摘要:

This study investigates whether children with moderate learning difficulties (MLDs) have a knowledge of which mnemonic strategies are available and applicable across a range of hypothetical memory tasks. The study compared the strategic awareness of 20 MLD and 20 typical children. Recall tasks were varied to include both discrete, abstract or context free items (described as ‘non‐authentic’) and meaningful items (described as ‘authentic’). The results suggest that, when required to make strategic judgments relating to the recall of non‐authentic items, MLD children are significantly less efficient than their typical peers. Under these task conditions, the modal strategy mentioned was of the ‘look/think/say’ variety. By way of contrast, when required to make strategic judgments relating to the recall of authentic items the MLD children demonstrated mnemonic awareness that was equal to that of their typical peers. The implications of this for the design of strategy training programmes are discussed, with particular reference to the need to utilise the mnemonic awareness already at the disposal

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1996.tb01185.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This paper examines the effects of season of birth and gender on academic achievement and cognitive abilities in children attending moderate learning difficulty schools. Given the high preponderance of both boys and children born in summer attending special schools it is important to consider how well these children perform in relation to their peers. A multivariate analysis reveals that both boys and summer born children perform better on tests of intelligence, mathematical ability, and reading comprehension. Summer born children also perform better on a test of communication skills. Discriminant functions analysis reveals that for both gender and season of birth IQ is the major predictor variable followed by reading comprehension, mathematical ability and communication skill. For gender, IQ discriminates more successfully than the other variables, whereas with season of birth the relative sizes of the effects are more comparable. The results of the analysis are discussed in terms of the implications for the identification of children for placement in moderate learning difficulty schools.

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1996.tb01186.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The study dealt with the problem whether the effects of an experimental training programme would improve (1) children's strategies in writing and (2) the quality of their related text production. The study was organised as a pretest‐posttest control‐group design with an equal number of fourth grade students in the experimental and control group. Students in the experimental group were trained on a programme with writing‐related strategies during six sessions in a laboratory equipped with required instrumentation for data collection. The results indicated that some across‐domain strategies and most of the domain‐specific strategies were improved by the programme. Also a positive transfer effect was observed concerning students' writing attainments, particularly with regard to writing tasks based on series of

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1996.tb01187.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The present study investigated the simultaneous effects of a problem‐solving based Logo environment on children's metacomponents, knowledge acquisition components regarding graphing skills, and figural creativity. Participants were 108 fifth‐grade children who studied in four classrooms. Intact classrooms were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a problem‐solving based Logo environment called Logo‐Stat, or a comparison. The duration of the study was one semester. Results showed significant multivariate effects on metacomponents, knowledge acquisition components, and creativity, in favour of the Logo‐Stat group. Univariate analyses indicated that knowledge acquisition components and certain aspects of figural creativity (e.g., originality) and metacomponents (e.g., correctness) were more strongly affected by Logo‐Stat than others (e.g., fluency, flexibility, and utilisation). The theoretical and practical implications ar

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1996.tb01188.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This study is concerned with the differences in the prevalence of maladaptive motivational styles in a school population in aspects of two National Curriculum core subjects: English and mathematics. Using a curriculum‐based adaptation of procedures devised by Craske (1988), all pupils in Years 7,9 and 11 of two secondary schools, and all pupils in Year 6 of 11 of their feeder primary schools, were categorised into one of three motivational styles: learned helplessness, self‐worth motivation and mastery orientation. These three motivational styles are concerned with the ways in which pupils respond in the face of a perceived threat of failure on an educational task. Mastery orientation is considered adaptive while learned helplessness and self‐worth motivation are considered maladaptive. This study compares the prevalence of each motivational style in English comprehension with that of mathematics and provides empirical evidence of a higher prevalence of maladaptive motivational styles in English comprehension than in mathematics irrespective of age, gender, ethnic origin and non‐verbal reasoning ability. The findings support the view that motivational style is more a product of situational than individual variables. Implications for the development of domain‐specific motivational style are

