CHANGING CHILDREN'S PERCEPTIONS OF THE ELDERLY

Many children have negative attitudes about older persons. This study used a pre‐posttest control group experimental design to investigate the effects of a guidance unit about older persons upon elementary school children in two schools. Significant results are reported. The experimental unit also proved effective for both boys and girls. Perceptions of children about the aging process and the elderly can be positively changed.     

Physics students' understanding of relative speed: A phenomenographic study

It is important that students of physics develop both quantitative and qualitative understanding of physical concepts and principles. Although accuracy and reliability in solving quantitative problems is necessary, a qualitative understanding is required in applying concepts and principles to new problems and in real-life situations. If students are not able to understand what underlies quantitative problem-solving procedures nor interpret the solution in physical terms, it is questionable whether they have developed an adequate understanding of physics. The research reported here is part of a larger phenomenographic study that is concerned with the assessment of physics students' understanding of some basic concepts and principles in kinematics. In this article students' understanding of the concept of relative speed is described. A variety of ways of understanding relative speed and of viewing a problem that dealt with this concept were uncovered. The results are used to suggest ways for teachers to proceed in assisting students to enhance their understanding of this concept. The teaching principles outlined concern both teaching relative speed, in particular, and teaching scientific concepts and principles, more generally.     

Mothers' and Children's Conceptualizations of Corporal Punishment

Preschool ( M age = 4–11) and fifth-grade ( M age = 12–1) children and their mothers judged the acceptability of corporal punishment as a function of the type of transgression (dangerous, violation of social rule, or violation of moral precept) and discipline agent. Children of both ages and their mothers discriminated among different types of transgressions as a function of rule contingency, rule generalizability, and seriousness of the transgression. Social convention transgressions were judged to be more rule contingent, less generalizable (across settings), and less serious than prudential (dangerous) or moral violations, but overall children judged transgressions to be more generalizable than did their mothers. Preschool children showed broad acceptability for severe corporal punishment given any type of transgression, by any agent, whereas fifth graders were generally discriminating about limits of punishability, and their judgments appeared to be transitional between the broad acceptance shown by younger children and more focused acceptability shown by mothers. Mothers were proprietary with respect to agent and tended to focus on dangerous and moral violations as punishable. Findings suggest a developmental path from a single criterion for young children to consideration of multiple criteria for older children and adults. Judgments were also interpreted as reflecting social roles such as parents' responsibility to constrain children and children's expectations for constraint. Preschool children's broad acceptability of punishment despite their differentiation of classes of rules and of transgressions suggests that different constraints operate for judgments about rules or commands as opposed to sanctions. Implications for children's ability to identify and report abuse are also noted.     

Problematizing public engagement within public pedagogy research and practice

In this article, we explore issues related to how scholars attempt to enact public pedagogy (i.e. doing ‘public engagement’ work) and how they research public pedagogy (i.e. framing and researching artistic and activist ‘public engagement’ as public pedagogy). We focus specifically on three interrelated issues we believe should be addressed by scholars as they continue to theorize, enact, and analyze public pedagogies in the broader public sphere: (a) power dynamics embedded in individualized versus more collective enactments of public intellectualism; (b) conflicting and complicated conceptualizations of the relationship between the public pedagogue and the public, and how that relationship should be enacted; and (c) ethical issues surrounding the framing of public engagement and activist work under the umbrella of ‘pedagogy’.     

Item Discrimination: When More Is Worse

High item discrimination can be a symptom o f a special kind of measurement disturbance introduced by an item that gives persons o f high ability a special advantage over and above their higher abilities. This type o f disturbance, which can be interpreted as a form o f item "bias," can be encouraged by methods that routinely interpret highly discriminating items as the "best" items on a test and may be compounded by procedures that weight items by their discrimination. The type of measurement disturbance described and illustrated in this paper occurs when an item is sensitive to individual differences on a second, undesired dimension that is positively correlated with the variable intended to be measured. Possible secondary influences o f this type include opportunity to learn, opportunity to answer, and test wiseness     

Teaching text comprehension strategies to adult poor readers

This study demonstrated the benefit of teaching text comprehension strategies to adults who are poor readers. Subjects (n=90) were students enrolled in adult education programs who earned a score of 90 or above on theSlosson Intelligence Test and a score equivalent to a 3rd–7th grade reading level on theNelson Denny Reading Test. These subjects were randomly assigned to one of three experimental or two control conditions. Experimental conditions were: self questioning and summarizing instruction (total condition); self questioning instruction only; or summarizing instruction only. Control conditions were: tests and experimental materials without instruction; or tests only. Experimental subjects were instructed in small groups for six 45 minute sessions using an instructional method which features informed self control training and guided learning. Analyses of covariance showed significant differences between the performances of the groups. On one measure, a question task, subjects who self questioned and summarized, and subjects who self questioned, significantly out performed the two controls. On a second measure, a free recall task, subjects who self questioned and summarized significantly outperformed control groups combined. Contrary to expectations, the self questioning and summarizing condition (total condition) did not significantly outperform the other experimental groups.     

Microcollaborations in a social Q&A community

Most social Q&A sites are designed to support solo searchers who access the aggregated opinions of other users, and ask and answer questions of their own. The purpose of this paper is to show how users in one social Q&A community defy system constraints to engage in brief, informal episodes of collaborative information seeking called microcollaborations. A brief literature review is presented, suggesting a view of information seeking as a combination of problem-centered information seeking, technological affordances and constraints, and social and affective factors. The results of content and transaction log analyses of user interactions suggest that topics of collaboration share a common threshold of complexity and invite responses containing both fact and opinion. Analysis also revealed that key elements in predicting a collaborative instance involve social capital and affective factors unrelated to the topic of the collaboration. Suggestions for supporting future lightweight microcollaborations, and implications for future research, are discussed.