A Framework for Explaining Teachers’ Diagnostic Judgements by Cognitive Modeling (DiaCoM)

Research on diagnostic competencies of teachers nowadays raises the question which person or situational characteristics moderate judgement accuracy. Beside this correlational approach, a stronger interest in understanding the cognitive processes involved in the genesis of diagnostic judgements has emerged. To address the theoretical gap regarding cognitive processes underlying diagnostic judgements, we propose a framework, called DiaCoM (Explaining Teachers’ Diagnostic Judgements by Cognitive Modeling). It aims at supporting (existing or envisioned) research that strives to test cognitively oriented explanations for processes and products of diagnostic judgements of teachers.     

A Study of Cognitive Characters and Cognitive Strategy Training of Learning Disabilities

The article analyzes the matter of cognition of learning disabilities, and tries to explore the characters of learning disabilities＇ cognitive process. On the basis of mainstream cognitive strategy training, the problems that should be noticed in the process of learning disabilities＇ cognitive strategy training are discussed.     

The Cognitive View on Metaphor

1. Introduction Metaphor, as a means of rhetoric, has been studied by philosophers and linguists all along. From Aristotle in ancient Greek, people had already explored the mystery of metaphor from the angel of rhetoric. While at present, the study on met…     

Cognitive functioning as measured by the WISC-R: do children with learning disabilities have distinctive patterns of performance?

Patterns of performance on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) have been proposed as useful tools for the identification of children with learning disabilities (LD). However, most of the studies of WISC-R patterns in children with LD have been plagued by the lack of a typically achieving comparison group, by failure to measure individual patterns, and by the lack of a precise definition of LD. In an attempt to address these flaws and to assess the presence of patterns of performance on the WISC-R, we examined data from 121 children with typical achievement (TA), 143 children with reading disabilities (RD), and 100 children with a specific arithmetic disability (AD), ages 6 to 16 years. The results indicated that the RD and AD groups had significantly lower scores than the TA group on all the Verbal IQ subtests. Many of the children with AD and RD showed a significant difference between Verbal and Performance IQ scores, but so did many of the typically achieving children. Although there were some children with LD who showed the predicted patterns, typically, 65% or more of the children with LD did not. Furthermore, a proportion of the TA group-generally not significantly smaller than that of the RD and AD groups-showed discrepancy patterns as well. Our results indicate that the patterns of performance on intelligence tests are not reliable enough for the diagnosis of LD in individual children. Therefore, it might be more profitable to base the detection of an individual's LD on patterns of achievement test scores.     

Cognitive Approach在英语语法教学中的运用

大学英语语法教学是大学外语教学重要的环节之一。如何运用最富于吸引力的、最有效的方式传授语法知识,一直是语法教师们在探讨的问题。Cognitive Approach是大学英语语法教学最有效的途径之一。     

Cognitive account of grammatical mistakes in oral English

This article aims at exploring the root why Chinese students tend to make grammatical mistakes when they speak English from the perspective of their cognitive model, and hopes to shed light on the teaching and learning of English grammar.     

Cognitive Strategies and Computer‐supported Learning Environments

ABSTRACT The purpose was to investigate cognitive strategies as differential determinants of co‐operative learning in peer‐based interaction environments. Computer‐supported Intentional Learning Environment (CSILE) was used. Participants were 51 students who studied in 3rd Grade classrooms. There were three individual working conditions: optimistic, pessimistic and defensive pessimistic. A total of 52 homogeneously or heterogeneously paired dyads on a measure of cognitive strategies were observed. Results show that individual working conditions are more productive than dyadic conditions. Specifically, optimistic strategy is related to better processing of ideas in databases than the other strategies. Moreover, heterogeneous dyads are not so beneficial configurations. Pessimistic strategy is not so debilitating a strategy as is usually assumed. This study shows that different cognitive strategies, and configurations of them, produce different kinds of results in the processing of ideas with computer‐supported learning environments.     

Learning the Cell Structures with Three-Dimensional Models: Students’ Achievement by Methods, Type of School and Questions’ Cognitive Level

The cell topic was taught to 9th-grade students in three modes of instruction: (a) students “hands-on,” who constructed three-dimensional cell organelles and macromolecules during the learning process; (b) teacher demonstration of the three-dimensional model of the cell structures; and (c) teaching the cell topic with the regular learning material in an expository mode (which use one- or two-dimensional cell structures as are presented in charts, textbooks and microscopic slides). The sample included 669, 9th-grade students from 25 classes who were taught by 22 Biology teachers. Students were randomly assigned to the three modes of instruction, and two tests in content knowledge in Biology were used. Data were treated with multiple analyses of variance. The results indicate that entry behavior in Biology was equal for all the study groups and types of schools. The “hands-on” learning group who build three-dimensional models through the learning process achieved significantly higher on academic achievements and on the high and low cognitive questions’ levels than the other two groups. The study indicates the advantages students may have being actively engaged in the learning process through the “hands-on” mode of instruction/learning.     

A Cognitive Study of “Rabbit” in English Idioms

This paper adopts a cognitive linguistic approach and especially draws on conceptual metaphor and metonymy theories to analyze linguistic forms concerning the concept of rabbit in English with an aim to find out what attributes of rabbit are especially emphasized in English linguistic form so as to shed some light on how people perceive the same animal differently.     

