Third-grader's think-aloud protocols: Types of reading activities in reading an expository text

In the present study, we examined the reading activities of young readers, while reading an expository text. A total of 24 third-graders was administered a think-aloud task on two occasions. Their protocols were analysed by a coding system that captured two levels of the reading process: the word identification level and the reading comprehension level. Three indices reflecting three different types of reading activities were discerned: reading errors, reproduction, and activities referring to reading strategies. Correlational analyses showed the reading strategy index to be related to reading comprehension as measured by standardized tests. The think-aloud task constitutes a valuable instrument for examining strategic reading among young readers.     

Environmental,cognitive, and metacognitive influences on text revision: Assessing the evidence

To assess progress in understanding text revision, we review research reported since 1980, when process analyses of writing were beginning (Fitzgerald, 1987). A modernized version of the revision model by Flower, Hayes, Carey, Schriver, and Stratman (1986) was used to organize findings about how revision is influenced by environmentally posed rhetorical problems and actual text variables; by cognitive knowledge, strategies, and representations of the text being revised; by metacognitive understanding, monitoring, and control of knowledge and strategies; by interactions among these environmental, cognitive, and metacognitive influences; and by how working memory limits those interactive influences. These influences have been studied with a rich diversity of research approaches, and even though no part of the modernized model has been studied fully, and even though interactions of the model's parts have been examined minimally, clearly interpretable results have been reported about all of the model's parts. Substantial and encouraging progress has been made toward understanding text revision, and the stage has been set for more progress. We suggest investigations to increase understanding of revision and to promote integration of research and theory about reading and writing.     

Assessing social participation of pupils with special needs in inclusive education: the construction of a teacher questionnaire

This study addresses the development of a teacher questionnaire to assess the social participation of pupils with special needs in regular primary schools and is divided into 2 parts. In the 1st part, the construction of the questionnaire is described. The questionnaire consists of 30 statements related to 4 key themes of social participation: “friendships/relationships”, “contacts/interactions”, “perception of the pupil”, and “acceptance by classmates”, yielding 4 subscales.

The 2nd part of the study addresses an empirical study in which the questionnaire's quality was examined. The outcomes of a confirmatory factor analysis largely supported the division of social participation into 4 key themes. The analysis revealed that 22 out of 30 statements correlated strongest with the subscale they were assigned to. The questionnaire as a whole turned out to be reliable, whereas the reliability of the subscales varied. The construct validity was found to be mainly acceptable.     

Assessing reflective thinking in solving design problems: The development of a questionnaire

Reflection is a critical factor in solving design problems. Using good methods to observe designers' reflection is essential to inform the design of the learning environments that support the development of design problem‐solving skills. In this study, we have developed and validated a novel self‐reporting questionnaire as an efficient instrument to explore reflection, called Assessing Reflective Thinking in Solving Design Problems (ARTiD). This questionnaire has been developed based on the three‐dimensional model for reflective thinking: the timing, the objects and the levels of reflection. A total of 294 undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of engineering, computer science and instructional design were recruited to participate in one of four iterative, formative tests through which reliability and validity analyses were performed to revise and confirm the questionnaire. Examples of participants' reflection patterns were demonstrated to show the practical value of this questionnaire. In conclusion, the final version of ARTiD was presented as a valid instrument to explore students' reflection for research and educational practice. In addition, we found that ARTiD can be used as an effective learning tool to guide student designers' reflections toward better learning and performance.     

Collecting student feedback: a comparison of questionnaire and other methods

A study was conducted comparing the feedback received from students about teaching obtained using different instruments. Twelve first‐ and second‐year undergraduate modules were selected from seven different schools within a single university. Students studying each module were allocated to ‘questionnaire’ and ‘comparator’ groups. ‘Questionnaire’ students completed the standard end‐of‐module questionnaire, whilst ‘comparator’ groups evaluated the modules using ‘rapid feedback’, ‘H form’, focus group and reflective diary methods. The responses of 335 students to questionnaires were compared with those of 160 using the other methods; no results were obtained from the reflective diary students. Only a minority of the issues raised by students using the comparator methods were covered by the questionnaire, and the comparator methods showed different rankings of the issues in common. The key difference between questionnaire and comparator methods was the use of closed and open questions respectively, with comparator methods being more appropriate for formative evaluation.     

