The Role of Executive Functions in Socioeconomic Attainment Gaps: Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial

The socioeconomic attainment gap in mathematics starts early and increases over time. This study aimed to examine why this gap exists. Four-year-olds from diverse backgrounds were randomly allocated to a brief intervention designed to improve executive functions (N = 87) or to an active control group (N = 88). The study was preregistered and followed CONSORT guidelines. Executive functions and mathematical skills were measured at baseline, 1 week, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year posttraining. Executive functions mediated the relation between socioeconomic status and mathematical skills. Children improved over training, but this did not transfer to untrained executive functions or mathematics. Executive functions may explain socioeconomic attainment gaps, but cognitive training directly targeting executive functions is not an effective way to narrow this gap.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of KooLKIDS: An interactive social emotional learning program for Australian primary school children

The effectiveness of universal social emotional learning (SEL) programs are dependent on the incorporation of best practice principles, including an evaluative component. In the present study, the effects of a best practice, teacher-led SEL program was examined with 854 children aged 8–12 years. KooLKIDS uses an interactive multimedia format and animated character to help children develop their emotion regulation capacities, social and friendship skills, empathy and compassion for others, and self-esteem. A quasi-experimental waitlist-control design was used to examine the impact of KooLKIDS on social and emotional competence, behavioral and emotional problems, academic achievement and effort. Hierarchical linear modeling demonstrated significant increases in social and emotional competence, and reductions in internalizing and externalizing problems in children post KooLKIDS program in the intervention group. The findings suggest that KooLKIDS has strong potential as a teacher-led, classroom-based, structured program for enhancing children's social and emotional learning.     

Shyness as a Factor when Assessing Children

Differences between shy and non-shy children were found on measures of speech in an assessment situation even when variation in vocabulary scores was statistically controlled. The findings have implications for understanding shyness and for practice in assessing shy children.     

Patterns of student writing in a critical thinking course: A quantitative analysis

Two studies assessed student writing in a critical thinking course. The first study examined initial and final versions of a term paper. Linguistic inquiry and word count (LIWC) analyses of essays revealed significant differences in linguistic variables and some differences in cognitive variables. The second study examined student essays at the beginning and end of the semester. Taken together, the studies indicate that students express themselves with less tentativeness at the end of the semester, and are consistent with the suggestion that students move from relativism to commitment during the course of a semester. In addition, the results indicate that the LIWC may detect differences between different writing genres.     

Rats in a levered T-maze task show evidence of time–place discriminations in two different measures

It is difficult for rats to learn to go to an arm of a T-maze to receive food that is dependent on the time of day, unless the amount of food in each daily session is different. In the same task, rats show evidence of time–place discriminations if they are required to press levers in the arms of the T-maze, but learning is only evident when the first lever press is considered, and not the first arm visited. These data suggest that rats struggle to use time as a discriminative stimulus unless the rewards/events differ in some dimension, or unless the goal locations can be visited prior to making a response. If both of these conditions are met in the same task, it might be possible to compare time–place learning in two different measures that essentially indicate performance before and after entering the arms of the T-maze. In the present study, we investigated time–place learning in rats with a levered T-maze task in which the amounts of food varied depending on the time of day. The first arm choices and first lever presses both indicated that the rats had acquired time–place discriminations, and both of these measures became significantly different from chance during the same block. However, there were subtle differences between the two measures, which suggest that time–place discrimination is aided by visiting the goal locations.     

Curtailing marking variation and enhancing feedback in large scale undergraduate chemistry courses through reducing academic judgement: a case study

Variation in marks awarded, alongside quality of feedback, is an issue whenever large-scale assessment is undertaken. In particular, variation between sessional teaching staff has been studied for decades resulting in many recorded efforts to overcome this issue. Attempts to curtail variation range from moderation meetings, extended training programmes, electronic tools, automated feedback or even audio/video feedback. Decreased marking variation was observed whenever automated marking was used, potentially due to less academic judgment being used by the markers. This article will focus on a case study of three interventions undertaken at Monash University that were designed to address concerns around the variability of marking and the feedback between sessional teaching staff employed in the chemistry teaching laboratories. The interventions included the use of detailed marking criteria, Excel marking spreadsheets and automated marked Moodle reports. Results indicated that more detailed marking criteria had no effect whilst automated processes caused a consistent decrease. This was attributed to a decrease in the academic judgment markers were expected to use. Only the Excel spreadsheet ensured the provision of consistent feedback to students. Sessional teaching staff commented that their marking loads were reduced and the new methods were easy to use.     

The Story So Far: gender,literacy and social regulation

This article examines ways in which language practices in the classroom — particularly those involved with the reading and writing of stories — are gendered literacy practices. It argues that stories are closely identified with structuring the meanings by which a culture lives, and that popular and familiar stories rely upon dominant versions of femininity and masculinity to be understood or ‘read’. The article suggests that story genres are ‘gendered’ in the way in which they organise sequences of events, in the discursive fields from which they draw, and in the character‐traiting paradigms they prefer. The claim is made that when children write stories they enter into a form of social regulation implicit in the cultural conventions of popular narrative forms. Story‐writing is seen to be a social, ideological activity which often masquerades as personal expression. The article argues that the gendered nature of classroom literacy practices will be more obviously recognised if classroom language approaches are framed from within critical discourse theory and theories of subjectivity; and if the constraints posed by generic conventions and the cultural devaluation of many feminine’ genres, are more deliberately confronted and addressed in the classroom.

Telling fairy stories, even telling good fairy stories very well ... simply doesn't count. The positions of real power and influence in our society necessitate command of genres for which boys’ educational experience provides an appropriate preparation and girls’ doesn't ... girls’ genre competence at primary school is not merely irrelevant but positively disabling. (Poynton, 1985; p. 36)