The effect of instruction on the acquisition of conservation of volume

Performances of fourth and sixth grade children who had been in a program based on Science—A Process Approach were compared with performances of control groups on two conservation-of-volume tasks. The fourth grade children who had had Science—A Process Approach performed at a higher level than the control group on one of the tasks. There were no other significant differences between groups. The volume tasks were analyzed and learning hierarchies devised. A test based on the hierarchies was constructed and administered to all (189) children. An instructional program based on the hierarchies was carried out with approximately half of the children in each school at each grade level. All children were then post-tested on the volume tasks and the tasks of the learning hierarchies. All groups who had deceived instruction had higher mean scores on the Learning Hierarchies Test but no group made a significant improvement on the volume tasks. Performance of the volume tasks was found to be related to age and score on the Learning Hierarchies Test.     

Sprachdiagnostische Grundlagen für die Förderung bildungssprachlicher Fähigkeiten

The present article takes up the discussion about the interrelatedness of linguistic proficiency and educational achievement among children learning German as a second language. We provide an overview of diagnostic procedures for linguistic needs analysis, which were developed in the context of the German research program ‘FÖRMIG’. Linguistic features of school-based registers as well as the cognitive representation of academic language proficiency among bilinguals will first be addressed as the most relevant dimensions in the assessment of academic language proficiency. Finally, based on the concept of linguistic core-proficiencies after Ehlich, each of the four procedures is characterized with reference to its particular scope of identifiable aspects of academic language proficiency. Thereby it becomes evident that the procedures reflect age-specific language demands of school: Whereas the focus of assessment is first located on central aspects of grammatical and lexical knowledge as fundamental premises of schooling, the field of attention—with increasing age of the children—shifts more and more towards performance in technical language and certain text-types indicating academic language proficiency.     

MMII程序模式在New Headway English Course语法教学中的应用

在英语教学中,语法占据着重要的位置,但我国的语法教学却越来越注重语言形式,脱离了语言的意义和交际。MMII程序模式是在认知法、学习层级理论以及MMC操练模式的基础上形成的,包括机械操练、有意义操练、互动活动和整体任务四个程序,突出了在真实情境中对学生语言运用能力的培养。该程序对于教师的语法教学有一定的启示。     

Foundation-level dyslexia: assessment and treatment

It is supposed that there is an early, foundation stage in beginning reading during which children acquire basic letter-sound knowledge, a capability for alphabetic processing, and a logographic sight vocabulary. An assessment of foundation processes was administered to Scottish children with reading difficulties (n = 51) and to reading-level-matched controls (n = 56). The results suggested that the foundation is normally in place by the time a reading age of about 7 years has been achieved. Foundation-level dyslexia is identifiable in children with reading difficulty whose reading ages fall below this level. Differing patterns of dyslexia were observed, depending on whether the primary effect was on letter-sound learning (literal dyslexia), the acquisition of the alphabetic process (alphabetic dyslexia), or retention of a sight vocabulary (logographic dyslexia). Balanced dyslexia, in which both alphabetic and logographic functions were impaired, was also found. Some implications for assessment and treatment are discussed.     

Promoting broad and stable improvements in low-income children's numerical knowledge through playing number board games

Theoretical analyses of the development of numerical representations suggest that playing linear number board games should enhance young children's numerical knowledge. Consistent with this prediction, playing such a game for roughly 1 hr increased low-income preschoolers' (mean age = 5.4 years) proficiency on 4 diverse numerical tasks: numerical magnitude comparison, number line estimation, counting, and numeral identification. The gains remained 9 weeks later. Classmates who played an identical game, except for the squares varying in color rather than number, did not improve on any measure. Also as predicted, home experience playing number board games correlated positively with numerical knowledge. Thus, playing number board games with children from low-income backgrounds may increase their numerical knowledge at the outset of school.     

Number sense growth in kindergarten: a longitudinal investigation of children at risk for mathematics difficulties

Number sense development of 411 middle- and low-income kindergartners (mean age 5.8 years) was examined over 4 time points while controlling for gender, age, and reading skill. Although low-income children performed significantly worse than middle-income children at the end of kindergarten on all tasks, both groups progressed at about the same rate. An exception was story problems, on which the low-income group achieved at a slower rate; both income groups made comparable progress when the same problems were presented nonverbally with visual referents. Holding other predictors constant, there were small but reliable gender effects favoring boys on overall number sense performance as well as on nonverbal calculation. Using growth mixture modeling, 3 classes of growth trajectories in number sense emerged.     

