Voices From Test-Takers: Further Evidence for Language Assessment Validation and Use

Test-takers' interpretations of validity as related to test constructs and test use have been widely debated in large-scale language assessment. This study contributes further evidence to this debate by examining 59 test-takers' perspectives in writing large-scale English language tests. Participants wrote about their test-taking experiences in 300 to 500 words, focusing on their perceptions of test validity and test use. A standard thematic coding process and logical cross-analysis were used to analyze test-takers' experiences. Codes were deductively generated and related to both experiential (i.e., testing conditions and consequences) and psychometric (i.e., test construction, format, and administration) aspects of testing. These findings offer test-takers' voices on fundamental aspects of language assessment, which bear implications for test developers, test administrators, and test users. The study also demonstrated the need for obtaining additional evidence from test-takers for validating large-scale language tests.     

Exploring the Role of Bases and Suffixes When Reading Familiar and Unfamiliar Words: Evidence From French Young Readers

We examined whether French third- and fifth-grade children rely on morphemes when recognizing words and whether this reliance depends on word familiarity. We manipulated the presence of bases and suffixes in words and pseudowords to compare their contribution in a lexical decision task. Both bases and suffixes facilitated word reading accuracy and speed across all grades, even though the co-occurrence of a base and a suffix reduced the benefit associated to the presence of morphemes in third-grade children. Speed of pseudoword (i.e., unfamiliar word) reading was also influenced by base and suffix, and the combination of these units leaded to a high rate of false alarms. These results bring new evidence of morphological analysis in the reading of French familiar and unfamiliar words.     

Use of Contextual Information and Prediction by Struggling Adult Readers: Evidence From Reading Times and Event-Related Potentials

We employed self-paced reading and event-related potential measures to investigate how adults of varying literacy levels use sentence context information when reading. Community-dwelling participants read strongly and weakly constraining sentences that ended with expected or unexpected target words. Skilled readers showed N400s that were graded by the cloze probability of the targets, with larger N400s for more unexpected words. Moreover, it took these participants longer to read unexpected targets in strongly than weakly constraining sentences, suggesting a processing cost for revising predictions. Among less skilled readers, a reliable N400 difference was found between expected and unexpected targets only for the strongly constraining sentences. They also took longer when targets were unexpected, regardless of the context. These findings suggest that lower literacy readers could only immediately take advantage of strongly constraining context information to facilitate word processing and that they do not make as much use of predictive processing during comprehension.     

Assessing,Teaming, and Reflecting: Student Outcomes From Participating in a Play-Based Assessment

Preparing early childhood education (ECE) and early childhood special education (ECSE) professionals to work with young children with and without disabilities entails the acquisition of content, its application, and opportunities for reflection. This article describes a component of an ECSE assessment course focusing on the logistics and process to conduct a play-based assessment (PBA). Demographic characteristics are provided for participating students, children and, parents. The components of assessing, teaming, and reflecting as related to preparing, conducting, and writing the results are presented within the context of preservice student outcomes with corresponding student comments. Possible PBA difficulties and solutions are also described. Implications for teacher preparation in ECE and ECSE are also offered.     

明清史与宋元史:史学史与社会史视角的反思——兼评《中国历史上的宋元明变迁》

以往中国史研究过于拘泥王朝体系或其他概念体系,并以此区分学科领域和研究问题,忽略了对划分学科领域的这些概念体系进行反思和检讨,也忽略对历史时期之间连续性的探讨。事实上,对于某些问题,我们会更关注它们向此后的延伸;而面对另一些问题时,我们则可能更注意它们向此前的溯源。事件史的研究者比较容易把问题的解决放在一个较短的时段内,但从社会史的视角提出问题的研究者则需要"风物长宜放眼量"。     

In Pursuit of Knowledge: Preschoolers Expect Agents to Weigh Information Gain and Information Cost When Deciding Whether to Explore

When deciding whether to explore, agents must consider both their need for information and its cost. Do children recognize that exploration reflects a trade-off between action costs and expected information gain, inferring epistemic states accordingly? In two experiments, 4- and 5-year-olds (N = 144; of diverse race and ethnicity) judge that an agent who refuses to obtain low-cost information must have already known it, and an agent who incurs a greater cost to gain information must have a greater epistemic desire. Two control studies suggest that these findings cannot be explained by low-level associations between competence and knowledge. Our results suggest that preschoolers’ theory of mind includes expectations about how costs interact with epistemic desires and states to produce exploratory action.     

