The number line as a teaching aid

The number line is often recommended as an aid for the teaching of whole number addition and subtraction. The possible stages in young children's use of the aid are described, as is their ultimate outgrowing of this aid.Number line diagrams are also used in diagnostic and achievement test items to assess the understanding of whole number addition. This practice is discussed and criticised with the aid of the empirical findings of the second NAEP. Finally the wider role of number line diagrams in mathematics teaching is outlined.     

The role of the school climate in high school students’ mental health and identity formation: A South Australian study

The well‐documented increase in student mental health issues in Australia and growing recognition of the need for education to play a part in students’ identity formation prompted this study. The research reported in this article sought to identify specific elements of the school climate that were likely to influence the interplay of adolescent health and development and students’ identity formation. The aim was two‐fold. First, the study examined the relationships between students’ perceptions of the school climate and self‐reports of wellbeing, resilience and moral identity; and, second, the interrelationships between the three outcome variables were explored. Two surveys, one to assess students’ perceptions of features of the school climate, and another to assess students’ wellbeing, resilience and moral identity, were administered to 618 Year 11 students from 15 independent schools in South Australia. Structural equation modelling was used to investigate hypothesised relationships between students’ perceptions of their school climate and self‐reports of wellbeing, resilience and moral identity. Our results indicated statistically significant and positive relationships between school‐climate factors and each of the three outcome variables. Further, indirect relationships (mediated largely by resilience) were found between school‐climate factors and students’ wellbeing. Our findings could be used to guide schools in building tangible, purposeful environments that engender well‐balanced, positive, resilient citizens with strong moral identities.     

Marital Adjustment, Parental Disagreements about Child Rearing, and Behavior Problems in Boys: Increasing the Specificity of the Marital Assessment

2 studies were conducted to illustrate how measuring a specific aspect of marriage, namely, child-rearing disagreements, provides a better understanding of the link between marriage and boys' behavior. In Study 1, 200 mothers of 3-year-old boys completed unstandardized measures of marital functioning and child behavior. An index of child-rearing disagreements: (1) correlated with a greater variety of behavior problems than nonchild disagreements, and (2) improved upon the prediction of behavior problems after accounting for nonchild disagreements as well as after accounting for boys' exposure to marital conflict. In Study 2, 87 mothers with 4-6-year-old sons completed the index of child-rearing disagreements used in Study 1 as well as standard measures of marital functioning and child behavior. Child-rearing disagreements: (1) predicted a greater variety of behavior problems than global marital adjustment, and (2) improved upon the prediction of internalizing problems after controlling for global marital adjustment as well as after controlling for boys' exposure to marital conflict.     

Effects of group size and advance organizers on learning parameters when using microcomputer tutorials in kinematics

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the use of CAI tutorial programs, incorporating advance organizers and involving various sizes of groups of subjects, would affect students' achievement scores, retention scores, and rates of learning. Used as subjects were 100 suburban high school physics students running interactive tutorial physics programs focusing on strobe simulation and displacement-time and velocity-time graphs. For fifty students (experimental group) an advance organizer program preceded each tutorial. The remaining fifty students (control group) had an advance non-organizer program preceding each tutorial. While pursuing the tutorials the students worked individually or together in groups of two, three, or four. Five days were allocated for the students to repeat the four tutorials until 90% competency level was attained. Achievement and retention were measured by individually administered paper-pencil teacher-made tests sampling the content of all four tutorials. Rate of learning was determined for groups by the number of times the first three tutorial programs were executed in order to attain 90% competency. In the two-way analysis of variance the only significant result at the 0.05 level pertained to group size. Results of the Tukey Test revealed that students working in groups of three and four on CAI tutorials had significantly better rates of learning than students working alone. No significant differences in achievement or retention were observed for the various groups. The implications for using CAI tutorials in physics point to grouping students in fours as a time saving and economic method of presenting material without significant loss of achievement or retention.     

Ageing and learning: What do they mean to elders themselves?

