Improving early phoneme skills with a computer program: Differential effects of regulatory skills

Research findingsThe study focused on 90 five-year-olds from fifteen Dutch schools. The children scored among the 30% lowest on literacy tests. Half were randomly assigned to a phonological skills program on the computer, the other half to a book program. Both programs consisted of 15 ten-minute sessions. During the phonological skills program children's mouse behavior was registered every tenth of a second. Intelligence, phoneme skills, and regulatory skills were tested. Children scoring average on regulatory skills benefited from teacher-free encounters with the phonological skills program, children scoring low or high did not. Typically, the lowest-scoring children showed more meaningless mouse activity and more random clicking.Practice or policyComputer programs can be used to stimulate early phoneme skills of poorly performing kindergarten children, but not for all children. Children with poor regulatory skills did not benefit from the intervention program.     

On the effects of motivation on reading performance growth in secondary school

This research aimed at identifying unique effects of reading motivation on reading performance when controlling for cognitive skills, familial, and demographic background. We drew upon a longitudinal sample of N = 1508 secondary school students from 5th to 8th grade. Two types of intrinsic reading motivation (reading enjoyment, reading for interest), one type of extrinsic reading motivation (competition), and reading self-concept were measured by self-report questionnaires. Cognitive skills (reasoning, decoding speed) and reading performance were assessed using standardized tests and background variables were collected using student and parent questionnaires. Applying latent growth curve modeling, positive unique effects of reading enjoyment and reading self-concept and a negative unique effect of competition on the initial level of reading performance were recorded. Moreover, a positive unique effect of reading for interest on reading performance growth was recorded. One may conclude that enhancing students’ interest might be fruitful in terms of nurturing reading performance.     

The impact of a Caribbean home-visiting child development program on cognitive skills

This paper provides a short-term impact evaluation of a home-visiting Early Child Development (ECD) program in the Caribbean aimed at vulnerable children from birth to three years. The analysis is based on a quasi-experimental research design including approximately four hundred children in treatment and comparable control communities. The differences-in-differences methodology estimates intention-to-treat effects. One year after implementation, we find no significant effects on the cognitive development of the average child, but pronounced differences by birth cohort. The program has significantly improved Fine Motor Skills and Visual Reception scores, related to early reading and writing abilities, of the youngest children aged below 18 months at program start. There is no program impact on the older cohort, whose cognitive development appears to be more strongly correlated with center-based ECD services. Language development has not improved for either cohort. The findings suggest that an early window of opportunities may exist for home-based programs.     

计算机专业英语的教与学技巧初探

基于计算机专业英语的课程特点,结合实际教学中的具体情况,着重讨论了学习和讲授该课程的方式以及应该注意的问题,并介绍了一些教学效果较好的经验技巧,旨在更好地促进计算机专业英语的教与学的工作。     

数据库的规范化

设计一个好的数据库就要使我们的库中关系规范化，规范化的基本目的就是消除关系上的操作异常现象，规范化的基本方法就是模式分解．     

Evaluation of intervention on Chinese graduate students’ understanding of textual plagiarism and skills at source referencing

Abstract

Textual plagiarism is a serious violation of established academic protocols, but it requires considerable writing experience and care to avoid as well. Although student understanding of textual plagiarism and their plagiaristic behaviour in English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts have been quite well researched, few studies have sought to evaluate instructional interventions specifically designed to reduce plagiarism by empowering student writers with a better knowledge of plagiarism and skills at source referencing. To the best of our knowledge, no study to date has ever systematically assessed students’ understanding of plagiarism and their source referencing performance in response to intervention. This classroom-based research, at a university in Beijing, aimed to discover whether a 6-hour block of instruction could facilitate better understanding of plagiarism and appropriate source referencing skills. The results showed that the intervention did generally give students a better appreciation of how textual plagiarism looks and significantly reduced blatant and subtle plagiarism in their writing. However, students’ heavy reliance on original source language did frequently reoccur in student writing if in less clear-cut ways. Some helpful lessons were drawn from this study.     

企业基层管理者管理技能研究

从罗伯特·卡茨提出的有效的管理者必须具备技术技能、人际技能、概念技能的理论出发,提出了企业基层管理者应具备的基层管理技能,分析了技能之间的关系,并构建了企业基层管理者基层管理技能的模型.     

The moderating effects of emotions on cognitive skills

An important challenge in higher education today is the growing tutor–student ratio that diminishes the ‘human touch’. As learning and teaching ultimately form an interpersonal process, this will lead to student discontent and impact on their learning. Whilst there is little that teaching practitioners can do in terms of the growing student numbers they have to tutor, they may however influence student learning by enhancing their positive emotions. This study examines the importance of emotions in improving cognitive skills and how they interact with knowledge and reflection. This research contributes to theory by examining the role of emotions as a moderating factor in the learning process. Our findings reveal that emotions moderate the direct relationship between knowledge and cognitive skills, and the indirect relationship between knowledge and cognitive skills via reflection. The findings demonstrate the critical role that emotions play in student learning. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

The effects of physical structure and semantic organization on the recall of prose

The effects of a prose passage's physical structure and semantic organization upon free recall performance was investigated. Passages, describing characteristics of fictitious countries, contained either five or nine paragraphs on attributes of the countries. Results showed that Mandler's in J. L. Cowan (Ed.), Studies in thought and language. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970] organizational limits could apply to prose as well as word lists and could be used to explain previous discrepant results in semantic organization research. Results showed differences in the distribution of materials interacting with type of semantic organization to produce differences in recall. Different learning strategies imposed by the passage's semantic organization were also found.     

