Learning and Instruction最新文献

Background

A high degree of playfulness in learning activities has been claimed to be more developmentally appropriate for young children than high structure and directivity. However, empirical support for this claim is limited. Most studies that analyze interactions associated to playfulness are correlational, which poses a problem for attributing differences to the degree of playfulness of activities.

Aims

The present study sought to compare, in a controlled manner, the interactions and behaviors in prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms during high- and low-playfulness activities.

Sample

Participants were teachers, teacher aides, and 377 students in 12 classrooms (six prekindergarten and sic kindergarten) in six public schools from a low-income municipality in the capital city of a middle-income Latin American country.

Methods

The behavior of children and teachers during high-playfulness and low-playfulness activities was videorecorded in two visits per classroom per game. High playfulness activities consisted of games designed by our team for this study. Videos were coded for proportion of on-task children, children exhibiting high levels of involvement, and teacher language (teaching, directiveness, warmth, humor). Data were analyzed using multilevel multiple regression to account for nesting in classrooms.

Results

Children were more likely to be on-task and show high-involvement during high-playfulness activities than low-playfulness ones. Teaching and directive verbalizations were more likely during two of the low-playfulness activities, but not the rest. Responsivity and warmth were associated only with two of the games and in the opposite direction of our hypothesis. Teachers were more likely to produce humorous remarks during high-playfulness activities.

Research has examined the relationship between play and learning across all ages, beginning with early childhood and through old age. This research spans major views of learning, including behaviorist/empiricist, cognitivist/rationalist, and situative/pragmatist-sociohistoric perspectives. This paper presents an argument for why, given the diversity and depth of play and learning research, a field of play and learning across the lifespan should be organized. It presents this work in terms of current criticisms of lifelong learning, especially its tendency to narrowly focus on learning that supports economic preparedness and argues that better organizing play and learning research into a field would help to advance its societal impact.

Research aims

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of a school intervention programme based on modern board games during school hours on basic executive functions and on academic skills (reading and maths).

Methodology

A total of 522 (age in years = 8.83 ± 1.85 SD; % female = 45.5) primary school students were enrolled. We conducted a cluster-randomised controlled trial, with one experimental group (playing board games in class) and one control group (regular classes) in all grades from first to sixth. Mixed model analysis was applied.

Results and conclusion

In the pre-post comparisons, children from the experimental group showed greater improvements in updating and in academic skills than the control groups. To conclude, playing modern board games in the classroom could be better for learning and cognitive development than direct-instruction methodologies.

Background

Argumentative writing is a crucial but challenging competence for students. Process-oriented teaching with formative feedback benefits writing, yet the effects of feedback based on rubrics and exemplars versus in-text comments, remains unclear.

Method

We conducted a randomized controlled intervention study with 294 secondary students of English as a foreign language to examine the effects of formative feedback on argumentative writing and genre knowlege and investigate cross-linguistic transfer to German. Feedback was implemented within a learning unit on argumentative writing that we had developed for this project. The experimental groups (EG1: rubric + exemplar; EG2: in-text comments; EG3: rubric + exemplar and in-text comments) were compared to two control groups (CG1: learning unit without additional feedback; CG2: no intervention). We assessed writing quality (pre-, post-, and follow-up tests: 1122 essays in English; pre- and post-tests: 588 essays in German) and genre knowledge; feedback perceptions were measured by questionnaires.

Results

ANOVA results showed significant gains in English writing quality in the EGs and CG1, and the EGs made significant progress regarding genre knowledge. EG1 made large gains. Results were largely sustained. Regression analyses revealed learning progress in English in the EGs and CG1 as a significant predictor of writing quality in German at T2. There were no significant group differences in students’ perceptions of feedback.

Conclusion

Our results indicate that feedback based on rubrics and exemplars, which can easily be implemented in larger classes, promotes writing and genre knowledge and is perceived as helpful by students.

Background

Textbooks are essential for natural science university education. However, recent evidence indicates that their design may not be ideal for learning, whereas narratives might overcome the associated limitations.

Aim

This study compares transfer performance and involved learning mechanisms upon learning scientific concepts either provided in an expository text alone, embedded in a historical narrative, or as expository text prefaced with the historical background.

Sample

Participants were 163 undergraduate natural science students.

Methods

We randomly assigned students to one of the three conditions and used a Bayesian modeling approach to compare the prior knowledge-dependent transfer performance upon instruction. Additionally, we investigated the impact of the different conditions on affective and cognitive mechanisms.

Results

Results indicate that students with lower prior knowledge benefit most from narrative-embedded content. Students with higher prior knowledge profited if narratives were used as preparation for follow-up expository instruction. Self-efficacy and cognitive load measures were positively related to the narrative conditions and partly mediated learning from narrative instruction.

Conclusion

The study conceptualized and offers support for using narratives as preparation for future learning for enhancing transfer performance in university natural science education, additionally highlighting when and why narratives might support learning.

Background

The distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic rewards and their related motivations has been a major concern in educational psychology for decades. Although both types of rewards are related to the dopamine-fueled activation of the reward circuitry, neuroscientific studies now support the view that their processing also involves independent brain mechanisms.

Aims

We show that these mechanisms also are already present in birds and nonhuman mammals, as they track cues and extrinsic rewards in their environment (such as food and shelter), and we discuss a number of intrinsically rewarded activities (such as information seeking and play). The two categories of motivated behaviors evolved to perform distinct functions and are both crucial for the species survival.

