interesse e de sua posição frente a diversas questões relacionadas à ciência e à tecnologia. Um desses movimentos é o projeto The Relevance of Science Education (ROSE), sediado na Universidade de Oslo, Noruega, e implementado em mais de 40 países. No Brasil, o ROSE foi aplicado pela primeira vez em 2007, envolvendo 625 estudantes de dois municípios dos estados de São Paulo e Mato Grosso. Diante das primeiras observações junto ao ROSE, verificou-se a necessidade de se conhecer quais são os interesses, atitudes e preferências dos jovens em relação à ciência e à tecnologia em âmbito nacional. Assim, a pesquisa aqui descrita teve como objetivo implementar o projeto ROSE no Brasil em uma amostra de representatividade nacional, consolidando o perfil dos jovens brasileiros em relação à ciência e tecnologia e, a partir desses dados, discutir de que forma conhecer a relevância que o conhecimento científico tem para os jovens pode influenciar no ensino de ciências que hoje é apresentado nas escolas. A pesquisa, de natureza essencialmente quantitativa, encontra- -se dentro do campo da avaliação educacional, e utilizou como instrumento de coleta de dados um questionário fechado com 245 itens cujas respostas são expressas em uma escala de Likert de 4 pontos. O estudo amostral foi desenhado através de uma amostragem estratificada pelos 26 estados e o Distrito Federal com alocação proporcional, tendo como universo amostral a amostra do Programa Internacional de Avaliação de Estudantes (PISA) no Brasil no ano de 2009. Ao todo, 2365 estudantes participaram da pesquisa, oriundos de 84 escolas localizadas em todos os estados brasileiros. Os dados obtidos revelam que o brasileiro, de modo geral, possui grande interesse pelos temas científicos abordados na escola. Dentre esses, os que mais despertam seu interesse são os relacionados ao corpo humano. Em relação à posição dos jovens frente aos desafios ambientais, consideramos que os brasileiros apresentam atitudes preditoras de comportamento ambiental positivo. Por exemplo, nossos jovens possuem uma visão otimista quanto ao futuro, especialmente as meninas, e consideram fortemente que podemos encontrar soluções para os problemas ambientais. Em relação à ciência escolar, os jovens brasileiros consideram a disciplina interessante, apesar de não terem preferência por ela em relação a outras disciplinas. Há uma atitude positiva geral em relação à disciplina, tanto no que se refere à sua importância como à sua utilidade. Apesar de demonstrarem interesse pela ciência escolar, tanto meninas como meninos tem pouco interesse em ingressar na carreira científica.Verificamos também que os jovens brasileiros têm uma atitude geral otimista em relação à ciência e à tecnologia. Diante dos dados aqui obtidos, de maneira a legitimar as considerações manifestas por esses estudantes, cabe uma reflexão sobre as eventuais ações que podem ser tomadas a fim de que suas opiniões dialoguem com professores, currículos, livros didáticos e outros. / The disenchantment of students in science education and career in science has led to a movement in the academic field in favor of listening to what students have to say about their science classes, their scientific topics of greatest interest and its position against several issues related to science and technology. One of these movements is the project The Relevance of Science Education (ROSE), based at the University of Oslo, Norway, and implemented in more than 40 countries. In Brazil, ROSE was first applied in 2007, involving 625 students from two municipalities in the states of São Paulo and Mato Grosso. From the first observations with the ROSE, there was the need to know what are the interests, preferences and attitudes of young people towards science and technology nationwide. Thus, the research described here aimed to implement the ROSE project in Brazil in a nationally representative sample, consolidating the profile of Brazilian youth in relation to science and technology and, from these data, discuss how the comprehension about the relevance of Scientific knowledge for young people can influence the teaching of science being presented nowadays in schools. The research, which is essentially quantitative, lies within the field of educational assessment and used as tool for data collection a closed questionnaire with 245 items whose answers are expressed in a Likert scale of 4 points. The study sample was drawn through a stratified sampling by 26 states and the Federal District with proportional allocation, having as sampling universe the sample of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in Brazil in 2009. In all, 2365 students participated in the survey, coming from 84 schools located in all Brazilian states. The data reveal that the Brazilian, in general, has great interest in the scientific topics covered in school. Among these, the ones that arouse their interest are those related to the human body. Regarding the position of young people with environmental challenges, we consider that the Brazilians have predictive attitudes of positive environmental behavior. For example, our youngsters have an optimistic view about the future, especially girls, and feel strongly that we can find solutions to environmental problems. In relation to science school, the young Brazilians consider discipline interesting, although not having preference for it over other disciplines. There is a positive relation to the general subject, both with respect to its importance as to its usefulness. Although they showed interest in science education, both boys and girls have low interest in joining a scientific career. We also observed that young Brazilians have a generally optimistic attitude towards science and technology. From the data obtained here, in order to legitimize the obvious considerations from these students, it is worth reflecting on the possible actions that can be taken in order that their opinions dialogue with teachers, curricula, textbooks and other.

