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Background: The existing research on dialogue‐based learning and teaching predominantly highlights its capacity to yield productive educational outcomes, yet it often overlooks the pivotal factor of participation equity, which is fundamental to ensuring the efficacy of dialogic teaching and learning. Objectives: In this study, participation equity refers to a condition in which participation itself and opportunities to participate are fairly distributed among participants and all participants are equally listened to and respected. We designed a technology‐enhanced participatory visual learning analytical approach to promote equitable participation in dialogic collaborative problem solving from four dimensions: participation (i.e., ensuring equal contributions from all participants), opportunity (i.e., promoting equal engagement with others), responsiveness (i.e., encouraging equal attentiveness and responsiveness to others' input), and respect (i.e., cultivating a respectful communication style). Methods: The intervention class of fourth‐grade students (n = 59) interacted with a participatory visual learning analytical tool to reflect on their participation equity and learn productive peer talk moves to address equity issues concerning the four dimensions, while a comparison class (n = 59) only received simple feedback on participation and respect. Results: The results indicated that equal participation rates among group members were insufficient to secure participation equity. The intervention was effective in helping students realize and address equity‐related issues. Intervention students were more equitable regarding responsiveness and participation opportunity than the comparison students. Conclusions: The proposed multidimensional participation equity framework has the potential to deepen the understanding of equity and promote equitable learning interactions. Lay Description: What is currently known: Peer discussion has the potential to bring productive educational gains.Participation equity is essential in productive collaborative discussion.Participation equity currently mainly concerns the equality of participation. What we add: We use technology to help children analyse, visualize and reflect on participation equity.We use technology to teach students how to talk in an equitable approach.We define equity in four dimensions: participation, opportunity, responsiveness and respect. The implications for practitioners: Students should be guided to participate equally and respectfully in a group.Students should also be guided to equally listen to other group members' voices.Students should also be guided to equally address other group members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mindfulness practices enhance executive function skills and academic achievement, spurring interest in integrating mindfulness interventions into education. Embedding mindfulness practice into a digital math game may provide a low‐cost, scalable way to induce mindfulness and boost game‐based learning, yet this approach remains unexplored. Objectives: We investigated the learning benefits of integrating mindfulness exercises in a digital math learning game and examined how students' trait mindfulness might moderate the outcomes. Methods: Two classroom studies were conducted with 404 5th and 6th grade students from six public schools in the U.S. (nStudy 1 = 227, nStudy 2 = 177). The two randomized controlled experiments assigned students to one of the three conditions: passive control (playing the digital learning game Decimal Point), story‐enriched active control, or mindfulness‐enriched condition. Trait mindfulness, learning gains, and in‐game problem‐solving (including problem‐solving duration, error count and correctness after reminder) were assessed. Study 2 included a manipulation check to better understand the effects of the mindfulness intervention. Results: Findings showed no significant differences in learning gains, problem‐solving duration or error count among the conditions. Students' trait mindfulness did not moderate these outcomes. Mindfulness reminders in the mindfulness‐enriched game led to more correct answers after errors than jokes in the story‐enriched game. Study 2 revealed that we failed to induce higher state mindfulness through the mindfulness inductions. Conclusions: Mindfulness prompts could be especially beneficial for students experiencing frustration during gameplay, warranting more exploration for digital game‐based instruction. We highlight barriers and future directions for fostering mindfulness through computer‐based instruction in classrooms. Lay Description: What is currently known about this topic?: Researchers focus on digital games as productive learning environments for math, with potential for higher learning gains compared with traditional methods. However, results are mixed, and not all games lead to improved math outcomes.Executive function (EF) skills are crucial for math learning, and mindfulness‐based interventions show promise in enhancing EF skills in school‐aged students.Embedding mindfulness practice into a digital math game may provide a low‐cost, scalable way to induce mindfulness and, in turn, boost EF skills and game‐based learning, yet this approach remains unexplored What does this paper add?: This paper presents the results of two randomized control trials investigating the feasibility and benefits of incorporating mindfulness exercises into a digital math game designed for middle school students. Benefits are compared to those of a story‐enriched and regular version of the same digital math learning game.The paper also explores variations in the effects of the mindfulness‐enriched game based on students' initial trait