Towards a Comprehensive View of Object-Oriented Play

Educational Psychology Review - The exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials, referred to as object-oriented play (OOP), is one of the most prominent activities children engage in...     

Motivation-Achievement Cycles in Learning: a Literature Review and Research Agenda

Educational Psychology Review - The question of how learners’ motivation influences their academic achievement and vice versa has been the subject of intensive research due to its theoretical...     

Spelling pronunciation and visual preview both facilitate learning to spell irregular words

Spelling pronunciations are hypothesized to be helpful in building up relatively stable phonologically underpinned orthographic representations, particularly for learning words with irregular phoneme-grapheme correspondences. In a four-week computer-based training, the efficacy of spelling pronunciations and previewing the spelling patterns on learning to spell loan words in Dutch, originating from French and English, was examined in skilled and less skilled spellers with varying ages. Reading skills were taken into account. Overall, compared to normal pronunciation, spelling pronunciation facilitated the learning of the correct spelling of irregular words, but it appeared to be no more effective than previewing. Differences between training conditions appeared to fade with older spellers. Less skilled young spellers seemed to profit more from visual examination of the word as compared to practice with spelling pronunciations. The findings appear to indicate that spelling pronunciation and allowing a preview can both be effective ways to learn correct spellings of orthographically unpredictable words, irrespective of age or spelling ability.     

What type of computer-assisted exercise supports young less skilled spellers in resolving problems in open and closed syllable words?

Dutch bisyllabic words containing open and closed syllables are particularly difficult to spell for children. What kind of support in spelling exercises improves the spelling of these words the most? Two extensions of a commonly used dictation exercise were tested: less skilled spellers in grade 2 (n = 50; 7 years and 10 months) either received explicit syllabic segmentation cues or received spelling cues by means of a visual preview. Comparisons between pre-, post-, and retention tests of spelling skill showed that extra syllabic cues did not show a significant improvement beyond normal spelling dictation and that visual preview was most effective as compared to the other types of training. The findings suggest that word-specific knowledge can effectively be improved by exposure to the correct letter pattern during exercises in spelling and seems to result in lasting improvement of word-specific orthographic representations, at least for 5 weeks.     

Ethics in technological culture: a programmatic proposal for a pragmatist approach

Neither traditional philosophy nor current applied ethics seem able to cope adequately with the highly dynamic character of our modern technological culture. This is because they have insufficient insight into the moral significance of technological artifacts and systems. Here, much can be learned from recent science and technology studies (STS). They have opened up the black box of technological developments and have revealed the intimate intertwinement of technology and society in minute detail. However, while applied ethics is characterized by a certain "technology blindness," the most influential approaches within STS show a "normative deficit" and display on agnostic or even antagonistic attitude toward ethics. To repair the blind spots of both applied ethics and STS, the authors sketch the contours of a pragmatist approach. They will explore the tasks and tools of a pragmatist ethics and pay special attention to the exploration of future worlds disclosed and shaped by technology and the management of deep value conflicts inherent in a pluralistic society.     

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder-Symptoms,Social Media Use Intensity,and Social Media Use Problems in Adolescents: Investigating Directionality

Cross-sectional research shows that adolescents’ social media use (SMU) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-symptoms are related, but it is unclear whether this relation is explained by SMU intensity or by addiction-like SMU problems. Also, due to the lack of longitudinal studies, the direction of this relation remains unknown. This study aims to disentangle which type of SMU is related to ADHD-symptoms, and in which direction, using a three-wave longitudinal study among Dutch adolescents aged 11–15 years (n = 543). Findings suggest a unidirectional relation: SMU problems increased ADHD-symptoms over time, SMU intensity did not. This implies that problematic use, rather than the intensity of use harmfully affects adolescents’ ADHD-symptoms.     

Effects of explicit rules in learning to spell open- and closed-syllable words

Second graders (N = 222; 7.7 years of age) practiced with open- and closed-syllable words in a computer-assisted training program and appropriate spelling rules were either explicitly provided during practice or not. Also, children practiced either with a small set of exemplars or with a large set; the latter condition was expected to promote the use of rules. A control group consisting of 209 second graders, who did not practice in the computer-assisted training program, was also included in the study. Learning effects of practice were established by testing the spelling of practiced words, as well as novel transfer words, in pre-, post-, and retention tests. The results in the posttest showed that with a large set of exemplars during practice explicitly provided spelling rules are supportive for learning to spell novel words but no further effects of explicit rules were found, either for practiced words or in the retention test.     

Refining success and dropout in massive open online courses based on the intention–behavior gap

In this paper we present an alternative typology for determining success and dropout in massive open online courses (MOOCs). This typology takes the perspectives of MOOC-takers into account and is based on the their intentions and subsequent behaviour. An explorative study using two MOOCs was carried out to test the applicability of the typology. Following the traditional approach based on course completion to identify educational success, success rates were 6.5 and 5.6%. The success rates from the perspectives of the MOOC-taker were 59 and 70%. These findings demonstrate that merely looking at course completion as a measure for success does not suffice in the context of MOOCs. This change in addressing MOOC success and dropout provides an alternative view and demonstrates the importance of MOOC-takers’ perspectives.