Mapping the daily media round: novel methods for understanding families’ mobile technology use

The pervasiveness of mobile devices in families’ homes has dramatically changed the physical and temporal arrangement of co-viewing media content; the representative image of American families seated around a TV set is an anachronism. But understanding and describing contemporary co-participation arrangements around digital media is challenging because of the mobile nature of these activities. As researchers, our greatest challenge is to observe people's digital media use that is increasingly ‘on-the-move’ in an effort to understand the significance and possibilities these devices have in family life, learning, and engagement in and across different settings. This article describes an innovative study design for understanding how mobile technologies influence the ways in which families learn together. We analyze the movement of digital media practices, where they are located, and how digital co-participation within families is distributed across time and space.     

Mobile Phones in the Bedroom: Trajectories of Sleep Habits and Subsequent Adolescent Psychosocial Development

Mobile phones are an essential part of an adolescent's life, leading them to text, phone, or message into the night. Longitudinal latent growth models were used to examine relations between changes in adolescent night‐time mobile phone use, changes in sleep behavior, and changes in well‐being (depressed mood, externalizing behavior, self‐esteem, and coping) for 1,101 students (43% male) between 13 and 16 years old. Both night‐time mobile phone use and poor sleep behavior underwent positive linear growth over time. Increased night‐time mobile phone use was directly associated with increased externalizing behavior and decreased self‐esteem and coping. Changes in sleep behavior mediated the relation between early changes in night‐time mobile phone use and later increases in depressed mood and externalizing behavior and later declines in self‐esteem and coping.     

Checking,highlighting, adding and ticking off: Year 6 students’ understandings of and responses to the use of goals in the New Zealand writing classroom

Understanding the goals for learning is fundamental to students’ success as writers. We investigated how Year 6 students in New Zealand experienced, understood and responded to goals during a writing unit. The study took place over seven weeks. Data were gathered through interviews with two teachers and six student participants; field notes from lesson observations; informal chats with students; and the collection of teacher documents, resources and student artefacts. Student selected goals, success criteria and rubric statements served as points of reference for a number of writing experiences. Findings indicated that the discourses underpinning students’ goals and the way they were framed resulted in the checking, highlighting, adding and ticking off of elements of persuasive writing. It was concluded if writing is to be understood and practised as an art rather than a technical activity, goals for learning need to address the more substantive aspects of the genre and the writing process.     

Equity in New Zealand university graduate outcomes: Māori and Pacific graduates

Higher education confers significant private and social benefits. Māori and Pacific peoples are under-represented within New Zealand universities and have poorer labour market outcomes (e.g., lower wages, under-represented in skilled professions). A New Zealand tertiary education priority is to boost Māori and Pacific success in an effort to improve outcomes for these graduates, their communities and society in general. Using information collected in the Graduate Longitudinal Study New Zealand, we compared Māori and Pacific university graduate outcomes with outcomes of other New Zealand graduates. Data were collected when the participants were in their final year of study (n?=?8719) and two years post-graduation (n?=?6104). Employment outcomes were comparable between Māori, Pacific and other New Zealand graduates at two years post-graduation; however, Māori and Pacific graduates had significantly higher student debt burden and financial strain over time. They were significantly more likely to help others (e.g., family) across a range of situations (e.g., lending money), and reported higher levels of volunteerism compared to their counterparts. Boosting higher education success for Māori and Pacific students has the potential to reduce ethnic inequalities in New Zealand labour market outcomes and may result in significant private benefits for these graduates and social benefits as a result of their contribution to society.     

Motivational readiness and the participation of children with learning and behavior problems in psychoeducational decision making

Efficacy of a brief cognitive-affective intervention to enhance motivational readiness for participating in a psychoeducational decision-making conference was explored. Although outcomes specific to the preconference intervention were not found, findings of relevance to the hypothesized positive relationship between motivational readiness and actual participation in decision making are reported. The positive and negative findings are discussed in terms of implications for enhancing motivational readiness and for understanding the limited impact of skill training to improve participation and decision making.