Visual cueing strategies: Pictorial,textual and combinational effects

This study examined visual cueing methods via reading aptitudes based on a sample of 256 fourth-grade subjects. The methods, based on displays of 12 pictures and accompanying passages, included: (a) noncues; (b) pictorial cues (i.e., arrows and labels]; (c) textual cues (i.e., underlined type and colored type); and (d) a combination of pictorial and textual cues. Subjects were of average reading ability (ARA) and low reading ability (LRA). One major finding indicated that ARA and LRA subjects achieved significantly higher scores on the combinational cues than on the noncues. The results also revealed that ARA subjects outscored LRA subjects on all four methods. In regard to the pictorial cues, the ARA and LRA groups scored higher on the label cues than on the arrow cues, and the ARA group surpassed the LRA group on the label and arrow cues.     

Unintended effects of accountability policies and the quality of assessment and evaluation formats

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability -     

Strip mines in the garden: Old stories,new formats,and the challenge of change

She is exploring the impact of multimedia developments on the literate behaviors of children and adolescents.     

Measurement of achievement attribution: A review of instigation methods,question contents,and measurement formats

Various methods of achievement attribution measurement are compared with regard to the construction of the achievement event and the measurement of the attributions elicited. The method of instigation and the content of the instruments depend greatly on whether situational or dispositional (individual differences) factors are emphasized. It is suggested that natural events, particularly those with pronounced effects, generate actual affective reactions and direct consequences and are particularly useful for studies of situational factors in attributions. On the other hand, hypothetical multiple-event measures are generally employed for studies of individual differences in attributions. The present review shows that questions on specific causes are more popular than those on attribution dimensions. Researchers should be cautious, however, because the dimensional meaning of these causes may vary across different cultures, age groups, or achievement settings. Different question formats and scoring methods also are compared. It is concluded that different methods have their own strengths and weaknesses and that researchers should select the one that best serves their purpose.     

Young children,war, and picture books

Desert Storm prompts many parents, teachers, and friends of young children to ask, again and again, two questions. First, what do young children need, and second, are there any books to help my child? Reassurance, support, and opportunities to discuss what they think about the war are at least three things that young children need (Annuziata, Balter, Beebe, & Nemiroff, 1991).     

Relationship between eye movement,learning, and picture complexity

Is the number of eye fixations a reliable external indicator of internal cognitive processes when subjects are unaware that their eye movements are being monitored electronically? In this study involving college students, there was a relationship between posttest scores and the number of eye fixations, and intelligence level of the subject was correlated with eye fixations.     

ICT, Education, and Visual Impairment

This paper provides an overview of developments in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in the education of children with a visual impairment. The context is set by summarising the population of children with a visual impairment in this country, and presenting World Health Organisations classification of disability as a criteria by which the relevance of ICT can be measured. Case-studies of the use of different types of educational and access technology are presented and it is argued that information and communications technology has a valuable role in providing opportunities for children with a visual impairment to participate more fully in education.     

The effects of simultaneous communication on production and perception of speech

This article reviews experiments completed over the past decade at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and the State University of New York at Geneseo concerning speech produced during simultaneous communication (SC) and synthesizes the empirical evidence concerning the acoustical and perceptual characteristics of speech in SC. Comparisons are drawn between SC and other modes of rate-altered speech that have been used successfully to enhance communication effectiveness. Of particular importance are conclusions regarding the appropriateness of speech produced during SC for communication between hearing and hearing-impaired speakers and listeners and the appropriateness of SC use by parents and teachers for speech development of children with hearing impairment. This program of systematic basic research adds value to the discussion about the use of SC by focusing on the specific implications of empirical results regarding speech production and perception.     

Unforgivable Blackness: Visual Rhetoric,Reader Response,and Critical Racial Literacy

Perceptions of black representations in literature and other visual mediums as positive or negative continuously cause consternation and debate (Fleetwood, 2011). Because African American children are literacy participants and consumers, they are not immune from experiencing this tension. This essay considers the effects and affective threads of racism and racialization connected to visuality (Foster, 1988), and how educators might support and nurture children’s roles as aesthetic critics and critical readers of books featuring racial imagery and representations. The young African American readers in this study resist a picturebook using colorist logic and macro-level social indexing of phenotypic traits. The author argues that negative social messages about blackness within the larger ethos of society, as well as the absence of diverse representations in children’s literature, contribute to such interpretations. She suggests explicitly teaching African American children about counter-visuality and the ways in which “art works” to shape and transform understandings about complex experiences like racism.     

