Early Differentiation of Causal Mechanisms Appropriate to Biological and Nonbiological Kinds

Although Piaget characterized young children as precausal until about 7-8 years of age, recent work indicates that preschoolers do honor fundamental principles of causality. This literature has mainly focused on general principles invoked in reasoning about mechanical events. By contrast, the present study examined whether children differentiate between the causal mechanisms appropriate for different conceptual domains. The results of 3 preliminary investigations and 1 main experiment suggested that preschoolers prefer natural mechanisms for color inheritance in biological kinds, particularly when causal substrates resemble their consequences. By contrast, the same children recognized the importance of human intentions in producing the color of an artifact, and also judged that mechanical mechanisms serve to mediate between intentions and outcomes. The results are relevant to recent studies on the development of biological thought, and overall suggest that early causal reasoning reflects both domain-specific and domain-general principles.     

Early understanding of the division of cognitive labor

Two studies with 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds (N = 104) examined whether young children can differentiate expertise in the minds of others. Study 1 revealed that all children in the sample could correctly attribute observable knowledge to familiar experts (i.e., a doctor and a car mechanic). Further, 4- and 5-year-olds could correctly attribute knowledge of underlying scientific principles to the appropriate experts. In contrast, Study 2 demonstrated that 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds have difficulty making attributions of knowledge of scientific principles to unfamiliar experts. A computational analysis in Study 3 indicated that 4- and 5-year-olds' successes on the first two studies could not be attributed to the way in which words co-occur in discourse. Overall, these studies showed that young children have a sense of the division of cognitive labor, albeit fragile.     

Whatever Happened to the Sociology of Education in Teacher Education?

This paper reviews something of the circumstances and factors which have contributed to the development and present status of the sociology of education in teacher education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It reports a survey which presents, through practitioners’ eyes, the discipline's present condition and their view of its future. It contrasts the resulting picture of a demise of the discipline and the pessimism of its practitioners with the condition of the sociology of education outside teacher education. It considers some of the consequences of the decline in the discipline, brought about by a decade of dramatic changes in teacher education.     

Peer feedback on academic writing: undergraduate students’ peer feedback role,peer feedback perceptions and essay performance

Within the higher education context, peer feedback is frequently applied as an instructional method. Research on the learning mechanisms involved in the peer feedback process has covered aspects of both providing and receiving feedback. However, a direct comparison of the impact that providing and receiving peer feedback has on students’ writing performance is still lacking. The current study compared the writing performance of undergraduate students (N = 83) who either provided or received anonymous written peer feedback in the context of an authentic academic writing task. In addition, we investigated whether students’ peer feedback perceptions were related to the nature of the peer feedback they received and to writing performance. Results showed that both providing and receiving feedback led to similar improvements of writing performance. The presence of explanatory comments positively related both to how adequate students perceived the peer feedback to be, as well as to students’ willingness to improve based upon it. However, no direct relation was found between these peer feedback perceptions and students’ writing performance increase.     

“You Can Do It Baby”: Non-Task Talk with an In-Car Speech Enabled System

Natural language speech enabled systems are an attractive option for in-car infotainment. Differences in cultural expectations in communication, however, can pose difficulties for interface developers and cause frustration for users. We adopt the perspective of cultural discourse theory to analyze 26 drivers interacting with an in-car speech interface. We focus here on directive sequences and the phenomenon of participants using non-task talk. The analysis of these sequences reveals a norm that one ought to engage in non-task talk with the system. We suggest that this norm is grounded in a user premise that the system’s interactional status involves the ability to speak. We find that this norm lacks crystallization among participants, and we formulate a competing norm that helps to account for this. The second norm reveals an underlying belief that the system’s status as a machine is the basis for how it should be treated.     

Assessing reading skills by means of paper-and-pencil lexical decision: Issues of reliability,repetition, and word-pseudoword ratio

This study focused on the feasibility of agroup-administered paper-and-pencil lexical-decisiontest as a plausible alternative or supplementary tool for the assessment of readingskills. Lexical-decision tests and oral-readingtests were administered to 130 Dutch studentsfrom primary grades 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. Correlations were moderate to high in low grades, butdeclined in the high grades. The reliability ofthe lexical-decision test assessed by means ofa test--retest procedure was generally good. Asecond presentation of the lexical-decisiontest caused repetition effects (i.e., betterperformance on the second test), but generallyremained within reasonable limits. The presenceof different numbers of pseudowords (25%vs. 75%) in both lexical decision and oralreading, indicated that a large number ofpseudowords made oral reading harder, butlexical decision easier. Educational andclinical implications are discussed.     

So near and yet so far: a grounded theory study of incarcerated Filipino elderly’s experiences of emotional geography

ABSTRACT

Emotional geography defines how emotions affect the interaction of individuals within their setting. Considering that prison has been described as a place saturated with negative emotions, previous studies have only dwelt on the negative impact of incarceration on the emotional well-being and interactions of the inmates. However, no attempt has been made that dilates on how emotional geography facilitates the establishment of good relationships inside the penal institution, hence this investigation. The overall intent of this investigation is to describe the process of emotional geography among a select group of incarcerated Filipino elderly. This study utilized the qualitative, grounded theory design. A purposive sample of 25 incarcerated Filipino elderly from the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City, Philippines participated in this study. Interestingly, this study afforded the development of de Guzman, Henson, Gumba, Fradejas, and Valdez Shoelace Model of Emotional Geography which describes how the incarcerated Filipino elderly’s emotions affect their interactions in achieving positive relationships with other inmates while inside the penal institution. This emerged model is comprised of three phases, namely: isolating (embracing a wall of mistrust), integrating (making connections through shared stories), and intertwining (strengthening the bonds thru emotional understanding). The emerged theoretical model has successfully described the process of emotional geography, which can be utilized by gerontological workers, nurses and other health professionals in addressing and accommodating the social and custodial needs of this vulnerable group.