Infants Use Compression Information to Infer Objects’ Weights: Examining Cognition,Exploration, and Prospective Action in a Preferential‐Reaching Task

The present research used a preferential‐reaching task to examine whether 9‐ and 11‐month‐olds (n = 144) could infer the relative weights of two objects resting on a soft, compressible platform. Experiment 1 established that infants reached preferentially for the lighter of 2 boxes. In Experiments 2–4, infants saw 2 boxes identical except in weight resting on a cotton wool platform. Infants reached prospectively for the lighter box, but only when their initial exploratory activities provided critical information. At 11 months, infants succeeded as long as they first determined that the platform was compressible; at 9 months, infants succeeded only if they also explored the boxes and thus had advance knowledge that they differed in weight.     

史学、史才、史识——历史教学的三个核心

史学、史才、史识,是唐代著名的史学家刘知几提出的治史三长,是作为一名史学家必须具备的三种基本的要素。把它移到当今的历史教学中非常契合,符合素质教育对课堂改革的要求,也可以解决目前历史课堂教学中所存在的诸多问题。     

What History Can Teach Us About Science: Theory and Experiment, Data and Evidence

Scientists often use more than the results of experiment to arrive at a result; they use anticipation and analogy to arrive at the results that fit their theories, and sometimes they correct results in the light of analogy. They also need to be clear about the difference between accuracy and precision. They do all this using not only theories, but also apparatus, and the interplay between apparatus and the development of concepts and theories is often crucial. Historians of chemistry (notably including the recent work of Usselman, Rocke, and Holmes) furnish us with plenty of examples of such interplay, and of the selection of data in the light of theory. Lavoisier, Dalton, and Liebig can each teach us a good deal about the way that good scientists arrive at reproducible results.     

Becoming a Japanese Language Learner,User, and Teacher: Revelations From Life History Research

This article discusses how Sarah Lamond, a Japanese language teacher in Sydney, Australia has juggled three of her identities: second language (L2) learner, L2 user, and L2 teacher. Data come from four interviews used to create an edited life history. These data are used to draw attention to the relationship between L2 learner and language user. The concept of "identity slippage" is briefly discussed and is introduced as a way of explaining this relationship. Although these three identities are foregrounded, it was found that Sarah's other identities of wife and mother also played a significant part in her becoming a Japanese language learner. Furthermore, Sarah's story also raises the native versus nonnative language teacher issue and in turn explores notions of authentic and impostor.     

Development,Implementation, and Outcomes of an Equitable Computer Science After-School Program: Findings From Middle-School Students

Current policy efforts that seek to improve learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) emphasize the importance of helping all students acquire concepts and tools from computer science that help them analyze and develop solutions to everyday problems. These goals have been generally described in the literature under the term computational thinking. In this article, we report on the design, implementation, and outcomes of an after-school program on computational thinking. The program was founded through a partnership between university faculty, undergraduates, teachers, and students. Specifically, we examine how equitable pedagogical practices can be applied in the design of computing programs and the ways in which participation in such programs influence middle school students' learning of computer science concepts, computational practices, and attitudes toward computing. Participants included 52 middle school students who voluntarily attended the 9-week after-school program, as well as four undergraduates and one teacher who designed and implemented the program. Data were collected from after-school program observations, undergraduate reflections, computer science content assessments, programming products, and attitude surveys. The results indicate that the program positively influenced student learning of computer science concepts and attitudes toward computing. Findings have implications for the design of effective learning experiences that broaden participation in computing. (Keywords: computational thinking, programming, middle school, mixed methods)     

黑水城文书中钱粮物的放支方式

黑水城文书中钱粮物的放支方式可归纳为该支、实支、正支、折支、添支五种。该支是应支数;实支为实支额,因扣除小尽、斋戒日不支的钱粮,二者数额不同;正支为正常放支;折支是折价支付,由于政府的规定、物资的缺乏以及日益加剧的通货膨胀等原因,需对盐引、白米、中统钞等按时价折价发放;添支指额外增加,物价上涨、原有费用的短缺使得元朝政府添支祭祀钱。这段记载黑水城文书抄自《元典章》,可以互相补充。     

Liking to be liked: imitation,familiarity and pedagogy in the first years of life

