An Interview with Kenneth A. Kiewra

Educational Psychology Review -     

Piecing Together the Puzzle of Pictorial Representation: How Jigsaw Puzzles Index Metacognitive Development

Jigsaw puzzles are ubiquitous developmental toys in Western societies, used here to examine the development of metarepresentation. For jigsaw puzzles this entails understanding that individual pieces, when assembled, produce a picture. In Experiment 1, 3- to 5-year-olds (N = 117) completed jigsaw puzzles that were normal, had no picture, or comprised noninterlocking rectangular pieces. Pictorial puzzle completion was associated with mental and graphical metarepresentational task performance. Guide pictures of completed pictorial puzzles were not useful. In Experiment 2, 3- to 4-year-olds (N = 52) completed a simplified task, to choose the correct final piece. Guide-use associated with age and specifically graphical metarepresentation performance. We conclude that the pragmatically natural measure of jigsaw puzzle completion ability demonstrates general and pictorial metarepresentational development at 4 years.     

Fear of death and physical illness: a personal construct approach

The Threat Index, Templer's Death Anxiety Scale, and the Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale were administered to 100 respondents in an attempt to assess their personal orientation toward death. Each respondent was a member of one of the following groups: people with no known illness; people attending their family physician for a checkup; rheumatoid arthritics; diabetics; or people recently treated for cancer. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that older respondents were significantly less death anxious, less fearful of their own death, and more integrated (that is, showed less self-death discrepancy) than younger respondents. Further analyses revealed no differences between any of the groups on fear of death or death anxiety, indicating that the current state of an individual's health was not related to his or her death orientation. Instead, correlational and regression analyses suggested that anxiety and fear were much more likely to be influenced by a respondent's level of actualization and, to a lesser extent, level of integration. The expected additive effects of actualization and integration did not emerge, a finding that was at variance with previous research.     

What is meant by ‘support’ in higher education? Towards a model of academic and welfare support

This paper focuses on academic and welfare support for students in higher education, and specifically what makes that support effective. It draws on data from a research project which aimed to explore networks of support for disabled and non‐disabled students. Part of the research focused on the nature and sources of support that were identified as important by students, as well as the kinds of support that were available within the higher education institution (HEI). What emerged as of particular interest was the question, ‘What do we mean by support?’ Drawing mainly on the voices and experiences of the students, perceptions of support were explored and the effects of support on the students’ experience of higher education were considered. Through a focus on more generic support structures as well as support which was specific to individual (disabled) students, the research aimed to understand ‘support’ and its importance from the student perspective.     

‘It doesn’t speak to me’: understanding student of color resistance to critical race pedagogy

Scholars maintain that when race and racism are addressed as factors that continue to shape inequality in the classroom, white students often deny the validity of these claims, while Students of Color tend to feel empowered by them. However, drawing on open-ended interviews, focus group discussions, and survey data, we argue that some Students of Color resist critical race pedagogy and curriculum. Specifically, we identify and analyze how this push back is articulated through three triggers: (1) an entrenchment in majoritarian ideologies; (2) a disavowal of racialized oppression; and (3) a disinclination to scrutinize personal experiences marred by race. These dynamics illustrate what we call ‘resisting decolonization’ – a reluctance to grapple with pedagogies that destabilize dominant ideologies about race and racism in schools and disrupt mainstream ideas regarding ethnic or racial identity. We introduce this concept in an attempt to hone critical race pedagogy to better address the needs of Students of Color who sometimes unknowingly participate in the marginalization of Populations of Color through deficit thinking or through the denial of the continuing significance of race.     

Achieving School Improvement through Challenging and Changing Teachers' Schema

The importance of changing teachers' beliefsand practices in school improvement efforts iswell accepted but little empirical work hasbeen reported on the micro-processes involved.In this paper, we use schema theory to examinehow the teachers in three schools changed theirbeliefs about the causes of low academicachievement from external factors, such as theparents' and children's deficits, to internalfactors, such as the contribution of their ownteaching practices. These change processes arecontrasted briefly with those in a fourthschool in which the teachers continued to blameexternal factors. The three conditionsidentified as critical for schema revisionincluded the salience of discrepant data, thepresence of an external agent to assist withthe interpretation of those data, and theavailability of information on alternativepractices.     

《教育技术的含义》译文

教育技术是通过创造、使用、管理适当的技术性的过程和资源,以促进学习和改善绩效的研究与符合道德规范的实践。这是美国教育传播与技术协会(AECT)2004年在《教育技术的含义》文献中提出的关于教育技术概念的新定义。该文献包括背景、定义、定义的元素、与教育技术概念的关系、与绩效技术概念的关系、定义背后的假设、目的和受众、历史上的早期定义、结论、参考文献十个部分。