Individual Differences in Children's Corepresentation of Self and Other in Joint Action

Previous research has shown that children aged 4–5 years, but not 2–3 years, show adult‐like interference from a partner when performing a joint task (Milward, Kita, & Apperly, 2014). This raises questions about the cognitive skills involved in the development of such “corepresentation (CR)” of a partner (Sebanz, Knoblich, & Prinz, 2003). Here, individual differences data from one hundred and thirteen 4‐ to 5‐year‐olds showed theory of mind (ToM) and inhibitory control (IC) as predictors of ability to avoid CR interference, suggesting that children with better ToM abilities are more likely to succeed in decoupling self and other representations in a joint task, while better IC is likely to help children avoid interference from a partner's response when selecting their own response on the task.     

Motion detection, letter position encoding, and single word reading

Recent research has shown that many people with dyslexia find it unusually difficult to detect flickering or moving visual stimuli, consistent with impaired processing in the magnocellular visual stream. Nonetheless, it remains controversial to suggest that reduced visual sensitivity of this kind might affect reading. We first show that the accuracy of letter position encoding may depend on input from the magnocellular pathway. We then suggest that when children read, impaired magnocellular function may degrade information about where letters are positioned with respect to each other, leading to reading errors which contain sounds not represented in the printed word. We call these orthographically inconsistent nonsense errors letter errors. In an unselected sample of primary school children, we show that the probability of children making “letter” errors in a single word reading task was best explained by independent contributions from motion detection (magnocellular function) and phonological awareness (assessed by a spoonerism task). This result held even when controlling for chronological age, reading ability, and IQ. Together, these findings suggest that impaired magnocellular visual function, as well as phonological deficits, may affect reading.     

论高职心理教育的内容及其取向

心理教育与学校德育虽然存在密切的联系,但也有着本质的区别,其区别不仅表现在理论基础、教育方法和技术等方面,也表现在心理教育内容方面。高职院校作为高等学校又有着自己的特殊性,这些都决定了高职心理教育在内容和任务取向上的自身特点。高职心理教育的内容非常丰富,涉及面较广,从高职大学生心理素质结构来看,至少应该涉及学习领域、生活领域和职业领域三大领域的心理知识与心理品质。     

Actions and Conceptions: Exploring Initial Literacy Teaching Practice for Adults

Given that it is a delicate task to meet the educational needs of adult emergent readers in a second language setting, this study serves to explore the teaching practice of teachers working with learners of initial literacy and second language. Based on a situated learning perspective, data from 16 lesson observations of nine teachers is analysed. The findings show that teachers initiate and negotiate learning activities, strive to get the students to understand words and other symbols, facilitate participation within and outside the classroom and negotiate the acceptable student behaviour. These findings suggest that Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults (LESLLA) teaching and learning is a particular practice, where the teachers’ actions are intertwined with those of the learners and with the teachers’ conceptions of the learners. In that way, the teachers’ actions do not only speak of the learners, but also of their own professional identity.     

Short-term follow-up of children at risk: comparison of the quality of life of children removed from home and children remaining at home

OBJECTIVE: To follow up the well-being of children at risk after a decision on their removal was made. METHOD: Social workers assessed the quality of life (QOL) of three groups of children (n = 92): children they had decided to keep at home, children whom they had removed to alternative care, and children who remained at home despite the decision to remove them. This is a prospective study, in which assessments were made at two points of time: first when the workers began to consider whether or not to remove the child, and again 6 months later. RESULTS: The findings show that even though the QOL of the children in the three groups was similarly low at the first measure, it differed in the second. The QOL of the children who were removed from home had improved, that of the children who remained at home in accord with the workers' decisions remained roughly the same, and that of the children for whom the decision to remove was not implemented declined. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that children at risk may fare better in terms of QOL in alternative placement than at home, and highlight the high price paid by children for whom a decision to remove them from home is not implemented. Further research, however, is required, taking into consideration the interventions and services that the children and their families received in the different settings.     

