Overconfidence in children's multi-trial judgments of learning

The underconfidence with practice effect (UWP) refers to the finding that people's judgments of learning shift from overconfidence to underconfidence on and after a first study-test trial (Koriat, Ma'ayan, & Sheffer, 2002). Finn and Metcalfe (2007, 2008) proposed that people show UWP because they use their memory of prior test performance as a cue to make subsequent judgments of learning and inadequately account for new learning (i.e. the Memory for Past Test (MPT) heuristic). In contrast to adults, 3rd and 5th graders' judgments showed persistent overconfidence on and after a first study-test trial. A second experiment tested children's ability to remember their prior test performance. Children's prior performance discriminations were accurate for items that they answered correctly on the prior trial, but were overconfident for items they had answered incorrectly indicating that their continued overconfidence was a result of faulty memory, rather than a failure to use the MPT heuristic.     

Developmental changes in uncertainty monitoring during an event recall task

The present study was conducted to examine developmental progression in children’s metacognitive monitoring competencies in the context of a complex memory task. 7- and 9-year-olds rated their confidence after answering questions in two different question formats (unbiased and misleading) and two different question types (answerable and unanswerable). Feeling-of-knowing judgments were gathered for questions that had previously been answered with “don’t know.” The results showed that children from both age groups appropriately differentiated between correct and incorrect answers to unbiased questions in their confidence judgments, between answerable and unanswerable questions, and appropriately showed lower confidence levels in their confidence judgments than in their feeling-of-knowing judgments. 9-year-olds proved to be further able to discriminate metacognitively between correct and incorrect answers to misleading answerable questions in their confidence judgments while 7-year-olds were not. The comparison of feeling-of-knowing judgments before correct and incorrect recognition indicated that metacognitive differentiation at the lower end of the uncertainty–certainty continuum posed problems for these age groups. The observation of an adult confederate modeling appropriate metamemory monitoring did not improve children’s metacognitive performance.

Adult Questions and Children's Responses: Coordination of perspectives in studies of children's theories of other minds

The main aim of this study is to shed light on the issue of how children learn to identify what is meant by what is said in communicative practices. The study replicates and extends the well-known work on what is referred to as children's 'theories of other minds'. The focus in the present study is on the interplay between the adult and the child, the nature of the task and the child's position in the communicative encounter. Rather than assuming that children have or do not have 'theories of other minds', we explore the communicative conditions under which children can be made sensitive to the nature of other people's (mistaken) beliefs. The empirical work was carried out amongst children aged three to five, since this is the critical age at which it is claimed that children become sensitive to the fact that other people's perspectives of a situation may differ from their own. The results show that whether or not children 'are able' to adopt other people's perspectives is very much a situated affair and reflects the manner in which they are brought into a position where they can share the framing of the adult. The questions posed are interpreted differently by the children in ways that go beyond the intended difference that concerns perspectivity. The test situation is polysemous in many respects and the variation in responses cannot be reduced to such a simple distinction as the one implied in the theory of mind research paradigm, which represents a monological conception of communication.     

Using strategy instruction and confidence judgments to improve metacognitive monitoring

Current models of self-regulated learning emphasize the pervasive need for metacognitive monitoring skills at all phases of the learning process (Winne and Hadwin in Studying as self-regulated learning. In D. J. Hacker, J. Dunlosky, & A. C. Graesser (Eds.), Metacognition in educational theory and practice (pp. 227–304). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1998). In this investigation, we examined the impact of teaching 5th grade students how to self-monitor their comprehension and make confidence judgments. One treatment class (N = 21) engaged in process-oriented comprehension monitoring training while the other (N = 24) engaged in both comprehension monitoring training and response-oriented monitoring accuracy training. Findings revealed that students in both treatment classes improved their calibration accuracy and showed higher confidence on test performance than students in two comparison classes (N = 47, N = 26) after 2 weeks of instruction. However, students in the monitoring accuracy training class also showed significant gains in overconfidence in comparison to those in the other three classes. Implications for integrating comprehension-monitoring training at the elementary school level are discussed.

