Effects of self‐monitoring,token reinforcement and different back‐up reinforcers on the classroom behaviour of retardates

Following a baseline observation period, a class of intellectually handicapped boys were given opportunities to monitor and record their own behaviour as on‐task or off‐task. Following this self‐monitoring phase, the self‐administered check‐marks were used as tokens and exchanged for back‐up consequences, which were initially low‐value objects for consumption (possession). These were later increased in value, and finally changed to access consequences (the opportunity to play with but not possess). Self‐monitoring alone produced a significant increment in the externally assessed level of on‐task behaviour. Only when access back‐up consequences were introduced was there a further significant increment. Provision of high‐value consumption consequences was followed by a loss of accuracy in self‐monitoring, and reduction in on‐task behaviour to baseline levels. The study demonstrated the extension of a self‐control procedure to retardates, the importance of separately measuring the effect of self‐monitoring on the target behaviour, and the need for appropriate selection of back‐up consequences.     

Educational assessment in England

This profile explains the assessment system in England, concentrating on those aspects that are related to government policy. It begins by putting the system in context; it then describes the national educational structure, curriculum and assessment arrangements. The government agencies responsible for carrying out education policies are introduced. In order to illustrate the intersection of curriculum and assessment development and political policy, the profile describes and discusses assessment issues that highlight the role of government and its agencies in the development, implementation and monitoring of England's national curriculum tests and 14‐to‐19 qualifications. It argues that successive governments have increasingly intervened directly in curriculum and qualifications development, and observes the growing governmental policy influence over assessment issues and the repercussions of that influence.     

Analyzing student thinking reflected in self-constructed cognitive maps and its influence on inquiry task performance

Instructional Science - Higher-order thinking is crucial to inquiry learning. It is important to investigate how students think in inquiry contexts. Given the tacit nature of higher-order thinking,...     

Learning and knowing songs: a study of children as music teachers

In this study we analyze how learners constitute what it means to learn and know a song. This is investigated in the context of four 9- to 10-year-old children in dyads teaching each other to sing a song of their own choosing. How the children take on this task is studied in terms of how they dialogically co-construct pedagogical and musical values throughout the collaborative tasks. The empirical data consist of video observations of the children engaged in dyads. Informed by a sociocultural perspective, with an emphasis on mediational means, scaffolding and appropriation, the study seeks to examine how young people’s instructional methods are facilitated and constrained by communicative resources of different kinds. The empirical data is analyzed as interactively unfolding activity. The study shows that the children make a distinction between learning and knowing a song, in terms of tool use. In teaching, learning is communicated as supported by mediational means in the form of external visualization tools, while knowing the song, from the participants’ point of view means to be able to sing the song without any such mediational means. From a sociocultural theoretical perspective, this difference is conceptualized as the gradual learning process of moving from a materialized practice, based on external artifacts, to an embodied practice, that is, a change in mediational means rather than developing musical knowing without tools.