Who Is Watching and Who Is Playing: Parental Engagement with Children at a Hands-On Science Center

ABSTRACT

Family interactions are common phenomenon at visits to science centers and natural history museums. Through interactions the family can support each other as the members individually and collectively learn from their visits. Interaction is particularly important between child(ren) and parent, which may be facilitated by media provided to parents. The author's research focused on the value added of print resources or video resources designed to support parent interactions with their child(ren) during a visit to a science center. What the author found was a variety of need and expectations for the support media that limited the usefulness of what was provided to the visitors. During the research the author also observed some variations in how parents interacted with their child(ren) based on the configurations of the families. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.     

The effect of the father-child relationship on the social conduct of 2 1/2 year old children in preschool

Our goal is to study the effects of early paternal involvement on a child’s socialization. Usually in works concerning the question, we study the father’s contribution with questionnaires, we base our evaluation of involvement on the behavior declared by the subject. We have attempted to analyze the affective dimension of this involvement. We have developed a model of the father-child relationship which articulates the affective investment with the father’s functions (mediation and sanction). Starting with this model, we analyzed the contents of ten nondirective interviews, then we ranked these ten fathers according to their relationship with their children. We have studied early socialization with the concept of mimesis, more pertinent than that of interaction. The social behavior of ten children was observed in a nursery school class during a period of free time. Their conduct was placed into two categories: behavior directed towards the peer or behavior directed towards conformity to the pupil’s social role.     

Learning for You and Learning for Me: Mentoring As Professional Development for Mentor Teachers

Professional development (PD) opportunities for teachers most commonly take place outside the classroom and are typically designed to address specific components of teachers’ instruction or curriculum. However, there are other activities that take place within the classroom that may have a profound impact on the PD of a teacher. We sought to gain a deeper understanding of the influence that placing a teacher in a mentor role can have on their PD and practice. Thus, we researched the influence of mentor teachers’ work with university-level STEM education majors by engaging in teaching a limited series of STEM inquiry-based lessons in the mentors’ classrooms. Surveys of the mentor teachers indicated that there were many positive benefits for mentors, including gaining new ideas, increased reflection on their practice, increased engagement of students, and in some cases shifts in practice.     

Impact of social media use on student satisfaction in Higher Education

Social media has transformed the communication landscape for institutions of Higher Education by providing improved teaching and learning experience. However, very little is known as to whether the use of social media by Higher Education students improves their satisfaction. Grounded in social media, risk and technology acceptance literature, this paper examines Higher Education students' perceptions of social media use (SMU) and the impact of SMU on their satisfaction. Data collected from the students were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling. The study finds that: (1) perceived usefulness of social media has positive effect on the use of social media in student learning; (2) perceived risk of using social media discourages the use of the tool, and (3) SMU has positive effect on student satisfaction. The study further discusses the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

Dynamic Forces in Educational Development: A long-run comparative view of France and Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries

Since World War II, much of the economic growth literature has focused on the contribution of human capital to national development. Two assumptions have remained largely unexamined: (i) economic stability results from economic growth, and (ii) investments in human capital result in economic growth ( ceteris paribus ). This paper questions this education-stability link by examining longitudinal data from France and Germany across 170 years. Results indicate that human capital investment prior to 1945 was a response to economic growth. It is only since 1945 that human capital investments appear to drive economic growth. A shift since 1973 leads to doubts as to whether the post-war human capital-driven growth is being sustained. The results raise the question of whether human capital investment might not be as much a consequence as it is a cause of economic stability in the course of time.     

The need-threat analysis: A scoring system for the children's apperception test

The study of childhood stress provides a useful perspective for assessing children's emotional status. Thematic projective techniques, like the Children's Apperception Test (CAT), may be useful in exploring children's perception of stress. For this purpose, a need-threat analysis is recommended to identify those underlying needs and threats that are likely to make a particular event or situation important, and hence potentially stressful, to an individual child. This paper introduces a scoring system for the CAT based on the analysis of thematic data in terms of five need-threat binaries, which serve as scoring categories. Preliminary data on reliability are presented.