Reporting possible sexual abuse: a qualitative study on children's perspectives and the context for disclosure

OBJECTIVE: The present study investigated the context in which children were able to report their child sexual abuse experiences and the children's views as to what made it difficult to talk about abuse and what helped them in the disclosing process. The aim was to study disclosures as they were occurring in their natural settings. METHOD: Data were obtained from therapeutic sessions and follow-up interviews from 20 families with 22 children. These children had said something that made their caregivers concerned about ongoing child sexual abuse. Qualitative analysis was conducted to capture the children's and caregiver's perspectives of the disclosure process. RESULTS: The children felt it was difficult to find situations containing enough privacy and prompts that they could share their experiences. They also were sensitive to others reactions, and whether their disclosures would be misinterpreted. When the children did disclose they did it in situations where the theme of child sexual abuse was in some form addressed or activated. The results indicate that disclosure is a fundamentally dialogical process that becomes less difficult if the children perceive that there is an opportunity to talk, and a purpose for speaking, and a connection has been established to what they are talking about. CONCLUSIONS: It is difficult for children to initiate a conversation about something secret, confusing and distressful, and where there are few conversational routines in a family for talking about such themes. Children also are sensitive to the needs of their caregivers and fear consequences for their family and offender. Children need a supportive structure or scaffold in order to reveal their experiences of child sexual abuse.     

Enhanced monitoring accuracy and test performance: Incremental effects of judgment training over and above repeated testing

From a self-regulated learning perspective, adequate monitoring of own learning processes and outcomes is crucial to regulate one's own learning effectively. Research on metacognitive judgments, however, clearly indicates that students frequently overestimate their actual performance. Therefore, the present study with N = 209 undergraduate students aimed to support students in developing accurate judgments in order to improve learning processes and, eventually, performance. A quasi-experimental design with three conditions (metacognitive training, testing, and control) and five testing sessions was implemented. In addition to repeated testing plus individual feedback in the testing group, students in the metacognitive training group received psychoeducation, made item-specific judgments, and were given feedback. Over and above the positive effects of repeated testing, metacognitive training positively influenced several monitoring accuracy scores (bias, absolute accuracy, and specificity) and students' performance. Moreover, the metacognitive training group exhibited a nonlinear interindividual decrease in overconfidence. Overall, the study provided considerable evidence that monitoring accuracy and performance can be improved by means of judgment training.     

Developmental trajectories of children's spatial skills: Influencing variables and associations with later mathematical thinking

Few studies have examined the long-term relations between children's early spatial skills and their later mathematical abilities. In the current study, we investigated children's developmental trajectories of spatial skills across four waves from age 3–7 years and their association with children's later mathematical understanding. We assessed children's development in a large, heterogeneous sample of children (N = 586) from diverse cultural backgrounds and mostly low-income homes. Spatial and mathematical skills were measured using standardized assessments. Children's starting points and rate of growth in spatial skills were investigated using latent growth curve models. We explored the influence of various covariates on spatial skill development and found that socioeconomic status, language skills, and sex, but not migration background predicted children's spatial development. Furthermore, our findings showed that children's initial spatial skills––but not their rate of growth––predicted later mathematical understanding, indicating that early spatial reasoning may play a crucial role for learning mathematics.     

Entertainment Education and social change: Evaluating a children's soap opera in Kenya

This article discusses audience responses to a children's soap opera produced and broadcast in Kenya. It examines the evaluation process in relation to qualitative audience research within Cultural Studies. It challenges an Entertainment–Education model of media as vehicles for messages and links strongly with Communication for Social Change priorities in which media are the facilitators. In such an approach this soap opera should not only fit into the cultural and social contexts of its child audience but should actively promote discussion and the interactive negotiation of meaning. The narratives address post conflict concerns of democracy, rights, peace and reconciliation, encouraging dialogue with peers and family about extremely difficult issues. The question is how we evaluate and assess such processes.     

Quantitative and qualitative change in children's mental rotation performance

This study investigated quantitative and qualitative changes in mental rotation performance and solution strategies with a focus on sex differences. German children (N = 519) completed the Mental Rotations Test (MRT) in the 5th and 6th grades (interval: one year; age range at time 1: 10–11 years). Boys on average outperformed girls on both occasions (d_T1 = 0.45; d_T2 = 0.35). Strong quantitative change was reflected in increased test scores from time 1 to time 2. The increase was equivalent for girls (d = 1.04) and boys (d = 1.05). Qualitative change was investigated in a multigroup latent transition analysis (LTA) of the MRT items. LTA confirmed findings from prior studies showing that children used different solution strategies to solve the MRT problems. Girls tended to use less efficient strategies than did boys. Moreover, LTA revealed that participants showing inefficient solution strategies at time 1 tended to improve their performance less than students who already showed more elaborate strategies at time 1.     

