Development of moral reasoning in situational and cultural contexts

ABSTRACT

This article examines relationships between children and youths’ judgments and their justifications of truth telling and verbal deception, in situational and cultural contexts. Han Chinese, Euro-Canadians and Chinese-Canadians, seven- to 17-years of age were presented competitive scenarios in which protagonists told either lies to protect, or truths to harm, various levels of collectivity. Participants evaluated protagonists’ statements, using a 7-point scale, and justified their judgments. Cultural variations in moral evaluations emerged among the three groups of participants. Older Chinese participants reflected significant collective cultural values in their judgements; by contrast, Euro-Canadians identified more individualistically; and Chinese-Canadians demonstrated notable variability between these perspectives in their judgments. The article enhances understanding of situational and cultural sources in the development of moral reasoning within a sociocultural framework.     

融合教育在香港的持续发展——兼论特殊学校的角色转变

融合教育的推行 ,静静地改变着香港学校教育的生态。融合教育是西方发达国家的教育产物 ,通过国际组织的策动而扩散。它是一个建基於人权和平等观念 ,强调尊重差异的教育发展方案 ,但也是一种知易行难的办学手段。本文试图理顺融合教育的基本观念 ,认识它的运作元素和讨论它的实践问题。藉着回顾一些国际和本地的研究发现和发展经验 ,作者还希望为融合教育的持续发展提供意见在天赋的“异”中求人的“同” ,是融合教育需要不断面对的挑战     

Facilitating English-language learners' oral reading fluency with digital pen technology

Oral reading fluency is an indicator of overall reading competence. Many studies have claimed that repeated reading can promote oral reading fluency. Currently, novel Web- or computer-based reading technologies offer interactive digital materials that promote English oral reading fluency using the repeated reading strategy; however, paper-based English materials in physical classrooms are still used to train students in oral reading fluency because most students are used to learning environments with paper, pen, and face-to-face interaction. With the growth of digital pen technologies, developing an interactive learning environment that combines printed textbooks and a digital pen to support English-language classroom learning has become feasible. Thus, this work presents a digital pen and paper interaction platform (DPPIP) composed of a student-learning tier, course management tier, and teacher tutoring tier, in which digital pen technologies are integrated with printed textbooks and Moodle course management system, to support the repeated reading strategy for promoting English-language oral reading fluency, learning motivation, and learning satisfaction. Meanwhile, this work also examined whether the proposed DPPIP provides different benefits in terms of the promotion of the oral reading fluency to students with field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles. Based on the non-equivalent control group design in the quasi-experimental research, this work recruited two junior high school classes from Taoyuan County, Taiwan, to participate in an instructional experiment. One class was randomly assigned to the experimental group, which used the DPPIP to perform the repeated reading strategy in order to enhance English-language oral reading fluency. By contrast, the other class was assigned to the control group, which adopted the traditional paired reading method to support the repeated reading strategy to improve English-language oral reading fluency. Analytical results show that applying the proposed DPPIP to support a regular English-language course in classrooms had significantly positive effects in promoting the English-language oral reading fluency, learning motivation, and learning satisfaction of junior high school students. Moreover, this DPPIP simultaneously helped the experimental group students with the field-independent and field-dependent cognitive styles accelerate their oral reading fluency. Importantly, the oral reading fluency of the experimental group students is positively correlated with the frequency which the digital pen was used.     

Patterns of Variation in Teaching the Colour of Light to Primary 3 Students

This paper shows how the patterns of variation created in the teaching were critical in helping a class of Primary 3 students in Hong Kong to learn about the colour of light, so that the students attained conceptual rather than procedural knowledge. A ‘Learning Study’ approach was adopted, which is a Lesson Study grounded in a particular learning theory to improve teaching and learning. This study, based on the learning theory of Variation advanced by Marton and Booth, was premised on three types of variation: variation in students’ ways of experiencing what is to be taught/learnt (V1), variation in teachers’ ways of dealing with the ‘object of learning’ (V2), and the use of ‘pattern of variation’ as a guiding principle of pedagogical design to enhance students’ learning (V3). In planning the lesson, a conscious effort was made to create relevant patterns of variation, i.e. varying certain critical aspect(s) while keeping other aspects of the object of learning invariant in order to help students to discern those aspects. Comparison between the results of the pre- and post-test shows that there was significant gain in the students’ learning outcomes with respect to the intended object of learning. The findings contribute knowledge to how the Theory of Variation can be used in practice. It also illustrates how teachers can make use of this theoretical framework to analyze their own teaching and thereby, develop an analytical awareness of teaching and learning.     

