Value Profiles During Middle Childhood: Developmental Processes and Social Behavior

Little is known about how children's value priorities develop over time. This study identifies children's value priority profiles and follows their development during middle childhood. Australian children (N = 609; ages 5–12 at Time 1) reported their values over 2 years. Latent Transition Analysis indicated four profiles: Social-Focus, Self-Focus, Growth-Focus and Undifferentiated. Within person development was characterized by profile stability or transfer to the Social-Focus profile. Younger children were more likely to have an Undifferentiated profile (or Self-Focus among boys) than older ones. Girls were more likely to have a Social-Focus profile or transfer to it, and less likely to have a Self- or Growth-Focus profile than boys. Social-Focus profile membership over time predicted more prosocial and less aggressive behavior.     

Dynamic Transition Patterns in Acculturation Among Hispanic Adolescents

Acculturation consists of multiple domains (i.e., cultural practices, identifications, and values). However, less is known about how acculturation processes influence each other across multiple domains of acculturation. This study was designed to investigate transition patterns of acculturative processes within and across domains in a sample of 302 recent-immigrant Hispanic adolescents, M_age (SD) = 14.51 years (0.88) at baseline; male = 53%). Adolescents were assessed six times over a 3-year period. Latent profile analyses identified two profiles (high [or increasing] vs. low) for each domain at each timepoint. We found largely stable transition patterns in each domain over six timepoints. Importantly, sequential associations among profiles in acculturation domains were also detected. Implication for acculturation theory and research are discussed.     

The development of elementary pre-service teachers’ professional noticing of students’ thinking through adapted Lesson Study

The purpose of the study was to investigate how Lesson Study influences pre-service teachers’ learning to professionally notice students’ mathematical thinking. The initial and last video-recorded discussions were analysed using a qualitative method. Findings suggest that Lesson Study can be useful means to improve pre-service teachers’ noticing expertise in reviewing and planning lessons. However, to maximise the effect of Lesson Study on developing pre-service teachers’ noticing expertise, several modifications need to be made to the Lesson Study protocol, which are discussed.     

School expansion in north Korea and South Korea: Two systems, two approaches

This paper compares school expansion between North and South Korea since 1945. Whilst school expansion was equally dramatic in both North and South, the patterns followed were quite different. The South Korean expansion program relied on private funding (ie, tuition fees and money from private school foundations) and policy was largely limited to periodic reforms of the exam entrance system as a means of controlling student numbers. Consequently in South Korea education credentials assumed a greater importance and the competition for entering university became increasingly fierce. In North Korea, however, school expansion was carried out with public funding and reform policy was centered on changing the school system itself as a means of controlling the curriculum studied, student numbers and ultimately, graduate employment destinations. In contrast to the South, school expansion as it occurred in North Korea was and remains tightly controlled by central government planning for the purpose of current socioeconomic needs.     

The effect of design education using virtual reality-based coding on student competence and educational satisfaction

Education and Information Technologies - Virtual reality (VR) technology is playing a crucial role in the changing paradigm of education. In many cases, however, VR technology is not being taught...     

Generating multiple solutions for a problem: A comparison of the responses of U.S. and Japanese students

A task involving simple mathematics, yet complex in its call for the generation of multiple solution methods, was administered to about 150 U.S. students, most of whom were in fourth grade. Written responses were examined for correctness, evidence of strategy use and mode of explanation. Results for the U.S. sample were also compared to those obtained from about 200 Japanese fourth-grade students. Students in both countries (a) produced multiple solutions and explanations of their solutions, (b) exhibited almost identical patterns and frequency of strategy use across response occasions, and (c) used the same kinds of explanations, with a majority of the responses involving solution explanations that combined both visual and verbal/symbolic features. Nevertheless, Japanese students tended to produce explanations involving more sophisticated mathematical ideas (multiplication rather than addition) and formalisms (mathematical expressions rather than verbal explanations) than did U.S. students.     

Can typical game features have unintended consequences? A study of players’ learning and reactions to challenge and failure in an educational programming game

It is difficult to motivate learners to seek out and persist at challenging learning tasks where failure is likely. However, in game environments, people seem highly motivated to engage with challenges and respond productively to failure. Many typical game features purportedly enhance intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy, which should improve students’ reactions to challenge and failure, which should in turn enhance learning. An experimental study with early middle school students tested these assumptions by comparing a “Full” version of a typical, commercial programming game to a “Minimal” version of the same game where common game features such as narrative, performance metrics, high-quality graphics, and sound were removed. In contrast to our hypotheses, players of the Full Game were less likely to choose coding challenges, were less tolerant of coding failures and gained less coding knowledge. Intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy did not differ between conditions. Correlational analyses showed that failure tolerance and challenge seeking may critically affect learning from educational games. The current study offers an existence proof that some common game features can hinder players' failure tolerance, challenge-seeking and learning, in certain game contexts. Future research should isolate the effects of individual game features, test generalizability and explore which contextual variables influence the findings.