Effect of pictures on children’s comprehension of written text

Studies have shown that under certain conditions pictures can facilitate young children’s oral prose comprehension. Can pictures also aid comprehension when the information is presented in written form rather than orally? If so, what kinds of pictures, under what conditions? These experimenters analyzed a prose passage into 350 idea units, then interspersed throughout the text pictures depicting either the 179 main ideas or both the main ideas and the 171 nonessential details, or included no pictures. The subjects, fourth and sixth graders, wrote down all they could remember of the story immediately and again 5 days later. Pictures did facilitate both immediate and delayed recall, but only of the main ideas.     

Effects of mental imagery and oral and print stimuli on prose learning of intermediate grade children

Two studies investigated the effects on prose learning of oral vs, written presentations of text and the use of mental imagery. Sixth graders (Study 1) and fourth graders (Study 2) listened to or read a text. Some students were asked to imagine pictures of the material. Oral presentations produced better results than written-only forms. Fourth graders benefited more from mental imagery than did sixth graders.     

汶川地震后大学生对自然灾害的乐观偏差

研究采用问卷法,以5·12地震灾区的285名地震亲历者以及内蒙古、上海两地282名非地震亲历者为样本,考察两类人群对地震和水灾的乐观偏差,结果表明：被试对地震具有Ⅰ型和Ⅱ型乐观偏差,对水灾具有工型乐观偏差;被试对地震的乐观偏差显著高于对水灾的乐观偏差;地震亲历者的Ⅱ型乐观偏差显著高于非地震亲历者,而在Ⅰ型乐观偏差上,地震亲历者与非地震亲历者并无显著性差异。在此基础上,分析乐观偏差存在的利弊,提出应对突发性事件的观念取向应该是适当乐观与危机意识共存。     

To Me It’s Like Having a Kid,Kind Of: Analysis of Student Reflections in a Developmental Mentoring Program

This qualitative longitudinal study focuses on analyses of journals written by 31 sixth grade students who participated in the Chapel Buddy program. The Chapel Buddy program is a developmental mentoring program that pairs sixth graders with kindergarten students. Mentors responded to guided writing prompts three times during the course of the year. Prompts were designed to encourage mentors to explore their role as mentors and their understanding of the mentor–mentee relationship. Results indicated that the program presented a rich, experiential learning opportunity for the sixth graders to develop a relationship with a younger child, to reflect on what it means to be in a helping relationship, and to examine their experiences as “big kids.” Sixth graders varied in their ability to successfully engage and manage their kindergarten mentees, which in turn meaningfully affected the mentors’ satisfaction. Strategies to maximize the educational value of developmental mentoring programs with younger mentors are discussed.     

Developmental changes in the understanding of implied motion in two-dimensional pictures.

The power of various pictorial movement cues in eliciting a reading of movement was studied to determine the relationship between the ease with which a picture is interpreted and the degree to which the picture retains the structure of reality. Movement was indicated in 2 ways: pictorial conventions indicated movement by lines, blurs, and vibration marks; and pictorial postures indicated movement by figures which were isomorphic with the postures involved in real movement. Preschoolers, first graders, sixth graders, and college students were asked to label and sort pictures of human figures as "moving" or "still". Members of the 2 young groups did not classify pictures with conventional cues as "moving" as often as they did pictures with postural cues. Members of the 2 older groups classified both types of pictures as "moving". Since postural cues for movement are recognized at an earlier age than conventional cues, those that are more similar to reality may be easier to understand.     

Directed forgetting among third and seventh graders

The present studies examined the effectiveness of explicit and implicit Forget cues for enhancing memory of to-be-remembered items within a directed forgetting paradigm. Such a paradigm may be viewed as a laboratory analogue to a classroom testing situation where students read through an examination before beginning in order to cue themselves as to which information is important to remember. Subjects were third- and seventh-grade children. Evidence was provided that directed forgetting processes were operative at the time of recall so that memory enhancement did not merely reflect differential rehearsal of the to-be-remembered items during study. When easy partitioning of items into Remember and Forget sets was possible, subjects as young as third graders could benefit from postpresentation Forget cues. The data suggest that postpresentation Forget cues permit a selective search during recall and a consequent reduction in interference from to-be-forgotten items. Applications of these findings to a classroom testing situation were discussed.     

Learning from analogy-enhanced science text

The present study examined the role that an elaborate analogy can play when middle school students learn a major concept from a science text. The elaborate analogy had both graphic and text components that integrated and mapped key features from an analog (a factory) to the target concept (an animal cell). The target features were the functions of the cell parts. In Experiment 1, eighth graders who studied an analogy-enhanced text had greater immediate and 2-week recall of cell-part functions than students who studied a control text. In Experiment 2, sixth graders who studied an analogy-enhanced text considered the target concept to be more understandable than students who studied a control text. The sixth graders who studied the analogy-enhanced text also had greater immediate and 2-week retention, as measured by both recall and recognition. In both experiments, the analogy was interpreted as acting as a mediator between the students' existing knowledge and the new knowledge in the text. The analogy mapped a familiar, concrete schema onto that of the target concept, making the target concept more understandable and memorable. Implications for the meaningful learning of science text are discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 1129–1149, 1998.     

