Didactic Goals Research Articles

Humanitarian knowledge in the learning content to the inverse problems for differential equations

Problem and goal. Currently, humanitarization is a trend in the development of many scientific and educational fields, among which, undoubtedly, is applied mathematics. The significant contribution of applied mathematics to the development of human civilization is obvious. At the same time, it is widely known that in some cases the practical implementation of applied research entails global environmental problems. There are irreversible negative processes in the environment. Such situations inevitably lead to a contradiction between the modern achievements of world science and its social and moral aspects. This problem is recognized not only by scientists. It is no coincidence that one of the directions of improvement of the Russian education system is the humanization of mathematical education, the concept of the content of which has been developed since the nineties of the last century. One of the aspects of humanitarization of mathematical education is ecological education of students. A certain contribution to the formation of environmental education of students of physical and mathematical specialties of universities makes teaching inverse problems for differential equations, the content of which is formed on the basis of the theory of inverse problems for differential equations. In this connection, in the process of teaching inverse problems for differential equations are realized such goals as: familiarity of students with the basics of humanitarian analysis of applied research, teaching students to formulate their own logical conclusions of applied and humanitarian character on the results of the study of the inverse problem for differential equations. Methodology. The achievement of the above mentioned didactic goals of teaching inverse problems for differential equations is largely provided by how successfully will be implemented in practice such didactic learning tasks as: 1. realization of humanitarian potential of teaching inverse problems for differential equations; 2. formation of students’ skills and abilities of independent analysis of applied and humanitarian nature of the results of the study of inverse problems for differential equations; 3. substantiation of the role of applied and computational mathematics in the development of human civilization. In addition, in the process of teaching students inverse problems for differential equations it is advisable to implement a system of humanitarian-oriented training sessions. This is due to the fact that in the process of such training students acquire fundamental knowledge not only in the field of mathematical methods of research of such applied problems. In the process of learning the inverse problems students are instilled features of humanization. Results. In the process of teaching inverse problems for differential equations, students acquire the ability and skills to analyze the solutions of inverse problems, to formulate logical conclusions about the ecological state of the air space, the earth’s environment or the aquatic environment, to apply numerical results of solutions to inverse problems in the humanitarian analysis of applied research. Conclusion. Fundamental knowledge in the field of inverse problems for differential equations, skills of using this knowledge in their professional activities, the possession of humanitarian culture, awareness of the humane relations of their applied activities with the environment and society contributes to the formation of students’ spirituality, the development of worldview and awareness of involvement in the civilized development of society.

Педагогічні умови формування комунікативної культури майбутнього вчителя музичного мистецтва у процесі диригентсько-хорового навчання

The article describes pedagogical conditions for the communicative culture formation of a future music art teacher and the process of conducting-choir training. It is noted that the pedagogical condition is a point of the learning process, the result of purposeful selection, design and use of content elements, methods, devices, as well as organized forms of training to achieve specific didactic goals. The pedagogical condition must be the result of a well-thought-out and thorough selection of each of the elements of the educational process. It is emphasized that observance of pedagogical conditions is necessary in connection with the possibility to realize innovative professional training of future music art teachers. The article substantiates feasibility of using the component structure of the communicative culture of a future music art teacher in defining a set of pedagogical conditions, in particular: motivational and value based; emotionally empathic; cognitive-informational; activity-behavioral components.Based on the didactic analysis of the structure and content of the communicative culture of a future music art teacher, four pedagogical conditions have been identified. The first condition is strengthening of value-semantic aspects in the content of conducting-choral training of future music art teachers. Any musical composition exists as a product of culture, independent from a listener but with some known meaning, which depends on the composer, its creator. Inclusion of empathic-creative tasks in the process of conducting-choral training on the basis of a dialogue between cultures (the second pedagogical condition) implies that a unified understanding of interpretative tasks and the content of performance forms an empathic-creative attitude towards music among participants of the educational choral group. The third pedagogical condition is creation of a positive incentive to the collective spiritual and creative interaction of the participants of the educational choral group. It is focused on a «dialogue position», which has a special dynamic character and is aimed at all participants in the dialogue. To create the atmosphere of creativity in classes, maintaining contact with students in the educational choir, it is necessary to stimulate creative self-realization of students in socio-cultural conducting and choir activity. This circumstance has formed the basis for the fourth pedagogical condition for the formation of the communicative culture of a future music art teacher and the process of conducting-choral education.

