Teaching and learning under COVID-19 public health edicts: the role of household lockdowns and prior technology usage

Higher Education - Public health edicts necessitated by COVID-19 prompted a rapid pivot to remote online teaching and learning. Two major consequences followed: households became students’...     

Résolution de problèmes d’hydrodynamique face à un circuit concret — Comparaison des stratégies avant et après apprentissage

The aim of this piece of research is to study physical reasoning and problem solving strategies among novices before and after a learning treatment in the field of hydrodynamics problems. The study is designed to investigate the meaning of becoming more expert in a specific domain. The results show several changes among novices after the learning treatment. Types of physical reasoning strategies appear which were not observed at the pretest. Nevertheless these correct reasoning strategies coexist with misconceptions (local reasoning). As far as general strategies are concerned, some changes are also observed. At the pretest most subjects proceed by trial and error. At the post-test their approach is guided by specific physical reasoning strategies, even if sometimes erroneous. Although the learning treatment did not deal with these various aspects, it appears that subjects experience a more rigourous approach, controlling much better than earlier the effects of their actions on the circuit. It seems as though, at the time of the pretest, the absence of domain-specific knowledge prevented students from applying a rigourous experimental approach, in principle independent of the domain concerned.     

Formative peer assessment in a CSCL environment: a case study

In this case study our aim was to gain more insight in the possibilities of qualitative formative peer assessment in a computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. An approach was chosen in which peer assessment was operationalized in assessment assignments and assessment tools that were embedded in the course material. The course concerned a higher education case‐based virtual seminar, in which students were asked to conduct research and write a report in small multidisciplinary teams. The assessment assignments contained the discussion of assessment criteria, the assessment of a group report of a fellow group and writing an assessment report. A list of feedback rules was one of the assessment tools. A qualitative oriented study was conducted, focusing on the attitude of students towards peer assessment and practical use of peer assessment assignments and tools. Results showed that students’ attitude towards peer assessment was positive and that assessment assignments had added value. However, not all students fulfilled all assessment assignments. Recommendations for implementation of peer assessment in CSCL environments as well as suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Children’s use of number line estimation strategies

This study tested whether second graders use benchmark-based strategies when solving a number line estimation (NLE) task. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions based on the availability of benchmarks provided on the number line. In the bounded condition, number lines were only bounded at both sides by 0 and 200, while the midpoint condition included an additional benchmark at the midpoint and children in the quartile condition were provided with a benchmark at every quartile. First, the inclusion of a midpoint resulted in more accurate estimates around the middle of the number line in the midpoint condition compared to the bounded and, surprisingly, also the quartile condition. Furthermore, the two additional benchmarks in the quartile condition did not yield better estimations around the first and third quartile, because children frequently relied on an erroneous representation of these benchmarks, leading to systematic estimation errors. Second, verbal strategy reports revealed that children in the midpoint condition relied more frequently on the benchmark at the midpoint of the number line compared to the bounded condition, confirming the accuracy data. Finally, the frequency of use of benchmark-based strategies correlated positively with mathematics achievement and tended to correlate positively also with estimation accuracy. In sum, this study is one of the first to provide systematic evidence for children’s use of benchmark-based estimation strategies in NLE with natural numbers and its relationship with children’s NLE performance.     

Helping students with cognitive disabilities improve social writing skills through email modeling and scaffolding

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of email modeling and scaffolding on the social writing quality of students with cognitive disabilities. Ten students from a university-affiliated lab school (mean age = 19.3; SD = 1.2) with an average of IQ of 55.30 (SD = 5.98) and 10 teacher candidates in a university teacher education programme participated in the study. The results suggest that all students with intellectual disabilities were able to holistically improve their social writing quality after exchanging emails with mature writers over a period of 15 weeks. Specifically, the students progressively showed various degrees of improvement in the areas of writing mechanics, lexical and syntactic complexity, writing cohesion, pragmatic propriety and writing motivation. However, the figurative use of language remained unaffected by the email modeling and scaffolding. Taken together, this study suggests that Internet-mediated formats, such as email, can reduce the anxiety of students with intellectual disabilities. Students feel more motivated to engage in writing and do so more actively in social media exchanges, thus improving their virtual social communication skills through writing. Teaching implications of this study are discussed.     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Modelling-Oriented Workshops for Engineering Undergraduates in the Field of Thermally Activated Phenomena

Research in Science Education - Two 20-h modelling-based workshops focused on the explanation of thermally activated phenomena were held at the University of Palermo, Italy, during the Academic...     

