Enhancing wayfinding in pre-school children through robot and socio-cognitive conflict

Wayfinding is one of the most important skills that children have to learn in order to safely move in the environment. One problem that 5-year-old children encounter with wayfinding is changing their point of view to that of another person in different position in the same environment, such as that of a person opposite them whose perspective is turned 180° with respect to their own. Robots could help children in learning this skill, since children can instruct them to move in the environment, in predetermined paths, by starting from a rotated perspective. This study compares classic socio-cognitive conflict with a human partner, but in this case with a robot partner, in order to evaluate how a specific activity (instructing a robot to perform a given route) enhances the wayfinding skills of 156 5-year-old children. Using two different robots (humanoid and non-humanoid) and two different conditions (a child and the robot and two children and the robot), the study shows that children who performed the task with the humanoid robot improved their performance significantly better compared with those who used the non-humanoid robot. Furthermore, children engaged in the Socio-Cognitive Conflict situation with another child-outperformed children in the Socio-Cognitive Conflict with robots. Finally, children with low-level performance in the pretest made the greatest improvement both in terms of moves made and time taken to complete the task in comparison with children in the High-Level Group and of the Control Group.     

Recommendations for effective university study based on students’ point of view

This research examined what university students recommend for effective university study and whether their recommendations differ by gender, faculty or study programme degree. The research was based on 985 questionnaires. The following words were most commonly used in advice for freshmen: Go, Lectures, Learn, Continuously, Be, Prepare, Information, Have, Do, Materials. The fundamental advice seems to be: to go to lectures, to have needed materials and information and to learn and prepare continuously. Some stated recommendations react to the development of information and communication technologies and the massive usage of the Internet (such as obtaining a laptop and a cell phone or setting up a Facebook profile). Quite a lot of advice was connected with health, such as to sleep enough, to eat regularly, to not smoke, to relax and to restrict alcohol consumption. The recommendations gained in this survey were categorised by thematic similarities to characteristics, knowledge, skills, behaviour and background. The findings highlight the fact that given recommendations for effective study differ by the respondent’s gender and faculty. Women concentrated more on recommendations on how to behave and men mentioned more often what personality characteristics are important for effective university study. Students of the Faculty of Multimedia Communications highlighted the necessity of creativity and practical experience more often than others.     

Erratum: Student affect and conceptual understanding in learning chemistry

In this article (Journal of Research in Science Teaching 2007;44(7):908–937. DOI 10.1002/tea.20169 © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.), part of the author's affiliation had been inadvertently omitted. The corrected affiliation appears above. For the reader's information, the acronym “OISE/UT” stands for “Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.” The author regrets any inconvenience this may have caused.     

At the Crossroads: How Physical Education Can Succeed in a Public Health Paradigm

Physical education (PE) can make meaningful contributions to public health by directly providing moderate to vigorous physical activity (PA) opportunities for school-aged youth. Quality PE aims to contribute indirectly to PA beyond the school day. Unfortunately, insufficient evidence exists regarding the impact of PE on lifelong PA. This has led PE to a crossroads. Moving straight through the crossroads adds comprehensive school physical activity program responsibilities to the PE teacher’s load. Turning left results in PE teachers being replaced by PA leaders. The right turn reaffirms that the aim of PE is to teach youth the skills, knowledge, and dispositions to become physically literate and active for life. The right turn is the most difficult because it requires systemically changing school PE that has remained stagnant for decades. Recommendations are presented that include embracing the comprehensive school physical activity program model, conducting research clearly defining the role of PE and directing the contributions of PE to broader public health aims.     

Making connections among multiple graphical representations of fractions: sense-making competencies enhance perceptual fluency,but not vice versa

Prior research shows that representational competencies that enable students to use graphical representations to reason and solve tasks is key to learning in many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics domains. We focus on two types of representational competencies: (1) sense making of connections by verbally explaining how different representations map to one another, and (2) perceptual fluency that allows students to fast and effortlessly use perceptual features to make connections among representations. Because these different competencies are acquired via different types of learning processes, they require different types of instructional support: sense-making activities and fluency-building activities. In a prior experiment, we showed benefits for combining sense-making activities and fluency-building activities. In the current work, we test how to combine these two forms of instructional support, specifically, whether students should first work on sense-making activities or on fluency-building activities. This comparison allows us to investigate whether sense-making competencies enhance students’ acquisition of perceptual fluency (sense-making-first hypothesis) or whether perceptual fluency enhances students’ acquisition of sense-making competencies (fluency-first hypothesis). We conducted a lab experiment with 74 students from grades 3–5 working with an intelligent tutoring system for fractions. We assessed learning processes and learning outcomes related to representational competencies and domain knowledge. Overall, our results support the sense-making-first hypothesis, but not the fluency-first hypothesis.     