An empirical exploration of metacognitive assessment activities in a third-year civil engineering hydraulics course

Threshold concepts are transformative, integrative, and provocative; understanding these difficult concepts allows students to be capable of solving advanced problems. This investigation and evaluation of a metacognitive curricular approach explore variation in students' and teachers' discernment of structural complexity of concepts and its potential for enhancing students' learning and conceptual understanding of threshold concepts. Three trials of a metacognitive assessment activity administered to two cohorts of a civil engineering course (n?=?276 and n?=?264) were investigated. Students were presented with several answers (varying in structural complexity) to a question about a threshold concept and asked to mark each response. Quantitative analyses compared students' and teachers' marking schemes within and across trials, and qualitative analyses explored students' written reflections following the activity. Students' justifications for their marking schemes, their reflections on the activity's usefulness, and the convergence of students' and teachers' marking schemes suggest that the activity supported deep forms of student learning.     

A domain-specific account of self-regulated learning: the cognitive and metacognitive activities involved in learning through historical inquiry

Educational researchers have recently begun to conceptualize theoretical constructs and mechanisms of metacognitive activities in terms of the features that are specific to particular academic domains and subject matter. In this paper, we propose a framework of domain-specific metacognition in relation to learning through historical inquiry. The framework postulates that students’ comprehension of historical events is mediated by a state of coherence in understanding the causes that explain why an event occurred. Comprehension breaks down when the causes that explain the occurrence of historical events are unknown, uncertain, or unreported. In order to reinstate coherence in understanding, students engage in cognitive and metacognitive activities in accordance with disciplinary-based practices. Drawing on the existing empirical evidence, we discuss how the study of self-regulatory processes contributes to our understanding of the challenges faced by students while learning about complex historical topics as well as the skills that are required to gain knowledge while investigating the past.     

Interaction in advanced EFL pedagogy: a comparison of form-focused activities

Recent research on grammar pedagogy advocates the use of form-focused activities which require learners to produce output collaboratively. This paper reports on the results of a study carried out with 14 high-intermediate/advanced adult English as a foreign language (EFL) learners who completed five form-focused activities collaboratively. The learners’ interaction was codified and language-related episodes (LREs) identified. The data were analyzed for the quantity and nature of attention to form each activity generated. Results indicate that both learners’ attention to form and the nature of their reflection on grammatical choices were dependent on the activity. Furthermore, the grammatical features of concern to the learners were not always those targeted by the activity and most of the times these learners did not provide any justification for the grammatical decisions made. These results are considered in the light of current claims about the need for classroom teachers and researchers to carefully consider the choice of activity and how learners interpret and complete it.     

Metacognitive strategy use of eighth-grade students with and without learning disabilities during mathematical problem solving: a think-aloud analysis

The purpose of the study was to investigate the metacognitive abilities of students with LD as they engage in math problem solving and to determine processing differences between these students and their low- and average-achieving peers (n = 73). Students thought out loud as they solved three math problems of increasing difficulty. Protocols were coded and analyzed to determine frequency of cognitive verbalizations and productive and nonproductive metacognitive verbalizations. Results indicated different patterns of metacognitive activity for ability groups when type of metacognitive verbalization and problem difficulty were considered. Implications for instruction are discussed.     

Assessing the value of structured protocols for forensic interviews of alleged child abuse victims

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of a structured interview protocol (NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol) operationalizing universally recommended guidelines for forensic interviews. METHOD: The NICHD Investigative Protocol was designed to maximize the amount of information obtained using recall memory probes, which are likely to elicit more accurate information than recognition memory probes. Forensic investigators were trained to use the NICHD protocol while conducting feedback-monitored simulation interviews. The utility of the protocol was then evaluated by comparing 55 protocol interviews with 50 prior interviews by the same investigators, matched with respect to characteristics likely to affect the richness of the children's accounts. The comparison was based on an analysis of the investigators' utterance types, distribution, and timing, as well as quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the information produced. RESULTS: As predicted, protocol interviews contained more open-ended prompts overall as well as before the first option-posing utterance than non-protocol interviews did. More details were obtained using open-ended invitations and fewer were obtained using focused questions in protocol interviews than in non-protocol interviews, although the total number of details elicited did not differ significantly. In both conditions, older children provided more details than younger children did. CONCLUSION: The findings confirmed that implementation of professionally recommended practices affected the behavior of interviewers in both the pre-substantive and substantive phases of their interviews and enhanced the quality (i.e., likely accuracy) of information elicited from alleged victims.     