“I'm not in the best educational establishment,so what?” Effects of membership in more or less prestigious educational establishments on intergroup perceptions

The present study tests the assumption that the stable vs. unstable character of the structural relationship between groups influences the type of bias to which differentiation may lead, and affects the likelihood of identification with one's ingroup. Study 1 was conducted in Canada with university students and Study 2 in two French highschools; they both measured the impact of membership in a prestigious vs. a non-prestigious group on intergroup perceptions. In the Canadian sample, the structural relationship between groups was unstable, in a way that status asymmetry due to prestige differences might in time be eased out to the advantage of the less prestigious group. In the French study, the structural relationship was stable and not likely to evolve. As predicted, data from both samples' prestigious groups demonstrate a clear ingroup bias. Students from the less prestigious Canadian university situated in an ascending movement did not judge their competencies as lower than those of the prestigious university students, and further expressed the wish to enrol their children in their own university rather than the prestigious university. As expected, data collected from French high school students in the less prestigious study programme demonstrate a clear outgroup bias. Contrary to the initial hypothesis, in Canada, the prestigious university students identify less strongly with their ingroup than the less prestigious university students. This effect may be interpreted as participants distancing themselves from their ingroup prototype and it was also observed in the students of the prestigious study programme in the French high schools.     

There Is Water Everywhere: How News Framing Amplifies the Effect of Ecological Worldviews on Preference for Flooding Protection Policy

The purpose of this study is to examine the interactive effect of worldviews and media frames on policy preference. Using flooding as a case study, we examine the interplay of ecological worldviews and news framed as either emphasizing harmony with nature or mastery over nature on individuals' preference for flood protection policy. A total of 255 undergraduate students participated in a 2 (ecological worldviews: balance-with-nature vs. human-domination-over-nature) × 2 (media frames: harmony frame vs. mastery frame) between-subjects experiment. The findings indicate that both the balance-with-nature worldview and the human-domination-over-nature worldview have significant impacts on preference for flood protection policy. Furthermore, the harmony frame amplified the effect of the balance-with-nature worldview in supporting a natural approach to flood protection. In contrast, the mastery frame amplified the effect of the human-domination-over-nature worldview on the preference for a structural approach to flood protection. Implications are discussed.     

Advocating for controversial issues: The effect of activism on compliance‐gaining strategy likelihood of use

Previous research has demonstrated that compliance‐gaining strategies can he arrayed on an unidimensional continuum, anchored by positive, pro‐social strategies and negative, antisocial strategies (Hunter & Boster, 1987; Rolojf & Barnicott, 1978, 1979). Individual differences, including argumentativeness and verbal aggression (Boster & Levine, 1988), have been shown to affect one's ethical threshold. This ethical threshold is consistent with a Guttman simplex and determines both how many, as well as how antisocial, compliance‐gaining strategies individuals may consider using. Activists, who are highly involved and committed to their cause and who tend to be less verbally aggressive and more argumentative than the general public (Campo, 1999), are likely to have a lower threshold and to use more strategies. This study examines to what extent activism predicts one's ethical threshold, when controlling for the known effects of argumentativeness, verbal aggressiveness, and sex. Participants (N = 454) at two separate universities completed a repeated measures questionnaire that asked them to indicate their likelihood of use of 25 separate compliance‐gaining strategies. Based on respondents’ likelihood of use of these 25 strategies, the data were consistent with a Guttman simplex. A multiple regression model was tested, and indicated that one's ethical threshold is directly predicted by level of activism and verbal aggressiveness. Sex and argumentativeness were not found to be significant predictors in this revised model. In addition, activists used more strategies than non‐activists. Implications for advancing research related to activism and compliance‐gaining strategy selection are discussed.