The efficacy of peer modeling and social conflict in the acquisition of conservation.

Significant gains in conservation of number, amount, mass, and weight were made by 53 nonconservers (age 6-9) who either simply observed conserver's performance on mass and weight problems or argued with conservers in a social conflict situation about these problems. There were no significant differences in conservation performance between the modeling and social conflict treatments. It was suggested that the social conflict effect could be attributed to modeling effects.     

Social Context Effects on Children's Performance of Number Conservation Tasks: plausibility and evidence

Abstract Recent controversy over Piagetian tasks concerns whether the experimenter's actions result in children misunderstanding the question. Evidence for this has been derived from differences in performance of conservation tasks according to whether the transformation is intentional or accidental. Studies reporting large differences according to transformation type are claimed to be flawed procedurally. Including a preliminary talk and restricting questions to one domain result in little or no transformation type effect. Whether children's correct judgments in accidental versions are reliable indications of their knowledge has also been disputed. They may reflect children's ignoring of the transformation or covert counting. Using an identity conservation pretest 192 Yemeni children were selected to be tested on number conservation tasks varying in transformation type, numerosity and equality. The results were analysed using a model‐fitting procedure. Identity nonconservers were affected by transformation type but not numerosity whereas identity conservers showed the opposite pattern. The identity nonconservers may simply have been so bemused by the adult experimenter introducing a soft toy in the accidental conditions that they guessed. For identity nonconservers guessing will result in greater success than reasoning.     

Progress to conservation: Conflict or correct answer?

One of the fundamental problems in socio-cognitive conflict theory concerns what it is that leads to cognitive growth. Is it conflict per se, i.e. the fact that two contradictory opinions are brought together, or is it the presence of the correct answer which is essential for growth. In this experiment, dyads, functioning on the same cognitive level, were formed and asked to solve a conservation-of-length task. The classification of the children in the pre-test was not done according to Piagetian norms, but according to Flavell’s appearance-reality (AR) model: AR non-conservers (AR-NC), AR intermediates (AR-I) and AR conservers (AR-C). Many children who would have been scored as non-conservers in a standard Piagetian task, showed an underlying conservation competence and were classified as AR-I. The results of the interaction suggest that conflict does not lead to appropriate change in AR-NC dyads or AR-I dyads. Furthermore, the results suggest that the most effective method for AR-I to become conservers, is to make them think about a problem and then, to create consensus by confronting the children with others who have also reached the correct solution.     

Self-Perceptions in Science,Cognitive Development,and Teaching Strategy

This research explores relationships which exist between self-perception in science and cognitive development under two quantitatively different teaching strategies. These strategies, stressing the use or non-use of directions, praise, and rejection were used in five different elementary grades for one year. Student self-perception in science was found to vary by grade level, regardless of teaching strategy, with grades one and two tending to be more dependent than higher grades. Shifts from an independent to a dependent self-perception during the treatment period were found only in the more directive strategy. Students in a less directive strategy tended to become more independent or not to change self-perceptions at all. Cognitively, nonconservers were more likely to have a dependent perception of themselves in science than conservers. While self-perception in science seems to be closely related to maturation in the lower grades, a less directive teaching strategy appears to provide a more positive environment for developing an independent self-perception in science.     

The Long‐term Effects of Cooperative Learning on Children's Behaviour and Interactions

This study investigates the long‐term effects of training in small‐group and interpersonal behaviours on children's behaviours and interactions as they worked in small groups two years after they were initially trained. Forty‐eight third grade children, who had been trained two years previously in cooperative group behaviours, were assigned to the Trained condition and 44 third grade children who had not previously been trained were assigned to the Untrained condition. The children in the trained and untrained groups were reconstituted from the pool of students who had participated previously in either trained or untrained group activities. The results showed that there was a long‐term training effect with the children in the Trained groups demonstrating more cooperative behaviour and providing more explanations in response to requests for help than their untrained peers.     

The Residual Effects of Cooperative-Learning Experiences: A Two-Year Follow-Up

Abstract

The author investigated how training in small-group and interpersonal behaviors affected children's behavior and interactions as they worked in small groups 2 years later. The authors assigned 52 fifth graders, who had been trained 2 years previously in cooperative group behaviors, to the trained condition and 36 fifth graders, who had not previously been trained, to the untrained condition. Both were reconstituted from the pool of students who had participated previously in group activities. The results showed a residual training effect, with the children in the trained groups being more cooperative and helpful than their untrained peers.     

Increasing Word-Reading Speed in Poor Readers: No Additional Benefits of Explicit Letter-Cluster Training

The present study examined whether explicit training of letter-clusters leads to more gains in word-reading speed than training of the separate letters of the same clusters. Ninety-nine poor reading second-grade children were randomly assigned to a cluster-training, a parallel letter-training, or a no-training condition. The cluster-training condition showed superior short-term and long-term improvement on rapid naming of trained and untrained letter clusters, whereas the letter-training condition showed superior short-term improvement on rapid naming of trained letters. In addition, compared with the no-training condition, the cluster and letter training showed the same superior short-term and long-term improvement on trained words and pseudowords. However, both training conditions showed only marginally more short-term improvement for untrained pseudowords and only marginally more long-term improvement on a word reading-fluency task. Apparently, improvement of rapid naming of letter clusters does not, or barely, result in improvement of untrained words and pseudowords.     

