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First-year university students (n = 199) completed an online questionnaire that queried their purchase of paper books and eBooks for university study and personal interest. The questionnaire also required students to rate their learning characteristics including reading strategies, study self-regulation, learning control beliefs and achievement motivation. Self-reported student learning characteristic scores were associated with self-reported book purchases. For example, as student extrinsic motivation scores increased, number of paper books purchased for university study tended to increase. As student learning control belief scores increased, purchase of eBooks for university study tended to increase. Collectively, such results lend support to the conclusion that education students who embrace emerging technologies such as eBooks and who read for leisure perceive themselves as more able learners than students who do not embrace emerging technologies such as eBooks and who do not read for leisure.

First-year university students (n = 199) completed an online questionnaire that queried their purchase of paper books and eBooks for university study and personal interest. The questionnaire also required students to rate their learning characteristics including reading strategies, study self-regulation, learning control beliefs and achievement motivation. Self-reported student learning characteristic scores were associated with self-reported book purchases. For example, as student extrinsic motivation scores increased, number of paper books purchased for university study tended to increase. As student learning control belief scores increased, purchase of eBooks for university study tended to increase. Collectively, such results lend support to the conclusion that education students who embrace emerging technologies such as eBooks and who read for leisure perceive themselves as more able learners than students who do not embrace emerging technologies such as eBooks and who do not read for leisure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of the study was to compare the verbal and physical interactions of same-gender pairs and mixed-gender pairs when equivalent tasks were presented on a computer and on paper. Children aged between 13 and 14 years old (24 boys and 24 girls) were placed into either same-gender or mixed-gender pairs and worked on a computer presentation and a paper presentation of an English language task. The main finding of the study was that the children's verbal interactions and manipulation of the physical materials were mediated by the mode of presentation. There were no significant differences between mixed-gender pairs and same-gender pairs in the paper presentation of the task. However, in the mixed-gender computer-based pairs, boys dominated both the amount and type of verbal interaction and the control of the mouse. These findings are explained in terms of gender differences in perceived expertise with computers and theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both medium (paper or screens) and interest have been noted as important factors in learning from reading text, but connections between them have not been examined. The purposes of this study are to examine whether reading medium and interest, both individual and situational, interact to predict performance on a reading assessment and whether medium affects situational interest. College students (N = 206) reported their individual interest in the content of a textbook excerpt, were randomly assigned to read a textbook excerpt from paper or screen, and then reported their situational interest in the textbook excerpt. Based on the findings of this study, individual interest did not interact with medium to predict reading performance; however, situational interest was more predictive of performance when reading from screens than from paper. Medium did not influence situational interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on the target group of students in higher education. It outlines the predictors and stability of learning approaches (deep vs. surface learning strategies); reasons for the increase in students' surface learning approach. An overview of the assessment requirements and the quality of teaching is presented.

Little is known about whether manipulatives can support children's inferences of the mathematical structure of word problems. The objective was to test the effects of using manipulatives during problem solving on students' understanding of the additive relationships in word problems. Third and fifth graders (N = 45) solved one-step addition and subtraction word problems that described either a mathematical action or relation. Children in each grade were randomly assigned to either a manipulatives or a paper-and-pencil condition. Problem structure understanding was assessed by the degree to which students' strategies and verbal justifications reflected the quantitative relationships described in the problem text. Performance of the fifth graders was not impacted by the use of manipulatives, but in the third grade, strategy performance with manipulatives was superior to performance without manipulatives on Relation problems. The degree to which the third graders' justifications were aligned with corresponding problem structure was positively impacted by manipulatives regardless of problem type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In accordance with self-determination theory, this paper examined whether punitive parenting (child and parent reports) would predict psychological well-being (i.e., self-esteem, affect, life satisfaction) of children with learning disabilities over time. We analysed data from 300 German children with learning disabilities who were surveyed in Grades 3 and 4 and their parents (N = 300), who were surveyed only once in Grade 3. Cross-sectional results in Grade 3 demonstrated negative associations between children's perceived punitive parenting and all child well-being outcomes, whereas parent report of punitive parenting was not associated with any well-being outcomes. In terms of longitudinal relations, children's perceptions of greater punitive parenting in Grade 3 resulted in greater negative affect in Grade 4. Results and implications of this paper are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which author discusses articles on topics including focuses on aims to understand the learning, teaching and well-being implications of pandemic as well as to provide evidence-based solutions to these key problems that are grounded in rigorous scientific research.

