The Unmistakable Professional Promise of a Young Educational Psychology Researcher and Scholar

This article focuses on the early research domains investigated by Michael Pressley, along with the integrations and initiatives that were inspired by them. These research domains include verbal and imagery elaboration memory strategies, and developmental aspects of them; interrogative elaboration; pictorial strategies for language and literacy skill development (including the mnemonic keyword method of vocabulary learning and pictorial strategies for remembering text information); and memory strategy monitoring and test preparation. The article is liberally sprinkled with personal accounts and anecdotes of Mike's early career experiences (as a graduate student, postgraduate researcher, and young professor). From the very beginning, there was no mistaking the professional promise of this young educational psychology researcher and scholar.     

Implicit Theories of Ability and Self-regulation Strategies in Physical Education Classes

Previous research has shown that cognitive processing and achievement strategies are important for motor learning and achievement. Despite this, there are few studies identifying the role of motivational beliefs in the cognitive self-regulation of students' learning in physical education classes. This study reports the results of multivariate analyses of the relationships between thirteen to fourteen-year-old secondary school pupils' (n=343) implicit theories of ability and their self-regulated learning in PE. Self-regulation measures included metacognitive/elaboration strategies, effort regulation and adaptive help seeking. Results revealed consistent relationships between motivational beliefs and pupils' use of self-regulation strategies. The results underscore the educational value of reappraising pupils' implicit theories of ability, making them believe in the modifiability of ability through effort and hard work and learning. The results illustrate the importance of linking pupils' motivational and cognitive characteristics to provide a fuller understanding of their self-regulation of learning in physical education.     

Luria's Theory of Brain Functioning: A Model for Research in Cognitive Psychophysiology

Luria's (1973) brain functioning theory is offered as a model for cognitive psychophysiological research. It may be used to predict brain processing patterns both for constructive tasks of various levels of complexity and for high and low performance on these tasks. Brain mapping research is reported that shows how brain processing patterns for tasks of varying cornp1exit:y are associated with Luria's theory. As a model for research, Luria's model offers several potential contributions to educational psychology. First, it may help bridge the current gap between mainstream educational psychology and cognitive psychophysiology. Second, it may be used to associate student performance on cognitive tasks with brain processing patterns. For example, differences have been demonstrated between high and low task performance and brain processing patterns. Finally, the model proposed is potentially very useful because it is empirically testable. The weight of the evidence to date clearly supports the proposition that brain processing patterns and performance in higher order, constructive cognitive tasks are related in a consistent and predictable manner to Luria's brain functioning theory.     

An Evolutionary Upgrade of Cognitive Load Theory: Using the Human Motor System and Collaboration to Support the Learning of Complex Cognitive Tasks

Cognitive load theory is intended to provide instructional strategies derived from experimental, cognitive load effects. Each effect is based on our knowledge of human cognitive architecture, primarily the limited capacity and duration of a human working memory. These limitations are ameliorated by changes in long-term memory associated with learning. Initially, cognitive load theory's view of human cognitive architecture was assumed to apply to all categories of information. Based on Geary’s (Educational Psychologist 43, 179–195 2008; 2011) evolutionary account of educational psychology, this interpretation of human cognitive architecture requires amendment. Working memory limitations may be critical only when acquiring novel information based on culturally important knowledge that we have not specifically evolved to acquire. Cultural knowledge is known as biologically secondary information. Working memory limitations may have reduced significance when acquiring novel information that the human brain specifically has evolved to process, known as biologically primary information. If biologically primary information is less affected by working memory limitations than biologically secondary information, it may be advantageous to use primary information to assist in the acquisition of secondary information. In this article, we suggest that several cognitive load effects rely on biologically primary knowledge being used to facilitate the acquisition of biologically secondary knowledge. We indicate how incorporating an evolutionary view of human cognitive architecture can provide cognitive load researchers with novel perspectives of their findings and discuss some of the practical implications of this view.     

