Acquisition and use of shortcut strategies by traditionally schooled children

This study aimed at analysing traditionally taught children’s acquisition and use of shortcut strategies in the number domain 20–100. One-hundred-ninety-five second, third, and fourth graders of different mathematical achievement levels participated in the study. They were administered two tasks, both consisting of a series of two-digit additions and subtractions that maximally elicit the use of the compensation and indirect addition strategy (, so the answer is 2 + 1 or 3). In the first task, children were instructed to solve all items as accurately and as fast as possible with their preferred strategy. The second task was to generate at least two different strategies for each item. Results demonstrated that children of all grades and all achievement levels hardly applied the compensation and indirect addition strategy in the first task. Children’s strategy reports in the second task revealed that younger and lower achieving children did not apply these strategies because they did not (yet) discover these strategies. By contrast, older and higher achieving children appeared to have acquired these strategies by themselves. Results are interpreted in relation to cognitive psychological and socio-cultural perspectives on children’s mathematics learning.

Active Listening: Web-based Assessment Tool for Communication and Active Listening Skill Development

The Instructional Design Portfolio

Active Listening: Web-based Assessment Tool for Communication and Active Listening Skill Development     

A developmental study of school performance explanations of 6 to 11-year-olds: Causal differentiation and internality norm

Children's explanations of their performances are characterized by an increase of internal explanations over external ones. Originally considered a manifestation of cognitive development, this change has more recently been considered as an appropriation of a social norm. Two investigations are presented analyzing development of causal explanations of success and failure in mathematics and drawing. In the first study, two measures of causal attribution are compared in order to show that the use of unipolar scales is more suitable for illustrating differences in causal factors progressively operated by children. The hypothesis of the appropriation of a norm of internality is investigated in the second study. Results do not confirm this hypothesis and further, they cannot be interpreted solely in terms of cognitive development. They are discussed in the frame of a theory of socio-cognitive development.     

The persistence of social attraction in socially deprived and satiated rats

Pairs of socially deprived or satiated rats were observed for 71÷2 continuous hours in an open field. Social contact increased monotonically throughout this time, with socially deprived animals showing more attraction, and a greater increase in attraction, than satiated animals. The quality of social contact changed, however, from a predominantly active interaction, in which the most sociable animals were most mobile, to a predominantly passive huddling, in which the most sociable animals were least mobile. The results suggest that social attraction in rats is not transitory, and may serve several different functions.