The Relation Between Morphological Awareness and Reading Comprehension: Evidence From Mediation and Longitudinal Models

We examined the role of a hypothesized factor in reading comprehension: morphological awareness, or the awareness of and ability to manipulate the smallest meaningful units or morphemes. In this longitudinal study, we measured English-speaking children’s morphological awareness, word reading skills, and reading comprehension at Grades 3 and 4, in addition to their phonological awareness, vocabulary, and nonverbal ability as control measures. Path analyses revealed that word reading skills partially mediated the relationship between morphological awareness and reading comprehension at each grade. Further, children’s early morphological awareness partially explained children’s gains in reading comprehension, and their early reading comprehension partially explained their gains in morphological awareness. These findings support the predictions of recent models of reading comprehension: that morphological awareness impacts reading comprehension both indirectly through word reading skills and directly through the language system and that morphological awareness underpins the development of reading comprehension (e.g., Perfetti, Landi, & Oakhill, 2005).     

Passage independence within standardized reading comprehension tests

In tests used to measure reading comprehension, validity is important in obtaining accurate results. Unfortunately, studies have shown that people can correctly answer some questions of these tests without reading the related passage. These findings bring forth the need to address whether this phenomenon is observed in multiple-choice only tests or in those that employ open-ended questions. Three common standardized reading comprehension tests were examined: the WIAT-III, the CAAT, and the Nelson–Denny. The WIAT-III is composed of open-ended questions, while the other two tests utilize multiple-choice questions. All participants were instructed to answer the questions to the best of their ability, without access to the related passage. The results revealed that participants correctly answered the questions at a significantly higher rate than by chance for the multiple-choice, which supports the independency issue. For the open-ended questions, participants still answered with 18% accuracy, without the passages.     

Orthographe Grammaticale et Justification Orthographique d’Enfants de 8 et 11 Ans

European Journal of Psychology of Education -     

Une etude sur l'approche du nombre par l'eleve du cours preparatoire

Sans résuméAttachée de recherches en psychologie à I'IREM de Grenoble.Maître-Assistante de mathématiques à l'Université Scientifique et Médicale de Grenoble.First Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematical Education, Utrecht, August 1977.     

Warning readers to avoid irrelevant information: When being vague might be valuable

Students are often provided with instructions that are intended to influence their attention to particular sections or elements of their reading materials. To date, the bulk of the work on such prereading instructions has focused on drawing reader attention to relevant text information. In the current project, we examined whether instructions might also be useful in helping readers ignore irrelevant (albeit inherently interesting) information in text. In two experiments, prereading instructions asked readers to (a) focus on specific relevant text segments, (b) ignore specific irrelevant text segments, (c) maintain an awareness that the text contained irrelevant segments without specifically identifying them, or (d) read without warnings. Participants generally exhibited longer reading times and enhanced recall for irrelevant segments compared to base content, except in cases for which general instructions warned about but did not specifically identify those irrelevant elements. The implications of these findings for research on seductive details and text processing, as well practical applications for the design of reading instruction, are discussed.     

OTseeker helps library and allied health professionals to find quality evidence efficiently

Background: Research is essential for evidence‐based practice yet many health professionals do not have enough time to find research. Studies relevant to occupational therapists can be particularly difficult to find. Most search engines are broad and return a large number of irrelevant articles. Occupational Therapy Systematic Evaluation of Evidence (OTseeker) is an occupational therapy database available at http://www.otseeker.com . Developed by Australian occupational therapists, the resource aims to increase access to research and support clinical decision making. This discipline‐specific database contains pre‐appraised information from a variety of sources and decreases the time required to locate best evidence. Objectives: The aims of this paper are to: (i) describe how health librarians can use OTseeker to help allied health students, researchers and practitioners, particularly in occupational therapy, to find quality evidence; (ii) provide a teaching resource for health librarians based around the OTseeker evidence database; and (iii) highlight new features contained on the OTseeker database. Methods: A case study is provided which focuses on searching for evidence on the effectiveness of upper limb rehabilitation after stroke using OTseeker. Conclusion: This paper may increase the knowledge, skills and competencies of health librarians, helping them to access evidence‐based databases, and educate other professionals.     

Genetic Determinism in the Genetics Curriculum

Twenty-first-century biology rejects genetic determinism, yet an exaggerated view of the power of genes in the making of bodies and minds remains a problem. What accounts for such tenacity? This article reports an exploratory study suggesting that the common reliance on Mendelian examples and concepts at the start of teaching in basic genetics is an eliminable source of support for determinism. Undergraduate students who attended a standard ‘Mendelian approach’ university course in introductory genetics on average showed no change in their determinist views about genes. By contrast, students who attended an alternative course which, inspired by the work of a critic of early Mendelism, W. F. R. Weldon (1860–1906), replaced an emphasis on Mendel’s peas with an emphasis on developmental contexts and their role in bringing about phenotypic variability, were less determinist about genes by the end of teaching. Improvements in both the new Weldonian curriculum and the study design are in view for the future.