The role of student-generated externalizations in strategic multimedia learning and how current (web-)technology fails to support learner engagement

In two studies, we investigated how learning strategies can support learning from multimedia. In the first study, 112 students learned from a web-based learning environment. On the basis of a strategy, one group of students took typewritten notes. The second group of students wrote a summary. Producing typewritten notes did not benefit learning any more than writing a summary. In the second study, 100 students learned the same subject matter from print. On the basis of a strategy, the first group produced written notes, the second group highlighted, wrote notes, and produced sketches. The third group wrote a summary. The students who highlighted, wrote notes, and produced sketches outperformed the other students. The students who produced written notes only did not learn more successfully than those who wrote a summary. The results suggest that externalizations in general and sketches in particular may play an important role in multimedia learning.     

Bildungsexpansion und Bildungsbeteiligung

Die vorliegende Untersuchung ist ein Beitrag, die Frage zu kl?ren, warum in der westdeutschen Nachkriegszeit immer mehr Schulpflichtige nach Abschluss der Grundschule das Gymnasium besuchen. Ausgehend von einem entscheidungstheoretischen Modell der subjektiven Werterwartung werden Mechanismen der elterlichen Bildungsentscheidung aufgezeigt. Dabei wird davon ausgegangen, dass sowohl zunehmende Bildungsmotivationen als auch Ver?nderungen in der subjektiven Bewertung von Kosten und Nutzen für eine h?here Bildung wichtige Voraussetzungen für die zunehmende Bildungsbeteiligung, aber auch Folgen der Bildungsexpansion waren. Die empirischen Analysen für drei Zeitpunkte in den 60er, 70er und 80er Jahren best?tigen diese Annahmen weitgehend. Ebenso wurde empirisch belegt, welch wichtige Rolle neben den Bildungsintentionen von Eltern und dem vorhergehenden Bildungsverlauf ihrer Kinder auch strukturelle Momente der Bildungsexpansion und ihre Eigendynamik beim tats?chlichen Bildungsübergang spielen. Schlie?lich gibt es Hinweise dafür, dass die Persistenz klassenspezifischer Bildungsungleichheiten auf einer konstanten Balance von Nutzen und Kosten zwischen den sozialen Klassen basiert.     

Peripheral vision and simple catching: The screen paradigm revisted

The importance of effector visual feedback has previously been indicated using an opaque screen to prevent sight of the catching hand for the final 150–200 ms of a flight path of 850 ms in total. Attention was drawn to the finding that the ability to position the arm correctly in the line of flight of the ball deteriorated as a consequence of the number of trials without visual feedback. However, the use of only 20 test trials allows a possibility that the proprioceptive system may be able to re‐establish predominant control under conditions of prolonged visual decrement. In order to verify this notion, the number of experimental trials was quadrupled for 24 subjects of mixed sex in a replication of the initial paradigm.

The results provided preliminary support for the view that the positioning of the catching arm is more seriously affected by visual occlusion than the timing of the grasp phase. However, increments in accuracy of limb orientation were evidenced in all screen conditions, as the number of trials increased. The grasp component of one‐handed catching appeared to remain unaffected by the increase in experimental trials. The relative influence of skill level on catching errors was next addressed by comparing the performance of the six best and worst catchers in the group.

The results did not support previous research which found a relation between skill level and error type. The number of position, but not grasp, errors decreased as a function of task practice for both subgroups. Future investigations should, perhaps, focus on the developmental nature of movement control in one‐handed catching to obtain a clearer picture of this relation.     

General Mass Communication

Jack Temple Kirby's Media-Made Dixie: The South in the American Imagination. (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1978—$9.95)

Dan Nimmo's Political Communication and Public Opinion in America (Santa Monica, Calif.: Goodyear Publishing Co., 1978—price not given, but available in hard and paper editions)

Raymond G. Smith's The Message Measurement Inventory: A Profile for Communication Analysis (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1978—$12.50)

Fred Fedler's An Introduction to the Mass Media (New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1978—price not given, paper)

Rolf Myller's Symbols and their Meaning (New York: Atheneum, 1978—$9.95)

William E. Francois, Mass Media Law and Regulation (Columbus, Ohio: Grid, Inc., 1978—price not given)

James Leigh and Claude R. Martin, Jr., Current Issues and Research in Advertising (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Michigan, 1978—$4.75, paper)

Philip Ward Burton's Advertising Copywriting (Columbus, Ohio: Grid, 1978—$12.95)

Postal and Allied Arenas–Research Task Specifications, Phase I: Arena Survey by John F. McLaughlin (October 1977, 39 pp., $10.90, paper, Working Paper W-77-9)

The Communications Act Policy Toward Competition: A Failure to Communicate by G. Hamilton Loeb (October 1977, 95 pp., $23.40, paper, Publication P-77-3)

Roland E. Wolseley's Careers in Religious Communications (Herald Press, Scottdale, Pa. 15683—$4.95, paper)

Roland Barthes' Image-Music- Text (New York: Hill & Wang, 1977—$8.95)

Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff's The Modern Researcher (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977—$6.95 in paper, and also available in hardback)     

The impact of attending after-school care schemes on science achievement in primary school: A Norwegian study

Accompanying the rise in the number of working parents is a growing demand for after-school care schemes for children. After-school care schemes, in addition to school, provide pupils with more learning opportunities than the experiences that school provides. The hypothesis is that after-school care schemes offer a better knowledge-basis for learning science than the school and home environments only. This article investigates how after-school care schemes affect learning in grades 5 and 8. While taking into account the socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds of pupils, results indicate that after-school care is of significance. The influence of after-school care is roughly explained by the increased number of learning opportunities. We discuss the implications for research and the limitations of this survey.     

The stark reality of the ‘White Saviour’ complex and the need for critical consciousness: a document analysis of the early journals of a Freirean educator

While the anglophone academic literature has long engaged in analysis of the role of privilege in the work of educators in the Global North, this article represents an initial foray into such analysis in non-formal educational settings in the Global South. Through a cultural-textual document analysis of 12?months of personal journal entries written by the author while working as a Freirean adult educator in Mozambique, this article documents a lack of recognition of social privilege exhibited by the author in these entries, which is here referred to as the ‘White Saviour’ complex. This article also documents how the pursuit of what Freire calls ‘critical consciousness’ can effectively problematise this privileged mindset.     

Eliciting Mathematics Interest: New Directions for Context Personalization and Example Choice

Building on common assumptions in theories of interest and mathematics education, this experimental study examined the effect of context personalization based on individual preferences, group personalization, and example choice with preselected popular examples on middle school students' situational interest and performance in mathematics. Participants (N = 713) learned a principle in probability calculus in one of four instructional conditions. Individual interest and perceived competence were examined as moderators on triggered and maintained situational interest, perceived value, task effort, and performance. Results showed that example choice triggered situational interest in the learning activity and that context personalization influenced perceived value and effort, contingent on students' perceived competence and individual interest in mathematics. We discuss results in relation to previous findings on interest-based interventions and the theoretical and practical implications.     

Relative Age Effect and Gender Differences in Physical Education Attainment in Norwegian Schoolchildren

The relative age effect (RAE) refers to that children born early in their year of birth show higher performance compared to children born late in the same cohort. The present study evaluated whether RAE exists within non-competitive physical education (PE) attainments, change in RAE magnitude with age, and possible gender differences. The results show a drop in PE attainment and a difference in number of high and low marks between the first and second half-year. Of the pupils who attained the highest mark, 73% were born in the first 6 months. In lower-secondary school, RAEs were larger in girls compared with boys. A possible explanation for the results is that the PE-teachers might be inspired by product-oriented criteria.