Representation in memory and acquisition of knowledge from text and picture: Theoretical,methodological, and practical outcomes

Over the last 10 years, text comprehension research has undergone profound theoretical and methodological upheaval. Today, psychologists study language and texts because they present the trace markers of structures and cognitive operations. A text is no longer seen as a vehicle for conveying constructed meaning. Rather, text has been redefined as merely a structured sequence of stimuli, which activates both domain-related knowledge triggered by text information and linguistic knowledge. We present the theoretical views and experimental findings of the TEXTIMA group, characterized by the importance of the connectionist concepts.     

视觉——空间表征类型与数学问题解决

本实验意在区分视觉表象、空间能力与数学问题解决的相关差异性。     

A comparative study of children's concentration performance on picture books: age,gender, and media forms

The reading development of children depends on various sensory stimuli, which help them construct reading contexts and facilitate active learning and exploration. This study uses sensory stimuli provided by picture books using various forms of media to improve children's concentration performance. We employ picture books using four forms of media: conventional picture books, pop-up books, talking books, and e-books. Children in young (Grade 3) and senior elementary school students (Grade 6) are recruited as participants. The NeuroSky MindBand (electroencephalogram) is used as a tool to measure children's concentration. The results indicate that children in Grade 3 express higher concentration and interest than children in Grade 6 in picture books, and the effect of gender is greater than that of grade on the level of concentration invested in the picture book media form and exhibits a significant interaction and effects on children's concentration performance. As a result, we suggest that talking books or e-books, which provide multisensory stimuli, should be selected for elementary school boys. In addition, talking books should be selected for girls in young elementary school students, while conventional books should be used for girls in senior elementary school students to avoid distraction caused by excessive media stimuli.     

Graphic Routes to Electronic Literacy: Polysemy and picture books

New media and technologies operate in polysemic formats that make complex demands on readers. During a time of constant change in ways of communicating, the familiar form of the picture book offers readers of all ages a route into sophisticated polysemic reading. Contemporary picture books provide both the comfort of the known and the potential of the new. As texts that use multiple semiotic systems, picture books also manifest the chief virtue of print on paper: they are 'a resting place for words' in Derrick de Kerckhove's phrase. Unlike online readers, picture book readers are literally able to get their hands on key words or pictures, literally able to trace the flow of the story. Within this well-known form, many contemporary picture books subvert literary conventions and explore challenging aesthetic and social questions.     

Extended Visual Fixation in Young Infants: Look Distributions, Heart Rate Changes, and Attention

Visual fixation in in ants from 3 to 6 months of age was examined for its fit to the theory of attentional inertia. This theory posits that during the progression of a look there is increasing attention toward the stimulus and an inertia to continue looking. An extended audiovisual stimulus was presented for 20 min to infants while fixation was videotaped and heart rate (HR) was recorded. Consistent with the attentional inertia theory, look duration toward the stimulus had a lognormal distribution. Hazard functions describing these distributions showed a decreasing conditional probability of looking away with increases in look duration. Look onset and stimulus changes that occurred within a look were accompanied by HR deceleration. The average HR level continued to decrease over the duration of a look and returned to prestimuls level immediately look and returned to prestimulus level immediately prior to the fixation offset. Infant fixation has characteristics similar to fixation in children and adults, and attention appears to increase over to the course of a look in young infants.     

The Power of Successive Relearning: Improving Performance on Course Exams and Long-Term Retention

Practice tests and spaced study are both highly potent for enhancing learning and memory. Combining these two methods under the conditions in which they are most effective (i.e., practice tests that invoke successful retrieval from long-term memory and spacing study across days) yields a promising learning technique referred to as successive relearning. Given the obvious implications of successive relearning for promoting student learning and the voluminous literatures on testing and spacing more generally, surprisingly few studies have evaluated successive relearning, and none have done so in an authentic educational context. The two experiments reported here establish the potency of a successive relearning intervention for enhancing student learning by demonstrating meaningful improvements in course exam performance and on long-term retention tests.