The effect of processing depth on ESL reading comprehension

This study investigated the effect of depth of processing on second-language reading comprehension. It was hypothesized that questions which entailed shallow cognitive processing would be easier to answer than questions which entailed deeper cognitive processing. Three of the four research hypotheses were confirmed. Previous training (or lack of it) may account for why one of the predictions was not confirmed. This paper concludes with a cautionary note about the types of reading performance teachers can expect, and the recognition of open-ended testing techniques in secondlanguage reading assessment.     

Systemizing and the gender gap: examining academic achievement and perseverance in STEM

For years, a popular explanation for women choosing to abandon studies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has been their lack of aptitude. This study challenged that notion by integrating theories of cognitive style, academic emotion, self-efficacy, and motivation to explain students’ academic achievement and perseverance in STEM when transitioning to college. A sample of 1597 high school and junior college students participated. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were first conducted to validate a reduced version of the cognitive style questionnaire. Structural equation modeling revealed that the cognitive style known as systemizing indirectly predicted STEM achievement and persistence by way of intrinsic motivation, learning anxiety, and self-efficacy, providing a new perspective for re-examining the gender gap in STEM.

     

The Information Seeking Strategies of High School Science Students

This study focused on the use of the Artemis web-based interface http://artemis.goknow.com/artemis/index.adp). This program provides a digital library for students to search, organise, and evaluation science information related to project-based investigations. The primary feature of the Artemis interface is a focused search tool. Key scaffolding features in Artemis include the collections of web sites, driving question folders, a persistent workspace for notes, cataloging of past search results, and the viewing of sites shared by other students. The primary goal of this study was to describe high school science students' use of the scaffolding features embedded in the Artemis interface. The researchers were interested in identifying the scaffolding features students use and describing how they use them in the context of finding science information related to investigations. In addition, to look at scaffolding interaction, relationships between feature use and student learning were examined. The context of this study was a four-week science investigation conducted by 43 high school biology students. Students worked in dyads to answer driving questions related to their topics of study (e.g., What do the conditions need to be in order for green algae to survive?). It was found that students relied heavily upon Organisational Feature scaffolds (persistent workspace) to help them organise information that was ultimately used by the students to produce domain specific artifacts. In addition, students spent much of their time conducting searches and saving results. However, classroom performance success was only significantly correlated with the use of Organizational Feature scaffolds – scaffolding features that students use to create driving questions, write notes about the information they found as a result of their searches, and keep track of their investigations. No other search tool used by the students possessed this important scaffolding feature. The students did not automatically use Collaborative Features – scaffolding features hypothesised to be powerful cognitive tools.