How children living in poor areas of Dar Es Salaam,Tanzania perceive their own multiple intelligences

This study was carried out with 1,857 poor children from 17 schools, living in low-income areas of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. All children took the ‘Student Multiple Intelligences Profile’ (SMIP) questionnaire as part of a bigger project that gathered data around concepts and beliefs of talent. This paper sets out two aims, first to investigate the structural representation of the self perceived multiple intelligences for this set of children and second to discuss how the best fit model might reflect children’s culture and their school experiences. After carrying out exploratory factor analysis, a four factor first order model was shown to have a good fit. A higher order factor solution was investigated owing to the correlation of two latent constructs. In order to provide some insight into the multiple intelligences construct the relationship between the SMIP items, student test outcomes and attitudes to learning were examined. The item groupings were explored through African cultural beliefs around intelligences indigenous to African communities.     

Alternative assessment of high school laboratory skills

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate instruments that will assess the laboratory skills of students completing high school science courses. In each of the science areas (biology, chemistry, and physics), tests were developed around six laboratory tasks. Each test used a two-part format with a total time of 80 minutes. Students had to plan an investigation, collect and organize appropriate data, and formulate conclusions based on calculations and graphs. A different test was developed for 12th-grade students not enrolled in a science course. This test consisted of a series of stations where students conducted a short activity that was presented to them. Over 1000 students from 32 Ohio schools formed the sample for this study. Data are presented by skill and by task. In addition, analysis for gender and school effects is included.     

Epistemological beliefs across cultures: critique and analysis of beliefs structure studies

The findings of epistemological beliefs studies in North America, Hong Kong and Taiwan were compared and interpreted in terms of the different cultural contexts and methodologies used in the research studies. Based on cross culture analysis a hypothesis for the structure of epistemological beliefs was proposed. Implications were also drawn for future research in this field, in light of the limitations and potential of existing measuring instruments.     

Scholarly Productivity of Editorial Board Members of Three American Counseling and Counseling Psychology Journals

The scholarly journals in professional and scientific fields serve the function of communicating new knowledge and informed discourse on the major issues affecting the field of counseling, and editorial board members (EBMs) serve as gatekeepers of what information will be communicated. The ability of EBMs to make sound judgments directly affects the quality of research and scholarship published. This study analyzed one important EBM qualification, the scholarly productivity of the editorial board members of three major American counseling journals (The Counseling Psychologist [TCP], the Journal of Counseling Psychology [JCP], and the Journal of Counseling and Development [JCD]). An analysis of the productivity rates of editorial board members on these journals was conducted using the PsycINFO database. The results indicated that editorial board members of JCP have significantly more experience publishing than members of TCP and JCD. The differential publication rates of editorial board members suggest that these three journals place different emphasis on scholarly productivity as part of their selection criteria for editorial board membership and may reflect that the three journals have different missions and serve different clientele. These findings have implications, not only for the profession of counseling in the United States, but also for the international counseling community.This article is dedicated to our esteemed colleague, Stephen G. Weinrach, who died after a long and courageous battle with leukemia on April 24, 2004. This article was the last that Steve was working on prior to his death. It was his brainchild. The contributions that Steve made to the counseling profession over the years are inestimable. He was truly through his numerous writings and professional association activities the “conscience of the couseling profession.” He is dearly missed.     

The use of augmented reality to foster conceptual knowledge acquisition in STEM laboratory courses—Theoretical background and empirical results

Learning with hands-on experiments can be supported by providing essential information virtually during lab work. Augmented reality (AR) appears especially suitable for presenting information during experimentation, as it can be used to integrate both physical and virtual lab work. Virtual information can be displayed in close spatial proximity to the correspondent components in the experimentation environment, thereby ensuring a basic design principle for multimedia instruction: the spatial contiguity principle. The latter is assumed to reduce learners' extraneous cognitive load and foster generative processing, which supports conceptual knowledge acquisition. For the present study, a tablet-based AR application has been developed to support learning from hands-on experiments in physics education. Real-time measurement data were displayed directly above the components of electric circuits, which were constructed by the learners during lab work. In a two group pretest–posttest design, we compared university students' (N = 50) perceived cognitive load and conceptual knowledge gain for both the AR-supported and a matching non-AR learning environment. Whereas participants in both conditions gave comparable ratings for cognitive load, learning gains in conceptual knowledge were only detectable for the AR-supported lab work.     

Academic motivations of Yi youths in China: Classmate support and ethnic identity

To enhance the academic achievements of Yi ethnic minority youths in rural school settings, the authors examined the effect of classmate support and the meditating role of ethnic identity in promoting their academic motivation. Cross-sectional survey data were collected from Yi youths sponsored by a philanthropic organization to attend local schools in Liangshan, rural China (n?=?657; 7–12 years old; 52% boys). Results of structural equation modelling showed that classmate support positively affected ethnic identity-commitment and ethnic identity-exploration, which then had positive impacts on three academic motivation outcomes: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation-external and identified regulation, and extrinsic motivation-introjected regulation. The mediating effects of ethnic identity-exploration and ethnic identity-commitment were statistically significant, except for the pathway from classmate support to extrinsic motivation-introjected regulation via ethnic identity-commitment. The authors found that ethnic identity can be facilitated through building supportive classroom environment for positive academic motivations in Yi youths. Cross-cultural significance of this study is also discussed.     

Building preschool teachers’ capacity for teaching Chinese to ethnic minority children in Hong Kong: A qualitative study

ABSTRACT

Teaching Chinese to second language learners is a challenge for preschool teachers in Hong Kong so effective teacher professional development programmes are urgently needed to enhance their knowledge and skills. An Integrative Model Teacher Professional Development Programme which incorporates three theoretical underpinnings (i.e., culturally responsive teaching, meaningful and pleasurable learning, and effective teaching of Chinese as a second language) is designed to equip preschool teachers with knowledge, skills, and awareness in teaching Chinese to ethnic minority students. Through qualitative interviews with 15 in-service preschool teachers who joined the Programme, teachers’ perceptions and changes in three theoretical areas of teaching Chinese to ethnic minority students were explored. Particularly, teachers increased their awareness of ethnic minority cultures, developed empathy with ethnic minority children and their families, gained knowledge of implementing culturally responsive teaching and meaningful and pleasurable learning of Chinese. The role of teacher sharing in effective professional development was highlighted.     

浅谈公民道德建设的途径

中国传统道德底蕴深厚、源远流长.<公民道德建设实施纲要>顺应时代发展,应运而生.在当今社会,"修身为本"仍然是公民道德塑造的发端,"德教为先"是公民道德建设的必由之路,使全体公民"学会关心"是公民道德建设的最初切入点.同时要因人而异,既要循序渐进,又要高屋建瓴.     

Structural Equation Modeling With Unknown Population Distributions: Ridge Generalized Least Squares

This article proposes 2 classes of ridge generalized least squares (GLS) procedures for structural equation modeling (SEM) with unknown population distributions. The weight matrix for the first class of ridge GLS is obtained by combining the sample fourth-order moment matrix with the identity matrix. The weight matrix for the second class is obtained by combining the sample fourth-order moment matrix with its diagonal matrix. Empirical results indicate that, with data from an unknown population distribution, parameter estimates by ridge GLS can be much more accurate than those by either GLS or normal-distribution-based maximum likelihood; and standard errors of the parameter estimates also become more accurate in predicting the empirical ones. Rescaled and adjusted statistics are proposed for overall model evaluation, and they also perform much better than the default statistic following from the GLS method. The use of the ridge GLS procedures is illustrated with a real data set.