The impact of retrieval processes, age, general achievement level, and test scoring scheme for children’s metacognitive monitoring and controlling

This multi-phase study examined the influence of retrieval processes on children??s metacognitive processes in relation to and in interaction with achievement level and age. First, N?=?150 9/10- and 11/12-year old high and low achievers watched an educational film and predicted their test performance. Children then solved a cloze test regarding the film content including answerable and unanswerable items and gave confidence judgments to every answer. Finally, children withdrew answers that they believed to be incorrect. All children showed adequate metacognitive processes before and during test taking with 11/12- year-olds outperforming 9/10-year-olds when considering characteristics of on-going retrieval processes. As to the influence of achievement level, high compared to low achievers proved to be more accurate in their metacognitive monitoring and controlling. Results suggest that both cognitive resources (operationalized through achievement level) and mnemonic experience (assessed through age) fuel metacognitive development. Nevertheless, when facing higher demands regarding retrieval processes, experience seems to play the more important role.     

Promotion of self-regulated learning in classrooms: investigating frequency, quality, and consequences for student performance

An implication of the current research on self-regulation is to implement the promotion of self-regulated learning in schools. Teachers can promote self-regulated learning either directly by teaching learning strategies or indirectly by arranging a learning environment that enables students to practise self-regulation. This study investigates teachers’ direct and indirect promotion of self-regulated learning and its relation to the development of students’ performance. Twenty German mathematics teachers with their overall 538 students (grade 9) were videotaped for a three-lesson unit on the Pythagorean Theorem. Students’ mathematics performance was tested several times before and after the observed lessons. A low-inferent coding system was applied to assess the teachers’ implicit or explicit instruction of cognitive strategies (e.g., organisation), metacognitive strategies (e.g., planning), and motivational strategies (e.g., resource management). High-inferent ratings were used to assess features of the learning environment that foster self-regulation. Results reveal that a great amount of strategy teaching takes place in an implicit way, whereas explicit strategy teaching and supportive learning environment are rare. The instruction of organisation strategies and some features of the learning environment (constructivism, transfer) relate positively to students’ performance development. In contrast to implicit strategy instruction, explicit strategy instruction was associated with a gain in performance. These results reveal a discrepancy between the usefulness of explicit strategy instruction and its rare occurrence in classrooms.     

Training ‘rule‐of‐〈E〉’: further investigation of a previously successful intervention for a spelling rule in developmental mixed dysgraphia

This paper reports a single case treatment study conducted with R.F.L., a young man with developmental mixed dysgraphia. The intervention focused on teaching spelling rules and was a replication of a previous successful study. The results of the present study provided further insights into the mechanism that operates to update faulty lexical representations for regular words. We argue that the level of spelling accuracy in combination with the error types present before the intervention are important to consider when choosing intervention methods.     

Attitudes toward multiculturalism of immigrants and majority members in the Netherlands

The current study examined the perceptions by Dutch natives and four immigrant groups (Surinamers, Antilleans, Turks, and Moroccans) on four topics relevant for the functioning of the Netherlands as a multicultural society: immigrants’ feelings of comfort in living in the Netherlands, their perceived discrimination, their cultural maintenance, and Dutch involvement with them. As predicted, Dutch natives estimated the immigrants’ view more accurately in a contact domain (perceived discrimination) than in a non-contact domain (feelings of comfort) and the attitude differences between Dutch natives and immigrants were smaller in a contact domain (Dutch involvement) than in a non-contact domain (cultural maintenance). The study also examined the relation between ethnic hierarchy (cultural distance), educational level, and experiences of the ethnic groups. Turks and Moroccans (who occupy a lower position in the Dutch ethnic hierarchy and are less schooled) reported less positive feelings and experiences in the Netherlands than Surinamers and Antilleans (who are higher in the ethnic hierarchy and are better schooled).     

Fostering students’ evaluation behaviour while searching the internet

A program for teaching 9th graders course content (history) and how they should evaluate information found on the WWW was designed and tested. Goal of the program was to teach content, evaluations skills, and to achieve transfer of these skills to a different domain. In the design of the program the principles of two transfer theories were combined using a design-based research approach. Results revealed that the program improved students’ evaluation behaviour. Compared to the students of the control condition, the evaluation skills of students in the experimental condition improved to a higher level, but did not lead to transfer. Students in the experimental classes scored higher on the final content exam than students in the control class.     