Taking working memory training from the laboratory into schools

Working memory skills have been shown to be enhanced by adaptive training in several randomised controlled trials. Here, two field trials were conducted in which teachers administered working memory training to their own pupils in school. Twenty-two children aged 8–9?years participated in Trial 1. In Trial 2, 50 children aged 9–11?years with the lowest academic performance completed training. They were matched with a group of 50 children who were not trained. Following training, children in Trial 1 improved significantly in both trained and untrained working memory tasks, with effect sizes comparable to those reported in research studies. Improvements on the trained tasks in Trial 2 were comparable, and training was associated with significantly greater progress at school across the academic year in maths and English. These findings indicate that teacher-administered training leads to generalised and robust gains in working memory and educationally significant gains in academic performance.     

The role of the mirror-image reversal effect in reducing the peak shift and area shift along the angularity dimension

Pigeons trained monocularly and tested with the trained eye along the angularity dimension were found to show enhanced area shifts when compared to pigeons trained and tested binocularly. Pigeons trained monocularly and tested with the untrained eye showed reversed peak shifts in the direction of S?. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the mirror image of S? in angularity gradients functions to reduce the likelihood of the peak shift and area shift along the angularity dimension in pigeons, and question the use of the angularity dimension for intradimensional discrimination training and generalization testing.     

Training mothers in elaborative reminiscing enhances children's autobiographical memory and narrative

This longitudinal intervention assessed children's memory at 2(1/2) years (short-term posttest; N=115) and their memory and narrative at 3(1/2) years (long-term posttest; N=100) as a function of maternal training in elaborative reminiscing when children were 1(1/2) to 2(1/2) years. At both posttests, trained mothers were more elaborative in their reminiscing than untrained mothers. At the long-term posttest, trained mothers were also more repetitive than untrained mothers. Children of trained mothers provided richer memories than children of untrained mothers at both posttests. Children of trained mothers also produced more accurate memories with researchers but only if they had high initial levels of self-awareness. Results are discussed with respect to theory and practice in autobiographical memory development.     

Automaticity training for dyslexics: An experimental study

Less-skilled readers may experience a processing bottleneck in reading comprehension produced by a failure to automate word recognition. The automaticity hypothesis predicts that training which increases rapid and automatic word recognition will improve comprehension. To date few studies have tested this hypothesis. Our goal was to test the automaticity hypothesis by training dyslexic readers (n=35) to access the meaning of words more rapidly. Training consisted of speeded word games implemented on a microcomputer that provided feedback concerning subjects’ speed and accuracy using sound and graphics. Three experimental tasks were administered both before and after training in which trials with trained and untrained stimuli were randomly intermixed. The measures were latency and accuracy of word vocalization, sentence comprehension, and a dual-task procedure designed to measure automaticity. Although pre/post improvement was larger for trained than untrained stimuli, reaction time on the word vocalization and sentence comprehension tasks improved significantly for both trained and untrained stimuli. In contrast, automaticity and sentence comprehension accuracy improved significantly for trained but not untrained stimuli. The training effect in comprehension remained when controlling for increases in word knowledge. The results support the automaticity hypothesis and further suggest that severely disabled readers may benefit from training in automatic word recognition. A portion of this research was supported by a Faculty Development Grant awarded to the first author from Southeastern Louisiana University. Directed by the second author, the Los Angeles study was based on a doctoral dissertation submitted by the first author to the University of Southern California in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree. Portions of this work were presented at the meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, April 1989, and The Orton Dyslexia Society, Portland, November 1991.     

Short‐Term Second Language and Music Training Induces Lasting Functional Brain Changes in Early Childhood

Immediate and lasting effects of music or second‐language training were examined in early childhood using event‐related potentials. Event‐related potentials were recorded for French vowels and musical notes in a passive oddball paradigm in thirty‐six 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children who received either French or music training. Following training, both groups showed enhanced late discriminative negativity (LDN) in their trained condition (music group–musical notes; French group–French vowels) and reduced LDN in the untrained condition. These changes reflect improved processing of relevant (trained) sounds, and an increased capacity to suppress irrelevant (untrained) sounds. After 1 year, training‐induced brain changes persisted and new hemispheric changes appeared. Such results provide evidence for the lasting benefit of early intervention in young children.     

Behavioral and neurophysiological effects of morphological awareness training on spelling and reading

Behavioral and neurophysiological effects of a computer-aided morphological training protocol were examined in German-speaking children from Grades 3 to 9. Study 1 compared morphological awareness, reading, and spelling skills of 34 trained children with an untrained control group of 34 children matched for age, sex, and intelligence. All participants in the training group showed increases in morphological awareness, but only students from secondary school improved significantly in reading and spelling competences. In Study 2, a subsample of 8 trained children with poor spelling and reading abilities and 10 untrained children with higher language competencies underwent an electroencephalography testing involving three different language tasks. The training resulted in decreased theta-activity and increased activity in lower (7–10 Hz) and upper alpha (10–13 Hz). These findings reflect more effortful and attention-demanding processing after the training and suggest that children with poor spelling and reading abilities use the acquired morphological knowledge in terms of a compensatory strategy.     