Postretirement work from a gender perspective: in-depth analysis of the Chilean case

ABSTRACT

Due to the ever-increasing life expectancy rates worldwide, there has been an emerging need to conduct more research on older adults’ participation in the labor market after reaching the state pension age. This study aims to analyze the factors associated with postretirement work in Chile, a country characterized by a strong persistence of a male-breadwinner model endorsed by deeply-rooted traditional gender roles, and at the same time characterized by a dual-earner model strongly encouraged by a neoliberal system. Relying on a gendered life course perspective and using a nationally representative survey, we conducted logistic regression analyses to explore how a number of cumulative advantages and disadvantages (such as work trajectory, job satisfaction, and caregiving duties) shape working beyond legal retirement age and the intrinsic motivation to continue working among economically active older adults in Chile. One of the main findings of the present study is that intrinsic motivation to continue working was a remarkably significant predictor of postretirement work among older Chilean adults, especially among women. The results also suggest that even though older women are motivated to continue working, the national labor market is unlikely to offer such possibility. The findings of this study have implications for practice in the sense that they demonstrate the imperative need for organizations to focus on intrinsic motivation-related factors in striving to improve employees’ willingness to stay within the company after the state pension age.     

Paving a clear path in a thick forest: a conceptual analysis of a metacognitive component

The concept of metacognition refers to one’s knowledge and control of one’s own cognitive system. However, despite being widely used, this concept is confusing because of several reasons. First, sometimes it is not at all clear what is cognitive and what is metacognitive. Second, researchers often use the same term, namely, “metacognition” even when they refer to very different aspects of this complex concept. Alternatively, researchers may use different terms to indicate the same metacognitive elements. Another foggy matter is the interrelationships among the various components of metacognition discussed in the literature. This conceptual confusion regarding the concept of metacognition and its sub-components calls for in-depth theoretical and conceptual clarifications. The goal of this article is to portray a detailed example of a conceptual analysis of meta-strategic knowledge (MSK) which is one specific component of metacognition. This specific example is used to draw a general model for conceptual analyses of additional metacognitive components. The approach suggested here is to begin with a clear definition of the target sub component of metacognition, followed by a systematic examination of this sub component according to several dimensions that are relevant to metacognition in general and to that sub component in particular. The examination should include an analysis of how the details of the definition of the target sub-component refer to: (a) general theoretical metacognitive issues raised by prominent scholars; (b) definitions formulated and issues raised by other researchers who have investigated the same (or a similar) sub-component and, (c) empirical findings pertaining to that sub-component. Finally, it should be noted that since metacognition is a relational rather than a definite concept it is important to situate the context within which the conceptual analysis takes place.     

The origin of centrality deficit in text memory and comprehension by poor comprehenders: a think-aloud study

The present study employed a think-aloud method to explore the origin of a centrality deficit (i.e., poor recall of central ideas) found in poor comprehenders (PC). Moreover, utilizing the diverse think-aloud responses, we examined the overall quality of text processing employed by PC during reading, in order to shed more light on the cognitive underpinnings underlying their poor comprehension and memory after reading. To address these goals, adolescents with good and poor comprehension, matched on reading (decoding) skills, were asked to state aloud whatever comes to their mind during the reading of two expository texts. After reading, the participants freely recalled text ideas and answered multiple-choice questions on the texts. Results indicated that PC exhibited lower performance than good comprehenders (GC) on the recall and comprehension tasks. The think-aloud protocols indicated that PC generated fewer responses than GC that reflect high-level, deep text processing, and more responses that reflect low-level, surface text processing. Furthermore, compared to GC, PC reinstated fewer prior text ideas, with this reduction being significantly greater for central than for peripheral ideas. Finally, the proportions of deep processing responses in general were positively associated with participants’ performance on recall and comprehension tasks. These findings suggest that PC exhibit poor text comprehension and memory, particularly of central ideas, because they construct a low-quality, poorly-connected text representation during reading, and produce fewer, less-elaborated retrieval cues for subsequent text comprehension and memory. This explanation is further illuminated in the context of previous findings and theoretical accounts.

