The effects of civic education on political knowledge. A two year panel survey among Belgian adolescents

Traditionally political knowledge was regarded as an important potential outcome for civic education efforts. Most of the currently available research, however, tends to focus on non-cognitive goals, despite the fact that studies repeatedly have shown that political knowledge is an important resource for enlightened and engaged citizenship. In this article, we investigate whether civic education efforts at school contribute to political knowledge levels. The analysis is based on the Belgian Political Panel Survey, a 2 year panel study among 2,988 Belgian late adolescents. The analysis shows that experiences with group projects at school contribute significantly to political knowledge levels 2 years later on. Furthermore, we can observe an interaction effect as those who are already most knowledgeable about politics, gain most from these group projects. Classes about politics, on the other hand, did not have an effect on knowledge levels. In the discussion, it is argued that civic education can have strong cognitive effects, but that these effects are not always related to classical civic education efforts and we discussion the policy implication for civic education.     

Enhancing school climate through social and emotional learning: effects of RULER in Mexican secondary schools

Learning Environments Research - We investigated the impact of RULER—an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning—on school climate. Students and teachers from 37 Mexican...     

Assessment as learning: blurring the boundaries of assessment and learning for theory,policy and practice

This paper explores assessment and learning in a way that blurs their boundaries. The notion of assessment as learning (AaL) is offered as an aspect of formative assessment (assessment for learning). It considers how pupils self-regulate their own learning, and in so doing make complex decisions about how they use feedback and engage with the learning priorities of the classroom. Discussion is framed from a sociocultural stance, yet challenges some of the perspectives that have widely become accepted. It offers three new views to help explore the concept of AaL: understanding feedback; understanding the learning gap; and exploring vocabularies of assessment. Pragmatically, the ideas examined suggest that teachers may need to consider less about focused and directive feedback, but more about how learners interpret and understand feedback from their self-regulatory and self-productive identities and how vocabularies for assessment can be more collaboratively shared in learning contexts.     

The ICAP Framework: Linking Cognitive Engagement to Active Learning Outcomes

This article describes the ICAP framework that defines cognitive engagement activities on the basis of students’ overt behaviors and proposes that engagement behaviors can be categorized and differentiated into one of four modes: Interactive, Constructive, Active, and Passive. The ICAP hypothesis predicts that as students become more engaged with the learning materials, from passive to active to constructive to interactive, their learning will increase. We suggest possible knowledge-change processes that support the ICAP hypothesis and address the limitations and caveats of the hypothesis. In addition, empirical validation for the hypothesis is provided by examining laboratory and classroom studies that focus on three specific engagement activities: note taking, concept mapping and self-explaining. We also consider how ICAP can be used as a tool for explaining discrepant findings, dictate the proper choice of a control condition, and evaluate students’ outputs. Finally, we briefly compare ICAP to existing theories of learning.     

Learning by viewing versus learning by doing: Evidence‐based guidelines for principled learning environments

A learner‐centered approach is a central feature of instruction based on a constructivist learning model. However, there is some confusion regarding the requirement for behavioral activity as a prerequisite for a learner‐centered environment. We offer evidence in this article that some types of behavioral activity can interfere with cognitive learning processes. We recommend that instructional professionals focus on cognitive activity and summarize evidence‐based methods that support appropriate cognitive activity in behaviorally passive and active learning environments.     

Persistence of the Intuitive Conception of Living Things in Adolescence

This study investigated whether intuitive, naive conceptions of “living things” based on objects’ mobility (movement = alive) persist into adolescence and affect 10th graders’ accuracy of responses and reaction times during object classification. Most of the 58 students classified the test objects correctly as living/nonliving, yet they demonstrated significantly longer reaction times for classifying plants compared to animals and for classifying dynamic objects compared to static inanimate objects. Findings indicated that, despite prior learning in biology, the intuitive conception of living things persists up to age 15–16 years, affecting related reasoning processes. Consideration of these findings may help educators in their decisions about the nature of examples they use in their classrooms.     

Hommage à Annette Karmiloff-Smith / Homenaje a Annette Karmiloff-Smith

This brief homage touches on a few of Annette Karmiloff-Smith’s outstanding scholarly contributions in the cognitive sciences, her unique personal attributes and the impact her work and life have had on the author and on many others in the cognitive sciences since she completed her doctoral studies at the University of Geneva in the 1970s.     

A pilot evaluation of the reading intervention ‘Own‐voice Intensive Phonics’

This paper describes the mixed methodology evaluation of the Own‐Voice Intensive Phonics (OVIP) programme with 33 secondary students with persistent literacy difficulties. The evaluation involved a quasi‐experimental evaluation in which 33 students in years 7–9 in four schools used OVIP over an 8 week period and were monitored at three times for their word reading, phonic decoding and phonological skills. Students, teaching assistants and teachers involved were also interviewed about the use of OVIP, the perceived processes and outcomes. Assessment results showed that OVIP was associated with greater gains in word reading than these students' usual teaching/intervention approaches. Those interviewed also experienced benefits associated with using OVIP. It was further found that word reading gains were not related to a measure of being at risk of significant literacy difficulties. Participants identified the use of their own voice, the student's agency and working at their own pace as key factors relevant to how OVIP worked. These factors aligned with a working OVIP programme theory. The findings are discussed in terms of further development and research related to an own voice approach to addressing persistent literacy difficulties.     

Satisfying psychological needs on the high seas: explaining increases self-esteem following an Adventure Education Programme

A number of recent studies have revealed that taking part in a sail-training-based Adventure Education Programme elevates youths’ self-esteem. Across two studies, we sought to examine the extent to which youths’ sense of belonging contributed to this increase in self-esteem. Study 1 revealed that participants who completed the voyage showed an increase in self-esteem from the first to the last day of the voyage. Partial correlation revealed that group belonging made a unique contribution to this change. Study 2 replicated Study 1 and, further, demonstrated that the relationship between group belonging and self-esteem was not a function of self-efficacy or group esteem. Such findings suggest that an important contributing factor to the benefits of sail-training interventions is their potential to satisfy psychological needs, in this case the need to belong.