Monitoring makes a difference: quality and temporal variation in teacher education students’ collaborative learning

The aim of this process-oriented video-observation study is to explore how groups that perform differently differ in terms of the number, quality, and temporal variation of their content-level (knowledge co-construction) and meta-level (monitoring) activities. Five groups of teacher education students (n = 22) were observed throughout a 3-month course. Video recordings (33 hours) of face-to-face group interaction (n = 12,931 speech turns) and pre- and post-tests of students’ knowledge were collected. The results show that the well-performing group was more engaged in high-level knowledge co-construction and monitoring activities. The well-performing group was also capable of maintaining a higher level throughout the tasks, whereas the lower performing groups’ knowledge co-construction and monitoring activities was reduced during the course.     

Professional primary school teacher identity development: a pursuit in line with an unexpressed image

The results presented in this article are taken from a case study of novice primary school mathematics teachers’ professional identity development from the perspective of the teachers themselves. The empirical material was collected through self-recordings, observations and interviews. The results show how the professional identity development of these novice teachers becomes a pursuit in line with their image of a primary school teacher. To develop a sense of themselves as primary school teachers they need to establish their own criteria - individual (including graduation and personal knowledge) and social (the ability to work in one school, have colleagues and have a class of their own for which they do the planning and teaching). These criteria are shown to be both a precondition for and a part of professional identity development. The novice teachers’ image of what it means to be a primary school teacher directs their actions and becomes the goal of their professional identity development. Because of its high impact, student and novice teachers’ image of primary school teachers ought to be made visible in both teacher education and teacher induction.     

The Sequential Composition of Collaborative Groups’ Emotion Regulation in Negative Socio-emotional Interactions

Research indicates that to adjust a group’s emotional atmosphere for successful collaborative learning, group members need to engage in group-level emotion regulation. However, less is known about the whys and ways regulation is activated at a group level. This research explores what triggers 12-year-old primary school students’ (N = 37) negative socio-emotional interactions during a collaborative science task and whether the nature of the trigger makes a difference to group-level emotion regulation strategies and their sequential composition in these interactions. Groups’ collaborative working was videotaped, and triggers and strategies were analysed. The results reveal that the triggers of negative interactions are linked to the groups’ activated regulation strategies. Motivation control strategies were more represented in situations where negative interactions were triggered by task-related issues, whereas socially related triggers were associated with behavioural regulation strategies. Furthermore, the results illustrate that strategies are concatenated to a series of strategic actions, which mostly begin with sharing an awareness of the trigger. The results indicate a need to focus on the series of strategic actions activated in group interactions. This will help reveal how socially shared regulatory processes build a group’s emotional atmosphere.

     

Primary school children’s perspectives and experiences of Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) support

ABSTRACT

This study explores primary school aged children’s perspectives and experiences of their Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) support. Thematic analysis was employed to analyse qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 12 Key Stage 2 participants, who had had a minimum of one month’s ongoing ELSA support. Four core themes were identified: positive relationships, unique qualities, facilitates skill development, and positive impact. The findings suggest the importance of a positive therapeutic relationship with an ELSA, and that children value ELSAs teaching specific individualised coping strategies in particular. The findings may also be pertinent to practitioners outside of ELSA related work, highlighting the importance of listening to children of all ages and employing alternative methods, such as drawing, to support them in sharing their views. Since the evidence base for ELSA support is limited, this study contributes children’s views to this area, and should be used to inform future research.     

Differential effects of stimulant medication on reading performance of boys with hyperactivity with and without conduct disorder

Controversy surrounding stimulant medication, particularly its effects on reading performance, continues to obscure the issue of the use of this drug in classroom situations. The present study emphasized careful differential diagnosis, double-blind and placebo approaches, and curriculum-based dependent measures to address these concerns. Methylphenidate was administered to two groups of boys, ages 8 through 11. The two groups included 27 subjects meeting criteria for attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder but not conduct disorder, known as hyperactive disorder (HD), and 28 subjects meeting criteria for both diagnostic categories, known as hyperactive-aggressive (HA). Only four subjects in each group met a discrepancy criterion for learning disabilities (LD). Methylphenidate was administered to both groups at three levels of dosage, along with baseline and placebo conditions. Dependent measures involved both reading recognition and reading comprehension, equivalent across all conditions. No significant results were found for the group with HD in either reading recognition or comprehension, due largely to unusual placebo reactions. Results were generally in the direction predicted for the group with HA, but only significantly so in reading comprehension, and no dose effect was found on this variable. Implications for reading as a dependent measure of medication effects are discussed.     

