Developing a pedagogy for teaching self-study research: Lessons learned across the Atlantic

This article reports on a collective self-study from our multiple and unique experiences of teaching self-study research in the Netherlands and the United States. Through the methodology of dialog, we merged what we learned from our individual studies which resulted in six guidelines for a pedagogy for teaching self-study research. Without claiming that the six guidelines have full applicability to all teaching contexts, we offer instead a discussion of the complexities and value of framing a pedagogy of self-study research. This study provides a conceptual, theoretical, and practical base for further studies to build a knowledge base on this topic.     

Metacognition and affect: What can metacognitive experiences tell us about the learning process?

This paper aims at highlighting the importance for learning of one of the facets of metacognition, namely metacognitive experiences (ME) that comprise feelings, judgments or estimates, and online task-specific knowledge. The emphasis is on the affective character of ME, which has received little attention in the past. Unlike online task-specific knowledge, which is conscious and analytic, the other ME are products of nonconscious, nonanalytic inferential processes. Because of their nature, ME can trigger either rapid, nonconscious control decisions or conscious analytic ones. However, ME can make use of both the affective and the cognitive regulatory loops, and this has a series of implications for learning. Evidence is presented regarding the relations of ME with affect and cognition, and the implications of the lack of accuracy of ME for the self-regulation of learning. Particular emphasis is given on judgment of learning, feeling of difficulty, and feeling of confidence. The challenges for future research on metacognition are underscored.     

Comparing Teacher Assessment and Standard Task Results in England: the relationship between pupil characteristics and attainment

This study examines the 1992 National Curriculum assessment data from one large LEA in England in order to address the issue of equity. For comparison purposes we also present additional data obtained front the same sample of pupils on an NFER standardised word recognition test. The report focuses on the relative performance of gender, low income, linguistic, and special needs groups on a standardised reading test and the teacher (TA) and standard task (ST) performance assessments administered in 1992 to 7‐year‐olds as part of the national curriculum (NC) in England and Wales. The impact of schools and teacher effectiveness on student attainments scores is also examined and discussed. Briefly, the findings show that irrespective of the method of assessment, differences in attainment were found between most pupil groups investigated. However, importantly, only very modest evidence was found that particular methods of assessment appeared either to reduce or increase the differences in attainment and overall no clear patterns emerged. The findings are discussed in the context of various factors that may have an impact on the assessment of student attainment.     

Idea generation in biomedical engineering courses using Design Heuristics

ABSTRACT

With increasing demand for improved medical equipment and healthcare, next-generation biomedical engineers need strong design skills. Equipping biomedical engineering students with tools for idea generation and development can increase student design success. Design Heuristics are an ideation tool developed through empirical studies of product designs. While identified in the mechanical engineering space, Design Heuristics may be applicable in biomedical engineering design. In our study, we implemented a Design Heuristics session during upper-level undergraduate and first-year graduate biomedical engineering design courses. We examined the applicability of Design Heuristics within individual and team concept generation contexts. The findings demonstrated that biomedical engineering students were able to use Design Heuristics to generate multiple concepts, and that initial concepts produced using Design Heuristics were carried over into final team design. The results support the applicability of Design Heuristics to student idea generation in biomedical engineering design.     

Defining educational environments: the case of the Athens Technological Educational Institute (TEI)

The Athens Technological Educational Institute (TEI) as a new organization confronts problems of institutional identity and legitimation. Within this context the present study attempts to define the educational environment of the TEI by assessing expectations of incoming students and evaluations of graduating students (N = 1,213). Student concerns were focused on teacher effectiveness, instructional quality and the need for information on occupations. Personal motivation, attitudes toward future occupation and school affiliation were found to predict both expectations and evaluations. Educational and social background characteristics were mostly insignificant. The implications of the findings for policy formulation are discussed.     

