A comparison of the WISC information and arithmetic subtests with a multiple choice procedure using kindergarten,first-, and second-grade children

Fifty-nine children in kindergarten, first, and second grade were given the WISC information and arithmetic subtest. Approximately three weeks later, the subjects were presented with the same questions, and four multiple choice answers were shown and read to them. The number of correct responses on each subtest for each presentation method was recorded. The multiple choice method of presentation response yielded significantly higher scaled scores than did the standard WISC presentation with the free response mode of testing.     

Responding to children’s answers: questions embedded in the social context of early childhood education

This article presents analysis of question–answer sequences during problem inquiry between a teacher and two children in an early childhood crèche in New Zealand. Conversation analysis is used to reveal which questions the teacher asks, how children answer the questions, and the teacher’s responses to the child’s answers. Although adults’ ‘effective’ questions were identified and promoted in the REPEY study much less attention has been given to how adults respond to children’s answers. It is imperative to investigate the sequences of talk which follow a question in order to establish how teaching and learning is co-constructed in context, one utterance at a time and as a joint project between teacher and child. The findings suggest that task problems and emotional problems are treated in a similar way during problem inquiry, highlighting the complexity of interactions when teachers are providing both emotional care and educational support for young children.     

当学术工作与家庭生活发生冲突

学术工作和孩子,二者之中哪个更重要?随着年华老去,是否应当放弃终身职位工作,挽救自己的婚姻?这两个问题的答案因性别和个人价值观不同而不同。有些人认为孩子和婚姻更有价值,有些人则认为工作/职业更重要;有些人认为个人发展应当被放在第一位,有些人则提出家庭具有优先权。     

An Extended Comparison of Adjunct Aids with Low-Average and Good Readers in the Sixth Grade

Abstract

Four types of prestatements and prequestions and no adjunct aid were compared as techniques for enhancing comprehension of cause-effect passages. During six weekly practice sessions, each of 200 randomly assigned sixth grade subjects read one passage accompanied by the designated type of aid, answered comprehension questions, and checked the answers. During the first testing session, each student read two systematically assigned passages of five used. The next day each student answered 10 literal and four main idea questions for each passage read. The good readers given no adjunct aid performed significantly better on the main idea questions than the good readers given application prequestions and those given why prequestions. Good readers in the sixth grade may be motivated by post questions alone.     

Ethical issues in research with abused children

This paper discusses sensitive ethical issues encountered in conducting research with abused children and the potential consequences of various methods of handling these dilemmas. Important ethical questions arise at three stages of the research: (1) obtaining consent for participation in the research; (2) conducting interviews with or administering tests to the subjects; and (3) providing information about test results to parents or others outside the research team. Concern with children's rights has been extended to the question of who can give consent for children to participate in research. In the case of abused children, the consent issue is complicated by the potential adversarial relationship between abusing parent and abused child. Procedures for interviewing or testing abused children must include provisions for three special situations: (1) when a child is distressed by the interviewing or testing; (2) when a child's answers or test results indicate emotional problems; and (3) when a child's answers or comments indicate that the child is being abused. Decisions concerning whether to inform parents or others about an individual child's answers must balance the parents' right to know against the child's right to privacy. All these circumstances require serious deliberation concerning the role and responsibility of the research investigator.     

Counterfactual Reasoning: Developing a Sense of "Nearest Possible World"

This study investigated at what point in development 3- to 6-year-old children begin to demonstrate counterfactual reasoning by controlling for fortuitously correct answers that result from basic conditional reasoning. Basic conditional reasoning occurs when one applies typical regularities (such as "If 'whenever' it doesn't rain the street is dry") to counterfactual questions (such as "If it had not rained, would the street be wet or dry?") without regard to actual events (e.g., if street cleaners had just been washing the street). In counterfactual reasoning , however, the conditional reasoning must be constrained by actual events (according to the "nearest possible world"). In situations when counterfactual reasoning and basic conditional reasoning would yield the same answers, even the youngest children gave mostly correct answers. However, tasks in which the 2 reasoning strategies resulted in different answers proved unusually difficult even for the older children.     

Only Familiar Information is a “Curse”: Children’s Ability to Predict What Their Peers Know

The ability to make inferences about what one’s peers know is critical for social interaction and communication. Three experiments (n = 309) examined the curse of knowledge, the tendency to be biased by one’s knowledge when reasoning about others’ knowledge, in children’s estimates of their peers’ knowledge. Four- to 7-year-olds were taught the answers to factual questions and estimated how many peers would know the answers. When children learned familiar answers, they showed a curse of knowledge in their peer estimates. But, when children learned unfamiliar answers to the same questions, they did not show a curse of knowledge. These data shed light on the mechanisms underlying perspective taking, supporting a fluency misattribution account of the curse of knowledge.     