Art, the Artist and Ethics in Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray

This paper examines ideological and philosophical premises of aestheticism, presented in Wilde's critical essays (The Critic as Artist and The Decay of Lying), and epigrams in the preface to the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, which both offer a philosophical context to the novel. Aestheticism emphasized that art can not be subordinated to moral, social, religious and didactic goals, because its ultimate goal is art itself, l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake). „Art never expresses anything but itself.“ „All bad art comes from returning to Life and Nature, and elevating them into ideals.“ „Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.“ „Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.“ (Wilde, 1891). The relations between art and reality (concealment of reality) and art and ethics (an ethical function of art) have been explored through the interaction of the characters of Basil Hallward and Sibyl Vane with Dorian Gray. The paper also examines the role of the artist, his morality in the process of creating and experiencing the work, and the influence of the work of art on the artist himself/herself.

Art, the Artist and Ethics in Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray

This paper examines ideological and philosophical premises of aestheticism, presented in Wilde's critical essays (The Critic as Artist and The Decay of Lying), and epigrams in the preface to the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, which both offer a philosophical context to the novel. Aestheticism emphasized that art can not be subordinated to moral, social, religious and didactic goals, because its ultimate goal is art itself, l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake). „Art never expresses anything but itself.“ „All bad art comes from returning to Life and Nature, and elevating them into ideals.“ „Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.“ „Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.“ (Wilde, 1891). The relations between art and reality (concealment of reality) and art and ethics (an ethical function of art) have been explored through the interaction of the characters of Basil Hallward and Sibyl Vane with Dorian Gray. The paper also examines the role of the artist, his morality in the process of creating and experiencing the work, and the influence of the work of art on the artist himself/herself.

OBLIGATIONES QUASI EX DELICTO (MALEFICIO) ZE STUDIÓW NAD ŹRÓDŁAMI ZOBOWIĄZAŃ W PRAWIE RZYMSKIM

OBLIGATIONES QUASI EX DELICTO . FROM THE RESEARCH ON THE SOURCES OF OBLIGATIONS IN THE ROMAN LAWSummary There is scarce literature on the sources of Roman obligatio. The opinions presented therein are very often contradictory, mostly because this issue was variously defined in the Roman law. On the one hand, Gaius in his Institutiones, which he wrote in the middle of the 2nd century AD, claimed that every obligation is derived from either ex contractu or ex delicto. Whereas on the other hand, Justinian’s Institutiones, constituting part of his codifications from the 6th century AD, divided the sources of obligations into four types, supplementing Gaius’ division with obligationes quasi ex contractu and quasi ex delicto (maleficio). The above issue is analysed in the first part of this article, where the attempts (made by Ulpian and Modestinus, as well as by the author of Res cottidianae) to supplement the classification of the sources of obligations proposed by Gaius are also presented. Gaius’ classification, which proved useful for the didactic goals, has become insufficient in the course of time.In the Gaian and Justinian tradition concerning the sources of obligations there are two elements which spark controversy. The first one is the meaning ascribed to the term contractus in Gaius’ Institutiones. Another questionable matter is quasi-de\ictsy since a range of various hypotheses exists in the doctrine of the Roman jurists concerning the criteria regarding this type of liability. This issue is discussed in the second part of the article. Analysing the above mentioned sources, the author comes to a conclusion that out of all theories set forth until now, the only valid one is the theory which assumes the so-called - in modern terminology (objective liability as a basis of quasi-delicts. He also notes that the question of the exact number of cases which could be included into this category still remains open, since different cases of the so-called objective liability existed and they are not called quasi-deX\cts in the sources.

