Learning Science through Investigations: An Experience with Hong Kong Primary School Children

This paper reports on a study of children learning science through investigations. Because many skill-type performances depend upon knowing and understanding the relevant content, this paper addresses both the children's understanding of scientific ideas and their performance of the science process skills. Twenty-four written records of investigations conducted by Hong Kong primary school children were studied to explore children's cognitive processes in scientific investigations. The paper concludes with a model that provides useful information about aspects of children's cognitive understanding and the practical processes that are necessary for scientific investigation.     

Secondary School Students Learning From Reflections on the Rationale Behind Self-Made Errors: A Field Experiment

Thus far, it is unclear how students can learn most effectively from their own errors. In this study, reflections on the rationale behind self-made errors are assumed to enhance knowledge acquisition. In a field experiment with pre/post/follow-up design, the authors practiced fractions with 174 seventh- and eighth-grade students who were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: The students reflected on either the rationale behind their own errors or on the correct solution corresponding to their own errors. Students in the first condition group demonstrated a greater procedural knowledge at the posttest and at the follow-up test. Furthermore, at the follow-up test, these students demonstrated a higher conceptual knowledge. The implications for theory and school instruction are discussed.     

Decisional procrastination correlates: personality traits, self-esteem or perception of cognitive failure?

The aim of the present study is to examine a number of decisional procrastination correlates. A sample of 258 subjects attending secondary school were administered the Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire, Cognitive Failures Questionnaire, Self-Esteem Scale, Big Five Questionnaire and Five Factors Adjective Short Test. The data were subjected to correlation and multiple regression. Decisional procrastination is best explained by the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire. The results enable a further analysis in the field of decisional procrastination.     

A process model of writing development across the life span

In this article, we provide an overview of writing development from a product perspective and from a process perspective. Then we discuss modifications of the most influential process model of skilled adult writing to explain beginning and developing writing, including a proposed developmental sequence of the emergence of cognitive processes in writing. Next we report the results of two recent dissertations by the second and third authors supervised by the first author aimed toward contrasting developmental issues: (a) specifying the algorithms or rules of thumb beginning and developing writers may use during on-line planning; and (b) investigating the further development of writing processes among skilled adult writers. In the first study, development was conceptualized as a linear process across age groups. In the second study, development was conceptualized as a horizontal process within skilled adult writers who expanded their expertise. Finally, we consider the developmental constraints and the instructional constraints on writing development and argue for a model of writing development in which endogenous and exogenous process variables interact to determine the outcome of the writing development process.     

追梦：那一段华美的旅程

本文记述了一位新校长及其团队从由责任心而走进“新基础教育”,从全情参与学习“新基础教育”到逐步浸入亲身体悟“新基础教育”并最终融入“新基础教育”的心路历程。展示出因参与新基础教育而在价值取向、思维方式和生活态度等方面的变化过程。     

严平稳与宽平稳过程的关系

系统研究严平稳与宽平稳的相互关系,并采用一些构造性的例子加以论证,得到许多有价值的结果．     

Web-enhanced case-based activity in teacher education: a case study

Recent work in case-based reasoning (CBR) reinforces the importance of situated learning, expert cases, and authentic tasks and activities for novice learners. As novices engage CBR environments, they apprentice in the experts’ practices while developing the understanding, knowledge and skill of a given community. This study examined how prospective teachers, as novices in a semester-long course, engaged and developed expert-like practices using the case knowledge of experienced teachers who teach with technology. By engaging experienced teachers’ knowledge and skill via Web-enhanced cases, prospective teachers refined their understanding of teaching culture and teaching with technology as they transitioned to the teaching community.     

Phonological awareness and reading speed deficits in reading disabled Greek‐speaking children

There is evidence that phonological awareness skills secure decoding ability and that phonological deficits underlie failure to acquire adequate word recognition. Slow word‐reading rate may be an additional defining characteristic of reading disability. The present study aimed to investigate whether: (1) reading disabled (RD) Greek‐speaking children showed reading accuracy and reading speed deficits relative to chronological age‐matched controls (CAC) and reading age‐matched controls (RAC); (2) they showed phonological deficits relative to the two control groups who do not present reading difficulties; and (3) they showed reading comprehension deficits over and above any word reading deficits.

Results suggested that the reading accuracy of the RD group was predictably weaker than that of the CAC group but equivalent to that of the RAC group. However, the reading speed of the RD group was significantly slower than the RAC group, who showed the same single word reading speed as the CAC group.

Slow and laboured decoding was found to compromise the reading comprehension of the RD group, whose listening comprehension performance was as good as the two other groups. The RD children performed poorly on phonological awareness tasks and naming speed. Naming speed was not an independent core feature of reading difficulties in the Greek language but was associated with a general phonological deficit.

It is recommended that diagnostic assessments for children with reading difficulties in Greek should include phonological awareness, single word reading and pseudoword reading tasks that measure both accuracy and speed.     

基于进入过程带投资和干扰的风险模型

讨论了投资和干扰下基于进入过程的风险模型的破产概率.分析得到该模型的盈余过程具有平稳独立增量性:并利用鞅方法获得了该模型破产概率的显式表达式以及它的一个上界估计.     

论等级顺序理论对形态阻遏的阐释力

英语中存在多种阻遏现象,形态阻遏是其中的一种,它包括词项对派生词和曲折词缀生成词的阻遏。等级顺序理论认为在英语中派生和曲折过程是按等级顺序进行的,其顺序与形态构词过程有关。试用等级顺序理论来揭示形态阻遏是如何产生的,指出等级顺序理论对形态阻遏有一定的阐释力,并对该理论不足之处提出的修正。