Focus of attention and choice of text modality in multimedia learning

The term ‘modality effect’ in multimedia learning means that students learn better from pictures combined with spoken rather than written text. The most prominent explanations refer to the split attention between visual text reading and picture observation which could affect transfer of information into working memory, maintenance of information in working memory or the effective size of working memory. The assumption of a continuous need for split attention is questionable, however. Learners can keep pictorial information in working memory, when they have seen the picture before, especially if they have higher prior knowledge. Instead of suffering from a permanent split attention, learners frequently show tendencies to simply ignore pictures. This suggests guiding learners towards picture analysis by picture-related text paragraphs. We assume that these paragraphs are associated with stronger modality effects than content-related paragraphs, especially if the pictures are new to learners. These assumptions were tested in an experiment with 120 students learning about volcanism from illustrated text consisting of segments each including a content-related paragraph followed by a picture-related paragraph describing the accompanying visualization. Content-related and picture-related paragraphs were presented as visual or auditory texts leading to 2x2 conditions of text presentation. Picture novelty was manipulated by presenting a picture throughout the whole segment or only when the picture-related paragraph was read. As expected, picture-related paragraphs were associated with stronger modality effects than content-related paragraphs if picture novelty is high. The distinction between different kinds of paragraphs seems to be important for the prediction of modality effects.     

Extra‐credential experiences and social closure: Working‐class students at university

Human capital theorists perceive of educational expansion as beneficial to individuals, corporations and national economies, while social closure theorists have claimed that inflation of credential requirements maintains traditional status inequalities. In this paper I argue that status inequalities are not only maintained by credential inflation, but also the inflation of extra‐credential experiences. As undergraduate degrees become more common, access to employment and further education opportunities increasingly depend on extra‐curricular and ‘enriching’ educational experiences. Using qualitative data from a longitudinal study of working‐class university students in Canada, I will address the mechanisms by which they have gained or were denied access to such experiences. The data suggest that working‐class students’ relative lack of financial resources and social networks are barriers to the development of extra‐credential experiences, which in turn leads to the change of educational and career plans for some.     

Longitudinal effects of verbal ability,memory capacity,and phonological awareness on reading performance

This study addresses the longitudinal relationship among verbal ability, memory capacity, phonological awareness, and reading performance. Data from 92 German children were used to explore the exact relation among these variables. Indicators of verbal ability, memory capacity, and phonological awareness were assessed in kindergarten and again after the first grade. The interrelationships among these factors, and the subsequent influence they have on decoding speed and reading comprehension during the second grade were examined via structural equation modeling procedures. Overall, the results of the longitudinal analyses show that the relationship of memory capacity and phonological awareness remains stable over time, and that memory capacity predicts performance on phonological awareness tasks in both kindergarten and second grade. Phonological awareness proved to be a significant predictor of decoding speed, which in turn considerably influenced reading comprehension.     

Making connections in mathematics

Math textbooks, which usually represent the mathematics curriculum, seem to be linked to the poor math performance of U.S. students. The major shortcomings of math textbooks are described in this article; then an alternative perspective is offered (the sameness analysis), along with research conducted with students with learning disabilities and at-risk students. The article then presents a detailed illustration of the sameness analysis--how to teach the addition-subtraction and multiplication-division relationships and their interrelationships in the context of solving word problems in mathematics.     

Reading,metacognition and motivation: A follow-up study of German students in Grades 7 and 8

This follow-up study to van Kraayenoord and Schneider (1999) examined the performance in reading, metacognition and motivation related to reading of students in Grades 7 and 8. Results showed significant correlations between all of the variables. A multivariate analysis of variance showed that “good” and “poor” readers differed in reading self-concept and metacognitive measures related to reading and memory. A stepwise regression analysis suggested that the metacognitive variables were the best predictors of reading. Furthermore, a comparison of the results of the previous study with those of the current investigation revealed that the findings were stable over time. Since the period between the two studies is the time during which students make important decisions related to enrolment in one of three distinct school-types in Germany, we examined the results of various groups of students: those in “Gymnasium” (high educational track), “Realschule” (middle educational track), and “Hauptschule” (low educational track). Students in the Gymnasium scored significantly better than students in the other two groups on almost all variables related to reading. A re-analysis of the data from our first investigation found that the results of the Gymnasium students in the second study could be predicted from their results obtained during elementary school.     

Formative assessment strategies for students' conceptions—The potential of learning analytics

Formative assessment is considered to be helpful in students' learning support and teaching design. Following Aufschnaiter's and Alonzo's framework, formative assessment practices of teachers can be subdivided into three practices: eliciting evidence, interpreting evidence and responding. Since students' conceptions are judged to be important for meaningful learning across disciplines, teachers are required to assess their students' conceptions. The focus of this article lies on the discussion of learning analytics for supporting the assessment of students' conceptions in class. The existing and potential contributions of learning analytics are discussed related to the named formative assessment framework in order to enhance the teachers' options to consider individual students' conceptions. We refer to findings from biology and computer science education on existing assessment tools and identify limitations and potentials with respect to the assessment of students' conceptions.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Students' conceptions are considered to be important for learning processes, but interpreting evidence for learning with respect to students' conceptions is challenging for teachers.
• Assessment tools have been developed in different educational domains for teaching practice.
• Techniques from artificial intelligence and machine learning have been applied for automated assessment of specific aspects of learning.

What does the paper add

• Findings on existing assessment tools from two educational domains are summarised and limitations with respect to assessment of students' conceptions are identified.
• Relevent data that needs to be analysed for insights into students' conceptions is identified from an educational perspective.
• Potential contributions of learning analytics to support the challenging task to elicit students' conceptions are discussed.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• Learning analytics can enhance the eliciting of students' conceptions.
• Based on the analysis of existing works, further exploration and developments of analysis techniques for unstructured text and multimodal data are desirable to support the eliciting of students' conceptions.