Mobile Documentation with Smartphone and Cloud in an Emergent Curriculum

The goal of this study was to explore the lived experience of kindergarten teachers with mobile documentation designed to support their tracking of children's learning activities in an emergent curriculum. A structure for mobile documentation was created with the smartphone and cloud system. The phenomenological approach used in this study showed that mobile documentation supported teachers' documentation processes and cultivated the mobile learning community. In particular, less experienced teachers gained more benefits than experienced teachers because the former understood the emergent curriculum by viewing photos from and observing activities in other classrooms. In addition, the teachers' supervisor benefited from understanding the activities and projects occurring in each classroom and could provide specific mentoring to less experienced teachers. Suggestions were provided to cultivate a positive mobile learning community in an emergent curriculum.     

Regulating the unthinkable: Bernstein’s pedagogic device and the paradox of control

Drawing upon Bernstein’s writings on the pedagogic device, this article examines how critical thinking is regulated in Singapore through the process of pedagogic recontextualization. The potential of critical thinking to speak to alternative possibilities and notions of individual autonomy as well as its assumptions of a liberal arrangement of society are problematized in Singapore. By documenting how such curricular discourses are articulated by the state and taken up in schools and classrooms, the article provides a sociological account of the relations between the organization of knowledge and the distribution of social power and control. The analysis reveals that even as official understandings of critical thinking are transmitted in the classroom, alternative, non-official orders of meaning are inevitably made available. Showing how teachers and students act to resist and challenge these prescribed understandings the article argues that the very ideas of change and indeterminacy are fundamentally built into the pedagogic device.     

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.     

Minimum reading fluency necessary for comprehension among second‐grade students

The current study examined the relationship between oral reading fluency (ORF) and reading comprehension for students in second grade. A total of 84 participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions that involved reading a grade‐appropriate passage with either 0%, 10%, 20%, or 30% scrambled words and answering subsequent comprehension questions. The correlation coefficient between ORF and the number of comprehension questions correctly answered was r = .54. Receiver operating characteristics were then used to empirically derive a minimum ORF score necessary for comprehension, indicating that when these students read 63 words correct per minute they successfully comprehended what they read. Finally, the diagnostic accuracy of the derived criterion of 63 words read correctly per minute was tested and resulted in overall correct classification of .80. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Role of social presence and cognitive absorption in online learning environments

This article investigates the relationships between social presence, cognitive absorption, interest, and student satisfaction in online learning. A hypothesized structural equation model was developed to study these critical variables that may influence interaction in online learning environments. Contrary to expectations, the study determined that social presence does not impact satisfaction directly. However, the study concludes that while social presence is related to student satisfaction, its impact is not direct but rather mediated by cognitive absorption. In addition, the study clarified the impact of students’ interest on social presence, cognitive absorption, and satisfaction. The results of this study indicate that interest affects social presence and satisfaction directly. Additionally, interest appears to influence satisfaction indirectly through social presence and cognitive absorption. Contrary to expectations, this study did not reveal any significant relationship between interest and cognitive absorption.     

Desiderata: towards indigenous models of vocational psychology

As a result of a relative lack of cross-cultural validity in most current (Western) psychological models, indigenous models of psychology have recently become a popular approach for understanding behaviour in specific cultures. Such models would be valuable to vocational psychology research with culturally diverse populations. Problems facing current psychological models and methods of improving cultural validity are discussed. An integrative model of cross-cultural psychology is reviewed and the relevance of indigenous psychological methods to the advancement of vocational psychology is explained.     

Gender differences in information behavior concerning Wikipedia,an unorthodox information source?

This study examined gender differences in information behavior concerning Wikipedia. Data were collected using a Web survey in spring 2008. The study used a convenient sample that consisted of students who had taken an introductory undergraduate course at a large public university in the Midwestern United States. A total of 134 out of 409 students participated in the study. As information consumers, male students used Wikipedia more frequently than their female counterparts did. With respect to the purposes of Wikipedia use, male students used Wikipedia for entertainment or idle reading more than their female counterparts, while there were no gender differences regarding Wikipedia use for other purposes. Male students were more likely to discount the risks involved when using Wikipedia information compared to their female counterparts. Furthermore, male students had higher ratings than female students regarding most aspects of Wikipedia, including outcome expectations, perceptions about its information quality, belief in the Wikipedia project itself, emotional states while using Wikipedia, confidence in evaluating information quality, and further exploration. Finally, there was no gender difference regarding the number of years of Wikipedia use. However, male students reported having more positive experiences with the information quality of Wikipedia than their female counterparts. Overall, the findings of this study were consistent with those of previous studies concerning gender. Given the acknowledgment of the knowledge value of Wikipedia in recent literature, it seems that there are more advantages to using Wikipedia than there are disadvantages. The current study shows that male students seem to enjoy such benefits more than female students and may have more opportunities to develop their information literacy skills than female students by actively using Wikipedia. This suggests that educators need to encourage female students in particular to explore Wikipedia strategically as an initial information source so that they can develop their information literacy skills for unconventional sources.     

Lumbar spinal loads and muscle activity during a golf swing

This study estimated the lumbar spinal loads at the L4-L5 level and evaluated electromyographic (EMG) activity of right and left rectus abdominis, external and internal obliques, erector spinae, and latissimus dorsi muscles during a golf swing. Four super VHS camcorders and two force plates were used to obtain three-dimensional (3D) kinematics and kinetics of golf swings performed by five male collegiate golfers. Average EMG levels for different phases of golf swing were determined. An EMG-assisted optimization model was applied to compute the contact forces acting on the L4-L5. The results revealed a mean peak compressive load of over six times the body weight (BW) during the downswing and mean peak anterior and medial shear loads approaching 1.6 and 0.6 BW during the follow-through phases. The peak compressive load estimated in this study was high, but less than the corresponding value (over 8 BW) reported by a previous study. Average EMG levels of different muscles were the highest in the acceleration and follow-through phases, suggesting a likely link between co-contractions of paraspinal muscles and lumbar spinal loads.     

Understanding Singaporean preschool teachers' beliefs about literacy development: Four different perspectives

Investigating teachers' beliefs may shed light on their activities in the classroom, and in turn, on the pedagogical process itself. It is, however, not easy to study teachers' beliefs empirically. Q-methodology has been used over several disciplines to systematically investigate individuals' points of view on a range of issues. A study involving Q-methodology was conducted in Singaporean preschools to investigate some teachers' perceptions of early literacy development and instruction. The study revealed four viewpoint groups among the 30 preschool teachers who participated in the study, and possible teacher characteristics that distinguish the viewpoints from each other. The results suggest that the differences in viewpoints are indicative of differences in cultural expectations held by various groups of teachers.