Networked Cultural Diffusion and Creation on YouTube: An Analysis of YouTube Memes

Web 2.0-based cultural diffusion occurs not only through viral word-of-mouth communication but also through Internet memes in which cultural consumers review, resemble, and recreate old cultural components, resulting in the creation of new cultural forms. YouTube features a platform for memetic creation with a host of user-generated parodies, reviews, and mashups derived from viral videos. This study examines the cultural ecosystem of YouTube memes inspired by Korean artist Psy’s viral production “Gangnam Style.” The study focuses on the salience of various genres of YouTube memes and structural connections between memetic videos. According to the results, the viral video of “Gangnam Style” sparked a sizable amount of user creativity, including remixes, parodies, self-directed performances, and reviews, among others. A network analysis of connections between memetic videos shows that various memetic genres drew different levels of audience attention and actions across various stages of the 3-month-long diffusion process. In addition, the content of the traditional mass media played a key role in giving the viral video wider publicity and acknowledgement, but this role was later shared by user-generated content.     

The language of mathematics teaching: a text mining approach to explore the zeitgeist of US mathematics education

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Exploring language provides us with one approach to better understanding the practices and beliefs of a community. With advances in...     

Metacomprehension effects situated within an anchoring and adjustment framework

Low accuracy levels are often obtained when readers are asked to predict test performance over reading materials. Three investigations further explore the information readers use to make predictions during metacomprehension. Our results show that readers’ estimates are influenced by factors such as their initial impression of the reading task, based in part on their perceptions surrounding text genre and test item type. To explain these and other published results, a new framework for investigating metacomprehension using Tversky and Kahneman’s (Science, 185:1124–1131, 1974) anchoring and adjustment heuristic as a guide is proposed. We argue that readers anchor comprehension test performance on factors such as self-perceptions of reading ability and/or perceptions of the reading task and then insufficiently adjust their predictions to reflect the demands of the specific reading task at hand such as text difficulty.     

Personal Best (PB) goal-setting enhances arithmetical problem-solving

Personal Best (PB) goals are defined as specific, challenging, and competitively self-referenced goals involving a level of performance or effort that meets or exceeds an individual’s previous best. Much of the available research underpinning arguments for PB goal-setting is self-report-based; thus, the causal effect of PB goals on learning outcomes remains in question. The present experiment examined the impact of PB goal-setting (against a no-goal condition) on 68 Year 5 and 6 schoolchildren’s problem-solving during an arithmetic fluency-building activity, SuperSpeed Math. Equivalence of the two conditions was established across a range of prior ability and self-report motivational variables, including prior mathematical ability; Personal Best, Mastery, and Performance goal orientations at the individual and classroom level; mathematics self-concept; and valuing of and interest in mathematics. Controlling for initial problem-solving performance, students who set PB goals in subsequent rounds showed a small but reliable advantage over students in the control condition. These results suggest PB goals may provide a way for students to experience both challenge and success in a range of classroom activities. Suggestions for future research based on these initial findings are made.     

Investigating grit variables and their relations with practice and skill groups in developing sport experts

Grit, the tendency to work hard toward long-term goals, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure and adversity, has predicted several achievement outcomes. However, minimal work has examined grit within a sport expertise development framework, and specifically its association with deliberate practice (DP) in sport. Participants, 250 athletes (109 female; M_age = 23.40, SD = 10.14), completed the 12-item Grit Scale, practice measures, and reported their skill level (local to international). Factor analyses confirmed a 10-item two-factor model for use in our sport sample: consistency of interests (CI; 6 items; α = .81) and perseverance of effort (PE; 4 items; α = .75). A full latent variable model controlling for age showed PE significantly predicted weekly amounts of DP and engagement in mandatory and optional practice contexts; CI was inversely associated with threats to athletes’ sport commitment. Among senior athletes, both Expert and Advanced skill groups had higher PE levels than a Basic/Intermediate group, ps < .05. The tendency to work hard toward long-term goals seemingly enables athletes to persist with practice activities that are pivotal to expert sport development.     

Assessment of situated learning using computer environments

Based on a theory of situated learning, assessment must emphasize process as much as product. Assessment must move away from a linear additive model, accepting at the outset the complex, nonlinear, and possibly chaotic nature of real learning. Assessment must adapt to and take advantage of students working with technologies that extend their perceptual and problem-solving capacities beyond what they could do alone. To illustrate these points, several assessment examples are given, including a computer-based planning assistant for a videodisc mathematics and science video, suggestions for computer-based portfolio assessment, and speculations about embedded assessment of virtual situations. In all cases, the theory of situated learning emphasized perception over memory and the codetermined nature of learning and thinking.     

Designing Personalized Online Teaching Professional Development through Self-Assessment

Many institutions use a one-size-fits-all approach to faculty development for online teaching, which does not meet the needs of faculty who often have different levels of experience, skill, and self-efficacy in online teaching and learning. To address these issues, the [university name removed] [center name removed] designed and implemented an online teaching readiness self-assessment. The instrument was developed based on key attributes and skills needed for proficiency in online teaching, in three areas: online teaching experience and attitudes, learning management system proficiency, and access to technology. The self-assessment was distributed through a web-based survey tool to faculty who were identified to develop new online courses. Individual results were used to create personalized frameworks of professional development offerings (workshops, institutes, videos, and consultations) and just-in-time resources to support faculty in their development process.     

Revisiting Young Children's Understanding of the Psychological Causes of Behavior

In 1989, Miller and Aloise challenged the prevailing belief that preschoolers tend to explain others' behavior in terms of external events or a person's physical attributes and have little understanding of psychological causes. That review documented preschoolers' understanding of, and even preference for, psychological causes as part of an emerging renaissance in developmental social‐cognitive research. The present, updated review (97 articles, participant ages 3 months to 6 years) suggests the emergence of a transformative new perspective in which social‐cognition is balanced between social and cognitive aspects rather than tilted toward cognition. Recent research on infants' awareness of mental states, young children's understanding of social categories and their judgments of the trustworthiness of informants, and cultural context reveals various ways in which preschoolers' social‐causal reasoning is social.     

Integrating Culture in the Design of ICTs

Nationally and internationally, designers are challenged with meeting the needs of diverse populations, and they are faced with the dilemma of how to integrate culture in the design of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This paper reviews the literature in the fields of human–computer interaction and instructional design to argue that the present methods of integrating culture in design serve a limited scope of what culture can be in the design process. Two conclusions were drawn from this research. First, it is apparent that integrating culture in the design of ICTs serves a broader scope, from the generic or culture‐neutral, to the specialised or culture‐specific. Second, this review indicates that design has not caught up with technology and that to create for diverse audiences the process must be deliberate.