In studies of academic resilience, researchers seek to identify factors that protect against adverse effects caused by risk and stress, and which ultimately assist students to be academically successful. However, because relatively few studies are conducted in Asian settings, Western-based research may have limited application for policy and prevention in the Asian context. It is therefore important to expand the context and culture in which resilience research takes place. This paper highlights academic resilience factors among Asian students that are located in the multiple levels of the social ecology (including individual, peers, family and school). This is consistent with results from the Western context. However, it also reports on some differences in academic resilience factors that are found both within Asian countries and between Asian and Western countries. From these results, we might thus conclude that alongside pan-human factors, Asian students’ academic success can also be considered in part due to uniquely Asian attributes. This reaffirms the importance of considering culture and national context in studies of academic resilience. Taken as a whole, this collection of papers showcases multiple approaches to building academic resilience and empowering students and their educators and caregivers across the Asian region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This cross-sectional study looks into how students' perceived teacher support is linked to achievement emotions in mathematics via academic control and value. The data was gathered from 602 secondary students (13-16-year-olds) in 16 mathematics classrooms from three public schools in Jiangsu province, China. Participants were asked to respond to the paper-pencil questionnaire assessing students' perceived teacher support, cognitive appraisals, and achievement emotions in mathematics. Findings showed that cognitive appraisals played complete mediation roles in teacher support and achievement emotions. Intrinsic value and mathematics self-concept were shown to serve a positive role in teacher support and achievement emotions, whereas extrinsic value was found to play a negative one. Besides, teacher support showed the greatest indirect effect on achievement emotions through mathematics self-concept. Lastly, findings indicated the great relevance of teacher support to students' anger, boredom, enjoyment and relaxation in mathematics classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The worked example effect has been well documented within the framework of Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), which suggests that teaching with examples would be superior to engaging in unguided problem solving, particularly for novices, as using worked examples would reduce their cognitive load, compared to solving problems, thus facilitating knowledge retention. This paper, using multiple-step mathematics problems, reports an experiment investigating the micro level of the worked example effect on learning solution steps, from the perspective of cognitive load and challenge (as a relevant affective, motivational factor), testing the worked example effect with a transfer test. The results favoured worked examples on both the retention and transfer tests after learning and showed that using worked examples would reduce cognitive load and impose less challenge on each step during learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses papers on children's early literacy learning by scholars in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, whose teaching, writing and research have been influenced by Marie Clay's extraordinary contributions. Contexts for reading and writing; Marie's influence on educational psychologists, junior classroom teachers and primary school principals in New Zealand; Instructional processes, language and culture.

This paper investigated the association between students' perceptions of teacher autonomy-supportive and controlling interpersonal behaviours, positive and negative academic emotions, and subjective vitality and emotional exhaustion. Study 1 employed a cross-sectional survey design to collect data from 328 undergraduate students from three public universities in China. Study 2 employed an experimental design and collected data from 64 undergraduate students. The results of the structural equation modelling with latent variables indicated that teacher autonomy-supportive interpersonal behaviours did not reduce negative academic emotions, and negative emotions did not explain subjective vitality, while positive emotions did not explain emotional exhaustion. These findings suggest that positive and negative emotions are mutually exclusive in predicting subjective vitality and emotional exhaustion. The study discusses the implications of these findings for instructors' interpersonal behaviours and the role of emotions in predicting students' psychological well-being in the Chinese context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial design as a discipline relies on the psychological construct of space. In the light of shortcomings and challenges faced by traditional approaches to spatial design learning, this paper investigates the role and value of Virtual Reality (VR) as a pedagogic vehicle. Based on understandings informed by action-research using VR with learners in two modules, and underpinning interdisciplinary research on cognition, perception of space, and learning pedagogies; the paper works through defined research questions on both impact of learning with VR, development of spatial cognition with VR, and the differences between traditional approaches to spatial design curriculum and VR enabled approach and whether or not these differences are associated with differential outcomes. We propose VR enhanced design education pedagogical framework and argues that such an approach is needed to shape futuristic thinking in spatial design teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applies a Variance-Based Structural Equation Modelling, to preliminarily assess the School Level Environment Questionnaire (SLEQ) in the context of high school education in Vietnam. The paper then identified school climate factors affecting teacher self-efficacy and stress. Also, the