Incremental validity of thinking styles in predicting academic achievements: an experimental study in hypermedia learning environments

The study examined the incremental validity of thinking styles in predicting academic achievement after controlling for personality and achievement motivation in the hypermedia‐based learning environment. Seventy‐two Chinese college students from Shanghai, the People’s Republic of China, took part in this instructional experiment. The End‐Of‐Semester test was designed to examine the students’ achievement in the course of General Psychology. The results partially supported the hypotheses concerning the relationships between students’ Type I and II thinking styles and their academic achievement in Type I test (including analysis, problem‐solving, and essay tests) and Type II test (including multiple‐choice and cloze tests), and showed that some Type III styles were significantly related to their academic achievement. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that the capacity of thinking styles for explaining and predicting academic achievement was sometimes over and above the sum of personality traits and achievement motivation. Implications for educational practice are discussed.     

Developmental changes in the allocation of semantic feedback during visual word recognition

The present study used a mediated priming paradigm to examine whether developmental differences exist in the integration of semantic information with orthographic and phonological information during visual word recognition. In Experiment 1, we found that the integration of semantics with phonology and orthography differed among third‐grade, sixth‐grade and college students: orthographically based mediated inhibition effects were found in third‐grade children, whereas phonologically based mediated inhibition effects were found in sixth‐grade children and college students. A second experiment was performed with adults to test the hypothesis that the orthographically based mediated inhibition effect observed with young children was due to deficits in orthographic processing. When stimulus quality was manipulated within the mediated priming paradigm, orthographically based mediated inhibition effects were found when targets were dim, whereas phonologically based mediated inhibition effects were found when targets were bright. Taken together, these results suggest that the allocation of activation during reading may depend on the processing demands of the word recognition system.     

Delayed benefits of learning elementary algebraic transformations through contrasted comparisons

Students studying algebra often make mistakes because of superficial similarities between addition and multiplication problems. In two experiments, we investigated whether these errors can be prevented by presenting addition and multiplication problems in such a way that students are encouraged to compare the problems at a deeper level. In Experiment 1, 72 sixth graders were assigned to two self-learning programs. In the contrast program, addition and multiplication were mixed and juxtaposed. In the sequential program, students first received only addition problems followed by multiplication problems. The results revealed that during the training, students performed worse under the contrast condition. However, in the follow-up tests (1-day, 1-week, 3-months), these findings were reversed: the contrast group clearly outperformed the sequential group. The findings were replicated under improved methodological conditions in Experiment 2 with 154 sixth graders. These experiments show that contrasted comparison of superficially similar but conceptually different material results in improved long-term learning.     

Developing and evaluating a strategy for learning from animations

Based on current theories of multimedia learning, we propose a strategy for learning from animations. Two different experimental studies were conducted in order to evaluate the strategy. In the first study, 22 sixth graders learned from an animation without the strategy while 21 students were encouraged to make use of the proposed strategy during learning; use of the strategy was not monitored. The students who were encouraged to take advantage of the strategy learned significantly more than the students who were not asked to do so. In the second study, three groups of sixth graders were investigated. The first group consisted of 49 students who learned from an animation without the strategy. The second group consisted of 52 students who were encouraged to make use of the strategy during learning; but use of the strategy was not monitored. The third group consisted of 53 students who were also encouraged to make use of the strategy during learning and their use of the strategy was monitored. The results of the second study replicated the findings of the first study. Furthermore, learning was most successful when the students' use of the learning strategy was monitored.     

Overcoming Junior High School Students' Misconceptions About Microscopic Views of Phase Change: A Study of an Analogy Activity

This study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of an analogy activity, which was designed to overcome junior high students' misconceptions about the microscopic views of phase change. Eighty Taiwanese 8th graders were randomly assigned to either a control group or an experimental group. For the control group, the subjects were instructed through traditional teaching whereas for the experimental group, an analogy activity was conducted on students. This specific analogy activity was presented in the form of role-playing in which students acted as particles and worked together to perform the conditions of phase changes. Through analyzing these students' drawings of the atom arrangements for the three states of some substances, it was found that the students of experimental group, though in many cases, did not perform statistically better than did those of control group in an immediate posttest. The comparisons of a delay test between these two groups indicated that the analogy activity had clearly positive impacts on students' conceptual change on these scientific concepts in terms of long-term observations.     

