Trends in Neuroscience and Education最新文献

Cognitive control consists of high-level cognitive processes regulating thoughts and actions during goal-directed behavior and problem-solving. This study analyzes the performance of 4- to 8-year-old children in Stroop-like and ToL tasks using stimuli with different emotional valence. Significant differences were found in the performance in the congruent block of the Stroop-like task, where 5-year-old children presented a higher performance in the neutral condition. Also, a significant difference was only found in the incongruent block (with higher demand for inhibition), which indicates that girls performed better than boys in both task conditions. Variations in the Stroop-like task performance were found in preschoolers but not in older children, especially in girls than in boys. Specifically, these variations were found between age groups with at least two years of difference. No statistically significant differences were found in performance nor planning time in ToL between the age and gender groups in any of the task conditions. The findings highlight the need to analyze the interaction between cognitive and emotional processing, individual differences, and task demands.

Background

Universities need to find strategies for improving student retention rates. Predicting student academic performance enables institutions to identify underachievers and take appropriate actions to increase student completion and lower dropout rates.

Method

In this work, we proposed a model based on random forest methodology to predict students' course performance using seven input predictors and find their relative importance in determining the course grade. Seven predictors were derived from transcripts and recorded data from 650 undergraduate computing students.

Results

Our findings indicate that grade point average and high school score were the two most significant predictors of a course grade. The course category and class attendance percentage have equal importance. Course delivery mode does not have a significant effect.

Conclusion

Our findings show that courses students at risk find challenging can be identified, and appropriate actions, procedures, and policies can be taken.

Purpose

This quasi-experimental study investigates the impact of enhancing metacognition in learning inferential reading skills in English as a second language.

Procedures

Six Grade 4 classes were randomly assigned to two groups. The “Control group” received an instructional unit on inferential reading skills. The “Metacognition group” received the same unit, including metacognitive activities. Students were assessed in metacognitive and inferential reading skills before (pre-test), immediately after (post-test) and four weeks after the intervention (deferred test).

Findings

Metacognitive strategy instruction enhanced student learning of inferential reading skills and its sustainability in time. The Metacognition group attained a significantly higher average score in deploying metacognitive skills both in the post and deferred tests, indicating that the intervention was effective, as intended, to this end. While both groups significantly improved their proficiency in inferential reading skills after working with the provided instructional unit, there was a significant difference in the Metacognition group, which outperformed the Control one, even more strongly in the deferred test.

Conclusions

Findings support the importance of deliberately promoting metacognition as it positively impacts learning outcomes and sustainability.

Background

Exercise has transient effects on cognition and mood, however the impact of Physical Education (PE) on cognitive and affective processes across the school day has not been examined.

Method

This study used wearables and questionnaires to track student arousal, engagement, and emotion across school days/periods following PE. Skin conductance, heart rate, heart rate variability, and self-reported engagement, arousal, and valence were analyzed for 23 students (age 15–17 years) on days with and without PE.

Results

Sympathetic arousal was significantly higher for two hours following PE and there were stronger decreases in arousal across other classes relative to days without PE. On days with PE, engagement decreased, whereas valence increased from morning to afternoon.

Conclusion

These findings highlight the importance of considering acute effects of PE on learning across the entire school day, and demonstrates the feasibility of wearables to clarify how the timing of PE could positively or negatively affect self-regulation and learning.

Many studies have suggested that cognitive and affective abilities (such as math anxiety- MA and math self-efficacy) explain individual differences in math.

Purpose

The present study explores the interplay between MA, math self-efficacy, spatial anxiety and spatial abilities in explaining individual differences on two complex math tasks.

Procedures

Ninety-three college students took part in the experiment and completed 3 emotional questionnaires, in addition to 2 math tasks and a mental rotation task.

Findings

The interplay between math performances and cognitive and affective factors is related to task demand. MA and spatial abilities affected math performances directly, regardless of task. Spatial anxiety had only an indirect effect on math performances via MA, regardless of task.

Conclusions

These finding suggest that for math performances, contrary to MA, real spatial abilities rather than perceived spatial anxiety play a significant role in explaining individual differences.  Hence, the present result dissociates cognitive and emotional factors.

Background

Using data from a nationwide high-school sample, the present study aimed to examine whether school-level athletes’ sporting results are positively or negatively associated with their academic performance.

Methods

Athletic performance was assessed using the results of spring and summer regional qualifying interschool tennis tournaments in Japan among both male and female tournaments across all prefectures in Japan. Academic performance was assessed using the standardized rank scores for academic performance at the school level, with higher scores denoting superior academic levels; this is the most common measure of academic performance in Japanese high schools. Linear mixed models were conducted to compare the academic performance of high schools with winning and losing records, respectively, for all games together and for the spring and summer tournaments separately. The results of a total of 4,870 games were analyzed.

