Search

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a total digital disruption of all activities at universities. New digital tools and arenas replaced the daily physical interactions between students and professors. How did this affect motivation and learning outcomes? This article uses the pandemic as a prism to understand how and why social relations and interaction are important in the educational system. Data were obtained from 26 informants in two case studies (study programs). A total of 12 in-depth interviews with employees and 4 group interviews with 14 students were performed at Oslo University during the pandemic (2020-2021). We explore an alternative understanding of social ties in relation to the educational process and the importance of social interaction in sensemaking and self-determination theory concepts. As digital disruption creates a social disconnect for most actors, it becomes prevalent that social activity, both formal and informal, seems to be an important source of motivation for both students and faculty members at the university. We introduce the concept of socially induced motivation as an important aspect of learning. The tendencies in the informants' accounts of the social interaction are perceived in this context as sensemaking the university as an organization and how it solves its missions and assignments. Socially induced motivation is an important concept, both in relation to work in general and specifically to work in higher education. Our study shows why universities should strive to facilitate socially induced motivation in the future., Author(s): Ida Poppe [sup.1] , Lars Erik Kjekshus [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.5510.1, 0000 0004 1936 8921, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo, [...]

Given the crucial importance of engagement in learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and the increasing interest in its psychological dimensions, this study was an attempt to examine the effect of teacher support on engagement by considering the serial mediating roles of learning experience and motivated learning behaviour. Participants were 384 EFL learners chosen through multi-stage cluster sampling. The SEM results demonstrated that teacher support directly and positively predicted engagement. Additionally, teacher support affected engagement through the serial mediating roles of learning experience and motivated learning behaviour. Teachers can provide learners with substantial support and encouragement to enhance their learning experience, which could in turn considerably affect their motivated learning behaviour. Consequently, EFL learners who are motivated and willing to exert effort in learning and classroom activities would be more engaged in their learning process. Finally, important implications and suggestions for future research are presented., Author(s): Majid Sadoughi [sup.1] , S. Yahya Hejazi [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.412057.5, 0000 0004 0612 7328, Psychology Department, Faculty of Humanities, University of Kashan, , Kashan, Iran (2) grid.46072.37, [...]

The study aims to examine the longitudinal relationship between the beliefs about adversity and left-behind children's learning engagement and reveal the underlying mechanism. In total, we collected 601 left-behind children data in China over three waves spaced six-month apart. The results showed that left-behind children with higher beliefs about adversity tended to have more learning engagement one year later directly and via enhancing their sense of hope. Unexpectedly, our study found that peer attachment tended to alleviate the promoting effect of beliefs about adversity on learning engagement among left-behind children. These findings extended the existing research on learning of left-behind children and provide the implications for improving the children's academic performance and the intervention of underachievement students among left-behind children., Author(s): Jiayi Li [sup.1] , Ruibo Xie [sup.1] , Wan Ding [sup.1] , Min Jiang [sup.1] , Xiuyun Lin [sup.2] [sup.3] , Sumaira Kayani [sup.1] , Weijian Li [sup.1] Author [...]

Approaches to Learning (ATL) is essential for children's learning and development. Prior research examined the role of school-related factors, but little research focused on the impacts of family-related factors on the ATL of children. This study examines how family socioeconomic status (SES) of preschool children affects their ATL. Data was collected from the parents and teachers of 988 preschool children in China. The results uncover that the positive effect of family SES on the ATL of preschoolers is mediated by positive involvement and negative discipline. Interestingly, preschool children's gender moderates the mediating effects of positive involvement and negative discipline: for girls, the mediating roles of positive involvement and negative discipline are both supported. However, for boys, only positive involvement mediates the effect of family SES on ATL. By bridging family investment theory with parenting theory, this study opens the black-box covering the relationship between family SES and preschoolers' ATL. By elucidating the gender-specific mediation process, this study contributes to the literature from a Chinese parenting culture perspective. In practice, these findings suggest that educational government can boost children's ATL by organizing parenting training instructed by education experts to improve parents' parenting skills., Author(s): Lina Feng [sup.1] , Linlin Yao [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.203507.3, 0000 0000 8950 5267, College of Teacher Education, Ningbo University, , 315211, Ningbo, China (2) grid.35403.31, 0000 0004 [...]

