First Principles of Attitudinal Change: a Review of Principles,Methods and Strategies

Knowing how to effectively design attitudinal change instruction for various learning settings is essential for instructional designers. However, the research on instructional design for attitudinal change instruction has been relatively dispersed and lacks cohesion, despite its increasing importance. The purposes of this paper are to 1) reignite the scholarly conversation on designing attitudinal change instruction, and 2) provide directions for future research. Using Merrill’s first principles of instruction as a guide and framework, we review the existing research to identify and discuss the principles for designing attitudinal change instruction.     

Understanding Preservice Teacher Skills to Construct Lesson Plans

This study examined preservice teachers’ (PSTs) capacity for lesson planning in a university-based teacher preparation program in the USA Participants (n?=?126) wrote lesson plans in three approaches: synthesis, creation, and modification. Findings indicate that PSTs who modified preexisting lesson plans produced better lesson plans than their peers and reported higher efficacy in their use of the lesson plan in their field experiences. This study supports the notion that the efficacy of first-year teaching lies more appropriately in the area of enacting curriculum than in the area of designing curriculum. With respect to career-long learning, PSTs’ abilities to do curriculum work are likely to improve, as they grow more familiar with students and existing excellent curricula over years. Although the study presents a snapshot of U.S. preservice teachers’ capacity for curriculum design, the findings may serve to inform the literature on the developmental aspect of curriculum design for teacher education systems across the world.     

Cognitive componential modelling of reading in ten- to twelve-year-old readers

The longitudinal project attempts to estimate the parameters of a priori postulates with their measurement errors, and the goodness-of-fit of model-implied population covariance sigma matrices with observed sample covariance matrices, using linear structural equation modelling (LISREL). The present report deals with Phase 2 of the project (see Leong 1988 for Phase 1 results) and involved 252 ten-to twelve-year-old readers. Three latent exogenous components were postulated: (a) orthographic/phonological component, (b) morphological component, and (c) sentence comprehension component. These constructs were subserved by 8 measurable indicators (5 lexical decision and 3 vocalization tasks). These 8 independent tasks were all administered on-line via the microcomputer under laboratory conditions with combined, scaled accuracy and latency measures as indices of efficiency in processing the reading related tasks. The latent endogenous or dependent component Reading Performance was subserved by standardized vocabulary and reading comprehension tests. Maximum likelihood analyses using LISREL VI to test the approximation of the hypothesized model show a good fit for the grade 4 data, a reasonable fit for grade 5, and a less unambiguous fit for grade 6. These results are generally confirmed with the simultaneous structural analyses of Phase 2 and Phase 1 (N=298 students) multisamples. Multi-components and multi-levels of reading for these age groups are emphasized.     

Cognitive processing, language awareness, and reading in Grade 2 and Grade 4 children

The role of cognitive processing and language awareness in relation to reading is discussed. The framework for cognitive processing was Luria's (1966a, Higher cortical functions in man, New York: Basic Books; 1966b, Human brain and psychological processes, New York: Harper & Row) simultaneous and successive syntheses. Language awareness involved understanding of phonological representation, ambiguities, and incongruities. The sample of 56 Grade 2 and 64 Grade 4 children was administered a battery of seven “simultaneous-successive” tasks. Principal component and promax oblique factor analyses and factor scores were used to classify the children as low-low, low-high, high-low, and high-high simultaneous-successive “processors.” A series of ANOVAs showed significant differences by grade and level of cognitive processing for the three language awareness tasks and for reading. These tasks and factor scores derived from the simultaneous and successive components of the within correlation matrix for the total sample of 120 children after removing covariance associated with the two grades were subjected to stepwise multiple regression analyses and a path analysis to tease out the contribution of these components to reading. Results showed a much greater direct effect from language awareness on reading than simultaneous and successive syntheses. Ability to reflect on language and to use language as “disembedded modes of thinking” are seen as central to reading acquisition and development.     

Science perceived through the Science Citation Index

The progress of science is essentially a cumulative process, each research worker building on the foundations laid by his predecessors and contemporaries. The published literature reflects the picture of progress as a whole, but analysis shows that the reflections from some areas are more intense than from others. This article reviews some of the instructive deductions that can be made if such analysis is systematically applied to the content of scientific journals as a whole.     

Prevention–Permission–Promotion: A Review of Approaches to Errors in Learning

Errors are often perceived as undesirable events to be avoided at all costs. However, a growing body of research suggests that making errors is, in fact, beneficial for learning. Building on human resource development literature, the present review proposes a 3P framework of approaches to errors during learning: prevention (avoiding or observing errors), permission (allowing errors), and promotion (inducing or guiding errors). This framework is applied to examine and integrate the empirical evidence on errors that have been commonly investigated in cognitive, educational, and applied psychology research. The psychological mechanisms of each error approach are discussed, and implications for education are considered. This review then concludes by highlighting the ways in which the various error approaches interact with learner characteristics and learning contexts, as well as discussing the role of feedback in error correction and proposing directions for future research toward understanding how errors can be optimized in learning.     

A qualitative inquiry on sources of teacher efficacy in teaching low-achieving students

Developing a high level of efficacy can be challenging to teachers who work with low-achieving students. The authors adopted a pragmatic qualitative research design to investigate the sources of efficacy information reported by five high-efficacy teachers and four low-efficacy teachers of secondary low-achieving students in Singapore. The results show that the psychological sources of information postulated by Albert Bandura (i.e., mastery experiences, verbal persuasion, vicarious experience, and physiological and emotional arousal), are valid but insufficient to explain high teacher efficacy. Three additional nonpsychological sources of information, including teachers' knowledge about students, rapport with students, and previous working experiences, also played significant roles in the creation of high teacher efficacy.