British Journal of Educational Psychology最新文献

Background and aims: A vast body of theory and research highlights the operation of seriation as a prerequisite to mathematical thinking in young children. However, there is limited evidence that seriation interventions improve early years mathematics. The current study's primary aim was to explore whether a brief computerized intervention for seriation within a dynamic assessment procedure can enhance seriation and transfer to mathematics readiness, the effect of intervention on task dimensions of quantity, size and darkness, and the prediction of math modifiability by seriational modifiability.

Sample: A sample of 440 Kindergarten and Grade 1 children was randomly assigned to experimental (n = 231) and control groups (n = 209). The mean age (in months) of the children in the experimental and control groups was 73.48 and 74.51, respectively. The number of boys and girls was 228 and 212, respectively.

Methods: All children were administered a computerized version of the Children's Seriational Thinking Modifiability Test and the Math Readiness Test before and after the intervention. The experimental group of children received 45 min of mediation on seriation problems, whereas the control group practised seriation problems without mediation.

Results: The findings revealed that children in the experimental group demonstrated improved seriation and math performance compared to children in the control group. More significant increases were observed in size and darkness than in quantity. Seriational modifiability significantly predicted readiness for math improvement. The findings support our hypothesis that seriation intervention is essential for developing math thinking.

Background: This study examined the pathways through which perceived teacher unfairness affects students' psychological adjustment, focusing on the mediating role of self-handicapping and the moderating role of perceived social support.

Aims: The study investigated whether self-handicapping mediates the association between perceived teacher unfairness and students' psychological functioning, and whether perceived social support moderates this indirect relationship.

Materials and methods: The sample comprised 694 students aged 10-14 (M_age = 12.30, SD = 0.95; 52.2% female) attending public schools in Northern Italy. Participants completed validated self-report measures assessing perceived teacher unfairness, self-handicapping, perceived social support, and psychological functioning. Mediation and moderated mediation analyses were conducted.

Results: Self-handicapping significantly mediated the relationship between perceived teacher unfairness and psychological outcomes, including emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity, and prosocial behaviour. Moderated mediation analyses indicated that perceived social support buffered the negative effects of self-handicapping. Specifically, the indirect effects of teacher unfairness on emotional and behavioural difficulties via self-handicapping were weaker among students reporting higher levels of social support, while no significant effects were found for peer relationship problems.

Discussion: Teacher unfairness may contribute to maladjustment through increased self-handicapping, while social support serves as a protective factor.

Conclusion: Interventions promoting teacher-student fairness and strengthening support networks may enhance adolescent well-being.

Background: Errors, traditionally seen as negative, can serve as productive learning tools in low-stakes contexts. However, it remains unclear whether deliberate erring outperforms retrieval practice-another highly effective strategy-across materials and time intervals.

Aims: This study compared deliberate erring, retrieval practice, and copying in terms of immediate/delayed retention and transfer while examining learners' metacognitive evaluations. A copy condition served as a baseline to compare two active learning techniques.

Samples & methods: Two experiments with college students used conceptual terms (Exp1, N = 96) and text passages (Exp2, N = 103). Both measured immediate/delayed retention, transfer, and metacognitive judgements across three learning conditions.

Results: In Experiment 1, immediate retention showed only anecdotal evidence for no significant difference between deliberate erring and retrieval practice-both outperformed copying-whereas delayed retention favoured deliberate erring. Transfer performance consistently favoured deliberate erring. In Experiment 2, memory retention did not differ significantly between deliberate erring and retrieval practice (both superior to copying), yet deliberate erring again led to better transfer. Metacognitive evaluations systematically underestimated deliberate erring, favouring copying and retrieval practice instead.

Conclusions: Under equal-time learning, deliberate erring shows consistent advantages over copying in both knowledge transfer and long-term retention, and it demonstrates potential benefits over retrieval practice in knowledge transfer, although the latter finding requires further replication. The study also reveals a metacognitive bias against deliberate erring, providing insights into theories of memory encoding and classroom error intervention strategies.

