The Stability of Individual Differences in Basic Mathematics‐Related Skills in Young Children at the Start of Formal Education

The current study investigated the development of children's performance on tasks that have been suggested to underlie early mathematics skills, including measures of cardinality, ordinality, and intelligence. Eighty‐seven children were tested in their first (T1) and second (T2) school year (at ages 5 and 6). Children's performance on all tasks demonstrated good reliability and significantly improved with age. Correlational analyses revealed that performance on some mathematics‐related tasks were nonsignificantly correlated between T1 and T2 (number line and number comparison), showing that these skills are relatively unstable. Detailed analyses also indicated that the way children solve these tasks show qualitative changes over time. By contrast, children's performance on measures of intelligence and nonnumerical ordering abilities were strongly correlated between T1 and T2. Additionally, ordering skills also showed moderate to strong correlations with counting procedures both cross‐sectionally and longitudinally. These results suggest that, initially, mathematics skills strongly rely on nonmathematical abilities.     

Going virtual and going wide: comparing Team-Based Learning in-class versus online and across disciplines

Education and Information Technologies - Team-based learning (TBL) is an active learning pedagogy developed for in-class sessions and based on the collaborative work of small groups of students....     

Children and adolescents as political actors: Collective visions of politics and citizenship

This article presents a case study on the political thought and citizenship conceptions of children and adolescents. Considering children and adolescents as reflexive citizens and partners in community development processes, it is our purpose to understand the development of political thought, and particularly how children conceive the exercise of citizenship and participation. Participants were 97 children of a primary and middle secondary (basic) school, aged 5 to 14?years, organized into age groups of 12 children each. Focus group discussions were used as participatory research methodology which involves children as active collaborators, a method that appears to be a good alternative to the traditional individual interviews used in previous research. Results point to the existence of a developmental process of political thought that begins before the start of formal schooling, and a parallel evolution of the conception of social organization and the concepts of citizenship and participation.     

EFFECTIVENESS OF THE FRIENDS FOR LIFE PROGRAM IN PORTUGUESE SCHOOLS: STUDY WITH A SAMPLE OF HIGHLY ANXIOUS CHILDREN

The FRIENDS for Life program is a cognitive–behavioral group program that targets anxiety in children. The main purpose of this study was to analyze the effectiveness of the Portuguese version of the FRIENDS for Life Program, which was implemented in schools to reduce anxiety problems in a group of highly anxious children. The study used a quasi‐experimental research design with two groups of children, an intervention (n = 17) and a wait‐list control group (n = 21), aged 8 to 12 years old. The impact of the program in reducing anxiety symptoms as assessed by children and mothers was analyzed through the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders‐Revised (SCARED‐R). The results show a statistically significant post intervention effect on anxiety symptoms evaluated by the child, but not by the mother. The implications of these results for the prevention of anxiety disorders in Portuguese schools are discussed.     

Observed classroom quality in first grade: associations with teacher, classroom, and school characteristics

The observation and assessment of quality of teacher–child interactions in elementary school settings are increasingly recognized as important; however, research is still very limited in European countries. In this study, we examined the quality of the interactions between teacher and children in first-grade classrooms in Portugal and the extent to which structural features at teacher-, classroom-, and school-level explained variation in this quality. One hundred fifteen classrooms participated in the study. Classrooms were observed through a standardized rating scale concerning emotional, organizational, and instructional support. Results indicated that the levels of emotional and organizational support in most classrooms were of moderate quality, but the levels of instructional support were low, suggesting that most observed activities did not encourage students’ higher-order thinking skills. An examination of the associations between teacher and classroom characteristics and the quality of teacher–child interactions indicated a small effect for teacher education. Teachers with an advanced degree were more likely to be more emotionally sensitive and to have better instructional interactions in the classroom. For school-level characteristics, findings showed that the classrooms in private and smaller schools were likely to provide higher levels of emotional, organizational, and instructional quality. The results suggest that focusing on the interactions between teacher and children can provide valuable information to enhance classroom quality.     

Children''s Beliefs about Listening: Is It Enough to Be Still and Quiet?

This study examined children's conception of listening and their performance as listeners, 7-, 9-, and 11-year-old children were interviewed for their conceptions of good listening, their beliefs about appropriate actions for confused listeners to take, their attributions of responsibility for a listener's confusion, their reports of how speakers and listeners feel during communication breakdown, and their ability to detect inconsistencies during a comprehension-monitoring task. Results indicated that older children relied less on behavioral orientation and more on attempts to comprehend and other criteria in their definitions of good listening. Children believed that appropriate listening responses depend on the situation, and there was a developmental increase in asking the speaker a question and listening more carefully. With age, children also tended to report more complex negative emotions for listeners and speakers experiencing a breakdown in understanding. Children recalled incongruent material more than congruent material on the comprehension-monitoring task.     

Do executive functions contribute to writing quality in beginning writers? A longitudinal study with second graders

Reading and Writing - Writing is an important activity that involves many demanding processes. Given the complexity and goal-directed nature of writing, this activity is heavily dependent on...     

Student Feelings of Connection to the Campus and Openness to Diversity and Challenge at a Large Research University: Evidence of Progress?

Previous research conducted by Pascarella and his colleagues (1996) has shown that undergraduate students tend to change toward greater openness and tolerance to diversity from their freshman to their sophomore year. Although the study by Pascarella includes many different types of universities in the United States, the average size of the entering freshman class in their research was reported to be approximately 4,000 students. While these findings are extremely valued in a general sense, Pascarella believed that they might not be found at very large universities. To our surprise, our findings indicated that large universities may have higher levels of openness to diversity and campus connectedness than what was originally explained by Pascarella.     

Investing in teaching development: navigating risk in a research intensive institution

It is often assumed that academics working in a research intensive university are unlikely to invest in the professional development of their teaching. Institutional structures and culture tend to undermine investment in academics’ teaching role. This study, conducted at the University of Cape Town, draws on an analysis of the environment within which academics make decisions to invest in their role as teachers. While acknowledging the privileging of research embedded in the institution, a significant group of academics have found ways to assert their academic identities as teachers despite the possible consequences and risks that this position entails.