Using feedback to promote student participation in online learning programs: evidence from a quasi-experimental study

Educational technology research and development - How should learner analytics and different media be used to optimize feedback to increase students’ motivation and sense of learning...     

Asian lifelong learning in the context of a global knowledge economy: A task re-visited

This article revisits and reinterprets my previous paper. It is a snapshot of the lifelong learning system building in selected Asian countries, reflected in the mirror of the Asian Financial Crisis in the 1997s and the aftermath of that event. I reconsidered the arguments (1) the economic recession had delivered a global dimension of lifelong learning to the re-shaping of the local education system beyond local attributes; (2) and that the divergent tradition of adult education in this context was to meet the global market standards. Additionally, (3) I tried to further the discussion about the relationship between global forces and the lifelong learning system in the context of a knowledge economy, but with a number of different approaches. I argued that the lifelong learning system under the global forces of capitalism, as per the Asian experience in the 2000s, can be apart of a knowledge economy itself, not a tool of it, and in this sense, a knowledge economy sets the conditions of a lifelong learning system as an embryo of its attributes.     

The word decoding strategies of Hebrew readers with and without hearing impairments: Some insight from an associative learning task

The aim of this study was to elucidate the word decoding strategies of Hebrew readers with prelingually-acquired, severe hearing impairments as opposed to regular Hebrew readers, and to determine their efficiency. The research paradigm used to clarify these issues asked participants to perform a sequence of three learning tasks, calling for the association of digits with (1) written Hebrew nouns, (2) with pseudo-homophones (PH) of these nouns, and (3) with nonsense words (NW) comprised of the same graphemes as the nouns. Ninety-two secondary school students, half of them hearing impaired (HI), performed the tasks in succession, with the word/digit association task (the primer) always being administered first. For two sub-groups, however, comprised of approximately half of the members of each of the groups, the order of the latter two tasks was reversed. As such, 23 of those who were HI and 24 of those who were not performed the PH/digit association task after the word/digit association task (primed), whereas for the remainder (unprimed), the word/digit association task was immediately followed by the NW/digit association task. It was expected that, for hearing readers but not for HI readers, the existence of homophony between the real words and the PHs in the primed condition would facilitate learning associations for the latter. This hypothesis, however, was not confirmed. Neither of the two primed groups exhibited sensitivity to homophony. This finding is particularly surprising with respect to the primed hearing group, since it totally contradicts current popular theories that assign phonology a central role in the processing of written materials by unimpaired readers.     

Instructional scaffolds for learning from formative peer assessment: effects of core task,peer feedback,and dialogue

Formative peer assessment is an instructional method that offers many opportunities to foster students’ learning with respect to both the domain of the core task and students’ assessment skills. The contributions to this special issue effectively address earlier calls for more research into instructional scaffolds and the implementation of dialogic features in formative peer assessment. However, open issues remain regarding the role of assessment criteria, the benefit of formative peer assessment for transferable knowledge and skills, the role of metacognitive and cognitive processes in the provision and reception of peer feedback, and the proposed benefit of more interactive forms of formative peer assessment. Addressing the latter issue in particular, a framework of three dimensions of increasing interactivity is proposed in order to guide future research. These three dimensions comprise the learner’s engagement with the core task (low interactivity), the provision and reception of peer feedback (medium interactivity), and the learner’s engagement with argumentation, tutoring, and co-construction in dialogue with peers (high interactivity).     

Student-centered learning: context needed

Six scholars provide their perspectives in response to Lee and Hannafin’s (Educational Technology Research and Development 64: 707–734, 2016) article describing the Own It, Learn It, Share It design framework. The framework combines constructivist, constructionist, and self-determination theories to address student-centered learning.

     

Third-party social interaction and word learning from video

In previous studies, very young children have learned words while overhearing a conversation, yet they have had trouble learning words from a person on video. In Study 1, 64 toddlers (mean age=29.8 months) viewed an object-labeling demonstration in 1 of 4 conditions. In 2, the speaker (present or on video) directly addressed the child, and in 2, the speaker addressed another adult who was present or was with her on video. Study 2 involved 2 follow-up conditions with 32 toddlers (mean age=30.4 months). Across the 2 studies, the results indicated that toddlers learned words best when participating in or observing a reciprocal social interaction with a speaker who was present or on video.     

