Cleaning Dirty Data in Excel

This article gives a flavour of the CHIME materials on data handling in Microsoft Excel. It demonstrates the facilities for data validation within Excel.     

More than just fun: a place for games in playful learning / Más que diversión: el lugar de los juegos reglados en el aprendizaje lúdico

Games play a significant role in childhood, fuelling hours of engagement and social interaction, and probably much learning as well. Board games, card games and outdoor games (such as Tag) first come to mind, but more recently, games have also gone digital. In this piece, we offer a new perspective by placing games within the established construct of ‘playful learning’. We review key elements of playful learning and the two subtypes: free play and guided play. We suggest that games promote learning in ways similar to other playful learning situations. Games involve fun, a sense of curiosity and an inhibition of reality, in active, engaging, meaningful and socially interactive contexts. We argue that games therefore belong alongside free play and guided play to form a trio of playful learning experiences. This perspective adds to a growing understanding of the role of games in supporting children’s learning and development.     

Modeling maternal emotion-related socialization behaviors in a low-income sample: Relations with toddlers’ self-regulation

This study tested the validity of an emotion-related parenting construct, indicated by six key emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs) occurring in daily, developmentally salient parenting in a low-income sample of mothers (N = 123) of toddlers, and examined the relationship between the ERSB construct and toddlers’ self-regulation. Structural equation modeling confirmed a latent emotion-related parenting construct, indicated by observed maternal warmth and supportiveness, observed emotional responsivity in the home, maternal report of mealtime socialization practices, observed maternal use of mental state language and emotion talk, and maternal report of positive self-expressivity in the family. Emotion-related parenting significantly related to toddlers’ effective coping and delay of gratification (medium effect sizes). Maternal demographic risk was negatively related to emotion-related parenting (large effect size) but positively related to toddlers’ effective coping (medium effect size); toddler age and gender were not significantly related to ERSBs. Results suggest that maternal ERSBs are cohesive in a low-income population, reflecting emotion-related parenting, and play a role in economically at-risk toddlers’ self-regulation. Implications for parenting and family support programs as well as implications for future research are discussed.     

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: Challenging the Mythology of Home in Children’s Literature

The myth of home is what distinguishes children??s literature from adult novels (Wolf 1990). Nodelman and Reimer (The Pleasures of Children??s Literature, 2003) write that while ??the home/away/home pattern is the most common story line in children??s literature, adult fiction that deals with young people who leave home usually ends with the child choosing to stay away?? (pp. 197?C198). In a critical content analysis of recent award-winning middle reader novels from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, a new pattern was observed. This pattern, called a postmodern metaplot, begins with the child being abandoned, rather than the child leaving the home. The child??s journey is to construct a home within a postmodern milieu complete with competing truths and failed adults. Ultimately, the child??s postmodern journey ends with very modern ideal of the child leading the adults to a hopeful ending, a home. The article explores the changing roles of childhood and adulthood in children??s literature and questions if the mythology of home can be undone.     

False‐Belief Understanding and Social Preference Over the First 2 Years of School: A Longitudinal Study

The role of false belief in establishing children's social relationships during the transition to school was examined and compared to other social cognitive constructs. One hundred and fourteen 5‐year‐olds were recruited during their 1st year of school (Time 1); 106 children were retained 1 year later. False belief, emotion expression recognition, empathy, verbal ability, and peer‐rated social preference were measured at both times. False belief at Time 1 had a direct influence on concurrent social preference, over and above the influence of emotion expression recognition and empathy. False belief made no independent contribution to later social preference accounting for stability in social preference. The role of social cognitive development is discussed with respect to how children establish and maintain their position in a peer group.     

The emergence of reading literacy in post-primary teacher education: from the background to the foreground

While recognising the fact that historically teacher education and adolescent literacy are two fields that have had limited intellectual contact, the development of reading literacy is increasingly now accepted internationally as a core responsibility of all teachers and teacher educators. Adopting a socio-cultural perspective, this paper, drawn from the Learning to Teach Study, focused on the beliefs, knowledge and experiences regarding reading literacy of Irish post-primary student teachers on one initial teacher education (ITE) programme. The data were collected through three interviews with each of 17 student teachers. Results suggest that the surveyed student teachers had some concerns about their own literacy, had narrow conceptions of literacy, tended not to see it as their responsibility, held a minimal threshold view of literacy and viewed new digital technologies as a resource and motivator for their students’ literacy learning. Results are discussed in terms of how student teachers’ knowledge of literacy in ITE programmes could be reframed, extended and deepened.