mindfulness levels.We observe that listening to mindfulness inductions at the beginning of game sessions do not induce mindfulness, and therefore does not benefit math learning.We find that mindfulness prompts received after recurrent errors can be beneficial for students' problem solving. Implications of study findings for practitioners: Our study provides important information on how digital learning game designers should attempt to induce mindfulness in a digital game to promote learning.Digital learning game designers should consider incorporating mindfulness exercises into their games strategically. Presenting mindfulness inductions in audio format at the beginning of game sessions may not induce mindfulness or benefit math learning. Instead, designers should focus on integrating mindfulness prompts at moments when students encounter frustration within the learning game.Beyond embedding audio mindfulness exercises in the game, learning designers should also consider alternative technological and game features to induce mindfulness within a learning game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education in solving real-world problems is challenging. To tackle this challenge, a project-based learning approach that integrates robots with cost-effective self-made toys to problem-solving was adopted to assist rural primary school students to apply STEM skills. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of the project-based learning approach which includes lecturing and hands-on activities on primary school students' STEM learning outcomes and attitudes. An experiment was conducted with 25 primary school students who voluntarily participated in a STEM summer-camp programme. Students were asked to assemble a paper house equipped with an IoT control module and LED light switches, and write and edit robot scripts to produce a robot-based storytelling narrative using the paper house they made as a context. The results show that the project-based learning approach was an effective approach for cultivating primary school students' STEM knowledge and skills as evidenced from the post-written test. The relationships between the students' STEM learning outcomes and attitudes were also confirmed by a clustering analysis. Students who had higher learning attitudes also achieved higher STEM learning outcomes; the findings are also supported by the feedback from the open-ended questionnaire items. This study suggests that integrating low-cost self-made toys and robots in project-based learning activities is an effective and practical approach to enhance primary school students' learning outcomes and learning attitudes in STEM education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Even though monitoring and control enactment are key aspects of self‐regulated learning (SRL), Adaptive learning technologies (ALTs) may reduce the need for learners to monitor and control their learning. Personalized dashboards are effective in supporting learners' monitoring and can potentially support control behaviour. Allowing learners to enact control over their learning process, seems to hold potential for increasing their motivation. Objectives: Therefore, this study's aim was to investigate the relation between control enactment and motivation. We examined how learners enacted control while learning with an ALT with personalized dashboards and examined the relation between learners' enactment of control and their motivation. Methods: Seventy‐eight primary school learners (Grade 5) participated. During the lesson, learners worked on mathematics in the ALT and concurrently were shown personalized visualizations that supported monitoring and enacting control over their learning process. Learners could enact control to change problems' difficulty to easy, medium, or hard. Motivation was measured before and after learning. Results: The SEM analyses showed that how learners enacted control was related to their motivation. Choosing difficult problems was related to more enjoyment and competence while choosing easy problems related to more pressure and tension. Learners who complied with the suggested difficulty level experienced less choice, but also less pressure/tension and more enjoyment and competence. Conclusions: These results provide avenues to account for broader learner characteristics like SRL and motivation to optimize learning. This way, hybrid systems in which control enactment is a shared responsibility of the system and learner, can be improved to support SRL development. Lay Description: What is currently known: Monitor and control enactment are key aspects of self‐regulated learning (SRL).Adaptive learning technologies may reduce the need for learners to monitor and control their learning.Personalized dashboards support learners' monitoring behaviour and can potentially also support control enactment.Enactment of control could positively affect learners' motivation. What does this paper add: There is a large variation in how learners enact control and whether they comply with the scaffold.Learners who chose more difficult problems experienced more enjoyment, while learners choosing easy problems, experienced more pressure.Learners complied with the scaffold, experienced less choice, but also less pressure and more enjoyment.This study provides avenues to account for broader learner characteristics like SRL and motivation to optimize learning. Practical implications: Support control enactment by actively involve learners in choice during the learning process.Offer monitor and enactment in conjunction, as learners can only make well‐founded choices if they can monitor their learning process.Intrinsically and extrinsically motivated learners showed different choice patterns and learning experience.It is important to have an