Fostering Understanding by Structural Alignment as a Route to Analogical Learning

The purpose of this study was to extend previous research on the conditions that may promote understanding and abstraction via structural alignment, that is, through a comparison between two partially understood situations. Structural alignment is a route to analogical reasoning which differs from the typical route where an analogy is made by eliciting an unknown situation from a very familiar one. Ninety-nine eighth graders were presented with two pairs of scenarios; the first depicting two phenomena of heat flow and the second, two phenomena of the changing state of matter. Participants were randomly assigned to five different conditions which varied in the degree to which they required a comparisonbetween the phenomena in the scenario pairs. For each pair of scenarios, participants were asked to describe the differences between the two phenomena, explain what happens in the phenomena, rate the similarity between the two, and justify the ratings. Results show that analogical reasoning was promoted more in the condition where participants were asked to jointly interpret the phenomena depicted in the scenarios. For both pairs of scenarios, students in this condition reached a deeper understanding; they were more able to identify alignable differences between the phenomena, and recognize the abstract and general higher-order relational structure implied by the perceptually different situations.     

Preservice teachers’ use of contrasting cases in mathematics instruction

Drawing comparisons between students’ alternative solution strategies to a single mathematics problem is a powerful yet challenging instructional practice. We examined 80 preservice teachers’ when asked to design a short lesson when given a problem and two student solutions—one correct and one incorrect. These micro-teaching events were videotaped and coded, revealing that fewer than half of participants (43%) made any explicit comparison or contrasts between the two solution strategies. Those who did were still not likely to use additional support strategies to draw students’ attention to key elements of the comparison. Further, correlations suggest that participants’ mathematical content knowledge may be related to whether participants’ showed contrasting cases but not to whether they used specific pedagogical cues to support those comparisons. While these micro-teaching events differ from the interactive constraints of a classroom, they reveal that participants did not immediately orient toward differing student solutions as a discussion opportunity, and that future instruction on contrasting cases must highlight the utility of this practice.     

Pigeons learn to answer the question “where did you just peck?” and can report peck location when unexpectedly asked

If pigeons are trained on matching-to-sample with differential responding required to the two samples, there is evidence that the differential responding can control comparison choice. We asked whether similar responding required at two different locations could also serve as the basis for comparison choice. Pigeons were pretrained to report the location that they had pecked. To reduce the likelihood that they could use the presence of differential proprioceptive cues at the time of their report, a common response was required between the location response and the comparison choice. They were then given experience with a conditional discrimination in which location of the comparison response varied randomly and was incidental to the choice of comparison. On test trials, after the pigeons had made their comparison choice, they showed a significant tendency to choose the appropriate test comparison when they were unexpectedly asked to report the location of their previous pecking response. These results have implications for the demonstration of episodic-like memory in pigeons because they suggest that pigeons have the capacity to recall, unexpectedly, specific details about their past experiences. 2007 Psychonomic Society, Inc.     

Form-Function Correspondences in Children's Inference

Perceptual similarity among concept members has been viewed as inadequate to motivate concept formation. Instead, it has been argued that intuitive beliefs about the world offer more structured motivation for concepts. Our research explores children's beliefs about the relations between perceptually based similarity among things and their predicted behaviors. We focus on form-function correspondences as fundamental components of very young children's belief systems. Groups of 2- and 4-year-old children were asked to choose which of 2 line-drawn animals evidenced a particular "function," a special behavior. Even the youngest children showed sensitivity to form-function correspondences by selecting the animal whose form afforded the particular function. A second study investigated how form-function correspondences affect the relative influences of perceptual similarity and shared labels over patterns of children's inference. Perceptual similarity, if "motivated" by intuitive beliefs about correspondences between form and function, was found to be sufficient basis for inference and a more robust basis than shared labels when children attributed meaningful functions to novel animal forms.     

Adult recognition of school bullying situations

Bullying and harassment by school peers has received increasing attention as their relation to personal problems and more extreme forms of violence has become better recognized. Emphases of empirical studies have focused on characteristics and behaviours of both school bullies and their victims. There is a need to place these traits and actions into the context of the situation in which they occur, in order to expand the research and allow for the development of more sophisticated and comprehensive educational, prevention and intervention programmes. A total 251 professionals (teachers and counsellors) participated in this empirical study on the ability of professionals to differentiate between bullying and other forms of conflict. Participants were asked to judge the severity of 21 scenarios depicting different combinations of situational characteristics and also whether they constituted bullying situations or not. Results indicated that physical threat or abuse was seen as more severe than verbal or social/emotional abuse, and professionals more often rated physical conflicts as bullying even when they did not fit the definition. The repeated nature of an abusive relationship and an unfair match between participants were bullying situation characteristics found to be related to the responses of more and less effective situation evaluators. Implications for pre- and in-service training of educators were considered based on study results and previous research.     

