The Effect of Learner-Generated Drawing and Imagination in Comprehending a Science Text

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of imagination and learner-generated drawing on comprehension, reading time, cognitive load, and eye movements, and whether prior knowledge moderated the effects of these two strategies. Sixty-three undergraduate students participated in a pretest-posttest between-subjects study with the independent variable being the instructional strategies with three levels (learner-generated drawing vs. imagination vs. repeated reading). The results revealed that, compared to repeated reading, learner-generated drawing fostered learners' comprehension when their prior knowledge was relatively low. Moreover, when asked to read the science text after the intervention, learners who were previously engaged with imagination spent significantly more time reading the text, and fixated longer and more frequently than those in the repeated reading condition.     

Styles of creativity: Adaptors and innovators in a singapore context

Kirton (1976) described two creative styles, namely adaptors and innovators. Adaptors prefer to “do things better ” whilst, innovators prefer to “do things differently ”. This study explored the relationship between two creative styles (adaptor and innovator) and the Big Five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience) and how they subscribe to creativity, risks and goal orientations. A total of 206 Polytechnic students from Singapore completed a self-report questionnaire, which consisted of the Kirton Adaptation-Innovation Inventory (Kirton, 1976), NEO-Five Factor Inventory (Saucier, 1994), Learning Goal Scale (Ng, 2003), What Kind of Person Are You Self-Report Inventory (Khatena & Torrance, 1976), Gough’s Creative Adjective Checklist, Risk Scenario, and Risk Taking Attitude Scale developed by Ng. It was found that adaptors were significantly more conscientious and subscribe to risk avoidance, ego approach and ego avoidance orientations than innovators, whilst, innovators were significantly more extraverted and open to experience and are likely to subscribe to creativity, risk taking and mastery goal orientations than adaptors. No significant differences were found between adaptors and innovators in agreeableness. The implications for the findings for the classroom teacher will also be discussed.     

Addressing the challenge of legitimate international comparisons of classroom practice

In this article, we address the choice of suitable instructional units that might serve as the basis for cross-cultural analyses of classroom practice. Our argument draws on analyses undertaken as part of the Learner's Perspective Study (LPS). The database comprised a three-camera video record of sequences of 10 consecutive lessons in each classroom, supplemented by post-lesson video-stimulated interviews with teachers and students: a total of over 180 videotaped lessons, over 50 teacher interviews and almost 400 student interviews. The results of these analyses challenge the suitability of the lesson as the unit of comparative analysis. In particular, the location of the lesson in the topic sequence is seen to be a key influence on the lesson's structure, critically affecting the teacher's deployment of the constituent activities that we have called ‘lesson events.’ The lesson event is proposed as an alternative unit of international comparative analysis of classroom practice.     

Trait procrastination,self-efficacy and achievement goals: the mediation role of boredom coping strategies

Limited research has examined the mediational role of coping strategy in students’ motivation and procrastination. In this study, we examined the relationships among self-efficacy, achievement goals, boredom coping strategies and procrastination with 506 Chinese college students. Data were collected via questionnaires. Structural equation modelling results showed that both self-efficacy and approach goals significantly predicted approach-oriented coping strategies, and avoidance goals significantly predicted avoidance-oriented coping strategies. Among the different types of boredom coping strategies, only behavioural avoidance coping strategy significantly predicted procrastination. Hence, the mediating link was only found between avoidance goals, behavioural avoidance coping strategy and procrastination. Implications of the mediating role of behavioural avoidance coping strategy in the goal-procrastination relationship were further discussed.     

Motivational predictors of young adolescents' participation in an outdoor adventure course: A self-determination theory approach

Abstract

Outdoor education is emerging as a compulsory component of the school curriculum in Singapore. As more and more young people are involved in outdoor education programmes, the motivational factors that influence students' participation in outdoor activities is an important area of study. The purpose of this study was to use the self-determination theory framework to examine post course satisfaction level among young adolescents. A total of 314 secondary school students aged from 12 to 16 years took part in the survey. Results showed that external regulation negatively predicted self-reported satisfaction whereas intrinsic motivation positively predicted participants' satisfaction levels of the course. It is highlighted that young adolescents should not be coerced into outdoor education programmes. They should be provided with a meaningful rationale for participation, given some autonomy for decision-making and to have a positive and enjoyable experience during the programme.     

Understanding Chinese online users and their visits to websites: Application of Zipf's law

Competition for consumers to visit company websites has intensified in recent years. An important indicator of website popularity (and consequent survival) is the extent to which the website can draw consumer visits vis-à-vis other websites. A majority of the current understanding on consumer visits is limited to a single website, and leaves little knowledge on the performance of one website compared with others. In tracking the Internet usage behavior of 200 individuals in Mainland China for 30 consecutive days, we applied Zipf's law to identify the divergence points separating popular websites from non-popular ones. Two measurements were used, namely, visit traffic (number) and visit engagement (time spent). We observed that 94.87% of the entire visit traffic is devoted to 15.08% of all visited websites, whereas 84.63% of engagements are on the top 6.16% visited websites. These findings suggest that few websites accounted for the bulk of online traffic and time. Further, we segmented the dataset based on two key proxy variables of user demographics, which are gender and occupation. The findings on visit traffic remained salient after considering user segments, but the findings on website engagement varied across different user segments. Our further analysis, which categorized the visited websites by their main service, revealed the type of Internet users attracted to popular websites.     

The Open College is nearly open

You see so many missed opportunities along the road, so why haven't we been given any time for reflection before? Why is it that we tend to forget that aspect, when talking about quality?     

基于金融体制创新的商业银行利率风险管理研究

以商业银行利率风险管理为背景.构建解决商业银行利率风险问题的金融创新研究平台,从金融体制创新角度探寻商业银行利率风险管理的最优方案.为商业银行的利率风险管理与科学决策提供理论思路.