Non-linear improvement in generic problem-solving skills of university students: a longitudinal study

ABSTRACT

Problem solving has been characterized as one of the ‘employability skills’ due to the high demand for such abilities in a modern workplace. Most universities do not monitor progress of the generic problem-solving skills (PSS) of their students due to a lack of available assessment tools. We used previously reported 15-min tests to measure the generic PSS of students over the first three years of university. More than 600 students participated in this study, including 144 who wrote PSS tests in Year 1 and then again in Year 3 of their studies. Two versions of the PSS test were administered in September and December of both years. We observed a non-linear increase in PSS test scores with a significant growth during the first three months of Year 1, a similar increase over the next 21 months, then no change during the first three months of Year 3. Further studies are necessary to pinpoint the instructional techniques and situational factors facilitating the PSS development of students over the first three years of studies. Moreover, the plateau we observe in the third year indicates that proactive steps by universities and individual instructors are required to advance this important skill set in upper-year students.     

Internality-norm theory in educational contexts

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the socionormative approach of internality in the field of education, and more specifically regarding scholastic judgment. It describes the theoretical development and the main procedures used by researchers to show that internal causal explanations have more value than external ones because they are normative and convey social value. We present results that show that the preference for internal explanations is learned in school. We also demonstrate that internal explanations are often chosen for self-presentation purposes and have some bearing in evaluative practices (here, scholastic judgment). We also present results which show that certain internal explanations of school events, regardless of their valence (success or failure), enhance the social worth of the pupil producing them. This applies to effort-based explanations which are more highly valued than others (e.g., in terms of personological traits such as aptitudes or abilities). Such results lead us to discuss the role played by internal explanations in the evaluation practices. We underline the relevant aspect of the socionormative theory of internality by comparison to another sociocognitive approach namely Weiner’s attributional theory of motivation.     

Does contextual change determine long-term forgetting?

A series of experiments were run to test the hypothesis that “spontaneous forgetting” could result from subtle contextual changes. The first experiment demonstrated that when Sprague-Dawley male rats are trained in a runway alley with a food reinforcer, retention performance is dramatically affected by a change in the pattern of the walls of the training apparatus when testing takes place 1, 3, or 5 days following training and not after 1 week. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this performance deficit cannot be alleviated by any of the three selected cuing treatments, whereas “spontaneous forgetting” (resulting from a training-to-test interval of 14 days) can be. These data indicate that the detrimental effect of contextual change reduces over time, and that such an effect cannot be interpreted in terms of retrieval failure. These results lend strong support to the argument that the disruptive contextual change effect is basically different from the disruptive effect that results from an extended training-to-test interval.     

The educational aims of the OECD in its TALIS insight and lesson reports: exploring societal orientations

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to explore the societal orientations (individualist vs. collectivist) of educational aims, in constructions of teacher professionalism framed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) insight and lesson reports. The critical discourse analysis of OECD TALIS documents suggests that the OECD discourse on teacher professionalism attested to a dual orientation: individualist and anti-collectivist. Our results contribute to the theoretical understanding of the educational aims of the OECD, which lead the global discourse in education, and of the cultural orientation that is part of its conceptualization of new professional teaching. The article discusses the implications of its findings.     

Coherence of retrieval cues,rather than additivity,determines prior cuing effectiveness in the rat

In previous studies, we have shown that adding a supplementary cue in a prior-cuing treatment may dramatically reduce its initial effectiveness. This series of experiments was aimed at testing the hypothesis that such a lack of additivity among retrieval cues could be due to the combined reactivation of memory attributes related to incompatible behavioral responses. For that purpose, rats were partially trained to reach the lighted arm (light condition; usual training condition) or the darkened arm (dark condition) of a Y-maze in order to avoid an electric foot-shock. The first experiment demonstrates that animals learned the two versions of the task similarly and that an exposure to the light similarly acts as an effective retrieval cue after a 24-h interval. In the second experiment, the effectiveness of exposure to the grid alone and to the light alone as well as to the combined light + grid cue was investigated after a 21-day training-to-test interval in the light condition, where light was related to safety and grid was associated with the shock, and in the dark condition, where both light and grid were related to the shock. The results indicate that whereas the compound light + grid cue was an ineffective retrieval cue in the light condition, it acted as an effective retrieval cue in the dark condition, supporting the hypothesis that coherence between retrieval cues is a necessary condition for effective cuing.     

