Look into my eyes! Exploring the effect of addressing in educational videos

Numerous studies were conducted to investigate how recipients are affected by the miscellaneous characters in multimedia. However, there is a lack of research concerning the connection between parasocial processes and learning performances. This study aims to investigate the influence of addressing (as a social encounter of parasocial interaction) on learning performance in an educational video. Addressing was operationalized by manipulating proximity (near vs. far) and orientation (frontal, vs. lateral) of a presented lecturer. We conducted an experiment with 88 participants who were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental groups. Results revealed a large significant orientation effect for retention performance with higher learning outcomes for frontal orientation. Proximity did not significantly influence learning outcomes. Results were interpreted suggesting perceived parasocial interaction which was enhanced in the frontal condition. Parasocial interaction might lead to deeper cognitive processing and affective states which are beneficial for learning. The findings of this study show that learning is fostered by personae in educational learning environments by giving learners the impression to be addressed directly through eye contact.     

如何通过强制来培养自由——赫尔巴特《论对世界的审美展示是教育的主要任务》之研究

发表于1804年的《论对世界的审美展示是教育的主要任务》是赫尔巴特第一篇系统探讨教育的论文。他主要受康德的影响和激发,试图在此文中借助审美提出一种教育影响理论,以解决康德＂如何通过强制来培养自由＂的教育难题：教育者只有借助对世界的审美展示,才能通过无强制的强制去培养人的自由。赫尔巴特把这一思想在其两年后的《普通教育学》中加以系统化和深化。从《论对世界的审美展示是教育的主要任务》到《普通教育学》不仅显示了赫尔巴特教育学思想产生的＂秘密＂及其发展趋向,同时也体现了赫尔巴特从德国当时强调审美救赎的浪漫传统向西方＂知识即道德＂的理性主义传统的回归。     

Re-visioning from the inside: getting under the skin of the World Bank’s Education Sector Strategy

This paper uses the device of imagining Education personnel at the World Bank engaging in study and discussion that causes them to rethink their 1999 Education Sector Strategy document. The Bank’s educators discuss issues that lead them to see that the World Bank’s assumptions of human capital theory are deficient. Having studied the severe limitations in the effectiveness of the education reforms of several countries, they admit not only that the education model being promoted by the Bank is flawed, but also that its preferred paradigm of modernist development is unsustainable. Thanks to the program of study and reflection, Bank educators decide to meet the challenge of reinventing themselves as educators collaborating with their national clients in developing new paradigms in which both creative education and sustainable development can flourish.     

现代日本教育改革的政治学分析

战后日本政治势力之间的权力结构及其变化给教育政策制定带来很多影响,而且这种影响在政治和教育发展的不同阶段略有不同。从政治势力对立结构的变化及其对教育政策的影响出发,可以把战后日本教育改革划分为四个不同的阶段。     

Reading at the front: books and soldiers in the First World War

Abstract

This paper focuses on the reading and educational practices of common soldiers during the First World War. It argues that the question of how war libraries were imagined and constructed by civilians needs to be framed in the larger context of pre-war Edwardian debates surrounding the “value of books” in society. Indeed, it was within this debate that “humanities activists” first sought to play a role in times of crisis, confident that the war library operation had the blessing of prominent authors. The paper analyses the experience of British self-improvers at the front, their enduring connections with adult education institutions at home and the opportunities that the war opened up to new Australasian common readers fighting as part of the colonial expeditionary forces.     