Les dictionnaires dans l’apprentissage du fle en pologne : état des lieux

USE OF DICTIONARIES IN TEACHING FRENCH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN POLAND: BASELINE STUDY The paper focuses on the use of the dictionaries in the context of French as a foreign language in Poland. We assume, according to the Common European Framework and some other theoretical studies, that a dictionary is not only a learning tool but also a text which implies strategies of use. Consequently we consider that the learners should be provided with full-fledged dictionary skills which would make them able to explore the totality of linguistic and cultural richness of a dictionary. Unfortunately, we can prove that the use of dictionaries particularly the monolingual ones is not frequently integrated as a didactic goal in the French handbooks. Eventually, the analysis of 133 students’ surveys highlights some of the shortcomings and deficiencies in their practice of monoligual dictionaries. Their linguistic biographies emphasize the need of teaching advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of dictionaries and the special features of their micro- and macrostructure.

Functional and spatial tansformations and contemporary role of educational garden on the example of school garden in Sobieszyn

An important task for present and future generations is the protection of the national cultural resources. The most attractive architectural objects of historic value include palaces, manors, castles and monasteries. Less attention is paid to educational areas, which apart from the main educational and didactic goal (positive influence on the young person’s mind, shaping his personality, social integration) have a great influence on his health, the quality of his life and the shape of his environment. The example of this is the park next to the school complex in Sobieszyn, located in Lublin Voivodeship, Ułęż County. The school complex with its surrounding park established at the end of the 19th century was given by a will of the Count Kajetan Kanty Kicki, Gozdawa coat of arms, a philantropist and a contemporary owner of Sobieszyn. Localisation of the school, far away from the centre of the village, on the slope of one of the right side tributaries of the Wieprz River – Świnka, makes it an extraordinary place, emphasising the nature values that surround it. Nowadays, the building is still a school- Kajetan Kicki Agriculture School in Sobieszyn.

Irony’s Antics: Walser, Kafka, Roth, and the German Comic Tradition by Erica Weitzman

Reviewed by: Irony’s Antics: Walser, Kafka, Roth, and the German Comic Tradition by Erica Weitzman Pamela S. Saur Erica Weitzman, Irony’s Antics: Walser, Kafka, Roth, and the German Comic Tradition. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 2015. 257pp. Erica Weitzman’s book Irony’s Antics is subtitled Walser, Kafka, Roth and the German Comic Tradition. A few comments on this title are in order. As mentions of the Swiss writer Robert Walser and the Austrians Franz Kafka and Joseph Roth indicate, the phrase “German comic tradition” here does not limit this study to the literary and philosophical heritage of Germany. Attention to these writers, as well as to theories of Austrians Hofmannsthal and Freud, reflects a broad scholarly scope in which “German” signifies language more than nation. Considerable discussion is provided on pertinent theories of the German luminaries Schiller, Schlegel, Schopenhauer, Hegel, and Kant. (Some use is also made of non-German theorists such as Bergson, Foucault, Lacan, and Hobbes.) Also worth mentioning is that the chapters on the three writers named do not discuss their entire oeuvre but concentrate primarily on Walser’s first book, Fritz Kochers Aufsätze (and to a lesser extent his later cycle Aus dem Bleistift gebiet), Kafka’s novel Der Verschollene (Amerika), and Roth’s journalistic writings (rather than his fiction). To be sure, these analyses are informed by the author’s considerable knowledge of the writings of the three authors and their interpretations. The book aims at defining and providing examples of “irony” and “the comic.” However, rather than providing simple definitions of the terms and applying them to the texts analyzed, an intricate history of their varied definitions is unrolled, emphasizing the contrasting [End Page 136] traditions of Romantic irony and twentieth-century developments but also taking a range of philosophical theories into account. Weitzman begins her analysis of Walser’s humor and comedy by questioning the common “pathological” and “happy-go-lucky” interpretations of his texts as well as the view of him as “the simple inheritor of the romantic ironic tradition” (59). She states that “another name for a romantic irony that has outlived the romanticism that created it may well be the comic” (60). Walser’s first novel undermines common notions of both education and language through a collection of fictional school essays by Fritz Kocher, “a mediocre but dutiful pupil” who dies right after leaving school. His death robs the book of “any notion of cause and effect, continuation, or aftermath, indeed of temporality whatsoever, that would [. . .] grant Fritz’s education meaning” (61). According to Weitzman, “[T]he figure Fritz Kocher does not constitute a critique of Bildung so much as its ad absurdum inflation: the pure pupil with neither past nor future, eternally sitting at his desk [. . .] he is all Bildung, Bildung for its own sake” (62). The language of the pupil’s essays adds to the comedy: “Fritz’s language is characterized by an awkward mix of naive observation, forced metaphors, non sequiturs, and badly managed quotations from society’s storehouse of clichés.” Walser’s strategy in this regard “is to bring language and its forming within the sphere of the comic. First forced to reveal its artificiality, arbitrariness, and plasticity [. . .] it is then compelled nonetheless to go through the farce of trying to mean something” (62). Weitzman’s chapter on Kafka and the comic builds on substantial previous commentary, pioneered by Max Brod and Walter Benjamin. She observes that Kafka’s humor is rooted in his lack of mimetic or didactic goals, his focus not only on theatricality and presentation but the backstage processes. His representation of mechanical process and comical calamity explain why he is often likened to comedians like Charlie Chaplin. Kafka’s slapstick elicits laughter by people turning into pseudo-objects and objects taking on a life of their own, as well as the choreography of accident and paradoxical gracefulness of clumsiness. Kafka’s own work in a government insurance office lends irony to his literature, showing paradox and humor in institutional protocol, probability calculations, and challenges of determining borders between accident and intention, automatism and will. Kafka also highlights human costs of modern technology and American models of assembly-line efficiency...

