Promoting students’ self-determined motivation in maths: results of a 1-year classroom intervention

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Especially for students in lower achievement levels, there is a significant negative trend in academic self-determined motivation across childhood...     

The Relationship of Teachers' Instructional Decisions and Beliefs about Alternate Assessments to Student Achievement

In the decade since alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS) were first required, special education teachers have had to develop content knowledge and pedagogical skills to teach academics to students with significant cognitive disabilities. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact that teachers' instructional decisions and beliefs about AA-AAS have on the academic achievement of students with significant cognitive disabilities. A survey of nearly 400 teachers across three states provided evidence of teachers' beliefs, as well as their instructional planning processes for students. Students' learning characteristics were also identified. Survey responses were analyzed in conjunction with students' 2010–2011 scores on their statewide AA-AAS. The results indicated that students with presymbolic communication systems had a lower likelihood of achieving proficiency in English language arts/reading and math than students with abstract symbolic communication. Students with concrete symbolic communication systems had lesser odds of proficiency in ELA/reading but not in math. Teachers who agreed that AA-AAS had an impact on instruction tended to have students with higher achievement proficiency. However, more negative views of the validity of AA-AAS scores were associated with greater odds of proficiency.     

Hospitable Gestures in the University Lecture: Analysing Derrida's Pedagogy

Based on archival research, this article analyses the pedagogical gestures in Derrida's (largely unpublished) lectures on hospitality (1995/96), with particular attention to the enactment of hospitality in these gestures. The motivation for this analysis is twofold. First, since the large‐group university lecture has been widely critiqued as a pedagogical model, the article seeks to retrieve what may be of worth in the form of the lecture. Second, it is relevant to analyse the pedagogy of lectures that address the topic of hospitality, as there would be a performative contradiction in teaching inhospitably about hospitality.     

‘Cuidar Muito em Educar as Crianças Segundo a Natureza’! Portuguese Contributions to Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Health,Exercise and Educational Reform

The importance of exercise and physical education in relation to the health and development of children and youth has been of recurring interest. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries a remarkable number of educators, physicians, philosophers, and even an occasional political leader addressed the topic and/or proposed means by which these would be incorporated into educational programs and reforms. Although the work of Rousseau, Guts Muths, and several other European authors is well known, developments on the Iberian peninsula have received little attention in the English-language press. This contribution examines events and ideas that occurred in and/or had strong connections with Portugal during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.     

Exploration of How Spanish and English Noneliciting Questions Affect the Novel Vocabulary Acquisition of Hispanic Dual Language Learners Enrolled in Head Start

Novel word learning in the context of shared storybook reading has been primarily investigated with monolingual children, while experiments with Hispanic dual language learners (DLLs) are less prevalent. This exploratory study investigated the extratextual stylistic behaviors of storybook reading that promote novel word learning in DLL preschoolers enrolled in Head Start. Using monolingual studies for methodological support, we examined vocabulary noneliciting questions and noneliciting labels as well as the impact of English and Spanish conditions. Results from our home language survey showed that Spanish was the only adult language spoken in most children’s homes. The present study’s findings revealed that Spanish vocabulary noneliciting questions promoted expressive novel word learning. Implications for adults working with Hispanic DLL children in Head Start and future avenues for research are discussed.     

The impact of retrieval processes, age, general achievement level, and test scoring scheme for children’s metacognitive monitoring and controlling

This multi-phase study examined the influence of retrieval processes on children??s metacognitive processes in relation to and in interaction with achievement level and age. First, N?=?150 9/10- and 11/12-year old high and low achievers watched an educational film and predicted their test performance. Children then solved a cloze test regarding the film content including answerable and unanswerable items and gave confidence judgments to every answer. Finally, children withdrew answers that they believed to be incorrect. All children showed adequate metacognitive processes before and during test taking with 11/12- year-olds outperforming 9/10-year-olds when considering characteristics of on-going retrieval processes. As to the influence of achievement level, high compared to low achievers proved to be more accurate in their metacognitive monitoring and controlling. Results suggest that both cognitive resources (operationalized through achievement level) and mnemonic experience (assessed through age) fuel metacognitive development. Nevertheless, when facing higher demands regarding retrieval processes, experience seems to play the more important role.     

Studienplatzfinanzierung: Internationale Erfahrungen und Implikationen für eine Einführung in ?sterreich

Steigende Studierendenzahlen, knappe ?ffentliche Budgets und neue Anforderungen an die universit?re Ausbildung erfordern eine permanente Reflexion und gegebenenfalls entsprechende Anpassungen an Finanzierungsmodelle. Die internationale Praxis zeigt dabei eine Vielzahl von alternativ ausgestalteten Modellvarianten und -kombinationen, wobei die Studienplatzfinanzierung ein international weit verbreitetes Modell darstellt. Dieser Beitrag fasst die wesentlichsten Ergebnisse einer vom Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung in diesem Zusammenhang beauftragten Studie zusammen. Gezeigt werden neben den Grundlagen einer Studienplatzfinanzierung die aktuellen internationalen Trends, ein systematischer L?ndervergleich sowie m?gliche Konsequenzen einer etwaigen Implementierung in ?sterreich.     

Science text comprehension: Drawing, main idea selection, and summarizing as learning strategies

The purpose of two experiments was to contrast instructions to generate drawings with two text-focused strategies—main idea selection (Exp. 1) and summarization (Exp. 2)—and to examine whether these strategies could help students learn from a chemistry science text. Both experiments followed a 2 × 2 design, with drawing strategy instructions (yes vs. no) and main idea/summarization strategy instructions (yes vs. no) as experimental factors. The main dependent variable was science text comprehension, measured by a multiple-select test and a transfer test. Participants were 90 (Exp. 1) and 71 (Exp. 2) students (grade 10). The results of both experiments showed positive effects of the drawing strategy instructions and negative effects of the text-focused strategy instructions without interactions. These results are consistent with the mental model approach to comprehension, showing advantages of drawing activity in fostering science text comprehension.