Connectedness and Separateness: Cognitive Style or Moral Orientation?

Abstract

This paper reports a study of ‘connectedness’ vs ‘separateness’ orientation in adolescents’ reasoning on friendship, loyalty and understanding of political and social order. Conflict resolution in the connectedness orientation was found to focus on negotiation and an attempt to represent all points of view; in the separateness orientation the focus was on the advocacy of rules or codes of practice. There was a strong relationship between orientation and gender. The paper considers the implications of these findings for Gilligan's perspective of ‘two voices’, and for strategies for moral education.     

Metaphor and Collocation： A Cognitive Perspective in EFL Teaching

It is of great importance to obtain good collocation knowledge for fluent and appropriate language use as many words are used in a limited set of collocations. Studies on cognitive linguistics show that cognitive factors play an important role in collocation study as most collocations are metaphorically motivated, and that collocational behavior is influenced by a number of factors, including the semantics of the individual items themselves, the influence of other well-established meanings, the influence of metaphor, the influence of semantic prosody, etc.. Therefore, it is significant to explain and teach certain types of collocations in language teaching by considering the underlying factors which influence the collocational process. Chinese English as a foreign language （EFL） learners have some special collocation problems in their English learning, which not only result from grammatical incompetence, but also from their lack of conceptual fluency and metaphor competence. The disclosure of similarities and differences between the conceptual systems of English and Chinese will help to illuminate the nature of negative transfer of their first language in collocation acquisition of Chinese EFL learners. The author of the paper, by disclosing the interaction between collocation and metaphor from cognitive, linguistic, and social perspectives, proposes semantic-oriented principle, pragmatics-oriented principle, and culture-oriented principle to incorporate cognitive factors to collocation teaching. It is suggested that stress should be given to the teaching of conceptual metaphor and its mechanisms in collocation teaching before students can finally improve collocation competence with a focus on metaphor awareness.     

On the Student-Orientation of Teachers’Beliefs from Cognitive Perspective

At present, teachers’belief is an exploring topic to the linguists, educationists, and psychologists. Teachers’beliefs not only influence the teaching’s attitudes and methods but also the student’s i...     

Cognitive style and gender differences in children’s mathematics achievement

Males are often found to outperform females in tests of mathematics achievement and it has been proposed that this may in part be explained by differences in cognitive style. This study investigated the relation between Wholistic-Analytic and Verbal-Imagery cognitive style, gender and mathematics achievement in a sample of 190 Australian primary school students aged between 8–11?years (M?=?9.77, SD?=?1.05). It was hypothesised that males would outperform females in mathematics achievement tests, and that gender would interact with cognitive style on mathematics performance. A significant gender/cognitive style interaction was found. Boys with an Analytic/Imagery style achieved significantly higher results than the girls with an Analytic/Imagery style, supporting the contention that certain cognitive styles affect boys and girls mathematics performance differently. Implications of results and strategies for improving mathematics achievement among girls are discussed.     

Cognitive Neuroscience and Educational Psychology: What Season Is It?

Byrnes and Fox get much right in their review of the relevance of cognitive neuroscience for educational psychology. They are correct that theoretical reduction is to be welcomed. They are also right that neurophysiological findings can constrain psychological theory and that this too is to be welcomed. Their review is on the mark in recommending that educational psychologists must become bilingual in their understanding of neurological terms and their analogous psychological constructs. The one difference in our positions that I do highlight is one of calibration rather than strong disagreement—my level of enthusiasm for scientific reduction in domains related to education is somewhat more muted than that of Byrnes and Fox because of wariness bom of the premature reductive attempts that litter our field.     

Cognitive models and problem spaces in “purely random” situations

As part of a study on the natural interpretations of probability, experiments about elementary purely random situations (with dice or poker chips) were carried out using students of various backgrounds in the theory of probability. A prior study on cognitive models which analyzed the individual data of more than 600 subjects has shown that the most frequent model used is based on the following incorrect argument: the results to compare are equiprobable because it's a matter of chance; thus, random events are thought to be equiprobable by nature. The present paper is divided into two parts. In the first, the findings of a series of experiments are summarized. In the second, the following two hypotheses are tested: (1) Despite their incorrect model, subjects are able to find the correct response. (2) They are more likely to do so when the chance aspect of the situation has been masked. An experiment testing 87 students showed, as expected, that there is a way to induce the utilization of an appropriate cognitive model. However, the transfer of this model to a classical random situation is not as frequent as one might expect.     

A Cognitive Perspective on English Articles：Accessibility vs. Identifiability

英语冠词的可及性讨论涉及语言语境、物理语境与百科语境;直接共知、间接共知与不共知;激活、半激活与非激活状态。文章在分析对比三个具有代表性的可及性序列的基础上,引入Chafe对可及性与可别性的区分,从不同角度对英语冠词进行认知解读。     

A Cognitive Approach to Metaphors in Robert Frost’s Poetry

According to Lakoff et al, metaphor is the main mechanism through which we comprehend abstract concepts and per?form abstract reasoning. As a great poet, Robert Frost realized the cognitive functions o...