Arts Education of Pupils with Special Educational Needs: Objectives and Principles

Changes in society, democratization of education enable to shift towards persons with disabilities, in order to integrate them into society without causing discomfort neither the person, nor those around him. Categorization of disabilities and disorders according to medical criteria does not meet the educational objectives of pupils with special educational needs, as both developmental disorders and learning difficulties create the variety of abilities, needs and interests of pupils in the class. Such variety refers to school for all pupils, to involving (inclusive) education. According to the results of surveys, although the pupils with special educational needs are involved in general education, the teacher still remains alone with his philosophy and methods, without being offered an opportunity for cooperation, consultancy support, which is one of conditions for success in the involving (inclusive) education. Lack of systematic research is still observed, which brings out the didactics issues of art education of pupils with special educational needs, therefore, the analyzed scientific problem is relevant. The objectives of special art education are focused not only on the pupils having special educational needs, but also to the surrounding people – teachers, classmates, family, society, and even more, to their mutual interactions. Such change of didactic goals reveals the new art education principles. The subjects of the article are the didactic goals and principles, educating the pupils with special needs by art. Applying the method of analysis of the scientific literature, the article reveals the research of the world and Lithuanian scientists in the field of special art pedagogy and theoretically justifies six principles of art education: art education focused on the emotionally positive interaction between the learner and teacher, directed to the learner’s family and society; art education is of moral aspect; content of art education is integral and perceived; educational methods are applied in complex; in the process of art education the verbal and nonverbal reflections predominate; art education is personally and socially meaningful for the pupils with special educational needs.

Web metadata extraction and semantic indexing for learning objects extraction

Secondary-school teachers are in constant need of finding relevant digital resources to support specific didactic goals. Unfortunately, generic search engines do not allow them to identify learning...

Die Dramatisierung des protestantischen Märtyrers in Michael Sachs’ Tragedia / von Stephano dem heiligen marterer (1565)

In the second half of the sixteenth century, the authors of Protestant martyrologies developed a ‘new’ view on martyrs. Their intention was to restrain from emphasizing ‘wrong’ martyrs and orthodox Christian views. Rather, they focused on the cause of the martyrdom, the truth testimonies of the martyrs, and stressed Christ as the single mediator between God and man. Almost simultaneously, preachers and schoolmasters began to write martyrs’ plays. In this paper I analyze whether the ‘new’ view on martyrs represented in martyrologies can also be found in martyrs’ plays. I also explore how martyrologies and plays relate to each other. The Tragedia / von Stephano dem heiligen marterer by Michael Sachs is the focus of my analysis. I conclude that hagiographies provide the argumentative background for this martyrs’ play. Furthermore, Sachs pursues or focuses on his own didactic goals. For this purpose, he integrates the figure of the fool in his plays, who criticizes Protestant Christians for being insufficiently pious.