Episodic Memory: A Neglected Phenomenon in the Psychology of Education

Contemporary educational psychology has employed models of procedural and semantic (or declarative) memory, but generally it has ignored a third form of memory (i.e., episodic memory) thought by some (e.g., Tulving, 1983,1985) to be especially important for explications of human functioning. Tulving's (1983,1985) ternary theory of memory is presented, with emphasis given to the acquisition, representation, and expression of knowledge in episodic memory. I argue that studies of pupils' episodic memories, their characteristics, and their functions may enhance the power and relevance of educational psychology with respect to understanding how pupils learn from instruction in classroom contexts. A conceptual framework and possible strategies for the conduct of instructional research are described that consider pupils' episodic memories as important mediating variables in learning from teaching.     

Skill and will: The role of motivation and cognition in the learning of college chemistry

This study investigated how students' level of motivation and use of specific cognitive and self-regulatory strategies changed over time, and how these motivational and cognitive components in turn predicted students' course performance in chemistry. Participants were 458 students enrolled in introductory college chemistry classes. Participants' motivation and strategy use were assessed at three time points over the course of one semester using self-report instruments. Results showed an overall decline in students' motivational levels over time. There was also a decline in students' use of rehearsal and elaboration strategies over time; students' use of organizational and self-regulatory strategies increased over time. These trends, however, were found to vary by students' achievement levels. In terms of the relations of motivation and cognition to achievement, the motivational components of self-efficacy and task value were found to be the best predictors of final course performance even after controlling for prior achievement.     

儿童数学认知策略研究新进展

认知策略是指向认知目标的一种心理操作,主体通过使用策略,可以达到解决问题的目的,关于儿童数学认知策略的研究是探讨个体整个认知策略发展的重要途径之一。儿童数学认知策略的特性主要表现为多样性和差异性、竞争性和适应性、突变性和渐进性。儿童数学认知策略的发展主要受教育环境、工作记忆、数学焦虑的影响。微观发生学的研究方法为儿童数学认知策略的研究提供了一个新的视角。目前儿童数学认知策略研究的新趋势主要集中在有意识和无意识之间的关系、影响儿童数学认知策略发展的内在因素和外在因素之间的关系、进一步扩大儿童数学认知策略的研究范围等方面。     

THE CONDITIONAL AND INTERACTION EFFECTS OF EPISTEMOLOGICAL BELIEFS ON THE SELF-REGULATED LEARNING OF COLLEGE STUDENTS: Cognitive and Behavioral Strategies

This study examines the conditional and interaction effects of each of four dimensions of the epistemological beliefs of college students regarding the ability to learn, the speed of learning, the structure of knowledge, and the stability of knowledge on four measures of the cognitive components (elaboration, rehearsal, organization, metacognition) and four measures of the behavioral components (effort regulation, management of time and study environment, peer learning, help seeking) of self-regulated learning strategies. Students with more sophisticated beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning were more likely than their peers to use educationally productive cognitive and behavioral strategies in their learning. Beliefs about one’s ability to learn had the most significant and substantial effects, and the structure of knowledge had the second most significant and substantial effects on students’ use of self-regulated cognitive and behavioral learning strategies. Although a student’s belief about the stability of knowledge by itself had a statistically significant effect on only one learning strategy, this belief served as moderator for six of the 11 statistically significant interaction effects of epistemological beliefs on the use of cognitive and behavioral learning strategies. Implications of these findings for theory, research, policy and practice are examined.     

Effects of an Early Family Intervention on Children's Memory: The Mediating Effects of Cortisol Levels

Developmental psychologists have long been concerned with the ways that early adversity influences children's long-term outcomes. In the current study, activity of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis of medically at-risk (e.g., preterm) infants was measured as a result of maternal participation in a novel cognitively based home visitation program (versus a Healthy Start home visitation program). Maternal participation in the cognitive intervention predicted lower basal cortisol levels among infants—with reduced levels of maternal avoidance/withdrawal serving as a mediator of this relation. Lower cortisol levels in infancy, in turn, predicted higher verbal short-term memory (STM) at age 3. STM represents a cognitive ability that has importance for children's later educational outcomes. Findings provide experimental evidence concerning the pathway by which an early intervention may produce hormonal changes that can, in turn, influence children's learning outcomes.     