Young Children's Response Tendencies Toward Yes–No Questions Concerning Actions

Two experiments investigated response tendencies of preschoolers toward yes–no questions about actions. Two hundred 2‐ to 5‐year‐old children were asked questions concerning actions commonly associated with particular objects (e.g., drinking from a cup) and actions not commonly associated with particular objects (e.g., kicking a toothbrush). The impact of delay and comprehension of questions were also investigated. Results revealed a consistent developmental transition: Younger children tended to display a yes bias whereas older children did not display a bias unless they faced incomprehensible questions, in which case they displayed a nay‐saying bias. Delay shifted children's responses in such a way that “no” answers were given more often. These findings hold important implications regarding the use of yes–no questions with children.     

“How do You Know this Answer?” – Children’s Use of Text Data and General Knowledge in Story Comprehension

This study investigates how, and to what extent, young readers (7–8 year-olds) use text information or their prior knowledge when answering comprehension questions about narrative texts. The children were asked to explain how they found out their responses by answering the following question: “how do you know this answer?” Their answers and justifications were analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The text proved to be the main source of information for these readers. However, sometimes the children seemed to ignore the text and over rely on their prior knowledge to answer the questions. The procedure of asking children to justify their answers was shown to be a good way of specifying more precisely some of their problems in text comprehension. It also seemed to encourage them to look back at the text and review their responses and, as such, it could be considered a useful tool to improve children’s reading comprehension.     

Facilitated communication with children diagnosed as autistic in public school settings

In spite of claims that facilitated communication is a unique and effective communication option for individuals with autism, validity of this method has not been established. The present study focused on evaluating the effectiveness of facilitated communication with elementary-age children with autism. Ten public school children and their teachers, who served as facilitators, were involved in this 15-week facilitated communication validation study. Several subjects revealed ability to complete simple responses to requests and questions to which the facilitators knew the answers. However, little success was shown by subjects in answering questions to which the facilitators lacked answers, or in communicating via an augmentative communication device. Results of the study are discussed, along with implications for future use of facilitated communication with children with autism.     

Question types and wait-time during science related activities in Turkish preschools

The aim of the study is to investigate the types of questions that preschool teachers used during the science-related activities and preschool teachers’ behaviors in terms of wait-time. Through this study, the types of questions (lower level and higher level), the time that teachers allocate to their students to respond, and the teachers’ responses to the students’ answers were investigated. The study was conducted with six teachers working with six-year-old children in preschool institutions. In this qualitative study, the data were obtained through classroom observations. The findings of the study revealed that the teachers mostly asked lower level questions to the students and that they did not use the wait-time strategy effectively. Additionally, the findings showed that the teachers did not pay enough attention to the students’ responses. The teachers allowed students answer the questions as quickly as possible without encouraging them to think over their answers. Moreover, the teachers answered the questions themselves when the students did not give the correct answers. Finally, the teachers mostly dealt with the children actively participating much more than the other students who were less attentive.     

Developmental differences in visual and auditory processing of complex sentences

Children aged 8 through 11 (N = 250) were given a word-by-word sentence task in both the visual and auditory modes. The sentences included an object relative clause, a subject relative clause, or a conjoined verb phrase. Each sentence was followed by a true-false question, testing the subject of either the first or second verb. Participants were also given two memory span measures: digit span and reading span. High digit span children slowed down more at the transition from the main to the relative clause than did the low digit span children. The findings suggest the presence of a U-shaped learning pattern for on-line processing of restrictive relative clauses. Off-line accuracy scores showed different patterns for good comprehenders and poor comprehenders. Poor comprehenders answered the second verb questions at levels that were consistently below chance. Their answers were based on an incorrect local attachment strategy that treated the second noun as the subject of the second verb. For example, they often answered yes to the question "The girl chases the policeman" after the object relative sentence "The boy that the girl sees chases the policeman." Interestingly, low memory span poor comprehenders used the local attachment strategy less consistently than high memory span poor comprehenders, and all poor comprehenders used this strategy less consistently for harder than for easier sentences.     

Writing reports for children: What do the children think?