‘At least they’re learning something’: the hazy line between collaboration and collusion

This paper reports the results of a study which investigated whether there is a common understanding of the terms plagiarism and collusion between students and staff. Participants made judgements on scenarios describing student behaviour in assessments. The results suggest that although plagiarism is well understood, the same can not be said of collusion. Both staff and students feel that collusion is much more acceptable than plagiarism because some learning is taking place. It appears that there is no consensus on the boundary between collaborative behaviour and collusion.     

The relationship between sexual abuse during childhood and parenting outcomes: modeling direct and indirect pathways

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the association between childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and parenting outcomes including parenting stress, feelings of competence and discipline strategies. Maternal depression and current partner violence were hypothesized to be mediators of the association between CSA and parenting. METHOD: This study is based on secondary data analysis of archived data. The participants were 263 primiparous mothers (107 with a history of CSA and 156 comparison mothers recruited from a prenatal clinic prior to the birth of their first child. Mothers were interviewed twice: once when they were between 28 and 32 weeks gestation and again when their child was between 2 and 4 years of age. During the first interview, women were asked about childhood experiences of sexual abuse. During their second interview, they were asked about current symptoms of pathology and experiences with partner violence and parenting beliefs and practices. RESULTS: Structural Equation Modeling indicated that the relationship between CSA and punitive discipline was mediated by maternal depression and current partner violence. CSA was associated with higher maternal depression and higher partner violence. CSA, maternal depression, and current partner violence were associated with more negative parental perceptions and higher punitive discipline. Once maternal depression and current partner violence were in the model, the relationship between CSA and parenting outcomes was no different from zero. CONCLUSION: These results highlight the risks associated with CSA for parenting outcomes and suggest two potential pathways for this increased risk.     

Preschoolers’ Use of Talker Information in On‐Line Comprehension

A crucial part of language development is learning how various social and contextual language‐external factors constrain an utterance’s meaning. This learning process is poorly understood. Five experiments addressed one hundred thirty‐one 3‐ to 5‐year‐old children’s use of one such socially relevant information source: talker characteristics. Participants learned 2 characters’ favorite colors; then, those characters asked participants to select colored shapes, as eye movements were tracked. Results suggest that by preschool, children use voice characteristics predictively to constrain a talker’s domain of reference, visually fixating the talker’s preferred color shapes. Indicating flexibility, children used talker information when the talker made a request for herself but not when she made a request for the other character. Children’s ease at using voice characteristics and possible developmental changes are discussed.     

Teacher research in Dutch professional development schools: perceptions of the actual and preferred situation in terms of the context,process and outcomes of research

This study aims to provide deeper insight into participants’ (e.g. school principals, teachers and student teachers) perceptions of the actual and preferred situation in terms of the context, process and outcomes of practice-based research through teachers-as-researchers at Dutch professional development schools. We interviewed eight school principals, 10 teachers, and six student teachers from four professional development schools in the Netherlands. A trend displayed across all types of participants was their focus on the context dimension of research. Moreover, respondents often focussed in rather general terms on the process of conducting teacher research within the school and the content of this research. A major difference exists between perceptions of the actual and preferred situation related to the effects of teacher research on pupils’ outcomes: despite the central focus of research on pupil learning and learning results, according to participants effects on pupil level were not (yet) reached at this moment. These results suggest that in Dutch professional development schools increased attention is needed both by researchers and practitioners on the process and outcome dimensions of doing teacher research.     

Does implicit theory of intelligence moderate judgment of learning-based study time allocation?

Prior research demonstrated that the theory of intelligence (TOI), which included incremental theory (intelligence is a malleable trait and develops incrementally) and entity theory (intelligence is a fixed and stable trait), affected metacognitive control processes. We focused on metacognitive control processes, such as study time allocation, and examined whether TOI moderated the relationship between judgments of learning (JOLs) and study time allocation (JOL-based study time allocation). In the experiments, participants were asked to remember word pairs and make JOLs during the initial study phase. Subsequently, they restudied these in a self-paced manner. Our results suggest that the TOI did not moderate JOL-based study time allocation. Experiment 1 showed that participants allocated more study time to lower JOLs items in a laboratory setting. Experiment 2 obtained similar results in an online setting. These results suggest that individuals devote more study time to poorly learned (lower JOLs) items, regardless of the TOI.     

