Examining First-Graders’ Developing Understanding of Place Value via Base-Ten Virtual Manipulatives

Early Childhood Education Journal - Place value is a challenging concept in children’s developing understanding of number. In this study we examine how first-grade children’s developing...     

Peer Review and Scientific Publishing in Times of Web 2.0

The second half of the twentieth century brought major changes in the society and consequently in the different areas of the sciences. The growing number of universities after the second world war, the post-war industrial growth and later digitalization transformed the sciences present until then, enlarged the scientific community and the number of scientific publications. In the last couple of decades, the creation of web 2.0 brought new possibilities for knowledge co-production, interaction and exchange between all interested parties in research. The goal of this paper is to explore the possibilities for (extended) peer review and quality control on the internet, primarily blogs and social media, which could contribute to the standard peer review process and open the sciences to a wider audience. We are wondering if these processes could also raise the quality in science and lead to the democratization of knowledge production. We argue that changes in science also have an impact in reshaping the society and bringing democratization in knowledge production.     

Besides knowledge: a cross-sectional study on the relations between epistemic beliefs, achievement goals, self-beliefs, and achievement in science

This study examines the contribution of learner cognitive and motivational characteristics to achievement in science at three grade levels. Specifically, the relations between domain-specific epistemic beliefs about the development and justification of scientific knowledge, achievement goals, knowledge, self-concept, self-efficacy, and achievement in science were simultaneously examined. Students in fifth (n = 213), eighth (n = 202), and eleventh (n = 281) grades completed questionnaires measuring the various constructs, and a domain knowledge test. Their grades in science were also collected. Results from structural equation modeling reveal that the hypothesized model fitted the observed data at the three grade levels, although not all expected paths were statistically significant. Students’ epistemic beliefs about the development of scientific knowledge had a direct effect on domain knowledge, whereas beliefs about the justification of scientific knowledge had a direct and an indirect effect via achievement goals on knowledge acquisition. Mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals had a direct effect on self-efficacy. Knowledge had a direct and an indirect effect via self-concept on achievement. Educational implications are discussed.     

Four- to six-year-old children's conceptions of the mechanism of rainfall

The purpose of this study was to describe four- to six-year-old children's understandings of the mechanism of rainfall and to reveal possible differences due to age. A total of 22 children participated in the study (mean age = 60.4 months; range 48–73 months), including 14 boys and 8 girls, all from middle-SES families. To reveal children's understanding of the mechanism of rainfall, semi-structured interviews were conducted using a set of interview questions. Children were individually interviewed, and interviews were audio-taped and transcribed. The constant comparative method was used to analyze the transcribed audio tapes. A framework of codes was developed based on previous studies of children's understanding of the mechanism of rainfall. This partial framework of codes served as the basis for describing children's conceptual understandings of the mechanism of rainfall. A nonparametric statistical test was used to test for age differences in children's conceptions of the mechanism of rainfall. The results indicated that older preschool children were more likely to have synthetic or naturalistic conceptions than the younger children. Implications of the findings for instructional practices in early childhood classrooms are discussed.     

The influence of phonological mechanisms in written spelling of profoundly deaf children

In the present study, the effect of phonological and working memory mechanisms involved in spelling Italian single words was explored in two groups of children matched for grade level: a group of normally hearing children and a group of pre-verbally deaf children, with severe-to-profound hearing loss. Three-syllable and four-syllable familiar words were presented to the two groups for spelling to dictation. Three conditions were used: simple spelling, concurrent articulation, and foot tapping. Verbal digit span was also assessed. Overall, the performance of deaf children tended to be lower compared to hearing children, but not significantly so. Concurrent articulation produced more errors than tapping in both groups. Regression analyses showed that the main predictor in all three tasks was school level, however the proportion of variance explained by this factor was much greater in the dual tasks, in particular in concurrent articulation. Qualitative analyses of errors showed a worse performance of deaf children, with a greater proportion of mixed errors compared to hearing children. They also showed a greater proportion of phonologically plausible errors compared to hearing children, presumably due to their deprived auditory representation, and/or to phonological representations that rely to a large extent on lip reading and kinesthetic and visual perception of articulatory gestures.     

Newborns’ Perception of Left–Right Spatial Relations

Five experiments examined 79 newborns’ ability to discriminate and categorize a spatial relation, defined by the left–right spatial position of a blinking object‐target with respect to a vertical landmark‐bar. Three‐day‐old infants discriminated the up versus low position of an object located on the same side of the landmark‐bar (Experiment 1) and recognized a basic left–right spatial invariance of the object‐target and the landmark‐bar in conditions of low (Experiment 2) and high (Experiment 3) perceptual variability of the object’s positions. Additional evidence ruled out the possibility that newborns were unable to discriminate the within‐category left–right spatial positions of the object‐target (Experiment 4) or made a categorical distinction based on spatial distance rather than on categorical spatial relations of left of and right of (Experiment 5).     

Young Children's Trust in Their Mother's Claims: Longitudinal Links With Attachment Security in Infancy

In a longitudinal study of attachment, children ( N = 147) aged 50 and 61 months heard their mother and a stranger make conflicting claims. In 2 tasks, the available perceptual cues were equally consistent with either person's claim but children generally accepted the mother's claims over those of the stranger. In a 3rd task, the perceptual cues favored the stranger's claims, and children generally accepted her claims over those of the mother. However, children's pattern of responding varied by attachment status. The strategy of relying on the mother or the stranger, depending on the available perceptual cues, was especially evident among secure children. Insecure-avoidant children displayed less reliance on their mother's claims, irrespective of the available cues, whereas insecure-resistant children displayed more.