São notórias e bem evidentes as dificuldades de aprendizagem no ensino de Cálculo. Algumas tentativas de resolver, ou pelo menos, amenizar, este problema têm sido realizadas tanto no campo pedagógico quanto no âmbito da pesquisa. Muitas dessas ações, inseridas no próprio contexto do ensino superior de Cálculo, partem do pressuposto que essas dificuldades de aprendizagem são de natureza psicológica, internas ao sujeito aprendiz. No entanto, contrariando esta tendência, esta pesquisa pretende mostrar que parte significativa dos problemas de aprendizagem do atual ensino de Cálculo é de natureza essencialmente epistemológica, está além dos métodos e das técnicas de ensino, sendo inclusive anterior ao seu próprio tempo de realização. Diante disto, foram imaginadas duas ações inter-relacionadas, dois mapeamentos que visam ao levantamento e entendimento dessas dificuldades de natureza epistemológica no ensino de Cálculo: um mapeamento conceitual do Cálculo e de suas idéias e procedimentos básicos; em seguida, munido desses elementos, realizou-se efetivamente o mapeamento das dificuldades supracitadas. Assim, a partir do entrelaçamento dos fatos históricos e pedagógicos, e tendo como pano de fundo as dualidades essenciais e os mapas conceituais do Cálculo, foram explicitados e consubstanciados cinco macro-espaços de dificuldades de aprendizagem de natureza epistemológica, cinco eixos que estruturam o ensino de Cálculo, a saber: o eixo discreto/contínuo; o eixo variabilidade/permanência; o eixo finito/infinito; o eixo local/global; e o eixo sistematização/construção. Nesse esforço filosófico, foram estabelecidas relações entre os macro-espaços determinados com os mapas históricos e conceituais do Cálculo, e destes com o ensino de matemática em todos os níveis. Então, pôde-se perceber, em essência, um único lugar-matriz das dificuldades de aprendizagem de natureza epistemológica do ensino de Cálculo: o da omissão/evitação das idéias básicas e dos problemas construtores do Cálculo no ensino de Matemática em sentido amplo. Isto posto, para romper com o isolamento semântico, a subestimação da relevância das idéias e dos instrumentos característicos do Cálculo, propõem-se algumas intervenções didáticas relativas ao ensino básico de Matemática e ao ensino do próprio Cálculo. O que se pretende com isso é possibilitar ao Cálculo exercer no campo pedagógico a mesma função integradora que ele realizou no âmbito científico, no processo de construção do conhecimento matemático. / The difficulties in learning Calculus are noticeable and quite evident. Some attempts to solve, or at least, soften, this problem have been made both in the pedagogical field and in the scope of the research. Many of these actions, within the context of a higher teaching of Calculus itself, assume that such difficulties in learning are of a psychological nature, internal to the learner. However, contrary to this tendency, this research intends to show that a significant part of the problems of learning the current teaching of Calculus is of a nature essentially epistemological, it is beyond the methods and the techniques of teaching, being also prior to its own time of realization. With that in mind, there were imagined two actions interrelated, two mappings which aim the rising and understanding of these difficulties of an epistemological nature in the teaching of Calculus: a conceptual mapping of Calculus and of its ideas and basic procedures; next, having these instruments, the mapping of the previously mentioned difficulties was effectively done. Thus, from the interlacement of the historical and pedagogical facts, and having as background the essential dualities and the conceptual maps of Calculus, there were clarified and consubstantiated five macro spaces of the difficulties in learning of an epistemological nature, five axes which structure the teaching of Calculus, namely: the axis discreet/continuous; the axis variability/permanence; the axis finite/infinite; the axis local/global; and the axis systematization/construction. In this philosophical endeavour there were established relations between the macro spaces determined by the historical and conceptual maps of Calculus, and from these with the teaching of mathematics in all levels. Therefore, one can notice, essentially, a single point of origin in the difficulties in the learning of an epistemological nature in the teaching of Calculus: the omission/avoidance of the basic ideas and the construction problems of Calculus in the teaching of mathematics in an ample sense. So, to break up with the semantic isolation, the underestimation of the relevance of the ideas and of the instruments characteristics of Calculus, some didactic interventions are proposed in the field of the basic teaching of Mathematics and in the teaching of Calculus itself. What is expected from this is to allow Calculus to have in the pedagogical field the same function of integration that it had in the scientific field, in the process of building the mathematical knowledge.

Over the last 20 years, many state school administrators have reduced social studies instructional time in favor of time dedicated to reading or math skills due to the pressure of standardized testing. The purpose of this qualitative case study, which was based on constructivist theories about learning and schema theory, was to analyze teachers' perspectives on teaching history lessons, in terms of engagement and relevance, while working within new time constraints. Purposeful sampling was used to select 6 teachers for interviews; all had experience teaching social studies courses at the upper elementary and middle levels in a public school district that has been influenced over the last 20 years by the pressures of standardized testing. Interview data were coded and analyzed for common themes. The teachers reported that the lack of planning time and instructional time, compounded with students' lack of schema, hampered the delivery of engaging and relevant history lessons based on the tenets of constructivism. The results of the data collection were used to design a professional development program that would allow teachers to work with engaging instructional strategies designed to stimulate situational interest, which would ultimately lead to schema development. This study has implications for positive social change in that school leaders and other stakeholders could use the results to make decisions about the allotment of instructional and preparation time to provide teachers adequate opportunities to design and deliver engaging and relevant history lessons to enhance students' learning.