Individual differences: Either relational learning or item-specific learning in a same/different task

Three pigeons were trained in a three-item simultaneous same/different task. Three of six stimulus combinations were not trained (untrained set) and were tested later. Following acquisition, the subjects were tested with novel stimuli, the untrained set, training-stimulus inversions, and object shape and color manipulations. There was no novel-stimulus transfer—that is, no abstract-concept learning. Two pigeons showed partial transfer to untrained pairs and good transfer to stimulus inversions, suggesting that they had learned the relationship between the stimuli. Lack of transfer by the third pigeon suggests item-specific learning. The somewhat surprising finding of relational learning by 2 pigeons with only six training pairs suggests restricted-domain relational learning that was controlled more by color than by shape features. Individual differences of item-specific learning by 1 pigeon and relational learning by 2 others demonstrate that this task can be learned in different ways and that relational learning can occur in the absence of novel-stimulus transfer.     

Comparability of Written and Oral Measures in Evaluating Counselor Training

The comparability of written and oral measures in evaluating counselor effectiveness was examined for trained and untrained participants. The responses were rated on use of reflective skills, verbal following, and general quality. A multivariate analysis of variance indicated that written responses were significantly higher on verbal following and general quality. Correlations among the written and oral measures were high and positive, especially when corrected for attenuation as a result of the reliabilities of ratings. Correlations were higher for trained than untrained participants. In general, the results support the comparability of written and oral assessments of counselor effectiveness, especially for trained participants. Implications for the evaluation of training programs and areas for future research are discussed.     

Volume,conservation and instruction: A classroom based solomon four group study of conflict

The research reported is an attempt to widen the applicability of Piagetian theory-based conflict methodology from individual situations to whole classes. A Solomon four group experimental design augmented by a delayed posttest, was used to provide a controlled framework for studying the effects of conflict instruction on Grade 8 students' ability to conserve volume of noncompressible matter, and to apply that knowledge to gas volume. The results, reported for individuals and groups, show the methodology can be effective, particularly when instruction is preceded by a pretest. Immediate posttest differences in knowledge of gas volume between spontaneous (pretest) conservers and instructed conservers of volume of noncompressible matter were no longer in evidence on the delayed posttest. This observation together with the effects of pretesting and of the instructional sequence are shown to have a consistent Piagetian interpretation. Practical implications are discussed.     

Predictive and Postdictive Validity of Need Achievement Measures

Abstract

The study assessed the instructional behaviors of trained student tutors and compared these behaviors with those of untrained tutors. Behaviors of six trained and six untrained fifth-grade tutors were recorded on the Tutor Observation Scale as the tutors worked with kindergarten pupils using programmed materials related to a reading program. Trained tutors scored significantly higher than untrained tutors on (1) engaging the pupil in friendly conversation, (2) confirming, (3) praising, (4) giving the correct answer when the pupil is incorrect, and (5) eliciting the correct response before going on. The behaviors of trained and untrained tutors differ with respect to basic instructional principles. If it is desired that tutors behave according to these principles, then they should be trained.     

Reconstructing Clinical Training: Implications From Research

The methods used to train counselors need to be reexamined because research has consistently shown that trained clinicians are not more effective than untrained individuals. This article presents an empirically based discussion of methods for reconstructing the clinical training portion of counselor education to increase the effectiveness of training. The proposed reconstruction focuses on the topics of establishing a therapeutic relationship, increasing counselor skillfulness, and training in client matching.     

Evaluation of artisan training in metal silo construction for grain storage in Africa: Impact on uptake,entrepreneurship and income

This study assesses the impact of training sheet metal workers in Kenya on their uptake of learned skills and their income. Fifty-eight artisans trained in the construction of metal silos for hermetic grain storage were compared to a random sample of 123 untrained artisans. Results show that two-thirds of the trained artisans were making the silos, half of these in their own workshops and half as employees. The probability of using the skills learned declined with age but increased with previous experience in technical work. The training did not significantly increase the income of employed artisans, but increased the annual income of those who made the silos in their own workshops by KSh315,173 (about US$3,600). The overall impact could be improved by better targeting of trainees, by using apprenticeships as an alternative mode of training, and by encouraging entrepreneurship through business training and provision of credit.     

Word reading fluency: A transfer appropriate processing account of fluency transfer

Word reading fluency, as indexed by the fast and accurate identification of single words, predicts both general reading ability and reading comprehension. This study compared the effects of context training and isolated word training on subsequent measures of word reading fluency. Good and poor readers were given 12 repetitions of two sets of words; 48 new words were learned in each condition. Words were presented in a story during context training and on a computer screen during isolated word training. Target words were read in isolation at test, randomly displayed within a series containing 72 untrained words. Results show that words trained in isolation are remembered longer and read faster when presented in isolation at test compared to words trained in context. Theoretical implications are discussed in relation to transfer appropriate processing.