Replication and Pedagogy in the History of Psychology V: The Metronome and Wilhelm Wundt’s Search for the Components of Consciousness

Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) believed that consciousness was represented by the interconnection of psychical processes comprised of temporal elements and compounds. To explore these processes, Wundt used a metronome to measure the amount of information that passed into consciousness across time. The current project replicated some of his procedures, to better understand the role of introspection and the complexity of the metronome task for experimenters and observers. The results of the replication were mixed, but the replication helped provide insights into Wundt’s procedures and their relationship to his theories. This study originated as a class assignment in the Spring of 2004 (see Tweney, this issue).

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Charles Peirce’s Rhetoric and the Pedagogy of Active Learning

Abstract

Although John Dewey has had the most profound effect on education, less is known about the philosophy of education of the original founder of pragmatism, Charles Peirce Using Peirce’s theory of formal rhetoric, I try to show that Peirce’s philosophy of education, when fully understood, is aligned with Dewey’s pedagogy of experiential learning, and can provide a justification for the promotion of active learning in the classroom. Peirce’s rhetoric, as one part of his logical or semiotic theory, argues that reasoning alone is not sufficient to gain knowledge, but that it must be embedded within a community of inquiry, of a certain sort. Applying this to the classroom, I argue that we, as teachers, should endeavor to create the features of a proper community of inquiry in the classroom, one that emphasizes engagement of the students in doing research rather than passively receiving information about its results.     

Thought-Experiments About Gravity in the History of Science and in Research into Children’s Thinking

This article examines the main strands of thinking about gravity through the ages and the continuity of thought-experiments, from the early Greeks, through medieval times, to Galileo, Newton and Einstein. The key ideas are used to contextualise an empirical study of 247 children’s ideas about falling objects carried out in China and New Zealand, including the use of scenarios involving thrown and dropped items, and objects falling down deep well holes (as in Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland). The sample included 68 pre-school pupils, 68 primary school pupils, 56 middle school students, and 55 high school students; with approximately equal numbers in each group and of boys and girls in each group in each culture. The methodology utilised Piagetian interviews with three media (verbal language, drawing, and play-dough), a shadow stick; and everyday items including model people and soft model animals. The data from each group was categorised and analysed with Kolmogorov–Smirnov Two-Sample Tests and Spearman r _s coefficients. It was hypothesised and confirmed (at K–S alpha levels .05; r _s : p < .001) that cross-age and cross-cultural research and analysis would reveal that (a) an intuitive sense of gravity is present from an early age and develops in association with concepts like Earth shape and motion; (b) the development of concepts of gravity is similar in cultures such as China and New Zealand where teachers hold a scientific world view; and (c) children’s concepts of Earth motion, Earth shape, and gravity are coherent rather than fragmented. It was also demonstrated that multi-media interviews together with concrete experiences and thought-experiments afforded children the opportunity to share their emerging concepts of gravity. The findings provide information that teachers might use for lessons at an appropriate level.     

“Community Psychology is for Poor,Black People”: Pedagogy and Teaching of Community Psychology in South Africa

The term “community” holds historical connotations of political, economic, and social disadvantage in South Africa. Many South African students tend to interpret the term “community” in ways that suggest that community and community psychology describe the experiences of exclusively poor, black people. Critical pedagogies that position the teaching process as a transformative activity and that challenge student perceptions about the status quo are central in teaching community psychology. This article uses the subdiscipline of community psychology to discuss the importance of pedagogy. It uses a module that was presented at Stellenbosch University (SU) in the Western Cape, South Africa, as an illustrative example. The module was taught collaboratively with the social work department at the University of the Western Cape. Forty-five psychology students from a historically white university (SU) and 50 social work students from a historically black university (UWC) engaged in face-to-face workshops and virtual (e-learning) assignments that interrogated notions of the self, community, and identity. Final student essays were analysed qualitatively for themes illustrating aspects of the human capabilities approach to pedagogy adopted in this project.     

