One Thing Behind Another: a school based study of children's drawing abilities

Abstract Young children do not typically represent in their drawings the occlusion of a farther object by a nearer one. In response to such arrays, they frequently show either a horizontal or a vertical bias, i.e. either depicting the two objects side by side or one above the other. Though there seems to be a strong bias towards depicting array‐ rather than view‐specific information, this tendency does not seem to indicate any limitation in graphic skills. This experiment attempts to assess the differences in drawing response across two conditions—one which seems to demand view specificity, i.e. a games condition, and one which apparently does not. In a communication game, the drawings were produced by one child, designated as ‘Artist’, so that the other child, assigned to the role of ‘Detective’, could identify the chair which the ‘Artist’ had sat on. It is suggested that instructional effects, together with initial decisions to communicate with peers or adults, may be implicated in the relatively greater incidence of occlusion output in the standard over the games condition, particularly in the middle age ranges.     

When will the Internet be connected? Digital worlds and belonging in the lives of globally mobile children

Increasing numbers of children are caught up in global flows of moving peoples. This movement may be voluntary or forced and is experienced within a range of settings. Coming from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and moving around the world due to their parents' employment, the children found in traditional International Schools are a case in point. This paper focuses on the experiences of two sisters in the first year of their family's global relocation. In the midst of change, the digital world Club Penguin? offered these two globally mobile children a familiar and welcome site of continuity and belonging. This exploration of the role of digital worlds and digital literacies in these girls' experience contributes to an understanding of connections between global movement and digital literacy practices. Greater awareness of the significance of digital literacies in globally mobile children's lives provides fresh insights into how children participate in digital spaces and has implications for literacy educators supporting young people in contemporary times.     

Internationalisation and indigenisation in Papua New Guinea’s universities: promoting authentic agency

ABSTRACT

In uncertain times for higher education learning communities, the risks of societal and epistemic dependence on a single globally dominant set of academic knowledge practices are evident. Nonetheless, many higher education institutions in developing nations struggle to achieve international presence unless they uncritically adopt these dominant practices, even where they recognise the need to use and promote local knowledge systems. We explore these dynamics in postcolonial Papua New Guinea, through an assessment of the intentions for internationalisation of the six PNG universities and barriers to agency. Our approach recognises the dialectical relationship between ‘internationalisation’ and ‘indigenisation’. We suggest that a pervasive but narrow view of indigenisation, emphasising the localisation of university staff, has hampered other forms of both indigenisation and internationalisation, producing more stasis than synthesis within PNG’s universities. Effective international agency by PNG universities, and their partners, requires more critical and continuous discourse between the international and the indigenous.     

‘They want more of everything’: what university middle managers’ attitudes reveal about support for off-campus doctoral students

Advances in technology and a shifting demographic of post-graduate students have resulted in a larger than ever number of off-campus PhD students. These students tend to be less satisfied than their on-campus counterparts with their candidature experience. Improving the current situation requires effort from multiple university stakeholders, including academic middle managers, who play a role in allocating resources and setting research training agenda. However, with the intensification of academic workload, academic managers might not view the support of off-campus PhD students as a high priority. This study investigates the attitudes of middle managers in a large Australian university concerning the provision of training and support to off-campus PhD students. The findings reveal that a complex interplay of discourses hinder the provision of support to off-campus PhD students. Implications for practice are discussed.     

Use of a technology‐enhanced version of the good behavior game in an elementary school setting

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a variation of the Good Behavior Game (GBG) in which teachers used ClassDojo to manage each team's progress. ClassDojo is a computer‐based program that enables teachers to award students with points for demonstrating target behaviors. Dependent variables included class‐wide disruptive and academically engaged behavior, teachers’ ratings on the Behavior Intervention Rating Scale (BIRS), and the rate of teacher praise statements delivered in each phase. Overall, results indicated that the GBG with ClassDojo was effective at reducing disruptive behavior, increasing academically engaged behavior, and was rated as socially valid. Additionally, when the intervention was in place, increases in the amount of behavior‐specific praise statements delivered were observed across all three classrooms.     

Exploring the Co‐Development of Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension: A Twin Study

This study explores the co‐development of two related but separate reading skills, reading fluency and reading comprehension, across Grades 1–4. A bivariate biometric dual change score model was applied to longitudinal data collected from 1,784 twin pairs between the ages of 6 and 10 years. Grade 1 skills were influenced by highly overlapping genetic and environmental factors. Growth in both skills was influenced by highly overlapping shared environmental factors. Cross‐lagged parameters indicated bidirectional effects, with stronger effects from fluency to comprehension change than from comprehension to fluency change.     

Theory-based Correlations and Their Role in Children's Concepts

Recent accounts of conceptual development have emphasized the important role intuitive theories play in concept formation; however, it is still not clear exactly how these theories exert their influence. We present evidence that elementary school age children use theories to link together specific features associated with individual concepts. The results of our first experiment indicate that theory-based correlations play a prominent role in typicality judgments and in decisions about category membership. In a second experiment, we demonstrate that children's theories play an important role in determining which attributes will be considered most central to the concept. The results of these studies suggest that feature correlations can serve to link children's concepts with their intuitive theories of the world.     

A collaborative governance approach to improving tertiary education in Papua New Guinea

Tertiary education in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is in a critical state, as the sector struggles to address increased demand for student places with severely curtailed capacity. Recent thinking about improving public services in PNG has emphasized “whole of sector” or collaborative governance. Such an approach in tertiary education has the potential to improve the sector’s outcomes within its existing resource constraints. This exploratory paper examines the challenges involved in applying a deliberate collaborative governance approach to tertiary education in PNG. In particular, two theoretical models of collaborative governance are employed to gain insight into possible issues through the consideration of four main criteria: power, incentives, history, and leadership. The paper shows that the challenges to introducing collaborative governance to PNG tertiary education are substantive, and that any effective effort will require committed leadership and a carefully measured strategy that acknowledges the country’s particular circumstances.     

Ability,demography, learning style,and personality trait correlates of student preference for assessment method

More than 400 students from four universities in America and Britain completed measures of learning style preference, general knowledge (as a proxy for intelligence), and preference for examination method. Learning style was consistently associated with preferences: surface learners preferred multiple choice and group work options, and viewed essay‐type and dissertation options less favourably. Deep learners, on the other hand, favoured essay‐type and oral exams as well as final dissertations. Males favoured oral (viva voce) exams and females coursework assessment. Extraverts preferred multiple choice, oral, and group work assessment, while openness was positively associated with essays and oral exams but negatively associated with multiple choice and group work. Regression analysis showed that personality, learning style, general knowledge, and demographic factors accounted for 5–10% of the variance in preferred examination technique. Results in part replicate earlier studies and are discussed in terms of changes in examination methods.