How does early childhood care and education affect cognitive development? An international review of the effects of early interventions for children from different social backgrounds

A number of authors have investigated the impact of early childhood education and care programs on the development of children. Often they have focused on the effects on children from socio-economically disadvantaged families. To assess the effects of various preschool programs on cognitive development, recent key studies were reviewed. In addition, the extent to which these programs could establish equal educational opportunities for children from different social backgrounds was evaluated. Program start, intensity, and duration were considered. The findings indicate that the vast majority of recent early education and care programs had considerable positive short-term effects and somewhat smaller long-term effects on cognitive development and that in relative terms children from socio-economically disadvantaged families made as much or slightly more progress than their more advantaged peers. Despite this, early childhood education and care cannot compensate completely for developmental deficits due to unfavorable learning conditions in disadvantaged milieus. Implications for research and policy are discussed.     

Towards a knowledge‐rich learning environment in preparatory secondary education

In this case study a novel educational programme for students in preparatory vocational education was studied. The research questions were: (1) Which teaching/learning processes occur in a simulated workplace using the concept of a knowledge‐rich workplace? (2) What is the role of models and modelling in the teaching/learning processes? The curriculum project consisted of design and construction tasks. The students were collaboratively involved in the process of designing a tricycle for a real customer. This real‐life activity creates opportunities for students to develop and use models, which can be used in more than in one context. The case study explored how the teachers deal with the students’ explicit and implicit need for knowledge and skills. The main findings are that teachers more often provide this knowledge, rather than guide the students in reconstructing it, and towards the end of the project, knowledge tended to remain situated.     

The Higher Education Enrollment Decision: Feedback on Expected Study Success and Updating Behavior

This study examines whether providing students with information on their future study success will influence their higher education enrollment decision and lower first-year dropout as a consequence. A randomized field experiment is conducted among 313 law and social science applicants at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The main results suggest that (a) students are generally overly positive about their future performance, (b) enrollment rates increase by 25% if students receive information on future study success, but (c) providing information to students does not reduce first-year dropout. An important conclusion is that the higher enrollment decision is not driven by the extent to which students are self-serving biased or by their updating behavior. Instead this decision seems to be influenced by a fear of failure, in the sense that students who receive a pass-signal (fail-signal) with respect to future study success enroll with higher (lower) probability.     

Parental distress: the initial phase of hearing aid and cochlear implant fitting

The results of previous cross-section studies suggest that childhood hearing impairment may lead to parental psychosocial stress. The present study investigated whether modifications in parental psychic state can be ascertained in connection with the child's treatment events and the child's hearing and speech status, in a prospective study design. Data were available on 116 fathers and mothers regarding the pre-cochlear implant examination or hearing aid fitting of their child. In the course of the child's treatment, parental quality of life improved from a low to a normal level. Among children who were at the stage of pre-examination for a cochlear implant, better hearing and speech capacity was linked to more severe impairment of the parental state. It is emphasized that the parents whose children showed comparatively good language development at the time of pre-examination for a cochlear implant were especially subjected to stress.     

A Novel Approach to Investigate the Impact of Mindset and Physiology on the Choice to Invest Effort During an Arithmetic Task

Growth mindset, the belief that personal attributes such as intelligence are malleable, has previously been related to more effort investment. Here, we investigated how undergraduates' mindset (N = 114) relates to the choice to invest effort during an arithmetic task, indexed by whether they make low vs. high effort-related choices. Social cognitive theory suggests that past performance experiences (mastery vs. failure) and physiological state are important sources for competence self-evaluations. Therefore, in addition to mindset, we also investigated how effort-related choices are influenced more dynamically, by failures and physiological responses during the task. Growth mindset and physiological effort mobilization did not predict effort-related choices but making mistakes did predict lower effort choices in the subsequent round. This study further supports the importance of mastery experiences for effort investment and provides a novel approach for integrating different levels of influence on effort-related choices during an educationally-relevant task.     