谈壮语的可利用价值

本文提出壮语的三方面的可利用价值 :语言学习的参考价值 ;民族源流的左证价值 ;民族关系研究的价值     

信息时代中的青少年德育

在华人社会,道德教育一直以来都是教育最基本的组成部分,因为培养有道德的人是教育的首要任务。道德教育的实施,其实是培植那些反映道德标准的价值观。然而,信息时代的出现及充斥在互联网上的大量信息,已改变了教育的方式,并向传统的道德教育发出挑战。在这一背景下,我们建议中国的教育工作者应寻求实践道德教育的新途径,以迎接网络世界的出现。崇高空洞的道德标准应让位给简洁易懂的观念,比如“尊重”。我们应该积极的去探索“网络世界”中的信息和观念,而不是一味的避免。有启发性和适切的道德教育应建基于儿童和青少年的发展需要和真正兴趣之上。华人社会的德育工作者,包括学校教师,家长,非正式教育的组织者,都应共同努力去了解虚拟的网络世界,并设计出可行的方法来适应新形势下的教育需要。     

Cognitive-linguistic profiles of Chinese typical-functioning adolescent dyslexics and high-functioning dyslexics

Dyslexia is a developmental disability affecting the acquisition of reading and writing skills, and its developmental nature makes longitudinal research of great importance. This study therefore investigated the cognitive-linguistic profiles of the typical-functioning dyslexics and high-functioning dyslexics with longitudinal cohorts of Chinese-speaking adolescents diagnosed with childhood dyslexia. These two dyslexic groups of fifty students (with 25 typical-functioning dyslexics) were assessed in Grade 2 (Time 1) and in Grade 8 (Time 2), whereas 25 typically developing controls were assessed at Time 2. Students were administered measures of phonological awareness, morphological skills, visual-orthographic knowledge, rapid naming, verbal working memory, and literacy skills. Results showed that, at Time 2, both dyslexic groups performed less well than the control group on most of the measures. Deficits in rapid naming were particularly salient in both dyslexic groups. Comparing the two dyslexic groups, the typical-functioning dyslexics had more multiple deficits than the high-functioning dyslexics. Findings highlight the importance of rapid naming deficits as potential universal causes of dyslexia and the utility of targeting visual-orthographic knowledge and morphological skills in supporting the development of dyslexic adolescents.     

Identification of learning styles online by observing learners' browsing behaviour through a neural network

Identification of individual learning style is important when developing adaptive educational hypermedia systems. Current systems ask learners to complete questionnaires to identify their learning styles, which might not be appropriate in some contexts. The goal of this research is to identify the learner's learning style by simply observing his/her browsing behaviour without asking the learner to answer any questions or filling out any form. It is implemented through a multi‐layer feed forward neural network (MLFF). Browsing behaviour, in this research, includes three factors, the use of embedded support devices (ESDs), the selection of link types, and the navigation between visited/unvisited nodes. The experiment results showed the proposed model performed well in identifying learning styles. Link type is the dominant factor and Time shift may not be a major factor in the identification of learning styles. Because of the fast execution property of neural networks and identification of learning styles online, it is possible to incorporate learning styles into online adaptive educational web‐based systems.     

Recent Changes to Reference Services in Academic Libraries and Their Relationship to Perceived Quality: Results of a National Survey

ABSTRACT

A national survey of academic librarians was conducted to examine relationships among reference service staffing changes, reference service innovations, adoption of reference technology, library type and size, and service quality. Analysis of the 606 response sets reveals trends toward reduced use of librarians and increased use of student staff at in-person service points, widespread increases in appointment-based and self-service reference, intensive efforts to reduce demand for reference by improving library instruction, and general improvements in reference service quality. Factors strongly associated with decreases or increases in quality are discussed in detail and implications for reference managers are provided.