Math Anxiety,Need for Cognition,and Learning Strategies in Quantitative Communication Research Methods Courses

To understand student learning in undergraduate quantitative communication research methods course, this study examined relationships between perceptions of course topic difficulty, course topic understanding, and their relationship with students’ level of math anxiety, need for cognition, and learning strategies. A total of 196 participants voluntarily took part in this study. Results revealed that a higher level of math anxiety leads to a higher level of perceived learning difficulty for topics in the course and leads to a lower level of content understanding of the topics. For topics related to “Research Methods and Measurement,” a higher level of need for cognition results in a lower level of perceived learning difficulty and results in a higher level of content understanding. Use of critical thinking learning strategy has a significantly positive effect on perceived content understanding of topics related to “Research Methods and Measurement,” as does elaboration learning strategy on that of “Statistics.”     

How do apes ape?

In the wake of telling critiques of the foundations on which earlier conclusions were based, the last 15 years have witnessed a renaissance in the study of social learning in apes. As a result, we are able to review 31 experimental studies from this period in which social learning in chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans has been investigated. The principal question framed at the beginning of this era, Do apes ape? has been answered in the affirmative, at least in certain conditions. The more interesting question now is, thus, How do apes ape? Answering this question has engendered richer taxonomies of the range of social-learning processes at work and new methodologies to uncover them. Together, these studies suggest that apes ape by employing a portfolio of alternative social-learning processes in flexibly adaptive ways, in conjunction with nonsocial learning. We conclude by sketching the kind of decision tree that appears to underlie the deployment of these alternatives.     

What is instructional strategy? Seeking hidden dimensions

Educational technology research and development - Instructional strategy is defined in abstract terms independent of instructional theories, philosophies, or standard formulas. Strategies share...     

Clarifying and reframing the neoliberal critique of educational policy using policy process theories

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the vocabulary and frameworks offered by two theories of public policy process: the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) and the narrative policy framework (NPF) and what they offer to the study of global education reform. The foci of ACF are policy subsystems, formation of advocacy coalitions around policy issues, and their impact on policy change; the emphasis of NPF is the divergent narratives developed and used by these coalitions. This paper reviews each theoretical framework, summarizes existing research literature on their education policy applications, and then poses alternative questions and suggest alternatives to study global education policies, especially those presently critiqued using the term neoliberal which we position as nebulous in its current usage. The aim is to open channels of communication for scholars from different disciplines by introducing different theoretical approaches to analyse the role of the numerous elements that shape global education policy.     

Catching them before they fall: a Vygotskian approach to transitioning students from high school to university

University enabling programs, worldwide, generally target high school students who excel at school, or post-secondary students who have underperformed in their university entry examinations. Murdoch University provides an access program for Year/Grade 12 students who are not on a university pathway during their final year of high school. This intervention engages students at a transitional stage of cognitive development to: (a) determine their readiness to move to the next level of their cognitive thinking; (b) facilitate that process through collaborative learning; (c) support and nurture university aspirations and (d) provide a direct transition pathway from secondary to higher education. The influence of Vygotsky's zones of proximal development in the context of this program is discussed, and by comparing the performance of these students in their first year of university with other domestic-entry students, we argue that this enabling program prepares them for successful transition into higher education.     

Emotional AI and EdTech: serving the public good?

ABSTRACT

Education Technology (EdTech) companies are deploying emotional AI to quantify social and emotional learning. Focusing on facial coding emotional AI that uses computer vision and algorithms to see, recognise, categorise and learn about facial expressions of emotion, this paper evaluates nascent usage of these technologies in education. To do this, it assesses the nature of child rights, the history and modern usage of face-based emotional AI, methodology and efficacy, and what this paper sees as a clash of private and public interests. Concern is shown to be two-fold: first is on method, especially given scope for material effects on students; second are ethical and legal concerns. While proposing a list of considerations for any implementation for these technologies in the classroom, the paper concludes that significant risks exist in deployment of these technologies in the classroom.     

Focusing Improvement and Quality Assurance: Work Samples as Authentic Performance Measures of Prospective Teachers’ Effectiveness

The authors suggest that the gap between common evaluation practice in teacher preparation and the consensus reform goal of high levels of student learning for all students is an impediment to reinventing teacher preparation, professional development, and the professionalization of teaching. In the context of Oregons six-year-old educational transition to a standards-based design for schools and schooling, prospective teachers in Oregon have, since 1989, been required to design, develop, and implement teacher work samples as credible evidence of their effectiveness in fostering student learning as a condition for recommendation for an initial teaching license. This article describes teacher work sample methodology and evidence for its reliability and validity in evaluating the performance of prospective teachers. In short, this article describes a methodology that responds to one critical part of the National Commission on Teaching and Americas Futures challenge to reinvent teacher education and improve student learning.     

Age of acquisition and the completeness of phonological representations

The age of acquisition effect(faster recognition and production of earlierlearnt than later learnt words) is a robustfinding in both picture naming and written wordrecognition and naming. One possibleexplanation of this effect is the PhonologicalCompleteness Hypothesis of Brown and Watson[(1987) Memory & Cognition 15: 208–216], which proposes that early acquired wordsare recognised and produced faster than lateacquired words because they have lessfragmented phonological representations. Thoughoften cited, this hypothesis has never beentested experimentally. The present study setout to test this hypothesis using aphonological segmentation task. If earlyacquired words are stored in a more completeform, then adult participants should be slowerto segment early words than late acquiredwords. In addition, if the AoA effect is aconsequence of the quality of an individual'sphonological representations then there shouldbe a clear relationship between phonologicalskill (as measured by the phonologicalsegmentation task) and the magnitude of the AoAeffect size. In order to assess therelationships between phonological skill andthe AoA effect in adults, participants werealso given a word and nonword naming task. Theword naming task manipulated AoA andspelling-sound consistency. The results of thesegmentation task failed to provide any supportfor Brown and Watson's (1987) phonologicalcompleteness hypothesis. Phonological skill wasfound to predict the size of the AoA effect inthe word naming task, but not the size of theAoA effect in the segmentation task.     

Attitudes toward family obligation among adolescents in contemporary urban and rural China

A sense of obligation to support, assist, and respect the family was examined among approximately 700 urban and rural 10th- (M = 16.6 years) and 12th- (M = 18.9 years) grade students in the People's Republic of China. Urban male adolescents reported a weaker sense of family obligation than did rural male adolescents and both urban and rural female adolescents. Only children did not differ from those with siblings in terms of their attitudes toward family support and respect. A sense of family obligation was generally associated with more positive family relationships and a higher level of academic motivation among Chinese adolescents. Discussion focuses on how the shift to a market economy may influence adolescents' identification with the family in contemporary China.     

Post‐Humanist Liberal Pragmatism? Environmental Education out of Modernity

The authors critique C. A. Bowers' argument that education for sustainability must be inspired by the practices of pre-modern cultures, and cannot be promoted through the postmodern pragmatism of Richard Rorty. Environmental education must rather be grounded in contemporary cultural practice. Although Rorty, like many other postmodernists, has shown little concern for the ecological crisis, his approach is potentially applicable to it. What is required is a broadening of focus: the ecological crisis is a crisis of post-Enlightenment humanism as well as of other aspects of modernity.