In this epistolary essay, I theorize what otherwise-as-marronage can look like for teacher- educators and/or curriculum theorists who are isolated within or bifurcated between harmful institutional divides. I argue that marronage is already creating otherwise worlds and always has--and I propose that embracing marronage can not only help us heal from the falsely individualistic institutions of education but also actively reorient ourselves toward each other in an ethic of relationality I address this love letter to Leigh Patel because her work first opened my thinking toward decolonization, answerability, and fugitivity/marronage as opposed to the closed circuit of 'critical' liberal humanism. The letter also centers around her 2019 visit to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the social geographic fugitive space of the Hub/ Raices Collective--an occupied space in the School of Education that exemplifies a fugitivity that is tension-filled in part due to its resistance to interest convergence and the unruly consequences of learning. Patel's visit to the School of Education serves as backdrop upon which to explore the limits and possibilities of both studying and living otherwise in teacher education. In other words, marronage as a problem for thought in teacher education reveals how curriculum theory and teacher education cannot exist without each other--no matter how thoroughly the academic industrial complex stratifies the social order toward the falsely competitive, individualistic, self-replicating Man of liberal humanist education. Indeed, the pluralities of otherwise chart paths toward intellectual collectives capable of building worlds outside of anti-Blackness and settler colonialism., We should expect that we will not be perfect with one another. We should embrace failure in an attempt toward intimacy. After all, isn't working together a move toward intimacy? [...]

Learning is central to the Society's mission and identity. 'Let the love of learning rule' serves as the guiding principle that links the well over 1.5 million women and men [...]

ABSTRACT Peer-assisted strategies foster learning in science courses. This article outlines a cross-year, peer-assisted learning program in a Human Anatomy and Physiology 1 course. The aim of this 2-year study [...]

THIS PAPER REVIEWS AUSTRALIAN and international literature to examine the effect of poverty on children's readiness to learn. It includes a discussion of how children's readiness and ability to learn can be nurtured from birth, and how poverty places a child's healthy developmental pathway at risk. The paper concludes with a discussion of the barriers to the introduction of successful early intervention programs in Australia., Introduction In Australia, about one in seven children (14.7 per cent) live in families with incomes more than 50 per cent below the equivalised median income level--one of the most [...]

This research examined the role of mothers' mindsets about the malleability of children's ability in the quality of their involvement in children's learning. Mothers (N = 79) of early elementary school children (mean age = 7.65 years) were induced to hold either an entity mindset, in which children's ability is seen as unchangeable, or an incremental mindset, in which children's ability is seen as changeable. Mothers and children were then observed as they worked on a set of challenging problems for 15 min. Unconstructive involvement (i.e., performance-oriented teaching, control, and negative affect) was more frequent among mothers induced to hold an entity mindset than those induced to hold an incremental mindset. Mothers with an entity (vs. incremental) mindset also responded to children's helplessness more unconstructively. Keywords: parenting, involvement, motivation, learning, mindset DOI: 10.1037/a0020376

Objective: This article examines the impact of a universal social-emotional learning program, the Fast Track PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies) curriculum and teacher consultation, embedded within the Fast Track selective prevention model. Method: The longitudinal analysis involved 2,937 children of multiple ethnicities who remained in the same intervention or control schools for Grades 1, 2, and 3. The study involved a clustered randomized controlled trial involving sets of schools randomized within 3 U.S. locations. Measures assessed teacher and peer reports of aggression, hyperactive--disruptive behaviors, and social competence. Beginning in first grade and through 3 successive years, teachers received training and support and implemented the PATHS curriculum in their classrooms. Results: The study examined the main effects of intervention as well as how outcomes were affected by characteristics of the child (baseline level of problem behavior, gender) and by the school environment (student poverty). Modest positive effects of sustained program exposure included reduced aggression and increased prosocial behavior (according to both teacher and peer report) and improved academic engagement (according to teacher report). Peer report effects were moderated by gender, with significant effects only for boys. Most intervention effects were moderated by school environment, with effects stronger in less disadvantaged schools, and effects on aggression were larger in students who showed higher baseline levels of aggression. Conclusions: A major implication of the findings is that well-implemented multiyear social--emotional learning programs can have significant and meaningful preventive effects on the population-level rates of aggression, social competence, and academic engagement in the elementary school years. Keywords: prevention, school, aggression, social competence, academic engagement DOI: 10.1037/a0018607

The idea for this paper came to me when I was consulted on the architectural plans of a school. At that time I was also preparing a lecture on 'how students learn' for my undergraduate teacher education students. My research took me beyond my usual educational texts to what neuroscientists and brain researchers were saying about learning. In this paper I suggest what a school may look like if this research is taken into account., When a golf course is constructed, experts are consulted, in particular, expert players or ex-players who fully understand the game. Tony Cashmore in Pondering A Golf Course Under Construction (2005), [...]