By the Water’s Edge: a Hermeneutic Look at Suffering and Self-Compassion in Counselling Psychology

What is to be done in response to client suffering? Our aim in this paper is to explore the generative potential in viewing the topic of suffering and self-compassion through an interpretive lens. To accomplish this goal, we review Gadamerian philosophical hermeneutics as a way of understanding these topics while looking to the central tenets of counselling psychology as a guide in elucidating the therapeutic experience. In so doing, we stress the significance in recognizing the interpretive and unique experience of suffering and self-compassion, in turn privileging the client’s conceptualizations and experiences.     

An investigation of the usefulness of the Conner’s Continuous Performance Test II in the assessment of inattention and hyperactivity in the school

The Conners’ Continuous Performance Test (CCPT) is one of the most commonly used laboratory tests in the assessment of inattention and hyperactivity in children. Research suggests that the CCPT II has limited use in the identification of children’s inattention and hyperactivity in the school. Nonetheless, its usefulness to assess school-based inattention and hyperactivity has been examined by using only a small number of its performance measures. The purpose of the present study was to use the whole range of the performance measures included in the CCPT II to assess its potential to detect problems of attention and hyperactivity in the school setting. The CCPT II was administered to a selective sample (n?=?120) of 7-year-old primary school children with elevated rates of behaviour problems and reading difficulty. The Inattention and Hyperactivity subscales of the Conner’s Teacher Rating Scale – 28 (CTRS-28) were used to assess children’s problems of attention and hyperactivity in the school. Correlational analysis showed that the relationship between the CCPT II measures and children’s inattention and hyperactivity was relatively low (r range ?.02 to .38). Hierarchical regression analysis demonstrated that only three out of the 13 measures included in the CCPT II made a small contribution to the prediction of children’s inattention and hyperactivity scores. Of these measures, only one had not been previously used to examine the suitability of the CCPT II to assess inattention and hyperactivity in the school. The findings suggest that the use of the whole range of the CPPT II measures improves only slightly the tests capacity to identify inattention and hyperactivity in the school.     

A Simple Study of the Teacher’s Influence on Students’ Psychology in English Learning

This paper analyzes the teacher’s influence on students’psychologyin English learning from two aspects and emphasizes the importance of English teachers’role in helping students establish healthy psychology in English learning.     

Rejecting Dialogue for Perspective: Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and John Calvin’s Divine Pedagogy

James Estep's integration of Vygotsky's work on the Zone of Proximal Development into Christian education and pedagogy falls short of a distinctly evangelical form of integration. Using Ken Badley's schemata of Integration of Faith and Learning, this article distinguishes Estep's “paradigmatic” integration from a more thoroughgoing “perspectival” integration. Perspectival integration best displays the connections between Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development and evangelical thinking by using the divine accommodation of John Calvin, as described in the work of Arnold Huijgen.     

Pictures in Pictures: Art History and Art Museums in Children’s Picture Books

Children’s picture books that recreate, parody, or fictionalize famous artworks and introduce the art museum experience, a genre to which I will refer as “children’s art books,” have become increasingly popular over the past decade. This essay explores the pedagogical implications of this trend through the family program “Picture Books and Picture Looks” conducted at the Art Institute of Chicago. Program sessions were observed to learn the extent to which picture books featuring the painting A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 (Seurat) informed and impacted children’s experiences with the original artwork. The books Katie’s Sunday Afternoon (Mayhew, 2005), Babar’s Museum of Art (De Brunhoff, 2003), and Willy’s Pictures (Browne, 2000) provided the foundation for the program. In addition to these three books, The Dot (Reynolds, 2003), which does not include a reference to La Grande Jatte (Seurat, 1884–1886), acted as a “control” variable. This research demonstrates that while most picture books can be used to establish a level of comfort in an environment that is new to children, those that directly referenced the painting provided a base level of knowledge from which children could confidently draw upon encountering the original work. The research further indicated that, when used in conjunction with original artworks, children’s art books provide unique and distinct entry points for talking about art. The inclusion of artwork in children’s picture books elicits an enthusiasm and recognition that enhances the museum experience, and such books can be effective tools for enabling reflective, imaginative experiences with art.     

