Children's Temperament and Academic Skill Development During First Grade: Teachers' Interaction Styles as Mediators

The present study followed 156 Finnish children (M_age = 7.25 years) during the first grade of primary school to examine to what extent parent‐ and teacher‐rated temperament impacts children's math and reading skill development during the first grade, and the extent to which this impact would be mediated by teachers' interaction styles with the children. The results showed that the impact of children's low task orientation and negative emotionality on their math skill development was mediated via teachers' behavioral control and, among girls, also by psychological control. The negative impact of children's inhibition on math skill development, in turn, was not mediated via teachers' interaction styles. Temperament did not predict the children's reading skill development during first grade.     

Using Physical Activity to Teach Academic Content: A Study of the Effects on Literacy in Head Start Preschoolers

The potential impact of increased physical activity on early literacy skills in preschool children has not been sufficiently explored. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a 6 month, low cost, teacher-directed, academic program that delivered existing literacy lessons using physical activity in Head Start preschools. Preschool Literacy Individual Growth and Development Indicators were used to assess early literacy and phonological awareness in the areas of alliteration and picture naming. The results showed significant increases in physical activity during free play and improvements in early literacy (Picture Naming, Alliteration) compared to a non-exercising control group. In conclusion, the findings suggest that academic lessons taught using physical activity improve early literacy in preschoolers.     

The 2008 Benjamin Franklin medal for physics is presented to Dr. Deborah Jin

The Benjamin Franklin Medal for Physics is awarded to Dr. Deborah Jin (JILA, NIST and the University of Colorado) “in recognition of her pioneering investigations into the quantum properties of an ultra-cold gas of fermionic atoms and, in particular, for her creation of the first degenerate Fermi gas of atoms”.     

Enhancing Social Acceptance of Early Adolescents with Physical Disabilities: effects of role salience,peer interaction,and academic support interventions

The study designed and field-tested the effectiveness of a school-based program for enhancing the social acceptance of early adolescents (i.e., ages 11 to 14 years) with physical disabilities attending ordinary Zimbabwean schools (N=218; Mean age 12.49, SD=1.87 years). Actual (i.e., peer) social acceptance and perceived (i.e., self) social acceptance were considered and for same-gender and opposite-gender groups. The program involved (a) a role salience intervention, (b) a peer interaction intervention, and (c) an academic support intervention, and combinations of the individual interventions. The social enhancement protocols were pilot tested over a three-month period. The main study involved entire classrooms (N=194 classrooms; 8342 students) in order to avoid contamination of the interventions, treat the context of prejudice and enable non-disabled classmates to benefit from participation. Nomination sociometric techniques were used to measure social acceptance, and identify student-preferred school or classroom roles, preferred peers, and preferred academic services. Measures of intervention effectiveness were taken at 12-week intervals over a 6-month period. Repeated measures analysis showed that the peer interaction intervention was singularly more effective than the role salience and academic support interventions in raising the actual social status of students with physical disabilities. Interventions involving role salience were effective in raising the students' perceived social status.     

The CLIA-model: A framework for designing powerful learning environments for thinking and problem solving

A major challenge for education and educational research is to build on our present understanding of learning for designing environments for education that are conducive to fostering in students self-regulatory and cooperative learning skills, transferable knowledge, and a disposition toward competent thinking and problem solving. Taking into account inquiry-based knowledge on learning and recent instructional research, this article presents the CLIA-model (Competence, Learning, Intervention, Assessment) as a framework for the design of learning environments aimed to be powerful in eliciting in students learning processes that facilitate the acquisition of productive knowledge and competent learning and thinking skills. Next, two intervention studies are described that embody major components of this framework, one focussing on mathematical problem solving in primary school, and a second one relating to self-regulatory skills in university freshmen. Both studies were carried out in parallel with the development of the framework, and were instrumental in identifying and specifying the different components of the model. They yielded both promising initial support for the model by showing that CLIA-based learning environments are indeed powerful in facilitating in students the acquisition of high-literacy learning results, especially the acquisition and transfer of self-regulation skills for learning and problem solving.     

Innovation in services in networks of organizations and in the distribution of services

Three approaches of studying innovation in services are recognized: the assimilation, demarcation and synthesis approach. The synthesis approach attempts to arrive at a theory relevant for service and manufacturing. Gallouj and Weinstein [Gallouj, F., Weinstein, O., 1997. Innovation in services. Research Policy 26, 537-556] were one of the first to take this approach. This article contributes to the synthesis approach by revising their theory to enable reasoning about recent innovation trends in networks of organizations and in the distribution of services. The theory revision is based on several case studies. Implications for the study of innovation are discussed in terms of results from recent demarcation studies.     

A retrospective study of social relations in a Danish primary school class taught in ‘udeskole’

The use of the ’outdoors’ in pre-school and school settings is becoming an increasingly important field of education and researchers have emphasised the positive influence of the ‘outdoors’ on various social aspects. However, the facilitative conditions for such positive influences are not studied exhaustively. Therefore, we explored the conditions in ‘udeskole’ influencing pupils’ social relations based on an extreme case called the ‘Nature Class’. In the ‘Nature Class’ the pupils (third to fifth grades) were taught outside the classroom one day a week. Five pupils and two teachers were interviewed seven years after the period of udeskole to explore the conditions influencing social relations during the third to ninth grades. We applied a conventional qualitative content analysis and identified six conditions important for the improvement of the social relations. Four of them—‘play’, ‘interaction’, ‘participation’ and ‘pupil-centered tasks’—were important conditions for the positive social relations during the ‘Nature Class’ project. Two conditions—‘cooperation’ and ‘engagement’—seem to be consequences of the improved social relations during the ‘Nature Class’ project which positively influenced the pupils’ abilities to cooperate and the pupils’ strong engagement in the subsequent school years.     

Do Parents’ Causal Attributions Predict the Accuracy and Bias in their Children’s Self‐Concept of Maths Ability? A longitudinal study

The present study investigated the extent to which parents’ causal attributions predict the accuracy of, and bias in, their children’s self‐concept of maths ability. Participants were 207 children and their 182 mothers and 167 fathers, who were assessed during the children’s first and second primary school years. The results showed that the more parents thought that their children succeeded because of ability, the more accurate the children’s self‐concept of maths ability became. In contrast, the more the parents attributed their children’s success to effort, the less accurate and more optimistic the children’s self‐concept of ability became.