Positive beliefs about errors as an important element of adaptive individual dealing with errors during academic learning

Research on learning from errors gives reason to assume that errors provide a high potential to facilitate deep learning if students are willing and able to take these learning opportunities. The first aim of this study was to analyse whether beliefs about errors as learning opportunities can be theoretically and empirically distinguished from adaptive reactions to errors in an affective-motivational sense (including the maintenance of motivation and activating emotions), and in terms of learning behaviour and metacognitive activities specifically adjusted in response to a specific error. The second aim was to validate the proposed distinction across different domains. The third aim was to investigate the added value of beliefs about errors besides domain-specific self-concept and mastery goal orientation for understanding the preconditions for adaptive reactions to errors at school. We assessed all variables in three different school subjects (N = 614 students, Grades 5–7). Confirmatory factor analyses indicated distinctness and a moderate domain specificity of error-related reactions. Positive error-related beliefs predicted students’ affective-motivational and action adaptivity of error reactions, above and beyond self-concepts and goal orientations. Taken together, the current findings provide a more complete understanding of the intra-personal mechanisms of adaptive responses to errors in different school subjects.     

The utilization,depoloyment and management of primary teachers in Africa South of the Sahara

A member of the programme staff of the International Institute for Educational Planning since 1988. Her principal research themes are education policy and the development of human resources, the role of examinations, and the administration and management of teachers. Main publications include:Stratégies d'innovations technologiques et politiques éducatives en France, en RFA et au Royaume-Uni [Strategies for innovative technology and educational policies in France, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom] (1989) and (with F. Caillods and K. Lewin)Science education provision at secondary level: planning and policy issues [forthcoming].     

Media Education in Primary Schools in Austria: Teaching Materials

Abstract

This article describes the questionnaire by which the Austrian Ministry of Education investigated the state of media education in primary schools, and briefly summarizes the results. It then describes the teaching materials that have been and are being produced.     

Implementation intentions and test anxiety: Shielding academic performance from distraction

College students whose test anxiety was measured completed a working memory-intensive math exam with televised distractions. Students were provided with implementation intentions (if–then plans; Gollwitzer, 1999) designed to either help them ignore the distractions (i.e., temptation-inhibiting plans) or focus more intently on the math exam (i.e., task-facilitating plans). Regression analyses showed that as test anxiety increased, the effectiveness of temptation-inhibiting implementation intentions increased, whereas task-facilitating implementation intentions increasingly harmed performance as test anxiety increased. In addition, the consequences of these plans differed significantly for those high in test anxiety. Implications for effective self-regulation by test-anxious students are discussed.     

Characteristic behaviour orientations of young scientists: A comparison between young mathematicians/physicists and other natural scientists

Methods of sociological enquiry using data on qualifications, performance indicators, conditions for research and social background were used to investigate aspects of behaviour in young natural scientists relevant to research careers. It was shown that mathematicians and physicists were essentially more intrinsically motivated than the other cadres in the fields of natural sciences and that this manifested itself in a high intensity of work and a greater involvement in activities.     

Effective self-regulation of goal attainment

Self-regulatory strategies of goal setting and goal striving are analyzed in three experiments. Experiment 1 uses fantasy realization theory (Oettingen, in: J. Brandstätter, R.M. Lerner (Eds.), Action and Self Development: Theory and Research through the Life Span, Sage Publications Inc, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1999, pp. 315–342) to analyze the self-regulatory processes of turning free fantasies about a desired future into binding goals. School children 8–12 years of age who had to mentally elaborate a desired academic future as well as present reality standing in its way, formed stronger goal commitments than participants solely indulging in the desired future or merely dwelling on present reality (Experiment 1). Effective implementation of set goals is addressed in the second and third experiments (Gollwitzer, Am. Psychol. 54 (1999) 493–503). Adolescents who had to furnish a set educational goal with relevant implementation intentions (specifying where, when, and how they would start goal pursuit) were comparatively more successful in meeting the goal (Experiment 2). Linking anticipated situations with goal-directed behaviors (i.e., if–then plans) rather than the mere thinking about good opportunities to act makes implementation intentions facilitate action initiation (Experiment 3).     