This critical cultural analysis of trends in the field of social emotional learning (SEL) in the United States considers how ideas concerning emotional skills and competencies have informed programmatic discourse. While currently stressing links between SEL and academic achievement, program literature also places emphasis on ideals of caring, community, and diversity. However, recommended practices across programs tend to undermine these ideals by focusing on emotional and behavioral control strategies that privilege individualist models of self. SEL in practice thus becomes another way to focus attention on measurement and remediation of individual deficits rather than a way to redirect educators' focus toward the relational contexts of classrooms and schools. The promise of SEL to foster increased achievement and equity in American education may not be realized unless more work is done to connect ideals with practices and to address the political and cultural assumptions that are being built into contemporary approaches. KEYWORDS: social emotional learning, cultural analysis, diversity.

Over the past decade, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has become increasingly concerned about the educational experience of student athletes, beyond the mere enforcement of eligibility rules and regulations. [...]

Interpretations of the processes and outcomes of community-based research were explored through three case studies in South-East Queensland over a two year period. The ,findings indicate that the ultimate goal of community-based research is to achieve sustainability learning through a combination of experiential learning, social learning and action, with a primary focus on monitoring and improving the condition of local socio-ecological systems. In addition, community-based research can provide an effective framework for public participation in natural resource management and for achieving sustainability outcomes by facilitating an extension from social interaction, to social learning through to sustainability learning. Keywords: community-based research, participatory research, catchment management, social learning, sustainability learning, Waterwatch

Theories of choice in economics typically assume that interacting agents act individualistically and maximize their own utility. Specifically, game theory proposes that rational players should defect in one-shot prisoners' dilemmas (PI)). Defection also appears to be the inevitable outcome for agents who learn by reinforcement of past choices, because whatever the other player does, defection leads to greater reinforcement on each trial. In a computer simulation and 4 experiments, the authors show that, apparently paradoxically, when players' choices are correlated by an exogenous factor (here, the cooperativeness of the specific PD chosen), people obtain greater average reinforcement for cooperating, which can sustain cooperation. This effect arises from a well-known statistical paradox, Simpson's paradox. The authors speculate that this effect may be relevant to aspects of real-world human cooperative behavior. Keywords: cooperation, prisoners' dilemma, reinforcement learning, Simpson's paradox, decision making

A simple theoretical model of supervised learning that can possibly interpret phenomena related to the nature versus nurture debate is proposed. The optimal parenting policy and its comparative-statics properties are described.

Joint pretence games are implicit rule-governed activities with a normative structure: Given shared fictional stipulations, some acts are appropriate moves, others are inappropriate (i.e., mistakes). The awareness of 2- and 3-year-old children of this normative structure was explored, as indicated by their ability to not only act according to the rules themselves but to spontaneously protest against 3rd party rule violations. After the child and a 2nd person had set up a pretence scenario, a 3rd character (a puppet controlled by another experimenter) joined the game and performed acts either appropriate or inappropriate to the scenario set-up. Children in both age groups protested specifically against inappropriate acts, indicating they were able to not only follow pretence stipulations and act in accordance with them but to understand their deontic implications. This effect was more pronounced in the 3-year-olds than in the 2-year-olds. The results are discussed in the broader context of the development of social understanding and cultural learning. Keywords: pretend play, social learning, normativity

Human language arises from biological evolution, individual learning, and cultural transmission, but the interaction of these three processes has not been widely studied. We set out a formal framework for analyzing cultural transmission, which allows us to investigate how innate learning biases are related to universal properties of language. We show that cultural transmission can magnify weak biases into strong linguistic universals, undermining one of the arguments for strong innate constraints on language learning. As a consequence, the strength of innate biases can be shielded from natural selection, allowing these genes to drift. Furthermore, even when there is no natural selection, cultural transmission can produce apparent adaptations. Cultural transmission thus provides an alternative to traditional nativist and adaptationist explanations for the properties of human languages. cultural transmission | iterated learning | Bayesian learning | nativista

In the 1990s, community colleges underwent a shift in their guiding paradigm. The transformation in norms, roles, and values took place in the name of 'learning,' as the change was [...]

