•Word length and frequency effects on eye movements were found for silent reading.•Word length and frequency effects were greater for children than adults.•The interaction of word length and ...frequency was significant for children.•This interaction can be mapped onto the interplay of lexical and sublexical processes.
In the present study we measured the eye movements of a large sample of 2nd grade German speaking children and a control group of adults during a silent reading task. To be able to directly investigate the interaction of word length and frequency effects we employed controlled sentence frames with embedded target words in an experimental design in which length and frequency were manipulated independently of one another. Unlike previous studies which have investigated the interaction of word length and frequency effects in children, we used age-appropriate word frequencies for children. We found significant effects of word length and frequency for both children and adults while effects were generally greater for children. The interaction of word length and frequency was significant for children in gaze duration and total viewing time eye movement measures but not for adults. Our results suggest that children rely on sublexical decoding of infrequent words, leading to greater length effects for infrequent than frequent words while adults do not show this effect when reading children’s reading materials.
In this article we present a new method for estimating children’s total vocabulary size based on a language corpus in German. We drew a virtual sample of different lexicon sizes from a corpus and let ...the virtual sample “take” a vocabulary test by comparing whether the items were included in the virtual lexicons or not. This enabled us to identify the relation between test performance and total lexicon size. We then applied this relation to the test results of a real sample of children (grades 1–8, aged 6 to 14) and young adults (aged 18 to 25) and estimated their total vocabulary sizes. Average absolute vocabulary sizes ranged from 5900 lemmas in first grade to 73,000 for adults, with significant increases between adjacent grade levels except from first to second grade. Our analyses also allowed us to observe parts of speech and morphological development. Results thus shed light on the course of vocabulary development during primary school.
In this study, we examine the development of orthographic networks in the mental lexicon using graph theory. According to this view, words are represented by nodes in a network and connected as a ...function of their orthographic similarity. With a sampling approach based on a language corpus for German school children, we were able to simulate lexical development for children from Grade 1-8. By sampling different lexicon sizes from the corpus, we were able to analyze the content of the orthographic lexicon at different time points and examined network characteristics using graph theory. Results show that, similar to semantic and phonological networks, orthographic networks possess small-word characteristics defined by short average path lengths between nodes and strong local clustering. Moreover, the interconnectivity of the network decreases with growth. Implications for the study of the effect of network measures on language processing are discussed.
If the words of natural human language possess a universal positivity bias, as assumed by Boucher and Osgood's (1969) famous Pollyanna hypothesis and computationally confirmed for large text corpora ...in several languages (Dodds et al., 2015), then children and youth literature (CYL) should also show a Pollyanna effect. Here we tested this prediction applying an unsupervised vector space model-based sentiment analysis tool called
(Jacobs, 2019) to two CYL corpora, one in English (372 books) and one in German (500 books). Pitching our analysis at the sentence level, and assessing semantic as well as lexico-grammatical information, both corpora show the Pollyanna effect and thus add further evidence to the universality hypothesis. The results of our multivariate sentiment analyses provide interesting testable predictions for future scientific studies of literature.
Introduction
Teacher education for interdisciplinary science teaching at secondary schools shows shortcomings in several countries. One of these countries is Germany. Germany provides teacher ...education studies for secondary education in biology, chemistry, and physics. This discipline-specific single science subject teacher education results in partly out-of-field teaching of secondary teachers regarding interdisciplinary science. Thus, interdisciplinary science teaching is a new and difficult challenge for (prospective) teachers in Germany. Self-efficacy beliefs refer to the belief in the own abilities to tackle new and difficult challenges, such as interdisciplinary science teaching. Empirical research on self-efficacy beliefs of interdisciplinary science teaching (SElf-ST) is important to foster SElf-ST, e.g., in teacher education. Up to now, empirical research on influencing factors on SElf-ST takes mainly primary education into account. Empirical evidence for influencing factors regarding secondary science education is still needed because of the context-specificity of self-efficacy beliefs. Thus, this paper investigates factors possibly influencing SElf-ST in secondary education: teaching experience, number and type of science subjects studied and desire to teach interdisciplinary science.
Methods
We conducted a cross-sectional questionnaire study with German pre-service, trainee, and in-service biology, chemistry, and physics teachers (
n
= 589) on SElf-ST.
Results
In-service teachers had the highest beliefs in nearly all SElf-ST scales. Hardly any difference occurred between trainee teachers and pre-service teachers. Our study provides empirical support that in addition to teaching experience, the number of studied science subjects, and the desire to teach interdisciplinary science are factors that influence SElf-ST not only in primary education but also in secondary education. The novel examination of the so far unknown influence of studying biology, chemistry, or physics on the SElf-ST reveals an impact of any subject but in different ways. The effect of studying chemistry on the science-teaching-specific SElf-ST stands out.
