It's Not What You Know,It's Who You Know: Older siblings facilitate imitation during infancy

In this study, we investigated the effect of older siblings on imitation by infants under naturalistic conditions. To do this, 300 parents provided diary records of imitation by their 12-, 15-, and 18-month-old infants. Half of the infants were only children and half had older siblings. Infants of all ages acquired one to two new behaviours per day through imitation. There were also age-related and sibling-related changes in the quality of behaviours acquired through imitation. Older infants imitated more multi-step sequences and substituted more objects during re-enactment than younger infants. In addition, infants with siblings imitated more behaviour without explicit instruction than did infants without siblings. Furthermore, imitation by infants with siblings was characterised by a higher level of pretence and rough-and-tumble play. These findings converge with both observational and laboratory-based research confirming that imitation is a powerful mechanism by which infants acquire new behaviours in the course of their everyday lives. Dans cette e´tude, nous avons examine´ l'effet des fre ¤ res et des s m urs aine´s sur l'imitation par des enfants en bas age dans des conditions naturalistes. Pour faire ceci, 300 parents ont fourni des dossiers de journal sur des exemples d'imitation par leurs petits enfants de 12, 15 et 18 mois. La moitie´ des petits enfants e´taient des enfants uniques et l'autre moitie´ avait des fre ¤ res et des s m urs aine´s. Les enfants de tous les ages ont acquis 1 a ¤ 2 nouveaux comportements par jour par l'imitation. Il y avait aussi des changements relatifs a ¤ l'age et a ¤ la pre´sence des fre ¤ res et des s m urs dans la qualite´ de comportements acquis par l'imitation. Les enfants plus age´s tendaient a ¤ imiter les se´quences de plus d'e´tapes et tendaient a ¤ substituer plus d'objets pendant la re´petitition que les enfants plus jeunes. En outre, les enfants avec des fre ¤ res et des s m urs aine´s tendaient a ¤ imiter plus le comportement sans instruction explicite que les enfants sans fre ¤ res et des s m urs aine´s. En plus, l'imitation par des petits enfants avec des fre ¤ res et des s m urs aine´s a e´te´ caracte´rise´e par un niveau plus e´leve´ de faire semblant et de jeu de de´gringolade. Ces de´couvertes convergent avec la recherche d'observation et de laboratoire confirmant que l'imitation est un me´canisme puissant par lequel les enfants en bas age acquie ¤ rent des nouveaux comportements au cours de leurs vies de tous les jours. En este estudio, investigamos el efecto que tienen los hermanos mayores sobre la imitacio´n por los nin ¨ os menores en condiciones natural ´sticas. Para llevar a cargo esto, 300 padres suministraron apuntes de sus agendas diarias de sus infantes de 12, 15 y 18 meses. La mitad de estos nin ¨ os eran nin ¨ os u´nicos y la otra mitad teni´an hermanos mayores. Los infantes de todas las edades adquirieron 1 o 2 nuevos comportamientos por di´a a trave´s de la imitacio´n. Hubieron presentes tambie´n cambios relacionados a la edad y al hecho de tener hermanos en el tipo de comportamientos adquiridos a trave´s de la imitacio´n. Los nin ¨ os mayores tendieron a imitar ma´s las secuencias de pasos mu´ltiples y tendieron a sustituir ma´s objetos durante la reconstruccio´n que los infantes menores. Adema´s, los nin ¨ os con hermanos imitaron el comportamiento sin instruccio´n expli´cita ma´s que los nin ¨ os sin hermanos. La imitacio´n de parte de los nin ¨ os tuvo como caracteri´stica un alto nivel de simulacio´n y de juego frene´tico. Estos hallazgos convergen con las investigaciones de observacio´n y de laboratorio, confirmando que la imitacio´n es un mecanismo potente por el cual los nin ¨ os adquieren nuevos comportamientos durante sus vidas cotidianas.     

Wellbeing in schools: what do students tell us?

Until recently, children and young people’s perspectives have been largely overlooked in considering optimal approaches to supporting their wellbeing at school. This article reports student views on the meaning of ‘wellbeing’ and how this is best facilitated, gathered as part of a large, national research project aimed at understanding and improving approaches to wellbeing in schools. The data reported here were gathered through 67 focus groups, involving 606 primary and secondary school students, across three Catholic school regions in different Australian states. Students provided rich accounts of how they view their wellbeing, conceptualised across three interconnected themes of ‘being’, ‘having’ and ‘doing’. They identified relationships with self, teachers, friends, peers and significant others, as central to their wellbeing. The findings point to immense potential in accessing and utilising children and young people’s views for change and reform in schools in the area of student wellbeing.     

