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In this paper, I ask how parents understand and make sense of their children's relationships with social media algorithms. Drawing upon 30 think-aloud interviews with parents raising children aged 0 to 18 in England, in this paper, I pay attention to parents' understandings of and consequent approaches to platform algorithms in relation to their children's lives. I locate this work within user-centric research on people's understandings of algorithms, and research about parents' perspectives on data and datafication in relation to sharenting. Through my data, I draw out four modes – misunderstandings, parked understandings, transactional understandings and pro-active understandings. I suggest that parents' often flawed understandings of their children's myriad interfaces with algorithms deserve scrutiny not through a lens of blame or individualised parental (ir) responsibility but within cross-cutting contexts of parenting cultures and families' diverse contextual resources and restraints. I conclude by highlighting attention to parents' approaches to algorithms in children's lives as critical to parents' data and algorithm literacies. Prior State of Knowledge: Parents in diverse contexts try to understand and support their children's digital lives, and also often share content about their children on a variety of platforms. Prior research has shed significant light on the datafication of childhood. Novel Contributions: This study investigates parents' diverse understandings of algorithms underlying social media platforms and the ways in which they approach algorithms in their children's lives. Practical Implications: Parents' knowledge about algorithms and datafication is uneven. Policymakers need to better support adult media literacies, including data and algorithm literacies. Schools' communication to families and carers could also become key vehicles to raise awareness about datafication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I present contextualizing factors, dimensions, and key markers of algorithm literacies, paying attention to the context of parenting and parenthood amidst datafication. Analyzing data from "think-aloud" interviews with 30 parents of children aged between 0 and 18, across England, I draw upon media and digital literacies scholarship to focus, first, in this paper, on the competencies, conversations, and events which contextualize parents' literacies with algorithmic interfaces. Next, I draw out four dimensions of parents' algorithm literacies including algorithm awareness, technical competencies, critical capacities, and championing their and their children's best interests, identifying practical markers for each dimension. I reflect on the broader implications of these for parenting and parenthood in datafied societies, and note that algorithm literacies are, forever, a work in progress, in fluidity and flux across the diverse courses of parenting journeys, deeply contextualized in the resources and restraints that parents encounter in their daily lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose : Chemistry examinations can favour the deployment of algorithmic procedures like Le Chatelier’s Principle (LCP) rather than reasoning using chemical principles. This study investigated the explanatory resources which high school students use to answer equilibrium problems and whether the marks given for examination answers require students to use approaches beyond direct application of LCP. Sample : The questionnaire was administered to 162 students studying their first year of advanced chemistry (age 16/17) in three high achieving London high schools. Design and methods : The students’ explanations of reversible chemical systems were inductively coded to identify the explanatory approaches used and interviews with 13 students were used to check for consistency. AS level examination questions on reversible reactions were analysed to identify the types of explanations sought and the students’ performance in these examinations was compared to questionnaire answers. Results : 19% of students used a holistic explanatory approach: when the rates of forward and reverse reactions are correctly described, recognising their simultaneous and mutually dependent nature. 36% used a mirrored reactions approach when the connected nature of the forward and reverse reactions is identified, but not their mutual dependency. 42% failed to recognize the interdependence of forward and reverse reactions (reactions not connected approach). Only 4% of marks for AS examination questions on reversible chemical systems asked for responses which went beyond either direct application of LCP or recall of equilibrium knowledge. 37% of students attained an A grade in their AS national examinations. Conclusions : Examinations favour the application of LCP making it possible to obtain the highest grade with little understanding of reversible chemical systems beyond a direct application of this algorithm. Therefore students’ understanding may be attenuated so that they are unable to use kinetic sub-micro level ideas which will support the building of deeper energetic conceptions at university. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Computer-Aided Assessments (CAAs) have been used increasingly at Brunel University for over 10 years to test students' mathematical abilities. Recently, we have focussed on providing very rich feedback to the students; given the work involved in designing and coding such feedback, it is important to study the impact of the interaction between students and feedback. To make feedback more focussed, examination scripts have been analysed to identify common student errors and misconceptions. These have then been used to code distracters in multiple-choice and responsive numerical input-type questions. Since random parameters are used in all questions developed, distracters have to be coded as algebraic or algorithmic mal-rules. This paper reports on the methodology used to identify students' errors and misconceptions and how the evidence collected was used to code the distracters. The paper also provides hard evidence that real learning has taken place while students have interacted with the CAAs. Statistical analyses of exam performance over eight years indicate that students are able to improve performance in subsequent formative and summative assessments provided that they have