An Empirical Investigation of the Efficacy of Multimedia Instruction in Counseling Skill Development

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of multimedia instruction on students' counseling skill development. The participants were 73 beginning‐level counselor education students (20 men and 53 women, ages ranging from 24 to 47 years). Ratings of students' pre‐ and posttest video counseling tapes were used to assess the effects of the multimedia approach. The results found that there was no statistically significant difference among the levels of students' counseling skill development across the 3 (high‐tech multimedia, low‐tech multimedia, and traditional instruction) treatment groups.     

Computational Efficiency through Visual Argument: Do Graphic Organizers Communicate Relations in Text Too Effectively?

Previous research on graphic organizers has found that they facilitate memory for corresponding text. This study investigated why one type of graphic organizer (a matrix) may communicate interconcept relations more effectively than an outline or text. In three experiments, college students judged the accuracy of interconcept relations after they read a text and studied a matrix, an outline, or the text again. We also measured students′ performance when study time was reduced and testing delayed. Results indicated that even when study time was reduced, viewing a matrix helped students make more accurate judgments of interconcept relations. We conclude that a matrix is more computationally efficient than an outline or text, enabling readers to compute interconcept relations more quickly and easily (Larkin & Simon, 1987), due to a communicative process called visual argument (Waller, 1981). However, this advantage disappeared when testing was delayed, which, ironically, may have been due to computational efficiency.     

Maternal intrusiveness, maternal warmth, and mother-toddler relationship outcomes: variations across low-income ethnic and acculturation groups

The present study investigated the extent to which maternal intrusiveness and warmth during play, observed in 579 European American, 412 African American, and 110 more and 131 less acculturated Mexican American low-income families when children were approximately 15 months old, predicted 3 dimensions of the mother-toddler relationship 10 months later. Intrusiveness predicted increases in later child negativity in all 4 groups. Among African Americans only, this association was moderated by maternal warmth. Intrusiveness predicted negative change in child engagement with mothers only in European American families. Finally, near-significant trends suggested that intrusiveness predicted later decreased dyadic mutuality in European American and more acculturated Mexican American families, but not in African American or less acculturated Mexican American families.     

The influence of collaborative language learning on cognitive control in unbalanced multilingual migrant children

In this study, (N62) 5- to 6-year-old English monolingual and unbalanced multilingual children attending public primary school education in Scotland became involved in collaborative Narrative Format (Taeschner, 2005) modern language activities in Spanish, both at school and at home. These activities were redesigned and adapted to serve as a quasi-experimental tool to provide a highly structured and intense linguistic input. The main purpose was to explore whether cognitive advantages previously found in balanced bilinguals and second-language-learning monolingual children involved in language immersion programmes could be extended to different types of beginning language learners in a non-immersion context. Depending on the monolingual vs bilingual ratios of children in the classroom, we distinguished between homogeneous groups (characterised by a ratio of 95% of first-language English-language monolinguals) and heterogeneous groups (children from both Scottish and migrant homes in roughly equal proportions). Using a standard task of early cognitive control, we found not only that unbalanced multilinguals perform above chance but also that there was a developing trend of enhanced performance for monolinguals learning languages in the heterogeneous groups. This suggests that not only the length of exposure and intensity of input but also the social classroom environment where children develop their language skills may also play an important role in the effects of bilingualism on executive functions.

     

Towards a Metaphysics of Complexity

In this paper I combine aspects of process philosophy and elements from philosophies of difference in order to give some indication of how we might begin to construct a metaphysics of contemporary science. I will focus on the work of Whitehead and Deleuze as representatives of each respective tradition and try to show how their work can be fruitfully articulated together in the context of complexity theory.     

