The Connection Between Forms of Guidance for Inquiry-Based Learning and the Communicative Approaches Applied—a Case Study in the Context of Pre-service Teachers

Research in Science Education - Recent research has argued that inquiry-based science learning should be guided by providing the learners with support. The research on guidance for inquiry-based...     

Improving rational number knowledge using the NanoRoboMath digital game

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Rational number knowledge is a crucial feature of primary school mathematics that predicts students’ later mathematics achievement. Many students struggle...     

Social Status Profiles Among First Grade Children

The focus of our study is social status among first graders. In particular, we will consider the relationship between acceptance and rejection, and how these are connected to three social behavioral traits: bullying, victimization, and social withdrawal. The data set is from peer nominations of 748 children from 49 classrooms in the southwest of Finland, collected by interviews. A Social Network Analysis technique was used to analyze the data. The results indicated a negative correlation between acceptance and rejection, bullying, and social withdrawal, but did not correlate victimization. Positive correlations, however, were observed between rejection and all social behavioral traits. Based on cluster analysis, the first graders can be divided into Liked Children (N?=?447), Popular Bullies (N?=?68), Unpopular Bullies (N?=?28), Marginalized Children (N?=?135) and High Risk Children (N?=?21). All Unpopular Bullies and almost all High Risk children were boys. Boys were also nominated more often than girls as Popular Bullies, whilst girls were more often reported as marginalized or as Liked Children.     

Negative expertise: comparing differently tenured elder care nurses' negative knowledge

Negative expertise is conceptualised as the professional's ability to avoid errors during practice due to certain cognitive agencies. In this study, negative knowledge (i.e. knowledge about what is wrong in a certain context and situation) is conceptualised as one such agency. This study compares and investigates the negative knowledge of elder care nurses at three different levels of professional experience. Thereby, various forms of negative knowledge—declarative, procedural, self-reflective and vicarious—are investigated. Moreover, the specificity of negative knowledge is compared across different levels of professional experience. Verbal data was collected from a prompting task study of 37 elder care nurses. These were prompted 20 diagnoses of varying typicality for the professional field. The nurses were asked what was critical to pay attention to and what ought to be avoided in case of these diagnoses. The study's results reveal a significant superiority of highly tenured elder care nurses in vicarious negative knowledge, as well as in highly specified negative knowledge. Procedural and procedural negative knowledge (PNK)—which are the most important facets in quantitative terms—show an approximately parallel developmental pattern among the different groups. For declarative knowledge, a U-shaped intermediate effect was discovered. It is concluded that PNK has the most immediate error-preventive function. With regards to future research, the great specificity of highly tenured elder care nurses' negative knowledge discovered in this study is discussed here as one possible explanation as to why they are able to intentionally avoid errors (i.e. their negative expertise).     

Using virtual microscopy to scaffold learning of pathology: a naturalistic experiment on the role of visual and conceptual cues

New representational technologies, such as virtual microscopy, create new affordances for medical education. In the article, a study on the following two issues is reported: (a) How does collaborative use of virtual microscopy shape students’ engagement with and learning from virtual slides of tissue specimen? (b) How do visual and conceptual cues scaffold students’ reasoning? Fifteen pairs of medical students participated in two sessions in which the students used a virtual microscope as a diagnostic tool in the context of learning pathology. The slides provided the students with varying levels of visual and conceptual cueing. The sessions were videotaped, and the students’ reasoning while using the microscope was analysed. The students’ written answers were analysed in terms of the findings they made and the diagnoses suggested. At a general level, the results show that students engage actively in this kind of virtually-mediated environment. The visual and/or conceptual cues improve students’ performance, and guide the students’ perception and reasoning in a manner that is productive from the point of view of learning to make clinically relevant observations. Scaffolding students’ reasoning process through cues furthermore assists the students in avoiding the most obvious pitfalls such as overlooking critical areas of a specimen. Overall, visual and conceptual cues improve students’ reasoning in perceptual and cognitive terms, while still allowing space for the making of “relevant mistakes” that may further the students’ diagnostic skills.     

Computer‐supported Problem‐based Learning in the Research Methodology Domain

The purpose of this research was to look for possible benefits and drawbacks of the use of computer‐supported simulation in the teaching and learning of experimental research methodology and statistics. In the study three research methodology groups were compared. The results show that there were significant differences in favour of the computer‐supported simulation group, called the ALEL group. During the course the conversations of two students' in the ALEL group were audiotaped. Although the ALEL students performed better than the other students and showed an improvement during the course, the conversations analysed showed that their learning outcomes should be still better in order to meet the learning goals of the methodology and statistics curriculum. An inadequate knowledge base was shown in the post‐test and also in the discussions of the pair during the course.     

“Do I need research skills in working life?”: University students’ motivation and difficulties in quantitative methods courses

This study explored university students’ views of whether they will need research skills in their future work in relation to their approaches to learning, situational orientations on a learning situation of quantitative methods, and difficulties experienced in quantitative research courses. Education and psychology students in both Finland (N = 46) and the USA (N = 122), who thought that they would need research skills in their future work, differed significantly from the students who were not sure whether they would need these skills. The students, who considered research skills important for their future work, were more task-oriented, used a deeper approach to learning and experienced fewer difficulties in the learning of research skills than other students. This finding implies that experiences in learning, learning approaches and situational orientations are related to expectations about future work. For instruction, this means that if we were somehow able to change students’ experiences and orientations towards research into a more positive direction, students might be better prepared for their future work.