Mechanisms of common ground in case-based web discussions in teacher education

Previous studies suggest that before participants in web-based conferencing can reach deeper level interaction and learning, they have to gain an adequate level of common ground in terms of shared mutual understanding, knowledge, beliefs, assumptions, and presuppositions (Clark & Schaefer, 1989; Dillenbourg, 1999). In this paper, the purpose is to explore how participants establish and maintain common ground in order to reach deeper level interaction in case-based web discussions. The subjects in this study consisted of 68 preservice teachers and 7 mentors from 3 universities, who participated in a web-based conferencing course for 8 weeks. The written discussion data were analyzed by means of a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The results suggest that in order to establish common ground, it is essential that the participants, especially as fellow students, not only show evidence of their understandings through written feedback, but also provide support to their peers in their replies. Presenting questions also signals the willingness of participants to continue the discussion, which is essential for maintaining common ground.     

Analogical encoding with and without instructions for case comparison of scientific phenomena

The study aimed to extend current research on conditions that better support analogical encoding through mutual alignment. We focused on two variables that have not been examined independently in previous studies: the joint presentations of two cases of a scientific phenomenon and the explicit instructions for comparison. One hundred and sixty-five 5th graders and one hundred and sixty-eight 7th graders were presented with two pairs of scenarios, one about heat flow and the other about the state change of matter. Participants were randomly assigned to three conditions: sequential presentation of scenarios, joint presentation of scenarios and joint presentation of scenarios with explicit instructions to compare analogically. Results show that for both pairs of scenarios, analogical encoding was promoted more in the condition of joint presentation of scenarios with instructions for comparison. In addition, 7th graders benefited more from this condition than 5th graders.     

Mutual alignment comparison facilitates abstraction and transfer of a complex scientific concept

Learning about a scientific concept often occurs in the context of unfamiliar examples. Mutual alignment analogy – a type of analogical comparison in which the analogues are only partially understood – has been shown to facilitate learning from unfamiliar examples . In the present study, we examined the role of mutual alignment analogy in the abstraction and transfer of a complex scientific concept from examples presented in expository texts. Our results provide evidence that (a) promoting comparison between two examples and (b) orienting the learner toward relational commonalities result in greater abstraction and transfer. These findings suggest that mutual alignment analogy is an effective means of promoting abstraction and transfer of complex scientific concepts, and may thus be used in the classroom to promote learning from unfamiliar examples.     

普通高校健康教育现状调查

对河南省普通高校健康教育现状的调查显示:大学生对一般健康知识掌握较好,而对一些专业性较强的健康知识较为欠缺,说明健康教育在普通高校中有待加强.在调查是否愿意接受健康教育时发现,大学生渴求健康知识的愿望非常强烈.     

The effect of deservingness in invidious situations on the intensity of schadenfreude: a developmental study / El efecto del merecimiento sobre la intensidad de schadenfreude en situaciones de envidia: un estudio evolutivo

Objectives: envy is a negative social emotion that stems from a social comparison. This study explores the effect of deservingness on the intensity of schadenfreude (pleasure in another’s misfortune) in situations of invidious comparison. Method: the participants, 181 children between the ages of three and 10, were asked to describe what an envious character felt when the character (s/he) envied had lost an (deserved or undeserved) advantage. They were also asked to explain their answers. Results: the findings showed that schadenfreude was more intense when the lost advantage was undeserved than deserved only in young children. The difference between conditions decreased with age. The children’s explanations of schadenfreude were based on the damage to the envied person, whereas the responses of pity were justified by the misfortune and equitable ending (no one wins) of the story. Conclusions: the discussion addresses some of the possible factors, such as the acquisition of display rules, deservingness and perception of equality, that contribute to children’s understanding of emotions such as envy and schadenfreude.     