This paper is about a quantitative study which has examined and elucidated the conceptualizations of ageing and learning by a group of elders in Hong Kong. In more specific terms, the study has investigated how this group of older people understood the meaning of successful ageing and elder learning in the context of their later lives. Based on the ‘Learning and Ageing Survey 2013’ with a sample of 519 older adults in Hong Kong, the study aimed, first, to describe and conceptualize the meaning of ageing and learning as elders experienced it in later life; second, to investigate why and how elders engaged or did not engage, in organized learning, by comparing the differences between the ‘learning’ and ‘non-learning’ groups in terms of their personal characteristics, conceptualizations of learning, and the barriers to participation; third, to identify important learning issues for older learners, including their interests, needs, motivations, and learning preferences; and finally, to investigate the relationship between learning and successful ageing, and between learning and the overall well-being and satisfaction of elders in their later lives. The research findings and outcomes of the study provide insights into the experience and views of elders concerning ageing and learning, which contribute to the global understanding and knowledge base for elder learning and successful ageing; and which serve to inform the development of policy and practice geared to the planning and provision of programmes for learning in older age.     

A cross-cultural comparison of Danish and U.S. attitudes toward minority groups

The purpose of this study was to compare Danish and U.S. attitudes toward minority groups (blacks and mediterraneans) in a controlled study, and to provide evidence for the extent to which attitudes toward minorities can be generalized.Using analysis of variance, results indicated that white subjects, whether Danish or American, generally hold negative attitudes toward culturally relevant minority groups, but Danes did not feel quite as negative toward mediterraneans as Americans did towards blacks. However, Danes were very positive toward blacks (a non-culturally relevant minority). The results support the generalizing of the concept of the culturally relevant minority group.     

Prevalence of combined reading and arithmetic disabilities

This study assesses the prevalence of combined reading and arithmetic disabilities in 799 Dutch schoolchildren using st dardized school achievement tests. Scores of arithmetic, word recognition, reading comprehension, and spelling of child in fourth and fifth grade were used. The main interest involved the co-occurrence of word recognition and arithmetic d abilities because of their possible relationship. The authors find a percentage of 7.6 for combined reading and arithme disabilities. Reading disabilities and arithmetic disabilities co-occurred more often than expected based on rates of the s arate conditions. Children with combined reading and arithmetic disabilities seem to have more generalized achievem difficulties than single-deficit groups. Different operationalizations for reading disabilities (spelling and reading comp hension measures instead of word recognition) led, in part, to selection of other children. This might imply that differ processes underlie the relationship between arithmetic and word recognition disabilities compared to the relationship arithmetic disabilities with difficulties in spelling and reading comprehension.     

An evaluation of Early Reading First (ERF) preschool enrichment on language and literacy skills

Early Reading First (ERF) was created to address problems related to language and development among economically disadvantaged and language-minority preschool children through quality classroom processes, professional development, and instruction. More than any previous initiative, ERF specifies what early literacy instruction should look like in preschool classrooms; however, to date, scant research has examined the effectiveness of the program. In this quasi-experimental study, the effectiveness of ERF preschool enrichment was evaluated through comparison with the performance of demographically similar children from the same school district who received practice-as-usual instruction. As in previous research, ERF-enriched instruction was found to enhance acquisition of alphabet knowledge and print concepts. Unlike previous studies, however, it was also found to promote vocabulary development. Multilevel models were chosen to take into account the non-independence of students in the same classroom in testing the effects of ERF.     

选秀奇葩:一夜成名的背后

除了那些提不起精神和毫无耐心的人,对我们所有人而言,苏珊·波伊尔和保罗·帕兹的故事都是令人无限神往的。似乎是经过电视选秀节目《英国达人》的发掘,人们猛然发现,这两位工人阶级出身、地位低微、长相平平的人竟能唱出美妙的歌曲,令人刮目相看。人们的反应就如同在一辆因抛锚而被丢弃在路上的现代牌汽车上发现了大批宝藏。