Many adult beliefs are based on the testimony provided by other people rather than on firsthand observation. Children also learn from other people's testimony. For example, they learn that mental processes depend on the brain, that the earth is spherical, and that hidden bodily organs constrain life and death. Such learning might indicate that other people's testimony simply amplifies children's access to empirical data. However, children's understanding of God's special powers and the afterlife shows that their acceptance of others' testimony extends beyond the empirical domain. Thus, children appear to conceptualize unobservable scientific and religious entities similarly. Nevertheless, some children distinguish between the 2 domains, arguably because a different pattern of discourse surrounds scientific as compared to religious entities.

The concept of localized learning outlines how local conditions and spatial proximity between actors enable the formation of distinctive cognitive repertoires and influence the generation and selection of skills, processes, and products within a field of knowledge or activity. The localized learning argument consists of two distinct yet related elements. One has to do with localized capabilities that enhance learning, while the other concerns the possible benefits that firms with similar or related activities may accrue by locating in spatial proximity to one another. This article disentangles these two inherent elements of the concept, reviews some of the critiques that have been raised against it, and sorts out some misunderstandings that are often attached to its present use. The various ways in which the knowledge on which people base their plans is communicated to them is [sic] the crucial problem for any theory explaining economic progress. And the problem of what is the best way of utilizing knowledge initially dispersed among all the people is at least one of the main problems of economic policy (Friedrich August von Hayek).

The purpose of this study was to examine cultural influences on conceptual orientations of learning in U.S. and Chinese preschoolers. A sample of 188 preschoolers 4-6 years of age provided free-narrative responses to 2 story beginnings about the learning behavior of 2 protagonists, 1 who worked hard and 1 who gave up. Results showed that despite some differences in the younger age groups, children from both cultures valued learning similarly at age 6. However, important cultural differences emerged in children's construals of the learning process. U.S. children showed a heightened awareness of the mind/task attributes of the learner, that is, ability, task attempting, and strategy use. By contrast, Chinese children perceived more the learner's dispositional qualities of diligence, persistence, and concentration. These trends increased as children' s age increased. The U.S. findings are interpreted as reflecting the U.S. cultural emphasis on learning as a task, and the Chinese results, as reflecting the Chinese cultural focus on learning as a process of cultivating personal virtue.

This study examined U.S. and Chinese conceptions of learning with learning-related terms collected from U.S. and Chinese college students. Cluster analysis yielded a hierarchical structure of this lexicon for each culture. The 2 sets of cultural beliefs contained such different notions about learning that there was little overlap, however. The English terms included elaborated conceptions of mental processes, internal learner characteristics, social contexts, and externally existing bodies of knowledge. Most Chinese terms dealt with 'seeking knowledge' including personal attitudes, purposes, and action plans for learning. Chinese conceptions also emphasized achievement standards of breadth and depth of knowledge, the unity of knowing and morality, and contributions to society.

A proactive journey, professor and students working together could build and strengthen academia. At risk are historic norms supporting college for the elite, and the professor as fountain of wisdom. [...]

Within the sociology of science, there exists a substantial literature showing that males, on average, publish more than females. This literature directs our attention toward organizational contexts and the timing of publication as promising factors bearing on cumulative scholarship outcomes. In this inquiry, based on 2,910 persons who received doctorates in sociology between 1972 and 1976, we isolate the importance of organizational context to explain the emergent and cumulative sex differences in publication outcomes. Our findings reveal that existing scholarship differences between males and females in this cohort occur within the first six years of the doctorate and continue throughout the career as a result of different employment patterns and publication trajectories. Notably, we find support for Robert Merton's contention that context structures the display of individual merit., Empirical observations of sex-differentiated scholarship outcomes consistently show that men publish significantly more than females over the duration of a career (e.g., Cole 1979:222). Such differences are reported to be [...]

Introduction ENTERING A GRADUATE PROGRAM directly following the completion of my Bachelor's degree was not completely understood by people in my home town. The stigma of 'professional student' was felt. [...]

