Congruency as a nonspecific perceptual property contributing to newborns' face preference

Past research has shown that top-heaviness is a perceptual property that plays a crucial role in triggering newborns' preference toward faces. The present study examined the contribution of a second configural property, congruency , to newborns' face preference. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that when embedded in nonfacelike stimuli, congruency induces a preference of the same strength as that induced by facedness. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that the attentional biases toward facedness and congruency produce a cumulative effect on newborns' visual preferences according to an additive model. These findings were extended by those of Experiment 5, showing that the additive model holds true when congruency is added to top-heaviness in nonfacelike stimuli displaying more elements in the upper portion.     

Using dialogical research methods to study Chicano college students

Using Freire's dialogical research method, it was found that Chicano college students could be seen as experiencing three contradictions: Isolation, achievement, and ethnic identity. These contradictions were codified by the research team into short vignettes that incorporated the main elements of each contradiction. The vignettes were used as the stimuli to initiate dialogs among the Chicano students about the contradictions. The dialogs constituted the raw data for analysis. Two generative themes were identified from the dialogical data: Education is experienced by the Chicano students within a context of struggle, and the students experience ethnicity within a context of cross pressures for assimilation and ethnic loyalty. Implications are drawn from the contradictions and generative themes for improving the academic achievement of Chicano college students.     

How has Mexican faculty been trained? A national perspective and a case study

This article depicts how faculty members at Mexican higher education institutions have been prepared in order to assume their professional responsibilities. It relies on three elements: First, a secondary analysis of a national faculty survey composed of 3,861 faculty members from 65 institutions; second, 34 interviews conducted in eight higher education institutions; third, a primary analysis of an institution faculty survey in a public autonomous university. Results are presented regarding the following issues: first, the central traits of anticipatory or formative in-site faculty socialization; second, the changes in the highest degree faculty obtained at entry into academic life as compared to the obtained degree at the time of the survey; third, the formative time patterns during faculty’s higher education training, fourth, the conditions of study under which faculty members obtained their graduate degrees; and fifth, the academic inbreeding phenomenon.     

Computational Thinking from a Disciplinary Perspective: Integrating Computational Thinking in K-12 Science,Technology, Engineering,and Mathematics Education

This article provides an introduction for the special issue of the Journal of Science Education and Technology focused on computational thinking (CT) from a disciplinary perspective. The special issue connects earlier research on what K-12 students can learn and be able to do using CT with the CT skills and habits of mind needed to productively participate in professional CT-integrated STEM fields. In this context, the phrase “disciplinary perspective” simultaneously holds two meanings: it refers to and aims to make connections between established K-12 STEM subject areas (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and newer CT-integrated disciplines such as computational sciences. The special issue presents a framework for CT integration and includes articles that illuminate what CT looks like from a disciplinary perspective, the challenges inherent in integrating CT into K-12 STEM education, and new ways of measuring CT aligned more closely with disciplinary practices. The aim of this special issue is to offer research-based and practitioner-grounded insights into recent work in CT integration and provoke new ways of thinking about CT integration from researchers, practitioners, and research-practitioner partnerships.

     

Analyzing hierarchical relationships among modes of cognitive reasoning and integrated science process skills

The purpose of this research was to search for a learning hierarchy among skills comprising formal operations and the integrated science processes. Ordering theoretic and probabilistic latent structure methods were used to analyze data on five process skills and six logical thinking skills collected from 700 science students. Both linear and branching hierarchical relationships were identified within and across the two sets of skills. Most of them fit the logical hierarchies which have guided curriculum development and classroom practices in the past. But a few run counter to our present logic and understanding of these skills.     

Learning Multi‐unit Number Concepts and Understanding Decimal Place Value

Research indicates that many errors in secondary school mathematics can be attributed to lack of understanding of decimal place value. Recently it has been suggested that this arises from an underlying weakness in integer place value concepts and perception of multidigit numbers in unitary terms rather than base ten, multi‐unit structures. Development of place value and multidigit number concepts was examined in individual interviews with 262 primary school pupils, aged between 7 and 12 years, using subjects’ concrete representations of written numerals and associated verbal explanations. Almost all the children had some understanding of integer place value; most older children had multi‐unit concepts of three‐ or four‐digit numbers; but two‐digit numbers, especially values of 20 or less, were frequently perceived in terms of units by all age groups. This was particularly common for the value ten where 55% of subjects displayed unitary concepts. Implications for understanding and teaching decimal place value are discussed.     

梦想家

在一堵墙的顶部，她印上了这样一句话：世界总是为梦想者让路。[编者按]     

The role of word recognition,oral reading fluency and listening comprehension in the simple view of reading: a study in an intermediate depth orthography

Empirical research has provided evidence for the simple view of reading across a variety of orthographies, but the role of oral reading fluency in the model is unclear. Moreover, the relative weight of listening comprehension, oral reading fluency and word recognition in reading comprehension seems to vary across orthographies and schooling years. This study aims to examine the direct effects of these three variables on reading comprehension and to test for the existence of indirect effects of word recognition and listening comprehension on reading comprehension via oral reading fluency in European Portuguese, an orthography of intermediate depth. A sample of 264 students was assessed at the end of grades 2 and 4. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that listening comprehension, word recognition and oral reading fluency predicted reading comprehension in both grade 2 and grade 4. Moreover, the three variables measured in grade 2 predicted later reading comprehension in grade 4. Listening comprehension was always the strongest predictor. Oral reading fluency mediated the relationship between word recognition and reading comprehension, but it was not a mediator variable in the relationship between listening comprehension and reading comprehension. These findings indicate that, similarly to what has been found for other orthographies, the simple view of reading is a valid framework to account for reading comprehension variability in European Portuguese and that interventions to increase reading comprehension levels should focus on word recognition, fluency, and, especially, listening comprehension.     

Working memory resources in children: stability and relation to subsequent academic skills

This study aimed to investigate the extent to which WM measured in kindergarten predicts WM measured in second grade (stability of individual WM progress) and the extent to which WM measured at kindergarten predicts academic performance at second grade (N?=?94). The results showed that WM skills significantly increase during the time span from Finnish kindergarten to second grade. Verbal (VWM) and visuospatial WM (VSWM) resources seem to develop quite independently, whereas individual progress showed some stability. WM resources measured just before the start of formal school predicted later academic performance and VWM acted as more powerful predictor than VSWM resources. The results have two important educational implications: first, an individual or group-based intervention designed to enhance children’s WM skills would be most important even before the start of school, and second, poor WM skills should be addressed when planning the learning environment beginning in kindergarten.     

Hauntings of a Korean American woman researcher in the field

In this autoethnography, I inquire into naming the histories and dynamics behind some of the embodied and affective experiences I have had as a Korean American woman of color while studying up/down, across/within, in White-dominant professional spaces such as K-12 schools. This ‘in-between’ status is part of the nature of being Korean American. In this inquiry, I draw on vignettes from my experiences in the field as an ethnographic researcher. These experiences form the heart of the paper in the form of epigraphs and narratives from experiences in multiple studies to capture the reverberations of fleeting moments – hauntings – that have accumulated over time. In doing so, I am joining existing conversations about Korean American women and about researcher reflexivity and positionality, bringing them together across time and space.