Engineering design projects as a reflection promoter

This article describes examples of reflection documented in a longitudinal research comprising two studies: a three-year three-stage study on technology project-based learning (TPBL) and a three-year two-stage study on engineering thinking (ET). Both studies used qualitative tools such as interviews, active observations, and document analysis. Reflections expressed by 10th grade pupils from eight high schools and 14 post-secondary school students who participated in the TPBL study as well as the reflection findings of experts and undergraduates from the ET study were used. The data analysis indicates that reflection is not generated on its own; it must be fostered. Reflection takes one of three forms: as a reaction to an irregularity or error made when working on the system design; conducted in groups that is inherent to the design process in industry; and from intuition that something may not be quite right, even though preliminary results seem to be correct.     

Exploring children’s perceptions of the perceived seriousness of disruptive classroom behaviours

Children’s reports of the perceived seriousness of disruptive classroom behaviours were examined from their own perspective and from their perceptions of their peers’ beliefs about the same behaviour. Two hundred and seventy-six (116 female and 161 male, M_age?=?11.00?years, SD_age?=?1.29) children recruited from a primary and a secondary school in the UK completed measures of the perceived seriousness of disruptive classroom behaviours from their own perspective and also their beliefs about their peers’ perceptions, social desirability and social behaviour. A three-factor structure of disruptive classroom behaviours emerged encompassing: Imprudent behaviours, negative behaviours and expressed emotions. Children judged the disruptive classroom behaviours as more serious compared to how they thought their peers would judge the same behaviour. Gender and age differences also emerged. The findings support the conclusion that children regard disruptive classroom behaviours as more serious than they believe their peers do.     

Memory for a stimulus versus anticipation of a response: Contrasting effects of proactive interference in two delayed comparison tasks

Pigeons were trained to perform two delayed comparison tasks that differed only in the temporal placement of the retention interval relative to the sample and comparison stimuli. In one task (conditional delayed response—CDR), the subject could determine the correct response prior to the retention interval. In the second task (delayed conditional response—DCR), the subject was required to compare stimuli presented before and after the retention interval. Although overt mediational responding was not observed in the CDR condition, retention was, nevertheless, greater than in the DCR condition. Furthermore, this difference was amplified at short intertrial intervals. Finally, retention in the DCR, but not the CDR, condition was disrupted by proactive interference (PI) from previous sample stimuli. The results suggest that memory is less closely tied to the sample stimulus when the stimuli necessary to determine the correct response are presented prior to the retention interval (CDR and other delayed response tasks) than when the subject must compare stimuli across the retention interval (DCR, or delayed matching-to-sample, tasks). This difference may lead directly, or indirectly through an interaction with PI, to task differences in retention.     

College students with disabilities in teacher education: faculty attitudes and practices

The literature on selective mutism provides little information on the child’s own perspective. Six adults who had been selectively mute were interviewed about their childhood and adolescence. Data analysis led to identification of five themes, each of which has potentially important implications for teachers. (1) Origins of selective mutism: all interviewees reported withdrawal from social interaction at an early age. There was evidence from three respondents that onset of selective mutism was associated with events they had found traumatic. (2) Maintenance of selective mutism: all interviewees reported being strong willed, with a conscious determination not to speak. Selective mutism became a clearly understood and well‐defined social role. (3) Determination, social anxiety and loneliness, only two respondents (twins) reported feelings related to social anxiety in childhood, but other symptoms were reported. (4) In the recovery process four respondents reported their own conscious decision to change their current lifestyle as a precursor to starting to speak. (5) Concerning current psychosocial adjustment, four respondents had obtained therapy as adults, though not for selective mutism; five interviewees felt confident in formal, professional settings, but still experienced anxiety in informal, social situations. The data are discussed in light of previous work on selective mutism. In spite of inherent limitations, interviews with adults who have recovered may help teachers to understand both the development of the problem and their own role in helping students to recover from it.     