International assistance to third world educational management training—A critical examination of alternative strategies

Recent years have seen an increase in international assistance to Third World educational management training. A range of strategies have been adopted by Third World governments and donor agencies to promote training improvement. The paper examines these strategies, drawing on the literature and the author's direct involvement in a U.K. funded research project concerned with developing materials for Third World Educational management training. The lessons from experiences are considered and an attempt is made to identify factors influencing the impact of alternative strategies, which may have implications for international assistance in this field. It is concluded that strategies can at best be catalytic and that a combination of integrated strategies focusing on all components of institutional and personnel development is most likely to contribute towards improvement. It is suggested that more flexible and innovative strategies could offer considerable potential and warrant greater attention by those concerned with educational management training development.     

The Impossibility of a Core Curriculum: a Reply to Alan Harris

Two main reasons are given for the continuing educational deployment of Piaget's psychological theory. The first reason is that his theory survives psychological scrutiny. In support, it is argued that none of five criticisms directed by Peter Bryant (Oxford Review of Education, 10/3 1984) requires the rejection of Piaget's theory. It is, in particular, contended that the development of cognitive ability is accorded a relative, rather than absolute, construal; that both principles of matching and of mismatching are compatible with Piaget's theory; and that decisions about the validity of Piaget's recent equilibratory model should not be taken prematurely. The second reason is that Piaget's constructivist theory has undergone recent revision and so is of interest to those with psychological or educational commitments to constructivism.     

Dewey's Participatory Educational Democracy

In this essay, Emil Višňovský and Štefan Zolcer outline John Dewey's contribution to democratic theory as presented in his 1916 classic Democracy and Education. The authors begin with a review of the general context of Dewey's conception of democracy, and then focus on particular democratic ideas and concepts as presented in Democracy and Education. This analysis emphasizes not so much the technical elaboration of these ideas and concepts as their philosophical framework and the meanings of democracy for education and education for democracy elaborated by Dewey. Apart from other aspects of Deweyan educational democracy, Višňovský and Zolcer focus on participation as one of its key characteristics, ultimately claiming that the notion of educational democracy Dewey developed in this work is participatory.     

Cognitive load theory,educational research,and instructional design: some food for thought

Cognitive load is a theoretical notion with an increasingly central role in the educational research literature. The basic idea of cognitive load theory is that cognitive capacity in working memory is limited, so that if a learning task requires too much capacity, learning will be hampered. The recommended remedy is to design instructional systems that optimize the use of working memory capacity and avoid cognitive overload. Cognitive load theory has advanced educational research considerably and has been used to explain a large set of experimental findings. This article sets out to explore the open questions and the boundaries of cognitive load theory by identifying a number of problematic conceptual, methodological and application-related issues. It concludes by presenting a research agenda for future studies of cognitive load.     

A new perspective on memorization practices among East Asian students based on PISA 2012

Abstract

This study examined learning strategy use in mathematics among East Asian students in East Asian educational systems. By employing latent class analysis on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 data, we found four classes of learning strategy types, namely memorization with metacognitive strategies (17.49%), metacognitive strategies with memorization (50.70%), elaboration only (10.33%), and metacognitive strategies with elaboration (16.47%). The results showed that the majority of the students in all seven East Asian educational systems belonged to the ‘metacognitive strategies with memorization’ class, and most students adopted more than one type of learning strategy when learning mathematics. Additionally, students who reported the use of metacognitive strategies along with either memorization or elaboration showed higher mathematics achievement. We conclude that the cognitive processes employed by students of East Asian backgrounds are more complex and nuanced than the previous perception that they relied heavily on memorization.     

How do Teachers Teach Memory Skill?

Research on teachers' efforts to influence the ways in which children approach memory tasks and understand and regulate their own memory processes has been limited, possibly because of the restrictive views of memory held by cognitive theories that have previously guided research efforts. A more complex perspective on the memory skills that develop over the elementary school years has been elaborated by developmental psychologists and information-processing theorists, but their work has had limited influence on either teacher-training practices or research in teaching. In order to begin to apply this newer perspective to an understanding of classroom teaching processes, research needs to consider teacher practices and expectations for children's learning and memory. A program of research that has been concerned with how teachers teach memory and metacognitive skills and with teachers' views of memory processes is summarized in this article, and implications for teacher training are discussed.     

