Differently structured advance organizers lead to different initial schemata and learning outcomes

Does the specific structure of advance organizers influence learning outcomes? In the first experiment, 48 psychology students were randomly assigned to three differently structured advance organizers: a well-structured, a well-structured and key-concept emphasizing, and a less structured advance organizer. These were followed by a sorting task, a text study phase, and a posttest. The results indicated that differently structured advance organizers lead to different proto-schemata before and different learning outcomes after the text study phase. The second experiment replicated and extended these findings with 53 mathematics students. As in experiment 1, three differently structured advance organizers were used; but to rule out alternative explanations, the sorting task between the advance organizer and the text study phase was omitted. The results showed strong beneficial effects of well-structured advance organizers on near and far transfer tasks. Taken together, both experiments support the claim that the structure of advance organizers has an effect on preliminary schemata and learning outcomes. On a general level, the results indicate that advance organizers can support the generation of proto-schemata and thus can be more than the activation of “existing” concepts in long-term memory. With regard to education, this implies that educators should not only think about whether prior domain-specific knowledge is present, but also about how to scaffold the generation of proto-schemata at the beginning of instruction.     

Public Radio Talk Show Hosts and Social Conflict: An Analysis of Self-Reported Roles During Debates and Discussion

By interviewing and thus gathering data from 10 prominent public radio talk show hosts as to how they perceive their tasks and actions during conflict-related debates and discussions, the authors were able to categorize these self-reflections in terms of the hosts' overall communicative, directive, and procedural strategies. This article reflects on the degree to which these activities define the overall roles of public radio talk show hosts and especially on whether these social actors perceive their moderating roles as a form of third party intervention similar to the work of facilitators or mediators of social conflict.     

Primary Student-Teachers' Conceptual Understanding of the Greenhouse Effect: A mixed method study

The greenhouse effect is a reasonably complex scientific phenomenon which can be used as a model to examine students' conceptual understanding in science. Primary student-teachers' understanding of global environmental problems, such as climate change and ozone depletion, indicates that they have many misconceptions. The present mixed method study examines Finnish primary student-teachers' understanding of the greenhouse effect based on the results obtained via open-ended and closed-form questionnaires. The open-ended questionnaire considers primary student-teachers' spontaneous ideas about the greenhouse effect depicted by concept maps. The present study also uses statistical analysis to reveal respondents' conceptualization of the greenhouse effect. The concept maps and statistical analysis reveal that the primary student-teachers' factual knowledge and their conceptual understanding of the greenhouse effect are incomplete and even misleading. In the light of the results of the present study, proposals for modifying the instruction of climate change in science, especially in geography, are presented.     

Teaching impulsive children with arithmetic deficits in special education: a self‐instructional training program

Abstract

Impulsivity is an important and co‐determining factor in the arising of learning difficulties. Impulsive children make many mistakes in arithmetic because of inattention and because they don't use the selfcontrol necessary to correct possible mistakes. In this investigation we examine whether a self‐instructional training program, applied in the teaching of arithmetic, has influences on the impulsivity (measured with help of the MFFT) of pupils who have a quick reaction time and who make many errors. The study involved 52 pupils selected from schools providing special education to children with learning disabilities and educable mentally retarded children. Sixteen of them could be categorized as impulsive children.

The effectiveness of the training program is statistically investigated by means of t‐tests for correlated samples. The results show that training with a self‐instruction strategy can be effectively employed in teaching addition and substraction to educable mentally retarded and learning disabled children with arithmetic deficits. Besides, the impulsive children show after the training a more reflective cognitive style when compared to their cognitive style before the training was started.     