Imagery, Action, and Young Children's Spatial Orientation: It's Not Being There That Counts, It's What One Has in Mind

Young children typically fail when asked to judge how objects would look if they moved or changed shape, and this has been taken to mean that they lack the competencies for dynamic imagery. We used a different approach to study young children's imagination and found evidence of much earlier competence. Across 6 experiments, people were asked to imagine familiar surroundings and anticipate their spatial orientation from different observation points there. In the first 2 experiments, children (2 1/2-9-year-olds) and their parents sat at home and were asked to call to mind knowledge of their (child's) classroom relative to the perspective at their (child's) seat at (pre)school. After this, subjects were asked to judge the perspective at the teacher's seat in each of 2 conditions. In the Locomotion Condition they were asked to imagine walking from their seat to the teacher's seat while physically walking a path that resembled the actual one in the remote classroom. In the Imagination-only Condition the instructions were the same but they were not accompanied with physical walking. Children 3 1/2 years of age and older, like the adults, were accurate and rapid in the Locomotion Condition. In the Imagination-only Condition the children almost never judged perspective correctly; the adults responded accurately but slowly. These findings were replicated and extended across 4 additional experiments designed to clarify the operating principles that link perceiving, imagining, and acting.     

Theory of mind development in deaf children: a nonverbal test of false-belief understanding

Our aim in this study was to investigate whether previous findings pointing to a delay in deaf children's theory of mind development are replicated when linguistic demands placed on the deaf child are minimized in a nonverbal version of standard false-belief tasks. Twenty-four prelingually deaf, orally trained children born of hearing parents were tested with both a verbal and a nonverbal version of a false-belief task. Neither the younger (range: 4 years 7 months-6 years 5 months) nor the older (range: 6 years 9 months-11 years 11 months) children of the final sample of 21 children performed above chance in the verbal task. The nonverbal task significantly facilitated performance in children of all ages. Despite this facilitation, we observed a developmental delay: only the older group performed significantly above chance in the nonverbal false-belief task, even though the younger children were at the average age when hearing children normally pass standard false-belief tests. We discuss these findings in light of the hypothesis that language development and conversational competence are crucial to the acquisition of a theory of mind.     

Persistence of phonological awareness deficits in older children with dyslexia

Three groups of children with dyslexia, with mean age 8, 13 and 17 years, together with three groups of normally achieving children matched for age and IQ with the dyslexic groups, undertook tests of sound categorization and phoneme deletion. The design allowed comparison not only across chronological age but also across reading age. The children with dyslexia performed significantly worse even than their reading age controls on both tasks. Indeed, overall performance of the 17 year old children with dyslexia was closest, but inferior, to that of the 8 year old controls. Since the sound categorization task was designed to minimize working memory load, the results extend previous findings on the phonological awareness deficits in dyslexia by dissociating the deficit from memory load and by showing that it persists at least into late adolescence.     

The Value of Reanalysis: TV Viewing and Attention Problems

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth ( N  =   1,159), this study reexamines the link between maternal reports of television viewing at ages 1 and 3 and attention problems at age 7. This work represents a reanalysis and extension of recent research suggesting young children's television viewing causes subsequent attention problems. The nonlinear specification reveals the association between television watching and attention problems exists—if at all—only at very high levels of viewing. Adding 2 covariates to the regression model eliminated even this modest effect. The earlier findings are not robust. This study also considers whether its own findings are sensitive to unobserved confounding using fixed-effects estimation. In general, it finds no meaningful relation between television viewing and attention problems.     

Children's reasoning about social, physical, and logical regularities: a look at two worlds

In 2 studies, 6-, 8-, and 10-year-old children were interviewed about 3 different types of regularities or rules: social conventions, physical laws, and logical necessities. In the first study, children were asked if regularities could be changed (by consensus) and/or be different in another world. In the second study, children were asked if regularities could be different in another country (on Earth) or on a different planet. Results showed that social regularities were distinguished from the other types, but physical and logical regularities were treated similarly. While the evidence for age differences was equivocal, it was clear that even first graders did not judge physical items as alterable on Earth. This fails to replicate a previously reported finding that children pass through a stage where all items are seen as alterable. Finally, a sex difference emerged, with boys more willing to judge physical and logical regularities to be alterable in another world.     

