Orthographic consistency and individual learner differences in second language literacy acquisition

This study investigated whether orthographic consistency and individual learner differences including working memory (WM), first language (L1) background, and second language (L2) proficiency affect Chinese L2 learners’ literacy acquisition. Seventy American college students in beginning or intermediate Chinese classes participated in a character learning-and-reading experiment, and completed WM tasks and an L2 proficiency test. In the learning phase of the experiment, participants were asked to master 18 unfamiliar Chinese characters of three levels of consistency—consistent, semi-consistent, and inconsistent. Then in the transfer test of the experiment, participants read 60 novel, artificial characters analogous to the learned characters. Significant consistency effects for learning and reading new characters were found, with no effects of WM and L1. In particular, an interaction effect between consistency and L2 proficiency found in the learning phase indicated that participants with higher L2 proficiency learned the fully consistent characters better and faster than those with lower proficiency. These results suggest that L2 proficiency facilitates awareness of consistency, enabling learners to learn novel characters faster and more accurately. The findings of this study are compared with the character acquisition of beginning L1 Chinese readers and with L2 learners’ acquisition of other types of characters.     

留学生的几项个体差异变量与学习成就的相关分析

本以51名外国留学生为调查对象,分析了留学生的语言态度、学习动机、学习观念和学习策略等几项个体差异变量与学习成就的相关性。统计结果显示,深层学习动机、学习信念、学习策略与学习成就显相关。以上结果对教学有一定的启示：我们应把增强学生深层学习动机、确立良好学习信念、培养有效学习策略贯穿于日常教学之中,从而达到提高学生学习成就的目的。     

Understanding learner acceptance of learning objects: The roles of learning object characteristics and individual differences

Many organisations and institutions have integrated learning objects into their e-learning systems to make the instructional resources more efficient. Like any other information systems, this trend has made user acceptance of learning objects an increasingly critical issue as a high level of learner satisfaction and acceptance reflects that the users are more willing to continue to use the technology. In this study, an extended version of technology acceptance model (TAM) with two external variables (learning object characteristics and individual differences) was developed to investigate the underlying factors and causal relationships in predicting learners' acceptance of learning objects. This study called for the respondents to progress through two phases of learning object participation: introduction and direct-use experience to investigate the students' perceptions in terms of usefulness and ease of use while utilising learning objects. The findings show that both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are determinants of behavioural intention to use learning objects. Learning object characteristics influence both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of learning objects; individual differences appear to have no influence upon intention to use learning objects.     

The interaction of learner aptitudes with instructional treatment in quadratic inequalities

Many questions remain to be answered about the role of individual differences in learning. In the area of mathematics learning, do spatial and general reasoning abilities interact with instructional treatment? This study extends a series of earlier studies examining the interaction between aptitudes and instructional treatment. One treatment was strong in verbal-pictorial-numeric content; the other treatment was strong in verbal-symbolic-numeric content. Interactions between instructional treatment and the aptitudes are reported.     

Effect of instructional methods on pre-service science teachers learning outcomes: a meta-analysis

Education and Information Technologies - Best instructional methods are essential tools to bring desirable changes in pre-service science teachers. The available literature lacks...     

Uses and effects of learner control of context and instructional support in computer-based instruction

The present study examines uses and effects of learner-control of the context or theme of practice examples on a statistics lesson in combination with learner control of the number of examples examined. Subjects were 227 undergraduate students assigned to 15 treatments formed by crossing five context conditions (learner control, education, business, sports, no-context) with three instructional support conditions (learner-control, maximum, minimum). No differences in achievement were attained as a function of either treatment variable. Findings showed, however, that learners who received preferred contexts (i.e., learner-control-context subjects) selected a greater number of examples than those who received prescribed contexts. In addition, achievement was positively related to the frequency with which subjects varied the number of examples selected across lessons. Despite the absence of achievement benefits, the learner-control-context strategy elicited highly favorable student reactions as a learning orientation.     

Effects of individual versus group work on learner autonomy and emotion in digital storytelling

Digital storytelling has been shown to be an effective tool in achieving learner autonomy during language learning. Studies have focused on providing students with multimedia authoring tools for unbinding their imagination when developing stories, but the complexity of digital story construction still presents a number of challenges to students. Anxiety about speaking a foreign language can have a debilitating effect on students’ autonomous behavior and learning performance. This study therefore introduced group work to relieve anxiety about exposing individual work to an entire class. An experiment was conducted with 55 sixth-grade students involved in a digital storytelling learning task, where 28 students worked individually and 27 cooperatively. The aim was to examine the effect of learner grouping pattern on learning outcomes, such as knowledge achievement, autonomy in language learning, and emotional experience. The students working cooperatively were discovered to outperform those working individually in all outcomes.     

Strategy orientations,learner activity,and learning outcomes: Implications for instructional support of learning

Investigated were the differential effects of strategy orientations (memory strategy, organization strategy, application strategy, and read-and-study control) orthogonally crossed with learner activity (guided versus active) and outcomes (memory, organization, and application). Subjects were 136 undergraduates, randomly assigned to 1 of 8 treatments. One day after they studied a passage on the topic of radar, outcome measures were completed. Guided activities were found to be superior to the learner-active counterparts on a composite achievement score. The hypothesized interaction of strategy orientation and kind of measure was supported. Performance was highest, in every comparison, on the outcome measure that paralleled the strategy-orientation treatment. The main effect of strategy orientation on the total achievement score was not significant. These findings were discussed in terms of the transfer-appropriate processing theory, the encoding specificity principle, and generative learning theory, with implications for further research and instructional design.     

注重个性差异适应素质教育——素质教育形势下的德育工作

本文论述了素质教育形势下，德育工作要针对学生的个性差异，确定适当的德育方法，做到因材施教，使德育工作更加科学和更具实效性。     

Assessment of individual differences in phonological representation

Individual differences in abilities to form, access, and hone phonological representations of words are implicated in the development of oral and written language. This study addressed two important gaps in the literature concerning measurement of individual differences in phonological representation. First, we empirically examined the dimensionality of phonological representation abilities. Second, we empirically compared how well typical measures index various representation-related phonological processing abilities. Specifically, nine measures of accessibility to and distinctness of phonological presentations were administered to 175 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children. Confirmatory factor analysis validated three separate but correlated phonological processing abilities, i.e., efficiency of accessing phonological codes, precision of phonological codes as reflected in speech production, and precision of phonological codes as reflected in speech perception. The named phonological processing abilities were equally good measures of a second-order phonological representation factor. While most prototypic measures were excellent indicators of first-order phonological abilities, they were only modest indicators of phonological representation.     

Comparative learning and retention of conventional and instructional TV methods

Summary Each of the 20 elementary schools in the Anaheim City School District were randomly assigned to one of the three method groups. The present studies included the entire group of fourth and fifth grade pupils who received instruction either conventionally or with one of the two ITV methods. The two studies compared pupils’ achievement and retention by method group, intelligence, and sex. Groups receiving the televised social studies instruction performed significantly better on the end-of-term examinations than did the control groups. On the one and two-year delayed posttests, contrary to expectation, all groups had significantly higher means than on the immediate posttests. The basic explanation for the phenomenon was thought to be maturation since many items appear to have tapped reasoning ability as well as content knowledge. This interpretation was supported by the fact that greater gain was noted on the two-year delayed posttest than on the one-year detention measure. The hypothesis was further strengthened by the analysis by item type, the factual items showing the least increase over the time interval. No differential change or gain existed for method groups for the oneyear study. In the two-year study the control group showed greater gain, but its mean remained below that of the TV group. Both authors have served as research consultants for the Anaheim Instructional Television Project for the past five years. They are presently writing a monograph presenting the results from their five years of research with this project.     

Examining contextual differences in the development of instructional leadership and school achievement

This study examined the generalizability of a principal instructional leadership model and its impact on school academic achievement across different school levels. The study tested the model across elementary and secondary school levels. The study also examined whether elementary school principals exert stronger instructional leadership influence over their school's academic achievement than high school principals. The results confirmed the fit of the same instructional leadership model to principals from both school levels. The results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications.     

Effects of discovery and expository instructional methods on the attitude of students to biology

The effects of discovery and expository instructional methods on the attitude of students to biology was investigated. The sample consisted of 240 Form IV biology students randomly drawn from six selected secondary schools in the Oyo state of Nigeria. They were assigned into two groups—experimental and control. The experimental group was exposed to the discovery method, and the control group was taught using the expository method. The science class of Form IV in each of the six schools was selected intact for the study. A nonrandomized pretest-posttest control group design was employed. The major instrument was the 40–item Scientific Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ). It is a Likert-type questionnaire using five scales. Two hypotheses were tested. Analyses of the results showed that the experimental group evinced a significantly more favorable attitude to biology than the control group (t = 8.87, p < 0.01). It was also found that the high, average-, and low-ability groups in the experimental class evinced a more favorable attitude to biology than their counterparts in the control class. However, there was no significant difference in the attitude of male and female students exposed to the discovery and expository methods (F1,227 = 0.07, p > 0.999). The article concludes with a recommendation that science learning using the discovery method may enable the learner to evince more a favorable attitude toward problem recognition and problem solving than when learning is done by the expository method.     

外语教学中的学习者个体差异及培养策略

个体差异在外语教学中起着越来越重要的作用,这些差异直接或间接地影响学习进度,导致了学习效果不一样。学习者的个体差异主要包括情感,认知和年龄等,这些差异对智力开发具有积极的促进作用,把这些差异作为外语教学中培养的目标是非常重要的。     

Differential effectiveness by gender of instructional methods on achievement in mathematics at tertiary level

In order to investigate the effect of methods of teaching on achievement in mathematics of first year National Certificate of Education (NCE) students in Nigeria, a sample of 165 students comprising 71 males and 94 females, was exposed to three methods of teaching in a second semester basic mathematics course. The three methods were the traditional lecture method, interactive method with individual use of materials and interactive method with group use of materials. Analysis of covariance showed a significant interactive effect of gender and method of teaching on student achievement. Further analysis showed that the use of interactive methods with group use of materials favoured males while interactive method with individual use of materials favoured females. Implications of the results for teaching of tertiary mathematics are discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.