Patterns in children's ability to recall explicit,implicit and metaphorical information

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of grade level and recall task type on children's memory for explicit, implicit and metaphorical information following reading. Forty second and 40 fifth grade subjects balanced as to gender read four prose passages and were randomly assigned to cued and free recall conditions. A MANOVA produced significant main effects for grade level and task type on each of three dependent variables; EXPLICIT, IMPLICIT and METAPHOR recall measures. As predicted, fifth graders fared better than second graders and the cued condition exceeded free recall. Of greater significance was the finding that second graders were able to engage in metaphorical reasoning when the task was appropriately structured. The results suggest that providing externally generated, structured probes can greatly enhance children's reading recall at both grade levels and can enable children to demonstrate metaphorical comprehension prior to the age at which it spontaneously appears. In addition, significantly different patterns of recalled information were found within the two task conditions, patterns that remained stable across age groups.     

Coming Back from Disaster: Progress to Date and Next Steps at Elliot Lake Public Library

In this article, I do two things. First, I describe and evaluate progress that has been made to date on implementing five recommendations made by the author to the leadership of Elliot Lake Public Library in 2014, intended to assist in disaster recovery efforts following the destruction of the library in an anthropogenic disaster in 2012. Second, I provide three revised recommendations, this time intended to assist library leadership address some continuing challenges that are preventing the complete recovery of the library, and ultimately, negatively impacting the effectiveness of the library within the community.     

Toward collaborator selection and determination of data ownership and publication authorship in research collaborations

This study examined factors that might affect researchers' willingness to collaborate with a specific researcher and the priorities given to those factors. In addition, it investigated how researchers determined the ownership of collaborative project data and how they determined the order of authorship on collaborative publications in condensed matter physics. In general, researchers rated their intrinsic motivations the highest, such as the quality of ideas a potential collaborator might have and their satisfaction with a past collaboration, followed by their extrinsic motivations, such as the complementary knowledge, skills, or resources the collaborator could provide. In addition, researchers who had a greater number of collaborative projects and researchers who had served as a project PI or co-PI valued the deep-level, personality-related characteristics of a collaborator higher than did those who had not. Younger researchers were more risk averse and more concerned with a collaborator's reputation and the possible cost of a collaboration decision. Additionally, younger researchers indicated more often than older researchers that they did not know whether their project teams followed any rules or norms or engaged in negotiation to determine the order of authorship on collaborative publications.     

Investigating Students’ Learning Through Co-designing with Technology

Involving students in the co-design of educational curricula and practices can benefit both students and teachers. Students who participate in co-design may show better learning or increased agency or engagement. In the present study, we investigated what kind of science knowledge or practices can be learned by student co-designers while engaging in co-design practices and how that learning happens with six high school students. We created a model to guide the analysis of students’ learning with technology in co-designing processes. The results revealed that students learned engineering design process even if no explicit instruction on engineering learning was given. Also, our analysis suggested that co-designing with technology enabled learning of the engineering design process and potentially furthered learning of science because it promoted knowledge integration. The results have implications for understanding and enhancing engineering design and science learning through co-designing with technology.

     

University Counselling Service Utilisation by Local and International Students and User Characteristics: A Review

This paper reviews research on students’ usage of university counselling services across countries and their demographic and psychological characteristics. In doing so, emphasis is given to reported distinctions between local and international university students. Utilisation rates, encouraging factors and barriers to utilisation, presenting problems, and methodological problems with existing studies are each examined. The findings suggest that only a minority of between 2% and 4% of university students access such services, with females being more likely to use them than males. International students in particular underutilise these services, and this is primarily due to such students’ preference for seeking help from family or friends over outside sources. When students do seek assistance, their presenting issues most commonly involve symptoms of depression or anxiety, as well as academic and relationship difficulties.     

Implicit theories of creativity: a comparison of student‐teachers in Hong Kong and Singapore

This study attempts to uncover the beliefs regarding various aspects of creativity among trainee‐teachers in Hong Kong and Singapore. Trainee‐teachers from Hong Kong (N = 188) and Singapore (N = 127) completed a questionnaire on beliefs about creativity. The 30‐item questionnaire covering 15 aspects of beliefs regarding creativity was presented to the respondents as a set of six‐point Likert scales. Through factor analysis, creativity was found to have five dimensions: (1) physiology, (2) generality, (3) culture, (4) individuality and (5) youth. Hong Kong respondents were found to hold more rigid views of creativity than their Singaporean counterparts. In particular, Hong Kong respondents believed more strongly that creativity is dependent on birth order, effort, health, logical thinking and youth and that there is a critical period beyond which creativity may not develop.     

The antecedents of teacher satisfaction with professional development programs

Literature has shown that on-the-job professional development programs are most beneficial when they are long-term, focused on students’ learning, and linked to the curricula. We hypothesized that the higher the control teachers have over job professional development processes, and the greater the resemblance of these processes to the typical teaching culture in classrooms, the greater the teachers’ satisfaction with job professional development processes. The findings of this study demonstrate that the main factors affecting teachers’ satisfaction with the instructional programs are related to their desire to maintain instructional processes “close to home”, and to shape these processes in accordance with their needs and expectations. The implications of the study are discussed with relation to decision-makers in the school setting and at the local authorities’ level.