Productivity in educational psychology journals from 2003 to 2008

Productivity of individuals and institutions in educational psychology journals has been previously examined in three separate studies (Hsieh et al. [Hsieh, P., Acee, T., Chung, W., Hsieh, Y., Kim, H., Thomas, G. D., et al. (2004). An alternate look at educational psychologist’s productivity from 1991 to 2002. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 29, 333–343]; Smith et al. [Smith, M. C., Locke, S. G., Boisse, S. J., Gallagher, P. A., Krengel, L. E., & Kuczek, J. E., et al. (1998). Productivity of educational psychologists in educational psychology journals, 1991–1996. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 23, 173–181]; [Smith, M. C., Plant, M., Carney, R. N., Arnold, C. S., Jackson, A., Johnson, L. S., et al. (2003). Further productivity of educational psychologists in educational psychology journals, 1997–2001. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 28, 422–430.]) spanning the years 1991–2002. The present study updates this literature by examining the same five journals: Cognition and Instruction, Contemporary Educational Psychology, the Educational Psychologist, Educational Psychology Review, and the Journal of Educational Psychology from 2003 to 2008. Individual productivity was calculated by the number of (a) articles published and (b) points based on a formula that considers author position in relation to the number of authors. The University of Maryland and Richard E. Mayer maintained their positions as the top research institution and author, respectively. There was also growth in collaboration as well as international involvement as measured by number of authors.     

Education in developing countries: the view from Mount Olympus

In a recent issue ofProspects we published a review of the World Bank's recent publication,Education Sector Working Paper. This publication represents a major policy statement by the Bank on the subject of education and significant (not to say radical) departure from previous policies. It is a document all the more important in view of the enormous funding power of the World Bank and the undeniable influence of its policies on national governments and even on international organizations. TheEducation Sector Working Paper, which has been generally welcomed in international circles, is certainly not without its critics both in the developing countries and in the industrialized world. We feel that at a time when there is a push for examining educational policies and concepts on an international level, we can contribute to the debate by publishing some criticism and rejoinder centring around the World Bank publication, much as we did in 1973 and 1974 on the subject ofLearning to Be, the report of the International Commission on the Development of Education. In this issue, therefore, we open the discussion with an article by Peter Williams, originally written for a one-day review meeting to consider the World Bank publication, held on 19 May 1975, at the University of London Institute of Education, and which he revised forProspects. The institute hopes to publish a report of its meeting, together with the papers, before the end of this year. Peter Williams' critique seems to us to be particularly interesting because it is based on the author's disagreement with the prevailing pessimism in the world, reflected by the World Bank, on the state of education in the developing nations. As always, our readers are warmly invited to contribute their reactions in any form they choose.     

Effects of playing mathematics computer games on primary school students’ multiplicative reasoning ability

This study used a large-scale cluster randomized longitudinal experiment (N = 719; 35 schools) to investigate the effects of online mathematics mini-games on primary school students’ multiplicative reasoning ability. The experiment included four conditions: playing at school, integrated in a lesson (E_school), playing at home without attention at school (E_home), playing at home with debriefing at school (E_home-school) and, in the control group, playing at school mini-games on other mathematics topics (C). The mini-games were played in Grade 2 and Grade 3 (32 mini-games in total). Using tests at the end of each grade, effects on three aspects of multiplicative reasoning ability were measured: knowledge of multiplicative number facts, skills in multiplicative operations, and insight in multiplicative number relations and properties of multiplicative operations. Through path analyses it was found that the mini-games were most effective in the E_home-school condition, where both students’ skills and their insight were positively affected as compared to the control group (significant ds ranging from 0.22 to 0.29). In the E_school condition, an effect was only found for insight in Grade 2 (d = 0.35), while in the E_home condition no significant effects were found. Students’ gameplay behavior (time and effort put in the games) was in some cases, but not always, related to their learning outcomes.     

Headteacher visibility and teacher perceptions of headteacher trustworthiness: A comparison of the Ugandan context to existing theory

Students perform better academically in schools with high levels of trust. Yet school leaders primarily responsible for building cultures of trust may not know how to effectively build trust. This research examines how visibility of Ugandan headteachers is related to teachers’ perceptions of headteacher trustworthiness. Using grounded theory, we interviewed 28 Ugandan secondary school teachers in eight schools in Mukono District, Uganda. Findings indicate teachers’ perceptions of headteacher relational trustworthiness were related to headteacher visibility, with perceptions of both relational and competence trustworthiness being moderated by teacher and headteacher personal characteristics. Findings are comparable to U.S.-based research.     

