Empirical Tests of a Brain-Based Model of Executive Function Development

Executive function (EF) plays a foundational role in development. A brain-based model of EF development is probed for the experiences that strengthen EF in the dimensional change card sort task in which children sort cards by one rule and then are asked to switch to another. Three-year-olds perseverate on the first rule, failing the task, whereas 4-year-olds pass. Three predictions of the model are tested to help 3-year-olds (N = 54) pass. Experiment 1 shows that experience with shapes and the label “shape” helps children. Experiment 2 shows that experience with colors—without a label—helps children. Experiment 3 shows that experience with colors induces dimensional attention. The implications of this work for early intervention are discussed.     

Media,Culture, and the Meanings of Hockey

This essay describes a plan for investigating the cultural meanings of hockey in Canada by examining media narratives of high-level amateur and professional hockey during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, this project analyzes English Canadian newspaper coverage of Stanley Cup games between 1894 and 1907, as well as the telegraph reconstructions that enabled fans to share a simultaneous experience of distant games. Media coverage of hockey brought Canadians into local and national communities of interest, while constructing narratives of manhood, regional rivalry, and civic pride. Hockey played a significant role in the construction of gender and class identities, and in debates about amateurism, professionalism, and community representation in sport. By exploring key issues related to media, gender, and community identities in early hockey, this research addresses important gaps in the study of sport history and the analysis of sport and Canadian popular culture.     

Microfluidic system for near-patient extraction and detection of miR-122 microRNA biomarker for drug-induced liver injury diagnostics

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) results in over 100 000 hospital attendances per year in the UK alone and is a leading cause for the post-marketing withdrawal of new drugs, leading to significant financial losses. MicroRNA-122 (miR-122) has been proposed as a sensitive DILI marker although no commercial applications are available yet. Extracellular blood microRNAs (miRNAs) are promising clinical biomarkers but their measurement at point of care remains time-consuming, technically challenging, and expensive. For circulating miRNA to have an impact on healthcare, a key challenge to overcome is the development of rapid and reliable low-cost sample preparation. There is an acknowledged issue with miRNA stability in the presence of hemolysis and platelet activation, and no solution has been demonstrated for fast and robust extraction at the site of blood draw. Here, we report a novel microfluidic platform for the extraction of circulating miR-122 from blood enabled by a vertical approach and gravity-based bubble mixing. The performance of this disposable cartridge was verified by standard quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis on extracted miR-122. The cartridge performed equivalently or better than standard bench extraction kits. The extraction cartridge was combined with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy to detect miR-122 as an initial proof-of-concept toward an application in point-of-care detection. This platform enables the standardization of sample preparation and the detection of miRNAs at the point of blood draw and in resource limited settings and could aid the introduction of miRNA-based assays into routine clinical practice.     

Prosoziales Verhalten von Kindergartenkindern – Ein Vergleich der Eltern- und Erzieherperspektive

In this paper, we investigate the assessment of educators and parents on the prosocial behavior of 5?year old kindergarteners. Using the data of the Kindergarten cohort (SC2) of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) we show that the assessments of two raters differ tremendously on the same subject. Further, the parents assess the prosocial behavior more positive than the educators do. While the parents’ assessment remains mostly stable across the investigated variables, the educators’ assessment highly varies. We find significant differences in the educators’ assessment regarding the age and the sex of the child as well as their language competencies.     

Childhood learning,life skills and well‐being in adult life: a Senegalese case

Education is not easily converted into human capital and well‐being in low‐income countries, because these countries do not have a high degree of economic and labour market differentiation that makes it possible to convert acquired knowledge and skills. Consequently, to have completed primary or even secondary education does not necessarily lead to a better life situation than some types of Islamic education. This paper reports findings from an ongoing longitudinal research project in Senegal. The study compares the relationships between educational/learning background, life skills and well‐being in adult life among individuals who attended primary school, Quranic, Arabic or Indigenous learning systems at the beginning of the 1980s. The findings illustrate some of the complexities in the relationships between, on the one hand, education and life skills and, on the other hand, individual well‐being in a low‐income society. Since this study enters into an area that has not been very much researched, this study is explorative and employs concepts heuristically. Some findings in relation to different theoretical approaches are also discussed here.     

The relation between self-regulation and the embedding of support in learning environments

The current study investigates whether embedding support may provide a solution to sub optimal use of support and whether this is related to learners’ self-regulation skills and goal orientation. Sixty students were divided in a condition where support was embedded and a condition where support was non-embedded. Results reveal that the embedded group used more and spent more time on the use of support. Quality of use differed for one support device only, with quality being higher in the non-embedded group. An interaction with self-regulation was found. High self-regulators use the support devices less optimal when support is embedded. No conclusions could be drawn with respect to goal orientation. Quality of usage and proportional time spent on support influenced learning outcomes.     

Personalised virtual learning spaces to support undergraduates in producing research reports: Two case studies

The purpose of this study was to create and evaluate personalised virtual learning spaces (PVLSs) in a course that was previously delivered face-to-face only. The study addressed three related questions: (1) Can a PVLS successfully be introduced into a course where IT has not previously featured? (2) Can the PVLSs be used to enhance the assessment from an extended essay to a higher-level empirical research project? (3) What are the perceptions of the students and the tutor of the PVLSs in terms of access, clarity and usefulness of the supervision of undergraduate research projects? Results showed that the introduction of the PVLSs into the course was trouble-free and that the PVLSs were able to enhance assessment. The vast majority of students and their tutor showed high levels of satisfaction, particularly with (1) the messaging tool, which allowed asynchronous, one-to-one communication with the tutor, and (2) the interactive web-forms, which provided structured guidance of how to conduct a small-scale empirical research project. The study concludes that the interactive web-forms and messaging tool can be beneficial functions of virtual learning spaces.