Do socio-motivational relationships predict achievement motivation in adolescents with high and low school self-concepts?

Considering the essential role that socio-motivational relationships at school play with respect to achievement motivation, this study examined the differences between students with a low school self-concept and students with a high school self-concept in a large sample of 7th and 8th grade students (N= 1088; MAge= 13.7) in secondary schools in Brandenburg, Germany. Multi-group structural equation modelling was used to estimate the associations between the variables of socio-motivational support and achievement motivation. The results showed that students with a high school self-concept report higher levels of socio-motivational support than students with a low school self-concept, whereas a teacher plays a more important role in motivating low self-concept students. Furthermore, the results underline the importance of adjusting the teacher's support to the level of the student's school self-concept as one of the possible prevention and intervention strategies aimed at boosting adolescents' achievement motivation after the transition to secondary school.     

Query Expansion with Long-Span Collocates

The paper presents two novel approaches to query expansion with long-span collocates—words, significantly co-occurring in topic-size windows with query terms. In the first approach—global collocation analysis—collocates of query terms are extracted from the entire collection, in the second—local collocation analysis—from a subset of retrieved documents. The significance of association between collocates was estimated using modified Mutual Information and Z score. The techniques were tested using the Okapi IR system. The effect of different parameters on performance was evaluated: window size, number of expansion terms, measures of collocation significance and types of expansion terms. We present performance results of these techniques and provide comparison with related approaches.     

Learning activities as enactments of learning affordances in MUVEs: A review-based classification

Three Dimensional Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) are promising tools in education because of the unique affordances they offer. These learning affordances imply certain actions that in turn can lead to corresponding learning activities. There seems to be a lack of reports on which of the affordances of MUVEs for learning and teaching are used and how they are enacted by relevantly designed learning activities. This study investigates the learning activities conducted in Second Life, the most popular and widely used among the "sandbox" type MUVE platforms, as reported in 205 empirical studies, by associating them with the learning affordances they enact. As necessary step towards this goal, the study proposes a new classification of learning affordances of MUVEs and a new concrete set of learning activities based on the literature review. Learning affordances include free navigation, creation, modeling and simulation, multichannel communication, collaboration and cooperation and content presentation and/or delivery. By using the open, axial and selective coding offered by the grounded method, the learning activities that emerged from the exhaustive empirical review, are well associated with the proposed six learning affordances, validating in return the functionality of the proposed set of learning affordances. The five more general learning activities, resulting from the selective coding, are content creation, content exploration and interaction with content, social interaction, gaming, participation in representations of real life events and situations. Further research on other MUVEs is needed to establish this framework.     

Missing the Forest for the Trees

This case study examines the alignment between the Intended Curriculum, Implemented Curriculum and Achieved Curriculum of a fourth grade inquiry based unit, Food Chains and Webs. Specifically addressed are how the curriculum was modified to meet state standards, how teachers were trained, and how assessment of curricular implementation was aligned with student performance. Particular focus was placed on measuring how well students connect the findings of inquiry based lessons to larger scientific principles. Implications of this study suggest modifications necessary for effective teacher professional development and classroom practice.     

A review of reliability procedures for measuring observer agreement

The present article reviews the procedures that have been developed for measuring the reliability of human observers' judgments when making direct observations of behavior. Measures such as the percentage of agreement, Cohen's kappa, and phi have been used to measure observer agreement; however, these coefficients have serious limitations. In addition to specifying the deficiencies that exist with these excessively used reliability measures, the present article discusses recently developed univariate and multivariate agreement measures that are based on quasi-equiprobability and quasi-independence models and estimates. Improvements in precision are provided by such models and estimates since they (1) yield a probability based coefficient of agreement with a directly interpretable meaning, (2) correct for the proportion of “chance” agreement, and (3) allow the partitioning of the agreement and disagreement estimates within the models.     

Closing the gap on the map: Davydov’s contribution to current early algebra discourse in light of the 1960s Soviet debates over word-problem solving

Recent scholarship around teaching elementary mathematics supports the learning of early algebra with 5- to 12-year olds. However, in spite of the recognition of the affordances of early algebra, issues about how to introduce it remain open. Within this context, Davydov’s work is often cited as a source of impressive demonstration of young learners’ capacity for algebraic thinking. This work requires further exploration in order to yield a clearer picture of a very particular teaching approach, which focuses on early abstractions and symbolic language. We argue that in order to fully understand how Davydov’s work contributes to current conversations and what Davydov was trying to do, we need to shed light on the context- and time-specific discourse of the 1960 Soviet educational reforms that made it possible for Davydov to develop his vision about algebraic thinking and to set in motion appropriate teaching approaches for young learners. In this paper, we look back to the Soviet debates that unfolded in Russia on the integration of early algebra in elementary school word-problem solving. Drawing on these debates and the results of Davydov’s school experiments, we lay out the developmental axes of capacity building. This can be done by emphasizing ascent from the abstract to the concrete using a variety of representational modeling tools to support the emergence of algebraic thinking while targeting particular habits of mind within carefully designed learning activities. We conclude with some insights about current arithmetic-algebra debates, and how these could be enriched and deepened by Davydov’s work, which yet remains open to future discussion and reflection.

     

Pupils’ conceptions of force in inanimates and animates

The objective of this work was to highlight the conceptions of force held by students aged 10–17 years old, in situations where animate and inanimate objects interact. In the proposed experimental situations, we varied parameters such as the motion and position of an object and the agent’s effort. We asked questions about both inanimate and animate objects. Results show that pupils are able to use a small number of conceptions coherently, but that these are influenced by the context. For inanimate objects, conceptions develop gradually. Initially, force is regarded as a property of objects related to their weight and/or motion/position. With age, however, pupils begin to regard it as a process of interaction. For animates, conceptions evolve much more slowly, insofar as all pupils consider force to be a human property related to the result that is obtained and/or the agent’s effort.     

Transposition in pigeons: reassessing spence (1937) with multiple discrimination training

We studied transposition in pigeons, using multiple-pair discrimination training. Four birds discriminated two pairs of circles: 1+ 2− and 5+ 6− or 1− 2+ and 5− 6+ (digits denote circle diameters and plus and minus signs denote reward and nonreward, respectively). Four other birds discriminated four pairs of circles: 1+2−, 1+3−, 4+6−, and 5+6−or 1−2+, 1−3+, 4−6+, and 5−6+. Finally, 4 birds discriminated only one pair of circles: 1+ 2−, 1+ 2−, 5+ 6−, or 5− 6+. Testing included five new pairs—1/5, 2/3, 2/6, 3/4, and 4/5—that distinguished absolute from relational accounts of transposition. The pigeons’ relational responding rose from one- to two- to four-pair training. The similarity of the testing stimuli to one another also affected relational responding: Transposition increased with highly dissimilar stimuli. Neither Spence’s (1937) theory nor existing relational accounts could predict the obtained pattern of relational responding.