We game on skyscrapers: the effects of an equity-informed game design workshop on students’ computational thinking skills and perceptions of computer science

Educational technology research and development - This paper presents a game-design workshop built around a digital art installation featuring video games displayed over a real-world skyscraper to...     

From Parent to Child to Parent: Associations Between Parent and Offspring Psychopathology

Parental psychopathology can affect child functioning, and vice versa. We examined bidirectional associations between parent and offspring psychopathology in 5,536 children and their parents. We asked three questions: (a) are parent-to-child associations stronger than child-to-parent associations? (b) are mother-to-child associations stronger than father-to-child associations? and (c) do within- and between-person effects contribute to bidirectional associations between parent and offspring psychopathology? Our findings suggest that only within-rater bidirectional associations of parent and offspring psychopathology can be consistently detected, with no difference between mothers and fathers. Child psychopathology was hardly associated with parental psychopathology. No evidence for cross-rater child-to-parent associations was found suggesting that the within-rater child-to-parent associations reflect shared method variance. Moreover, within-person change accounted for a part of the variance observed.     

An Illusion of Self-Sufficiency for Learning About Artifacts in Scaffolded Learners,But Not Observers

Two studies ask whether scaffolded children (n = 243, 5–6 years and 9–10 years) recognize that assistance is needed to learn to use complex artifacts. In Study 1, children were asked to learn to use a toy pantograph. While children recognized the need for assistance for indirect knowledge, 70% of scaffolded children claimed that they would have learned to use the artifact without assistance, even though 0% of children actually succeeded without assistance. In Study 2, this illusion of self-sufficiency was significantly attenuated when observing another learner being scaffolded. Learners may fail to appreciate artifacts’ opacity because self-directed exploration can be partially informative, such that learning to use artifacts is typically scaffolded instead of taught explicitly.     

The links between pedagogical competence,instructional quality,and mathematics achievement in the lower secondary classroom

Educational Studies in Mathematics - It is widely assumed that teachers play a key role in providing high-quality learning opportunities to students and fostering students’ learning. Yet it...     

Silents Please

Conclusions It is quite evident that the auditory aspects of the film used in the study superseded the visual ones. Since both sensory modalities can reinforce each other in many films, those films can be used to educational advantage. Behavioral science films, however—placing most importance not on the habit of looking, but on the power to observe with care—should be produced and selected with caution. Such films should present only material that is visually and auditorily congruent. Lacking this congruency, the films may teach what is said, not what is seen, a procedure that defeats the very purpose of the film. This kind of film teaching may further authoritarianism and armchair “philosophy, ” and may weaken the habit of accurate observation, essential both to scientific methodology and to successful everyday living. It is difficult to compare the results of this study directly with the results of other studies, since—as Allen has pointed out (1)—there is a dearth of experimental research involving “flat” pictures. Hartman, however, recently commenting on the interference and facilitation between pictorial and verbal channels, pointed out that it is dangerous to assume a mutual strengthening (3). Results of the experiment reported here suggest again that the viewer when presented “equivocal” material gives precedence to audition. By thus accepting and remembering only the narrator’s point of view, he may narrow his own judgment and inquisitiveness. In such cases, silents please!