Cognitive and metacognitive components of learning: Search for the locus of retarded perfomance

The introduction to this article gives a short overview of the main theoretical ideas which have been advanced to explain the low cognitive perfomances of retarded persons in learning and problem solving. The question of how retarded learners organize and control their problem solving activities led the authors to conduct a series of single case studies investigating qualitative and dynamic aspects of retarded learning. Metacognitive training research, socio-cognitive theories and a schema-theoretical top-down/bottom-up model of information processing constitute the theoretical background. In a tutorial setting mentally retarded and learning disabled subjects were presented tasks which consist of connecting amorphous clouds of dots in order to reproduce geometrical model figures. Verbal and behavioral data were collected to precisely describe the subjects problem solving activities. Post-hoc a two-dimensional category system listing 28 different problem solving components was developed. The first dimension introduces a distinction between explorative, elaborative, planning and control components, the second dimension specifies whether the components are initiated topdown or bottom-up. This category system is presented in detail followed by a few examples of analyzed problem solving sequences. Finally, the proposed model and inherent methodological problems are discussed.     

‘Our surgeons want this to be short and simple’: practices of in-hospital medication review as coordinated sociomaterial actions

ABSTRACT

Medication review, a systematic assessment of a patient’s medicines by a health care professional, is intended to prevent medication-related harms. A critical element of medication review concerns whether medication review is conducted in a coordinated way. This article draws from a case example of implementing medication review in two surgical wards of a Swedish regional hospital and aims to analyse how medication review is being accomplished with respect to the coordination of its actions. Using a practice-based ethnographic approach, we present several coordination mechanisms by illustrating how practices are connected to materials involved in medication review. Also, we show how common orientations, ends, and understandings expressed in different medication review practices contribute to the coordination of the practices. In conclusion, this article highlights the complexity of establishing and sustaining medication review as a coordinated practice in routine health care. By closely examining sociomaterial connections, this article sheds new light on the neglected issue of artefacts and arrangements in constituting and transforming a highly complex medication practice.     

Perceptions of assessment in a senior physics class

Students' responses to assessment tasks are likely to be affected by a range of factors including teaching approaches, the nature of the curriculum, the nature of the assessment task, socialising influences, and perceptions of the teacher's assessment objectives. This paper describes the perceptions of assessment practices held by senior physics students and their teacher in one Brisbane school. The nature and rationale for these practices were inferred from an examination of school documents. Congruences and dissonances between and within these indicators of physics assessment practices in the school are explored, with particular reference to gender. Specializations: science education, science teacher education, physics education.     

A National Analysis of Noncredit Community College Education: Enrollment,Funding, Accountability,and Contextual Issues

ABSTRACT

Noncredit community college enrollment accounts for approximately 40% of all enrollment in the two-year sector, or five million students (American Association of Community Colleges, 2016). Yet, this population is seldom discussed in the higher education literature due to inconsistent definitions, funding, and data reporting at the state level. Many of the structural elements (e.g., funding, enrollment) have not been documented recently or completely. This study used data from the 2015 Survey of Access and Finance Issues, administered annually to the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges. The authors calculated noncredit enrollment by function and frequencies on funding mechanisms, funding by function, noncredit data reporting, and the measures captured at the state level. The study also employed polychoric and polyserial correlations examining the relationships among structural, contextual, and perspective-based items. This was done to capture the national landscape on this important community college function through the lens of state-level community college leaders.     

Who dares wins? Do higher realistic occupational aspirations improve the chances of migrants for access to dual vocational education and training in Germany?

High educational aspirations are considered to be a crucial factor for educational success and social advancement. As is also the case in many western European countries, migrants in Germany have higher aspirations than non-migrants. Although migrants’ average school performance levels are significantly lower, their greater educational aspirations exert a positive influence on the acquisition of higher educational qualifications. This paper investigates whether higher aspirations are also revealed in respect of Germany’s highly prevalent dual vocational education and training (VET) system and how this affects the transition to dual VET for young people from a migration background. Multivariate analyses using the database of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) relate to school-leavers in Years 9 and 10 of general schools who aspired to enter dual VET upon completion of schooling. If we control for the main influencing factors, young people from a migrant background are shown to exhibit higher occupational aspirations with regard to dual VET than their counterparts not from a migration background. However, viewed in overall terms, higher occupational aspirations lead to poorer chances of transition to dual VET. This is much more noticeable amongst migrants than amongst non-migrants.     

In search of a consistency model for evaluation of student performance in nontraditional education

In nontraditional education we believe that learning how to learn should be the major objective. Helping students learn how to learn should be a major teaching objective and a major teaching skill. This skill involves helping a student recognize that learning involves personal change and that no one is so knowledgeable and so skilled that he or she need not learn. One of the major problems in learning how to learn for educators is being able to play a concurrent role—that of an evaluator and that of an academic advisor. Inherent in this double role is the concept that an evaluator should provide a learning experience that is planned as an integral and continuous part of a student's education. Evaluation processes, both in planning and implementation, should be consistent with knowledge, values, and goals of nontraditional education. Their basis should be a theory of adult learning.     

Working memory capacity and reading skill moderate the effectiveness of strategy training in learning from hypertext

Cognitive and metacognitive strategies are particularly important for learning with hypertext. The effectiveness of strategy training, however, depends on available working memory resources. Thus, especially learners high on working memory capacity can profit from strategy training, while learners low on working memory capacity might easily be overtaxed. In addition, efficient basic reading comprehension processes are important for strategy training to be successful: When both the newly acquired strategies and poorly routinized basic reading comprehension processes compete for working memory resources, navigation within the hypertext and learning might deteriorate rather than improve. In an experiment, 64 undergraduates learned with a comprehensive expository hypertext after receiving either a cognitive or a metacognitive or no strategy training. In line with the predictions, learners high on working memory capacity or reading skill could profit from learning strategy training in terms of learning outcomes and the quality of their navigational behavior. Learners low on working memory capacity or reading skill, in contrast, performed worse in both training conditions compared to the control condition. The improvement in learning outcomes for skilled learners as well as the impairment in learning outcomes for unskilled learners could be shown to be indirect effects mediated by the quality of navigational behavior.