Learning New Words Affects Nonword Pronunciation in Children

In two experiments we examined how children's nonword pronunciations are influenced by learning words. In Experiment 1, children pronounced nonwords before and after learning words sharing orthographic rimes with the nonwords. These rimes varied in spelling-to-sound consistency and regularity. Children's nonword pronunciations were more sensitive to consistency and regularity after instruction than before. Experiment 2 expanded upon Experiment 1 by modifying the instruction to highlight regularity and consistency in rime unit neighborhoods and by including both younger (M age = 7.6) and older (M age = 9.92) participants. After instruction, Experiment 2 participants demonstrated greater sensitivity to rime unit consistency and regularity than Experiment 1 participants. In both experiments, the children, especially the younger participants, made more adultlike pronunciations after instruction than before. We conclude that learning words varying in consistency and regularity increased the children's sensitivity to these properties.     

The Contribution of Conceptual Change Texts Accompanied by Concept Mapping to Eleventh-Grade Students Understanding of Cellular Respiration Concepts

The present study conducted to investigate the contribution of conceptual change texts, accompanied by concept mapping instruction to eleventh-grade students’ understanding of cellular respiration concepts, and their retention of this understanding. Cellular respiration concepts test was developed as a result of examination of related literature and interviews with teachers regarding their observations of students’ difficulties. The test was administrated as pre-test, post-test, and delayed post-test to a total of 70 eleventh-grade students in two classes of the same high school in an urban area, taught by the same teacher. The experimental group was a class of 34 students who received conceptual change texts accompanied by concept mapping instruction. A class of 36 students comprised the control group who received traditional instruction. Besides treatment, previous understanding and logical thinking ability were other independent variables involved in this study. The results showed that logical thinking, treatment, previous understanding of cellular respiration concepts each made a statistically significant contribution to the variation in students’ understanding of cellular respiration concepts. The result also showed that conceptual change texts accompanied by concept mapping instruction was significantly better than traditional instruction in retention of this understanding.     

The use of a computer simulation to promote scientific conceptions of moon phases

This study described the conceptual understandings of 50 early childhood (Pre‐K‐3) preservice teachers about standards‐based lunar concepts before and after inquiry‐based instruction utilizing educational technology. The instructional intervention integrated the planetarium software Starry Night Backyard™ with instruction on moon phases from Physics by Inquiry by McDermott (1996). Data sources included drawings, interviews, and a lunar shapes card sort. Videotapes of participants' interviews were used along with the drawings and card sorting responses during data analysis. The various data were analyzed via a constant comparative method in order to produce profiles of each participant's pre‐ and postinstruction conceptual understandings of moon phases. Results indicated that before instruction none of the participants understood the cause of moon phases, and none were able to draw both scientific moon shapes and sequences. After the instruction with technology integration, most participants (82%) held a scientific understanding of the cause of moon phases and were able to draw scientific shapes and sequences (80%). The results of this study demonstrate that a well‐designed computer simulation used within a conceptual change model of instruction can be very effective in promoting scientific understandings. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 346–372, 2008     

An Empirical Evaluation of the Accomplishment Quotient

Seventy-two subjects, classified as to school, grade, sex, and level of arithmetic achievement were given a 30 item test to measure their knowledge of three probability concepts before any formal school instruction. A repeated-measurements analysis of variance was used; significant F-ratios were observed for main effects of grade, level of achievement, and concept. Significant interaction between level of achievement and co nc ept was also observed. Estimated fixed effect of level of achievement was 7. 2 times as large as estimated fixed effect of grade, leading to the conclusion that mental age is much more important in mental concept development than chronological age. Results also indicated that subjects possessed considerable knowledge of the concepts involved before receiving formal instruction.     

Supporting Scientific Experimentation and Reasoning in Young Elementary School Students

Researchers from multiple perspectives have shown that young students can engage in the scientific reasoning involved in science experimentation. However, there is little research on how well these young students learn in inquiry-based learning environments that focus on using scientific experimentation strategies to learn new scientific information. This work investigates young children’s science concept learning via inquiry-based instruction on the thermodynamics system in a developmentally appropriate, technology-supported learning environment. First- and third-grade students participate in three sets of guided experimentation activities that involve using handheld computers to measure change in temperature given different types of insulation materials. Findings from pre- and post-comparisons show that students at both grade levels are able to learn about the thermodynamics system through engaging in the guided experiment activities. The instruction groups outperformed the control groups on multiple measures of thermodynamics knowledge, and the older children outperform the younger children. Knowledge gains are discussed in the context of mental models of the thermodynamics system that include the individual concepts mentioned above and the relationships between them. This work suggests that young students can benefit from science instruction centered on experimentation activities. It shows the benefits of presenting complex scientific information authentic contexts and the importance of providing the necessary scaffolding for meaningful scientific inquiry and experimentation.     

