Effect of Cognitive Style on Topographical Learning Across Life Span: Insights From Normal Development

Notwithstanding its well-established role on high-demanding spatial navigation tasks during adulthood, the effect of field dependence–independence during the acquisition of spatial navigation skills is almost unknown. This study assessed for the first time the effect of field dependence–independence on topographical learning (TL) across the life span: 195 individuals, including 54 healthy young-adults (age-range = 20–30), 46 teenagers (age-range = 11–14), and 95 children (age-range = 6–9) participated in this study. Field dependence–independence interacted with age in predicting TL. Also during childhood higher field independence was associated with better performances but not later in the life, that is, during adolescence and adulthood. This result suggests that field dependence–independence may have a role in fostering the acquisition of TL.     

Learning to read: Evidence on the distinction between decoding and comprehension skills

The paper focuses on the importance of distinguishing between decoding and comprehension skills in reading. This distinction can also be applied to the study of precursors of reading and of the first phases of reading acquisition. The reconsideration of a 15-year research program shows evidence and implications of such a dissociation. In particular, the paper reviews psychometric research concerning reading performance in first and second grade, research on precursors of reading, the effects of early programs devoted to develop reading abilities. Decoding and comprehension reading components appear at least partially separated, related to different underlying cognitive abilities, differently sensitive to enrichment programs.     

Creation of an integrated environment to supply e-learning platforms with Office Automation features

Over the last years great efforts have been made within the University environment to implement e-learning technologies in the standard educational practice. These learning technologies distribute online educational multimedia contents through technological platforms. Even though specific e-learning tools for technical disciplines were already available on the Internet, in our opinion more general tools, typically involving calculations, plots or diagrams, through the use of spreadsheets or graphical applications, were still needed to provide a more flexible and multi-purpose integrated environment. Therefore, we developed an integrated system to supply e-learning platforms with almost the same functionalities offered by standalone Office Automation applications. Modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment (MOODLE) and OpenOffice.org were selected to deal with any problem originating from the software and to smooth over the users' learning curve. Furthermore, MOODLE is a modular platform and offers an extensive application programming interface for coding in a simple and effective manner. The implementation of the work required the employment of Java and Asynchronous JavaScript and Extensible Markup Language technologies and included the creation of a Java Applet to be embedded in the web pages of the new MOODLE modules. Students could thus be offered a single working environment for handling “traditional” material and performing practical activities. The students' feedback on this new integrated system was very positive and proved the effectiveness of our work.     

The influence of causal knowledge on the willingness to change attitude towards climate change: results from an empirical study

ABSTRACT

Climate change is one of the significant global challenges currently facing humanity. Even though its seriousness seems to be common knowledge among the public, the reaction of individuals to it has been slow and uncertain. Many studies assert that simply knowing about climate change is not enough to generate people’s behavioural response. They claim, indeed, that in some cases scientific literacy can even obstruct behavioural response instead. However, recent surveys show a rather poor understanding of climate dynamics and argue that lack of knowledge about causal relationships within climate dynamics can hinder behavioural response, since the individual is not able to understand his/her role as causal agent and therefore doesn’t know how to take proper action. This study starts from the hypothesis that scientific knowledge focused on clarifying climate dynamics can make people understand not only dynamics themselves, but also their interactive relationship with the environment. Teaching materials on climate change based on such considerations were designed and implemented in a course for secondary-school students with the aim of investigating whether this kind of knowledge had an influence on students’ willingness to adopt pro-environmental behaviours. Questionnaires were delivered for testing the effect of the teaching experience on knowledge and behaviour.     

Every unsuccessful problem solver is unsuccessful in his or her own way: affective and cognitive factors in proving

It is widely recognized that purely cognitive behavior is extremely rare in performing mathematical activity: other factors, such as the affective ones, play a crucial role. In light of this observation, we present a reflection on the presence of affective and cognitive factors in the process of proving. Proof is considered as a special case of problem solving and the proving process is studied adopting a perspective according to which both affective and cognitive factors influence it. To carry out our study, we set up a framework where theoretical tools coming from research on problem solving, proof and affect are present. The study is performed within a university course in mathematics education, where students were given a statement in elementary number theory to be proved and were asked to write down their proving process and the thoughts that accompanied this process. We scrutinize the written protocols of two unsuccessful students, with the aim of disentangling the intertwining between affect and cognition. In particular, we seize the moments in which beliefs about self and beliefs about mathematical activity shape the performance of our students.