Constructing school knowledge after the Wall: the case of textbook publishing in the former German Democratic Republic

Organisational ecology and world cultural perspectives are used to analyse the struggle of the former East German textbook publisher Volk und Wissen after reunification. We argue that the normative expectations of Western Germany with respect to instructional materials clearly emulate world cultural principles, and so Volk und Wissen’s transition into Germany’s fiercely competitive educational publishing market offers an interesting test of the effects of educational globalisation. Reliance on the marketing expertise of Cornelsen, a Western German firm that acquired Volk und Wissen in 1991, helped the firm survive, but also retaining a ‘monist’ epistemological stance that was consistent with that of teachers trained in the socialist system.     

‘The accommodation I make is turning a blind eye’: faculty support for student mothers in higher education

The levels of support which faculty provide to students have been linked to a number of positive effects on students such as lower rates of attrition, greater satisfaction with college life, enhanced self-concept, improved academic performance and more likelihood of remaining enrolled in college through stressful life periods. There are surely fewer periods of life that are busier than new motherhood. This paper presents research carried out at a higher education institution in the United Arab Emirates. We look at the ways in which faculty interact with new student mothers and employ interviews to explore ways in which faculty acknowledge and offer academic and pastoral support to the new mothers. Their perceptions of students’ coping strategies when they combine motherhood and college studies are reported, and the ways in which faculty navigate college policy which relates to the student mothers. Faculty saw themselves as being extremely supportive and flexible towards new mothers. Whilst undergraduate student motherhood was uncommon in their home countries, it was generally felt that the increased organization, efficiency, time management and resilience witnessed in student mothers were assets to the college community. This study also has wider applicability to faculty support of non-traditional students in other settings.     

Cognitive style and achievement in science: A report from a developing society

This study investigated the effect of cognitive style, instructional mode and sex on students' achievement in biology. A sample of 258 subjects were involved and the study used a Treatment (2) × Sex (2) × Cognitive style (3) Non-randomized Control Group Pre-test-Post-test Design. Data were collected with Biology Achievement Test (BAT), Aptitude Test and Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) and an Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to analyse the data. The results show that subjects differed significantly in their post-test achievement scores on instructional mode and cognitive style factors. However, sex main effect was found not to be significant. It is interesting to note that the combined two-way interaction was significant. Of the three individual two-way interactions, instructional mode by sex, and instructional mode by cognitive style were significant. It is noteworthy that the three-way interactions were not significant. The results are discussed and their implications for effective biology instruction and consequently improved student achievement in biology especially in the Nigerian secondary schools are pointed out.     

The Effect of Media Coverage on Employer Reputation

A growing body of research examines the formation of employer reputation. One potential driver is media coverage. Using content analysis data for media coverage and survey data, this study examines different dimensions of media coverage, namely, social and functional news and their impacts on employer reputation. Results show that in particular negative functional and social news affect employer reputation, although the impact of negative social news is more indirect and delayed.     

Stretching and deep and superficial massage do not influence blood lactate levels after heavy-intensity cycle exercise

Abstract

The study aimed to assess the role of deep and superficial massage and passive stretching recovery on blood lactate concentration ([La^?]) kinetics after a fatiguing exercise compared to active and passive recovery. Nine participants (age 23 ± 1 years; stature 1.76 ± 0.02 m; body mass 74 ± 4 kg) performed on five occasions an 8-min fatiguing exercise at 90% of maximum oxygen uptake, followed by five different 10-min interventions in random order: passive and active recovery, deep and superficial massage and stretching. Interventions were followed by 1 hour of recovery. Throughout each session, maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) of the knee extensor muscles, [La^?], cardiorespiratory and metabolic variables were determined. Electromyographic signal (EMG) from the quadriceps muscles was also recorded. At the end of the fatiguing exercise, [La^?], MVC, EMG amplitude, and metabolic and cardiorespiratory parameters were similar among conditions. During intervention administration, [La^?] was lower and metabolic and cardiorespiratory parameters were higher in active recovery compared to the other modalities (P < 0.05). Stretching and deep and superficial massage did not alter [La^?] kinetics compared to passive recovery. These findings indicate that the pressure exerted during massage administration and stretching manoeuvres did not play a significant role on post-exercise blood La^? levels.