Model building for conceptual change

Conceptual change is a popular, contemporary conception of meaningful learning. Conceptual change describes changes in conceptual frameworks (mental models or personal theories) that learners construct to comprehend phenomena. Different theories of conceptual change describe the reorganization of conceptual frameworks that results from different forms of activity. We argue that learners' conceptual frameworks (mental models or personal theories) resulting from conceptual change are most acutely affected by model-based reasoning. Model-based reasoning is engaged and fostered by learner construction of qualitative and quantitative models of the content or phenomena they are studying using technology-based modelling tools. Model building is a powerful strategy for engaging, supporting, and assessing conceptual change in learners because these models scaffold and externalize internal, mental models by providing multiple formalisms for representing conceptual understanding and change. We demonstrate the processes and products of building models of domain content, problems, systems, experiences, and thinking processes using different technology-based modelling tools. Each tool provides alternative representational formalisms that enable learners to qualitatively and quantitatively model their conceptual frameworks.     

Learning Relative Motion Concepts in Immersive and Non-immersive Virtual Environments

The focus of the current study is to understand which unique features of an immersive virtual reality environment have the potential to improve learning relative motion concepts. Thirty-seven undergraduate students learned relative motion concepts using computer simulation either in immersive virtual environment (IVE) or non-immersive desktop virtual environment (DVE) conditions. Our results show that after the simulation activities, both IVE and DVE groups exhibited a significant shift toward a scientific understanding in their conceptual models and epistemological beliefs about the nature of relative motion, and also a significant improvement on relative motion problem-solving tests. In addition, we analyzed students’ performance on one-dimensional and two-dimensional questions in the relative motion problem-solving test separately and found that after training in the simulation, the IVE group performed significantly better than the DVE group on solving two-dimensional relative motion problems. We suggest that egocentric encoding of the scene in IVE (where the learner constitutes a part of a scene they are immersed in), as compared to allocentric encoding on a computer screen in DVE (where the learner is looking at the scene from “outside”), is more beneficial than DVE for studying more complex (two-dimensional) relative motion problems. Overall, our findings suggest that such aspects of virtual realities as immersivity, first-hand experience, and the possibility of changing different frames of reference can facilitate understanding abstract scientific phenomena and help in displacing intuitive misconceptions with more accurate mental models.     

Prevalence and Reliability of Phonological,Surface, and Mixed Profiles in Dyslexia: A Review of Studies Conducted in Languages Varying in Orthographic Depth

The influence of orthographic transparency on the prevalence of dyslexia subtypes was examined in a review of multiple-case studies conducted in languages differing in orthographic depth (English, French, and Spanish). Cross-language differences are found in the proportion of dissociated profiles as a function of the dependent variables (speed or accuracy), the classification method (classical vs. regression-based methods), and the control sample (chronological age vs. reading level controls). The classical method results in a majority of mixed profiles, whereas the regression-based method results in a majority of dissociated profiles. However, the regression-based method appears to result in less reliable subtypes within and between languages. Finally, reading-level comparisons revealed that the phonological subtype reflects a deviant developmental trajectory across all languages, whereas the surface subtype corresponds to a delayed developmental trajectory. The results also indicate that reading speed should be considered to correctly classify dyslexics into subtypes, at least in transparent orthographies.     

CURRICULUM SEQUENCING AND THE ACQUISITION OF CLOCK-READING SKILLS AMONG CHINESE AND FLEMISH CHILDREN

The present study addresses the impact of the curriculum on primary school children’s acquisition of clock-reading knowledge from analog and digital clocks. Focusing on Chinese and Flemish children’s clock-reading knowledge, the study is about whether the differences in sequencing of learning and instruction opportunities—as defined by the curriculum—result in differences in accuracy and development of clock-reading knowledge. By means of (1) an in-depth qualitative analysis of the Chinese and Flemish mathematics curriculum standards and textbooks and (2) a quantitative analysis of 11,743 students’ accuracy in reading the time, the current study mirrors the differential impact of alternative curriculum designs for primary education. The results of the analyses reveal that Chinese children acquire clock-reading knowledge—for analog and digital clocks—2 years earlier than their Flemish peers, due to a 2-year earlier exposure. Discussing these results, it is argued that the Flemish curriculum tends to underestimate what children are capable of and that clock-reading within the Flemish primary mathematics curriculum builds on dated assumptions and research results. Building on these outcomes, it is argued that curriculum development should be the result of collaborative inquiry involving policy makers, researchers, and teachers.