The role of amount consumed in flavor preexposure effects and neophobia

Rats received either a small or a large amount of a novel saccharin solution prior to a conditioning episode in which the saccharin flavor was paired with lithium-induced toxicosis. When the time between the preexposure and the conditioning episode was 3.5 h, both the small and large amounts of saccharin decremented conditioning. However, when the time between the preexposure and the conditioning episode was 23.6 h, only the consumption of a large amount of saccharin decremented conditioning. In a second experiment, rats received either a short or a long exposure to the novel saccharin solution and were then given a choice test between the saccharin and water. Rats given the choice test immediately following their preexposure to saccharin avoided consuming it. If they received the choice test 4 h later, they consumed more of the saccharin irrespective of the length of the preexposure. In contrast, when they were given a choice test 24 h after the preexposure, only rats that had received a long preexposure displayed a significant preference for the saccharin. The present results demonstrate that the flavor preexposure effect and the attenuation of neophobia are both determined by the time between preexposure to the novel flavor and the conditioning episode or choice test and the amount of preexposure to the novel flavor. These findings are discussed in relation to the information-processing model developed by Wagner (1976, 1978) and are used to provide an account, in terms of this model, of the delay-gradient seen in flavor-aversion learning.     

高等教育财政:经济理论与国际经验的启示

本文讨论了为大学的教学提供资金的方法,首先介绍了高等教育财政问题的背景,然后讨论了经济理论和国际经验所带来的启示,并简要地分析了英国2006年的高等教育财政改革,接着提出了一套高等教育财政的基本策略,最后对全文进行总结。本文并不涉及如何为科研提供经费,也没有明确地讨论中国的情况,但为教育政策决策者思考高等教育财政改革问题提供了一种思路和启示。     

Quality early education—quality food and nutrition pracices? Some initial results from a pilot research project into food and nutrition practices in early years settings in Kent,UK

This paper draws upon work conducted as part of a research project into food and nutrition in the early years, and looks very specifically at the way in which practitioners in the field are both aware of current debates around such issues and how they put good policy into their practice. In drawing out such debates with practitioners, it also offers a useful insight into the way in which research, policy and practice either come together within the sector or actually operate within different ambits. The findings show that there is a lack of knowledge amongst early years practitioners on food and nutrition issues, and that this can lead to less than effective practice in some instances.     

Educational Psychology and Curriculum Design: a child‐centred approach

The links between curriculum design and educational psychology are, in principle, strong but are, in practice, becoming increasingly tenuous particularly with the apparent preference of the Department of Education and Science for a curriculum based upon certain ‘core’ subjects. A framework for a curriculum based upon the five communication skills of literacy, oracy, numeracy, graphicacy and physiognomacy is proposed. These are ‘basics’ yet represent the essentials of aesthetic education; their use ‘across the curriculum’ could lead to the establishment of ‘whole school’ curriculum policies. Some consideration is made of the relationship of educational psychology, and of Gardner's ‘multiple intelligences’, to the five forms of communication, with particular emphasis on graphicacy (spatial ability) and on physiognomacy (physical ability) which are skills commonly neglected in curriculum planning.     

Approaches to Studying and Academic Performance in a Traditional Psychology Course

Richardson's short‐version of the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI) was administered to psychology students at the commencement of the semester of study. This inventory seeks to indicate the degree to which students employ a reproducing (i.e., surface,) or meaning (i.e., deep,) approach to learning. Scores for meaning orientation did not predict academic performance in any way, while there was a very small negative relationship between reproducing orientation and academic achievement. The internal reliability of subscales within meaning and reproducing orientation were not satisfactory.     

The effect of prior practice on memory reactivation and generalization

Three experiments examined the effect of practice on memory performance by 18-month-old infants. Infants were tested using an imitation paradigm; an adult demonstrated a series of actions with objects and infants were given the opportunity to reproduce those actions following a delay. Some infants practiced the target actions before the retention interval (practice) and some did not (no practice). In Experiment 1, a reminder treatment alleviated forgetting by infants who practiced but failed to alleviate forgetting by infants who did not practice. In Experiments 2A and 2B, infants who practiced generalized to novel test stimuli after a 24-hr delay, whereas infants without practice did not. Results suggest practice influences the accessibility and generality of infants' memories.