Conclusion

We assume that a human-animal comparison is appropriate, and suggest that both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards in humans are necessary to acquire competence, and optimally manage real-life settings, including school environments. More specifically, we argue that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are additive rather than conflicting processes, and that intrinsic motivation is characterized by exploratory behavior and is associated with benefits for an individual; it is a step to apprehend and exploit the knowledge acquired by means of extrinsic sources of reward.

Background

Monitoring is important for self-regulated learning from text, but is often inaccurate. Completing causal diagrams after reading texts has been shown to improve monitoring accuracy.

Aims

We investigated whether providing one or two model answer diagrams and self-assessment instructions would improve learners' monitoring accuracy, regulation accuracy, and text comprehension. Because little is known about how accurately learners who are reading in a language other than their home language monitor their comprehension, we also explored whether effects differed between readers who have English or another language as their home language.

Sample

Participants were 258 secondary school students at international schools in Singapore and Spain; 103 spoke a language other than English at home.

Methods

Participants read 4 texts, completed diagrams on these texts, monitored comprehension, took a first comprehension test, self-assessed their diagram under one of 6 conditions resulting from a 3 (model answer: 0, 1, 2) x 2 (self-assessment instructions: yes, no) design, made restudy decisions, made monitoring judgments, and completed a final comprehension test.

Results

Comprehension benefitted most when learners had access to two model answers. There were no effects of model answers or self-assessment instructions on monitoring accuracy. Regulation accuracy improved with model answers combined with self-assessment instructions. There was no differential effect of home language.

Conclusions

This study supports prior research showing the benefit of model answer diagrams on comprehension. Yet, improvements in regulation accuracy suggest that model answers combined with self-assessment instructions support more effective self-regulated learning behaviors.

Background

The typical competitive and results-driven approach to school mathematics has traditionally been conceived as devoid of play, joy, and positive affect.

Aims

In this paper we address the following questions: What markers of positive affect are observed while students are doing early algebra? Specifically, how are students’ markers of joy related to early algebraic practices? What are the characteristics of playful stances to learning early algebra that are observed when children express positive epistemic affect?

Sample

We analyze three cases in which elementary school students engaged in tasks from an early algebra classroom teaching experiment.

Methods

Drawing from two theoretical frameworks, epistemic affect and early algebra, we conducted microgenetic analyses of lesson transcripts to identify markers of joy and early algebraic practices. We conducted frequency analyses to determine their co-occurrence.

Results

Our results indicate that children expressed joy while engaging in early algebraic practices, evidence of positive epistemic affect. We describe the aspects of each of the cases we present in terms of prior literature on playful stances to learning to further bolster our claims about the relationship between joy and engagement with the early algebraic practices.

Conclusions

We conclude that mathematical learning environments should include open opportunities for students to engage with mathematical content, with multiple entry points and ways to respond. We also conclude that early algebraic practices provide opportunities for playfully engagement and positive epistemic affect.

Background

Authentic learning is believed to possess qualities that boost student motivation and learning. However, prior studies have not consistently found the assumed positive effects of authentic learning, thus highlighting the need to better understand the underlying learning processes.

Aims

We examined effects of authentic learning material on learners’ involvement and different facets of the perceived authenticity of the material.

Sample

Participants were 336 adults.

Methods

We conducted an experimental online study with three conditions varying in the framing of their authenticity. We presented videos in which people talked about their experiences in war and daily life in the past, and we labeled these clips eyewitness accounts, eyewitness accounts played by actors, or reconstructed accounts played by actors. Participants were randomly assigned.

Results

Results indicated that treatment condition particularly affected participants' emotional involvement with the story and that, in particular, one facet of perceived authenticity (Vividness of History) predicted learners’ involvement.

Conclusions

The study adds to the research field of authentic learning in general, and learning with personal stories of the past in particular, by addressing involvement processes and examining different facets of perceived authenticity.

Background

Although feedback is consistently shown to have a positive effect on student achievement, there is also large heterogeneity in effect based on a variety of factors including how teachers use it in the classroom. Understanding how teachers use feedback as part of their content area literacy instruction in inclusive middle school social studies classrooms is therefore a worthy object of investigation.

Aims

This paper applies an explanatory-sequential mixed-methods design to an existing dataset. We leverage this dataset to first understand whether teachers' feedback use improved students' ability to read social studies texts with understanding and acquire social studies content knowledge from text. It then characterizes the feedback teachers used and draws conclusions on how feedback's form may have influenced its effect.

Samples

Quantitative analysis included 8865 min of audio recorded classroom instruction from 28 teachers in the United States. Additionally, social studies knowledge acquisition and reading comprehension achievement measures were collected from 893 students. Qualitative analysis included 37 transcripts of audio recorded lessons (38–65 min each) from five randomly selected teachers.

Methods

Quantitative analysis preceded qualitative. Quantitative analyses included coding of all 8865 min to determine presence of feedback found effective by Hattie and Timperley (2007). This coding was used in a fixed effects model to investigate the effect teacher feedback use had on student reading comprehension and knowledge acquisition outcomes. Qualitative analysis included a collective case study of patterns of feedback use.

Results

Feedback did not have a substantial association with scores on the content knowledge or reading comprehension measures. Teachers’ feedback patterns suggest they frequently missed opportunities to help students understand goals and self-regulate their behavior as they moved toward them.

Conclusions

The ineffective forms of feedback displayed by teachers likely reduced feedback's effect on student outcomes.