A social network scorecard to monitor knowledge flows across communication media

This paper describes the application of a scorecard, based on social network analysis, to monitor the evolution of knowledge flows. This scorecard helps organizations to identify new ways to optimize knowledge flows by combining communication media that match their working environments. Three case studies were conducted: one within an Italian Research Centre, and two within U.S.-based Research and Education Centres. The interactions of members of these business communities were observed by monitoring multiple communication media over time. This is a departure from the common practice of using only e-mail communications to describe social networks. The goal of this paper is to answer the following question: does e-mail alone represent an accurate approximation of the social network? The results suggest that a better approximation can be found by monitoring multiple media: e-mail, chat, telephone, social networking websites, and face-to-face interactions.     

Environmental Learning of Social Cues: Evidence From Enhanced Gaze Cueing in Deaf Children

The susceptibility to gaze cueing in deaf children aged 7–14 years old (N = 16) was tested using a nonlinguistic task. Participants performed a peripheral shape-discrimination task, whereas uninformative central gaze cues validly or invalidly cued the location of the target. To assess the role of sign language experience and bilingualism in deaf participants, three groups of age-matched hearing children were recruited: bimodal bilinguals (vocal and sign-language, N = 19), unimodal bilinguals (two vocal languages, N = 17), and monolinguals (N = 14). Although all groups showed a gaze-cueing effect and were faster to respond to validly than invalidly cued targets, this effect was twice as large in deaf participants. This result shows that atypical sensory experience can tune the saliency of a fundamental social cue.     

Linking via Pseudo-Equivalent Group Design: Methodological Considerations and an Application to the PISA and PIAAC Assessments

This article presents the pseudo-equivalent group approach and discusses how it can enhance the quality of linking in the presence of nonequivalent groups. The pseudo-equivalent group approach allows to achieve pseudo-equivalence using propensity score reweighting techniques. We use it to perform linking to establish scale concordance between two assessments. The article presents Monte-Carlo simulations and a real data application based on data from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Monte-Carlo simulations suggest that the pseudo-equivalent group design is particularly useful whenever there is a large overlap across the two groups with respect to balancing variables and when the correlation between such variables and ability is medium or high. The example based on PISA and PIAAC data indicates that the approach can provide reasonable accurate linking that can be used for group-level comparisons.     

On the Cross-Country Comparability of Indicators of Socioeconomic Resources in PISA

Large-scale international assessments rely on indicators of the resources that students report having in their homes to capture the financial capital of their families. The scaling methodology currently used to develop the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) background indices is designed to maximize within-country comparability over time. However, questions remain on the extent to which alternative scaling methodologies can ensure greater cross-country comparability. Establishing indicators of household resources that are comparable both across countries and over time is fundamental to assessing cross-country differences in socioeconomic inequalities in academic achievement. We use multigroup confirmatory factor analysis for categorical variables to examine the measurement equivalence of the household resource factors across the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries that participated in the PISA 2000 and 2012 cycles. We construct a series of alternative measures that use students’ reports on the availability of household resources and compare them to the index of home possessions that is generally used in analyses of PISA data. Our findings show that alternative scaling methodologies can be useful in developing cross-country indicators of socioeconomic status.     

Effects of Priming Social Goals on Personal Interest in Television News

Research indicates that personal interests drive news consumption, such that individuals neglect news items that are not of obvious personal relevance. This study tested whether an extrinsic social goal might increase personal interest in news through increased acquisition of, and perceived attention to news information, irrespective of pre-existing interest in the given topic. Results showed the prime increased information acquisition, as well as perceived attention to news. The prime also worked directly and indirectly through perceived attention to influence news interest in the predicted direction. Applications of findings for news teases and other promotional messages are considered.