Os Procedimentos Discursivos Didáticos como saberes experienciais exemplares de um formador de professores de física

From discussions regarding the professionalization of education and the teachers’ professional knowledge, in this paper we present our discursive approach to investigate the practical knowledge of an experienced physics teacher trainer. The analyses focus on his practical knowledge that we have called “Discursive Didactic Procedures” (DDP). The DDP are the means by which the teachers’ pursue their didactic goals and manage the discourse within their classrooms. The objectivity of such practical knowledge is assured by its argumentative character evinced by discourse analysis. We consider that the analysis and mapping of these procedures can inform other teachers’ practices, thus contributing for transformation of ideas and practices. We conclude reinforcing the need to compose and increase a repertory about the teachers’ procedures that encompass the diversity of science and physics classes in teacher education.

Abordagem comunicativa, argumentação e objetivos didáticos: um episódio de sala de aula de física gerenciado por um estagiário

Neste trabalho, apresentamos análises articuladas de um episódio de regência em sala de aula de física do ensino médio e da sua utilização como instrumento formador em uma disciplina de Prática de Ensino de Física. O objetivo principal é discutir, pelas articulações das análises, as relações, no discurso, dos elementos da tríade analítica abordagem comunicativa/argumentação/objetivos didáticos. As análises demonstram que o papel da argumentação e os objetivos didáticos correlatos, no discurso de sala de aula, não são suficientemente claros para os sujeitos investigados. Nessa perspectiva, o equívoco dos licenciandos, em confundir explicação com argumentação, remete a necessidades formativas que devem enfatizar quais objetivos didáticos as situações argumentativas podem cumprir em sala de aula e como essas situações podem ser identificadas, promovidas, mantidas e gerenciadas pelos professores. Concluímos levantando as implicações dessa análise e perspectivas para a pesquisa e para o ensino de física e ciências.

PROBLEMINIO MOKYMOSI KAIP STUDIJŲ METODO IR KAIP STRATEGIJOS SAMPRATOS PROBLEMA

Socialinių mokslų (edukologijos) habilituota daktarė profesorėVilniaus universiteto Edukologijos katedraUniversiteto g. 9/1, LT-O1513 VilniusTel. (8 5) 266 7625El. paštas: vilija.targamadze@gmail.comStraipsnyje pateikiamos probleminio mokymosi teorinės įžvalgos, siekiant atrasti probleminio mokymosi metodo ir studijų strategijos takoskyrą. Tuo tikslu aptariami probleminio mokymosi ir studijų strategijos panašumai ir savitumai. Taip pat pasitelkiama ekspertų (devynių Gruzijos ir Ukrainos ekspertų universitetų dėstytojų, dalyvaujančių TEMPUS projekte) nuomonė. Teorinėse įžvalgose apibūdinama probleminio mokymosi studijų strategijos filosofija, kurios principai, pasak T. Barret (2005, p. 20–21), sietini su trimis metodologinėmis prieigomis: kognityvizmu, socialiniu konstruktyvizmu ir postmodernizmu. Apibendrinus teorines įžvalgas ir ekspertų nuomonę išryškinamas esminis skirtumas tarp probleminio mokymosi metodo ir studijų strategijos.