Cognitive Complexity and Attentional Control in the Bilingual Mind

In the analysis and control framework, Bialystok identifies analysis (representation) and control (selective attention) as components of language processing and has shown that one of these, control, develops earlier in bilingual children than in comparable monolinguals. In the theory of cognitive complexity and control (CCC), Zelazo and Frye argue that preschool children lack the conscious representation and executive functioning needed to solve problems based on conflicting rules. The present study investigates whether the bilingual advantage in control can be found in a nonverbal task, the dimensional change card sort, used by Zelazo and Frye to assess CCC. This problem contains misleading information characteristic of high-control tasks but minimal demands for analysis. Sixty preschool children, half of whom were bilingual, were divided into a group of younger ( M = 4,2) and older ( M = 5,5) children. All the children were given a test of English proficiency (PPVT-R) and working memory (Visually-Cued Recall Task) to assure comparability of the groups and then administered the dimensional change card sort task and the moving word task. The bilingual children were more advanced than the monolinguals in the solving of experimental problems requiring high levels of control. These results demonstrate the role of attentional control in both these tasks, extends our knowledge about the cognitive development of bilingual children, and provides a means of relating developmental proposals articulated in two different theoretical frameworks, namely, CCC and analysis-control.     

Effects of outpatient treatment of dyslexia

The effects of a Dutch intervention program for dyslexia are reported. The program was individually tailored, depending on the style of reading, the phase of the learning process, and the intermediate results of the treatment. Two groups of participants were involved: (a) a group of children with pure dyslexia (n = 109) and (b) a group that had reading problems but also suffered from cognitive deficits or psychiatric symptoms (n = 29). Scores of reading single words and text at intake and after the intervention were analyzed to assess the efficacy of the intervention program. Furthermore, the effects of pre-intervention variables such as intelligence, reported speech, and language problems and of intervention variables such as the initial level of performance and the duration of the treatment were examined. Both groups benefitted from the intervention, but the children with pure dyslexia profited most. Neither of the groups could catch up the reading deficit. Intelligence and reported speech and language problems did not affect the treatment outcomes. Individual differences in treatment outcome were related to the absolute level of word reading and age at intake. In the group with comorbidity, the intervention program was more successful in relatively younger children. Within this group, the cognitive deficits and types of psychiatric problems were not related to the treatment.     

Executive processes in appearance-reality tasks: the role of inhibition of attention and symbolic representation

Two studies addressed the role of representation ability and control of attention on solutions to an appearance-reality task based on two types of objects, real and representational. In Study 1, 67 preschool children (3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) solved appearance-reality problems and executive processing tasks. There was an interaction between object type (real vs. representational) and question type (appearance vs. reality) on problem difficulty. In addition, representational ability predicted performance on appearance questions and inhibitory control predicted performance on reality questions. In Study 2, 95 children (4- and 5-year-olds) who were monolingual or bilingual solved similar problems. On appearance questions, groups performed equivalently but on reality questions, bilinguals performed better (once language proficiency had been controlled). The difference is attributed to the advanced inhibitory control that comes with bilingualism.     

Young children's ability to infer spatial relationships: evidence from a large, familiar environment

Young (mean age = 3-9) and old (mean age = 5-0) nursery school children were tested on their ability to infer spatial relationships in a large, familiar environment. Each child in the younger group was matched to a child of the same sex in the older group who had been attending the nursery school for the same number of months. Subjects were taken to 3 different locations in their nursery school and were asked to point to 5 targets on the school grounds. Older children were more accurate than younger children on nursery school targets, but children's spatial representations were relatively nonintegrated at both age levels. Consistent sex differences in favor of males were discussed in the context of a new framework that could potentially explain the appearance of sex differences on spatial tasks conducted in large-scale environments. It was concluded that very young children have difficulty inferring spatial relationships, even in a large, familiar environment. This difficulty seems to be due to a relative lack of symbolic capacity.     

