Family functioning and early learning practices in immigrant homes

Poverty‐related developmental‐risk theories dominate accounts of uneven levels of household functioning and effects on children. But immigrant parents may sustain norms and practices—stemming from heritage culture, selective migration, and social support—that buffer economic exigencies. Comparable levels of social‐emotional functioning in homes of foreign‐born Latino mothers were observed relative to native‐born Whites, despite sharp social‐class disparities, but learning activities were much weaker, drawing on a national sample of mothers with children aging from 9 to 48 months (n = 5,300). Asian‐heritage mothers reported weaker social functioning—greater martial conflict and depression—yet stronger learning practices. Mothers’ migration history, ethnicity, and social support helped to explain levels of functioning, after taking into account multiple indicators of class and poverty.     

Procrastination in a distance university setting

Procrastination, putting off until tomorrow what should have been done today, is a self-regulation failure that is widespread among students. Although plenty of research has emerged regarding academic procrastination, hardly any research endeavor regarding procrastination in distance university settings exists. This lack of research is even more astonishing when considering that the demands on self-regulation are higher in distance education settings than in traditional university settings. The present (questionnaire) study was intended to shed light on procrastination in an actual distance university setting by exploring its relationship to grades, learning strategies (e.g., cognitive, meta-cognitive strategies), and life satisfaction in students from a distance university in comparison to students from a traditional university.     

Reactions of Negro Children Toward Negro and White Teachers

Student response patterns can provide insights into individual student problems as well as subgroup differences. This paper describes the development of indices for overall aberrancy, tendencies to miss relatively easy items (possible bias, lack of concentration, test anxiety, etc.), tendencies to get correct more difficult items than would be expected based on the total score (possible guessing or unusual learning patterns), and a combination that tells how the latter two tendencies do or do not balance each other. Test results for 368 math students were used to demonstrate the indices. The software is available.     

School social capital and secondary education plans

This article intends to identify the effects of school social capital on the educational plans of students, particularly those staying in school and obtaining an intermediate certificate. It is hypothesised that social capital helps to explain individual educational plans and differences between schools regarding the amount of students with particular educational plans. The analyses are based on a survey of 1638?year 8 Hauptschule students in Germany. The results show that the quality of relationships with teachers is of crucial importance for the educational plans of individual students. Furthermore, differences between schools can be explained by the degree of school expectations. This finding supports the assumption that schools provide different settings, not only for learning processes but also for developing educational aspirations and plans.     

Transforming learning infrastructures in the social sciences through flexible and interactive technology-enhanced learning

The changing higher educational landscape in Europe creates new learning infrastructures and transforms existing ones. Students are thus provided with new possibilities and challenges. Through the case study of a newly developed common curriculum for the social sciences of a public university in Austria, this article discusses the interacting social agents, elements, and tools of a flexible and interactive technology-enhanced learning model. In doing so, the transnational, national, and local infrastructural conditions and challenges are critically examined from a socio-technological perspective. Selected evaluation and survey results highlight students’ learning practices, usage behavior, and suggestions to improve their learning situation. The article concludes that student-centered learning models focusing on flexibility and interactivity can support the stable implementation of a common curriculum and its technology-enhanced learning infrastructure for the social sciences at public universities with high student numbers.     

Complementarities of innovation activities: An empirical analysis of the German manufacturing sector

Innovation strategies in manufacturing often involve internal R&D activities as well as external partnerships. Thereby it is not clear if internal and external activities are complements or substitutes. This paper tests for complementarity of different innovation activities, i.e. internal R&D, R&D contracting, and R&D cooperation. The empirical analysis of cross-sectional firm level data of the German manufacturing sector comprises both indirect and direct complementarity tests; it is based on data from the German part of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS 3). The results provide evidence for significant complementarities between internal R&D and R&D cooperation, but cast doubt on the complementarity of internal and contracted R&D, since a productivity effect on firms’ patenting probability or sales with new products cannot be found.     

The use of computer games as an educational tool: identification of appropriate game types and game elements

Playing games is an important part of our social and mental development. This research was initiated to identify the game type most suitable to our teaching environment and to identify game elements that students found interesting or useful within the different game types. A group of twenty students played four commercial games (SimIsle, Red Alert, Zork Nemesis and Duke Nukem 3D). Results suggest that students prefer 3D-adventure (Zork Nemesis) and strategy (Red Alert) games to the other types ("shoot-em-up", simulation) with Zork Nemesis ranked as the best. Students rated game elements such as logic, memory, visualisation and problem solving as the most important game elements. Such elements are integral to adventure games and are also required during the learning process. We present a model that links pedagogical issues with game elements. The game space contains a number of components, each encapsulates specific abstract or concrete interfaces. Understanding the relationship between educational needs and game elements will allow us to develop educational games that include visualisation and problem solving skills. Such tools could provide sufficient stimulation to engage learners in knowledge discovery, while at the same time developing new skills.     

Correction to: Development of Children’s monitoring and control when learning from texts: effects of age and test format

Metacognition and Learning - The article Development of Children’s monitoring and control when learning from texts: effects of age and test format, written by Martina Steiner, Mariëtte...