《莺莺传》、《董西厢》、《王西厢》:由单向爱情到双向爱情——从诗文往来的变化看爱情形态的发展

《莺莺传》、《董西厢》和《王西厢》载录崔张往来诗词书信,在内容、数量以及往来唱和的情况上,同中有别。《莺莺传》中往来应答的少,依韵唱和的没有;《董西厢》中出现了依韵唱和的情况;《王西厢》中则绝大多数是往来应答、依韵唱和的。这种变化反映了崔张爱情形态由单向过渡到双向的发展。     

Computerized Presentation of Text: Effects on Children’s Reading of Informational Material

This study examined whether children’s reading rate, comprehension, and recall are affected by computer presentation of text. Participants were 60 grade five students, who each read two expository texts, one in a traditional print format and the other from a computer monitor, which used a common scrolling text interface. After reading each text, participants were asked to recall as much as they could from what they had read and then answered questions that measured text recall and comprehension. Children took more time to read the passage and recalled more of the text material that they had read from the computer monitor. The benefit of computer presentation disappeared when efficiency variables, which take time into account, were examined. Children were, however, more efficient at comprehending text when reading from paper. The results suggest that children may take more time to read text on computer screens and that they are more efficient when reading text on paper.     

Reading and spelling acquisition in two different teaching methods: A test of the independence hypothesis

The development of word reading and word spelling was examined in French speaking children initially instructed either by a phonic or a whole-word method. Second, fourth and sixth graders were administered to reading and spelling tests in which grapho-phonological regularity, frequency, length and lexicality were manipulated. The results showed that in both curricula, reading and spelling acquisition can be characterized by a parallel increase in the use of sub-lexical correspondences and in the reliance on word-specific information. Contrary to a simple view of lexical development according to which the use of analytical knowledge and the use of word-specific knowledge correspond to two different cognitive processes that develop independently from each other, whole-word children did not appear to rely more on whole-word knowledge. On the contrary, and paradoxically, grade 2 whole-word children tended to use analytical correspondences to a greater extent than their peers. In later development, reading matched phonic and whole-word groups did not differ from each other. It is argued that the results support the hypothesis that the acquisition of sub-lexical correspondences constitutes a necessary step in the acquisition of reading and spelling. We conclude that the analytic comparison of different curricula provides a naturalistic tool for the study of the dynamics of development.     

Novice online educator conceptual frameworks: a mental model exploration of mindful learning design

This research study explores the relationship between the socio-cognitive concept of mindfulness and university educators’ learning design conceptualisations. The multi-method research strategy utilises a concept-mapping exercise to reveal learning designer mental models for comparison with Langer Mindfulness Scale scores and critical event interviews to further illuminate the conceptualisations and factors that impact educators’ thinking when designing online units. Research participants were asked to create a concept map of their learning design and to be mindful of concepts incorporated into a Graduate Certificate of Tertiary Education. The analysis highlights some congruence between educators’ mindfulness dimensions and their learning design conceptual frameworks. The mindfulness scores appear to indicate a propensity to be more mindful in designing curriculum, as indicated by participant concept maps, yet not necessarily towards the adaptive use of technology or learner/activity-based pedagogies. The authors suggest metacognitive strategies to encourage learning design reconceptualisation.     

Computer microworlds and reading: An analysis for their systematic application

Learning can be seen as a consequence of problem solving in particular cases. It occurs when one achieves a solution which is able to be used later. Anchoring with variation is a common and important process, providing a framework through which one can discuss coping with something imperfectly understood in terms of what is already well known. Our purpose in the following discussion is to explore some possible implications of this process for reading education as a worked example of how educational technology presents us with an opportunity for reconceptualizing instruction.English has the phonological potential for more than 60 thousand monosyllables. Our analysis asks how many monosyllabic words exist in fact and what organization can be imposed on them to make the phonological code more accessible. We've chosen to represent these monosyllables as an initial phonemic cluster plus residue. The most common 550 residues cover 73 percent of the existing 7000 monosyllables. If children can learn 550 different correspondences between sounds and spelling patterns, their knowledge of these words, coupled with the ability to modify interpretations of letter strings by anchoring with variation, will cover a major portion of the phonetic-orthographic correspondences of the English language. We believe this extensive, concrete foundation of word and sound knowledge will permit children to read well enough that instruction will become primarily a refining and perfection of such knowledge.The primary design conclusion is that, if we create computer-based microworlds using words with the most common residues as the names for their entities and their actions, we will be providing a set of systematically generated monosyllabic anchors which promises to be highly effective for children's interpretation of many words they will encounter in reading English. The potential revolutionary impact of such a prereading curriculum is worth exploring.