This paper offers a review of the literature on the role of imitation in the earliest stages of social interaction between babies and familiar partners. The review focuses on the ways in which reciprocal imitation marks familiar relationships that provide special contexts for babies to engage actively and exuberantly in the construction of a shared culture. Because adults' perception of a baby's actions and intentions are filtered by the adult's experience of living within a particular culture, babies can obtain valuable information about this culture from the differences between what they do and how familiar adults respond to them. As they become increasingly interested in the social meaning of people's behaviour, infants also become more sensitive about how their own actions may be interpreted, showing pride and delight when their intentions are realised and embarrassed withdrawal when their efforts fail. When very young children are observed in unfamiliar contexts and when they are cared for and educated in professional settings, they may have relatively few opportunities for lively, joyful exchanges with reassuringly familiar partners and this can distort adults' perceptions of ‘normal’ infant behaviour. It is argued that adults' attentive interest in mutually enjoyable exchanges with young children is an important difference between humans and other apes and provides an essential foundation for pedagogy and for children's active participation in a shared culture.     

Seeing Is Believing: Children's Explanations of Commonplace, Magical, and Extraordinary Transformations

Children's magical explanations and beliefs were investigated in 2 studies. In Study 1, we first asked 4- and 5-year-old children to judge the possibility of certain object transformations and to suggest mechanisms that might accomplish them. We then presented several commonplace transformations (e.g., cutting a string) and impossible events (magic tricks). Prior to viewing these transformations, children suggested predominantly physical mechanisms for the events and judged the magical ones to be impossible. After seeing the impossible events, many 4-year-olds explained them as "magic," whereas 5-year-olds explained them as "tricks." In Study 2, we replaced the magic tricks with "extraordinary" events brought about by physical or chemical reactions (e.g., heat causing paint on a toy car to change color). Prior to viewing the "extraordinary" transformations, children judged them to be impossible. After viewing these events, 4-year-olds gave more magical and fewer physical explanations than did 5-year-olds. Follow-up interviews revealed that most 4-year-olds viewed magic as possible under the control of an agent (magician) with special powers, whereas most 5-year-olds viewed magic as tricks that anyone can learn. In a third study, we surveyed parents to assess their perceptions and conceptions of children's beliefs in magic and fantasy figures. Parents perceived their children as believing in a number of magic and fantasy figures and reported encouraging such beliefs to some degree. Taken together, these findings suggest that many 4-year-olds view magic as a plausible mechanism, yet reserve magical explanations for certain real world events which violate their causal expectations.     

Tracking the Within-Trial,Cross-Trial,and Developmental Dynamics of Cognitive Control: Evidence From the Simon Task

Six- to 8-year-olds, 10- to 12-year-olds, and adults (N = 108) performed the Simon task by reaching to targets on a digital display. The spatial and temporal characteristics of their movements were used to assess how two key processes underlying cognitive control—a threshold adjustment process and a controlled selection process—unfold over the course of a response (within-trial dynamics), are modulated by recent experience (cross-trial dynamics), and contribute to age-related gains in control (developmental dynamics). The results indicate that the controlled selection process undergoes a more protracted development than the threshold adjustment process. The results also shed light on a prominent debate concerning the cross-trial dynamics of control by supporting the feature integration account over the conflict adaptation account.     

The Use of Cinema in the Counselor Education Curriculum: Strategies and Outcomes

The authors discuss the use of motion pictures to provide learning experiences for students in counselor education programs. A review of the counseling literature revealed many references to teaching with films; only 2 articles, however, recommended using film in counselor education. This article includes activities for teaching diagnosis, counseling theories, interventions, and ethics. Positive feedback was received from 182 graduate students who responded to a 5‐item qualitative and quantitative follow‐up questionnaire after they completed such a course.     

Longitudinal Trajectories,Social and Individual Antecedents,and Outcomes of Problematic Internet Use Among Late Adolescents

Given the detrimental effects associated with problematic internet use (PIU) and the need to better understand its nature and evolution, the present study examined the development of PIU in a sample of 1,750 adolescents (aged 16–19) from Finland over a 3-year period. We documented the social (loneliness, perceived maternal and paternal behaviors) and individual (sex) antecedents, as well as the outcome implications (depressive symptoms, substance use, academic achievement) of PIU trajectories. Outcomes also predicted PIU trajectories. Latent curve modeling revealed an initially moderate, and subsequently decreasing trajectory of PIU. PIU was predicted by loneliness, paternal neglect, maternal care, depressive symptoms, and being male. In turn, PIU trajectories predicted increases in depressive symptoms and substance use, but decreases in academic achievement.