Picture Book Reading at Home: A Comparison of Head Start and Middle-class Preschoolers

This study was designed to assess the impact of taking a high quality picture book home from school daily on the at-home reading behaviors of young children and/or family members from middle and low SES backgrounds. Eighty children representing two study groups (treatment & no-treatment comparison) and two socioeconomic groups (Head Start & middle-class) composed the study sample. Treatment children selected picture books at school daily to take home over a 12-week period. Child and family picture book reading behaviors were assessed by weekly random telephone surveys. Findings indicate that taking a picture book home daily more than doubled the number of books read at home for both middle-class and Head Start treatment children over their no-treatment comparison counterparts and significantly increased the amount of time Head Start treatment children were involved in reading each day. The practicality of making high quality picture books available for preschool children to take home and the implications of increased at-home reading behaviors are discussed.     

Manipulation of logical structure of chemistry problems and its effect on student performance

It has been shown previously that manipulation of the M demand (amount of information needed for processing) of chemistry problems affects student performance, which suggests that manipulation of logical structure of chemistry problems could also lead to significant changes in performance. The objective of this study is to investigate the following: Given the opportunity for training, what is the effect of increasing (manipulation) the complexity of logical structure of chemistry problems on student performance, and to what extent can cognitive variables explain changes in performance. Results obtained show that (a) even a small increase in the logical structure of a problem can change the role of cognitive variables (mental capacity and formal reasoning) to the extent that increase in logical complexity outweighs the advantage students may have gained through training on a similar problem; (b) the use of algorithms and training on particular types of chemistry problems could lead to a situation in which formal reasoning is the only cognitive variable that explains variance in performance significantly; and (c) after having solved very similar problems on two different occasions with improving performance, the improvement is not retained if the logical structure of a third problem increases considerably. It is concluded that when dealing with significant changes in logical complexity of chemistry problems, developmental level of students is the most consistent predictor of success. A model for the qualitative analysis of logical complexity of chemistry problems is presented.     

Governing good,bad and ugly workplaces? Explaining the paradox of state-steered voluntarism in New Labour’s Skills Strategy

The post-compulsory education and training system in the UK has long been defined as an archetypical voluntarist model. Yet, with the election of a New Labour government in 1997, the relationship between the state as supply-side provider of skills and employers as the demanders of skills began to subtly change. An additional rhetoric emerged in skills policy that suggested a role for the state to shape higher skills demands. This instigated a move towards what is here defined by the oxymoron ‘state-steered voluntarism’; an approach to the governance of skills which aimed to deliver both a demand-led skills system and a system to lead demand. Drawing on policy documents and interviews with key policy-makers, this article offers an interpretive analysis of New Labour’s ideas about the nature of workplaces, and the role of the state and skills providers in response, that explains the existence of policy paradox. We find that New Labour articulated three distinct strategies for governing skills, depending on whether workplaces were perceived to have ‘good’, ‘bad’, or frankly ‘ugly’ skills aspirations. However, whilst this threefold skills strategy seemingly served the purpose of containing multiple policy objectives and creating a graded role for state action, it was also prone to being used selectively by those with vested interests in UK skills policy (i.e. the representatives of businesses and employers and the representatives of employees and learners).     

Situational influences upon children's beliefs about global warming and energy

This paper explores children's beliefs about global warming and energy sources from a psychological perspective, focusing upon situational influences upon subjective beliefs, including perceived self‐efficacy. The context of the research is one of growing concern at the potential impacts of global warming, yet demonstrably low levels of self‐efficacy amongst both adults and children to effectively respond to this large‐scale environmental problem. Empirical research was conducted on a sample of 198 UK children and adults to explore the influence of a cooperative learning environment upon children's beliefs about global warming and energy. A comparative design was adopted, contrasting 9–12 year old members of the Woodcraft Folk educational organisation with non‐members of similar age and with adult members of the same organisation. Results indicate that cooperative learning environments can have a significant and positive effect upon children's beliefs about large‐scale environmental problems. In particular, Woodcraft folk children reported significantly higher levels of personal awareness and perceived self‐efficacy in relation to global warming in comparison to their peers. Secondly, unexpected differences were identified between levels of perceived self‐efficacy in children and adult Woodcraft folk. The implications of these differences for the design of educational programmes seeking to empower children to respond to global warming are discussed.