Children's Comparisons of the Recency of Two Events from the Past Year

Research on memory for time has been limited by the difficulty of disentangling several of the fundamentally different processes that contribute to a chronological sense of the past. This study used a developmental approach to isolate one of these processes, impressions of distances in the past. Large samples of children between 3 and 12 years were asked to judge which was longer ago, their birthday or Christmas (and, in one study, Halloween and Thanksgiving). Even children under 6 years of age were able to discriminate the recency of their birthday and Christmas with great accuracy when the events were widely separated and one was within the past several months. The ability to discriminate recency on these scales appears to be a basic property of human memory that changes little with development. Other information about the locations of the events and their relative times of occurrence could only be interpreted correctly by children older than 9 years.     

Pre-service teachers’ perceptions of self as inclusive educators

Teacher education institutions play a key role in preparing pre-service teachers to graduate as competent and confident inclusive educators. Seeking to understand pre-service teachers’ current perceptions of diversity and inclusion, and how they perceived themselves as future inclusive educators, this qualitative study employed inductive analysis to explore pre-service teachers’ self-perceptions as inclusive teachers, utilising the theory of possible selves. Forty-six (n?=?46) of 292 pre-service teachers enrolled in an inclusive education subject in a graduate entry teacher education programme in eastern Australia participated in this study. Findings revealed that pre-service teachers had developed good theoretical understanding of inclusive education through their coursework. However, their development of possible selves as inclusive educators was less well-defined in that they had difficulty extending their understandings of who they might be as inclusive teachers beyond their coursework samples. This difficulty in identifying their cultural selves beyond a stereotypical norm of who a ‘classroom teacher’ is indicates a need for more and extensive time for pre-service teachers to develop their professional identities as inclusive educators.     

The Validity of Value-added Estimates from Low-Stakes Testing Contexts: The Impact of Change in Test-Taking Motivation and Test Consequences

Accountability mandates often prompt assessment of student learning gains (e.g., value-added estimates) via achievement tests. The validity of these estimates have been questioned when performance on tests is low stakes for students. To assess the effects of motivation on value-added estimates, we assigned students to one of three test consequence conditions: (a) an aggregate of test scores is used solely for institutional effectiveness purposes, (b) personal test score is reported to the student, or (c) personal test score is reported to faculty. Value-added estimates, operationalized as change in performance between two testing occasions for the same individuals where educational programming was experienced between testing occasions, were examined across conditions, in addition to the effects of test-taking motivation. Test consequences did not impact value-added estimates. Change in test-taking motivation, however, had a substantial effect on value-added estimates. In short, value-added estimates were attenuated due to decreased motivation from pretest to posttest.     

Discrimination of the number of sequential events by rats

Ten rats were trained to press a right lever following two successive sounds and to press a left lever following four successive sounds. Three sound sequences were used in initial discrimination training, such that reliable classification could not be based on the duration of each sound, the interval between sounds, or the total duration of the sound sequence. Classification of seven novel sound sequences suggested that the animals were either using number or the sum of sound durations in a sequence as the relevant cue. When this total sound duration was put in conflict with number, rats classified by number. The conclusion was that rats can discriminate number, even when temporal cues are controlled.     

An exploration of teacher's use of iPads for students with learning support needs

This project explored how iPads were being used in a range of K‐12 schools to support the learning of students with a range of learning support needs. Groups of teachers (and other professionals) from the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK were invited to complete an online survey focused on the use of iPads in their classrooms, perspectives of their skill level, and how their school and school districts support the use of iPads. The survey focused on iPad use in classrooms (curriculum and skills); teachers’ skill levels; whether iPads are addressed in the Individualised Education Program (IEP); the systemic support for the iPads; and the perceived benefits and barriers. The results reveal that respondents are using iPads across many areas of the curriculum, which affirms the research in the emerging literature base. However, there are teacher reported differences in the manner and scope of iPad use in the classrooms and also the integration of the iPad in the IEP. The research also highlights variability in reported skill level for the iPad and an increased need for enhanced systemic support, such as training, funding, technical support and administrative support for the use of the iPad as a pedagogical tool.     

Building Context: Using Activity Theory to Teach About Genre in Multi-Major Professional Communication Courses

Instructors in multi-major professional communication courses are asked to teach students a variety of workplace genres. However, teaching genres apart from their contexts may not result in transfer of knowledge from school to workplace settings. We propose teaching students to research genre use via activity theory as a way of encouraging transfer. We outline theory and research relevant to teaching genre and provide results from a study using activity theory to teach genre in two different professional communication courses.     

The Development of Children's Memory for the Time of Past Events

Previous research on adults' and children's memory for the time of past events has generally overlooked the fundamental distinction between knowledge of temporal distance in the past and knowledge of temporal locations. This study applied the distinction to the development of time memory. Children of 4, 6, and 8 years of age experienced 2 target events, one 7 weeks and the other 1 week before testing. They were asked to judge the relative recency of the 2 events and to localize the older event by time of day, day of the week, month, and season. Even the 4-year-olds were successful in judging the relative recency of the 2 events and localizing the older event by time of day. However, on the 3 longer time scales, only the 6- and 8-year-olds could localize the older event, reason about possible times that it could have occurred, or tell the present time. The great accuracy of the time-of-day judgments at all 3 ages is almost certainly not due to distance-type information. The results show the separate development of distance and location judgments.     

The development of children's knowledge of temporal structure

Adults have a rich understanding of a number of time systems, but little is known about how this knowledge develops. 3 experiments were conducted to test a model in which the first representations of the days of the week and months of the year have verbal-list properties, and these are later supplemented by image representations. In Experiments 1 and 2, fourth or fifth graders could judge forward relative order for these contents, but not until adolescence could backward order judgments be made accurately. In Experiment 3, fourth graders used a serial process to solve a categorical distance judgment task, whereas older groups shifted to a process with more rapid access to information about the position of remote items. The results are interpreted as supporting the 2-stage model and appear inconsistent with a number of alternative models.     

Exploring youth engagement in agricultural development: the case of farmers’ children in the Philippines as rice crop manager infomediaries

Purpose: This paper explores the intersections between community development and youth development in an initiative that mobilized farmers’ children as Rice Crop Manager (RCM) infomediaries (information mediators). RCM is an ICT-enabled nutrient management application.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The study engaged 30 farmers’ children in high school level from the provinces of Pangasinan, Isabela, Camarines Sur, Iloilo, Bukidnon, and Davao del Norte from November 2016 to October 2017. They interacted with the research team (the authors) and the RCM-SMS platform that sends text messages regarding fertilizer recommendations. A staff member from the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) also called the students for some follow-up questions. The research team conducted three rounds of interviews with the students concerning the messages and calls that they received and what they did with the information.

Findings: This study finds that farmers’ children can perform infomediary roles quite effectively. Academically excellent children and those involved in farm work performed best.

Practical Implications: The study provides guidance on similar initiatives tapping young people in agricultural development.

Theoretical Implications: This paper finds that while Community Youth Development (CYD) Theory provides a powerful lens in understanding community and youth development intersections, some identified outcomes may overlap and may not be very easy to observe. Hence, the identified outcomes may be revisited for clarity and to make them more all-encompassing.

Originality/Value: The paper documents actual parent-child interaction when the latter is mobilized to serve as an infomediary to access nutrient management-related information on rice.