An experimental study on the effects of gamified cooperation and competition on English vocabulary learning

Gamification has become a popular approach to blending learning with fun and enjoyable experiences. However, gamification research has been criticized for mostly focusing on game mechanics and related outcomes while paying little attention to the psychological processes that mediate the relationship between these mechanics and outcomes. Furthermore, the majority of existing gamification studies have focused on competitive game features. Thus, the full potential of cooperative gamification has yet to be explored. Given this background, the current study compared how gamified cooperation and competition impact task effort, learning achievement, motivation and social relatedness in English vocabulary learning with a mobile application. The study utilized Social Interdependence Theory to explicate the psychological processes in gamified cooperation and competition. 75 participants were randomly assigned to either the gamified cooperation or the gamified competition condition and studied English vocabulary for 14 days. No difference was observed between the conditions regarding task effort, learning achievement and motivation. However, social relatedness in the gamified cooperation group was significantly higher than in the gamified competition group. The current findings emphasize that the positive influence of gamified cooperation on creating meaningful connections amongst learners should not be ignored, even though it facilitates similar learning and motivational outcomes as gamified competition.     

Young science journalism: writing popular scientific articles may contribute to an increase of high-school students’ interest in the natural sciences

Far too few high-school students choose subjects from the natural sciences (NaSc) for their majors in many countries. Even fewer study biology, chemistry or physics at university. Those, that do, often lack training to present and discuss scientific results and ideas in texts. To meet these challenges the center for didactics of biology of Graz University has set up the program Young Science Journalism. This new workshop-based interdisciplinary concept was tested in an exploratory study with grade 10 students of one Austrian high school, engaging both the biology and the German teacher of the class. It was our aim to raise students’ interest in the NaSc by encouraging them to write popular scientific articles about self-chosen topics, and to help them improve their writing competence. In this paper we focus on interest development through writing. Results from this pilot study were promising. Using a mixed-method approach (comparing pre- and post-test questionnaires and semi-structured interviews from different time points analyzed qualitatively), we found that almost all students valued the project-related work highly. Most of them showed higher interest in the NaSc at project end with girls, in average, seeming to profit more from project participation. We thus recommend integrating such writing tasks into school curricula to increase students’ interest in NaSc or to even create new interest. Additionally, we introduce a network presentation of questionnaire data as a powerful tool to visualize the effect of an intervention on individual students and student profile groups.     

Additive and multiplicative effects of working memory and test anxiety on mathematics performance in grade 3 students

The aim of this study was to investigate the interplay between test anxiety and working memory (WM) on mathematics performance in younger children. A sample of 624 grade 3 students completed a test battery consisting of a test anxiety scale, WM tasks and the Swedish national examination in mathematics for grade 3. The main effects of test anxiety and WM, and the two-way interaction between test anxiety and WM on mathematics performance, were modelled with structural equation modelling techniques. Additionally, the effects were also tested separately on tasks with high WM demands (mathematical problem-solving) versus low WM demands (basic arithmetic). As expected, WM positively predicted mathematics performance in all three models (overall mathematics performance, problem-solving tasks, and basic arithmetic). Test anxiety had a negative effect on problem-solving on the whole sample level but concerning basic arithmetic only students with lower WM were affected by the negative effects of test anxiety on performance. Thus, students with low WM are more vulnerable to the negative effects of test anxiety in low WM tasks like basic arithmetic. The results are discussed in relation to the early identification of test anxiety.     

An examination of male-female performance in a programmed achievement learning center

College students operated under different classroom contingencies. The Programmed Achievement (PA) condition required students to evidence criterion performance (100% mastery) on weekly quizzes. Failure to show mastery performance on any of the weekly quizzes resulted in course failure. The Standard Control (S-C) condition involved a more traditional college classroom structure where students took weekly quizzes with no requirement to evidence mastery. Male and female performances were analyzed to determine if different course structures interacted with sex of student. The results indicated that PA students demonstrated higher performance than controls on weekly quizzes and a major exam. It was also shown that PA females increased at a more rapid rate than PA males, while S-C males and females were not significantly different. Theoretical implications of the results are discussed.     

Inquiry-Based Science and Technology Enrichment Program for Middle School-Aged Female Students

This study investigates the effects of an intensive 1-week Inquiry-Based Science and Technology Enrichment Program (InSTEP) designed for middle school-aged female students. InSTEP uses a guided/open inquiry approach that is deepened and redefined as eight sciences and engineering practices in the Next Generation Science Standards, which aimed at increasing female students’ interest in science and science-related careers. This study examined the effectiveness of InSTEP on 123 female students’ pre-assessment and post-assessment changes in attitudes toward science and content knowledge of selected science concepts. An attitude survey, a science content test with multiple-choice questions, written assignments, and interviews to collect data were all used to measure students’ attitudes and content knowledge. A within-group, repeated measure design was conducted, and the results indicated that at the post-intervention level, InSTEP increased the participants’ positive attitudes toward science, science-related careers, and content knowledge of selected science concepts.