Is the World Bank education policy adequate for fighting poverty? Some evidence from Latin America

This paper focuses on the relationship between the World Bank’s education policy and the recent anti-poverty priorities and strategies that shape the present Bank’s agenda for development. The paper provides a critical assessment of the explicit strategies of the World Bank’s education policies aimed at fighting poverty by identifying the contradictions embedded in anti-poverty discourses and strategies, and relating them to an education policy that generates inequalities and shows little effectiveness in helping people to escape from poverty. This analysis is applied to the situation of Latin American education systems, which have, during the last decade, experienced an important expansion but have also maintained strong inequalities in educational performance and access to post-compulsory education.     

Agent of global markets or agent of the poor? The World Bank’s education sector strategy paper

This article contrasts the official, largely silent, role of the World Bank as an agent of global markets with its professed role as agent of the poor. The failure to make explicit its role as global market advocate creates a policy environment that can be destructive of both global markets and the long-term survival of the world’s poor. The article examines the World Bank’s Education Sector Strategy in this light. The article begins by outlining the institutional, policy and education frameworks that emerge from the conflicts of the World Bank’s dual role in markets and poverty. It then shows that the implementation and outcome analyses in The Strategy grow out of these frameworks and are, therefore, limited in scope and effectiveness. An approach that explicitly acknowledges the market roles of the World Bank would have led to a more effective policy document.     

Academic identification as a mediator of the relationship between parental socialization and academic achievement

This study examines whether academic identification, or one’s psychological and emotional investment in academics, mediates the association between child-reported parental educational socialization and standardized achievement test scores among a predominantly ethnic minority sample of 367 urban middle school students. We predicted that academic identification would mediate the relationship between five forms of perceived parental academic socialization (future-oriented, teaching-oriented, effort-oriented, shame-oriented, and guilt-oriented) and achievement when controlling for prior achievement. We found confirmation for this effect among analyses involving teaching, future, and guilt forms of socialization. For teaching, this effect was not present for Black boys. Direct effects indicated that teaching and future socialization was inversely related to student achievement, but when mediated by academic identification it was positive. Guilt was only related to achievement through academic identification. Results suggest the importance of the manner in which parental educational socialization is engaged.     

Clickers in college classrooms: Fostering learning with questioning methods in large lecture classes

What can be done to promote student–instructor interaction in a large lecture class? One approach is to use a personal response system (or “clickers”) in which students press a button on a hand-held remote control device corresponding to their answer to a multiple choice question projected on a screen, then see the class distribution of answers on a screen, and discuss the thinking that leads to the correct answer. Students scored significantly higher on the course exams in a college-level educational psychology class when they used clickers to answer 2 to 4 questions per lecture (clicker group), as compared to an identical class with in-class questions presented without clickers (no-clicker group, d = 0.38) or with no in-class questions (control group, d = 0.40). The clicker treatment produced a gain of approximately 1/3 of a grade point over the no-clicker and control groups, which did not differ significantly from each other. Results are consistent with the generative theory of learning, which predicts students in the clicker group are more cognitively engaged during learning.     

Empowering and protecting children by enhancing knowledge,skills and well-being: A randomized trial of Learn to BE SAFE with Emmy™

Australia needs effective programs to protect children and prevent abuse, but there is little information available for policymakers or families. Using a randomized controlled trial, Learn to BE SAFE with Emmy™, a school-based protection program for young children designed by Act for Kids, was evaluated to determine its effectiveness for promoting young children's knowledge and skills. Grade one children (n = 245) from 15 classrooms across 5 primary schools completed assessment measures. A subset of these children received the program (n = 131) or acted as a comparison group (n = 114). Parents (n = 72) completed questionnaires about their child's participation in the program. When compared with children who had not received the program, children who completed Learn to BE SAFE with Emmy™ demonstrated increased knowledge of interpersonal safety and were more likely to choose a safe response option to hypothetical unsafe scenarios 6 months after participation than at both pre- and post-intervention. Parents reported their children who participated used more safety strategies immediately and 6 months after participation compared to pre-intervention. Outcomes can assist in guiding future policies around the prevention of child abuse and protect the well-being of Australian children.     