AN ACTIVITY THEORY-BASED ANALYTIC FRAMEWORK FOR THE STUDY OF DISCOURSE IN SCIENCE CLASSROOMS

In this paper we introduce a new framework and methodology to analyze science classroom discourse and apply it to a university physics education course. Two fields of inquiry were adapted to develop the framework: activity theory and linguistics. From activity theory we applied levels of analysis (activity, actions, and operations) to organize and structure the discourse analysis. From the field of linguistics we used resources from sociolinguistics and textual linguistics to perform analysis at the action and operation levels. Sociolinguistics gave us criteria to introduce contextualization cues into analysis in order to consider ways that participants segmented their classroom conversations. Textual linguistics provided a basis for categories of language organization (e.g, argumentation, explanation, narration, description, injunction, and dialogue). From this analysis, we propose an examination of a teacher's discourse moves, which we labeled Discursive Didactic Procedures (DDPs). Thus, the framework provides a means to situate these DDPs in different types of language organization, examine the roles such DDPs play in events, and consider the relevant didactic goals accomplished. We applied this framework to analyze the emergence and development of an argumentative situation and investigate its specific DDPs and their roles. Finally, we explore possible contributions of the framework to science education research and consider some of its limitations.

Financial appraisal of efficiency investments: why the good may be the worst enemy of the best

This methodological paper has a didactic goal: improving our understanding of what “cost optimal energy performance of buildings” means and how financial appraisal of efficiency investments must be set up. Three items merit improvement. First, focus on the endowment character of energy performance of long-living assets like buildings. Second, defining cost optimal requires more than a comparative static trade-off scheme; cost optimal refers to dynamic efficiency, which results from technology dynamics induced by changes in society and policy. Third, financial appraisal is a more complex issue than simple net present value and life cycle cost calculations. It must reflect the time sequential dynamics of real-life processes including real-life decision making. Financial appraisal is embedded in a complex framework made up by three dimensions: future time, doubt and irrevocability. The latter dimension connects with issues like lock-in and path dependency that are generally overlooked in net present value calculations. This may lead to very erroneous recommendations regarding efficiency investments, in particular regarding the energy performance endowment of buildings. Mostly irrevocability is used as an argument to “wait and learn” what has, for example, blocked the pace of climate policy. But the opposite “choose or lose” is the logical outcome when the methodology is fed with evidenced expectations. The latter boosts energy efficiency to its boundaries, saving it from the middle-of-the-river quagmire where incomplete appraisals are dropping it too often (making the good the worst enemy of the best).

«Alegoría» en las "Tragedias de amor" de Arze Solórzeno

This article tries to analyze the allegory in Arze Solórzeno’s Tragedias de Amor and to put it in relation with its historical and literary influences. The allegory can be defined as a non literal interpretation of a text with a moral or didactic goal. In the «extrapoética» allegory, which is the one that appears in Arze Solorzeno’s novel, the allegoric interpretation appears separated from the rest of the book. One of the elements that is characteristic of the allegories in Tragedias de amor is it lack of relation with the novel and even some incoherencies can be founded. In this way the allegory becomes like a display of advices and erudition that has little relation with the rest of the book and some elements in common with a kind of essays called miscellaneous which were very popular at that time. The allegory in Tragedias de Amor is the only one in the Spanish pastoral novel which is «extrapoética». The influence of classic and contemporaneous writers can be easily found in the allegories. The didactic intention and the kind of topics found in the allegories are very close to the humanistic tradition but, in another way, the light and shadows of the characters and some aspects of the allegories are more close to the Baroque of which influence was growing quickly in that time.

Handbook of Behavior Genetics: From Greeks to Geeks

Handbook of Behavior Genetics: From Greeks to Geeks

Reasonable Conversions: Susanna Rowson's Mentoria and Conversion Narratives for Young Readers