Neoliberal versus social justice reforms in education policy and practice: discourses,politics and disability rights in education

This article uses critical discourse analysis in order to discuss the equity and social justice implications of an envisaged education reform agenda in Cyprus, as articulated by two consultation reports commissioned by the World Bank. The reports highlight, inter alia, the imperative to improve teaching and enhance accountability regimes with regard to students’ learning. Selected extracts from these documents are analyzed in order to highlight the absence of a social justice discourse in the rhetoric of educational reforms, despite the alleged centrality of a social justice discourse in official policy. The reports fail to include issues of social justice and learner diversity in discussing the necessity to strengthen the existing teacher policy framework and to mobilize structural educational reforms. This omission is indicative of the neoliberal imperatives that drive the envisaged education policy reforms as well as the low priority attributed to issues of equity and learner diversity, with particular reference to students designated as having special educational needs and/or disabilities.     

Individual differences in feelings of difficulty: The case of school mathematics

Feelings of difficulty, or subjective estimation of task difficulty, are on-line metacognitive experiences, which arise as response to the difficulty of the tasks processed by the person. They are related to performance, but little is known about their nature and the factors that influence them. This study aimed to delimit the possible individual differences effects on feelings of difficulty experienced in relation to school mathematics. General and domain-specific cognitive ability, affect, gender and expertise were the individual differences factors studied. The subjects were 299 students of 7th, 8th, & 9th grade and they were tested with mathematical tasks of three levels of difficulty. Upon completion of each task subjects rated its difficulty on a 4-point scale, ranging from 1: not difficult at all to 4: very difficult. Testing was repeated one year later. Path analysis showed that feelings of difficulty form a system of their own, which is mainly influenced by performance and cognitive ability rather than affective factors. Only anxiety state had a direct effect on feelings of difficulty. Expertise did not differentiate feelings of difficulty in the 1st testing, but it did so in the second. Gender interacted with both personal and task characteristics, the girls being more atypical in their responses than boys. The educational implications of these results are discussed.     

��Romantic��, ��Classic�� and ��Baroque�� Views of Nature: An Analysis of Pictures About the Environment in Greek Primary School Textbooks��Diachronic Considerations

Taking the view that pictures are not a transparent but rather a deforming mirror of reality, shaping representations of the world bound up with the interests of the social institutions within which pictures are circulated and read, our aim is to explore what view of nature and of the human-nature relationship is built in Greek natural science school textbooks. The particular textbooks analysed have been recently introduced (in 2006 and 2007) into Greek education. The pictorial analysis suggests that a ??baroque?? view of nature and of the human-nature relationship predominantly emerges, according to which nature is constantly in motion, and therefore random and unpredictable natural change could be ??normal??. Natural environments are viewed in materialistic terms, being transformed by humans and serving as a resource. A comparison with our analysis of the older textbooks written in the early 1980s (Korfiatis et al. 2004) seems to indicate important conceptual differences between the two series of textbooks. The ??romantic?? and ??classic?? views of nature in the old textbooks could express the vigour, the optimism and the innocence characterising industrial societies (or in the process of industrialisation) about human interventions in the environment. Conversely, the ??baroque?? view found in the new textbooks probably marks the scepticism of post-industrial societies about natural phenomena.     

Metacognitive Experiences: The Missing Link in the Self-Regulated Learning Process

The measurement of online self-regulation processes is a very important issue and in this rejoinder to Ainley and Patrick (this issue) I am arguing that including measures of metacognitive experiences, in conjunction with measures of other affective experiences, in various phases of task processing can increase the reliability and validity of online measures and our understanding of the self-regulation process. Furthermore, behavioral and performance measures as well as thinking aloud protocols can enrich not only the reliability and validity of our measures but also our awareness of the factors involved in the formation of the various facets of subjective experiences, be it affective or metacognitive.

Self‐regulation of student epistemic thinking in science: the role of metacognitive prompts

The purpose of the present study is to examine the effectiveness of a metacognitive prompts intervention‐science (MPI‐S), which is based on the nature of science with 162 eighth‐grade science students. It was hypothesised that students exposed to the intervention will show higher levels of content knowledge and knowledge about the nature of science than students in a comparison group. Attempts were also made to determine what cognitive processes are triggered during the use of metacognitive prompts. Findings showed significant improvements in students’ content knowledge and nature of science. In addition, qualitative findings revealed that the experimental group made choices based on evidence in the inquiry unit whereas the comparison group made decisions based on authority. Educational implications for practice into the classroom are discussed.