Aggression in Pretend Play and Aggressive Behavior in the Classroom

Research Findings: Pretend play is an essential part of child development and adjustment. However, parents, teachers, and researchers debate the function of aggression in pretend play. Different models of aggression predict that the expression of aggression in play could either increase or decrease actual aggressive behavior. The current study examined pretend play and classroom behavior in preschoolers. Children (N = 59) were administered a measure of pretend play, and teacher ratings of classroom behavior were obtained. Pretend play skills were positively associated with prosocial behavior in the classroom and negatively associated with physical aggression in the classroom. In particular, expression of oral aggression in play related to less physical aggression and more prosocial behavior in the classroom. Practice or Policy: These findings suggest that pretend play should be encouraged, as these skills relate to positive behaviors in the classroom. In addition, it was found that aggression in pretend play was not an indicator of actual aggressive behavior, as it related to positive behaviors in the classroom. Implications for parents and teachers are discussed.     

The contributions of social learning to language acquisition

Psycholinguists have often lost sight of the functions of language in their search for structural regularities. This paper focuses on three social learning variables whose roles in language development have often been discounted. Feedback or reinforcement has been said to be unrelated to grammatical development since parents tend to reinforce the truth instead of the grammar of their children's utterances. But evidence is presented showing that feedback for the child's comprehension responses can affect production of grammatical forms. Modeling or imitation has been said to be unimportant in grammatical development because most children's utterances are novel and because the frequency of imitation appears unrelated to the rate of language growth. But evidence is presented showing how many utterances can be both imitative and novel and showing that the role of these selective imitations has not been assessed properly in many studies. Contextual constraints on language have been considered unimportant in many psycholinguistic theories. But evidence is presented showing that communicative competence is related critically to the ability to adjust utterances to contextual constraints and that the language of the young child is deficient in this regard. The educational advantages of a functional analysis of language are discussed.     

E-Books as Non-interactive Textual Compositions: An Argument for Simplicity over Complexity in Future E-Book Formats

This paper serves to qualify the present form of the e-book as one of many different kinds of digital compositions, or voluntarily consumed digital media. This paper also aims to show how future e-books, by virtue of its responsive nature and higher text-to-nontext ratio compared to other digital compositions, may only iterate into simpler formats (emphasis on textual components) as opposed to more complicated formats (emphasis on audiovisual components). This is due in part to consumer and market expectations of the e-book as well as limitations for the e-book as a medium. Because of this, I predict the next iteration for the e-book—the web book—will exist almost entirely in web applications.     

For Which Boys and Which Girls Are Reading Assessment Items Biased Against? Detection of Differential Item Functioning in Heterogeneous Gender Populations

In gender differential item functioning (DIF) research it is assumed that all members of a gender group have similar item response patterns and therefore generalizations from group level to subgroup and individual levels can be made accurately. However DIF items do not necessarily disadvantage every member of a gender group to the same degree, indicating existence of heterogeneity of response patterns within gender groups. In this article the impact of heterogeneity within gender groups on DIF investigations was investigated. Specifically, it was examined whether DIF results varied when comparing males versus females, gender × socioeconomic status subgroups and latent classes of gender. DIF analyses were conducted on reading achievement data from the Canadian sample of the Programme of International Student Assessment 2009. Results indicated considerable heterogeneity within males and females and DIF results were found to vary when heterogeneity was taken into account versus when it was not.     

Evaluating Records of Student Experience within Initial Teacher Education

This paper describes the evaluation of an innovative approach to student self‐evaluation which was piloted with PGCE (postgraduate certificate in education) students at the University of Bath. It gives background information on the context of the development of the Record of Student Experience (ROSE) and describes the various models adopted for student use. The ROSE evaluation process and findings are described and a discussion of the central issues concerning this form of self‐evaluation is provided. This paper describes the stages in the development of the ROSE with one group of students and offers some conclusions about the future use of this approach within initial teacher education.     

New Simulation Methods to Facilitate Achieving a Mechanistic Understanding of Basic Pharmacology Principles in the Classroom

We present a simulation tool to aid the study of basic pharmacology principles. By taking advantage of the properties of agent-based modeling, the tool facilitates taking a mechanistic approach to learning basic concepts, in contrast to the traditional empirical methods. Pharmacodynamics is a particular aspect of pharmacology that can benefit from use of such a tool: students are often taught a list of concepts and a separate list of parameters for mathematical equations. The link between the two can be elusive. While wet-lab experimentation is the proven approach to developing this link, in silico simulation can provide a means of acquiring important insight and understanding within a time frame and at a cost that cannot be achieved otherwise. We suggest that simulations and their representation of laboratory experiments in the classroom can become a key component in student achievement by helping to develop a student’s positive attitude towards science and his or her creativity in scientific inquiry. We present results of two simulation experiments that validate against data taken from current literature. We follow with a classroom example demonstrating how this tool can be seamlessly integrated within the traditional pharmacology learning experience.