Young children's knowledge about printed names

Four experiments examined young children's knowledge about the visual characteristics of writing, specifically personal names. Children younger than 4 years of age, even those who could read no simple words, showed some knowledge about the horizontal orientation of English names, the Latin letters that make them up, and their left-to-right directionality. Preschoolers also had some familiarity with the shapes of the letters in their own first name, especially the leftmost letter. Knowledge of the conventional capitalization pattern for English names emerged later, after a period during which children preferred names in all uppercase letters. When tested with personal names, the kind of word they know best, young children are surprisingly knowledgeable about the visual characteristics of writing.     

Reflections on the need for continued research on writing

A focused scientific research effort on writing research and its relationship to language development and reading is needed to address the writing and broader literacy needs of today’s and tomorrow’s learners and workers. In the United States, as well as in many other nations, research on writing has been neglected in relation to the emphasis on reading and oral language more generally. The authors argue first for why there is a need for this refocused effort, what should be focused on, and how as a field we should consider moving forward and addressing this imperative. In addressing the why, the authors argue that need is not limited to a particular age or developmental range but rather is broad-based, beginning with our youngest learners and continuing through those transitioning into post-secondary and the workplace. The clear message is that the picture is surprisingly similar across age ranges with a demonstrated need beginning with those coming from less advantaged backgrounds into formal education to the majority of students transitioning from twelfth grade into the workplace or post secondary settings. The authors suggest next steps for research addressing both what and how: what areas of science are areas of high need and how the field may consider moving forward to address these needs. Interdisciplinary research on writing is needed that addresses and integrates cognitive, biological, and social-cultural traditions, contributions, and methods.     

Reliability and validity of a GPS-enabled iPhoneTM “app” to measure physical activity

This study assessed the validity and reliability of an iPhone^TM “app” and two sport-specific global positioning system (GPS) units to monitor distance, intensity and contextual physical activity. Forty (23 female, 17 male) 18–55-year-olds completed two trials of six laps around a 400-m athletics track wearing GPSports Pro^TM and WiSpi^TM units (5 and 1 Hz) and an iPhone^TM with a Motion X GPS^TM “app” that used the inbuilt iPhone^TM location services application programming interface to obtain its sampling rate (which is likely to be ≤1 Hz). Overall, the statistical agreement, assessed using t-tests and Bland–Altman plots, indicated an underestimation of the known track distance (2.400 km) and average speed by the Motion X GPS^TM “app” and GPSports Pro^TM while the GPSports WiSpi^TM device overestimated these outcomes. There was a ≤3% variation between trials for distance and average speed when measured by any of the GPS devices. Thus, the smartphone “app” trialled could be considered as an accessible alternative to provide high-quality contextualised data to enable ubiquitous monitoring and modification of programmes to ensure appropriate intensity and type of physical activity is prescribed and more importantly adhered to.     

Influences of volitional and forced intentions on physical activity and effort within the theory of planned behaviour

In the present study, we examined the utility of volitional and forced intentions in predicting participation in physical activities and effort within the theory of planned behaviour. Four hundred and forty-four participants (184 males, 260 females) aged 19.1 +/- 3.3 years (mean +/- s) completed self-report measures of intentions, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, volitional intentions, forced intentions, and past behaviour in a physical activity context. Six weeks later, they completed self-report measures of physical activity behaviour and effort. Results indicated that volitional intentions and forced intentions contributed to the prediction of effort over and above intentions, attitudes, subjective norms, perceptions of control, past behaviour, and the product terms of attitudesxintentions and subjective normsxintentions. Volitional intentions and forced intentions did not predict participation in physical activities over and above effort. We concluded that volitional intentions and forced intentions assist in the explanation of effort in the context of physical activity behaviour.     

A Test of the Bistrategic Control Hypothesis of Adolescent Popularity

Resource Control Theory (Hawley, 1999) posits a group of bistrategic popular youth who attain status through coercive strategies while mitigating fallout via prosociality. This study identifies and distinguishes this bistrategic popular group from other popularity types, tracing the adjustment correlates of each. Adolescent participants (288 girls, 280 boys; M_age = 12.50 years) completed peer nominations in the Fall and Spring of the seventh and eighth grades. Longitudinal latent profile analyses classified adolescents into groups based on physical and relational aggression, prosocial behavior, and popularity. Distinct bistrategic, aggressive, and prosocial popularity types emerged. Bistrategic popular adolescents had the highest popularity and above average aggression and prosocial behavior; they were viewed by peers as disruptive and angry but were otherwise well-adjusted.     

Activity Structures and the Unfolding of Problem-Solving Actions in High-School Chemistry Classrooms

In this paper, we argue for a more systematic approach for studying the relationship between classroom practices and scientific practices—an approach that will likely better support the systemic reforms being promoted in the Next Generation Science Standards in the USA and similar efforts in other countries. One component of that approach is looking at how the nature of the activity structure may influence the relative alignment between classroom and scientific practices. To that end, we build on previously published research related to the practices utilized by five high-school chemistry teachers as they enacted problem-solving activities in which students were likely to generate proposals that were not aligned with normative scientific understandings. In that prior work, our analysis had emphasized micro-level features of the talk interactions and how they related to the way students’ ideas were explored; in the current paper, the analysis zooms out to consider the macro-level nature of the enactments associated with the activity structure of each lesson examined. Our data show that there were two general patterns to the activity structure across the 14 lessons scrutinized, and that each pattern had associated with it a constellation of features that impinged on the way the problem space was navigated. A key finding is that both activity structures (the expansive and the open) had features that aligned with scientific practices espoused in the Next Generation Science Standards—and both had features that were not aligned with those practices. We discuss the nature of these two structures, evidence of the relationship of each structure to key features of how the lessons unfolded, and the implications of these findings for both future research and the training of teachers.     

Correction to: School climate in Mongolia: Translation and validation of the What’s Happening in This School

Learning Environments Research -     

The AQ scores of school-age children referred to educational psychologists

The Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) scale was designed to detect the level and distribution of autistic-like traits across both the general population and those diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Condition. Scores in the large normative samples were consistent with previous research in showing a continuous distribution of traits, implying that the Autism Spectrum might be viewed as one pole of an endless continuum rather than a distinct categorical condition. The preliminary research reported in this article looked at AQ levels in 75 random referrals to educational psychologists and identified a significantly elevated mean score with a large effect size (d = 1.46). The possible implications for practice and for further research are discussed.     

Competition among spatial cues in a naturalistic food-carrying task

Rats collected nuts from a container in a large arena in four experiments testing how learning about a beacon or cue at a goal interacts with learning about other spatial cues (place learning). Place learning was quick, with little evidence of competition from the beacon (Experiments 1 and 2). Rats trained to approach a beacon regardless of its location were subsequently impaired when the well-learned beacon was removed and other spatial cues identified the location of the goal (Experiment 3). The competition between beacon and place cues reflected learned irrelevance for place cues (Experiment 4). The findings differ from those of some studies of associative interactions between cue and place learning in other paradigms.