study was conducted to test the relationship between stress and teacher self-efficacy. Data were collected from 628 high school teachers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Of school climate factors, the study shows that affiliation, innovation, and professional interest had a positive direct impact on teacher self-efficacy and that student conduct and staff autonomy had a negative direct impact on their perceived stress. This study also confirms that work pressure of school climate had a positive direct impact on teacher stress beliefs. Surprisingly, staff autonomy had a positive direct impact on teacher self-efficacy and a negative direct impact on teacher stress. Practically, these findings suggest that to improve teachers' sense of efficacy, high school leaders in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam can take action to improve a supportive school climate by focussing on affiliation. This study also reflects the efforts of Vietnam in its education reform which also requires teacher efforts in changing teaching methods through continuous professional development. In addition to the development of a supportive school climate, staff autonomy is also a concern requiring consideration to reduce stress for teachers, which was not reported elsewhere. Theoretically, this study contributes to the inconclusive relation between the three constructs: school climate, teacher stress, and self-efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented which discusses articles within the issue on topics including development of literacy skills in early childhood, role of soft skills in predicting the reading performance of second graders in Tanzania, and role of trust in relating organizational justice.

The writing approach framework provides a comprehensive perspective on college-level academic writing based on the relationship of writers' beliefs and strategies to the quality of written outcomes. However, despite increased demands for more and better writing at the graduate level, little is known about graduate-level writing processes or about the beliefs of graduate students regarding writing. The goals of this project were the preliminary development of a factor analytic model of graduate writing processes, and of an inventory to measure writing strategies. The results support seven independent factors: elaborative, low self-efficacy, no revision, intuitive, scientist, task-oriented, and sculptor, with the intuitive factor predictive of an academic writing outcome. Suggestions are advanced for classroom instruction and for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue which includes how perceived satisfaction or frustration of competence, autonomy, and relatedness needs was related to job satisfaction and how teachers cope with stress and how this affects their well-being.

This study investigated the effectiveness of using a sequence of worked examples as part of the feedback cycle. Worked examples were either presented as full worked examples or partial worked examples (single-step and completion formats). In two experiments, grade 8 students completed a learning phase on a mathematics topic, which was immediately followed by a testing phase. A day later, participants were given feedback on their test papers and provided worked examples to problems where errors were made, and then re-tested. In Experiment 1 (N = 73), studying full worked examples led to greater improvement than studying single-step worked examples. In Experiment 2 (N = 74), full worked examples led to greater improvement than studying either single-step worked examples or completion worked examples. Furthermore, no learning differences were found when learner errors were directly flagged or otherwise. In conclusion, providing full worked examples as feedback to novice learners was helpful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an introduction to articles published in the April 2005 issue of the periodical "Educational Psychology."

Most studies, to date, have ignored variance in teachers' self-efficacy (TSE) in relation to teaching individual students (i.e., student-specific self-efficacy). However, TSE and teacher efficacy differ among students. Thus, this study examines dyadic TSE in four domains and their correlations with students' perceptions of teacher efficacy and student academic self-concept and well-being. Results of a paper–pencil survey involving 29 teachers and 469 students (39.9% girls, aged 10–17 years) from German secondary schools reveal a moderate overlap between dyadic TSE and students' perceptions of teacher efficacy. Furthermore, they reveal variance in how teachers' and students' ratings are related. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a study using a quasi-experimental design to examine whether an academic writing course in English can improve graduate students’ academic and popular science writing skills. To address this issue, we designed pre- and post-assessment tasks, an intervention assessment task and a scoring rubric. The pre- and post-assessment tasks included writing in contrasting genres, i.e. an academic paper abstract to assess academic writing and a press release to assess popular science writing. Students’ pre- and post-assessment tasks were rated using a newly developed rubric addressing English proficiency, and academic and popular science writing skills. The rubric was based on course material, previous research and a pilot study. The study analysed 177 non-native English science and engineering graduate students’ writing in a compulsory Academic Writing in English course at the beginning and end of a 14-week semester. Findings indicated significant improvement in academic and popular science writing, as well as improvement in students’ English language proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Investigates the development of children's ability to balance objects on a fulcrum using Karmiloff-Smith's theory on cognitive development. Features of Karmiloff-Smith's theory; Three phases that children pass through in their understanding of a domain according to the theory; Method and results of the study; Similarity on the children's behavior observed in the investigation with the behavior described in the theory.