understanding and monitoring of learners' motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kindergarteners' numerical abilities are fundamental to their future academic development. The cognitive correlates of numerical abilities remain in debate. The present study examined whether non-verbal number sense and literacy could persistently predict kindergarteners' numerical abilities. A large-scale sample consisting of 930 children aged from 5.0 to 6.9 years were assessed for numerical abilities (addition and subtraction), non-verbal number sense (numerosity comparison), literacy (character reading), and general cognitive processing (word span, rapid automatized naming, mental rotation, figure matching and rhythm). The results showed that, after controlling for all other aspects of cognitive processing available, non-verbal number sense did not correlate with numerical abilities, while literacy was a stable cognitive predictor of numerical abilities in both age groups. And rapid automatized naming (RAN) was the most powerful cognitive predictor in the 6 years of age group. Further dominance analysis also showed that literacy was the most important predictor of numerical performance in the 5 years of age group and was next only to RAN in the 6 years of age group. The results suggest that literacy rather than non-verbal number sense is a unique cognitive correlate for kindergartener's numerical abilities. We argue that increased focus on natural language, especially literacy, may help to improve kindergarteners' math ability. Highlights: A large-scale sample consisting of 930 Chinese children aged from 5.0 to 6.9 years were assessed for numerical abilities, non-verbal number sense, literacy, and general cognitive processing. The link between non-verbal number sense and children's numerical abilities did not survive after controlling for other cognitive processing. Literacy rather than non-verbal number sense is a stable cognitive correlate for kindergartener's numerical abilities in 5.0–6.9 years old kindergarteners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This review systematically summarizes the studies of the relationship between primary-to-secondary school students' motor skills and academic achievement, and analyzes the relationship between gross and fine motor skills and performance in different subjects. Method: Five electronic databases, Web Of Science, PubMed, PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus, and Academic Search Premier, were searched in March 2023. Semi-quantitative assessment methods were used to analyze the results of the included studies. Results: Seventy-eight articles were included in this systematic review. The semi-quantitative assessment results showed that gross (+, 65.0/62.5%) and fine motor skills (+, 83.3/80%) were positively correlated with overall performance and language performance, with ≥60% of the associations in the same direction. For different subjects, fine motor skills were positively correlated with students' mathematics (+, 75.0%), reading (+, 72.7%), writing (+, 66.7%), and spelling (+, 60.0%) scores. However, the association between gross motor skills and students' mathematics achievement (?, 52.8%), reading (?, 53.8%), and spelling (?, 50.0%) is uncertain, with <60% of the associations in the same direction. Conclusions: It is wise to direct our gaze toward the evolution of motor skills among students, especially primary school students. Different motor skill intervention modes should be selected in a targeted manner according to different subject achievements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anemia is a global public health problem, especially common among children in developing countries, which affects their physical and mental health development. However, there is currently a lack of research on the relationship between anemia and academic performance. The objective of this study was to explore the association between anemia and academic performance, and the possible factors mediating this association among Chinese children. The data for this study came from the baseline survey of the Chinese Education Panel Survey Elementary School Cohort. The cohort was conducted from September 2018 to June 2019 in 160 elementary schools, covering 20 provinces and 40 counties/districts throughout China. Paper-based questionnaires were used, completed by 4th grade students, parents, head teachers, main teachers, and principals. The data used included questionnaire responses, physical measurements, and academic performance of 17,695 students. Based on students' hemoglobin levels and school altitude data, we grouped them into anemia and nonanemia categories using WHO criteria. The anemia group had 1,154 individuals, while the nonanemia group had 16,541 individuals. An ordinary least squares regression and mediation effect analysis were conducted. Our findings found the prevalence of anemia was 6.52% among Chinese Grade 4 students. Students without anemia had a higher average test score for three academic subjects than students with anemia (P < 0.001); their test scores for Chinese, Mathematics, and English were also higher (P < 0.05). Multivariate regression analysis showed a negative association between anemia and average test scores as well as individual test scores for the three subjects. Mediation analysis found that anemia affected academic performance directly (P < 0.05), and indirectly by decreasing the cognition score (P < 0.05). The indirect effect was 19.9% of the total effect. Findings highlighted anemia affected academic performance both directly and indirectly. Nutrition-related interventions should be implemented to prevent a decrease in academic performance among students with anemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]