Adolescent egocentrism in a learning context

Abstract

Imaginary audience, personal fable, and over-estimation of responsibilities are typical characteristics of egocentric behaviour during adolescence. The aim of the research was to establish how these egocentric characteristics manifest themselves in a learning context. An empirical investigation was carried out involving 316 learners from Grade 8 to 12. A questionnaire was adapted to measure egocentrism in a learning context. Significant negative correlations were found between academic achievement and egocentrism in a learning context. It is possible that as much as 17% of the variance in academic achievement can be explained by the egocentric behaviour of adolescents. No gender differences could be established. From the results it can be concluded that Grade 12 learners are more inclined to egocentric behaviour in a learning context compared to learners in Grade 8 and 9.     

Third age learning: adapting the idea to a Thailand context of lifelong learning

The concept of the university of the third age (U3A) is well established overseas and a key international focus for emerging global networks of senior citizen (i.e. seniors) lifelong learning. However it is yet to become so in Thailand although it too is in the process of becoming an ageing society. Moreover, this is despite the extent to which community learning centres and related agencies of non-formal as well as formal learning are popular and generally well-established in the local context. This paper investigates the reasons for possible local resistance to the U3A concept. It will do so as a basis for exploring the idea of reframing local efforts to promote seniors lifelong learning in terms of a wider and cross-culturally convergent concept of ‘third age learning’. In this way the paper will further consider some of the interesting, relevant and transferable global implications of the local dilemma regarding the U3A concept in a fast-changing world of increasing uncertainty in work, security, and other aspects of life.     

学生推测生词词义能力的培养与提高

本结合英语泛读教学,从定义式的解释说明、同义和反义关系、上下的逻辑推理等几个方面讨论了如何培养学生从上下推测生词词义的能力。     

Vocabulary learning from reading: examining interactions between task and learner related variables

In the field of second and foreign language learning, how various task characteristics affect language learning has been the focus of many recent studies. Much of this research examined the relationship between task characteristics and task performance without fully taking into account learner related variables. The present study aimed to assess task complexity and sequence in relation to the learner related variables drawn from the social cognitive perspective of self-regulated learning, i.e. self-efficacy beliefs and frequency of learning strategy use, as they were applied to two versions of vocabulary learning from reading tasks. The tasks designed for the present study were based on the componential framework for second language task design. With tasks and task sequence counterbalanced, 146 first-year university students (mean age?=?18.59 years) were randomly assigned to one of four groups. Results reveal a significant effect of task sequence on vocabulary learning self-efficacy beliefs, frequency of learning strategy use and task performance, and a significant interaction effect of sequence with task complexity. Findings are discussed in terms of complex interactions between task and learner factors.     

Morphological awareness and bilingual word learning: a longitudinal structural equation modeling study

This longitudinal study examined the contribution of morphological awareness to bilingual word learning of Malay–English bilingual children in Singapore where English is the medium of instruction. Participants took morphological awareness and lexical inference tasks in both English and Malay twice with an interval of about half a year, the first time at the end of Grade 3 (Time 1) and the second time at the end of the first semester of Grade 4 (Time 2). Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses revealed that within both languages, morphological awareness significantly predicted lexical inference at Time 1 as well as Time 2, and the contribution also became strengthened over time. Cross-linguistic SEM analyses showed that concurrently at both Time 1 and Time 2, English morphological awareness only had a significant indirect effect on Malay lexical inference. The exact indirect relationships, however, varied between Time 1 and Time 2. In addition, an indirect effect of Time 1 English morphological awareness on Time 2 Malay lexical inference also surfaced. These findings suggest concurrent as well as longitudinal cross-linguistic transfer of morphological awareness from English to Malay.     