All Other Things Being Equal: Acquisition and Transfer of the Control of Variables Strategy

The ability to design unconfounded experiments and make valid inferences from their outcomes is an essential skill in scientific reasoning. The present study addressed an important issue in scientific reasoning and cognitive development: how children acquire a domain-general processing strategy (Control of Variables Strategy or CVS) and generalize it across various contexts. Seven- to 10-year-olds (N = 87) designed and evaluated experiments and made inferences from the experimental outcomes. When provided with explicit training within domains, combined with probe questions, children were able to learn and transfer the basic strategy for designing unconfounded experiments. Providing probes without direct instruction, however, did not improve children's ability to design unconfounded experiments and make valid inferences. Direct instruction on CVS not only improved the use of CVS, but also facilitated conceptual change in the domain because the application of CVS led to unconfounded, informative tests of domain-specific concepts. With age, children increasingly improved their ability to transfer learned strategies to remote situations. A trial-by-trial assessment of children's strategy use also allowed the examination of the source, rate, path, and breadth of strategy change.     

Results and Implications of a 12-Year Longitudinal Study of Science Concept Learning

This paper describes the methods and outcomes of a 12-year longitudinal study into the effects of an early intervention program, while reflecting back on changes that have occurred in approaches to research, learning and instruction since the preliminary inception stages of the study in the mid 1960s. We began the study to challenge the prevailing consensus at the time that primary school children were either preoperational or concrete operational in their cognitive development and they could not learn abstract concepts. Our early research, based on Ausubelian theory, suggested otherwise. The paper describes the development and implementation of a Grade 1–2 audio tutorial science instructional sequence, and the subsequent tracing over 12 years, of the children’s conceptual understandings in science compared to a matched control group. During the study the concept map was developed as a new tool to trace children’s conceptual development. We found that students in the instruction group far outperformed their non-instructed counterparts, and this difference increased as they progressed through middle and high school. The data clearly support the earlier introduction of science instruction on basic science concepts, such as the particulate nature of matter, energy and energy transformations. The data suggest that national curriculum standards for science grossly underestimate the learning capabilities of primary-grade children. The study has helped to lay a foundation for guided instruction using computers and concept mapping that may help both teachers and students become more proficient in understanding science.     

Learning to Learn From Stories: Children's Developing Sensitivity to the Causal Structure of Fictional Worlds

Fiction presents a unique challenge to the developing child, in that children must learn when to generalize information from stories to the real world. This study examines how children acquire causal knowledge from storybooks, and whether children are sensitive to how closely the fictional world resembles reality. Preschoolers (N = 108) listened to stories in which a novel causal relation was embedded within realistic or fantastical contexts. Results indicate that by at least 3 years of age, children are sensitive to the underlying causal structure of the story: Children are more likely to generalize content if the fictional world is similar to reality. Additionally, children become better able at discriminating between realistic and fantastical story contexts between 3 and 5 years of age.     

Elaborated metaphors support viable inferences about difficult science concepts

Instructional metaphors scaffold learning better when accompanied by an elaboration. Applying structure mapping theory, we developed and used an elaborated instructional metaphor (text and illustrations) for introductory chemistry concepts. In two studies (N ₁ = 44, N ₂ = 57), college students with little chemistry background read either the elaborated metaphor, sub‐concept metaphor statements (e.g. an atom is like a tile) only or (Study 2) sub‐concept labels (e.g. atom) only. When asked to write what they knew about the sub‐concept, those in the elaborated metaphor condition wrote more sophisticated domain inferences than those in the other condition(s), p < .05. The elaborated metaphor helped participants construct accurate pre‐conceptual mental models that could prepare them for future learning (i.e. acquisition of new knowledge). The results also suggested that acquisition of high‐level concepts may require active learner transactions with the analogue, as can be had in interactive instructional game worlds.     

Comparing Learning From Productive Failure and Vicarious Failure

A total of 136 eighth-grade math students from 2 Singapore schools learned from either productive failure (PF) or vicarious failure (VF). PF students generated solutions to a complex problem targeting the concept of variance that they had not learned yet before receiving instruction on the targeted concept. VF students evaluated the solutions generated by PF students before receiving the same instruction. Student-generated solutions were either suboptimal or incorrect, and in this sense can be conceived as failed problem-solving attempts. Although there was no difference on self-reported engagement, PF students reported significantly greater mental effort and interest in knowing the canonical solution to the problem than VF students. When preexisting differences in general ability, math ability, and prior knowledge were controlled, PF students outperformed VF students on conceptual understanding and transfer without compromising procedural fluency. These results suggest that when learning a new math concept, people learn better from their own failed solutions than those of others provided appropriate instruction on the targeted concept is given after the generation or evaluation activity.     

