The influence of prior knowledge and viewing repertoire on learning from video

Video is increasingly used as an instructional tool. It is therefore becoming more important to improve learning of students from video. We investigated whether student learning effects are influenced through an instruction about other viewing behaviours, and whether these learning effects depend on their prior knowledge. In a controlled environment, 115 students watched a number of instructional videos about the technical equipment needed in a course on digital photography. Every second student was instructed about other possible viewing behaviours. A pre-post-retention test was carried out to calculate learning effects. The differences with respect to the learning effects of students who received an awareness instruction on an alternative viewing strategy were not significantly different. The differences as observed in our earlier experiment however could not be reproduced. Students with a broad viewing repertoire showed higher learning effects than students with a narrow repertoire. Furthermore, students with a strategic viewing approach also showed higher learning effects. Certain conditions have to be met: the technical and didactical quality of the video must be good, the integration in a learning task must be apparent, students must be aware of their viewing behaviour, and teachers must be aware of their students’ viewing behaviour in order to enrich the viewing repertoire of students when they have at least some basic knowledge e.g. after several lessons on the topics at hand. In future research, this study should be replicated using more complex video episodes than the instruction videos we used in our experiments that were only on the factual knowledge level of the taxonomy of Bloom. Moreover, replication of this study with a larger sample size could yield a significant improvement in learning effects. This is plausible because students need an amount of prior knowledge beyond a certain threshold value in order to be able to expand their knowledge network in their long term memory. Finally, additional media player functionality, facilitating effective student learning from video, can be described based on the results of this study.     

Organisational and training factors affecting academic teacher training outcomes

University teacher training has become an important topic in recent years due to the curricular and methodological reforms introduced by the Bologna process. Despite its acknowledged importance, evaluations have been limited to measures of participants’ satisfaction, and little is known about its impact on teaching practices. This study seeks to analyse the effects of the different delivery methods used during workshops that aim to enhance academic teachers’ pedagogical competence and teaching practices. Moreover, the study analyses to what extent individual characteristic and job requirement also have an effect on training outcomes. The study draws on data collected through a self-reported questionnaire administered to academic teachers two years after they participated in training workshops at a Spanish university (n?=?204). The results show that specific delivery methods have a significant effect on the outcome variables, especially those related to the design of learning activities and assessment tools.     

Reasons and mediators in the development and communication of personal digital stories

The expansion of access to devices, as well as the production and publication options in social networks requires a broader definition of the traditional notion of personal digital storytelling. To get a deeper understanding of these practices in the group of adolescents, the objective of this article is to analyze what are the reasons that direct the publications of personal stories and what kind of filters, agents and consequences are articulated in these stories. To do this, the most qualitative part of an investigation on teenagers’ internet publication guidelines is synthesized. Specifically, the results of a semi-structured interview with 12 adolescents between 12 and 20 years are shown. The answers show that the interviewees’ perspective on what a digital story is goes beyond the format and varies depending on the network where it is published and the type of content. Thus, the emphasis and motivation of the publication has shifted from the digital - which has been incorporated with something normal and not differential - towards the personal, focusing the publications on the daily life of young people. An extension and refinement of the public-private dichotomy has been identified, maintaining general privacy guidelines above the dissemination of publications. As for filters, publications are preceded by the widespread use of image modification tools. Finally, the answers show the influence of personal agents, mostly friends and brothers, and technology agents, which determine the relationship between the type of story and the network where it is published.

     

Perception of career barriers: The importance of gender and ethnic variables

Differences of gender and ethnicity were examined in terms of the perception of barriers to career development. The Perception of Career Barriers Inventory (IPBC) was administered to a sample of 457 ninth grade students in Portuguese state schools. Gender differences were found, with girls generally scoring higher and in particular on some specific scales. African ethnic participants score higher than Portuguese participants across all the IPBC scales. These findings are more obvious with African participants born in Africa than with those born in Portugal. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Writing intervention with elementary students struggling with writing: examining approach profiles to the teacher feedback on writing quality and motivational variables

Reading and Writing - Many young students experience difficulties mastering writing, and are designated as students struggling with writing. Teacher feedback on writing is an educational tool...     

Teachers' and prospective teachers' explanations of liquid‐state phenomena: A comparative study involving three European countries

As contact with liquids occurs from an early stage in individuals' lives, children construct explanations for liquids and liquid‐state phenomena. These may differ from the accepted scientific explanations, interfere with formal teaching, and even persist until entry into higher education. The objective of this investigation is to compare student‐teachers' and in‐service science teachers' explanations for liquid‐state phenomena, in three European countries. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire applied to 195 Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish in‐service science teachers. Data analysis revealed poor performance among participants, showing low percentages of correct answers. In addition, no systematic differences were found between participants from the three countries, and teaching experience seems to minimize some of the conceptual difficulties showed by in‐service teachers. Globally, science education seems to have had a limited effect on student‐teachers' and in‐service science teachers' conceptions. We conclude that more attention should be paid to the liquid state in both initial and continuing teacher education programs so that teachers can understand more clearly liquid‐state phenomena and succeed in explaining them to their students. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 349–374, 2007     

Outreach initiatives operated by universities for increasing interest in science and technology

ABSTRACT

Since the 1990s, the low number of students choosing to study science and technology in higher education has been on the societal agenda and many initiatives have been launched to promote awareness regarding career options. The initiatives particularly focus on increasing enrolment in the engineering programmes. This article describes and compares eight European initiatives that have been established and operated by universities (and in some cases through collaboration with other actors in society). Each initiative is summarised in a short essay that discusses motivation, organisation, pedagogical approach, and activities. The initiatives are characterised by comparing the driving forces behind their creation, how the initiative activities relate to the activities at the university, size based on the number of participants and cost per participant and pedagogical framework. There seem to be two main tracks for building outreach activities, one where outreach activities are based on the university's normal activities, and one where outreach activities are designed specifically for the visiting students.     

Reading and spelling acquisition in European Portuguese: a preliminary study

We investigated the initial development of reading and spelling in European Portuguese. First-graders, tested in February and June, had to read and spell words and pseudowords. In February there were regularity and graphemic complexity effects, indicating that these children relied on grapheme–phoneme conversion. The lexicality effect found in spelling, in June, suggest that by the end of first grade these children had begun to construct an orthographic lexicon. However, lexical addressing is not inconsistent with phonological mediation as regularization errors increased between the sessions. Additionally, the previously reported similarity in global performance of Portuguese and French beginning readers may conceal processing differences that are related to specific characteristics of the corresponding orthographic codes.