Confidence in prior knowledge,self-efficacy,interest and prior knowledge: Influences on conceptual change

This study explored how confidence in prior knowledge, self-efficacy, interest, and prior knowledge interact in conceptual change learning. One hundred and sixteen college students completed an assessment of confidence in prior knowledge, self-efficacy, interest, prior scientific understanding, and prior misconceptions before reading a refutation text on seasonal change. Students’ misconceptions and scientific understanding of seasonal change was then assessed before and after reading a refutation text, and again at a two week delayed posttest. Three profiles of students emerged based on their confidence in prior knowledge, self-efficacy, interest, prior scientific understanding, and prior misconceptions. The profiles included: (1) Low (low confidence, self-efficacy, interest, and prior scientific understanding and high prior misconceptions), (2) mixed (high confidence, self-efficacy, and interest, but low prior scientific understanding and high prior misconceptions), and (3) high (high confidence, self-efficacy, interest, and prior scientific understanding and low prior misconceptions). Results indicated that the mixed profile appeared to be most productive for conceptual change and that learner characteristics most productive for conceptual change learning may differ from those most productive in other learning situations.     

Developmental associations between verbal and visual short-term memory and the acquisition of decoding skill

This study longitudinally investigated the relationships between verbaland visual short-term memory (STM) and the acquisition of decoding from thepre-reading through the early acquisition stages in 63 Hebrew-speakingchildren Test waves occurred in kindergarten, first grade and second grade.IQ, visual and verbal STM and decoding ability were assessed. The dataindicated that while both verbal and visual STM in kindergarten were significantlycorrelated to later decoding skill, pre-reading visual STM was a stronger predictor.The results further showed that pre-reading performance on the WISC-R BlockDesign test predicted later decoding ability, while performance on theWISC-R Vocabulary test did not. Lastly decoding skill in grade 1 was foundto predict only visual in grade 2. These results indicate that visualparameters may make a crucial contribution to the acquisition of decodingskills. The size of pre-reading visual STM capacity appears to play a rolein this process. The relationship between visual STM and decoding may bebidirectional, as learning to decode appears to develop visual STM. It issuggested that either language-related or task-related factors may accountfor these counter-to-mainstream results.     

Effects of anonymity and retaliatory potential on student evaluations of faculty performance

The present study, employing a 2×2 design, examines the independent and interactive effects of two experimentally manipulated variables, Anonymity (A) and Retaliatory Potential (RP), on students' ratings of faculty performance. Data were obtained from 188 students at a large midwestern university using an instrument that had been specially developed for the study. A hypothesized main effect was found for A: The professor was rated more positively by students completing signed ratings than those completing ratings anonymously. The data showed no support, however, for the hypothesized RP main effect or the A×RP interactive effect. Practical implications of the study's findings are discussed.     

Developmental changes in children's choices of practice strategies

This study investigated children's choices of deliberate practice strategies. Six-to 11-year-olds (n = 85) were presented with three outwardly similar motor tasks that varied only in the precision of the motor response required to succeed. Children then had the opportunity to practice these tasks before a “test” in which they had to complete all three tasks in the fastest overall time. While children of all ages spent relatively more time practicing the hardest task, only 10- and 11-year-olds scored more successes on the hardest task than the other tasks during the initial practice period. After verbal instruction, however, children of all ages scored more successes on the hardest task during practice, and younger children became more likely to persevere with the hardest task rather than switching tasks after a success. Children's practice choices may vary as a function of age and verbal instruction.     

Intimate partner violence in the family: Considerations for children's safety

Children's exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is increasingly recognized as a type of child maltreatment that has a level of impairment similar to other types of abuse and neglect. Despite advances in the area of IPV, the safety planning strategies recommended as part of the overall response to IPV need to be examined in terms of their implications for children. This article discusses these strategies within the context of child safety, comparing IPV safety planning with approaches aimed at reducing exposure to other types of violence such as child sexual abuse, as well as general child safety strategies. Despite the emphasis on safety planning in information available on responding to IPV, the actual effectiveness of such planning in improving safety and reducing violence is unknown. Safety planning provided to children by a parent experiencing IPV, especially when IPV is ongoing and not recognized by anyone outside the home, may lead to confusing messages for children, particularly if there is an emphasis on secrecy. While awaiting evidence about the effectiveness of specific safety planning strategies for children, we suggest basic principles and general strategies that emphasize universality in terms of education about any type of violence or abuse in the home being unacceptable, as well as the need to focus on safety in general.     

Rules versus analogies in children's spelling: Evidence for task dependence

Two experiments were conducted to investigate developmental changes in children's use of rime-level units of sound-to-spelling correspondence when spelling nonwords under varying task demands. In Experiment 1, nonwords were presented in isolation. Older children spelled more of the nonwords by analogy than younger children. Experiment 2 adopted versions of the clue word technique employed by Goswami (1988a) and found that significantly more analogous, rime-based responses were given to the same stimuli in both younger and older children. However, fewer analogous responses were given when the salience of the clue word was reduced by presentation of multiple target nonwords. The results suggest that while children in the early stages of development possess the ability to use rime-based units in spelling, they do not always make spontaneous use of this analogy strategy. However, when the potential to use rime-based units is highlighted by task demands, as is the case in Experiment 2 when a clue word is provided, even young children make considerable use of analogy in spelling.     

