Educational affordances and learning design in music software development

Although music software has become increasingly affordable and widely adopted in today’s classrooms, concerns have been raised about a lack of consideration for users’ needs during the software development process. This paper examines intra- and inter-sectoral communication pertaining to software development and music education to shed light on the improvement of the educational affordances for music software in classroom teaching and learning. Semi-structured interviews with music software developers (n = 3) and music teachers (n = 15) are used to gain insights into how to enhance the educational affordances of music software. The findings of this study fill a gap in the literature by detailing the knowledge exchange required to effectively develop music education software. Improving the synergy between the knowledge bases of software development and music education could enhance novel educational affordances, providing music teachers with the opportunity to develop new, pedagogically sound music teaching and learning activities.     

Self‐regulation strategies improve self‐discipline in adolescents: benefits of mental contrasting and implementation intentions

Adolescents struggle with setting and striving for goals that require sustained self‐discipline. Research on adults indicates that goal commitment is enhanced by mental contrasting (MC), a strategy involving the cognitive elaboration of a desired future with relevant obstacles of present reality. Implementation intentions (II), which identify the action one will take when a goal‐relevant opportunity arises, represent a strategy shown to increase goal attainment when commitment is high. This study tests the effect of mental contrasting combined with implementation intentions (MCII) on successful goal implementation in adolescents. Sixty‐six 2nd‐year high school students preparing to take a high‐stakes exam in the fall of their third year were randomly assigned to complete either a 30‐minute written mental contrasting with implementation intentions intervention or a placebo control writing exercise. Students in the intervention condition completed more than 60% more practice questions than did students in the control condition. These findings point to the utility of directly teaching to adolescents mental contrasting with implementation intentions as a self‐regulatory strategy of successful goal pursuit.     

Childhood maltreatment in South Korea: retrospective study

Objective

This study explored the prevalence of childhood maltreatment in South Korea using the retrospective version of ICAST and the associations between perceptions of abuse experienced during childhood and recent interpersonal problems and depression.

Methods

539 young persons, aged 18–24 years, from various universities, work places, and clinical settings participated in a study using the ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool-Retrospective Version (ICAST-R), the short form of the Korean-Inventory of Interpersonal Problems Circumplex Scale (KIIP-SC), and the Korean version of the Beck Depression Inventory (K-BDI).

Results

While males reported more physical abuse, females reported being exposed to more emotional or sexual abuse. The proportion of reported extra-familial or peer abuse was relatively high. Interpersonal problems and depression were significantly high for those who experienced all types of abuse during childhood. Perception of physical abuse as reasonable/justified discipline affected interpersonal problems and perception of emotional abuse when compared to peers affected interpersonal problems and depression. Unlike previous studies, this study identified more depressive symptoms reported with disclosure of sexual abuse.

Practice implications

These findings highlight the importance of understanding how one perceives maltreatment. Perceiving an abusive act as a justifiable disciplinary method may affect reporting as well as longer term consequences for the victim. A wide range of perpetrators and different settings in which maltreatment may occur must be considered as influencing these perceptions. This study contributed to the determination of validity of the ICAST-R for use in wider population surveys.     

A decade of education reform in Thailand: broken promise or impossible dream?

This study addresses the perceived gap between the vision of education reform in Thailand embodied in its Education Reform Law of 1999 and the results of implementation a decade later. Drawing upon opportunistic data obtained from a sample of 162 Thai school principals, we analyze trends in reform implementation across schools in all regions and levels of Thailand’s K-12 education system. The results suggest that a decade following the formal initiation of education reform, changes in teaching and learning, ICT implementation and school management systems have yet to engage the nation’s teachers to a substantial degree. The lack of results is linked to a reform strategy that has emphasized top-down implementation and a cultural predisposition to treat change as an event rather than as a long-term process.     

Cognitive skills and literacy performance of Chinese adolescents with and without dyslexia

The present study sought to identify cognitive abilities that might distinguish Hong Kong Chinese adolescents with dyslexia and to assess how these abilities were associated with Chinese word reading, word dictation, and reading comprehension. The cognitive skills of interest were morphological awareness, visual-orthographic knowledge, rapid naming, and verbal working memory. A total of 90 junior secondary school students, 30 dyslexic, 30 chronological age controls, and 30 reading level controls was tested on a range of cognitive and literacy tasks. Dyslexic students were less competent than the control students in all cognitive and literacy measures. The regression analyses also showed that verbal working memory, rapid naming, morphological awareness, and visual-orthographic knowledge were significantly associated with literacy performance. Findings underscore the importance of these cognitive skills for Chinese literacy acquisition. Overall, this study highlights the persistent difficulties of Chinese dyslexic adolescents who seem to have multiple causes for reading and spelling difficulties.     

Understanding communication among deaf students who sign and speak: a trivial pursuit?

Classroom communication between deaf students was modeled using a question-and-answer game. Participants consisted of student pairs that relied on spoken language, pairs that relied on American Sign Language (ASL), and mixed pairs in which one student used spoken language and one signed. Although the task encouraged students to request clarification of messages they did not understand, such requests were rare, and did not vary across groups. Face-to-face communication was relatively poor in all groups. Students in the ASL group understood questions more readily than students who relied on oral communication. Although comprehension was low for all groups, those using oral communication provided more correct free responses, although the numbers were low; no significant differences existed for multiple-choice responses. Results are discussed in terms of the possibility that many deaf students have developed lower criteria for comprehension, and related challenges for classroom communication access.     

History as narrative: the nature and quality of historical understanding for students with LD

In this study, we examine the nature and quality of students' comprehension of history. Specifically, we explore whether cognitive-psychological theories developed to capture the comprehension of narrative text can be used to capture the comprehension of history. Participants were 36 students with learning disabilities who had taken part in an earlier study designed to investigate the effects of an interactive instructional intervention in history. The results of the original study supported the effectiveness of the intervention in terms of amount recalled. The results of the present study reveal that historical understanding can be characterized as the construction of meaning through the creation of a causal network of events. The study of history within a causal network framework has implications for understanding the nature and quality of students' learning of history, and for potentially identifying sources of failure in learning.     

An Exploratory Study of the Conflict Management Styles of Department Heads in a Research University Setting

Conflict in the university setting is an inherent component of academic life. Leaders spend more than 40% of their time managing conflict. Department heads are in a unique position—they encounter conflict from individuals they manage and from others to whom they report such as a senior administrator in the position of dean. There are very few studies that seek to ascertain the conflict management styles of department heads and how these impact leadership and professional development. This qualitative research study explored the conflict management styles of 20 department heads across a variety of disciplines and with varying levels of experience at a public research extensive university in the South. Based on an analysis of conflict management styles, the article offers implications for the professional development of department heads.