Dynamic Consultation: Towards process and challenge

This paper outlines the attempts of a group of educational psychologists to apply the theoretical principles underpinning dynamic assessment to the process of solution-focused consultation with teachers at the school-based stages of the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice. Process questions based on dynamic assessment are used within a semi-structured consultative framework in order to challenge thinking, to explore meanings, to mediate learning and to plan interventions. It is suggested that the principles of dynamic assessment lend themselves well to the consultation process, providing a model for effective and reflective practice for educational psychologists and teachers, and non-intrusive intervention with pupils.     

La perception d’une discipline scolaire par les elèves. Représentation et effets identitaires

The students’ perception of a subject is approached as being a pure construction aiming at giving a meaning to their real everyday school life and, therefore, is not done regardless of the social conditions in which they were worked out, nor the social meanings conferred on this subject and his contents. A survey done on French students from a comprehensive school about their own representation of «Education Manuelle et Technique» shows that, according to their social background, the students have a different perception of its practice and of the value of the knowledges called for. A further interpretation puts forward the instrumental role that might be played by the representation of a subject in psychosocial processes of identity and then, in return, the weight of these problems of identity when working out this representation.     

Effects of Reinforcement Learning on Gaze Following of Gaze and Head Direction in Early Infancy: An Interactive Eye-Tracking Study

The current four experiments investigated gaze following behavior in response to gaze and head turns in 4-month-olds and how reinforcement learning influences this behavior (N = 99). Using interactive eye tracking, infants’ gaze elicited an animation whenever infants followed a person’s head or gaze orientation (Experiment 1.1, 2.1 and 2.2) or looked at the opposite side (Experiment 1.2). Infants spontaneously followed the direction of a turning head with and without simultaneously shifted gaze direction (Cohen’s d: 0.93–1.05) but not the direction of isolated gaze shifts. We only found a weak effect of reinforcement on gaze following in one of the four experiments. Results will be discussed with regard to the impact of reinforcement on the maintenance of already existing gaze following behavior.     

Mothers’ search for infant child care: The dynamic relationship between availability and desirability in a continental European welfare state

The availability, affordability, and desirability of quality child care are matters of concern, especially for children raised in poverty, given the literature showing that young children raised in poverty can benefit from early access to quality care. The unique features of the Brussels context enable us to look at the connection between availability and parental preferences, while ‘controlling’ environmental constraints on costs and quality. We looked at access policies in 83 funded providers, and examined 100 mothers’ search for child care. The results show that quality child care was distributed unequally, favoring higher-income groups. Moreover, the access policies of individual providers furthered the exclusion of lower educated and ethnic minority parents. All parents took into account both quality and pragmatic criteria when looking for early child care, although the value of these criteria may vary according to ethnic background and education. The study also shows that access to and use of good quality care is an interactional process in which the mothers’ preferences and decisions are affected by the availability of care which, in turn, is determined by external conditions.     

Transformative Learning for Counselor Trainees: Implementation of the Multicultural Immersion Experience Model

In this qualitative inquiry, we studied the lived experiences of counselor trainees who participated in a short-term study abroad program in Dublin, Ireland. It was found that counselor trainees self-reported transformative growth as a result of their cultural immersion. Specifically, counselor trainees identified an increase in cultural self-awareness, other awareness, and global connection. The implications of applying transformative learning theory and the Multicultural Immersion Experience model to guide cultural immersion programs are discussed.     

From Comprehensive to Singular: A Latent Class Analysis of College Teaching Practices

While decades of research on college teaching has investigated several forms of classroom practices, much of this research approaches teaching as falling into mutually exclusive paradigms (e.g., active learning vs. lecturing). This paper enters inside the college classroom using external raters to understand patterns of pedagogical practices embedded in heterogeneous groups of courses. The study used quantitative observation and draws on data from a multi-institutional study of 587 courses across nine institutions to understand the patterns of teaching practices within courses. Latent class analyses demonstrated that there were five patterns of seven course practices that cluster around active learning, lecturing, and cognitively responsive practices: Comprehensive, Traditional Lecture, Active Lecture, Integrative Discussion, and Active Only.     

The Evaluation of Methods in Career Education Interventions

This article initially examines the conditions in which group methods in career intervention have emerged, reviewing their general traits and the criteria which evaluation research must meet. It then goes onto consider results from 11 evaluation studies carried out, with one exception, on children still at school, in France, Belgium and Switzerland. These results form the basis for some general conclusions and a number of problems are identified, concerning the heterogeneity and the power of effects, there presentation of self and jobs, the concept of vocational guidance for pupils, the boosting of their activity and level of their goals. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The acquisition of subject-verb agreement in written French: From novices to experts' errors

Recent studies have shown that many subject-verb agreement errors consist of making the verb agree with the immediately preceding noun, as in The smell of the rubbish-bins are foul. Assuming that it is the automaticity of the agreement operation which is responsible for these attraction errors in expert writers, the present studies aimed at demonstrating the gradual automatization of this operation in young writers by examining developmental changes in the occurrence of agreement errors. In three experiments we found that subjects' performance moves from systematic errors in number agreement in young children (e.g., no use of plural marks) to attraction errors in fifth graders and older adults through an intermediate phase characterized by an attention-demanding and easily disrupted computation of verb agreement displayed by some second graders. Attraction errors are a byproduct of the automatization of the implementation of the agreement process.