Reorganizing the lexicon by learning a new word: Japanese children's interpretation of the meaning of a new word for a familiar artifact

This research investigated how children interpret the meaning of a new word associated with a familiar artifact. The existing literature has shown that syntactic form-class information plays an important role in making this kind of inference. However, this information is not available to Japanese children, because Japanese language does not have a grammatical distinction between count nouns and mass nouns, proper nouns and common nouns, or singular and plural. In Study 1, 12 three-year-old monolingual Japanese children were tested to examine whether they interpreted a new noun associated with a familiar artifact to be a material name or a new label for the object. They interpreted the new word as a new category label for the object, rather than as a name for the material. How children related the new category to the old familiar one was then examined in Studies 2 and 3. The results of Study 2, in which 24 three-year-olds participated, showed that children could flexibly shift between two interpretations using shape information. When the named object had a typical shape for the familiar category, they mapped the new word to a subordinate category. In contrast, when the shape of the named object was atypical, they mapped the new word to a new category that was mutually exclusive to the familiar category by excluding the named object from the familiar category. In Study 3, 12 three-year-olds were tested to examine relative importance of shape and functional information in this inference process. The results of the three studies suggest that children flexibly recruit clues from multiple sources, but the cluesare weighed in hierarchical order so that they can determine the single most plausible solution in a given situation when different clues suggest different solutions.     

Word learning: An ERP investigation of word experience effects on recognition and word processing

Adults of varying reading comprehension skill learned a set of previously unknown rare English words (e.g., gloaming) in three different learning conditions in which the type of word knowledge was manipulated. The words were presented in one of three conditions: (1) orthography-to-meaning (no phonology); (2) orthography-to-phonology (no meaning); and (3) phonology-to-meaning (no orthography). Following learning, participants made meaning judgments on the learned words, familiar known words, and unpresented (unlearned) rare words while their ERPs were recorded. The behavioral results showed no significant effects of comprehension skill on meaning judgment performance. Contrastingly, the ERP results indicated comprehension skill differences in P600 amplitude; high-skilled readers showed stronger familiarity effects for learned words, whereas less-skilled readers did not distinguish between learned words, familiar words, and unlearned words. Evidence from the P600 and N400 illustrated superior learning of meaning when meaning information was coupled with orthography rather than phonology. These results suggest that the availability of word knowledge (orthography, phonology, and meaning) at learning affects subsequent word identification processes when the words are encountered in a new context.     

Incidental word learning in a hearing child of deaf adults

It is unclear how children develop the ability to learn words incidentally (i.e., without direct instruction or numerous exposures). This investigation examined the early achievement of this skill by longitudinally tracking the expressive vocabulary and incidental word-learning capacities of a hearing child of Deaf adults who was natively learning American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken English. Despite receiving only 20% of language input in spoken English, the child's expressive vocabularies at 16 and 20 months of age, in each language, were similar to those of monolingual age-matched peers. At 16 months of age, the child showed signs of greater proficiency in the incidental learning of novel ASL signs than she did for spoken English words. At 20 months of age, the child was skilled at incidental word learning in both languages. These results support the methodology as it applies to examining theoretical models of incidental word learning. They also suggest that bilingual children can achieve typical vocabulary levels (even with minimal input in one of the languages) and that the development of incidental word learning follows a similar trajectory in ASL and spoken English.     

Two teacher quality measures and the role of context: evidence from Chile

This research examines empirically the relationship between two measures of teacher quality: one based on professional standards and a second one using teacher value-added estimates. It also studies the extent to which teacher observable characteristics, such as teacher training variables, are associated to better performance on either of these measures and whether any of these two assessments is able to effectively measure teacher quality isolated from the effect of the context where teachers work. Context in this article is defined as any variable that is not under the direct control of the teacher but plays an important role on student learning and we believe is captured by school and municipal variables. The study uses hierarchical linear models and information from national and standardized assessments from Chile, specifically from the municipal education sector. Results show a small correlation between the two measures of teacher quality, in the lower end of results from previous studies conducted in the USA, and suggest that there is only a limited relationship between both measures of teacher quality. Teacher initial education type and professional development were statistically associated only to the standard-based measure of teacher quality. Context (both the school and municipal levels) plays an important role in the teacher effect measure, and in the standard-based measures, therefore, we conclude that neither of these measures are context-free. We expect that these results will contribute to the discussion about how to best measure teacher quality and how to evaluate teacher performance both in Chile and other parts of the world.