Development of metacognitive concepts about thinking in gifted and nongifted children: Recent research

This article provides an overview of recent research in our laboratories on the development of metacognition in gifted and nongifted children. Research examining the development of children's metacognitive knowledge of mental activity concepts, general declarative metacognitive knowledge, and specific metacognitive attributions are reviewed. The present studies found, as had Alexander, Carr, and Schwanenflugel (1995), patterns of gifted and nongifted metacognitive development differed depending on the type of metacognitive knowledge being examined. Specifically, recent research on knowledge of mental activity concepts showed no clear advantages for gifted children over nongifted children. Declarative metacognitive knowledge research continues to support a monotonic advantage hypothesis in which gifted children show consistent advantages over nongifted children during the early elementary school years. This advantage, however, is short-lived due to the possible presence of a ceiling effect showing a closing of the declarative metacognitive knowledge gap between gifted and nongifted children around fourth grade. Finally, recent research on specific metacognitive attributions suggests that more intelligent children develop more sophisticated attributions over time but their ability to use this information may be more dependent on other individual differences variables that may or may not be related to intelligence such as knowledge base familiarity. We conclude that it is important to differentiate the types of metacognitive knowledge being measured in studies as we investigate individual differences in the development of children's metacognitive insights about thinking.     

Epistemology,situated cognition,and mental models: 'Like a bridge over troubled water'

Over the past two decades important educational implications have beendrawn mainly from two movements of epistemology: Constructivismand situated cognition. Aside from a meta-theoretical use ofconstructivism, the concept 'situated cognition' refers to a conceptionof situational context bound to a historically and socially determinedsituational logic. Focusing on educational processes, situated cognitionis considered to be a central construct for instruction, as is theclosely related concept of the construction of mental models.There are various kinds of the construction and change of mental modelsin a situational context: self-guided inductive construction is oneexample; another is the processing of a conceptual model providedto the learner. An emerging question is how the preconception changesand if the effects of such a model transition are stable. An exploratorystudy will be sketched which investigates the significance of aconceptual model provided at the beginning of the learning process;it has been hypothesized, that such a conceptual model significantlyimpacts the stability (i.e. the successful reconstruction) of mentalmodels built in the course of learning. Also considerableintraindividual differences and changes between two points of assessingthe learners' causal explanations were found. Similarities of theindividuals' reconstructions could be explained with regard tosimilarities of the structures of the learning situations and therelated instructional intervention. In general, the results of thisexploratory study support the assumption that mental models areconstructed in dependence on the demands of learning situations.     

Wakefulness (Not Sleep) Promotes Generalization of Word Learning in 2.5‐Year‐Old Children

Sleep enhances generalization in adults, but this has not been examined in toddlers. This study examined the impact of napping versus wakefulness on the generalization of word learning in toddlers when the contextual background changes during learning. Thirty 2.5‐year‐old children (M = 32.94, SE = 0.46) learned labels for novel categories of objects, presented on different contextual backgrounds, and were tested on their ability to generalize the labels to new exemplars after a 4‐hr delay with or without a nap. The results demonstrated that only children who did not nap were able to generalize learning. These findings have critical implications for the functions of sleep versus wakefulness in generalization, implicating a role for forgetting during wakefulness in generalization.     

Chinese and Australian Year 3 Children's Conceptual Understanding of Science: A multiple comparative case study

Children have formal science instruction from kindergarten in Australia and from Year 3 in China. The purpose of this research was to explore the impact that different approaches to primary science curricula in China and Australia have on children's conceptual understanding of science. Participants were Year 3 children from three schools of high, medium and low socio-economic status in Hunan Province, central south China (n?=?135) and three schools of similar socio-economic status in Western Australia (n?=?120). The students' understanding was assessed by a science quiz, developed from past Trends in Mathematics and Science Study science released items for primary children. In-depth interviews were carried out to further explore children's conceptual understanding of living things, the Earth and floating and sinking. The results revealed that Year 3 children from schools of similar socio-economic status in the two countries had similar conceptual understandings of life science, earth science and physical science. Further, in both countries, the higher the socio-economic status of the school, the better the students performed on the science quiz and in interviews. Some idiosyncratic strengths and weaknesses were observed, for example, Chinese Year 3 children showed relative strength in classification of living things, and Australian Year 3 children demonstrated better understanding of floating and sinking, but children in both countries were weak in applying and reasoning with complex concepts in the domain of earth science. The results raise questions about the value of providing a science curriculum in early childhood if it does not make any difference to students' conceptual understanding of science.     