Applying cognitive load theory to the redesign of a conventional database systems course

Cognitive load theory (CLT) was used to redesign a Database Systems course for Information Technology students. The redesign was intended to address poor student performance and low satisfaction, and to provide a more relevant foundation in database design and use for subsequent studies and industry. The original course followed the conventional structure for a database course, covering database design first, then database development. Analysis showed the conventional course content was appropriate but the instructional materials used were too complex, especially for novice students. The redesign of instructional materials applied CLT to remove split attention and redundancy effects, to provide suitable worked examples and sub-goals, and included an extensive re-sequencing of content. The approach was primarily directed towards mid- to lower performing students and results showed a significant improvement for this cohort with the exam failure rate reducing by 34% after the redesign on identical final exams. Student satisfaction also increased and feedback from subsequent study was very positive. The application of CLT to the design of instructional materials is discussed for delivery of technical courses.     

Promoting turn-taking skills in preschool children with disabilities: The effects of a peer-based social communication intervention

The current study evaluated the turn-taking skills of preschoolers with disabilities who participated in a social communication intervention that targeted initiations, responses, and turn-taking skills, and taught children to repair and revise and to avoid interruptions and overlaps. Ten children who enrolled in an inclusive at-risk classroom met the inclusion criteria. A multiple baseline design across two dyads replicated across three additional dyads was used to determine the effects of the intervention. The social communication intervention was highly effective for five children, moderately effective for three children, and mildly effective for two children in increasing the rate of initiations with an immediate peer response from baseline to intervention. The social communication intervention was highly effective for one child, moderately effective for three children, mildly effective for two children, and ineffective for four children in improving turn-taking skills. Generalization results showed that nine out of ten participants demonstrated increased peer play following the intervention, increased levels of child-initiated interactions with a positive peer response, and decreased levels of solitary play. Several implications for practice were derived from the findings. By teaching children turn-taking strategies, the quality of social interactions that children have with their peers is likely to improve. The intervention offers a more systematic technique for teaching social communication and play skills than do informal strategies commonly used by teachers. Social validity assessments indicated that teachers found the intervention acceptable and produced important changes in behavior.     

The distracting effects of music on the cognitive test performance of creative and non-creative individuals

This study examined the effect of background music upon performance of creative and non-creative individuals on a reading comprehension task. In the presence of musical distraction and silence, 54 individuals (27 creative) carried out reading comprehension tasks in a repeated measures design. An interaction was predicted, such that musical distraction would have a greater negative effect on the performance of non-creative individuals compared to creative individuals. Further, it was predicted that creative individuals would be more inclined to study with music playing, and less distracted by it. No significant interactions were found although trends indicated that creative individuals performed better than did non-creative individuals in the music distraction condition. Correlations indicate that creative individuals tend to listen to more music while studying and they reported lower distraction levels. No main effect was found on performance for the mood of the participant and the perceived mood of the music. Methodological problems are discussed along with further suggestions for future research.     

The effects of quantitative skills training on college outcomes and peers

This paper estimates the causal effect of taking a course in quantitative reasoning on students’ academic performance and classroom peer-group composition at a liberal arts college. To identify effects, the paper compares the outcomes of otherwise similar students who barely passed a baseline quantitative skills assessment (not taking the course) with students who barely failed (taking the course). The regression-discontinuity estimates show little impact on academic outcomes for student close to the passing cutoff, including grades on subsequent courses with quantitative content, but we are unable to distinguish small from zero effects. Exogenous course assignment does affect the composition of students’ classroom peer groups in subsequent years. The effects can only be generalized to students in the vicinity of the passing threshold (but not students with much worse quantitative skills at the baseline). We discuss implications for research and policy on remediation.     

The effects of first programming language on college students’ computing attitude and achievement: a comparison of graphical and textual languages

Background and Context: The relationship between novices’ first programming language and their future achievement has drawn increasing interest owing to recent efforts to expand K–12 computing education. This article contributes to this topic by analyzing data from a retrospective study of more than 10,000 undergraduates enrolled in introductory computer science courses at 118 U.S. institutions of higher education.

Objective: We explored the relationship between students’ first programming languages and both their final grades in an introductory computer science course and their attitudes about programming.

Method: Multiple matching techniques compared those whose first language was graphical (e.g., Scratch), textual (e.g., Java), or absent prior to college.

Findings: Having any prior programming experience had positive effects on both attitudes about programming and grades in introductory computer science courses. Importantly, students whose first language was graphical had higher grades than did students whose first language was textual, when the languages were introduced in or before early adolescent years.

