Data modelling with first-grade students

This paper argues for a renewed focus on statistical reasoning in the beginning school years, with opportunities for children to engage in data modelling. Results are reported from the first year of a 3-year longitudinal study in which three classes of first-grade children (6-year-olds) and their teachers engaged in data modelling activities. The theme of Looking after our Environment, part of the children’s science curriculum, provided the task context. The goals for the two activities addressed here included engaging children in core components of data modelling, namely, selecting attributes, structuring and representing data, identifying variation in data, and making predictions from given data. Results include the various ways in which children represented and re-represented collected data, including attribute selection, and the metarepresentational competence they displayed in doing so. The “data lenses” through which the children dealt with informal inference (variation and prediction) are also reported.     

The role of cognitive engagement in classroom learning and motivation

The article analyzes the concept of student cognitive engagement, and the manner in which classroom instruction may develop self‐regulated learners. Since theory and research on academic motivation, to date only vaguely define the role of learning processes, and since studies of learning strategies rarely assess motivational outcomes, our analysis integrates these two streams of literature. We also identify specific features of instruction and discuss how they might influence the complex of student interpretive processes focal to classroom learning and motivation. Measurement issues and research strategies peculiar to the investigation of cognitive engagement are addressed.     

The education of children with special needs: a cross‐cultural perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses issues attendant on the practice of identifying pupils with special educational needs in advanced educational systems. Current practices in Australia and Scotland are described and attention is drawn to the problems generated by the abandonment of a category‐based approach to children with special educational needs, the variability of practice between authorities and the absence of reliable data on incidence of special educational needs. Placement outcome data derived from a Scottish study are presented and discussed. The paper concludes with discussion of Australian and Scottish practice set against United States’ experience in the light of Public Law 94‐142 and identifies areas for future research.     

Deciding How to Deceive: Differences in Communication and Detection Between Good and Bad Liars

To study deception, participants were randomly assigned the role of allocator or recipient in an ultimatum negotiation game. Allocators “earned” 7 dollars and divided the money between themselves and recipient and communicated the decision either face-to-face or through text chat. Recipients were unaware the amount the allocator had, and therefore, allocators could deceive. Most allocators used deception. We hypothesized that participants who self-identified as good liars would communicate more face-to-face than through text chat when deceiving, and this was supported for deceptive omission but not fabrications. Good liars were more likely to have their truths correctly detected than bad liars.