npj Science of Learning最新文献

Research into statistical learning, the ability to learn structured patterns in the environment, faces a theory crisis. Specifically, three challenges must be addressed: a lack of robust phenomena to constrain theories, issues with construct validity, and challenges with establishing causality. Here, we describe and discuss each issue in relation to several prominent statistical learning phenomena. We then offer recommendations to help address the theory crisis and move the field forward.

Can you learn better by doing something yourself (DIY) or by watching somebody else do it? We present a new approach to examine this perennial question in research on learning and instruction. In a science learning task, children aged 5 to 7 years (N = 95) either generated predictions themselves (active condition) or observed the predictions of a fictitious other child (yoked condition) before seeing the outcome. Unlike previous yoked designs, we first emulated responses from a Bayesian learner. Critically, these responses were then individually matched to each yoked child given their unique prior beliefs at the start of the experiment. This novel approach allowed us to discern the effects of DIY on conceptual learning much more clearly than before. We found that actively generating predictions led to deeper conceptual understanding than observing another's matched predictions, and that this advantage of DIY was associated with an increased experience of agency.

This study investigates the effect of cognitive control strategies on young children's emotional and attentional states during coding learning. We conducted a quasi-experimental study with 46 children aged 5-6 years, dividing them into an experimental group using cognitive control strategies (planning, monitoring, reflecting) and a control group without these strategies. Video recordings from three lessons, representing the early, middle, and late stages of the coding course provided to the two groups, were analyzed to assess attention and emotion every three seconds. High-resolution data analyses indicated that cognitive control strategies helped children maintain attention and remain in a neutral emotional state during learning activities with good ecological validity. Additionally, cognitive control strategies enhanced learning outcomes, which were significantly related to attention measured during learning. These findings suggest that integrating cognitive control strategies in early education can improve attention, emotional regulation, and learning outcomes.

Peer relationships play a critical role in academic performance, yet their link in higher education remains underexplored. This study introduces commensality-shared mealtimes-as a novel proxy for peer acceptance and examines its relationship with academic outcomes across student groups. Using 2,717,938 transaction records from 3355 first-year undergraduates at a prestigious Chinese university, we developed "commensality value" metrics to quantitatively measure peer relationships. Regression analyses reveal that peer acceptance, particularly from peers who are more physically distant, is positively correlated with academic performance. This correlation is stronger among male students, politically active students, former class leaders, and those with politically active parents. These findings highlight the potential benefits of strong peer relationships and suggest that promoting environments that encourage peer commensality could be a valuable strategy for universities to explore. By bridging gaps in the literature, this study introduces innovative metrics and advances the understanding of the peer academic success.

Socioeconomic status (SES) influences school success. Students with lower SES may face challenges that this study aims to address through instructional scaffolding. To be effective, such support needs to consider students' individual strengths and weaknesses. In this study, 321 sixth-grade students used an e-textbook about fractions. They were randomly assigned to receive either adaptive task difficulty, explanatory feedback, or dynamic visualizations as scaffolds or no scaffolding. We assessed their fraction knowledge at pre- and post-test and eigth cognitive and motivational-affective characteristics. Latent profile analyses identified three profiles. Students with lower SES (below the nationwide average) are commonly associated with a profile that has unfavorable learning prerequisites. A linear mixed model revealed that adaptive task difficulty significantly benefited students in this profile. Implementing adaptive task difficulty in math classes might mitigate challenges associated with lower SES, enhancing educational success and equity by addressing individual prerequisites and learning needs.

Sleep is instrumental in the formation of long-lasting memories, including social evaluations and social knowledge. The modification of social evaluations holds profound significance for understanding and shaping societal dynamics. Here, we investigated how sleep could contribute to updating the social evaluation of a person generally perceived as unattractive. We found that, compared with uncued names, auditory cueing (by playing the acoustic name+positive trait pairs) during sleep increased the perceived attractiveness of the mental representations of faces associated with the cued names. Notably, the number of slow oscillations detected during sleep was significantly positively correlated with the attractiveness ratings of the faces corresponding to the cued names. Importantly, a control experiment revealed that mere name exposure without positive traits during sleep did not enhance mental facial representations. These results highlight sleep's active role in updating social evaluations and suggest that sleep-mediated social evaluation updating can be applied in various social contexts.

This study investigated the role of offline consolidation, specifically sleep, in transforming memories strengthened by retrieval practice into stable long-term representations. Forty-eight participants learned weakly associated Chinese word pairs via restudy(RS), retrieval practice with feedback (RP), and retrieval practice without feedback (NRP). After encoding, a nap group slept while a wake group remained awake. Recall was tested after 90 min and 24 h. Critically, only for RP items did the nap group show significantly less forgetting (i.e., a reduced recall change rate) than the wake group. Furthermore, the RP recall change rate correlated positively with sleep-specific neurophysiological markers (fast spindle density and fast spindle-ndPAC coupling). These findings demonstrate that initially labile memories formed by RP undergo offline, sleep-dependent consolidation (involving neural replay indexed by spindles), integrated with online processes, to achieve long-term stability.

Recent initiatives worldwide have promoted the "growth mindset" to improve educational outcomes. However, the effectiveness of this approach remains controversial. This research presents novel perspectives by investigating the natural effects of growth mindsets on students' academic performance trajectories from university entrance to completion. Longitudinal analyses involving 915 students, 6,918 student-term, and 33,607 student-course observations, reveal previously unexplored relationships. Transcending the dichotomized debate of whether growth mindsets are effective, our findings reveal that students with stronger growth mindsets initially outperform their fixed mindset counterparts; however, this advantage diminishes over time. Additionally, students with growth mindsets are more adept at navigating unfamiliar academic territories. Importantly, both growth and fixed mindsets are associated with higher academic achievement, but a lack of clear mindset is linked to poorer outcomes. Our study underscores the importance of considering these factors in educational institutions that aim to foster growth mindsets to enhance human capital development.

This longitudinal study examined the main effect associations and cross-level interactions of household- and school-level parental education on academic self-concept (ASC) development from fourth to sixth grade of elementary school. Furthermore, the mediating roles of child- and school-level academic achievement (AA) in these associations were examined. Children (N = 679, ages 10-12) from 18 elementary schools were followed annually. ASC levels were relatively high and stable from fourth to sixth grade. Results showed that lower household-level parental education was indirectly associated with lower child-level ASC through lower child-level AA. Lower school-level AA and tentatively higher school-level ASC scores were found in lower parental education schools compared to higher parental education schools. School-level AA was not associated with school-level ASC. Furthermore, results showed initial support that, in terms of ASC, children of lower-educated parents may benefit slightly more from attending lower parental education schools than attending higher parental education schools.

Feedback drives creativity, yet how individuals benefit from it remains unclear. This study explored the cognitive and neural mechanisms through which interpersonal feedback promotes creativity. The fNIRS measured interpersonal neural synchronization (INS) during feedback, focusing on the prefrontal cortex and the right temporoparietal area. Participants completed creativity tasks (acquisition/transfer) across four groups: interpersonal feedback, one-way feedback, irrelevant communication, and no feedback. Feedback uptake (ignore, copy, and apply) was coded by linking dialogue content to posttest performance, reflecting cognitive processes. Results showed that only interpersonal feedback improved creativity acquisition and transfer. Applying feedback positively correlated with creativity enhancement, while ignoring it was negatively correlated. Notably, interpersonal feedback induced increased INS at the superior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal cortex, which correlated with creativity enhancement and was further amplified when feedback was applied. The study reveals how interpersonal feedback promotes creativity through underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms, offering insights into fostering creativity.