Variables affecting physics achievement

Much research has focused on student views about physics concepts, with an emphasis on the identification of alternative conceptions, and how curricula and professional development may ameliorate the situation. However, there has been little work on determining the extent of, and in separating, the student and teacher/classroom level variables that may impact student physics achievement. This study examined the effect of different student and teacher/classroom level variables on student understanding of physics concepts using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), a regression based technique. The data were collected from 68 different teachers and 3,119 students who were using a reform curriculum, Active Physics. Teachers and students completed surveys asking about their beliefs, their classes and their personal characteristics. Students also completed a physics achievement test. The data show that students of teachers who used Active Physics for a greater portion of the year scored higher on the achievement test than did students of teachers who did not use the curriculum as much. Furthermore, the data show that the achievement gap was narrowed between boys and girls and between students with different attitudes toward physics. Additionally teachers who received inservice instruction on how to implement Active Physics narrowed the gap between students with different views of their classroom involvement. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 961–976, 2009     

Variables affecting teachers' attitudes towards inclusive education in Bangladesh

Inclusive education is a worldwide reform strategy intended to include students with different abilities in mainstream regular schools. Evidence from previous research shows that success in implementing effective inclusive teaching practices in the school is contingent on teachers' positive attitudes towards inclusive education. This study was conducted in the context of primary education in Bangladesh aiming to examine variables influencing teachers' attitudes towards inclusion of students with disabilities in regular classrooms. Data for the study was collected from 738 teachers working in 293 government primary schools in Bangladesh. The results indicated that perceived school support for inclusive teaching practices and a range of demographic variables including previous success in teaching students with disabilities and contact with a student with a disability were associated with more positive attitudes of the teachers towards the inclusive education. The results are discussed with possible implications for educators, policy‐makers and international organisations working on the implementation of inclusive education.     

Variables affecting alternation behavior in the cockroach,Blatta orientalis

To investigate alternation behavior in the cockroach as an invertebrate, three T-maze experiments were conducted assessing the effects of (a) intratrial (exposure) and intertrial (exposure to test) interval, (b) brightness similarity of the alternatives and response-direction factors, and (c) an initial free-choice vs. a varying number of forced-choice exposures. Alternation was enhanced with a long exposure on Trial 1, a short interval between Trial 1 and Trial 2 (test), greater dissimilarity (or discriminability) of the arm brightnesses and more frequent forced-choice exposures to an arm prior to test. These results highlight the role of intramaze brightness cues as controlling alternation in the cockroach and accord well with a response-to-change interpretation of the phenomenon. In addition, they suggest that the alternation paradigm can be used effectively to assay short-term memory storage in neurologically simple organisms.     

How children choose among serial recall strategies

A theoretical and methodological approach originally developed to investigate preschoolers' arithmetic strategies was extended to the study of 5-8-year-olds' serial recall strategies. Immediately retrospective verbal reports, together with observation of overt behavior, indicated a number of parallels between strategy choices in the 2 areas. In serial recall, as in arithmetic, most children used multiple approaches. Even among the youngest children, the majority sometimes used the most effective strategy, repeated rehearsal. Changes in strategy choices were adaptive in the sense of children rehearsing more often when not rehearsing on the previous trial had led to incorrect recall. Developmental changes occurred in how often children rehearsed, in how accurately they executed each strategy, and in the type of rehearsal that they used most frequently. Only small changes were apparent, however, in whether the 5-8-year-olds rehearsed at all.     

Serial recall and nonword repetition in reading disabled children

This study examined the performance on verbalshort-term memory tasks of specifically readingdisabled children relative to reading-age matched andchronological-age matched control groups. Memory spanfor words, highly wordlike nonwords and less wordlikenonwords, speech rates for these items, and nonwordrepetition were examined. The reading disabled groupperformed equivalently to the reading-age controls onall tasks, and worse than the chronological-agecontrols. An effect of the wordlikeness of thenonwords was found in all tasks. Differences inspeech rate accounted for the effect of wordlikenessin memory span but not for the difference betweenwords and nonwords, or for the difference betweengroups. The stimulus effects did not vary between thegroups suggesting that reading disabled children arenot impaired on the process which gives rise to theseeffects, however they are impaired on the taskoverall, even after speech rate differences are takeninto account. These results are consistent with thenotion that there is a long-term memory contributionto memory span which is related to reading ability.     

Analyzing false memories in children with associative lists specific for their age

Two experiments attempted to resolve previous contradictory findings concerning developmental trends in false memories within the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm by using an improved methodology--constructing age-appropriate associative lists. The research also extended the DRM paradigm to preschoolers. Experiment 1 (N=320) included children in three age groups (preschoolers of 3-4 years, second-graders of 7-8 years, and preadolescents of 11-12 years) and adults, and Experiment 2 (N=64) examined preschoolers and preadolescents. Age-appropriate lists increased false recall. Although preschoolers had fewer false memories than the other age groups, they showed considerable levels of false recall when tested with age-appropriate materials. Results were discussed in terms of fuzzy-trace, source-monitoring, and activation frameworks.     

Factors affecting delayed walking skill in malnourished children

This research examined children between 13 and 23 months of age with developmental delays in walking. Children in the experimental group received intensive infant stimulation and, subsequently approximately 71% were able to walk by themselves. In contrast, 32% of those children receiving only verbal instruction were able to achieve this important milestone. There was a significant difference (p less than 0.05) between the control and experimental group in acquiring walking skills. Mothers' lack of awareness about infant stimulation and lack of supervision on the part of health workers are the major contributing factors to delayed walking skill in these children. The study highlights the importance of taking health care to the home of clients, the most neglected aspect of primary health in this part of the world.     

Factors affecting probabilistic judgements in children and adolescents

Six hundred and eighteen pupils, enrolled in elementary and junior-high-school classes (Pisa, Italy) were asked to solve a number of probability problems. The main aim of the investigation has been to obtain a better understanding of the origins and nature of some probabilistic intuitive obstacles. A linguistic factor has been identified: It appears that for many children, the concept of certain events is more difficult to comprehend than that of possible events. It has been found that even adolescents have difficulties in detaching the mathematical structure from the practical embodiment of the stochastic situation. In problems where numbers intervene, the magnitude of the numbers considered has an effect on their probability: bigger numbers are more likely to be obtained than smaller ones. Many children seem to be unable to solve probability questions, because of their inability to consider the rational structure of a hazard situation: chance is, by itself, an equalizing factor of probabilities. Positive intuitive capacities have also been identified: some problems referring to compound events are better solved when addressed in a general form than when addressed in a particular way.     

Analytic character learning in Chinese children: evidence from associative pseudocharacter learning paradigm

The present study investigated the children’s capabilities of utilizing analytic strategies in Chinese character learning using an associative pseudocharacter learning paradigm. The participants were 54 Chinese primary school children (26?second graders and 28 fifth graders) who completed a pseudocharacter learning task that was followed by a generalization test. Repeated measures ANOVA results showed a significant main effect of block and grade in pseudocharacter learning. One-sample t-test results indicated that generalization performance was significantly better than chance level in both grade levels. Findings from this study suggested that Chinese primary school children were able to identify print–sound–meaning regularities that were not explicitly taught and apply those rules to learning new pseudocharacters. They contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the character learning processes in Chinese children when encountering new characters.     

Factors affecting the placement of preschool-aged deaf children

The placement in and movement among preschool programs of 131 children with severe and profound hearing losses was monitored over four years. Longitudinal data were obtained on the children's linguistic and social development. In the first year of the study, most of the children were enrolled in auditory/oral (A/O) programs. By the final year, most were enrolled instead in total communication (TC) programs; similar movement occurred from individual to classroom programs. Children in A/O individual programs had the most hearing, highest intelligence and most favorable family profile, followed by children in A/O classes, TC individual programs, and TC classes. Scores on measures of spoken language followed the same pattern. On measures of receptive language and mother-child communication, children in A/O individual programs and those in TC classes had similar scores. Children in TC individual programs came next, and last were children in A/O classes. These findings have implications for the choice of programs for preschool deaf children.     

Pictures and children’s story recall: Some questions of durability

It has been found that story-relevant pictures help children recall stories. But do those gains endure over time? Those of the second graders in this study did, over a 3-day period. Although they had more to forget, children aided by pictures did not forget more than those in a control group.     

Supplied visuals and imagery instructions in field independent and field dependent children’s recall

Does showing children pictures that depict a story help them recall story content? Is having them form mental pictures of the story more effective? Is it better to show the pictures or give instructions to form mental images before or after the children hear the story? Do field independent and field dependent children respond differently? This study involving sixth graders found that imaging was the most effective method of instruction, regardless of whether instructions to image came before or after the listening period.     

The role of sentence recall in reading and language skills of children with learning difficulties

The present study explores the relationship between sentence recall and reading and language skills in a group of 7–11-year-old children with learning difficulties. While recent studies have found that performance on sentence recall tasks plays a role in learning, it is possible that this contribution is a reflection of shared resources with working memory. In order to investigate whether sentence recall was uniquely associated with reading and language skills, differences associated with IQ and working memory capacity were statistically controlled. A sample of 72 children was tested on measures of verbal complex memory, verbal short-term memory, sentence recall, expressive vocabulary, verbal and performance IQ, reading and language skills. Both sentence recall and verbal complex memory shared unique links with reading skill, and sentence recall was uniquely associated with language skills. This finding indicates that resources in long-term memory also play an important diagnostic role in reading and language abilities. The implications for educational practice are discussed.