Application of Social Constructivism into EFL Classroom

Recently, the view that classroom knowledge is socially constructed rather than being merely transmitted from teacher to student has made a significant impact in English language teaching. Based on s...     

贵州省新升本院校二外日语教育对策研究

贵州省新升本院校的生源、地域和教学条件等方面和老牌本科院校差距较大,所以在研究二外日语教育改革的时候,有必要在新升本院校这一特定环境下来研究。本文以贵州省新升本院校为背景,把因材施教理论和罗杰斯的人本主义教育理论相结合,提出了分班教学和教师角色转换这两个改革方向。     

Exploration versus exploitation in technology firms: The role of compensation structure for R&D workforce

We investigate the relationship between a firm’s compensation structure and the extent to which its innovation is more exploration versus exploitation oriented. Specifically, we assess two aspects of a firm’s compensation design—horizontal dispersion within job levels and vertical tournament incentives between job levels. A six-year panel of compensation records of 671,028 employees working at 81 U.S.-based high technology firms between 1997 and 2002 are used to construct measures that characterize a firm's pay structure, which are linked to these firms’ patents filed in the U.S. We find that firms with higher-powered tournament incentives in vertical compensation structure report higher fraction of innovation directed towards exploration. Horizontal pay dispersion, on the other hand, shows a negative relationship with the exploration in firms where R&D employees’ age variance is low. In firms where R&D employees’ age variance is high, the negative relationship between horizontal pay dispersion and exploration is muted.     

Motivations and solution appropriateness in crowdsourcing challenges for innovation

Crowdsourcing challenges are fast emerging as an effective tool for solving complex innovation problems. The main strength of the crowdsourcing model is that it brings together a large number of diverse people from all over the world to focus on solving a problem. This openness, however, results in a large number of solutions that are not appropriate, and this inhibits organizations from leveraging the value of crowdsourcing efficiently and effectively. It is therefore essential to identify ways to increase the appropriateness of solutions generated in a crowdsourcing challenge. This paper takes a step towards that by exploring what motivates the crowd to participate in these challenges and how these motivations relate to solution appropriateness. Drawing on data from InnoCentive, one of the largest crowdsourcing platforms for innovation problems, this paper shows that the various types of motivation driving crowd members to participate were related in different ways to the appropriateness of the solutions generated. In particular, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were positively related to appropriateness whereas for learning and prosocial motivation the relationship was negative. The association between social motivation and appropriateness was not significant. The results have important implications for how to better design crowdsourcing challenges.     

Supporting groups’ emotion and motivation regulation during collaborative learning

This study investigates when and how students activate co- and socially shared emotion and motivation regulation in collaborative learning and whether the S-REG mobile application tool can support this regulation. In a mathematics course, 44 higher education students worked with a collaborative assignment. The S-REG tool traced groups' emotional and motivational states in different sessions, and the occurrence of co-regulation and shared regulation of motivation and emotions were coded from video-recorded collaborative work (44 h). The groups activated more co-regulation than shared regulation of emotions and motivation, but the shared-regulation episodes were longer-lasting. The groups’ emotional and motivational states were associated with the occurrence of co-regulation in the beginning of the learning sessions. The results suggest that the S-REG tool balanced collaboration by prompting the groups to regulate emotions and motivation right in the beginning of the motivationally and emotionally challenging learning sessions.     

Theories of motivation: Integration and ways forward

Motivation is fundamental to human agency and volitional behavior, and several influential theories have been proposed to explain why individuals choose or persist in a course of action (over others). New terms and concepts have proliferated as the theoretical models aim to be comprehensive, at the expense of parsimony. The theoretical models covered in this special issue each have their unique aspects and contributions, but four major dimensions cut across them: person factors comprising self (expectations, self-efficacy), social (modeling, comparisons), and cognitive aspects (self-regulation); task values; goals; and perceived costs and benefits. Motivation is determined by a complex interplay of internal and external factors, and we suggest that a greater focus on individuals’ motivation profiles, construal of situations, and metacognitive monitoring and control of goal pursuit might shed more light on the moment-by-moment decisions people make in daily life. Future research could be targeted at evaluating competing models (or perhaps more parsimonious ones) and enhancing interventions to address students who are unmotivated to excel in school.     

DIIGO在大学物理实验课前预习中的应用

课前预习是物理实验课程的一个先导,是不可或缺的一部分,预习结果的好坏对实验操作过程有很大的影响作用。文章将引入DIIGO来说明如何应用DIIGO使同学们能更好的进行课前预习,真正达到预习的目的。     

Metacognition, Self-Regulation, and Self-Regulated Learning: Research Recommendations

Much research has been conducted on metacognition, self-regulation, and self-regulated learning, but the articles in this special issue make it clear that we still have many unanswered questions. Recommendations for research include providing clear definitions of processes, identifying relevant theories, ensuring that assessments clearly reflect processes, linking processes with academic outcomes, conducting more educational developmental research, and tying processes firmly with instructional methods. Collectively, these recommendations will enhance our understanding of metacognition, self-regulation, and self-regulated learning and will lead to solid implications for educational policy and practice.     

Clarifying Metacognition, Self-Regulation, and Self-Regulated Learning: What’s the Purpose?

In this commentary on the special issue, I join the authors in searching for a conceptual framework that would clarify the concepts of metacognition, self-regulation, and self-regulated learning. Building on the insights of the different articles, I suggest that metacognition, self-regulation, and self-regulated learning should be considered as subtypes of the general, abstract, phenomenon of self-regulated action. I continue by questioning the benefit of seeking boundaries between these three concepts. Instead, I propose to search for dimensions along which types of self-regulated action vary. I, then, introduce the notion of a “multidimensional conceptual space of self-regulated action” as a conceptual tool that allows for diversity of conceptions of self-regulated action while maintaining conceptual clarity. I conclude by highlighting the central role of purpose of engagement in self-regulated action and by noting its potential for guiding the search for meaningful dimensions on which to typify self-regulation.     

African American Students at Predominantly White Institutions: A Motivational and Self-Systems Approach to Understanding Retention

Predominantly White institutions have not been as effective as historically Black institutions in retaining and conferring degrees upon African American college students. This review seeks to embed the psychological aspects of the retention process proposed by Bean and Eaton [A psychological model of college student retention. In J. M. Braxton (Ed.), Reworking the student departure puzzle (pp. 48–61). Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000] in a culturally-sensitive framework and consider how African American students attending PWIs may experience the processes in retention. We first give a brief overview of Bean and Eaton’s [A psychological model of college student retention. In J. M. Braxton (Ed.), Reworking the student departure puzzle (pp. 48–61). Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000] model of retention, then we propose and discuss revisions to Bean and Eaton’s model that we believe would make the model more applicable to African American students attending predominantly White institutions. Specifically, we address students’ attitudes towards their institution, academic self-efficacy, motivation, achievement goals, attributions, and ethnic and bicultural identity development. The discussion concludes with implications and directions for future study.