Marketing teacher quality: critical discourse analysis of OECD documents on effective teaching and TALIS

ABSTRACT

This study uses critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) texts on teacher quality and the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) framework. Specifically, it explores the forewords of documents written by OECD leaders, which we believe are charged with meanings related to the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) discourse. We suggest that CDA of the texts sheds light on the manner in which OECD leaders attempt to gain normative control in the teacher quality discourse. Based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework for studying discourse, our analysis shows that the OECD (a) uses a discourse of fear to market teacher quality in light of global changes, implicitly framing teachers as ‘bad teachers’; (b) advocates reliance on the organization as a protector and (c) promises a remedy by regulating teachers in the name of effectiveness and the knowledge economy. The study offers a nuanced insight into OECD efforts to promote normative control in the teacher quality discourse, using three dimensions of discourse (i.e. the textual micro linguistic dimension, the meso-interdiscursive dimension, and the macro sociocultural dimension) that help gain ideational powers.     

A more equitable account of the note-taking functions in learning from lecture and from text

Previous research investigating the encoding, encoding-plus-storage, and extermal-storage functions of note taking has failed to equate processing opportunities among the groups. The present studies did so by having the encoding group take notes on two occasions without review, the encoding-plus-storage group take notes one time and review notes the next, and the external-storage group twice review a set of borrowed notes. Three forms of note taking were used: conventional, and note taking on skeletal and matrix frameworks. In both Experiment 1, involving lecture learning, and Experiment 2, involving text learning, an advantage was found for the encoding-plus-storage function on tests involving factual-recall and recognition performance but not on tests measuring higher-order performance. With respect to note-taking forms, no advantage existed for any form when information was acquired from lecture. When text material was used there was some advantage for conventional notes and a clear advantage for not taking notes at all, but instead twice reading the material. These findings were explained relative to observed note-taking behaviors, the opportunity for review, and the processing demands proposed by the combination of reading and note taking, particularly when notes must be classified into an existing framework.     

Changes in University Governance in France and in Italy

Tertiary Education and Management - The transformation of higher education systems under the pressure of new needs required by the “society of knowledge” in France and Italy has had a...     

Learning About Archaeology and Prehistoric Life

Science & Education - This article is about an intervention introducing prehistoric life in primary education. Its objectives were to foster openness and interest for prehistory and...     

Reliability and prevalence of an atypical development of phonological skills in French-speaking dyslexics

In the present study, conducted with French-speaking children, we examined the reliability (group study) and the prevalence (multiple-case study) of dyslexics’ phonological deficits in reading and reading-related skills in comparison with Reading Level (RL) controls. All dyslexics with no comorbidity problem schooled in a special institution for children with severe reading deficits were included in the study (N = 15; Chronological Age [CA]: 111 ± 8 months; RL: 80 ± 3 months). For the group study, the 15 dyslexics were matched pairwise on reading level, non-verbal IQ, and gender to 15 younger RL controls (CA: 85 ± 4 months). For the multiple-case study, the RL control group included 86 average readers (CA: 83 ± 4 months; RL: 85 ± 5 months). To assess the relative efficiency of the sublexical (or phonological) and lexical reading procedures, we relied on two comparisons: pseudowords vs. high-frequency regular words (the comparison mainly used in languages with a shallow orthography); and pseudowords vs. high-frequency irregular words (the comparison mainly used with English-speaking dyslexics), pseudowords and irregular words being either short or long. The dyslexics’ skills in the domains supposed to explain their reading deficit were also examined: phonemic awareness, phonological short-term memory and rapid naming. In the group study, the dyslexics lagged behind the RL controls only when they were required to read long pseudowords. The results of the multiple-case study indicated that the prevalence of this deficit was high (the accuracy scores of all but two of the 15 dyslexics being more than 1 SD below the RL control mean), and that deficits in phonemic awareness were more prevalent (seven cases) than deficits in phonological memory (one case) and in rapid naming (two cases). Three unexpected results were observed in the group study: the difference between regular words and pseudowords (to the detriment of pseudowords) was not greater for the dyslexics; the difference between irregular words and pseudowords (to the benefit of pseudowords) was more significant for the RL controls; and there were no significant differences between the groups in reading-related skills. To explain these results, the severity of the dyslexics’ reading deficit and the remediation they have benefited from must be taken into account. In addition, the fact that the outcomes of the comparison between pseudoword vs. regular or irregular word reading were not the same will make it possible to understand some discrepancies between studies carried out either in English or in a language with a shallower orthography (French, for instance).