Implications: Learning any computer language is better than learning none. If programming is to be taught to students before early adolescence, it is advised to start with a graphical language. Future work should investigate the transition between different types of programming languages.     

工程造价咨询企业信用的模糊评判研究

针对咨询企业信用评价指标的存在问题,运用模糊评判理论,建立了咨询企业等级的模糊评判模型;运用层次分析法确定各个指标的权重,对定量指标进行无量纲处理;改进了咨询企业信用等级评价指标,补充完善了<福建省工程造价咨询企业信用等级评定暂行办法>中的评价指标,使之更趋科学化.最后,以某甲级工程造价咨询企业为实例进行该评判模型操作演示.     

Direct and indirect effects of textual and individual factors on source-content integration when reading about a socio-scientific issue

Reading and Writing - The purpose of this study was to test a hypothesized model that specified direct and indirect effects of textual and individual factors on readers’ ability to integrate...     

Assessing a Remedial Intervention Programme in Developing the Planning Skills of Grade 4 and 5 Learners

The search for assessment procedures that are more fair and useful have led to the investigation of alternatives to traditional forms of intellectual assessment. This study explored an alternative which combined a dynamic assessment approach with the Planning, Attention, Simultaneous and Successive Processing (PASS) model of cognitive processing. The aim was to investigate the effectiveness of a planning intervention programme based on Feuerstein’s criteria for Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) with a group of Grade 4 and 5 remedial school learners who presented with a range of barriers to learning. Twenty six learners were assigned to the experimental group and 25 to the control group. The results showed that there was a significant improvement in the experimental group’s Planning Scale score on the Cognitive Assessment System, following the intervention. These results imply that children often have far greater potential than is realised and that intentional mediation can help to enhance cognitive functioning and assist in further developing children’s learning potential.     

Topoi and literary interpretation: The effects of a critical reading and writing intervention on high school students’ analytic literary essays

Literary scholars use specific critical lenses called topoi (Fahnestock & Secor, 1991) to read literature and write their interpretations of these texts. Literary topoi are used in the discourse of modern college literature classrooms (Wilder, 2002) and are associated with higher grades in students’ literature classes ( [Wilder, 2002] and [Wilder, 2005] ). However, research shows that high school students are generally unable to justify their literary interpretations (Marshall, 2000). In this study, six high school students were taught a strategy to recognize and use topoi to form an interpretation of literature, and then write an argument to support that interpretation. Three of the students were taught to recognize repeated examples of single patterns of symbolism and imagery that support a theme, i.e., the ubiquity topos. The other three were taught to recognize opposing patterns of symbolism and imagery that support a theme, i.e., the paradox topos. All participants were then taught to form arguments based on the topoi, to utilize direct quotations to back their arguments, and to write “tie-in sentences” that link the quotations to the writers’ arguments. Instruction about these topoi resulted in higher quality argumentative essays that provided more textual evidence to support their literary interpretations.     

The quality of toddler child care and cognitive skills at 24 months: Propensity score analysis results from the ECLS-B

Over half of the toddlers in the US experience routine nonparental care, but much less is known about early care than about preschool care. This study analyzed 2-year-old child care and child outcome data from the nationally representative ECLS-B sample of children born in 2001. At two-years of age, 51% of children experienced exclusive parental care, 18% relative care, 15% family child care, and 16% center care. More children in nonparental care were in medium quality care (61%) than in high quality (26%) or low quality (13%) care. Low-income children were more likely than non-low income children to be cared for by their parents and, when in care, were more often in lower quality care. The impact of toddler care quality on cognitive skills was estimated using propensity score adjustments to account for potential selection confounds due to family and child characteristics. Children's cognitive scores were higher in high or medium quality care than in low quality care, but no evidence emerged suggesting that poverty moderated the quality effects. Nevertheless, this suggests that increasing the proportion of low-income children in high quality care could reduce the achievement gap because low-income children are very unlikely to experience high quality care.     

Investigating effects of reading medium and reading purpose on behavioral engagement and textual integration in a multiple text context

The study addressed to what extent behavioral engagement and textual integration may differ when undergraduate readers work with identical printed versus digital texts in preparation for an exam versus for pleasure. We expected that working with printed texts would lead to greater engagement and better integration than working with digital texts, but that reading purpose would moderate this effect of reading medium because those reading in preparation for an exam would display greater engagement and better integration regardless of reading medium. Results showed interaction effects of reading medium with reading purpose on the behavioral engagement indicators of reading time and the length of the post-reading written products. For reading time, the interaction involved that students used longer time when reading digital and mixed texts for an exam, compared to reading for pleasure, whereas there were no difference between exam and pleasure oriented reading when reading printed texts. For the length of the written responses, students produced more text when reading printed texts for an exam than when reading printed texts for pleasure, whereas there were no differences in text production between reading for an exam and reading for pleasure when reading digital or mixed texts. Finally, there was an indirect effect of reading purpose on textual integration via text production when students read printed texts: students who read printed texts in preparation for an exam produced longer written responses compared to those who read for pleasure and, in turn, gained a more integrated understanding of the issue in question. These results are discussed in terms of the implications they offer and the avenues they suggest for future research.