Development of Working Memory from Grade 3 to 5: Differences between Children With and Without Mathematical Learning Difficulties

Based on the finding that children with mathematical learning difficulties (MLD) have deficits in working memory (WM), the question arises as to whether these children differ from typical learners only in the level or also in the developmental trajectories of WM functioning. To this end, the WM of 80 children with MLD and 71 typical learners was assessed longitudinally from third to fifth grade. Typical learners outperformed children with MLD in the phonological, visuospatial and central executive WM functioning in third grade. Latent change analyses indicated that both phonological and central executive WM functioning developed in a parallel pattern in children with MLD and in typical learners. In contrast, visuospatial WM functioning revealed a different development in children with and without MLD since the gap between both groups decreased over time. Overall, despite starting at a lower level, the WM functioning in children with MLD did not develop more slowly.     

Lessons Learned from Undergraduate Students in Designing a Science-Based Course in Bioethics

Columbia University offers two innovative undergraduate science-based bioethics courses for student majoring in biosciences and pre–health studies. The goals of these courses are to introduce future scientists and healthcare professionals to the ethical questions they will confront in their professional lives, thus enabling them to strategically address these bioethical dilemmas. These courses incorporate innovative pedagogical methods, case studies, and class discussions to stimulate the students to think creatively about bioethical issues emerging from new biotechnologies. At the end of each course, each student is required to submit a one-page strategy detailing how he or she would resolve a bioethical dilemma. Based on our experience in teaching these courses and on a qualitative analysis of the students’ reflections, we offer recommendations for creating an undergraduate science-based course in bioethics. General recommendations include: 1) integrating the science of emerging biotechnologies, their ethical ramifications, and contemporary bioethical theories into interactive class sessions; 2) structuring discussion-based classes to stimulate students to consider the impact of their moral intuitions when grappling with bioethical issues; and 3) using specific actual and futuristic case studies to highlight bioethical issues and to help develop creative problem-solving skills. Such a course sparks students’ interests in both science and ethics and helps them analyze bioethical challenges arising from emerging biotechnologies.     

What is not working in working memory of children with literacy disorders? Evidence from a three-year-longitudinal study

The goals of this study were to explore the deficits in working memory associated with literacy disorders (i.e. developmental disorders of reading and/or spelling) and the developmental trajectories of these working memory deficits. The performance of 28 children with literacy disorders was compared to a non-disabled control group with the same group size at five bi-annual times of measurement in a three-year-longitudinal study beginning at the end of primary school (9.5 years of age). Storage capacity and central-executive working memory were assessed in phonological and visual-spatial modalities, the latter under static and dynamic conditions. Overall, children with literacy disorders were outperformed by their typical developing peers in all phonological and in dynamic visual-spatial storage and central-executive tasks except for the static visual-spatial storage task. Results at single times of measurement revealed that the most consistent deficit was found in the storage capacity of the phonological loop. An additional central-executive impairment is supported by low backward spans. The causes for output deficits in dynamic visual-spatial tasks and good performance under static visual-spatial condition are discussed.     

“My Questionnaire is Too Long!” The assessments of motivational-affective constructs with three-item and single-item measures

Because testing time in educational research is typically scarce, the use of long scales to assess motivational-affective constructs can be problematic. The goal of the present study was to scrutinize the psychometric properties of short scales (with three items) and single-item measures for two core motivational-affective constructs (i.e., academic anxiety and academic self-concept) by conducting systematic comparisons with corresponding long scales across school subjects and within different subject domains (i.e., mathematics, German, French). Statistical analyses were based on representative data from 3879 ninth-grade students. All short forms possessed satisfactory levels of reliability (range: .75–.89) and substantial correlations with the long scales (range: .88–.97); correlational patterns with educational student characteristics (e.g., achievement, school satisfaction, gender, academic track, and socioeconomic status) were comparable to those obtained with the corresponding long scales (all average differences in correlations below .07). The correlational patterns between all single-item measures and the external criteria were similar to those obtained with the corresponding long scales (all average differences in correlations below .08), yet the single-item measures demonstrated low to modest score reliabilities (estimated with the model-based omega coefficient; range: .22–.72) and correlations with full scales (range: .50–.88). When long scales are not applicable, short forms and perhaps even single-item measures may represent psychometrically sound alternatives for assessing academic anxiety and academic self-concept for educational research purposes.     

Methodological issues in value-added modeling: an international review from 26 countries

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability - Value-added (VA) modeling can be used to quantify teacher and school effectiveness by estimating the effect of pedagogical actions on...     

Between-School Variation in Students' Achievement,Motivation, Affect,and Learning Strategies: Results from 81 Countries for Planning Group-Randomized Trials in Education

To plan group-randomized trials where treatment conditions are assigned to schools, researchers need design parameters that provide information about between-school differences in outcomes as well as the amount of variance that can be explained by covariates at the student (L1) and school (L2) levels. Most previous research has offered these parameters for U.S. samples and for achievement as the outcome. This paper and the online supplementary materials provide design parameters for 81 countries in three broad outcome categories (achievement, affect and motivation, and learning strategies) for domain-general and domain-specific (mathematics, reading, and science) measures. Sociodemographic characteristics were used as covariates. Data from representative samples of 15-year-old students stemmed from five cycles of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA; total number of students/schools: 1,905,147/70,098). Between-school differences as well as the amount of variance explained at L1 and L2 varied widely across countries and educational outcomes, demonstrating the limited generalizability of design parameters across these dimensions. The use of the design parameters to plan group-randomized trials is illustrated.     

Adoption of Mass-Customized Newspapers: An Augmented Technology Acceptance Perspective

The authors propose an augmented version of the Technology Acceptance Model to examine the consumer acceptance of mass-customized (MC) newspapers. Model findings (n = 2,114) suggest that the customer's willingness to invest effort for MC products is one of the main factors driving adoption. Furthermore, gender is found to moderate the relation between base category satisfaction (with the base category “newspaper”) and perceived usefulness of an individually printed daily newspaper.