Children's Understanding of the Stream of Consciousness

Children and adults were tested for their understanding that there is a virtually continuous flow of mental content in a waking person, a "stream of consciousness" that continues to run even when the person is not examining stimuli perceptually or trying to solve a problem. There was a marked increase with age from preschool to adulthood in subjects' tendency to say that a person who was just waiting quietly was having "some thoughts and ideas" rather than "a mind empty of thoughts and ideas." 4-year-olds also tended to say that the mind of a waiting person was "not doing anything," whether that person was another individual or themselves, and that a person who wanted to could keep his or her "mind completely empty of all thoughts and ideas" for 3 min. These results suggest that preschoolers' conceptions of people's mental lives may be quite different from those of older children and adults.     

城市土地扩张与经济发展的Kuznets曲线效应分析——以江苏省13个地级市为例简

在借鉴耕地非农化与经济发展Kuznets曲线效应的基础上,提出城市土地扩张与经济发展的Kuznets曲线效应假说,并以江苏省13个地级市为例进行验证。研究结果表明：①城市土地扩张与经济发展的Kuznets曲线效应不仅在理论上具有可能性,在江苏省13个地级市以及苏南5市、苏北5市的实践中也得到了验证;②苏南5市城市土地规模的稳定主要得益于经济发展的结构效应,符合其现阶段的社会经济发展特征,而苏北5市城市土地扩张的放缓可能与消除效应中的政策约束有关,或许不利于其当前经济的进一步发展;③受区位条件跳跃式优化的影响,苏中3市城市土地扩张与经济发展之间并未出现Kuznets曲线效应,城市土地仍处于快速扩张的阶段。对此,本文建议江苏省三大区域应实行“有保有压,保压结合”的差别化管控政策：苏南5市应以压为主,严格限制城市用地扩张,倒逼经济结构调整;苏北5市应压中有保,在保证耕地保有量的前提下允许城市土地适度扩张,以支撑未来一段时间内的经济发展;苏中3市尤其是南通市应保中有压,在给予较大的城市土地新增空间的同时,强化城市土地集约利用,落实耕地保有目标。     

江苏开放大学教务管理系统设计与开发

江苏开放大学教务管理系统以信息标准化、用户中心为原则,支持多类型、多层次、多元化办学需要,具有包容性和可扩展性。系统建成后将具有开放性、灵活性、个性化、全过程和多任务的特色,满足开放大学的教务管理需要。经过一年多年研究开发,江苏开放大学教务管理系统已初具规模。     

开放教育新生入学阶段非学术支持服务的思考

开放教育学生在学习过程中经常被一些教务、考试以及学习平台如何使用的问题困扰,无形中增加了非课业因素带来的学习成本。而这些问题通过入学阶段的非学术支持服务的加强可以得到一定程度的改善。针对开放教育及开放教育学生的特点,围绕关键环节进行学生入学阶段非学术支持服务设计,将得到良好的效果。     

Understanding and Remembering: Children''s Knowledge about the Differential Effects of Strategy and Task Variables on Comprehension and Memorization

Developmental changes in knowledge about the differences between the mental processes of comprehension and memory were investigated in 3 studies using first graders, third graders, and undergraduates as subjects. 2 types of knowledge were assessed: (a) knowledge about the types of strategies appropriate to achieving the goals of comprehension, memorization, or a combination of the 2; (b) knowledge about how different task variables differentially affect comprehension and memorization tasks. With respect to the former, only the 2 older groups showed some understanding of the differential effectiveness of rehearsal and word familiarity for memory versus comprehension and thus showed some understanding of the comprehension-memory distinction with respect to strategy knowledge. As for the latter, only undergraduates correctly differentiated between the 2 mental processes with respect to the task variables of list length, item familiarity, and the categorical organization of the items.     

Development of children's knowledge about unconsciousness

Children of ages 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 years, and adults were asked whether people who are sound asleep and not dreaming could or would: (1) see, hear, listen, notice, think, wish, pretend, and feel things (primary-consciousness activities), (2), know that they are asleep, and know whether they are or are not engaged in primary-consciousness activities such as perceiving and thinking (reflective-consciousness activities), (3) deliberately decide to or try to perform mental or physical actions (control activities). Results indicated that the recognition that people do not engage in conscious mental activities when unconscious is still developing during the late middle-childhood years. We speculate that a developing understanding of consciousness may assist the development of an understanding of unconsciousness and vice versa, and that sensitivity to the phenomenology as contrasted with the content of mental states may be a late acquisition in the theory-of-mind area.     

Young children's ability to differentiate appearance-reality and level 2 perspectives in the tactile modality

A key acquisition in the child's developing knowledge of the mind is the subjective-objective distinction, which includes a clear understanding that things may appear to be other than the way they really are (appearance-reality distinction) and may present different appearances to self and others (Level 2 perspective-taking). Previous studies using tasks involving visual appearances have found that most children do not show such understanding until 4 or 5 years of age. However, a conceptual analysis of tactile as compared to visual and other perceptual experiences suggested the hypothesis that this understanding might appear earlier if the appearances the child must identify are tactile rather than visual. This hypothesis was supported by the results of 3 studies. In Studies 1 and 2, 3-year-old subjects could correctly indicate, for example, that an ice cube they were feeling with a heavily gloved finger did not feel cold to that finger (tactile appearance for the self), did feel cold to the experimenter's ungloved or thinly gloved finger (tactile appearance for another person), and was a cold ice cube, really and truly (reality). In contrast, and consistent with previous research findings, they were much poorer at distinguishing between real and visually apparent object identity, number, and color. Similarly, in Study 3 they tended to perform better on tactile appearance-reality tasks involving the properties of number, wetness, and intactness than on visual appearance-reality tasks that involved these same properties.     

Shifting goal posts: the impact of academic workforce reshaping and the introduction of teaching academic roles on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This qualitative study reports on findings from interviews with ten academics in an Australian university six to twelve months following academic workforce reshaping and the widespread introduction of teaching academic roles. The research aimed to determine how the workforce reshaping impacted on the capacity of academics with teaching responsibilities to engage in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Findings indicate that whilst academics were willing to undertake SoTL, participants’ capacity to engage was hampered by the workload model, middle academic leaders’ capacity to define and lead SoTL, and a perceived lack of SoTL value. A major concern for participants was that shifting goal posts (in relation to roles and expectations) would make it difficult to successfully apply for future academic work. The research indicates the need for the sector to consider the selection criteria for middle leadership roles, as well as ongoing academic leadership development to support adaptability and change agility.