Being a princess: young children's negotiation of femininities in a Kindergarten classroom in Indonesia

This paper attempts to explore young children’s construction of femininities in a kindergarten in Indonesia. Using a postdevelopmentalist and postcolonial approach, this paper seeks to understand how young children in the school develop, negotiate and resist existing gender construction. This paper is based on an ethnography research conducted in 2010 for eight months. Findings of this study reveal that discourse of femininities in the school is situated in the discourse of a princess. This paper argues that there are multiple meanings attached to the discourse of a princess. It does not only become a signifier for femininity, but it also acts as a signifier for social class. The findings also suggest that the discourse perpetuates the legacy of colonisation in the school. It is, then, recommended that, in order for kindergarten teachers to be able to disrupt the construction of femininities, they need to be able to understand multiple meaning of femininities as well as power relation embodied in the construction.     

Materiality and ideology in children's perceptions of past historical writing

This article summarizes a small-scale investigation into 10- and 11-year-old children's perceptions of how the attitudes and values of different times in the past are reflected in historical writing for children. The research involved observation, reading and discussion of historical stories written at different times in the past about a particular period and character in the distant past, familiar to the children from their history lessons. The study investigated how children interacted with these texts in order to derive meaning from them. This article analyses the strategies children used and how they began to unpack the complex, multiple layers of meaning in ‘history stories’ by first examining the material properties of their texts. It considers how these material properties influenced the children's understanding of the texts' contents. It also seeks to discover whether young children are capable of comprehending the broader meanings of texts, beyond a literal reading of them, and how they explore texts critically in terms of their ideology. Findings suggest that able readers between the ages of 10 and 11 are indeed able to understand how ideologies are transmitted in such texts written for children, how these ideologies are conveyed to the child reader, and how they differ from the values and attitudes of the present.     

Developmental and individual differences in children's on-line representations of dynamic social events

Developmental and clinical differences in children's on-line understanding of ongoing social events were examined. Boys with (n = 38) and without (n = 41) Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) were compared. Prior social schemes and integrative processes were hypothesized to influence children's representation of incoming social cues. Younger children and children with ADHD were expected to differ from older children and children without ADHD, respectively, in what they encoded and how they organized the encoded information. Differences in on-line representation were postulated to underlie differences in children's recall and social reasoning. Children's prior social schemes, looking time and on-line verbal protocols, recall, and social reasoning were assessed. Younger boys and ADHD boys showed less integrated on-line representations, accounting for poorer recall and reasoning.     

Developmental trajectories of children's educational expectations in China: Contributions of academic achievement and maternal expectations

This longitudinal study examined the overall and heterogeneous developmental trajectories of children's educational expectations and the effects of children’'s previous academic achievements and maternal educational expectations on these trajectories. The educational expectations of 3868 Chinese children (1839 girls; M_age = 9.42 ± 0.52) were investigated six times from the 4th to 6th grades. Children's previous academic achievement and maternal educational expectations were also collected during the first wave. The results showed that Chinese children's educational expectations generally increased in middle childhood and could be categorized into four classes: high stable-increasing, low stable-increasing, low quickly-increasing, and high quickly-decreasing. Furthermore, maternal educational expectations have the greatest influence on the initial level of children's educational expectations, whereas previous academic achievement has the greatest impact on the increasing rate of children's expectations. In addition, both factors contribute to classifying children into a high-stable increasing class in comparison to the other three classes. The findings indicate that Chinese children increase their educational expectations in middle childhood and continually adapt their expectations mainly based on their previous achievements. These findings could advance our understanding of the development of children’s educational expectations in the middle childhood period and provide educational practitioners with prospective factors to increase children’s educational expectations.     

Effects of writing beliefs and planning on writing performance

White and Bruning (2005) distinguished two sets of writing beliefs: transactional and transmissional beliefs. In this paper we analyse their beliefs scale and suggest two hypotheses about how such beliefs relate to writing performance. The single-process hypothesis treats the beliefs as different amounts of engagement, whereas the dual-process hypothesis claims that the beliefs represent different types of engagement. We then describe the results of an experiment with 84 university students as participants that assessed the relationship between writing beliefs, different forms of pre-planning and different aspects of writing performance. Our results support the dual-process hypothesis, and suggest that transactional beliefs are about the preference for a top-down strategy or a bottom-up strategy, while transmissional beliefs are about the content that is written about. These beliefs interact in their effects on text quality, the amount and type of revision carried out, and the extent to which writers develop their understanding. They also moderate the effectiveness of outlining as a strategy.