The power struggle over education in developing countries: The case of the UNESCO-World Bank Co-operative program, 1964-1989

This paper examines the relationship between the World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) between the 1960s and the 1980s. It focuses on the Co-operative Program (CP) between the two organizations, which was established in 1964 and lasted officially until 1989. In the context of the Co-operative Program, the Education Financing Division (EFD) was established, a joint unit located in UNESCO, with the purpose of carrying out technical missions to assist governments in the identification and preparation of educational projects and the formulation of funding requests to the World Bank. Drawing on archival research and interviews with former UNESCO and World Bank officials, the paper traces the history of the Co-operative Program, which was characterized by intense power struggles exacerbated by Cold War tensions. During the 25 years of the duration of the Co-operative Program, the World Bank developed into the most influential policy shaper for education in developing countries, while the influence of UNESCO, created in the post-World War II order as the United Nations’ designated organization for education, declined. Using Bourdieu’s concept of fields and DiMaggio and Powell’s concept of isomorphism as analytical lenses, the World Bank’s expansion to a development agency will be explained by its greater autonomy as a field, endowed with more capital based on the rationalization of education and isomorphic processes of professionalization of the “field of power” of educational planning. To the detriment of UNESCO, the World Bank became the powerhouse of a global governance structure that was built with support from the United States government and furthered by the rise of economics.     

A research model for the study of science teachers’ PCK and improving teacher education

In this article, a new research model for the study of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is presented which aims to improve teacher education. This model called “educational reconstruction for teacher education” (ERTE) represents the framework for an integrative approach to the study of science teachers’ topic specific PCK, which is a largely unexplored field. By integrating the PCK concept, originating in the American Curriculum tradition, into the German (Fach)didaktik tradition, this model adds a new perspective to (Fach)didaktik. This paper, therefore, also aims to clarify the PCK concept and its relation to Fachdidaktik.     

Does embedding learning supports enhance transfer during game-based learning?

Educational video games are hypothesized to be good environments for promoting learning; however, research on conceptual learning from games is mixed. We tested whether embedding a learning support in the form of short animations illustrating physics concepts that can be used to aid gameplay improved learning. Ninety-six 7th to 11th grade students were randomly assigned to play Physics Playground with or without the learning supports over a 4-day period. Results indicate that students who played a version of the game with embedded learning supports showed more improvement on a far- (d = 0.36), but not on a near-transfer physics assessment (d = 0.17) compared to those who played without the supports. The learning supports did not affect students’ enjoyment with the game. We conclude that the game-embedded animations were effective at promoting conceptual learning without sacrificing the fun of game-based learning.     

The effectiveness of educational technology applications for enhancing mathematics achievement in K-12 classrooms: A meta-analysis

The present review examines research on the effects of educational technology applications on mathematics achievement in K-12 classrooms. Unlike previous reviews, this review applies consistent inclusion standards to focus on studies that met high methodological standards. In addition, methodological and substantive features of the studies are investigated to examine the relationship between educational technology applications and study features. A total of 74 qualified studies were included in our final analysis with a total sample size of 56,886 K-12 students: 45 elementary studies (N = 31,555) and 29 secondary studies (N = 25,331). Consistent with the more recent reviews, the findings suggest that educational technology applications generally produced a positive, though modest, effect (ES = +0.15) in comparison to traditional methods. However, the effects may vary by educational technology type. Among the three types of educational technology applications, supplemental CAI had the largest effect with an effect size of +0.18. The other two interventions, computer-management learning and comprehensive programs, had a much smaller effect size, +0.08 and +0.07, respectively. Differential impacts by various study and methodological features are also discussed.     

Evaluating school inspection effectiveness: A systematic research synthesis on 30 years of international research

The present study summarized research on school inspection of the last 30 years to provide an estimation of its effectiveness and to identify factors influencing inspection effectiveness. Following a systematic literature search, k = 30 inferential statistical studies on school inspection were coded. Due to the large variety in the analytical strategies used in the studies, the findings were synthesized in a systematic review. Twenty-four percent of the n = 222 effects of the k = 16 control group studies indicated positive and 18 % negative inspection effects. The majority of effects (58 %) was not significant. The most consistent positive inspection effects resulted for standardized achievement tests in Mathematics and in the mother language. Perceived accountability pressure and the perceived quality of the inspection were two of several factors that influenced inspection success in the k = 16 comparison group and correlational studies. The findings highlight new avenues for school inspection research and practice.