Difficulties with consonants in the spelling and segmentation of CCVCC pseudowords: Differences among Dutch first graders

The goal of the present study was to explore the errors made by Dutch first graders in spelling syllable-initial and syllable-final consonants clusters in CCVCC pseudowords, to look for error types that discriminate poorer spellers from better spellers, and to relate these error types to the errors made when segmenting the same words. Such a correspondence across tasks would point to problems with the phonemic conceptualization of the spoken word as a source of spelling difficulty. The most prominent spelling error among poor spellers was omission of the consonant immediately following the vowel. This error seemed to be reflected in segmentation by omission of that consonant, but even more by the consonant being left unsegmented from the preceding vowel. The spelling and segmentation errors that we observed in Dutch are similar to those previously observed in English. The finding that such errors are made with a disproportionate frequency by poor spellers is new and suggests a basic problem in developing a phonemic conceptualization of spoken words (and of postvocalic consonant clusters in particular) that is adequate for spelling.     

Students’ misconceptions of statistical inference: A review of the empirical evidence from research on statistics education

A solid understanding of inferential statistics is of major importance for designing and interpreting empirical results in any scientific discipline. However, students are prone to many misconceptions regarding this topic. This article structurally summarizes and describes these misconceptions by presenting a systematic review of publications that provide empirical evidence of them. This group of publications was found to be dispersed over a wide range of specialized journals and proceedings, and the methodology used in the empirical studies was very diverse. Three research needs rise from this review: (1) further empirical studies that identify the sources and possible solutions for misconceptions in order to complement the abundant theoretical and statistical discussion about them; (2) new insights into effective research designs and methodologies to perform this type of research; and (3) structured and systematic summaries of findings like the one presented here, concerning misconceptions in other areas of statistics, that might be of interest both for educational researchers and teachers of statistics.     

Early childhood mathematical development: the association between patterning and proportional reasoning

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Insight into early precursors of proportional reasoning is necessary to further our theoretical understanding of mathematical development and to guide early...     

Profile of South African secondary-school teachers’ teaching quality: evaluation of teaching practices using an observation instrument

The need for quality teaching is reflected in the poor performance of students in international tests. Teachers’ practices and contextual factors could contribute to substandard quality of teaching in South Africa. Several studies indicate that successful learning is largely dependent on the teachers’ practices in class. The focus of the present research was to profile the effective teaching practices of 424 secondary-school teachers in the Gauteng Province, South Africa. Teachers were observed by trained observers using a valid and reliable observation instrument measuring six domains of effective teaching practices. Results showed that teachers find it difficult to differentiate in class and to activate learning. Additionally, teachers with more than 15 years of teaching experience scored lower than teachers with less experience, in all six teaching domains. Presumably, experienced teachers may lack motivation and/or insufficient training in implementing interactive and differentiated teaching methods that are needed for effective teaching practices.     

Measuring teaching quality and student engagement in South Korea and The Netherlands

Six observation scales for measuring the skills of teachers and 1 scale for measuring student engagement, assessed in South Korea and The Netherlands, are sufficiently reliable and offer sufficient predictive value for student engagement. A multigroup confirmatory factor analysis shows that the factor loadings and intercepts of the scales are the same, within acceptable boundaries, in both countries. Therefore, we can compare the average scores of teachers in both countries in a reliable and valid way. The 289 Dutch teachers score significantly better on “creating a safe and stimulating learning climate” and “intensive and activating teaching” and almost significantly on “efficient classroom management”. We find no significant differences in “clear and structured instruction”. The 375 South Korean teachers perform significantly better than the Dutch teachers on “teaching learning strategies” and almost significantly on “differentiating instruction”. Furthermore, we find better student engagement in South Korea.     

ICT-support for grounding in the classroom

More and more educators and researchers use ICT-tools to support collaborative learning. Research has shown that, for collaborative learning to be more effective than individual learning, individual learners have to achieve a sufficiently common cognitive frame of reference, or common ground. This common ground does not appear by itself, but rather often needs to be negotiated. This negotiation is seen as an important aspect of collaborative learning. This article presents a study with NTool, an ICT-tool to support the negotiation of common ground. NTool supports learners in making their individual perspectives explicit to others so that common ground can be negotiated. Two versions of the tool differing in the extent to which users were coerced into adhering to embedded support principles were used in a secondary vocational education setting. Coercion, as expected, increased negotiation of common ground in both settings. However, results were contradictory with regard to the extent to which common ground was achieved. Overall, it can be concluded that NTool and its underlying framework affect negotiation of common ground, and that adding some coercion increases this effect. However, when learners have no prior experience in collaborative complex problem-solving, NTool may only affect surface aspects of communication.     

Type specific returns to enterprise-related training

In this paper we develop an empirical model for heterogeneous human capital investment decisions. We apply this model to the investment in enterprise-related training. Three types of training investments are distinguished: technical training, economic-administrative training, and other enterprise-related training. The empirical results show that technical training yields relatively the lowest wage gain, while other enterprise-related training yields the highest wage gain. The results suggest that access into training is determined by employer selection of workers for training and that for workers entry into training is restricted. We also find evidence to indicate underinvestment in enterprise-related training.