Executive Functions in Young Children with Autism

The executive dysfunction hypothesis of autism has received support from most studies of older people with autism; however, studies of young children have produced mixed results. Two studies are presented that compare the performance of preschoolers with autism (mean = 51 months/4.3 years of age) to a control group matched on age, and verbal and nonverbal ability. The first study (n = 18 autism and 17 control) found no group differences in performance on 8 executive function tasks (A not B, Object Retrieval, A not B with Invisible Displacement, 3-Boxes Stationary and Scrambled, 6-Boxes Stationary and Scrambled, and Spatial Reversal), but did find that children with autism initiated fewer joint attention and social interaction behaviors. The second (longitudinal) study of a subset of the children (n = 13 autism and 11 control) from the first study found that neither groups' performance on Spatial Reversal changed significantly over the course of a year. The results of these studies pose a serious challenge to the executive dysfunction hypothesis of autism.     

The Theory of Planned Behaviour as a framework for understanding parental experiences with homework

Research into parental homework-related experiences has predominantly focused on parental attitudes to homework. This research has shown that parental attitudes can affect the formation of attitudes in children and subsequently their academic success. Most research has focused on a secondary school context, but there is still a lack of knowledge within primary school contexts. The present study qualitatively investigated parental homework-related experiences in a Scottish primary school context and the factors influencing these experiences, using the Theory of Planned Behaviour as a framework. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 Scottish parents (12 mothers, mean age [M] = 35, standard deviation [SD] = 2.7; and one father, age = 38 years) and were analysed using a hybrid approach to Thematic Analysis. The three themes identified were: “theory of planned behaviour”, “factors influencing parental control” and “coping mechanisms”. Parents provided help with homework regardless of their attitude to homework but their homework experience was influenced by factors encountered during homework and the coping mechanisms adopted.     

Comparison of deficits in cognitive and motor skills among children with dyslexia

There is a growing body of evidence that children with dyslexia have problems not just in reading but in a range of skills including several unrelated to reading. In an attempt to compare the severity and incidence of deficits across these varied domains, children with dyslexia (mean ages 8, 12, and 16 years), and control groups of normally achieving children matched for IQ and for age or reading age, were tested on a range of primitive (basic) skills. The children with dyslexia performed significantly worse than the same-age controls on most tasks, and significantly worse even than the reading-age controls on phoneme segmentation, picture naming speed, word tachistoscopic word recognition, speeded bead threading and some balance tasks. The overall performance of the children with dyslexia is interpreted as showing less complete automatization than normal.     

Children's learning and transfer of inductive reasoning rules: studies of proximal development

An initial study examined the relation between current developmental levels, as estimated by IQ, and proximal levels of development, as estimated by the efficiency of learning and transfer in assisted contexts. 8-11-year-old children learned to solve letter series completion problems with the aid of graduated sequences of prompts. Maintenance and transfer were later assessed using similar prompting procedures. Both IQ and age effects were found. Average-IQ (and younger) children required more assistance than high-IQ (and older) children to achieve the same mastery level on the original problem types. In addition to this difference in learning efficiency, average-versus high-IQ students, and younger versus older children, subsequently diverged in the number of prompts they needed as the transfer problems differed increasingly from the ones originally learned. In a second study, amount of assistance required in learning was found to be quite stable across moderately related tasks (letter series and progressive matrices). Assistance needed in maintenance and transfer appeared less stable but was also significantly correlated across tasks. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.     

我从事比较人才学研究的回顾与感悟

人才现象处于文化演化层次的顶端,通过对长江三角洲与其他地区人才的比较研究、18世纪以来中国太湖流域与英国苏格兰地区人才的比较研究发现,人才研究是一项系统工程,具有全球性、系统性、综合性和复杂性的特征。目前比较人才学还存在着一些有待进一步探索深化的问题:谁对杰出人物一生的帮助最大,对专业兴趣萌发年龄的早晚,兴趣的选择性,不同杰出人物群体遭遇的磨难及主要矛盾、冲突源与对立方等问题。在实践中,要把人才建设摆在国家各项建设的首要位置,人才和教育决策要贯彻科学化、民主化、制度化的原则,研究人才问题必须要开展杰出人才群体比较研究,高教改革要学习、继承和发扬中国特色的优良传统和成功经验。     

