The Roles of Parental Support and Family Stress in Adolescent Sleep

The current study examines the association between parental support and adolescent sleep under varying levels of family stress. Participants included 316 adolescents (M_age = 16.40 years, 43% male) and their parents (M_age = 45.67 years, 91% mothers) from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Both adolescents and parents completed questionnaires and adolescents wore wrist actigraphs and completed self‐reports on their sleep for 7 consecutive days. Results indicated that under contexts of family stress, more parental support was linked to longer sleep duration, less sleep variability, and less time spent awake during the night. Findings suggest that under contexts of family stress, cohesive family relationships may provide a sense of stability and security that is necessary for healthful sleep.     

Solving Problems in Genetics,Part III: Change in the view of the nature of science

Numerous investigations show that most school science teaching, in Spain and elsewhere, implicitly transmits an inductivist and very stereotyped view of science and conveys an unrealistic image of scientific work. We present some results of an investigation with fourth‐level Spanish secondary education students (15 year olds) who were taught genetics through a unit based on an open problem‐solving methodology as an investigation. Among the learning objectives were the modification of their view of the nature of science in relation to ideas about: how science is done, what a theory is, what scientists do, and, finally, what the relationship is between Science–Technology–Society. The conceptual change about the nature of science experienced by the students in the experimental group was not observed in the control group, which worked in a traditional manner. Also, these new concepts remained with the students over time without a significant backward shift.     

Teaching Prospect Theory with the Deal or No Deal Game Show

Recent evidence indicates that decision makers are more sensitive to potential losses than gains. Loss aversion psychology has led behavioural economists to look beyond expected utility by developing prospect theory. We demonstrate this theory using the Deal or No Deal game show.     

Designing Nordic technology-enhanced learning

The latest developments of information and communication technologies (ICT) and its large penetration in different sectors of our society pose new challenges and demands in the field of education. This special issue entitled “Designing Nordic technology-enhanced learning (TEL)”, presents and discusses how researchers in the Nordic countries are currently framing and thinking about issues that are related to pedagogical design of learning spaces, digital literacies, educational professional development, design of tools engaging students in collaborative inquiry learning as well as design-oriented multimodal understandings of learning.The objective pursued with the special issue has been to reflect upon current problems that educational institutions, practitioners and TEL researchers are facing in the Nordic countries as regards the acknowledgment of young people's ICT practices within formal education. Such analytical work has led us to identify and elaborate on what we believe constitute forthcoming research challenges for learning and education in the Nordic countries.     

Students' privacy concerns in learning analytics: Model development

Understanding students' privacy concerns is an essential first step toward effective privacy-enhancing practices in learning analytics (LA). In this study, we develop and validate a model to explore the students' privacy concerns (SPICE) regarding LA practice in higher education. The SPICE model considers privacy concerns as a central construct between two antecedents—perceived privacy risk and perceived privacy control, and two outcomes—trusting beliefs and non-self-disclosure behaviours. To validate the model, data through an online survey were collected, and 132 students from three Swedish universities participated in the study. Partial least square results show that the model accounts for high variance in privacy concerns, trusting beliefs, and non-self-disclosure behaviours. They also illustrate that students' perceived privacy risk is a firm predictor of their privacy concerns. The students' privacy concerns and perceived privacy risk were found to affect their non-self-disclosure behaviours. Finally, the results show that the students' perceptions of privacy control and privacy risks determine their trusting beliefs. The study results contribute to understand the relationships between students' privacy concerns, trust and non-self-disclosure behaviours in the LA context. A set of relevant implications for LA systems' design and privacy-enhancing practices' development in higher education is offered.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Addressing students' privacy is critical for large-scale learning analytics (LA) implementation.
• Understanding students' privacy concerns is an essential first step to developing effective privacy-enhancing practices in LA.
• Several conceptual, not empirically validated frameworks focus on ethics and privacy in LA.

What this paper adds

• The paper offers a validated model to explore the nature of students' privacy concerns in LA in higher education.
• It provides an enhanced theoretical understanding of the relationship between privacy concerns, trust and self-disclosure behaviour in the LA context of higher education.
• It offers a set of relevant implications for LA researchers and practitioners.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• Students' perceptions of privacy risks and privacy control are antecedents of students' privacy concerns, trust in the higher education institution and the willingness to share personal information.
• Enhancing students' perceptions of privacy control and reducing perceptions of privacy risks are essential for LA adoption and success.
• Contextual factors that may influence students' privacy concerns should be considered.

     

Young children’s reading for pleasure with digital books: six key facets of engagement

This paper offers a new characterisation of young children’s (2–8 years) reading for pleasure (RfP) with digital books. This characterisation is rooted in a re-contextualisation of Anna Craft’s conceptualisation of twenty-first century childhoods in Creativity and education futures (Stoke on Trent, Trentham, 2011) and a review of the literature concerning young children’s RfP with digital books. The paper develops Craft’s (2011) work by considering the ways in which digital books can resource the ‘4Ps of digital childhood’ in reading for pleasure. Six facets of reader engagement, nested within Craft’s (2011) 4Ps, are presented: affective, creative, interactive, shared, sustained and personalised reading engagements. It is argued that this characterisation of young children’s reading engagements can enrich our understanding of the affordances of digital books in relation to RfP in the twenty-first century. The paper thus offers an important new contribution, going beyond established work in the field, which typically explores digital books in relation to children’s learning, product design or developmental outcomes.     

The Effects of Autonomy on Motivation and Performancein the College Classroom

The goals of this study were to extend the literature about classroom autonomy in several ways. First, since previous research on autonomy has tended to focus on younger learners, we examined whether the positive effects of autonomy on motivation and performance would be replicated in a college sample. Second, we tested to see whether the well-established links between intrinsic motivation and autonomy would also be found using motivational constructs that play key roles in learning (specifically, task value, self-efficacy, and test anxiety). Third, we sought to trace the effect of autonomy on changes in student motivation over the course of a semester. Finally, we examined the role of autonomy on course performance. We found that experiences of classroom autonomy in the college classroom were more closely related to motivational factors than to performance. While the immediate experience of autonomy may not be directly facilitative of high course grades, autonomy does seem to foster intrinsic goal orientation, task value, and self-efficacy, all of which are critical components of “continuing motivation.” The data presented here lend further support for the benefits of fostering autonomy within academic settings.