Reactivity to confidence ratings in older individuals performing the latin square task

Confidence ratings (CR) are often used to evaluate the metacognitive processes that occur during reasoning and problem solving. Typically CR are elicited with the assumption that they do not affect participants’ underlying cognitive processes. However, recent evidence suggests that eliciting CR can cause changes in cognitive performance. What is not yet clear, are the metacognitive pathways by which CR affect overall performance in older individuals. In order to better understand the mechanisms driving reactivity to CR, we evaluated the impact of eliciting CR in an older sample (N?=?89) on two aspects of the metacognitive framework - monitoring and control. Participants first rated their prospective confidence before performing the Latin Square Task either with or without confidence ratings. Participants subsequently self-appraised their performance. We found evidence that eliciting CR leads to poorer metacognitive monitoring. In addition, we found that participants with high initial prospective self-confidence who perform CR adopt a more immediate performance-orientated control strategy, which improves short-term performance but has no effect on overall performance in a timed Latin Square Task.     

Consensus or dissensus? Stakeholders’ views on the role of play in learning

Across cultures and eras, children have engaged in play as part of the process of growing and maturing into adulthood. Play has been recognized as an effective form of pedagogy to promote learning in the early years. However, beliefs about what play is and how it should be practiced vary across Hong Kong and in other countries. Because Chinese culture places a heavy emphasis on academic achievement, a play-based curriculum has not been widely implemented in the region. Through classroom observations and interviews with key stakeholders in early childhood education, namely parents, teachers, and principals, this study reveals the complexity of views on this matter and uncovers the root cause of the difficulties in supporting play in the Hong Kong kindergartens. These findings may help promote the play-based curriculum in Hong Kong and other countries where play is in crisis.     

A Person-Centered Approach to Understanding Teachers' Classroom Practices and Perceived School Goal Structures

ABSTRACT

We examined 179 teachers' perceptions of their own classroom practices and their school's motivational climate to illuminate the ways these perceptions work in concert. Using teachers' responses to two scales of the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Survey, a cluster analysis revealed three profiles of teachers described as cluster 1: Aligned: Performance Moderate, Mastery High: We agree with everything!; cluster 2: Aligned: Performance Low, Mastery High: Yea to Mastery! Nay to Performance!; and cluster 3: Unaligned: Classroom Mastery with School Performance: We're Mastery Structured in a Performance School. Cluster analyses revealed significant differences suggesting these teacher groups had distinct profiles. This study adds to the literature on goal theory aimed at understanding and advancing teachers' motivationally supportive practices and can be used in teacher education and development to help teachers identify, reflect on, and understand their classroom goal structures and how they relate to structures operating at the school level.     

Learning the boss' way: ownership,power and learning in practice and in workplaces

Discussions of learning in practice and in workplaces have been carried out within the various theories of learning. More recent discussions have unveiled the complexity inherent in learning in workplaces by acknowledging the presence of power relations in practice. However, the discussions fall short of an analysis on another more paramount power relation in practice – the relationship and effects of organizational ownership on learning in workplaces. Using the global phenomenon of concentrated media ownership, this paper presents a literature review to show that ownership is another higher form of power relation that shapes what and how professionals learn in practice.     

Integrating different tracking systems in football: multiple camera semi-automatic system,local position measurement and GPS technologies

Abstract

During the past decade substantial development of computer-aided tracking technology has occurred. Therefore, we aimed to provide calibration equations to allow the interchangeability of different tracking technologies used in soccer. Eighty-two highly trained soccer players (U14–U17) were monitored during training and one match. Player activity was collected simultaneously with a semi-automatic multiple-camera (Prozone), local position measurement (LPM) technology (Inmotio) and two global positioning systems (GPSports and VX). Data were analysed with respect to three different field dimensions (small, <30 m² to full-pitch, match). Variables provided by the systems were compared, and calibration equations (linear regression models) between each system were calculated for each field dimension. Most metrics differed between the 4 systems with the magnitude of the differences dependant on both pitch size and the variable of interest. Trivial-to-small between-system differences in total distance were noted. However, high-intensity running distance (>14.4 km · h^?1) was slightly-to-moderately greater when tracked with Prozone, and accelerations, small-to-very largely greater with LPM. For most of the equations, the typical error of the estimate was of a moderate magnitude. Interchangeability of the different tracking systems is possible with the provided equations, but care is required given their moderate typical error of the estimate.     

