Abstracts - Earli

strengths and shortcomings of teachers’ ideas on assessment and are useful for designing teachers’training programs on students’ assessment.Effects of item headings in aptitude tests: evidence that math-related labels impair students’performance in deductive reasoning tasksCarlo Tomasetto, University of Bologna, ItalyTwo studies examine the effects of domain-related labels used as item headings in aptitude tests. Itappears that items and exercises aimed at assessing domain-general cognitive abilities (e.g.,hypothesis testing in deductive reasoning) are alternatively labelled under the headings of "math","sciences", "verbal logic", "reasoning" items, and so on. Past research points out that task labellingmay heavily affect solvers’ performances, depending on shared beliefs about intrinsic difficulty ofthe domain evoked by task label. We hypothesized therefore that when deductive reasoning tasks –administered with the purpose of testing aptitudes - are labelled as diagnostic of math-relatedabilities, students’ performances may be thwarted, compared to conditions in which the same tasksare labelled as diagnostic of verbal reasoning skills. In study 1, a modified version of the WasonSelection Task was labelled as diagnostic of "formal math demonstration" vs. "verbal reasoning"skills, by means of a heading on the top of the page. Results confirm that the rate of incorrect(confirmatory) answers is significantly higher under math rather than verbal/logic heading,independently from students’ perceived past success in math. In study 2, the Selection Task wasinserted in a battery including other six items, three equations labelled as "math" items, and threetext comprehension items (labelled as "verbal reasoning"). We hypothesized and found that whenmath items are indicated as the most diagnostic of students’ aptitudes, the rate of incorrect(confirmatory) answers at the Selection Task is significantly higher when this task is placed underthe "math" rather than to the "verbal reasoning" heading, whereas no difference due to theSelection Task heading appears neither when diagnosticity is attributed to verbal reasoning items,nor in the control condition. Theoretical and applied implications of the two studies will bediscussed.National examinations and school evaluation in secondary schools - Study of the relation betweenpedagogic practices and students results in Biology of socially differentiated schoolsAna Saldanha, University of Lisbon, PortugalIsabel Neves, University of Lisbon, PortugalThe study is focused on biology education and addresses the following problem: What is theextent to which teachers’ pedagogic practices are conditioned by the level of conceptual demandrequired by national examinations in secondary school Biology and condition the examinationsresults of students of socially differentiated schools? The study is focused on the followingobjectives: (1) compare the level of conceptual demand of teachers’ practices with the level ofconceptual demand of syllabuses and of examinations; (2) compare the examination marksobtained by students of socially differentiated schools and receiving pedagogic practices withdistinct levels of conceptual demand. Theoretically the study is based on Bernstein’s model ofpedagogic discourse and on Vygotsky’s social constructivism and methodologically uses aninterpretative model of text analysis. The sample was made up of four schools and respectiveteachers and students of secondary school Biology. The schools differed in their socialcomposition and showed to be different in their results in the Biology national examinations. Theresults show that it is the typology of examinations that fundamentally dictates the rules that directthe recontextualizing of syllabuses evident on the teachers’ pedagogic practices. They also showthat pedagogic practices with distinct levels of conceptual demand influence the results in– 534 –