Design and evaluation of a development portfolio: how to improve students’ self-directed learning skills

In on-demand education, students often experience problems with directing their own learning processes. A Structured Task Evaluation and Planning Portfolio (STEPP) was designed to help students develop 3 basic self-directed learning skills: Assessing the quality of own performance, formulating learning needs, and selecting future learning tasks. A case study with 10 first-year students in the domain of hairdressing was conducted to evaluate STEPP’s use, usability, and perceived effectiveness. Results from student interviews show that usability and use are influenced by several factors. Students with low prior hairdressing skills, a weakly developed personal approach to direct their own learning, and an inclination to update STEPP as part of their weekly routine, use STEPP more frequently than students without these characteristics. Both the supervisor and students who frequently used STEPP perceived its use as a positive contribution to the development of self-directed learning skills. Furthermore, this study provides guidelines for the design of development portfolios in on-demand education.     

Participatory instructional redesign by students and teachers in secondary education: effects on perceptions of instruction

Students’ perceptions of instruction are important because they direct the learning of students. The fact that teachers have only limited knowledge of these perceptions is likely to threaten the effectiveness of learning, because congruence between interpretations of an instructional intervention is necessary for its optimal use. This study examines participatory design as a strategy for taking student perceptions into account in instructional re/design. Participatory design meetings of groups of teachers and seven co-designing students in a secondary education setting identified changes to improve the regular education process. The results on changes in student perceptions, perceived-desired discrepancy, and teacher–student disagreement showed some improvement for the co-designers but, unexpectedly, limited or even negative effects for the non-co-designing students. Possible causes are discussed. Participatory design seems to have potential for improving education, but further research is needed.     

Understanding teachers’ routines to inform classroom technology design

Secondary school teachers have quite busy and complex routines in their classrooms. However, present classroom technologies usually require focused attention from teachers while being interacted with, which restricts their use in teachers’ daily routines. Peripheral interaction is a human-computer interaction style that aims to enable interaction to take place both in the center and periphery of users’ attention and naturally shift between the two. We believe that classroom technologies employing the principles of peripheral interaction can reduce attentional resources required for teachers to interact with the technologies, and thus make technologies seamlessly blend into teachers’ routines. In order to design such technologies, a thorough understanding of users’ existing routines is crucial. In this paper, we present a qualitative study on everyday routines of seven Dutch secondary school teachers using contextmapping methodology. The results of two qualitative content analyses reveal an overview of teachers’ routine tasks in their classrooms, as well as rich and vivid contextual information about how teachers allocated their attention in their routines and how teachers experience their routines. Based on these findings, we present opportunities and considerations that may inform the design and development of classroom technologies which are to become part of teachers’ routines.     

Autonomy supported,learner-controlled or system-controlled learning in hypermedia environments and the influence of academic self-regulation style

This study focuses on learning in three different hypermedia environments that either support autonomous learning, learner-controlled learning or system-controlled learning and explores the mediating role of academic self-regulation style (ASRS; i.e. a macro level of motivation) on learning. This research was performed to gain more insight in the conditions under which learning in hypermedia environments is effective. Sixty-nine grade five students from a primary school answered short essay questions using video material from a hypermedia environment. The effects on task motivation and test performance were measured. It was found that learners in the autonomy supported hypermedia environment reported lower levels of controlled task motivation, compared to the learners in the system-controlled and learner-controlled hypermedia environments. But there were no effects of hypermedia environment on autonomous task motivation or the reported need fulfilment for autonomy. Furthermore, learners in the learner-controlled hypermedia environment scored lower on a delayed, In-Depth Knowledge Test compared to learners in the other two environments. Moreover, learners in the autonomy supported hypermedia environment watched more (unique) videos compared to learners in the system-controlled and the learner-controlled hypermedia environments. As for the role of learners' ASRS, we found no interaction with the type of hypermedia environment on task motivation or performance. Learners' ASRS did, however, affect the learners' motivation for the task. And, when presented with advice (as in the autonomy supported hypermedia environment) learners with an autonomous self-regulation style followed more advice, compared to learners with a more controlled self-regulation style.     

Cultural diversity in teachers’ group-centered beliefs and practices in early childcare

The present study examined the relation between teachers’ cultural backgrounds, their beliefs regarding group processes, their actual support of group processes, and children's behavior in center-based childcare in the Netherlands. For this purpose, 57 teachers of native Dutch and immigrant Moroccan-Dutch, Turkish-Dutch, Surinamese-Dutch, and Antillean-Dutch backgrounds were interviewed about their teaching beliefs and observed while engaging in a constructive play activity with small groups of children. Clear cultural differences in beliefs and corresponding behavior were found. In the interviews, the Turkish-Dutch and Moroccan-Dutch teachers mentioned concepts relating to group processes more often than the Dutch and Surinamese- and Antillean-Dutch teachers did, and they showed higher support of group processes during play. Moreover, the degree to which teachers expressed beliefs in group processes was significantly correlated with support of group processes by the teacher and with levels of collaboration and cognitive engagement in children's play. Structural equation modeling was applied to test direct and indirect effects, confirming the hypothesis that comparatively elaborate beliefs of teachers on group processes result in practices supporting group processes as well as more collaboration and cognitive engagement in children's play.