Fourth graders’ dyadic learning on multi-touch interfaces—versatile effects of verbalization prompts

Educational technology research and development - Multi-touch interfaces allow for direct and simultaneous input by several co-present learners and afford hands-on learning experiences. Additional...     

Digital natives: Where is the evidence?

Generational differences are seen as the cause of wide shifts in our ability to engage with technologies and the concept of the digital native has gained popularity in certain areas of policy and practice. This paper provides evidence, through the analysis of a nationally representative survey in the UK, that generation is only one of the predictors of advanced interaction with the Internet. Breadth of use, experience, gender and educational levels are also important, indeed in some cases more important than generational differences, in explaining the extent to which people can be defined as a digital native. The evidence provided suggests that it is possible for adults to become digital natives, especially in the area of learning, by acquiring skills and experience in interacting with information and communication technologies. This paper argues that we often erroneously presume a gap between educators and students and that if such a gap does exist, it is definitely possible to close it.     

Formative Assessment – Ein erfolgversprechendes Konzept zur Reform von Unterricht und Leistungsmessung?

Traditional procedures for measuring school performance, which focus on selection and grading, are being increasingly criticized for their negative effects on pupil motivation, teaching and learning processes. The German academic discussion in the field of education science is subsequently focusing on alternative forms of performance measurement and grading, e.g. using portfolios or learning diaries. International literature shows, in contrast, a broader, more empirically oriented discussion on different forms of performance measurement with the goal of optimizing teaching and learning processes (formative assessment). This theoretical paper will investigate whether a more extensive reception of the literature on formative assessment could give new impulses to the German discussion on reforming performance measurement.     

政策措施

为了从一个整体视角获得欧洲国家怎样推进<里斯本战略>的全景画面,本部分选择欧盟成员国、欧洲经济区国家和欧盟候选国一些有代表性,旨在提高职业教育与培训吸引力及其在社会公众和雇主中社会地位和形象的政策案例进行介绍.     

Help-Seeking Experiences and Attitudes among African American, Asian American, and European American College Students

The study examined African American, Asian American, and European American college students’ previous direct and indirect experiences of seeking professional psychological services and related attitudes. Survey data were collected from 254 European American, 182 African American and 82 Asian American college students. Results revealed that fewer African American and Asian American college students had sought professional psychological services, knew someone who had sought psychological services, and knew a close person who was diagnosed with a psychological disorder, relative to European American students. Furthermore, African American and Asian American participants showed less favorable attitudes on a variety of help-seeking attitudes, compared to the European American group.     

Towards Strategic Actorhood? The Execution of Institutional Positioning Strategies at Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences

Given the emerging interest in institutional positioning and to augment the small number of empirical studies in this field, this paper presents discussion about how Finnish universities of applied sciences implement their profiling strategies. The analysis is based on an examination of documents recently submitted by these institutions when reapplying for operating licences. The paper discusses how institutions refer to their positioning statements when introducing or responding to changes in their internal or external environments and questions whether or not positioning paves the way to strategic actorhood. The results suggest that the universities of applied sciences that most often refer to profiling statements have built different kinds of networks to support their positioning activities. Moreover, they have made considerable structural changes to implement their positioning strategies. The restructuring of human resource capacity required to execute the positioning strategy is discussed in the reapplication documents, albeit with a lesser emphasis.     

Fostering multiple text comprehension: How metacognitive strategies and motivation moderate the text-belief consistency effect

Learners often have difficulties comprehending multiple texts about controversial scientific issues. In particular, learners with strong prior beliefs tend to construct a one-sided mental representation that is biased towards belief-consistent information (text-belief consistency effect). In the present study we examined the effectiveness of information of three metacognitive strategies tailored to strengthen the comprehension of belief-inconsistent information during multiple text comprehension. According to theories of self-regulated learning, knowledge about relevant metacognitive strategies improves comprehension only when learners are also motivated to use these strategies. These hypotheses were investigated in an experiment in which 85 participants read one belief-consistent and one belief-inconsistent text about a controversial scientific issue. Participants either received information about three metacognitive strategies or no additional information. In addition, participants’ motivation was manipulated by providing them with either negative or positive performance feedback or no feedback. As predicted, a text-belief consistency effect was found, which was eliminated by strengthening the situation model for the belief-inconsistent text only when learners received information about relevant metacognitive strategies and were motivated to use these strategies after positive performance feedback.     

Foreword

Tertiary Education and Management -