y the time Susanna Rowson published Mentoria; or, the Young Lady's Friend in 1794, most literate British and American readers had encountered a plentiful supply of juvenile conversion narratives—stories that illustrate children's dedication to Christianity, often on the deathbed, the most striking example of which is the clas- sic Calvinist text A Token for Children: Being an Exact Account of the Conversion, Holy and Exemplary Lives and Joyful Deaths of Several Young Children (1671-1672; American edition 1700) penned by English Puritan minister James Janeway. 1 The work collects the stories of children who convert and ultimately die at an early age, all related with an explicit didactic goal of promoting readers' conversions as well. A hundred years later a wave of seduction novels flooded the literary marketplace in Britain and America, some of which appropriated conventions of the sacred conversion form and secularized it for eighteenth-century audiences by merging the concept of moral transformation with Enlightenment-era models of rational education. Though not well known, Rowson's Mentoria—a curious conglomeration of thematically-related pieces from multiple genres, including the essay, epistolary novel, conduct book, and fairy tale—of- fers particularly fertile ground for thinking about the nexus between eighteenth-century didactic books and earlier works for young readers. 2 At the heart of Mentoria is a series of letters describing girls who yield, with dire and frequently deadly consequences, to the passionate pleas of male suitors. 3 Fallen women populate Rowson's world, and scholars have traditionally read Mentoria within the familiar bounds of the eighteenth-century seduction novel. 4 However, Rowson's creation transforms the older tradition of didactic,

When qEEG Gets Personal: A Reply to Coburn et al. (2006)

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article LETTERFull AccessWhen qEEG Gets Personal: A Reply to Coburn et al. (2006)Pedro Coutin-Churchman M.D., Ph.D.,Pedro Coutin-Churchman M.D., Ph.D.Search for more papers by this author,Published Online:1 Jan 2010https://doi.org/10.1176/jnp.2010.22.1.123.e3AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail To the Editor: In 2006 this journal published a review by Coburn et al. 1 on the value of quantitative EEG in psychiatry, with emphasis on “the individual patient sitting across the desk…” of the clinical psychiatrist. Unfortunately, in spite of its didactic goal, this review mainly focused on how efficiently patients can be classified using combinations of qEEG measures in discriminant functions, and the epic saga of the battle between “believers” and “nonbelievers” in neurometrics (Court struggling and personal allusions included), but little is clarified about which medical meaning has a “statistically abnormal” qEEG measure, as is clear in the meaning of a hypodense or hyperdense zone in an MRI, in spite of “the more complex mathematics involved.” Apparently as a part of the above-mentioned struggle, a paper 2 published by our group with the goal of ascertaining the value of some qEEG measures as markers of pathology was targeted by Coburn et al. 1 as a paradigm of the methodological flaws suffered by qEEG, but several important facts were neglected in their criticisms. First, the authors complained about our normative database and statistics because we found “abnormalities” in eight of 67 healthy subjects using the familiar Z-transform. However, they omit that those “abnormalities” were due to atypical features easily identified in their background EEG. Nevertheless, some paragraphs before, they stated that qEEG “… may be sensitive to statistically significant but clinically trivial normal variants.” 1 But in that case they did not consider it “ill-advised” to use the method. A double standard? They also neglected our findings of alterations with 100% specificity, like decrease in slow bands, and their association with brain atrophy. Second, they criticize our inability to find explicit correspondence between specific qEEG alterations and diagnosis, due to our “inadequate database” and our “rejection of discriminant functions.” Since our paper dealt with a study of qEEG features in blindly selected cases with a posteriori correlation with clinical data, we could not expect to have proportional representation of all diagnostic categories, but a bias toward the most frequent. However, we agreed in that “there was a significant statistical trend for some patterns … to be more frequently observed in some disorders.” 2 Coburn et al. 1 neglected this observation. The objection about the use of “hypernormals” instead of “street normals” in our database is indeed ill-advised, since there is evidence of specific qEEG alterations reflecting incipient brain dysfunction in patients who are “in the streets” with medical conditions like diabetes and hypertension without any neurological or psychiatric complaints. 3 In summary, we feel that qEEG will remain stranded in the realm of personal beliefs and group feud until we can obtain enough knowledge about the medical meaning of the numbers involved here, like in any other diagnostic test. 4 One must also wonder if “diagnostic classification” should be the main goal of qEEG. Is even a 90% specificity in a discriminant function enough in an age when the 10% misdiagnosed patients can have easy access to all the information concerning the misdiagnosis we or the machine is giving them? Department of EEG, Hospital Psiquiatrico San Juan de Dios, Merida, Venezuela