     

Applying mathematics with real world connections: metacognitive characteristics of secondary students

This paper reports an intensive study of problem-solving activity of female students at the senior secondary level. The study focussed both on the mathematical processing and the underlying cognitive and metacognitive activities that led to that processing. Response maps were used to analyse and categorize the written responses from individual students while videotaped problem solving sessions and structured and free response interviews probed the students' metacognitive knowledge, strategies, decision making, beliefs and affects. Metacognitive activities were involved in all phases of the solution process with key points in students' solutions identifiable in terms of the cognitive-metacognitive framework of Garofalo and Lester (1985). On average more time was spent on orientation and execution activities with little time being spent on organisation and verification activities, however, the successful groups spent less time on orientation than the other groups. All successful groups displayed a high number of key points where metacognitive decisions could influence cognitive action. Success was accompanied by a tendency to engage in a high number of organisational activities, regulation of execution activities and evaluation activities particularly evaluation of execution but fewer opportunities where metacognitive decisions could influence cognitive actions during orientation.     

Skilled but unaware of it: CAT undermines a test taker's metacognitive competence

We investigated students' metacognitive experiences with regard to feelings of difficulty (FD), feelings of satisfaction (FS), and estimate of effort (EE), employing either computerized adaptive testing (CAT) or computerized fixed item testing (FIT). In an experimental approach, 174 students in grades 10 to 13 were tested either with a CAT or a FIT version of a matrices test. Data revealed that metacognitive experiences were not related to the resulting test scores for CAT: test takers who took the matrices test in an adaptive mode were paradoxically more satisfied with their performance the worse they had performed in terms of the resulting ability parameter. They also rated the test as easier the lower they had performed, but their estimates of effort were higher the better they had performed. For test takers who took the FIT version, completely different results were revealed. In line with previous results, test takers were supposed to base these experiences on the subjectively estimated percentage of items solved. This moderated mediation hypothesis was in parts confirmed, as the relation between the percentage of items solved and FD, FS, and EE was revealed to be mediated by the estimated percentage of items solved. Results are discussed with reference to feedback acceptance, errant self-estimations, and test fairness with regard to a possible false regulation of effort in lower ability groups when using CAT.     

Reading with robot and human companions in library literacy activities: A comparison study

Motivated by mixed evidence on the effectiveness of reading companions on children’s reading performance, as well as the clear and present need for libraries to conduct literacy education, this study sought to investigate the feasibility of using social robots in library literacy activities and to extract the essential functions of effective reading companions by comparing human and robot co-readers. A humanoid robot, Robot Julia, was developed as a social robot to provide oral conversation and offer children tactful and stimulating support for their reading. An experimental study was conducted to examine child patrons’ perceptions and performance in reading activities with the robot companion as compared to human companions. A total of 36 elementary school children participated in the study. The results positively supported that the participants perceived the robot companion as more favourable and desirable to read with than a human co-reader. The children favoured robotic verbalisation over human verbalisation. According to the results of the comparison, cognitively it was found that human and robot companions facilitated children’s reading comprehension in different ways and that the children performed similarly well with both kinds of reading companions. Affectively, the robot co-reader induced more social interaction during the reading sessions. Despite all the positive aspects, it is also necessary to consider the limitations including the novelty effect of the approach. This study contributes empirical evidence in the pragmatic field of library science and expands upon social robot research by exploring one-on-one child–robot interactions in reading, as opposed to the group contexts in previous studies.     

Questioning as thinking: a metacognitive framework to improve comprehension of expository text

Despite a push to develop high levels of active engagement in learning by helping students reflect, refine and extend their ideas through effective questioning strategies, evidence suggests that teacher‐dominated interaction patterns permeate classroom instruction. This Initiate, Respond and Evaluate process leads students to maintain a passive stance towards learning and non‐engagement with text. As a result students fail to develop the strategies to solve comprehension problems and monitor their own learning with text. In contrast, effective, active instructional patterns provide students with opportunities to negotiate textual meaning. Through the use of the Question as Thinking framework we provide teachers with tools to enable pupils to reflect on their reading and understanding of expository texts. This article describes a framework for questioning designed to assist in the development of an active instructional pattern promoting the joint negotiation of meaning.     

Self-regulating activity: use of metacognitive guides in the interpreting classroom

This research studies the development of metacognitive skills in students of consecutive interpreting from German into Spanish. The purpose is to discover which self-regulating processes appear after introducing a specific pedagogical action based on metacognitive guides. Our hypothesis is that self-regulating activity will increase as work with the guides advances. We also analyse the changes which occur as the course progresses. The analysis of the corpus enables us to describe metacognitive activity in consecutive interpretation students and also to justify the introduction of a component of self-regulation in teaching andlearning processes. The research contributes to pedagogical development in consecutive interpretation since it sheds light on how to use effective teaching and learning patterns that can lead to self-regulation.