Fostering teacher educators’ professional development in research and in supervising student teachers’ research

Most teacher educators who work at institutes for higher vocational education have faced a new role since the European Community aimed to upgrade the general quality of education. Research tasks have been added as a new important core business for institutes that used to be mainly focused on education. Teacher educators therefore have to become familiar with research knowledge and skills, and with the skills to supervise student teachers in conducting research. Professional development activities have been set up to prepare them for it. In this explorative study, we investigated the extent to which four different professional development activities within three Dutch institutes for teacher education contributed to the knowledge and skills needed for these new tasks. We gathered data by interviewing 12 teacher educators. In addition to some striking differences, we found corresponding positive experiences in all four activities. Exchanging experiences and discussing issues with colleagues was perceived to be the most outstanding part of each activity. This research has yielded necessary insights into constructing professional development activities. It is clear that any professional development activity about research should be consistent with teacher educators’ daily practices and concerns.     

Self-explanation in the domain of statistics: an expertise reversal effect

This study investigated the effects of four instructional methods on cognitive load, propositional knowledge, and conceptual understanding of statistics, for low prior knowledge students and for high prior knowledge students. The instructional methods were (1) a reading-only control condition, (2) answering open-ended questions, (3) answering open-ended questions and formulating arguments, and (4) studying worked-out examples of the type of arguments students in the third group had to formulate themselves. The results indicate that high prior knowledge students develop more propositional knowledge of statistics than low prior knowledge students. With regard to conceptual understanding, the results indicate an expertise reversal effect: low prior knowledge students learn most from studying worked-out examples, whereas high prior knowledge students profit most from formulating arguments. Thus, novice students should be guided into the subject matter by means of worked-out examples. As soon as students have developed more knowledge of the subject matter, they should be provided with learning tasks that stimulate students to solve problems by formulating arguments.     

The Effect of Guidance in Problem-Based Learning of Statistics

Contrary to classical problem-based learning, in guided problem-based learning, the learning goals are predetermined by the instructor—on the basis of a detailed decomposition of the subject matter to be studied—to activate prior knowledge and to structure self-study and subsequent group discussion. This study investigated the effects of classical problem-based learning and guided problem-based learning, for different prior knowledge levels, on perceived value and usefulness of the learning activity and on conceptual understanding of statistics. Participants randomly assigned 110 students to 10 problem-based learning groups, and subsequently, the 10 groups were allocated randomly to classical problem-based learning or guided problem-based learning. The results indicate that guided problem-based learning tends to enhance conceptual understanding of statistics more thanbreak; classical problem-based learning once students have some prior knowledge of the subject. Furthermore, guided problem-based learning tends to increase students’ awareness of the value and usefulness of the learning activity.     

Temporal coding in conditioned inhibition: Retardation tests

Two lick suppression experiments with rats were conducted in order to determine the nature of the temporal information that is encoded as a result of Pavlovian conditioned inhibition training (conditioned stimulus {CS} A→unconditioned stimulus {US}/AX→noUS). After inhibition training, the conditioned inhibitor (X) was paired with the US in order to measure inhibition, as assessed through retarded behavioral control by CS X. Three temporal relationships were manipulated: the A-US interval, the X-A interval of inhibition training, and the X-US interval of the retardation test pairings. Retardation was greatest when the X-US temporal relationship matched the time at which the US was expected (but not delivered) on the X-A inhibition training trials. Thus, the present experiments provide evidence with retardation tests that, during conditioned inhibition training, subjects encode the temporal location of the omitted US relative to the inhibitory CS. These findings complement those of previous studies using summation tests of conditioned inhibition (Barnet & Miller, 1996; Denniston, Blaisdell, á Miller, 1998; Denniston, Cole, & Miller, 1998).     

The Competence Screening Questionnaire for Higher Education: Adaptable to the needs of a study programme

There is a lively discussion on how to evaluate competence-based higher education in both evaluation and competence research. The instruments used are often limited to course evaluation or specific competences, taking a rather narrow perspective. Furthermore, the instruments often comprise predetermined competences that cannot be adapted to higher education needs. The aim of this paper is to provide a flexible screening instrument into which practitioners/evaluators of study programmes can themselves insert the competences they are interested in, i.e. competences students ought to acquire through their study programme. The present study describes the development of the Competence Screening Questionnaire for Higher Education (CSQ-HE) in different domains of higher education. Results show that the CSQ-HE provides plausible screening information whilst fulfilling evaluation standards. It can be integrated into a higher education institution’s internal quality management system to demonstrate a programme’s legitimacy and enhance competence-based teaching and learning. Strengths, weaknesses and implications for practice are discussed.