Oh No,Not the “A” word! Proposing an “Anarchism” for Education

Anarchist theory has a long-standing history in political theory, sociology, and philosophy. As a radical discourse, anarchist theory pushes educators and researchers towards new conceptualizations of community, theory, and praxis. Early writers, like Joseph Proudhoun and Emma Goldman, to more contemporary anarchists, such as Noam Chomsky, have established anarchist theory as an important school of thought that sits outside the Marxist discourses that have dominated the radical academic scene. Today, anarchists have been responsible for staging effective protests (specifically, Seattle, 1999) and have influenced autonomous groups like the Animal Liberation Front in their organizational and guiding philosophies. Interestingly, anarchism is glaringly absent from the literature in educational theory and research. In this article, I highlight aspects of anarchist theory that are particularly applicable to education, and also establishes specific ways that anarchist theory can inform one's own educational praxis. Specifically, I employ the anarchist framework of direct action and micro-level strategies, such as sabotage, that challenge people to resist the oppressive practices found in institutions today.     

Inequality/difference in New Zealand education: Social reproduction and the cognitive habitus

A programmatic study of inequality/difference in New Zealand education has been carried out, for a quarter of a century, within a family resource framework that has supported both theoretical and empirical research. Although deeply influenced by Bourdieu's theories of social and cultural reproduction, its adherence to a realist philosophy of science means that its structure-disposition-practice explanatory schemes cannot be represented as Bourdieusian. This article takes the concept of habitus (as a set of learned dispositions)and argues that durable embodied cognitive schemes, acquired by children in classed environments, are a principal cause of observed class variation in educational performance. This view challenges accounts in which 'ability'is regarded as 'socially constructed'. The entire history of the sociology of education might be written in terms of its struggle against the dominant influence of IQ theory as an explanation of inequality/difference in education. It is not clear that our discipline has yet been successful in that struggle. These matters are discussed with reference to empirical data on the association between social class and educational achievement in New Zealand. The evidence suggests that class patterns of attainment, particularly on standardized tests designed to assess verbal intelligence, support the thesis that cognitive operations effected by the cognitive habitus are fundamentally involved in the reproduction of inequality/difference. It seems that the primary effects of socialisation may be more important than the secondary effects that many sociologists have taken as their proper area of concern. Some policy implications of this thesis - which is neither a move to encode IQ theory in a radical discourse nor an attempt to reinstate classical deficit theory - are discussed in the context of state-sponsored possibilism currently being imposed on many educational systems.     

Don't just look,listen: uncovering children's cognitive strategies during spelling-related activities

This paper reports on a study that used verbal protocols to uncover the cognitive strategies of children from Sydney, Australia, aged 8- to 9-years-old, when they were engaged in a range of word sorting and editing activities. The children's cognitive strategies have been analysed in terms of a developmental stage theory of spelling. The findings are contrasted with the skills and characteristics of competent spellers at each recognised stage of spelling development. The paper considers the orthographic knowledge and spelling strategies of children that are evident when they are asked to ‘think aloud’ about English words and contrasts this with what is (or is not) captured through the developmental stage theory of spelling. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for the findings on classroom practice.     

BROADENING THE DEBATE: COMMENTS ON MICHAEL J. FEUER'S MODERATING THE DEBATE

Abstract. In Moderating the Debate: Rationality and the Promise of American Education, Michael Feuer argues that insights from cognitive science and the theory of bounded rationality can help us understand why educational policy makers overreach in seeking optimal solutions to educational problems. In this essay, Emily Robertson argues that cognitive science is of limited help for two reasons. First, since the findings of the theory of bounded rationality are supposed to describe how we actually do make decisions under conditions of uncertainty, it is unclear how those findings can help us explain why educational policy makers have apparently used different decision‐making strategies. Second, the idea that educational reform can be set right by being made the province of more fully rational policy makers neglects the public, value dimension of education, and thus obscures some of the true sources of overpromising.