Effects of planning on task load,knowledge, and tool preference: a comparison of two tools

Self-regulated learners are expected to plan their own learning. Because planning is a complex task, it is not self-evident that all learners can perform this task successfully. In this study, we examined the effects of two planning support tools on the quality of created plans, planning behavior, task load, and acquired knowledge. Sixty-five participants each worked with two versions of a planning tool. In one version, learning plans were actively constructed by the learners themselves; the other version provided learners with an adaptable computer-generated plan. The results indicated that the quality of learner-created plans was lower than computer-generated plans. Furthermore, participants reported a higher task load when they constructed the plans by themselves. However, participants gained more structural knowledge about the learning domain when they actively created plans. There was not an apparent preference for one of the tools if participants were to create a plan for someone else. However, if they were to use the plan for their own learning, participants preferred to actively create their own plans.     

Memory codes for temporal and nontemporal samples in many-to-one matching by pigeons

Pigeons were trained to match temporal (2 and 8 sec of keylight) and color (red and green) samples to vertical and horizontal comparison stimuli. In Experiment 1, samples that were associated with the same correct comparison stimulus displayed similar retention functions; and there was no significant choose-short effect following temporal samples. This finding was replicated in Phase 1 of Experiment 2 for birds maintained on the many-to-one mapping, and it was also obtained in birds that had been switched to a one-to-one mapping by changing the comparison stimuli following color samples. However, in Phase 2 of Experiment 2, when the one-to-one mapping was produced by changing the comparison stimuli following temporal samples, a significant choose-short effect was observed. In Experiment 3, intratrial interference tests gave evidence of temporal summation effects when either temporal presamples or color presamples preceded temporal targets. This occurred even though these interference tests followed delay tests that failed to reveal significant choose-short effects. The absence of significant choose-short effects in Experiment 1 and in Phase 1 of Experiment 2 indicates that temporal samples are not retrospectively and analogically coded when temporal and nontemporal samples are mapped onto the same set of comparisons The interference test results suggest that the temporal summation effect arises from nonmemorial properties of the timing system and is independent of the memory code being used     

科学哲学与教育科学

教育学作为哲学的支流,在受到社会、政治、经济因素影响的同时,理应彰显出其作为一门社会科学本身具有的逻辑性和科学性。本文试图在诠释该点的基础上,以现代西方科学哲学的视角,特别是卡尔·波普尔对于科学的洞见,分析教育学的科学性以及如何科学地教育,并指出＂证伪＂以及＂演绎＂两种科学素质应得到教育学研究足够的重视。     

Why bother? Student motivation to participate in student evaluations of teaching

When response rates on student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are low, inability to properly interpret and use responses from the students who do participate is a big problem. Where does the motivation to participate break down, and where and how does it make sense to invest efforts in rectifying that? In this study, we examined 641 university students’ reported behaviours and motivation related to their SET participation. In terms of behaviour, students who seldom or never participate in online SET tools reported a willingness to invest, at most, five minutes in the process, though the majority never even open the online evaluation links when they receive them. In terms of motivation, they significantly differed from students who always participate with distinctly lower levels of: (1) willingness to participate at all, (2) perception of autonomy and competence, (3) meaningfulness, (4) personal value, (5) engagement in others’ participation, and (6) understanding of the value of their own participation for others’ benefit. Based on these findings, we propose a strategy for increasing future response rates, particularly among recalcitrant students, in order to be able to gather sufficient and reliable results for the work of improving teaching.     

Getting real: the authenticity of remote labs and simulations for science learning

Teachers use remote labs and simulations to augment or even replace hands-on science learning. We compared undergraduate students’ experiences with a remote lab and a simulation to investigate beliefs about and learning from the interactions. Although learning occurred in both groups, students were more deeply engaged while performing the remote lab. Remote lab users felt and behaved as though they completed a real scientific experiment. We also examined whether realistic visualizations improved the psychological and learning experiences for each lab. Students who watched live video of the device collecting their data in the remote lab felt most engaged with the task, suggesting that it is the combination of the realistic lab and realistic video that was of the greatest benefit.