This paper discusses the effect of clustering on statistical tests and illustrates this effect using classroom environment data. Most classroom environment studies involve the collection of data from students nested within classrooms and the hierarchical nature to these data cannot be ignored. In particular, this paper studies the influence of intraclass correlations on tests of statistical significance conducted with the individual as the unit of analysis. Theory that adjusts t-test scores for nested data in two-group comparisons is presented and applied to classroom environment data. This paper demonstrates that Type I error rates inflate greatly as the intraclass correlation increases. Data analysis techniques that recognise the clustering of students in classrooms in classroom environment studies are essential, and it is recommended that either multilevel analysis or adjustments to statistical parameters be undertaken in studies involving nested data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents evidence how pupils choose different types of non-monetary rewards for educational attainment. These rewards are external to the learning process, but unlike cash-for-grades rewards internal to the practice of schooling. We collected data from a non-incentivized survey and an incentivized survey, which was part of a larger field experiment. The non-incentivized survey was conducted prior to the field experiment to elicit pupils' stated preferences over seventeen non-monetary rewards and to choose the rewards for the field experiment. In the incentivized survey, pupils then had the freedom to choose one out of four rewards: (i) a medal, (ii) a parent-letter, (iii) a no-homework voucher, or (iv) a surprise, allowing us to elicit pupils' valuation for different non-monetary rewards. We found that the preferred non-monetary reward varied by pupils' ability. Low-performing pupils were significantly more likely to choose the parent-letter than high-performing pupils. Moreover, we found little evidence for heterogeneous preferences by socioeconomic background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experiment was conducted to examine the impact of background soap operas on homework performance and time. Students in grade eight (aged 14) (n 3192) did paper-and-pencil and memorisation assignments with two types of soap opera episodes in the background, or the soundtrack of soap operas, or no medium. In each condition, half of the students were observed. Results indicated that students in the television conditions performed worse and used more time than students in the control condition. No significant differences were found between the audio-only and control conditions. Observational data showed that the extension of time in the television conditions was completely due to the fact that students used time to look at the screen. Although the television did not reduce time spent looking at the task, performance did decrease, probably because the alternation of resources between homework and television led to less thorough processing of the assignments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces papers featured in the April 2006 issue of "Educational Psychology," which is focused on affective and social outcomes of schooling. Most of the papers use longitudinal studies which measure the attribution, academic interest, cognitive habits and other affective outcomes of the same group of students repeatedly over time. Some of the studies focus on students' attributional beliefs about their academic success and failure, on sophomores' academic motivation, on students' views on constructive relationships with others and on learning environments.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the rapid developments in educational psychology, the multi-lingual learners' psychology of learning and the different learning strategies of the students.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including motivation in education, academic achievement, and self-estimation bias in mathematics competence.

While research on metacognition, self-regulation and self-regulated learning is quite mature, these studies have been carried out with varying methodologies and with mixed results. This paper explores the ontological and epistemological assumptions of theories, models and methods used to investigate these three constructs to examine the underlying assumptions of all three. Using oft-cited theories and models of the three constructs along with highly cited studies identified in a previous review of these constructs, this paper examined facets of two popular frameworks: Cartesian-split-mechanistic tradition (CSMT) and the relational tradition specifically looking at the role of intra-individual development, the inclusiveness of categories and notions of causality in these theories, models and methods. While the theories and methods contained elements of both traditions, methods to investigate these constructs relied almost exclusively on assumptions from CSMT. Future directions for research include incorporating more studies examining intra-individual change and multiple notions of causality. Future directions for practice include better contextualisation of research results to strengthen the link between theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity and imagination in education are increasingly emphasised around the world. However, a lack of these qualities in Chinese societies has been discussed in the academia and popular media, and attributed to various factors, standardised testing chief among them. In Taiwan, a team of scholars working with the Ministry of Education has, since the turn of the century, made special efforts to do research and promote creativity and imagination in education. This paper traces the development of policies and action plans and the implementation of creativity education and imagination in education programmes in Taiwan. Both programmes start from elementary school and go through higher education, and also include lifelong learners and administrators; they are, thus, inclusive of all levels within Taiwan’s educational system. This paper cites examples of the action plans and their effects. Finally, implications for educational policy and teaching and learning are drawn from the Taiwan experience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper applies the Four C Model of Creativity (‘Big-C, little-c, mini-c and Pro-c’) to determine Chinese students’ perceptions of their own creativity and their perceptions of Western students’ creativity. By surveying 100 Chinese students and interviewing 10 of them, this paper discovered that Chinese students generally perceived their creativity to be less than that of Western students. Differences on mini-c and Pro-c were larger in the direction of Western students being superior, and the items that differed in the opposite direction and those which did not differ were part of the subset of little-c items. The perceived superiority of Western students was not as strong in final-year students. Suggestions are proposed on how to nurture students’ creativity within context of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We examined the effects of motivational interference resulting from tempting action alternatives among a sample of university students with respect to a new measure of different motivational qualities. Participants imagined themselves in a typical study–leisure conflict and provided information about their internal conflict experience in two scenarios: reading a course paper instead of meeting friends and vice versa. Participants then evaluated intrinsic, mastery, approach, avoidance, and external incentives for both activities. Confirmatory factor analyses yielded good model fits for the proposed five-factor incentive structure. In accordance with the idea of motivational interference, the incentives for meeting friends were positively related to experienced internal conflict while imagining studying, representing opportunity costs of learning. The same pattern was found for the opportunity costs that the participants had experienced while imagining meeting friends. In particular, intrinsic and approach incentives represented incremental opportunity costs of activity engagement, regardless of whether the dismissed activity was related to achievement or leisure. The findings highlight the need to apply a dynamic and context-sensitive perspective on achievement motivation to the context of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 3P (presage, process, product) model was introduced as a conceptualisation to underpin research into students' approaches to learning (SAL). This paper proposes the refocusing of the 3P model by formulating the initial presage phase as a teaching and learning environment, thus making the 3P model more consistent with SAL research which examines the influence of perceptions of aspects of teaching, learning and assessment on approaches to learning. The method was to use structural equation modelling to test a hypothesised version of the refocused 3P model. Data from a questionnaire administered to students at a university in Hong Kong showed a good fit to the data. The model showed that a teaching and learning environment influenced approaches to learning then impacted on the attainment of graduate attributes. The model showed that a well-designed teaching and learning environment, including teacher-student and student-student interaction, plus a lively co-curriculum had a part to play in promoting deep approaches to learning. Deep approaches then had a positive effect on attribute development in students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on civic education, for the most part, investigates the alleged outcomes of deliberate civic education programs. Remarkably, few types of research have investigated how the outcomes of group process (e.g. based on religion) in schools, and more specifically, the pressure to conform to in-group norms, relate to civic educational goals (e.g. promoting tolerance for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender people). Against that background, this paper has two objectives. First, we assess social variation in perceived social pressure for religious conformity among Christian and Muslim Youth enrolled in secondary education in Flanders (N = 2765). Second, we investigate the relationship between perceived social pressure for religious conformity and anti-gay sentiment. Our analyses are guided by social identity theory and rely on multilevel analysis. We find that for both Christian and Muslim youth, anti-gay sentiment is higher among young people who experience higher social pressure through the perceived expectations from talking with significant others about religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examined if difficulty in reading comprehension (PISA) is distinct from difficulty in reading fluency and if the distinct types of reading difficulties are differently associated with learning motivation, school burnout, and school enjoyment. The participants were 1324 Finnish ninth graders. Findings suggested that difficulties in reading comprehension are often distinct from difficulties in reading fluency. Three reading difficulty groups were identified: (1) poor readers with both fluency and reading comprehension difficulties (n = 46, 3.5%), (2) slow readers with only fluency difficulties (n = 70, 5.3%), and (3) poor comprehenders with only reading comprehension difficulties (n = 88, 6.5%). The slow readers had low scores only in reading-related motivation. Poor comprehenders and poor readers reported low motivation also in math and science, as well as higher level of burnout and lower school enjoyment than typical readers. The findings were similar for boys and girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pluralisation of European societies has produced national and cultural diversification, increasing the need for communication and understanding to support recognition, equality, justice, self-determination and identification with others. This paper responds to the social and political challenges accompanying immigration by focusing on gender differences in intercultural competence among a selection of Danish and Norwegian secondary school students. Data came from questionnaires given to 895 students from four schools—two Danish and two Norwegian. One major finding was gender differences in intercultural competence, which is discussed using inclusive citizenship theory, gender socialization theory and feminist standpoint theory. For the control variables, cultural capital theory and intergroup contact theory were used to analyse students' experiences of school diversity and their intercultural competence. School diversity contributed moderately to greater intercultural competence while moderate differences arose between national samples. Finally, teaching implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a central problem for the theory of field dependence-its relationship with intelligence. Measures of field dependence (e.g. the Embedded Figures Test, EFT) are often found unable to display discriminant validity with conventional intelligence tests. Field independence is often associated with higher intelligence. This has resulted in an unhelpful see-saw debate as to whether field independence is, or is not, another manifestation of greater intelligence. Furthermore, they have only been able to discuss the quantitative differences between the styles. This paper is divided into three parts. Firstly, it examines research between field dependence and psychometrical intelligence, including a recent study which uses the Cognitive Styles Analysis (CSA) and compares the results with the Embedded Figures Test (EFT) to address the issue of whether the EFT is a valid measure of field dependence theory. The main part presents an argument for seeking a relationship with the componential subtheory of the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (Sternberg, 1985a), which may have greater potential for describing qualitative differences in intellectual functioning. It is proposed that field-independents may be associated with a heuristic routine that gives priority to selective encoding and selective comparing. By contrast, field-dependents may give priority to selective combining and selective comparing. The third part of the paper offers a brief summary of a study which empirically explores these proposed associations using both the EFT and CSA to measure FI. The findings reveal that, in both cases, some degree of functional association is found. However, the relationship is stronger with the latter measure. The conclusion of the paper is that Witkin's theory of field dependence may be usefully observed and informed through Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diagnostic assessment approaches intend to provide fine-grained reports of what students know and can do, focusing on their areas of strengths and weaknesses. However, current application of such diagnostic approaches is limited by the scoring method for item responses; important diagnostic information, such as type of errors and strategy use is lost or neglected when item-level responses are scored only for correctness. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a scoring method that classifies responses into concept-based nominal categories. In this paper, we describe the methodology of developing concept-based rubrics, and present an empirical examination of the construct validity of the scores in comparison to the scores based on conventional correctness rubrics. Utilising Multiple Correspondence Analysis, the results show that the categorical scores do not only reflect what the correctness scores capture, but also provide additional information that communicates aspects of student performance crucial for learning but neglected by conventional scoring methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, teachers evaluate students’ abilities via their total test scores. Recently, cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) have begun to provide information about the presence or absence of students’ skills or misconceptions. Nevertheless, CDMs are typically applied to tests with multiple-choice (MC) items, which provide less diagnostic information than constructed-response (CR) items. This paper introduces new CDMs for tests with both MC and CR items, and illustrates how to use them to analyse MC and CR data, and thus, identify students’ skills and misconceptions in a mathematics domain. Analyses of real data, the responses of 497 sixth-grade students randomly selected from four Taiwanese primary schools to eight direct proportion items, were conducted to demonstrate the application of the new models. The results show that the new models can better determine students’ skills and misconceptions, in that they have higher inter-rater agreement rates than traditional CDMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper reports a simple experiment which explores young children's written representation of number. Previous research (e.g. Hughes, 1983; Sinclair, Siegrist & Sinclair, 1982) has shown that several factors may influence the extent to which children will spontaneously deploy their knowledge of numerals to represent numerosity, but the available evidence is insufficient to provide a clear account of the relative weight of these factors. The present experiment involved presenting five to six year‐old children with arrays of simple objects and manipulating the wording of the instructions. The results showed that the use of the term ‘how many’ led the vast majority of the children to show numerosity by using materials. In contrast, when asked to represent ‘what’ they could see, most children concerned themselves with depicting the nature of the objects in the array by drawing or writing. These findings suggest that the linguistic context of the task is important in determining the children's representational strategies. Furthermore, it is argued that children's understanding of number and their ability to use numerals is quite separable from their knowledge of when it is appropriate to deploy these skills. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]