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Assessment tends to be associated with students and learners; however, the term assessment encompasses both teachers and students. To understand the purpose of language assessment instruments, it is key to look for the designers and their preferences. This research aims to characterize 209 assessment instruments created by English teachers. This is a non-experimental and descriptive study that analyzes the types of instruments, the educational level, the language systems and skills, and the type and number of items. Two of the most important findings are related to the preferences Chilean English teachers have towards traditional assessment and the tendency to assess vocabulary and grammar; besides, the participants' preference for tests and fill-in-the gap items.

The purpose of this dissertation is to map and analyze the spatial and temporal variation in women's political representation at both the national and local level. In the dissertation it is argued that women's political representation is the outcome of the interplay between structures, institutions and actors. The perspective is a comparative one, in which quantitative analyses and more qualitative case-studies complement each other. When analysing spatial variation a mainly quantitative approach is taken, while the case-study approach is applied to the temporal variation. The first empirical chapter examines whether female representation in the lower houses of the world's parliaments co-varies with other indicators of the political situation of women in order to ensure the validity of the analysis. In the second empirical chapter female representation in parliaments of the world during the post-war period is analyzed. In the third empirical chapter the focus narrows down to women's political representation in Western Europe during the post-war period, where both the national and local level is analysed. The fourth empirical chapter consists of case studies of six countries. Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands feature high female representation; France, Greece and Ireland low female representation. In the fifth empirical chapter women's political representation at the local level in Norway and Sweden is analysed during the post-war period. In the sixth empirical chapter the temporal variation in female representation in a number of Swedish municipalities is analysed, from the introduction of female suffrage in 1921 until 2002. The result is that both structures, institutions and actors are necessary to explain the spatial and temporal variation in female representation. There is no direct link between structures and female representation. The structure does affect the actors and co-varies with the institutions, but successful actors as entrepreneurs might boost female representation. Actors are important. The increase in female representation cannot be seen as an automatic process taking care of itself. Conscious actors are necessary both to affect and to monitor the development. An unfavourable structural context might be compensated for by actors and institutions which favour female representation.

This study is a partial advance of ongoing research whose main objective is the creation, contribution, and analysis of cultural indicators in the Ecuadorian university context. This work focuses specifically on providing a series of indicators on the equipment, use, and consumption of the TIC of students of the National University of Education of Ecuador (UNAE). The methodology used is the quantitative of descriptive-analytical order, based on the data collected in a survey applied on a population sample, made up of 438 students of the total universe between the different careers and cycles offered by the UNAE. The sample has a margin of 95% reliability and an error of 5%. The obtained results showed a high level of equipment, use, and consumption of the different technological devices. Also, this university population spends daily hours in academic and free time activities in cellphones, television, videos, and internet.

In a world of permanent change, traditional language teaching methods do not solve the communicative needs in foreign languages ​​that favor knowledge and adaptation to changing educational contexts. The CLIL method is widely used to develop skills both in the learning language and in other areas of knowledge, it allows for the strengthening of teaching capacities to assume the teaching of contents of the different subjects in a foreign language. The objective of this bibliographic review is to collect significant and existing information on the CLIL method and contribution of this method in the educational field. The documentary descriptive approach of recent research related to the subject of study is used, based on the theoretical foundations of bilingual education. The literature review shows that by teaching the foreign language as a vehicle to instruct content from other subjects, students understand the need to learn the language to seize the knowledge of the subject and allows teachers to explore their own teaching context, reflect and identify factors that can improve their teaching practice, especially in the inclusion of writing activities in English.

This study was made with the purposes of characterizing milk supply and marketing chains, postproduction losses of milk, and evaluating the potential of supply chain management approach to reduce milk losses in Ethiopia. Primary data were collected by semi-structured survey questionnaire and interview of key informants. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS and Microsoft Excel sheets. Mapping, characterizations, and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the collected data. Both quantitative and qualitative-narrative methods were used in analysis. The finding revealed that farmers, cooperatives/unions, traders, and catering institutions were the major chain actors in milk chain in the study area. With 73% of milk sold by farmers passing through cooperatives/unions to the next chain actors, cooperatives/unions were the focal firms in this supply chain. Production was characterized by smallholders with few numbers of cows and low productivity of milk per cow per day. Cow breed and lack of access to credit were identified as critical resource and the most constraint that hinder production improvement. Marketing relationships among the chain actors were characterized as lacking long-term market orientation and were mostly on the spot and transaction based. The assessment on the enabling environment indicated further need of support from governmental and non-governmental stakeholders to build the capacity of chain actors, particularly the farmers. The study indicated existence of significant amount of milk losses in the milk chain. With 39% of the total losses happening at cooperatives/union stage, cooperatives/unions were identified as loss hotspot point in the chain. Poor milk handling practice at the collection points, lack of immediate acceptors, milk carrying tools used, means of transport used, and ineffective communication with other partner in the chain were identified in order of severity as important problems causing milk losses in the study area. Based on the study results and review of others' work in similar contexts, this study argued for SCM to be part of solution in improving this dairy chain. The study showed cases where effectively implemented SCM approach converted dairy chains from chains characterized by dismantled, high conflicts of interests among the chain actors, and high losses of food in the chain to chains with mutual interest trying to maximize the profit to the whole chain actors. Integrated and collective actions by all chain actors aiming at reducing costs, improving quality, and minimizing food losses in the chain were central to these efforts. Therefore, SCM approach needs to be part of the solution in increasing profitability and reducing milk losses in Ethiopia in general and in the study area in particular. However, the needs for detailed further study, some of which are recommended by this study, are worthwhile.