Task Similarity and Transfer of an Inductive Reasoning Training

Two studies were conducted with a systematized, Dutch version (Klauer, Resing, & Slenders, 1996) of the Klauer Denktraining program (Klauer, 1989b), a cognitive training program intended to foster children's inductive reasoning ability. The aim of both studies was to validate Klauer's theoretical claim of “paradigmatic” transfer, i.e., transfer based on an understanding of the deep structure of induction-type problems (Klauer, 1988). Klauer's theory of paradigmatic transfer implies that children trained with a program like the Denktraining will be relatively undistracted by differences in surface features between the inductive tasks from the training program and new inductive tasks. Participants in the first experiment were 9-year-old children from special schools (N = 31), while 7-year-olds from regular elementary education (N = 119) participated in the second experiment. Training was accomplished using Slenders and Resing's (1995) standardized training procedure. Transfer was tested for a set of inductive tasks of which the surface features varied in similarity to the Denktraining tasks: The tasks were superficially equivalent, similar, or dissimilar. Effects on the superficially equivalent and superficially similar tasks were put on a par with practice effects; effects on the superficially dissimilar tasks were taken to indicate paradigmatic transfer. To assess even better of whether the Denktraining's effects surpass practice effects, in the second experiment a practice condition was included. The results found in the first experiment seem to support Klauer's theory of paradigmatic transfer; the results obtained in the second experiment do not. In analyzing the conflicting nature of the findings, we discuss a plausible alternative explanation of the outcome of the first experiment. We conclude that the claim of paradigmatic transfer may be seriously doubted.     

Les premieres acquisitions de la notion de fonction lineaire chez l'enfant de 7 A 11 ans

This study presents the hlerarchy of strategies used by children in solying multiplication and division problems, as they acquire the concept of linear function, It is based on an analysis of the different classes of problems, of the specific tasks given to the child and of the strategies they actually used in their solutions. Initially these strategies respect certain properties of the linear function but they ignore proportionality. Proportionality is gradually taken into account as children recognize and are able to operate with the concept of a constant coefficient.     

基于OBE理念的生物技术专业才人培养方案修订与思考

人才培养方案是指在一定的现代教育理论和教育思想指导下,按照特定的培养目标和人才要求,以相对稳定的教学内容和课程体系、管理制度和评估方式,实施人才培养过程的总和.新的培养方案修订基于OBE理念,结合学校定位、专业特色及发展方向,进一步明确培养目标,优化课程体系,以提高人才培养质量.     

Predictors of English spelling in bilingual and monolingual children in Grade 1: the case of Cantonese and Tagalog

In order to examine the effect of the home language on the spelling development in English in children who are learning English as a second language (ESL learners), it is best to directly compare groups of ESL learners from various home language backgrounds. This study compared the oral language, phonological awareness, reading, and spelling performance of Tagalog–English bilingual, Cantonese–English bilingual, and monolingual English-speaking children in Grade 1. The bilingual children had lower scores than the monolinguals on measures of oral proficiency, but demonstrated similar or better performance on most phonological awareness, reading, and spelling tasks after controlling for vocabulary size in English. A series of moderated regression analysis revealed that although phonological awareness was associated with English spelling performance regardless of language background, the associations between specific spelling tasks and related underlying skills seemed to differ across language groups.     

Training in Inductive Reasoning and Problem Solving

The present study investigated the effects of an inductive reasoning training program for teaching children (Klauer, 1989b). The experiment assessed the effects of training and the range of transfer of the training achieved. The subjects were 34 third-grade primary school children of average ability. The children were matched on age, sex, and IQ. Children from the training condition (N = 17) received a 1-week course of training (five 30-min sessions). The results demonstrated a significant, positive training effect on childrens′ performance of inductive reasoning tasks. A near-far transfer was observed, i.e., children were able to solve tasks in which they had not been trained. These effects persisted for 4 months. Far-far transfer, however, was not observed, because the children were not able to solve mathematics problems which relate to inductive reasoning, in which they had received no training. Implications for training children within the context of regular schools and the range of transfer are discussed.