Twenty children who attended a clinic for learning difficulties? were given a personal report following their assessment. Each report was simply written and explained the reasons for referral, the results of the tests and what would happen next in their remedial program. The children were then contacted by mail and asked questions about their reactions to receiving a report. The children's answers and the informal comments of parents and teachers were very positive. It is suggested that writing reports for children is a simple and effective way of encouraging children with learning difficulties to play a more active part in their remedial program.     

A Classroom Investigation of the Growth of Metacognitive Awareness in Kindergarten Children Through the Writing Process

This study investigated the presence and growth of kindergarten children's metacognition as they engaged in the writing process. The study was conducted in an environment that surrounded children with books, language, and print. Twice a month the teacher/researcher interviewed the children as they finished writing, asking questions designed to help them reflect on their thinking and strategies they used in their writing. Anecdotal records, observations, and individual writing folders were used to complete a checklist of writing strategies for each child. Interviews with the children confirmed that they were exhibiting and showing growth in their metacognition. They were able to provide appropriate answers to questions that required them to talk about their thinking and identify strategies that helped them in their writing. The study provides a model that could be used in classrooms to help children in the development of their growing metacognition and writing in an authentic learning environment.     

Adapting the author language Proforma for test purposes

General stages in the development of computer-aided instruction in a university French Department are outlined, including the creation of the author language Proforma. Several types of questions and answers could be used in Proforma study units, and detailed records kept, but it allowed students to repeat units or parts of a unit any number of times, reducing its suitability for formal testing. We adapted Proforma to enable parallel versions of test materials to be prepared, so students may make up to three attempts at a given test in a different version each time. A test may be of any length, and items within sets of questions may appear in a random order. Screen layout is described, and some aspects of test administration and timing are outlined.     

Use of the WISC-R with a learning disabled population: Some diagnostic implications

A group of 41 learning disabled children in Hawaii, aged 6 to 151/2, were tested on the WISC-R. Two main questions were explored: (a) Do the separate WISC-R tests assess “g” for learning disabled children to the same degree that they do for normal children? (b) Is there significantly more scatter among the tests for learning disabled than for normal youngsters? The answers to these questions were interpreted in terms of their diagnostic significance.     

Predicting,Explaining, and Preventing Children's Reading Difficulties

Several decades of research have made it clear that by the time children enter school they already vary widely in their reading-related knowledge and skills. How well do these differences predict differences in reading acquisition? What can they tell us about the causes of reading disabilities? How might these research findings be used to reduce the number of children who have difficulty learning to read? Answers to such questions are fundamental for designing early interventions for children at risk. In this paper, we summarize what has been learned so far, and discuss what directions need to be taken in future research so as to provide fuller answers.     

Effect of teacher questions on the reading comprehension of deaf children

We examined the effect of comprehension questions that require analysis, synthesis, and evaluation on the reading comprehension of deaf children. The subjects were six deaf children ranging in age from 10 years, months to 12 years, 5 months. They were divided into four reading groups for the study. Quantitative analysis of the children's responses to comprehension questions indicated that the children could analyze, synthesize, and evaluate narrative text and their ability to do so did not need to be supported by answering questions related to story details. Qualitative analysis indicated that the children had some difficulty with seven reading tasks: locating pertinent information, applying relevant and accurate background knowledge, expressing themselves unambiguously, understanding the intent of the question, not relying too heavily or too little on background knowledge, considering consequential details, and providing sufficient answers.     

Testing to enhance retention in human anatomy

Recent work in cognitive psychology has shown that repeatedly testing one's knowledge is a powerful learning aid and provides substantial benefits for retention of the material. To apply this in a human anatomy course for medical students, 39 fill-in-the-blank quizzes of about 50 questions each, one for each region of the body, and four about the nervous system, were developed. The quizzes were optional, and no credit was awarded. They were posted online using Blackboard, which provided feedback, and they were very popular. To determine whether the quizzes had any effect on retention, they were given in a controlled setting to 21 future medical and dental students. The weekly quizzes included questions on regional anatomy and an expanded set of questions on the nervous system. Each question about the nervous system was given three times, in a slightly different form each time. The second quiz was given approximately half an hour after the first one, and the third was given one week after the second to assess retention. The quizzes were unpopular, but students showed robust improvement on the questions about the nervous system. The scores increased by almost 9% on the second quiz, with no intervention except viewing the correct answers. The scores were 29% higher on the third quiz than on the first, and there was also a positive correlation between the grades on the quizzes and the final examination. Thus, repeated testing is an effective strategy for learning and retaining information about human anatomy.