Background: Many studies have indicated that mathematics anxiety is a significant problem for many people and is an important topic for research. Mathematics anxiety is multidimensional. In particular, it is important to distinguish between worry and emotionality components, and between trait and state anxiety. Much research shows a reciprocal relationship between mathematics anxiety and performance adding to the importance of gaining a greater understanding of the factors involved in mathematics anxiety.

Aims: This paper aims to review some studies of factors that have often been found to be associated with mathematics anxiety: age, gender, and culture, and to consider the evidence for these associations and the further research that should be done.

Materials and methods: The study involved reviewing a range of papers on the selected topics. In particular, the search terms 'Age differences and mathematics anxiety', 'Gender and mathematics anxiety' and 'Culture and mathematics anxiety' were put into Web of Science; and citations of relevant papers that emerged were also investigated.

Results: Most studies suggest that mathematics anxiety increases with age, and that the relationship between mathematics performance and at least some aspects of mathematics anxiety increase with age. Most, though not all, studies, indicate that females experience more mathematics anxiety than males, and some suggest that there are gender differences in the relationship between mathematics anxiety and performance. Most studies show cultural differences in mathematics anxiety, while also suggesting that the relationship between mathematics anxiety and performance is fairly uniform across cultures.

Discussion: Cross-cultural studies in this area are. However, somewhat limited by the fact that culture is usually confounded with nationality. Moreover, there are studies of all these factors that give somewhat conflicting results.

Conclusion: More research needs to be done in order to gain clearer answers, especially regarding the ways in which the effect of age, gender and culture interact with one another. The findings so far about the influences of age, gender and culture on mathematics anxiety have already had significant practical implications, but these need much further development.

Background: Many words have multiple meanings, which present challenges to learning, yet research has yet to identify effective interventions for homonyms. Lexical inference may be a promising strategy.

Aim: To evaluate a brief, novel lexical inference intervention for homonyms.

Samples: Children aged 7-8 years (Study 1: N = 180, Study 2: N = 76). Study 2 included children with English as an Additional Language (EAL, n = 37).

Methods: In two randomized controlled trials, participants were assigned to either inference training or control (Study 1: spatial training; Study 2: implicit exposure through reading). Their receptive knowledge of taught and untaught homonyms was measured before and after the intervention, and in Study 2, metacognitive and inference skills too.

Results: Those in the inference interventions showed greater gains in receptive knowledge than control groups. In Study 2, children also showed improvement in the inference test with homonyms, and while children with EAL had a specific challenge with receptive knowledge of homonyms compared to their EL1 peers, the intervention was equally effective for both groups. Receptive knowledge and inference with homonyms predicted unique variance in reading comprehension. The intervention showed limited transfer to untaught words, although patterns of errors provided some indication of improved understanding.

Conclusions: A brief inference training is effective for gaining knowledge of homonyms, with limited transfer to untaught words, and the intervention is equally effective for children with EAL and EL1. The findings also showed the importance of homonym understanding and inference for children's reading comprehension.

Background: Exploring how different profiles of academic task values (ATVs) and academic achievement (AA) influence students' school satisfaction should enrich understanding of how school satisfaction develops in specific academic situations.

Aims: This study aimed to identify profiles of ATV (attainment value [AV], utility value [UV]) and AA, as well as heterogeneous trajectories of school satisfaction, and then examine the joint predictive effects of ATV and AA on the development of school satisfaction.

Sample: A total of 3548 Chinese elementary school students (M_age = 8.94 years, SD = 0.72; 54.2% boys) completed five-wave assessments every 6 months across 2.5 years.

Methods: Data were collected through self-reports of ATVs and school satisfaction, while AA data were collected from final examination scores at the end of each semester.