‘A very pushy kind of folk’: Educational Reform 1944 and the Catholic Laity of England and Wales

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century control over their schools was central to the sense of a Catholic identity for English Catholics, and its defence was a priority of their bishops. The 1944 education act threatened the financial viability of these schools. Between 1942 and 1944 the divided and uncertain response of the Catholic Hierarchy of England and Wales to the state’s proposals for educational reform opened the way for the intervention of lay catholics into the education debate. The Sword of the Spirit movement is commonly remembered as the central organization for lay initiative in Church affairs. However, for Catholics and for participants in the education debate the organization known as the Catholic Parents’ and Electors’ Association (CPEA) was far more significant. From local initiatives in Ilford, south‐east London, and Bradford, in the north, between 1940 and 1942, the CPEA expanded, until by 1944 it could claim a nationwide membership running into tens of thousands, as well as the enthusiastic support of the Catholic press. It engaged in vigorous political activity, in most cases without the sanction of clerical authority. To some extent the movement troubled Catholic authority as much as the education issue itself. With the re‐establishment of authority, following the appointment of a new cardinal‐archbishop of Westminster the movement foundered but was by no means extinguished. It embodied the extending power within the Catholic community of an urban middle class, related to, but increasingly distinct from, the growing Catholic professional elite exemplified by the growth of the Newman Association. The CPEA could be harnessed by the clerical leaders of the Catholic community, but its history indicates the social, psychological and political stresses attendant on educational change in a minority community.     

Reading motivation,perceptions of reading instruction and reading amount: a comparison of junior and senior secondary students in Hong Kong

This study examined the relations between students' reading motivation, perceptions of reading instruction and reading amount, together with grade differences, in a Chinese educational context. A total of 1,146 students from 19 secondary schools in Hong Kong voluntarily responded to a questionnaire that measured these three sets of variables. The study's findings indicated that students' intrinsic motivation was most strongly related to their reading amount. Students' perceptions of the reading instruction they received in their Chinese language class were significantly related to their reading motivation, but were only indirectly related to their reading amount, being mediated through reading motivation. Consistent with previous studies, significant grade differences were found in all types of reading motivation, students' perceptions of reading instruction and students' reading amount. The findings indicated that junior secondary students had better self‐efficacy, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and social motivation than senior secondary students. The largest grade difference was in students' self‐efficacy. Junior secondary students also perceived the reading instruction in their Chinese language class as more mastery‐oriented and read more frequently than senior secondary students. The implications of these findings for understanding Chinese students' reading motivation and for planning effective reading instruction to enhance their motivation are discussed.     

Examination Result Attribution,Expectancy and Achievement Goals among Chinese Students in Hong Kong∗

The structure of Chinese primary school students’ causal attributions for actual examination results was examined. A factor analysis of the attributions revealed dimensions which supported Weiner's classification. Age‐related differences as well as interrelationships among perceived attainment, expectancy of success, causal attributions and achievement goals were also explored. Results showed that older students had lower but more accurate perceived attainment than younger students. They also attributed more to internal causes and study at home, and they had stronger learning goals. Results also showed that leaming‐oriented students attributed more to internal causes and study at home but less to home conditions, while performance‐oriented students attributed more to uncontrollable causes. Results were explained and discussed with reference to the socialisation patterns in the Chinese culture.

     

The Effect of Teachers’ Evaluative Feedback on Chinese Students’ Perception of Ability: a cultural and situational analysis

The research explored the effect of teachers’ evaluative feedback on students’ perception of ability. The subjects were 758 Chinese students from elementary schools, high schools, and a university in Hong Kong. Subjects rated ability and effort of two hypothetical students who achieved identical results (success or failure) in a mathematics test but received different feedback (praise, blame, or neutral feedback) from the teacher. They also rated the teacher's perception of their own and their friends’ ability and effort in a similar situation after a real mathematics test. The results of this study support previous findings which indicate that ability perception is influenced by cultural and contextual variables. Contrary to the findings with Western students, ability and effort were positively correlated. The importance of effort among the Chinese students appears to mitigate the effects of teachers’ feedback on students’ ability. Age‐related differences were also observed. The results are discussed in terms of sociocultural background of the subjects.