A Pedagogy of Friendship: young children’s friendships and how schools can support them

Children’s friendships are often neglected by teachers and researchers. This phenomenological study conducted with seven children aged five and six years explores young children’s perceptions of their everyday friendship experiences. This multi-method study used role play interviews, drawings and persona doll scenarios to consider children’s everyday experiences of friendship in school. The paper discusses the importance of socio-cultural aspects of children’s friendship including: imaginary friends; losing friends; protecting time and space to develop friendships and children’s routines and practices as they form and maintain friendships. Data and findings are discussed, leading to an original conceptual framework: a ‘Pedagogy of Friendship’. This is designed to help children make meaning from their friendship experiences and also provide practitioners with the opportunity to nurture and scaffold children through their friendship experiences in schools. We suggest that there is a need to raise the profile of children’s friendships in early childhood education and generate an educational perspective on friendship. Finally we conclude that listening to children’s views of friendship indicates that the application of the framework of a ‘Pedagogy of Friendship’ would be beneficial to children’s all round learning and development.     

Co-operatives and education in the Basque Country: the ikastolas in the final years of Franco’s dictatorship

This article analyses the creation of the schools called ikastolas throughout the Basque Country from the 1960s onwards. The name ikastola refers to a unique school model whose major characteristic is to teach the majority of subjects in the Basque language, or euskera. It outlines the reasons why some of these schools took a co-operative organisational form and describes their major characteristics. The first part analyses the opportunities created under the Francoist regime for this kind of school, despite the repressive character of the dictatorship in other fields. The second part of the paper examines the important influence of the Mondragón co-operative movement, especially through its financial institution, in the creation of these educational co-operatives. The third and last part emphasises the role played by social mobilisation in defence of the Basque language in the creation of these schools and how this factor tied in with a co-operative governance system.     

Pedagogy,empowerment and discipline: comparative perspectives of novice teachers in England and Turkey reflecting on ‘the other’

This article discusses the views of Turkish and British novice teachers on pedagogy and pedagogical relationships with school students when confronted with the pedagogical practices of the ‘Other’ in particular policy contexts. Experiences of those practices were gained by novice teachers during an exchange visit for British and Turkish university students in the period 2008–2009. Data was collected through questionnaires and focus group interviews. Findings suggest that Turkish and British novice teachers initially constructed the ‘Other’ as very different from themselves. The views of members of both groups were heavily influenced by the cultural contexts in which they trained and worked. British novice teachers tended to take as axiomatic constructivist and inclusive approaches to pedagogy and the relevance to successful pedagogy of listening to students’ voices. Turkish novice teachers questioned both, many seeing control and dissemination of knowledge as central to pedagogy and student teacher relationships.     

‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’: The Great Gatsby in the 1980s

This essay illustrates the application of reception study, the subfield of literary history that emphasises the historical experiences of readers, to pedagogical contexts by investigating the teaching of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) in American high schools during the 1980s. Focusing on the episode in which Jay Gatsby leads Nick and Daisy on a tour of his mansion, the analysis draws on published lesson plans and other primary source documents and reimagines the contemporary cultural contexts to reconsider the novel’s lessons about social class during a decade that saw escalating wealth disparity, mirroring Fitzgerald’s 1920s and anticipating our present.     

‘Walking in a Foreign and Unknown Landscape’: Studying the History of Mathematics in Initial Teacher Education

This article develops the argument that students in initial teacher education benefit in terms of who they are becoming from developing awareness of and engagement in the history of mathematics. Initially, current school mathematics practices in the UK are considered and challenged. Then the role of teachers’ relationship to mathematical subject knowledge and of teachers’ engagement in critical thinking are considered. Connections are made between these concerns and studying the history of mathematics in initial teacher education classrooms. I then draw on the perspectives and practices of the mathematics teacher educators at one institution to understand these connections better and to exemplify them. Issues of equity are threaded throughout.     

Growth of Sammy and the Hope Shadowed In John Updike’s A & P

John Updike has been an acute observer of human conditions.Social conformity and individualism is a pair of collision.To be submissive or rebellious determines the direction of the protagonist’s growth and a forward looking sight of hope on younger generation.By depicting such conflict,Sammy in "A & P" undergoes a short but hard spiritual maturation.