Classroom Climate,Cardiac Vagal Tone,and Inhibitory Control: Links to Focused Attention in First Graders

The present study aimed to investigate the role of classroom climate and self‐regulation in terms of cardiac vagal tone and inhibitory control in primary school students' focused attention. A combination of direct and indirect measures was used to assess classroom climate, sustained and selective attention, and inattention behaviors among 62 first graders. We also registered students' cardiac vagal tone at rest and their levels of inhibitory control in a reaction time task. A single underlying factor combining sustained and selective attention as well as (the lack of) inattention behaviors accounted for students' focused attention. A regression analysis revealed that classroom climate, cardiac vagal tone, and inhibitory control interacted to explain first graders' focused attention. In classrooms with a negative climate, high levels of inhibitory control attenuated the negative effect of low cardiac vagal tone on students' ability to remain focused during classroom activities. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Sorting on GPUs for large scale datasets: A thorough comparison

Although sort has been extensively studied in many research works, it still remains a challenge in particular if we consider the implications of novel processor technologies such as manycores (i.e. GPUs, Cell/BE, multicore, etc.). In this paper, we compare different algorithms for sorting integers on stream multiprocessors and we discuss their viability on large datasets (such as those managed by search engines). In order to fully exploit the potentiality of the underlying architecture, we designed an optimized version of sorting network in the K-model, a novel computational model designed to consider all the important features of many-core architectures. According to K-model, our bitonic sorting network mapping improves the three main aspects of many-core architectures, i.e. the processors exploitation, and the on-chip/off-chip memory bandwidth utilization. Furthermore we are able to attain a space complexity of Θ(1). We experimentally compare our solution with state-of-the-art ones (namely, Quicksort and Radixsort) on GPUs. We also compute the complexity in the K-model for such algorithms. The conducted evaluation highlight that our bitonic sorting network is faster than Quicksort and slightly slower than radix, yet being an in-place solution it consumes less memory than both algorithms.     

Self‐regulation strategies improve self‐discipline in adolescents: benefits of mental contrasting and implementation intentions

Adolescents struggle with setting and striving for goals that require sustained self‐discipline. Research on adults indicates that goal commitment is enhanced by mental contrasting (MC), a strategy involving the cognitive elaboration of a desired future with relevant obstacles of present reality. Implementation intentions (II), which identify the action one will take when a goal‐relevant opportunity arises, represent a strategy shown to increase goal attainment when commitment is high. This study tests the effect of mental contrasting combined with implementation intentions (MCII) on successful goal implementation in adolescents. Sixty‐six 2nd‐year high school students preparing to take a high‐stakes exam in the fall of their third year were randomly assigned to complete either a 30‐minute written mental contrasting with implementation intentions intervention or a placebo control writing exercise. Students in the intervention condition completed more than 60% more practice questions than did students in the control condition. These findings point to the utility of directly teaching to adolescents mental contrasting with implementation intentions as a self‐regulatory strategy of successful goal pursuit.     

Wer liegt am Ende der Grundschulzeit vorn?

The number of students enrolled in private schools has been growing continuously in the past years, especially in elementary schools. There is a variety of reasons for this development. Among other expectations, parents anticipate a superior education for their children and hope for bigger academic success. However, empirical results on the effectiveness of private schools are inconsistent and ambiguous, partly because many studies used cross-sectional data. Longitudinal studies investigating the development of elementary school students are especially lacking.The present study compares academic achievement gains of students enrolled in public schools to students who learned in the so-called BIP-creativity elementary schools. BIP schools are private schools that aim to promote the development of the talent, intelligence and personality of their students. This study investigates the development of students in mathematics, reading and orthography over a 4-years period.As the group of BIP-students is selected in terms of their socio-economic background, analyses were run in two ways. First, multilevel analyses controlling for student and class characteristics were performed. Second, a Propensity Score Matching based on school enrollment data was used in order to select a comparable group of students from public schools. Each BIP-student was matched to a student from the public schools that had a comparable socio-economic background and similar cognitive characteristics. Neither multilevel analyses nor mean comparisons of the matched samples could reveal any differences between the two groups of students in the three domains of academic achievement at the end of fourth grade.