Discussion
In sum, our results reveal possibilities in the context of, e.g., organizing teacher education to promote (prospective) teachers’ SElf-ST in secondary education.
Research into second language (L2) reading is an exponentially growing field. Yet, it still has a relatively short supply of comparable, ecologically valid data from readers representing a variety of ...first languages (L1). This article addresses this need by presenting a new data resource called MECO L2 (Multilingual Eye Movements Corpus), a rich behavioral eye-tracking record of text reading in English as an L2 among 543 university student speakers of 12 different L1s. MECO L2 includes a test battery of component skills of reading and allows for a comparison of the participants’ reading performance in their L1 and L2. This data resource enables innovative large-scale cross-sample analyses of predictors of L2 reading fluency and comprehension. We first introduce the design and structure of the MECO L2 resource, along with reliability estimates and basic descriptive analyses. Then, we illustrate the utility of MECO L2 by quantifying contributions of four sources to variability in L2 reading proficiency proposed in prior literature: reading fluency and comprehension in L1, proficiency in L2 component skills of reading, extralinguistic factors, and the L1 of the readers. Major findings included (a) a fundamental contrast between the determinants of L2 reading fluency versus comprehension accuracy, and (b) high within-participant consistency in the real-time strategy of reading in L1 and L2. We conclude by reviewing the implications of these findings to theories of L2 acquisition and outline further directions in which the new data resource may support L2 reading research.
Examined the relationship between reading behavior and verbal ability to test the hypothesis that verbal ability influences reading time components and thus has an effect on test performance. 119 ...students from German secondary schools aged between 13 and 17 years read texts and answered multiple-choice questions with or without access to the text. Verbal and reading ability measures were completed and resource allocation at the word, sentence, and text level was measured. The relationships between reading time components, resource allocation, verbal ability, and comprehension were examined. Results confirmed a systematic relationship between resource allocation and verbal ability and test performance. Test performance was better when the text was available. Students scoring higher in verbal ability and comprehension tended to perform better in both test situations. In the without-text condition, reading time components related to high-level integration processing were more important. In conclusion, in test situations where the text is not available, the level of mental representation formed by the reader has an important effect on comprehension test performance. (ZPID).
Research on morphological processing has been mainly conducted in the single-word reading domain using the lexical-decision task. Similar research in the sentence reading domain has been conducted ...using eye-tracking techniques, yet the experimental paradigms used in each domain are not directly comparable. In the present study, we investigated morphological processing in single-word reading using the masked priming paradigm (Experiments 1a, 1b, 3), and in sentence reading using the fast priming paradigm in eye tracking (Experiment 2). The study was conducted in German using the same prefixed and suffixed items in both tasks. All experiments yielded an identical pattern of results, indicating early processing of the embedded stems, independently of whether these stems were combined with a prefix, a suffix, or a nonmorphological letter sequence. We interpret our findings in relation to previous results in the literature and discuss their implications for reading research both in the single-word and sentence-reading domains.
► Support schemes are a key instrument for reaching large production numbers for fuel cells in stationary applications. ► Investment support, feed-in tariffs and price premiums are the most adequate ...support mechanisms for micro-cogeneration fuel cell units. ► The interaction of ownership arrangements, support schemes and other national energy legislation plays a key role for support effectiveness.
In recent years, fuel cell based micro-combined heat and power (mCHP) has received increasing attention due to its potential contribution to European energy policy goals, i.e., sustainability, competitiveness and security of supply. Besides technical advances, regulatory framework and ownership structures are of crucial importance in order to achieve greater diffusion of the technology in residential applications. This paper analyses the interplay of policy and ownership structures for the future deployment of mCHP. Furthermore, it regards the three country cases Denmark, France and Portugal. Firstly, the implications of different kinds of support schemes on investment risk and the diffusion of a technology are explained conceptually. Secondly, ownership arrangements are addressed. Then, a cross-country comparison on present support schemes for mCHP and competing technologies discusses the national implementation of European legislation in Denmark, France and Portugal. Finally, resulting implications for ownership arrangements on the choice of support scheme are explained. From a conceptual point of view, investment support, feed-in tariffs and price premiums are the most appropriate schemes for fuel cell mCHP. This can be used for improved analysis of operational strategies. The interaction of this plethora of elements necessitates careful balancing from a private- and socio-economic point of view.
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