Integral to knowing mathematics is an understanding of how mathematical ideas are generated and validated. In mathematics classrooms, teachers socialize this understanding by establishing discourse patterns and participatory structures in which various sources--the teacher, the text, the discipline of mathematics, or the community of learners--are implicitly and explicitly credited with the authority to develop and validate mathematical ideas. In the present investigation, the authors focused on classroom discourse processes and participatory structures that grant sources of mathematical authority in 6 first-grade classrooms. In general, teachers firmly and with few exceptions positioned themselves as the sole mathematical authority in their classrooms. Yet, the authors found significant exceptions in 1 teacher's lessons, with these exceptions inspiring possibilities in accomplishing the shift from a formal to a growth-and-change tradition of socializing students into the discipline of mathematics.

The author examines the differences between the sexes by studying patterns of help-seeking behavior when a group of doctors and nurses are asked to learn new computer skills. Topics include social status, techniques in learning, and social conditioning.

This paper was presented at Forging future directions the Seventeenth conference of the Australian School Library Association, Twin Waters Resort, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, 30 September - 4 October 2001 Stimulated [...]

Community psychology, indeed psychology as a discipline, has been largely absent from the table of school reform. Schools are critical socializing forces in society and serve as the one institution through which the full diversity of our child population passes. At the start of the 21st century, despite successive waves of legislation, the goals of the civil rights struggle for equality in educational opportunity have yet to be achieved. Negative self-fulfilling prophecies, reflected at individual, interpersonal, institutional, and societal levels, play a critical role in creating and perpetuating unequal opportunities to learn. Such effects as well as pathways for preventive intervention are best understood through ecological lenses. Our field must commit a greater share of resources to collaborative and systemic change for a broader learning so that all children, regardless of their differences, have continuing and nonstigmatized opportunities to develop into competent adults. KEY WORDS: educational opportunity; self-fulfilling prophecies; diversity; children; school reform.

Abstract This paper presents findings from a research project in a university social science course. It explores reasons for the emergence of informal peer-to-peer online learning interactivity. Given that the [...]

School-effects research in sociology cannot be separated from concerns about causality. Purely descriptive modeling justifications are untenable. Focusing on the Catholic school effect on learning, this article demonstrates an approach that places regression modeling strategies within a specific and well-developed framework for thinking about causality. While regression models should properly remain the workhorse methodology for school-effects research, regression estimates should more often be subject to exacting interpretations and presented alongside alternative estimates of more specific parameters of interest. In this demonstration, propensity-score matching estimates of the Catholic school effect for the Catholic schooled are provided to supplement the estimates obtained by regression models. Although subject to their own set of weaknesses, the matching estimates suggest that the Catholic school effect is the strongest among those Catholic school students who, according to their observed characteristics, are least likely to attend Catholic schools. Four alternative explanations are offered for this finding, each of which should be pursued in further research.

This article examines the sociocultural dynamics of learning in an urban fifth grade science classroom. The authors, acting as teacher-researchers in the classroom, argue that cognitive development level is not the only significant aspect of learning, but cultural and social perspectives of the children must be taken into account when teaching scientific principals.

The regional scale has come to play an important role in the discussion on learning in capitalist societies. Advocates of concepts such as 'Learning Regions' have even suggested that the [...]

The growth of the World-Wide Web of as a medium of instruction in higher education rekindles an old debate about the effectiveness of instructional technology. The present limitations of the Internet medium restrict the teacher immediacy of Web courses and possibly have a negative impact on both affective and cognitive learning. Web courses also appear to be a deficient means to form close relationships between students, which was termed student immediacy. But Web courses also have the potential to be more immediate than conventional classroom instruction by introducing a new 'agency' into the learning environment, the computer. Learner interactions with computers potentially convey a sense of personal tutorship or computer immediacy that augment immediacy in comparison to the limited large group interaction prevalent in conventional lecture sections. Social cognitive theory was applied to develop a unified construct of instructional immediacy that encompassed teacher, student and computer agency. Within this theory, immediacy behaviors provide social and status incentives that motivate learning. An exploratory qualitative ethnographic content analysis of three Web courses identified potential indicators of immediacy in Web classrooms and framed recommendations about future research on instructional immediacy and Web course design.