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1996.tb01189.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This study compared levels of mathematics achievement between Canadian and Hong Kong Chinese children and explored the relations between perceptions of children's competence and mathematics achievement. The Canadian sample was made up of 125 4th‐grade children who were randomly selected from five schools in Calgary. A comparative sample of 128 children was drawn from five Chinese‐speaking schools in Hong Kong. Parents, teachers and children rated children's competence and a mathematics achievement test was given to the children. Hong Kong Chinese children outperformed their Canadian peers in the mathematics test. However, ratings of children's scholastic/mathematical abilities by Canadian respondents were significantly higher than those by Hong Kong Chinese informants. The Harter Self‐Perception Profile Scale revealed that the aspects of themselves considered most important for sense of general self‐worth were for Canadian children: physical appearance and social acceptance, for Hong Kong children: behavioural conduct and scholastic competence. Discussion centres on the contributions that expectations and evaluations of competence and self‐worth make to the large difference in the mean levels of mathematics achievement between children in the two

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1996.tb01190.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The research literature indicates that students tend to achieve better in a learning environment close to their preference. It was hypothesised that the congruence between the preferred and actual classroom environments would have an effect on students' learning and the impact would be more salient among low rather than high self‐monitoring individuals since the latter can more easily adapt themselves to situations. This hypothesis was supported by regression surface analyses in a study of 356 Hong Kong secondary school students using an instrument developed to assess the psychosocial environment of Hong Kong mathematics classroom

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1996.tb01191.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Gender has been linked to disparity in the uptake and experience of education, both within schools and in further and higher education. Despite an overall rise in the proportion of female undergraduates, the physical sciences and technological courses have failed to attract increased numbers of female applicants. The career aspirations of school pupils were investigated to identify disparities between the aspirations of males and females, and their schematic representations of social and technical roles. One hundred and six school pupils, aged 16–18, were presented with a 34‐item Q‐sample relating to career choice. The cards were sorted twice, once from the perspective of a hypothetical male or female sixth year school pupil who had decided to enter a technically or a socially oriented career, and once from their own perspective. Analysis was undertaken in two stages utilising Q‐methodology and discriminant function analysis. Discriminant function analysis of the aspiration data failed to discriminate between the career aspirations of male and female school pupils. Further analysis between male and female pupils' perceptions of the ‘technical’ and ‘social’ roles, derived from the Q‐factor analysis, produced two discriminant functions. Male and female group means veered in the ‘expected’ direction; however they were in fact closer to each other than to the stereotypical ‘technical’ or ‘social’ group means. The authors suggest that it is not technology per se that females find off‐putting but their

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1996.tb01192.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

In this study the validity and reliability of the revised version of Kolb's (1985) Learning Style Inventory are investigated using the responses to the LSI2 of 187 Arts and Science students in an Australian university. Results indicate high internal consistency of the LSI2 scales and some evidence of validity. While, as predicted, four factors forming two bipolar dimensions were found for the Science subsample, for the Arts subsample Active Experimentation formed the anticipated bipolar dimension with Reflective Observation, but also with Concrete Experience and Abstract Conceptualisation. Higher mean scores for Arts students on Concrete Experience and for Science students on Active Experimentation conform to results obtained for the LSI1 (Kolb, 1976). Mean scores indicate no significant differences on the basis of gender, but students who completed the majority of their primary and secondary schooling in Asia scored higher means on Concrete Experience, which is possibly attributable to cultural influences upon learning styles.

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1996.tb01193.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The aim of this study was to assess the claims by Stothard&Hulme (1991) that the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability Revised is systematically biased against boys, suffers from an inappropriate gradation in question difficulty in the comprehension subtest of Form 2 of the test and that as a consequence, Form 1 and Form 2 of the test are not parallel. A stratified random sampling procedure based on socio‐economic status of schools in Victoria, Australia, was used to select 250 children who were administered both forms of the test. The results suggest that girls and boys do not differ significantly at different age levels in Accuracy or Comprehension scores on either form of the test. Mean Comprehension scores for passages 5 and 6 of Form 2 of the Australian edition of the test were in the expected direction for both boys and girls, supporting the test's assertion regarding the item difficulty for each passage. Further reliability data are provided to support the equivalence of the norms for each form claimed by the test manual. In summary no evidence has been found in these data to support the claims of Stothard&Hulm

ISSN:0007-0998    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1996.tb01194.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY