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Inconsistent results are observed in the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) with different montages on motor learning. This study aimed to compare the effects of anodal and cathodal tDCS (c-tDCS) over primary motor cortex (M1) at different intensities on motor learning in healthy young adults. The participants were randomly divided into: (1) 1 mA M1 c-tDCS, (2) 1 mA M1 anodal tDCS (a-tDCS), (3) 2 mA M1 c-tDCS, (4) 2 mA M1 a-tDCS and (5) M1 sham tDCS groups. The groups received 20-min stimulation with serial reaction time task (SRTT) incidentally, while the tDCS was turned off after 30 s in the sham tDCS group. Response time (RT) and error rate (ER) during SRTT were assessed prior, during and 72 h after the intervention. The results of the paired t-test indicated that online learning occurred in all groups (p < 0.05), except in M1 c-tDCS (1 mA) (p > 0.05). One-way ANOVA analysis also indicated that there were differences in offline learning (RT (F(DF) = 5.19(4); p < 0.001; and ER (F(DF) = 9(4), p < 0.0001) among groups, with more offline learning in 1 mA M1 a-tDCS, 2 mA M1 c-tDCS and 2 mA M1 a-tDCS groups (p < 0.05). On the other hand, the 1 mA M1 c-tDCS group did not indicate any consolidation effect or even a trend toward negative offline learning. M1 a-tDCS with different intensities and also 2 mA M1 c-tDCS may be helpful for the enhancement of motor learning in young healthy adults. This study enhances our understanding of tDCS intensity and polarity effects on motor learning, with potential for optimizing therapeutic protocols., (© 2024 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Aim: This review is intended to adapt the current conceptual framework in dental education based on four domains to propose a set of competences, learning outcomes and methods of teaching, learning and assessment for undergraduate education in periodontology., Review: Based on the current framework of competences and learning outcomes recommended by the Association for Dental Education in Europe (ADEE), undergraduate education in periodontology has been updated using the classification and clinical practice guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of periodontal and peri-implant diseases., Conclusions: Specific learning outcomes have been proposed within each competence area, that is in Domain I (n = 10), Domain II (n = 13), Domain III (n = 33) and Domain IV (n = 12). Teaching methods and learning activities based on the different dimensions of the cognitive process have been proposed. Additionally, 10 key learning outcomes have been proposed as exit outcomes, which implies their accomplishment within the final assessment of any graduating student., (© 2024 The Authors. Journal of Clinical Periodontology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Prior beliefs are central to Bayesian accounts of cognition, but many of these accounts do not directly measure priors. More specifically, initial states of belief heavily influence how new information is assumed to be utilized when updating a particular model. Despite this, prior and posterior beliefs are either inferred from sequential participant actions or elicited through impoverished means. We had participants to play a version of the game 'Plinko', to first elicit individual participant priors in a theoretically agnostic manner. Subsequent learning and updating of participant beliefs was then directly measured. We show that participants hold various priors that cluster around prototypical probability distributions that in turn influence learning. In follow-up studies, we show that participant priors are stable over time and that the ability to update beliefs is influenced by a simple environmental manipulation (i.e., a short break). These data reveal the importance of directly measuring participant beliefs rather than assuming or inferring them as has been widely done in the literature to date. The Plinko game provides a flexible and fecund means for examining statistical learning and mental model updating., (© 2024 The Author(s). British Journal of Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The British Psychological Society.)

Background: The importance of parent-teacher relationships has been well-discussed in Western contexts. It's still unclear whether and how parent-teacher relationships affect students' academic development, especially in the context of China's uneven development between urban and suburban areas., Aims: This study examined the urban-suburban differences in the influence of the parent-teacher relationships on students' learning engagement during the last 3 years of primary school to contribute to related policy and practice., Sample and Methods: Data were collected annually during the summer period in three waves from Grades 4 to 6. The sample included 1408 students (M age  = 10.35, SD = .48; 49.1% boys) paired with their mothers (M age  = 38.82, SD = 3.54), with 643 pairs from urban areas and 765 pairs from suburban areas in China. In each wave, the parents reported the frequency of contact with their child's teacher during the previous school year as well as the quality of their relationship, and the students reported their learning engagement. Latent growth models were used to examine the hypotheses., Results: A statistically significant decline in learning engagement was seen only in suburban students, while the parent-teacher relationships seemed to increase for both suburban and urban participants. Latent growth modelling showed that the increasing levels of relationship quality reduced the decline in the suburban students' learning engagement, although the contact between parents and teachers did not play such a positive role for both urban and suburban students., Conclusions: The findings reveal a compensatory effect of the quality of the parent-teacher relationship on suburban students' learning engagement. Considering the difference in students' learning engagement between urban and suburban students, increased effort on high-quality parent-teacher relationships for suburban students is required to better support their academic development., (© 2024 British Psychological Society.)

Undergraduate introductory human anatomy and human physiology courses are either taught as discipline-specific or integrated anatomy and physiology (A&P) sequences. An institution underwent a curricular revision to change the course approach from discipline-specific Human Anatomy and Human Physiology to an integrated A&P I and II sequence, allowing the unique opportunity to explore the potential role of contextual learning in academic achievement and content retention. Mediation and moderation analysis was used to evaluate lecture examinations, laboratory practical examinations, and anatomical content retention between the different course approaches. Undergraduate students in the integrated A&P I course approach performed significantly better on lecture assessments and had a higher anatomy content retention rate at the end of the year than students enrolled in the standalone Human Anatomy course. The lecture examination averages between Human Physiology and A&P II (the second course in the sequence), as well as the anatomy laboratory practical examinations, were not significantly different between discipline-specific and integrated course approaches. The results suggest contextual learning-providing physiological context to anatomical structures-increases the anatomical content retention and academic achievement overall., (© 2024 American Association for Anatomy.)

Nursing education is being cited frequently as an example of adult education. Mentorship is also a concept that has been adopted as an approach to enhancing learning in the clinical setting. This paper examines, critically, the notions of adult learning, andragogy and mentorship and explores their relationship to modern nursing educational practice.

In Sweden, the formal soccer coach education programs are divided into different levels and are also divided into youth coaching and senior coaching. This paper focuses on youth soccer coaches and their reflections on coach education programs. In the background section the Swedish context is described, as well as current research on coaches’ education and learning. The aim of the paper was to investigate youth soccer coaches’ reflections on coach education programs and to analyse their reflections by using a cultural approach to learning. The empirical material of the paper derives from a web-based questionnaire, posing questions about competence, learning and stress. The coaches were also invited to reflect on the question “how do you believe that soccer associations can educate good coaches?” There were 369 responses, and these were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Results indicated reflections about Flexibility in time, place and content, Mentorship supporting informal learning, Demanding mandatory education and emolument, Education focusing on wholeness and Education being based in practice. The conclusion was that decentralization of education and development of coaches’ contexts, abilities and motivation to critically analyse aims and contents of coach education programs are improvement areas for learning and coaching practices.

Medical education research subjects are incredibly diverse and have changed over time. This work in particular aims to compare and analyze research trends in medical education through the words used in the titles of these research papers. Academic Medicine (the journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges), Medical Teacher (the journal of the Association of Medical Education in Europe), the Korean Journal of Medical Education (KJME), and Korean Medical Education Review (KMER) were selected and analyzed for the purposes of this research. From 2009 to 2018, Academic Medicine and Medical Teacher published approximately 10 to 20 times more papers than the KJME and KMER. Frequently used words in these titles include “medical,” “student,” “education,” and “learning.” The words “clinical” and “learning” were used relatively often (7.80% to 13.66%) in Korean journals and Medical Teacher, but Academic Medicine used these phrases relatively less often (6.47% and 4.41%, respectively). Concern with such various topics as problem-based learning, team-based learning, program evaluations, burnout, e-learning, and digital indicates that Medical Teacher seems to primarily deal with teaching and learning methodologies, and Academic Medicine handles all aspects of medical education. The KJME and KMER did not cover all subjects, as they publish smaller papers. However, it is anticipated that research on new subjects, such as artificial intelligence in medical education, will occur in the near future.

The article presents the discussion on National and state level curriculum documents showing attention talking for learning as well as a demonstration of learning. Topics include British education system giving rise to major reports addressing across time and the need for greater attention to oral language; and texts being used for drawing students' attention to the writer's craft and making explicit students using models for the own writing.

In "Media and the Mind: Art, Science, and Notebooks as Paper Machines, 1700–1830," Matthew Daniel Eddy explores student notebooks from Enlightenment Scotland, arguing that they functioned as "paper machines" that facilitated cognitive processing and knowledge management. Eddy's study is based on extensive archival material collected from various sources in Scotland. He situates the notekeepers and their practices within the broader social, intellectual, and cultural processes of the eighteenth century, contributing to our understanding of the popular Enlightenment. Eddy's analysis offers valuable insight into how student notebooks aided a dynamic learning process, reframing them as interactive technologies that facilitated learning, agency, and reasoning. [Extracted from the article]

This large-scale and longitudinal study examines early home support for learning, formal/informal home mathematics activities, and their associations with children's mathematical development between age two and six. Data were collected in Germany between 2012 and 2018, N = 1184 (49% girls, 51% boys), and 15% of children had parents with a migration history. Linguistically and mathematically stimulating, attentive, and responsive parent-child engagement at age two predicted children's mathematical skills at age four and six (small-to-medium effect size). Both formal and informal home mathematical activities at age five predicted children's mathematical skills at age six (small effect size), and were associated with children's prior mathematics attainment. This study also provides indicators where individual differences and social circumstances are relevant to understanding different early mathematics outcomes., (© 2023 The Authors. Child Development published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Research in Child Development.)

Engineering ethics is a required aspect of accredited ABET programs, but there is widespread variation in how ethics is taught, to what ends, and how those ends are assessed. This variation makes it challenging to identify practices for teaching ethics to engineers aligned with extant practices in the field. In this study, we revise a recent coding framework by reviewing exemplary engineering ethics programs recognized by the National Academy of Engineering in 2016, or what we refer to as "exemplars." We pursue two primary objectives: (1) To apply and revise a prior coding framework to codify ethics learning objectives, instructional strategies, and assessment strategies in engineering education; and (2) To use the revised coding framework to identify trends in learning objectives, instructional strategies, and assessment strategies of NAE exemplars. We employ systemic review procedures to update the coding framework using 24 of 25 exemplars as a data source. The updated framework includes four primary categories associated with learning objectives, instructional strategies, assessment data collection strategies, and assessment design characteristics. Results indicate that ethical sensitivity or awareness was present in every exemplar as a learning objective, often alongside ethical reasoning-based learning objectives and the formation of professional skills. Exemplars employed numerous instructional strategies in tandem, as we coded eight out of 18 instructional strategies among at least half of the exemplars. Assignments/homework and summative reflections were the most oft-used sources of assessment data. Due to our challenges in coding assessment approaches, we offer practical suggestions for assessing engineering ethics instruction which are based on many of our coding discussions. We hope that this coding framework, the results classifying exemplary features of the NAE programs, and our practical suggestions can guide future instructors as they design, classify, assess, and report their approaches to engineering ethics education., (© 2023. This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply.)

This study shed light on the effects of four modes of vocabulary instruction, i.e., extended audio glossing, lexical inferencing, lexical translation, and frequency manipulation of input on the learning of lexical collocations by Iranian intermediate EFL learners. In so doing, 80 L1 Persian EFL students were divided into four 20-participant comparison groups: Lexical Inferencing (LI), Extended Audio Glossing (EAG), Frequency Manipulation of Input (FM), and the Lexical Translation group (LT). LI, EAG, FM, and LT were treated through lexical inferencing, extended audio glossing, skewed frequency of input, and lexical translation techniques, respectively. The participants were pretested and posttested through a piloted multiple-choice lexical collocation test and instructed for ten instructional sessions. The results of the data, analyzed through repeated measures ANCOVA, showed that all the techniques examined in this study were effective on learners' achievement in lexical collocations. Comparatively, FM treated through frequency manipulation of input, significantly outperformed the other groups in lexical collocation improvement. The ANCOVA results and paired comparisons also indicated that EAG had the least achievement in lexical collocation compared to the other three groups. These results can hopefully inform language teachers, learners, and syllabus designers., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Background: Computer programming, the process of designing, writing, and testing executable computer code, is an essential skill in numerous fields. A description of the neural structures engaged and modified during programming skill acquisition could help improve training programs and provide clues to the neural substrates underlying the acquisition of related skills., Methods: Fourteen female university students without prior computer programing experience were examined by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the early and late stages of a 5-month 'Computer Processing' course. Brain regions involved in task performance and learning were identified by comparing responses to programming and control tasks during the early and late stages., Results: The accuracy of performing a programming task was significantly improved during the late stage. Various regions of the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital cortex as well as several subcortical structures (caudate nuclei and cerebellum) were activated during programming tasks. Brain activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus was greater during the late stage and significantly correlated with improved task performance. Although the left inferior frontal gyrus was also highly active during the programming task, there were no learning-induced changes in activity or a significant correlation between activity and improved task performances., Conclusion: Computer programming learning among novices induces functional neuroplasticity within the right inferior frontal gyrus but not the left inferior gyrus (Broca's area)., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Capacities for abstract thinking and problem-solving are central to human cognition. Processes of abstraction allow the transfer of experiences and knowledge between contexts helping us make informed decisions in new or changing contexts. While we are often inclined to relate such reasoning capacities to individual minds and brains, they may in fact be contingent on human-specific modes of collaboration, dialogue, and shared attention. In an experimental study, we test the hypothesis that social interaction enhances cognitive processes of rule-induction, which in turn improves problem-solving performance. Through three sessions of increasing complexity, individuals and groups were presented with a problem-solving task requiring them to categorize a set of visual stimuli. To assess the character of participants' problem representations, after each training session, they were presented with a transfer task involving stimuli that differed in appearance, but shared relations among features with the training set. Besides, we compared participants' categorization behaviors to simulated agents relying on exemplar learning. We found that groups performed superior to individuals and agents in the training sessions and were more likely to correctly generalize their observations in the transfer phase, especially in the high complexity session, suggesting that groups more effectively induced underlying categorization rules from the stimuli than individuals and agents. Crucially, variation in performance among groups was predicted by semantic diversity in members' dialogical contributions, suggesting a link between social interaction, cognitive diversity, and abstraction., (© 2023 The Authors. Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Cognitive Science Society (CSS).)

Students frequently utilize digital devices and applications to assist studying. Past research has yielded mixed results on their effectiveness, and scant research has compared portable technologies with each other or focused on smartphones specifically. We compared college students' learning of vocabulary on paper, laptop, and smartphone. Students were randomly assigned to one platform for reviewing vocabulary flashcards, and then they completed a memory quiz and answered questions regarding perceptions of these technologies. Results showed equivalency in students' learning across platforms, with the only exception being that students spent longer reviewing paper flashcards. Self-reported cognitive load and satisfaction were equal across platforms. Quantitative and qualitative data also suggested that, though students quickly label both laptops and smartphones as helpful for education, they see more educational value in laptops. This research suggests that smartphones present new ways of learning, but care must be taken with how smartphones are utilized in educational settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the significance of parental involvement in early childhood education, with a specific focus on the cultural practices and values of Korean American parents and children in schools in the United States (US). It discusses the critical issue of the learning gap among different ethnic and racial groups and how, through the recognition and integration of various cultural beliefs and values, educators can help parents to close this gap. The paper focuses specifically on Korean American children and their parental involvement in the US through the lens of the "figured worlds" approach, in order to better understand differences in educational practices and to support the success of all diverse groups of children in the learning process in American schools.

The evaluation of medical students in the clinical setting (outside the classroom) is a great challenge due to the fact that the learning process becomes more complex. There is little scientific literature in which the research ends in an action to design efficient forms of evaluation. We aimed to design and validate an instrument to reach an evaluation by competencies in the Course: Introduction to Clinical Medicine at the National University of San Marcos (UNMSM) in Lima-Peru. This publication follows a research-action methodology, where the initial results led to the design of an evaluation methodology in clinical environments that is then re-evaluated again to determine if it really manages to evaluate the comprehensive skills required in a medical student. Results: 14 professors were interviewed. In the clinical environment, theoretical lectures and planned didactic sessions are used based on clinical cases. In clinical practice, the priority is given to clinical thinking, and problem-based learning (PBL). The reseach team in conjunction with the professors started the evaluation by competences process developing an evaluation instrument for the specific clinical practice. The participants observed resistance to the change because of certain administrative barriers y poor institutional support. The critical point in this investigation was the training in evaluation and learning methodologies. A training plan was required before starting their teaching activities. The professors agreed with the new form of evaluation and recognized the value of the teaching service with responsible and ethical dedication.

Some animals are thought to exhibit cognitive specialization, as they have specialized cognitive modules that solve specific social or ecological problems instead of one general-purpose mechanism that addresses diverse problems. Although there are many examples of specialized cognition, little is known about whether specialization develops through experience or is produced by innate, species-specific differences. Previous work has shown that Polistes fuscatus wasps use face recognition to individually identify other wasps and that P. fuscatus are specialized for learning conspecific faces. Here, we test how experimentally altering face experience in three Polistes species influences the development of face specialization. We show face learning is influenced by both experience and innate, species-specific differences. In P. fuscatus , experience with conspecific faces is not required for the development of face specialization. In two related Polistes species that naturally lack individual face recognition, Polistes metricus and Polistes dominula , experience has different effects on specialization. Polistes metricus , a close relative of P. fuscatus , develops face specialization with experience. However, P. dominula , a more distant relative, uses general pattern recognition to learn faces regardless of experience. Therefore, some species have innate mechanistic architecture that facilitates the development of face specialization, while other species do not. These results suggest that selection shapes animal minds in a modular manner. The capacity for specialized cognitive skills evolves in response to specific ecological or social demands, such as social benefits associated with accurate individual face recognition. Highlights • We test whether cognitive specialization is inherited or requires experience. • We experimentally altered face experience in three species of paper wasps. • Experience produces face specialization in some wasp species but not others. • Face specialization in wasps is influenced by both inheritance and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keeping with the topics of 9th-11th European Quality Assurance Forums (EQAF), the paper analyzes the impact that a new pedagogical paradigm has on changes in higher education as well as on developing a new quality assurance methodology. At present Europe is featured by a new inter-university institution – tutor support of students; developing assessment practices for professionally-oriented baccalaureate and changes of state policy tools in higher education due to the advent of a new public management. The authors monitor a practice of surveying students and graduates and present results of t4SCL project aimed at developing sustainable strategies and methods of student-centered learning. The paper identifies the focus of 10th and 11th EQAF on trends in higher education development for the coming decades and reveals the dynamics of mentality changes in higher education occurred for the time of the Forums.