Imitation and performance in confrontations between competent peers: The role of the representation of the task

This study (N=75) examined the influence dynamics that take place between two competent individuals presenting divergent solutions for a cognitive task. The hypothesis was that such settings (i.e., conflict of competencies) are unlikely to have a positive effect on intellectual performance because of the representation of the task, and that an increase in performance may be found if such a representation is modified. Three conditions were examined: a control condition in which participants completed the task by themselves, a conflict of competencies condition in which participants declared to be highly competent where confronted with a equally highly competent (bogus) partner who offered diverging solutions (standard conflict of competencies condition), and a conflict of competencies condition in which a decentring procedure was induced to modify the representation of the task. The results showed that participants in the decentring condition solved the task better compared to the standard conflict of competencies condition and the control condition. However, the results unexpectedly revealed imitation in the two conflict of competencies conditions compared to the control condition. Complementary analyses suggest that in the standard conflict of competencies condition imitation corresponds to a defensive motivation.     

Boys' Lack of Interest in Fine Arts in a Coeducational Setting: A Review of Sex‐Related Cognitive Traits Studies

Fine arts teachers' concerns about male underachievement in a Quebec coeducational high school, and a related survey showing boys' negative perceptions of fine arts motivated this interdisciplinary literature review. Referring to biology and cognitive science, the article explores concepts of sex‐related cognitive traits to help in designing sex‐adapted approaches to individual learning in art education. The nature‐nurture controversy still surrounds sex‐based cognitive differences studies, though science agrees that natural and socio‐cultural factors are somehow closely interwoven in the complex gender identity construction process. Sex‐related biological predispositions influencing cognition are proposed notably in ‘instrumentality‐expressiveness' and ‘empathising‐systemising (E‐S)’ theories. The article suggests that in the context of art education, these sex‐related cognitive models deserve study, because they could initiate sex‐adapted teaching strategies with the necessary flexibility and wider scope to overcome gender‐stereotyped biases and stimulate boys' interest in the arts. This suggested approach should not be confused with stereotype‐based pedagogy, which merely strengthens learned gender characteristics, producing or maintaining academic underachievement.     

Speaking Personally—With Tony Bates

Abstract

The articles published in D &; S concerning the creation and operation of remote training methods can be characterized according to the points of view taken by experts or researchers. The authors are interested in three particular aspects of the training process: organization, design, and impact. Different approaches in the design of these methods determine the economy of their structure. They may include certain constraints, such as when a team has a specific and voluntarist vision or when seeking safety by keeping to the norms, or, on the contrary, to pragmatic approaches consisting in adapting to the situation. All the proposals focus on a central theme: supporting students from a distance.     

Study and research courses as an epistemological model for didactics

The aim of this paper is explain how the notion of “study and research course”, a recent construct in the anthropological theory of didactics, provides a general tool to model mathematical knowledge from a didactical perspective. We do this from two points of view. First, the notion itself arose as a tool for didactic design, particularly in mathematics teaching involving modelling type subjects, and we introduce a new diagrammatic representation in order to present and analyse a selection of such designs. Secondly, we demonstrate how the same representational tool can be used to analyse other didactic processes as study and research courses. In both cases, our examination of cases reveals that designers and teachers are often more explicit about their intention to enable students to do “research” (e.g. exploring a challenging problem) than to enable students to engage in autonomous “study”; moreover, the role for students is mostly confined to search for answers to questions raised, essentially, by the teacher. These observations point to directions which deserve more attention in design research related to the notion of study and research course.