Information Feedback,Need Achievement and Retention 1

Abstract

A test of achievement motivation was administered to 260 sixth graders. One month later, students participated in a science reading lesson followed by a multiple-choice test based upon that lesson. Feedback regarding performance was provided according to a standardized procedure either immediately after the test, or with one, two or three day delays. Then a retention test was administered to each group three days alter feedback. Results demonstrated that students who received feedback with a delay of one day manifested greater retention than students who received immediate feedback. There were no significant differences among groups who were exposed to delays of one, two or three days. A positive relation between achievement motivation and retention was demonstrated. There was no interaction between achievement motivation and feedback schedules.     

Exploring Changes in Student Engagement through the RULER Approach: An Examination of Students at Risk of Academic Failure

The present paper examines if developmental pathways for students at risk for academic failure can be improved through social and emotional learning (SEL). Specifically, we test this hypothesis by accounting for shifts in student engagement, a highly studied and malleable construct often inclusive of SEL interventions, as the pathway by which to impact student achievement outcomes. Using longitudinal data from a randomized control trial, we identified students at risk for school failure (n?=?318) within a larger sample of fifth graders (N?=?1,352). Multigroup path model revealed that participation in RULER significantly impacted the relationship between student engagement and conduct behaviors for at risk students: students who experienced RULER demonstrated increased engagement a year later (at sixth grade) and improved conduct the following year (in seventh grade). The potential for and limitations of SEL programs on developmental trajectories for students at risk for school failure are discussed.     

Developing Sixth Graders’ Inquiry Skills to Construct Explanations in Inquiry‐based Learning Environments

The purpose of this study is to investigate how sixth graders develop inquiry skills to construct explanations in an inquiry‐based learning environment. We designed a series of inquiry‐based learning activities and identified four inquiry skills that are relevant to students’ construction of explanation. These skills include skills to identify causal relationships, to describe the reasoning process, to use data as evidence, and to evaluate explanations. Multiple sources of data (e.g., video recordings of learning activities, interviews, students’ artifacts, and pre/post tests) were collected from two science classes with 58 sixth graders. The statistical results show that overall the students’ inquiry skills were significantly improved after they participated in the series of the learning activities. Yet the level of competency in these skills varied. While students made significant progress in identifying causal relationships, describing the reasoning process, and using data as evidence, they showed slight improvement in evaluating explanations. Additionally, the analyses suggest that phases of inquiry provide different kinds of learning opportunities and interact with students’ development of inquiry skills.     

Coordination of perspective by sixth graders and teacher trainees

Sixth grade students were compared by sex for their performance on two perspective coordination tasks. Responses were compared with understanding of the principle that still water remains invariantly horizontal. Forty-eight randomly selected sixth grade students (24 girls and 24 boys) and 12 college women were individually shown a standardized three-dimensional scene. While seated in a single position, subjects completed two tasks: (1) selecting from a set of 12 pictures (displayed together) the one which could be seen from each of eight positions marked on the displayed scene and (2) choosing the positions from which could be seen eight of the 12 pictures (shown one at a time). Four of the 12 pictures were mirror images which were impossible views. Males outperformed females on both of the coordination-of-perspective tasks. For both males and females, choosing the place was more difficult than choosing the picture. Strong relationships were found between understanding of horizontality and performance on the perspective tasks. Selection of mirror images (impossible views) indicated more understanding of perspective than other, less systematic errors. Finally, female teacher trainees performed only marginally better than sixth grade students, suggesting possible remediation needs.     

Picture content and preschoolers’ learning from sentences

Do preschoolers remember what they hear when accompanying pictures do not completely overlap sentence content? In two experiments children learned more when the subjects and objects were depicted, but learning was not enhanced by the provision of only the subject or object. Whether explicitly mismatched pictures detracted from learning depended on the nature of the mismatch.     

Developmental Students: The Challenge of Peer Relationships

Despite increased program offerings at many community colleges, the retention and success of developmental students are often extremely low. Research has indicated that a complex set of challenges complicates developmental student success, but students' experiences with these variables are not well understood. In this paper, I report findings from a qualitative study that was conducted at a community college in New York City to explore the ways in which developmental students describe and understand their experiences with education. Findings indicated that students viewed their decision to attend college as a separation from high school peers whom they associated with academic failure; they continued to differentiate themselves from their peers when they entered college and were wary of developing college friendships because they viewed peers as a hindrance to educational success. However, relationships with like-minded college peers might prove to be a necessary source of support that is essential to their retention and success. These results indicate that students may need great assistance to develop the peer support networks that could assist them in pursuit of their educational goals. I offer recommendations for future research as well as specific suggestions to address developmental students' possible resistance to peer interaction including tutoring and learning community designs and collaborative/cooperative learning approaches.