Results and conclusions: Latent profile analysis (LPA) and latent class growth analysis revealed six profiles of ATV and AA (i.e., congruent subgroups: congruent-low, congruent-high, congruent-moderate and incongruent subgroups: high ATV-low AA, lower UV-moderate AA, low ATV-moderate AA); and four heterogeneous trajectories of school satisfaction (i.e., high-decreasing, low-stable, high-stable, low-increasing). Latent transition analysis (LTA) indicated that students with congruent levels of AA and ATV were more likely to transition into the optimal school satisfaction groups (high-stable and low-increasing groups), whereas students with greater gaps between AA and ATV were more likely to transition into the adverse groups (i.e., low-stable and high-decreasing groups). These findings highlight the need for educators to tailor interventions to distinct groups to optimize students' school satisfaction.

Background: Video lectures are one of the most popular educational media in an online environment. Despite the documented benefits of adopting humour in traditional educational instruction, few attempts have been made to investigate its effects on learning from video lectures.

Aims: The present study aimed to examine the effectiveness of related humour and unrelated humour when learning from video lectures. The expected outcome is to provide a more accurate guidance for the incorporation of humour with the video design for better instructional efficiency.

Methods: The present study adopted a within-subjects design, evidenced by both traditional and electroencephalography (EEG) measurements. Twenty-one undergraduate students watched three video lectures teaching different sets of English vocabulary words, providing differing extra information (related humour vs. unrelated humour vs. non-humour) after presenting lexical knowledge. EEGs of participants were assessed while watching learning content (i.e., lexical knowledge). Their self-reported learning experience (engagement and motivation) and learning outcomes were assessed after viewing whole video lectures.

Results: The results revealed whether related or unrelated humour designed in video lectures aroused better engagement and motivation than no humour ones, demonstrated by stronger EEG oscillations in alpha and beta frequencies across most brain regions. Furthermore, related humour was more beneficial to knowledge acquisition compared with no humour, as indicated by improved learning outcomes, whereas the impact of unrelated humour was not obvious. Although there were no differences in the learning outcomes and neural oscillations associated with cognitive processes between the related humour and the unrelated humour conditions, the self-reported learning experience was distinct between these two groups.

Conclusions: We discussed the findings in terms of heuristic value of humour approaches, especially related humour on the instructional design of video lectures.

Background: Executive functions (EFs) are critical in school and closely linked to academic achievement and learning-related behaviours (LRBs). LRBs encompass the ability to adapt to school demands, including concentration, adherence to rules, and autonomy.

Aims: This correlational study aimed to examine the mediating role of LRB in the association between EF and academic achievement in the first year of primary school.

Sample and method: Ninety-five first graders underwent a performance-based EF assessment, involving tasks related to working memory and inhibition. Concurrently, they completed literacy and math tasks, while their teacher provided reports on their LRBs.

Results: The results indicate that depending on the specific EF component or learning domain considered, diverse patterns emerge. Nevertheless, the findings consistently show that EFs are directly and indirectly associated with learning outcomes, with the mediating influence of LRBs.

Conclusions: These results emphasize the importance of supporting EF development into early education curricula.

Background: Research on the role of the physical school environment in areas other than educational psychology has documented the benefits of exposure to nature for cognitive and emotional functioning. Positive effects have been indicated not only after a break in nature in mentally fatigued students but also in students who did not have depleted mental resources when performing cognitive tasks in a green area.

Aims: We investigated the impact of the physical school environment during a single lesson. We also considered psychophysiological self-regulation as a possible moderator of the relationship between environment and learning.

Sample: We used data from 101 sixth and seventh graders for self-reported variables. Data about psychophysiological self-regulation, measured as resting cardiac vagal tone, was available for 83 students.

Method: In a within-participants research design, we compared the effects of a lesson in the classroom and a lesson in a green urban park close to the school - featuring numerous trees of different sizes, with lush foliage - on participants' affective state, perception of the environmental quality, and conceptual learning.

Results: After the lesson in nature, students reported more positive affect and perceived the park as a higher quality environment compared with the indoor classroom. Students with higher cardiac vagal tone learned more in nature, whereas this individual characteristic did not play a role in the classroom environment.

Conclusion: Passive exposure to nature during a school lesson has a positive affective impact and may also be beneficial for conceptual learning in combination with a higher ability to flexibly adapt to environmental demands.