CURRICULUM RESEARCH IN SWEDEN IV‐‐THE GYMNASIUM AND PRE‐UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Fifty‐six children between the ages of two years four months and four years ten months were given tests relating to the acquisition of both ‘specific’ and ‘generic’ concepts. Several tests of concept acquisition (HAPCAT) ^{1 1}The tests may be obtained from the NFER (Guidance and Assessment Service) to whom inquiries should be addressed. were devised by the authors utilizing pictures drawn on card. A number of the children (N=29) were also given some ‘Piagetian questions’ concerning class inclusion.

The results conflict with the widely held view (following the writing of Jean Piaget) that preschool children cannot form generic concepts. Nearly all the children were able to identify the specific concepts as presented in the HAPCAT items and about half the group responded appropriately to the HAPCAT items involving an understanding of generic concepts. There was a clear and statistically significant relationship between the number of correct answers given to the HAPCAT items and the age and ability levels of the children. This was not the case, however, with the Piagetian test questions which showed no discriminatory power in these respects. It is argued that the Piagetian questions do not represent a sensitive or meaningful measure of concept acquisition at this age level whereas the HAPCAT items do appear to present pre‐school children with intelligible tasks which allow many of them to demonstrate an understanding of generic concepts involving class inclusion.

     

Bullying and social exclusion anxiety in schools

In this article, I develop a new conceptual framework, a new thinking technology, for understanding the bullying that takes place between children in schools. In addition, I propose a new definition of bullying. This new thinking technology reflects a shift in focus from individual characteristics to the social processes that may lead to bullying. The social approach theorises bullying as one of many reactions to particular kinds of social insecurity. The concepts I develop include the necessity of belonging, social exclusion anxiety and the production of contempt and dignity by both children and adults. I also draw on Judith Butler’s concept of abjection. In the last part of the article, I employ Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism, focusing specifically on her concept of intra-acting enacting forces. The entry to the theoretical development is based on empirical data generated in Denmark during a comprehensive five-year study of bullying.     

Inquiry-based Instruction with Archived, Online Data: An Intervention Study with Preservice Teachers

This mixed methods study described preservice teachers’ conceptions of tides and explored the efficacy of integrating online data into inquiry-based instruction. Data sources included a multiple-choice assessment and in-depth interviews. A total of 79 participants in secondary, middle, and early childhood teacher education programs completed the multiple-choice assessment of their baseline knowledge of tides-related concepts. A sub-group of 29 participants also was interviewed to explore their understanding of tides in more detail before instruction. Eighteen of those 29 teachers participated in the instruction, were interviewed again after the instruction, and completed the multiple-choice assessment as a posttest. The interview data sets were analyzed via a constant comparative method in order to produce profiles of each participant’s pre- and post-instruction conceptual understandings of tides. Additional quantitative analysis consisted of a paired-sample t-test, which investigated the changes in scores before and after the instructional intervention. Before instruction, all participants held alternative or alternative fragments as their conceptual understandings of tides. After completing the inquiry-based instruction that integrated online tidal data, participants were more likely to hold a scientific conceptual understanding. After instruction, some preservice teachers continued to hold on to the conception that the rotation of the moon around the Earth during one 24-hour period causes the tides to move with the moon. The quantitative results, however, indicated that pre- to post-instruction gains were significant. The findings of this study provide evidence that integrating Web-based archived data into inquiry-based instruction can be used to effectively promote conceptual change among preservice teachers.     

The Collaboration of Cooperative Learning and Conceptual Change: Enhancing the Students’ Understanding of Chemical Bonding Concepts

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of cooperative learning based on conceptual change approach instruction on ninth-grade students’ understanding in chemical bonding concepts compared to traditional instruction. Seventy-two ninth-grade students from two intact chemistry classes taught by the same teacher in a public high school participated in the study. The classes were randomly assigned as the experimental and control group. The control group (N?=?35) was taught by traditional instruction while the experimental group (N?=?37) was taught cooperative learning based on conceptual change approach instruction. Chemical Bonding Concept Test (CBCT) was used as pre- and post-test to define students’ understanding of chemical bonding concepts. After treatment, students’ interviews were conducted to observe more information about their responses. Moreover, students from experimental groups were interviewed to obtain information about students’ perceptions on cooperative work experiences. The results from ANCOVA showed that cooperative learning based on conceptual change approach instruction led to better acquisition of scientific conceptions related to chemical bonding concepts than traditional instruction. Interview results demonstrated that the students in the experimental group had better understanding and fewer misconceptions in chemical bonding concepts than those in the control group. Moreover, interviews about treatment indicated that this treatment helped students’ learning and increased their learning motivation and their social skills.