Innovation strategy and performance during economic transition: Evidences in Beijing, China

This paper evaluates the relevance of innovation strategy to various categories of Chinese firms and investigates its relationship with innovation performance during the economic transition of the 1990s. Data from 1244 Chinese firms in Beijing are used to ascertain the relative importance of different innovation objectives, along with the innovation strategies adopted by manufacturing firms. Results show that innovation activities were confined to the domestic sphere and mainly directed at quality improvement. Chinese manufacturing firms which obtained support from the government through the high-tech firm accreditation system generally perform better. They had already started moving away from a reliance on imported technology and equipment, and using indigenous R&D efforts to innovate for the coming market economy.     

Examining interpersonal dynamics among adult learners through the lens of place

The purpose of this article is to analyze interpersonal problems among adult learners in three family literacy programs and to identify how these tensions were connected to place or distinctive community contexts. Drawing on the critical geography literature, the article argues that interpersonal problems must be understood in light of socio‐cultural and spatial factors such as the history of steel‐era industrial capitalism and immigrant settlement patterns resulting from global economic restructuring. By linking micro‐level interactions to contextual factors, the article provides a sociological, place‐conscious alternative to individualistic explanations of relational conflicts. In short, the group dynamics adult educators and learners encounter in the classroom should be understood as a microcosm of spatially produced social relations outside the program.     

Seniors as Assistants in Freshman Orientation

The author studied the pedagogy of Socrates looking for teaching techniques that help maintain students' interest in an ongoing discussion. Socrates' use of such strategies as asking probing questions, expanding the discussion into its relationship to other ideas, assuming the role of the devil's advocate, and spending time on group maintenance can be extremely helpful.     

Evaluation of reflective practice in teacher education

Teacher education based on ‘reflective practice’ consists of observing, analysing and reflecting on teacher performance in order to improve professional practice. This article presents the results of an evaluation of a programme on mathematics teaching carried out using reflective practice. It was targeted at 284 teachers in various stages of the education system, using an approach that combines quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (interviews and reports) methods. While the study shows that the education programme generates high levels of satisfaction, pedagogical appropriateness and learning, its achievements in effectiveness are moderate. Although, in general, what is learned through teacher education is implemented in the classroom, it is done so in an isolated fashion, in other words, individually and without becoming a part of the culture of the school. The results show little evidence of its impact on student learning. The article offers proposals for improving the education programme, while, at the same time, analysing the usefulness of the approach and evaluation tools employed.     

Developmental changes in the nature of language proficiency and reading fluency paint a more complex view of reading comprehension in ELL and EL1

We examined theoretical issues concerning the development of reading fluency and language proficiency in 390 English Language Learners (ELLs,) and 149 monolingual, English-as-a-first language (EL1) students. The extent to which performance on these constructs in Grade 5 (i.e., concurrent predictors) contributes to reading comprehension in the presence of Grade 2 autoregressors was also addressed. Students were assessed on cognitive, language, word reading, and reading fluency skills in Grades 2 and 5. In Grade 2, regardless of language group, word and text reading fluency formed a single factor, but by Grade 5 word and text reading fluency formed two distinct factors, the latter being more aligned with language comprehension. In both groups a substantial proportion of the variance in Grade 5 reading comprehension was accounted for uniquely by Grade 2 phonological awareness and vocabulary. Grade 5 text reading fluency contributed uniquely in the presence of the autoregressors. By Grade 5 syntactic skills and listening comprehension emerged as additional language proficiency components predicting reading comprehension in ELL but not in EL1. Results suggest that predictors of reading comprehension are similar but not identical in ELL and EL1. The findings point to a more nuanced and dynamic framework for understanding the building blocks that contribute to reading comprehension in ELLs and EL1s in upper elementary school. They underscore the importance of considering constructs such as vocabulary, whose role is stable, and other components of language proficiency and reading fluency whose role becomes pivotal as their nature changes.     

Learning novel words by ear or by eye? An advantage for lexical inferencing in listening versus reading narratives in fourth grade

This study examined the ability to infer the meaning of novel made-up words that appeared in 16 short narrative texts, presented in two modalities—reading and listening. Hebrew-speaking 4th grade students (N = 54) were asked to infer the meanings of the made-up words in both modality conditions. In this cross-group design, students were randomly assigned to one of two order conditions: reading first or listening first. Regardless of condition, participants were better able to infer the meaning of the made-up words in the listening condition than in the reading condition. Individual differences in word reading, vocabulary, and reading comprehension mediated novel word learning but working memory did not. Results are discussed in relation to the challenges faced by 4th grade Hebrew readers in the transition from reading a fully pointed (vowelized) shallow orthography to an unpointed, deep orthography. The ability of 4th grade readers to infer novel words appears to be enhanced when listening to animated narration, and is mediated by extant vocabulary knowledge and higher-order comprehension processes, but also by basic decoding skills.     

A Methylome‐Wide Association Study of Trajectories of Oppositional Defiant Behaviors and Biological Overlap With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

In 671 mother–child (49% male) pairs from an epidemiological birth cohort, we investigated (a) prospective associations between DNA methylation (at birth) and trajectories (ages 7–13) of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and the ODD subdimensions of irritable and headstrong; (b) common biological pathways, indexed by DNA methylation, between ODD trajectories and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); (c) genetic influence on DNA methylation; and (d) prenatal risk exposure associations. Methylome‐wide significant associations were identified for the ODD and headstrong, but not for irritable. Overlap analysis indicated biological correlates between ODD, headstrong, and ADHD. DNA methylation in ODD and headstrong was (to a degree) genetically influenced. DNA methylation associated with prenatal risk exposures of maternal anxiety (headstrong) and cigarette smoking (ODD and headstrong).     

Assessment of Prelinguistic Behaviors in Deaf Children: Parents as Collaborators

This article begins with the rationale for a detailed assessment of prelinguistic behaviors in young deaf children. I used a Hebrew adaptation of the parent questionnaire developed by Camaioni, Caselli, Volterra, and Luchenti (1992) in Italy to collect data on a relatively large heterogeneous Israeli sample of deaf participants: 43 deaf children of hearing parents (19 girls and 24 boys) ranging in age from 8 to 49 months. Results indicated that prelinguistic behaviors in deaf infants resemble only to some extent the theoretical model of prelinguistic communication in hearing infants. Unique interrelationships emerged among pointing and early noncommunicative behaviors, yet no correlation emerged between the use of referential gestures and early words or signs. We analyzed findings with respect to the comparison of prelinguistic behavioral characteristics in hearing and deaf children and the collaboration with parents in assessing the prelinguistic behaviors of their own deaf children.     

Micro productive failure and the acquisition of algebraic procedural knowledge

Instructional Science - Productive failure has shown positive effects on conceptual and transfer measures, but no clear effects on procedural measures. It is therefore an open question whether, and...     

Assessing the quality and equality of Hong Kong basic education results from PISA 2000+ to PISA 2006

This paper seeks to examine the quality and equality of basic education of Hong Kong based on the first three cycles of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Results from these three assessments suggested that the Hong Kong students have an outstanding performance in mathematics, science and reading. In particular, the performance of reading improves substantially in PISA 2006. As far as equality in education is concerned, the achievement gap of students from different socio-economic backgrounds in Hong Kong is relatively small compared with other countries. However, the academic performance variation between-schools suggest that, there is still academic segregation among secondary schools in Hong Kong although it has been reduced slightly in the PISA 2006.