Children with dyslexia show an inhibition domain-specific deficit in reading

Reading and Writing - Children with dyslexia face persistent difficulties in acquiring reading skills, often making guessing errors characterized by the replacement of a word by an orthographic...     

Exploring student study behaviours in engineering: how undergraduates prepared textbook problems for online submission

ABSTRACT

While textbooks serve as a primary source of content material and problem-solving practice for undergraduates in engineering, studies that investigate how engineering students prepare assignments based on textbook problems are limited. To examine how engineering students complete textbook-based assignments outside of class, this exploratory qualitative study retrospectively investigated the study behaviours of six undergraduates enrolled in a required, second-year undergraduate engineering course at a mid-size, public university in the western United States. Within the course, students solved textbook problems and electronically submitted problem answers for graded credit. Findings from in-depth, semi-structured interviews showed that students identified and used a variety of non-traditional and unsupported resources in personalised approaches to preparing assignments. Resource choice and use was affected by students’ preferences for timely support, convenience, and social connections. The online submission process seemed to influence students’ adoption of study behaviours and resources considered less effective for deep, conceptual learning.     

DETERMINANTS OF GIRLS' CHOICE OF MATHEMATICS

Questionnaires concerning the self‐concept and evaluations of maths and French, as well as an intelligence test, were administered to secondary school students more than six months before they had to decide whether or not to take maths courses during the following school year. At the same time their school grades for maths and French were recorded. Students’ decisions were related to self‐concept, evaluations of maths and French, and aptitude measures, by means of discriminant analyses. Results indicated that sex, in combination with students’ (positive) evaluations of mathematics, their achievements in mathematics and their intellectual abilities, as well as a focus on French and self‐concept of French abilities, could adequately predict their choice of mathematics courses. No interaction effects were found between sex and the other predictor variables. These results suggest that stimulating more girls to choose mathematics during their secondary school years should focus upon achievement, self‐concept and evaluations of mathematics in comparison with other options.     

Providing transparency and credibility: the selection of international students for Australian universities. An examination of the relationship between scores in the International Student Admissions Test (ISAT), final year academic programs and an Australian university’s foundation program

Throughout 2003–04 five cohorts of students in their final year of school studies in various Malaysian colleges and a group of students completing an Australian university foundation year in Malaysia sat the International Student Admissions Test (ISAT). The ISAT is a multiple‐choice test of general academic abilities developed for students whose first language is not English. Both sets of scores were examined to investigate the relationship between skills measured by the academic programs and the generic reasoning skills measured by the ISAT. The data were examined by looking at correlations and patterns of the ISAT scores, and the total academic program scores and individual subject scores. As well, multiple regression was used to examine if the ISAT could act as a predictor for academic program scores. Although the ISAT and measures of achievement in the academic programs are two completely different instruments, the study showed that: (i) the scores were positively and significantly correlated; (ii) patterns of co‐variation of the ISAT and academic program scores demonstrate a positive relationship; and (iii) there is evidence that achieving a high score in the academic programs requires high reasoning skills, as measured by the ISAT. The findings of this study indicate that the ISAT is a useful predictor of student ability for use in the university selection process for international applicants.     

In search of good citizenship education: A normative analysis of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS)

In the last two decades, calls to place citizenship education (CE) at the top of national and European educational policy and research agendas have been gaining in prominence. Large‐scale comparative studies, such as the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), are often considered the main evidence base for setting these agendas and improving CE policies and practices. This article therefore considers the ICCS study as an inherent part of the process of translating general, educational aims into curricular policies and practices of CE. However, while critical voices about comparative educational studies have become paramount, a detailed analysis of their contents, of what and how they measure and what they promote as the aims of education is often lacking. This article aims to fill this gap by analysing the main research documents, design and items of the 2009 ICCS study. To find out what ICCS promotes as the goals of citizenship education, we examined its normative assumptions in terms of qualification, socialisation and/or subjectification. Our analysis shows that the qualification and socialisation functions are dominantly validated in all aspects of the study, whilst there is only marginal attention to subjectification. This implies that ICCS misses an important potential to document and/or promote pupils becoming autonomous and critical democratic citizens, whilst this is often considered a central aim of citizenship education by policymakers, practitioners and teachers.     

Motivation and learning in an online, unmoderated, mathematics workshop for teachers

As hypermedia, online teacher professional development (TPD) should ideally support diverse learners to work with online content effectively because it involves multiple representations and a nonlinear format. Differences among participants in motivation and learning provide challenges for design. The present study is a use-inspired, mixed-method study of 164 teachers’ motivation and learning in an unmoderated online workshop. It addresses participants’ demographic and motivational profiles, participation in this type of workshop (e.g., the frequency, duration, and focus, as well as their work with technology-enhanced, nonroutine challenge problems and journal assignments), the predictive value of the initial questionnaire, and implications for design. Findings indicate that while three clusters of motivational profiles could be identified (low interest, low self-efficacy, and less math; low interest, high self-efficacy, and more math; high interest, high self-efficacy, and more math), whether the teachers continue to participate appears to be related to the structure and content of the workshop, not just these profiles. Findings are interpreted as suggesting that the potential of hypermedia lies in its designers’ abilities to support participant stake by providing for multiple ways into thinking and working with disciplinary content—design that both accommodates and supports those with differing strengths and needs. Implications for studying motivation and learning online are also discussed.