Hostile attribution of intent and aggressive behavior: a meta-analysis

A meta-analytic review was conducted to explain divergent findings on the relation between children's aggressive behavior and hostile attribution of intent to peers. Forty-one studies with 6,017 participants were included in the analysis. Ten studies concerned representative samples from the general population, 24 studies compared nonaggressive to extremely aggressive nonreferred samples, and 7 studies compared nonreferred samples with children referred for aggressive behavior problems. A robust significant association between hostile attribution of intent and aggressive behavior was found. Effect sizes differed considerably between studies. Larger effects were associated with more severe aggressive behavior, rejection by peers as one of the selection criteria, inclusion of 8- to-12-year-old participants, and absence of control for intelligence. Video and picture presentation of stimuli were associated with smaller effect sizes than was audio presentation. Staging of actual social interactions was associated with the largest effects. The importance of understanding moderators of effect size for theory development is stressed.     

教师知识和教学的知识基础

作者把一切与专业有关的洞察力都看做教学的知识基础,认为它们与教师的行为有着内在的联系。由此,本文提出要把教师知识或者教师的实践性知识和正式的命题知识纳入教学的知识基础当中。虽然教师知识与个人经历及情境有着紧密的联系,但教师知识的某些特征却为所有的教师或大部分教师所共同拥有。研究教师知识就是要找出这些共同特征,从而对教师知识的复杂性和特殊性做出公正的评价,但这在方法论上可能存在困难。为了说明教师知识研究的潜在益处以及局限,作者呈现了几种研究的结果。这些研究的一个主要结论是,理解教师知识不仅能够改进教师教育而且能够促进教育改革的成功。最后,作者指出未来研究的三个重要领域。     

Interventions for reading difficulties: a comparison of response to intervention by ELL and EFL struggling readers

This article explores whether struggling readers from different primary language backgrounds differ in response to phonologically based remediation. Following random assignment to one of three reading interventions or to a special education reading control program, reading and reading-related outcomes of 166 struggling readers were assessed before, during, and following 105 intervention hours. Struggling readers met criteria for reading disability, were below average in oral language and verbal skills, and varied in English as a first language (EFL) versus English-language learner (ELL) status. The research-based interventions proved superior to the special education control on both reading outcomes and rate of growth. No differences were revealed for children of EFL or ELL status in intervention outcomes or growth during intervention. Oral language abilities at entry were highly predictive of final outcomes and of reading growth during intervention, with greater language impairment being associated with greater growth.     

Communicative Foreign Language Teaching and how it Reflects on the Training of Modern Foreign Language Teachers

If acquiring a foreign language is a highly individual process—part cognitive part affective, part information based part discovery based—the methodology of creating teaching/learning situations must take (next to linguistic issues) the individual into account: his learning style, his needs, interests, etc.

The article has two distinct emphases: (I) a cognitive, applied linguistics emphasis and (II) an affective, learner‐centred emphasis. By way of conclusion the implications of (I) and (II) for teacher training are involved.     

Individual Differences in Adapting to Three Different Tasks of Selecting Information from Texts

This study examined individual differences in selecting main points according to three types of tasks. In all, 133 students (10th-graders) participated. Each student studied three instructional texts, and each text was preceded by one instruction. In the linguistic task, the students had to underline the author's main points. In the educational task, students had to underline text elements considered to be important by a portrayed teacher. And in the interest task, interesting text fragments had to be underlined. The students were divided into five groups identified by a typical selection pattern. Only 24 students adjusted their selection of main points to each of the tasks (the adaptive group). This group differed in some study strategies and learning conceptions from the nonadaptive groups. In all, this study begins to give more insight into individual differences in selecting main points.     

Mighty mouse and MX missiles: Children in a violent society

Ours is a society in which violence, or the threat of violence, is a common experience for many children. Children's fears of the dark, the boogie man, and the headless Horseman have evolved to include fears of Darth Vadar, meltdown, and nuclear war.     

Progress to conservation: Conflict or correct answer?

One of the fundamental problems in socio-cognitive conflict theory concerns what it is that leads to cognitive growth. Is it conflict per se, i.e. the fact that two contradictory opinions are brought together, or is it the presence of the correct answer which is essential for growth. In this experiment, dyads, functioning on the same cognitive level, were formed and asked to solve a conservation-of-length task. The classification of the children in the pre-test was not done according to Piagetian norms, but according to Flavell’s appearance-reality (AR) model: AR non-conservers (AR-NC), AR intermediates (AR-I) and AR conservers (AR-C). Many children who would have been scored as non-conservers in a standard Piagetian task, showed an underlying conservation competence and were classified as AR-I. The results of the interaction suggest that conflict does not lead to appropriate change in AR-NC dyads or AR-I dyads. Furthermore, the results suggest that the most effective method for AR-I to become conservers, is to make them think about a problem and then, to create consensus by confronting the children with others who have also reached the correct solution.     

Applying social production function theory to benefits of schooling: the concept of values of education

Abstract

Many approaches to explaining educational inequalities relate explicitly and implicitly to benefits of education, and rational choice theories in particular consider monetary benefits. We specify a concept of the value of education that allows for an empirical analysis of educational benefits, considering both monetary and non-monetary dimensions (instrumental goals) outlined in social production function theory. Our objectives include introducing a sound theoretical framework, the validation of an empirical measurement instrument and an analysis of the differences between certain dimensions of educational values structured by social origin, gender and immigrant background. Analyses are based on a two-wave panel study (SASAL-School Alienation in Switzerland and Luxembourg) carried out in secondary schools in Luxembourg and Switzerland. We distinguish four dimensions within the concept of values of education: stimulation, comfort/status, behavioural confirmation and affection. The different dimensions of the value of education are influenced by gender and immigrant backgrounds in both national settings.     

大学英语基础阶段语法教学的思考

大学英语基础阶段不能忽视语法教学。语法教学应注重传统语法与交际语法相结合,注重英汉语法的比较,重视口语语法,从而促进学生英语学习的进步,提高教学质量。