Learning to control variables: Main effects and aptitude treatment interactions of two rule-governed approaches to instruction

The study investigated the relative effectiveness of two rule-governed approaches to teaching children how to control variables. In the elaborative-rules treatment students were given a mnemonic to stimulate recall of three elements of a well-designed experiment: causes, effects, and controls. In the organized-rules treatment students were given a well-organized set of six rules that provided detailed direction with respect to the same three elements of an experiment. Intact classes of grade-5 students (n = 283 students) were randomly assigned to two treatments and a control condition consisting of existing teacher practice; after four weeks control-group classes were reassigned to the rules treatments. Student achievement was observed prior to the implementation of conditions, after instruction, and three months later. Both rules treatment outperformed traditional instruction. The organized-rules method was slightly more effective overall, but the elaborative-rules approach had a slightly greater benefit for two groups which tend to be disadvantaged in science achievement: females and field-dependent students.     

Who Upgrades to Higher Level Qualifications in Midlife?

This paper investigates why people return to study in their 30s and beyond and upgrade to a higher level qualifications. Some previous research has argued that attitudes formed in childhood, via family background and schooling, continue to shape a person’s engagement in learning throughout the adult lifecourse. Psychologists distinguish extrinsic motivation, determination to progress in a career, from intrinsic motivation, love of learning and suggest that both may be relevant to participation in adult education. A well-established education literature focuses on barriers to adult learning, such as lack of time or lack of funds.

The research focuses on people who did not enter higher education at the conventional ages of late teens or early twenties but who did subsequently obtain degree-level or equivalent qualifications in midlife, defined here as from their early 30s through to age 50. The research uses data from the 1958 British birth cohort, a large-scale longitudinal survey. In the paper, a comparison group methodology and binary logistic regression models are used to isolate the key factors which explain why cgertain individuals progress to higher level qualifications in midlife while others do not.     

Actual Texts,Possible Meanings: The Uses of Poetry and the Subjunctification of Experience

Abstract

Jerome Bruner’s experiment over 30 years ago suggested that imaginative literature had greater affordances for the ‘subjunctification’ of experience by those who heard it read aloud than did transactional prose such as a news article. By ‘subjunctification’, Bruner meant the capacity to use the resource (the short story, for example) to transform one’s experience of the world, to render understanding in more complex ways and to do more than get things done as they have always been done. This paper reports on a small-scale replication of the experiment that sought to measure differences in the affordances of poetry being read aloud compared to hearing a short story or a news article.     

Social Relationships and School Readiness

Definitions of school readiness tend to focus on social and academic competencies that children are presumed to need to start school ready to learn. However, a child-focused definition of school readiness is limited because it neither identifies processes that lead children to acquire these competencies, nor does it recognize children's dependence on opportunities within settings that support development of these competencies. The model of school readiness presented in this article broadly defines school readiness as a function of an organized system of interactions and transactions among people (children, teachers, parents, and other caregivers), settings (home, school, and child care), and institutions (communities, neighborhoods, and governments). We propose that the primary mechanisms through which children acquire readiness-related competencies are social relationships children form with peers, parents, and teachers. This perspective on school readiness, emphasizing the mediating role of relational processes, offers guidance for designing interventions to improve school readiness through strengthening relationships between parents and children, parents and teachers, and teachers and children.     

Improving metacognition in the classroom through instruction,training, and feedback

Accurately judging one’s performance in the classroom can be challenging considering most students tend to be overconfident and overestimate their actual performance. The current work draws upon the metacognition and decision making literatures to examine improving metacognition in the classroom. Using historical data from several semesters of an upper-level undergraduate course (N?=?127), we analyzed students’ judgments of their performance and their actual performance for two exams. Students were instructed on the concepts of overconfidence, received feedback on exams, and were given incentives for accurate calibration. We found results consistent with the “unskilled and unaware” effect Kruger & Dunning (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134, 1999) where lower performing students initially displayed overconfidence and the highest performing students initially displayed underconfidence. Importantly, students were able to change both judgments and performance such that metacognitive accuracy improved significantly from the first to the second exam. In a second study, two additional semesters for the same course used in Study 1 were examined (N?=?90). For one of the semesters feedback was not provided, allowing us to determine whether feedback can improve both metacognitive judgments and performance. Our findings revealed significant improvements in performance paired with decreases in overconfidence on Exam 2, but only for students who received feedback about their performance and judgments. We postulate that feedback may be an important component in improvement metacognitive judgments.     

Personal and contextual factors related to teachers’ experience with stress and burnout

Teaching has been characterised as a stressful profession that is prone to burnout. Less is known about the specific ways in which teachers experience and navigate stressors associated with their work. This study aimed to qualitatively understand how teachers who perceive high and low levels of burnout characterise their lived experiences in school environments. Data were collected through interviews with 28 inservice teachers (11 male, 17 female) from the US Midwest who reported high- or low-burnout on a psychometric survey. Data were analysed by two experienced qualitative researchers. Results indicated that (a) low-burnout teachers perceived nurturing teaching environments, (b) high-burnout teachers perceived combative and constraining teaching environments, and (c) all teachers had to manage workplace stress. Building from these findings, we present a model for understanding how the school environment influences teacher burnout. This model highlights the importance of developing optimal working conditions that nurture teacher development.

Abbreviation: MBI-ES = Maslach Burnout Iventory-Educators Survey; IEP = Individualized Education Plan     

Investigating teacher presence in courses using synchronous videoconferencing

This research examines teacher presence in high school distance courses that are delivered by synchronous videoconference. In rural and remote areas, many school districts are using videoconferencing as way to reach dispersed students. This collective case study uses mixed methods to unpack the notion of presence from the perspective of teachers and their students. This study reports four key findings which have implications for building presence in a videoconference course: teachers’ confidence and experience aligned with higher presence; teaching videoconference and face-to-face classes simultaneously led to challenges with developing presence; immediacy behaviors correlated with higher presence; and, students’ learning preference related to perceived teacher presence. These findings confirm many of the issues raised in the literature about technology integration but also contribute new perspectives on teaching presence in a videoconference.