Results

High schools with winning records showed a significantly higher academic-performance score than those with losing records, and this association was stronger among boys than girls. The observed difference in academic-performance scores between the schools with winning and losing records, respectively, was replicated in both tournament settings (i.e., spring and summer).

Conclusions

Athletic results are positively associated with academic performance at the school level. Given the cross-sectional nature of the present study, the present results do not necessarily imply that sports participation can improve academic performance; rather, the present study suggests that balancing academic and athletic commitments is feasible.

Purpose

Cognitive science is essential to designing, implementing, and evaluating instruction for enhancing student learning. However, there may not be sufficient focus on the principles of cognitive science, as some educators hold learning beliefs that may be considered cognitive myths.

Procedures

This review article analyzes examples of five learning myths (learning styles, pure discovery learning, digital natives, extrinsic motivation, multitasking) and five research-based learning strategies (dual coding, direct instruction, summarization, retrieval practice, spacing). It details the research evidence for each to explain those misconceptions of learning and also those underutilized or misunderstood but effective strategies shown to benefit student learning.

Conclusion

Educational practices related to learning myths are widespread in education with potentially detrimental effects on student learning. We recommend that colleges of education be restructured to ensure greater emphasis on cognitive science in educator preparation programs to better promote research-based instructional strategies to meet students’ learning needs.

Background and purpose

Humans can naturally operate with ratios of continuous magnitudes (proportions). We asked if sighted children (S) and visually impaired children (VI) can discriminate proportions via somatosensory feedback.

Procedures

Children formed a proportion by tracing a pair of straight lines with their finger, and compared this proportion with a second proportion resulting from the tracing of another pair of lines.

Main findings

Performance was 68% in S, thus significantly lower (p < 0.001) compared to VI (75%). Tracing velocity (p < 0.01) and trial-to-trial variability of tracing velocity (p < 0.05) was higher in S compared to VI.

Conclusions

Operating with proportions solely from somatosensory feedback is possible, thus tracing lines might support learning in mathematics education. Kinematic variables point to the reason for the difference between S and VI, in that higher trial-to-trial variability in velocity in S leads to biased estimation of absolute line lengths.

Purpose

Attentional control theory (ACT) posits that elevated anxiety increases the probability of re-allocating cognitive resources needed to complete a task to processing anxiety-related stimuli. This process impairs processing efficiency and can lead to reduced performance effectiveness. Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students frequently experience anxiety about their coursework, which can interfere with learning and performance and negatively impact student retention and graduation rates. The objective of this study was to extend the ACT framework to investigate the neurobiological associations between science and math anxiety and cognitive performance among 123 physics undergraduate students.

Procedures

Latent profile analysis (LPA) identified four profiles of science and math anxiety among STEM students, including two profiles that represented the majority of the sample (Low Science and Math Anxiety; 59.3% and High Math Anxiety; 21.9%) and two additional profiles that were not well represented (High Science and Math Anxiety; 6.5% and High Science Anxiety; 4.1%). Students underwent a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session in which they performed two tasks involving physics cognition: the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) task and the Physics Knowledge (PK) task.

Findings

No significant differences were observed in FCI or PK task performance between High Math Anxiety and Low Science and Math Anxiety students. During the three phases of the FCI task, we found no significant brain connectivity differences during scenario and question presentation, yet we observed significant differences during answer selection within and between the dorsal attention network (DAN), ventral attention network (VAN), and default mode network (DMN). Further, we found significant group differences during the PK task were limited to the DAN, including DAN-VAN and within-DAN connectivity.

Conclusions

These results highlight the different cognitive processes required for physics conceptual reasoning compared to physics knowledge retrieval, provide new insight into the underlying brain dynamics associated with anxiety and physics cognition, and confirm the relevance of ACT theory for science and math anxiety.

Purpose

This study assessed the relationship between neuroelectric indices of attention and inhibition and academic skills in children 4–6 years-old. We hypothesized that modulation of the P3 and N2 components would be related to academic skills.

Methods

Participants (N = 27, 16 female) completed The Woodcock Johnson Early Cognitive and Academic Development Test to assess general intellectual abilities (GIA) and early academic skills (EAS). Electroencephalography was recorded during an auditory oddball task to elicit P3 and N2 components. Two-step linear regressions including age, sex, income, and GIA assessed relationships between P3 and N2 modulations and EAS.

Results

P3 peak amplitude (R²=0.765, β=0.379, p = 0.030) and N2 mean (R²=0.759, β=0.302, p = 0.039) and peak (R²=0.759, β=0.303, p = 0.038) amplitude modulation were positively related to EAS.

Conclusion

Upregulation of P3 and N2 components was associated with EAS independent of GIA. Therefore, neuroelectric assessments of attention and inhibition may a biomarker of academic achievement in early childhood.