truly engaged with the CAA, especially by spending time studying the feedback provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increasing ethnic diversity of England's school-age population, academic literature on ethnic school segregation remains small, dated and hindered by methodological challenges. This study seeks to address these issues by measuring ethnic school segregation between 2006–2019 using two methodological innovations. Firstly, it is the first national study in England to adopt a multi-group segregation index to measure segregation between five major groups in a single concise metric. Secondly, it uses a clustering algorithm to group local schools into 'pseudo-neighbourhoods', which allows for segregation to be measured within local educational markets. The article shows that between 2006 and 2019 the median level of ethnic school segregation within English pseudo-neighbourhoods fell by 25%, which suggests students from different ethnic groups have become more evenly spread across local schools. Additionally, areas in the North of England were typically found to have higher levels of segregation than those in the South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fairness in assessment has become increasingly topical and controversial in recent years. Assessment theoreticians are writing more about fairness and assessment practitioners have developed processes and good practice to minimise unfairness. There is also increased scrutiny by students, parents and the wider public – not only of the fairness of assessments themselves and their outcomes, but of their use, notably for selection for college or university. This is in a context of continued awareness of inequalities in society and their impact on education and assessment. And on top of all these questions has been the impact – and the continuing long shadow – of Covid. Can there be fair assessment in such an unfair world? We consider three types of challenge to fair assessment: •Theoretical challenges •Challenges from thinking about social justice •Challenges from the way that statistics were used to award assessment outcomes in 2020 (particularly in England) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A geometrical analysis of the meander decorative patterns on a Roman pavement mosaic found at the Roman villa in Chedworth, UK, is presented. The analysis reveals that the intricate swastika meander pattern consisting of four closed curves could easily have been constructed using a very simple hypothesized algorithm. The algorithm also explains the design of Roman swastika meanders found throughout the Roman Empire. Connections are indicated between these patterns and the sona traditional art of Angola as well as the kolam traditional art of Tamil South India. The analysis and algorithm described have applications to the classification of geometric mosaic patterns, the design of new patterns and the reconstruction of mosaics that have been partially destroyed by the ravages of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A terrestrial laser scanner was used to take four scans of an area of trees, approximately 480 m2 in area, within a coniferous tree stand situated in Leicestershire, UK. A number of measurements were extracted from the point cloud and compared with field measurements. Automatic stem recognition was achieved for all stems except those at the edge of the study plot. From the locations of detected stems, diameter at breast height (DBH) was measured with two least-squares shape-fitting algorithms and a circular Hough transformation method; the results were then compared with field measurements. The root mean squared error (RMSE) for DBH measurement from the laser scanner was found to be in the range 0.019-0.037 m, using three measures. Stem density (1031 stems ha-1) and basal area (73 m2 ha-1) were also measured with reasonable accuracy. Estimation of tree volume was not as successful, in contradiction to previous research, as upper diameters and heights of trees could not be measured. This was probably a result of previous research being focused on low-density forest stands. This study presents an assessment of laser scanning capabilities in a forest environment with high (1000 stems ha-1) stand density, and finds automation of the analysis to yield some important tree and stand variables to be very effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I offer a challenge to the usual account of the development of the Manchester Baby. In doing so, I focus on the contribution made to the project by the topologist Max Newman and other members of the Manchester Department of Mathematics. Based on a re-examination of the primary source material, I suggest that a much more significant role was played by mathematicians than is allowed for in the dominant discourse. I argue that there was a single computer-building project at Manchester in the years immediately following World War II which was conceived, led, funded, supplied and staffed by Newman supported by his long-time friend Patrick Blackett. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty samples from soils developed over the Northampton Sand ironstone formation were collected from, in and around the town of Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, UK. The total arsenic (As) content ranged from ca. 20-100 mg kg- 1and the bioaccessible As content, as measured by a physiologically based in vitro extraction test, ranged from 1 to 6 mg kg- 1. A chemometric algorithm for mixture resolution, when applied to total element and total organic carbon concentration of the soils, was able to identify chemically distinct soil constituents and their associated As content. Multiple linear regression (MLR) modelling, using the As content of the intrinsic soil constituents and their first order interactions as independent variables, was able to predict the bioaccessible As content of the soils (R2 = 0.85) with an uncertainty of 1.33 mg kg- 1. Although the MLR model showed that the interactions between the soil constituents were the key factors controlling the bioaccessible fraction in each soil most of the total As was found to be bound to an Fe oxide soil constituent. The model predictions shown are currently only valid for the geological and soil chemical setting investigated here, extrapolation to other geological settings would require additional investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]