Initial judgment of solvability in non-verbal problems – a predictor of solving processes

Metacognition and Learning - Meta-reasoning refers to processes by which people monitor problem-solving activities and regulate effort investment. Solving is hypothesized to begin with an initial...     

Correction to: Initial judgment of solvability in non-verbal problems – a predictor of solving processes

Metacognition and Learning - The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake in page 7, particularly in the second paragraph of “Procedure” section of Experiment...     

The identity work of environmental education teachers in Israel

Abstract

Despite growing interest in promoting environmental education (EE), as in other countries, its status within the formal education system in Israel is still ambiguous and its effectiveness questionable. Proceeding from the view of structure-agent interdependency, the present study focuses on teachers’ identity as key to understanding the situation in their professional field. Analysis is based on in-depth interviews with ten EE teachers in ten public elementary-schools in Israel, to investigate their occupational self-perception as part of the system in which they operate. Findings reveal an ambivalent professional identity and a weak sense of agency as EE teachers. Teachers’ impaired occupational self-image have implications for their potential role in advancing EE in particular and for the educational field in Israel in general.     

Generalizing screen inferiority - does the medium,screen versus paper,affect performance even with brief tasks?

Screen inferiority in performance and metacognitive processes has been repeatedly found with text learning. Common explanations for screen inferiority relate to technological and physiological disadvantages associated with extensive reading on screen. However, recent studies point to lesser recruitment of mental effort on screen than on paper. Learning tasks involving a heavy reading burden confound technological and physiological media differences with potential media effects on recruitment of mental effort. The present study focused on media effects on effort recruitment. We examined whether screen inferiority remains even with a brief task that nevertheless requires effort recruitment. In two experiments, participants faced three short math problems that require systematic processing to solve correctly. We examined media effect on solving these problems, and the potential of disturbed perceptual fluency (i.e., disfluent versus fluent fonts) to induce effort investment. Overall, there were no performance differences between the media. However, when collecting confidence ratings, disfluency improved performance on screen and hindered it on paper. Only on paper confidence ratings were sensitive to performance differences associated with fluency, and resolution was better with the disfluent font than with the fluent font. Correspondingly, another sample reported on their preference of media for solving the problems. They expressed a clear reluctance to working on screen despite the task being brief. This preference is suggestive of reliable meta-metacognitive judgments reflecting the general lower quality of metacognitive processes on screen. The findings call for considering medium and presentation format effects on metacognitive processing when designing computerized environments, even for brief tasks.     

Characterisation of pre-service teachers' attitude to feedback in a wiki-environment framework

This is a two-phase research process in a wiki environment. The first phase explored (1) the significance of peer-feedback on students’ academic performance on a specific task in a wiki environment, (2) three types of peer-feedback and (3) students’ constraints on offering meaningful feedback to their peers. The objective of phase two was to determine the reasons why students refrain from peer-feedback. Significant correlation exists between the willingness to give feedback and the willingness to receive feedback. Significant correlation also exists between the difficulty of giving feedback and the difficulty of receiving feedback. Female students tend to consider feedback as the teacher's responsibility more than male students. Religious beliefs did not have any significant effect on any of the parameters tested. The results indicate that traditional students tend to be more conservative regarding feedback. There are worrying implications to pre-service teachers’ refraining from giving feedback.     

Does domain matter? Monitoring accuracy across domains

Metacognition and Learning - Confidence and its accuracy have been most commonly examined in domains such as general knowledge and learning, with less study of other domains, such as applied...