This study aimed to examine the unique longitudinal role of theory of mind (ToM) on reading comprehension among primary school children, while controlling for other influencing factors. It also ...examined how this impact varies by grade, text genre, and processing level. A sample of 430 Chinese children in Grades 2, 4, and 6 was observed over a period of 6 months. For each grade, longitudinal hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine the unique contribution of ToM to reading comprehension across different text genres and processing levels. By controlling for variables such as reading frequency, decoding, vocabulary, nonverbal intelligence, listening comprehension, and executive function, ToM cannot predict the overall reading comprehension of children in Grade 2, but can predict it of children in Grades 4 and 6. For specific text genres, ToM predicted narrative comprehension in both Grades 4 and 6 and expository comprehension only in Grade 6. For specific processing levels, ToM predicted advanced comprehension in Grades 4 and 6 and basic comprehension only in Grade 6. Furthermore, ToM predicted advanced narrative and expository comprehension in Grades 4 and 6, and basic expository comprehension in Grade 6. These findings highlight the important role of ToM in reading comprehension development, particularly in the middle and upper stages of primary school. These results lay the foundation for further research on exploring the underlying mechanisms of the impact of ToM on reading comprehension and provide a social-cognitive perspective to enhance the development of reading comprehension.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
We determined when and where reading minds (theory of mind) contribute to reading texts (reading comprehension) in elementary school students through a comprehensive analysis. Our study demonstrated that reading minds uniquely affect reading texts only in the middle and upper stages of primary school. However, its impact was confined to specific text genre types and comprehension processing levels. These findings underscore the importance of recognizing social-cognitive factors' influence on reading comprehension in educational settings.
In line with the reciprocal internal/external frame of reference model (RI/E model), it is well-established that secondary school students generate domain-specific ability self-concepts by comparing ...their own performance in a domain socially (i.e., with others' performance in this domain) and dimensionally (i.e., with their own performance in other domains). However, developmental theories of ability conceptions suggest that the use of such performance comparisons to evaluate own abilities may differ by students' developmental stage because of important developmental changes between early and late childhood. Yet, to our knowledge, no study has investigated dimensional comparison effects in elementary school longitudinally although this can provide valuable information on the formation of ability self-concepts. Thus, we tested whether longitudinal dimensional effects on changes in students' ability self-concepts occur in the early school years. Ability self-concepts and grades in math and German of 542 German elementary school students were assessed seven times over 24 months from Grade 2 (M = 7.95 years of age, SD = 0.58) to Grade 4. Cross-sectional analyses showed some evidence for dimensional effects of students' math grades on their German self-concepts, but not of students' German grades on their math self-concepts. Longitudinal analyses with latent cross-lagged models revealed no evidence for longitudinal dimensional effects on changes in children's ability self-concepts. Findings indicate that dimensional comparisons are not as important in ability self-concept formation in the first school years as they tend to be later on. Findings underline the importance of considering developmental differences to better understand ability self-concept formation.
Classroom-based physical activity interventions have demonstrated positive effects in reducing sedentary behaviour among school children. However, this is an understudied area, especially in low- and ...middle-income countries such as Sri Lanka. This study aims to explore teachers' opportunity, capability and motivation relating to the implementation of an in-classroom physical activity breaks programme. Twenty-seven teachers were recruited through snowball sampling and participated in semi-structured telephone interviews from early-January to the mid-June 2022. The Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation Behaviour (COM-B) model was used to guide and deductively thematic analyse the interviews. 21 out of the recruited teachers responded to the full study. The mean age of respondents was 39.24 years old ranging from 27 years to 53 years. Teaching experience of the respondents ranged from three to 37 years, and 57% were female. Three teachers had a degree with a teacher training diploma, while others were having General Certificate of Education in Advanced Level with a teacher training diploma as the highest education qualification. Capability factors such as age, dress code, mask wearing, knowledge, skills and workload of the teachers were identified as important factors in implementing a physical activity breaks intervention in a Sri Lankan classroom setting. Classroom space, facilities, student backgrounds and safety were identified as opportunity factors. Obtaining policy level decisions to implement the activity breaks and managing the time of the activities to reduce time lost in education time were identified as motivational factors. During the intervention development phase, implementation facilitators and barriers must be considered carefully. Behaviour change techniques can be utilised to address the identified COM-B factors to ensure a good implementation of the intervention.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Robotics has been advocated as an emerging approach to engaging K-12 students in learning science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This study examined the impacts of a project-based ...STEM integrated robotics curriculum on elementary school students’ attitudes toward STEM and perceived learning in an afterschool setting. Three elementary school teachers and 18 fourth to sixth graders participated in an eight-week-long program. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed, and showed students’ attitudes toward math improved significantly at the end of the robotics curriculum. Three specific areas of perceived learning were identified, including STEM content learning and connection, engagement and perseverance, and development and challenge in teamwork. The findings also identified the opportunities and challenges in designing a STEM integrated robotics afterschool curriculum for upper elementary school students. Implications for future research studies and curriculum design are discussed.
Teacher noticing of student thinking represents a key aspect of teacher expertise as it informs teachers’ actions ‘on the fly’ during a lesson. In science and mathematics education, teacher noticing ...has been conceptualised as being driven by attending to and making sense of student thinking. A range of models of noticing developed in professional fields such as aviation posit that perceptual interaction is also a key driver of noticing. This paper presents an alternate, ecological model of teacher noticing that begins with the premise that teachers have limited capacity to make sense of noteworthy events mid-lesson. Multimodal data collected from a primary science and mathematics lesson, taught by the same teacher, is analysed using the ecological lens. The analysis draws research attention to aspects of teacher/classroom interaction such as attention deployment and the role that classroom environments play in facilitating mid-lesson noticing of student thinking. Differences in teacher noticing between the science and mathematics lesson can be accounted for in terms of variance in environmental structure rather than solely in terms of teacher cognition.
Prior research has demonstrated that teachers' professional knowledge and motivation are strongly related to students' learning and motivation. Symptoms of teachers' stress and burnout (e.g., ...emotional exhaustion) are also thought to influence students' achievement, but no empirical study has tested this prediction. Using multilevel analyses and a representative sample consisting of 1,102 German elementary school teachers and their students, we addressed this gap in knowledge by examining the association between teachers' emotional exhaustion and students' achievement in mathematics, and by testing whether classroom composition moderates this relation. We controlled for teachers' gender, their years of experience, their teaching certificate, and the composition of the class, and on the student level for students' gender, language spoken at home, socioeconomic status, and cognitive ability. Results revealed that teachers' emotional exhaustion was significantly negatively related to students' mathematics achievement, even after teacher characteristics and classroom composition were controlled for. Classroom composition moderated this relation, whereby teachers' emotional exhaustion was more strongly related to students' achievement in classes with a high percentage of language minority students. These results highlight the importance of teachers' well-being for students' learning.
Two precise goals were targeted in this research: 1) Describing the orthographical knowledge of the student with a DLD (Developmental Language Disorder) and 2) identify if the written word production ...results are related to other tests using orthographical knowledge such as word/pseudoword recognition. A group comparative methodological approach was used in this study in order to analyze the results of three groups of participants of the study sample: 1) An experimental group including students with severe DLD (TDL, n = 25, M age = 9.72); 2) a controlled group matched according to reading skill level (CL, n = 26, M age = 8.22); and 3) a controlled group matched according to chronological age (CA, n = 42, M age = 9.82). This exploratory study's results suggest that the performances in orthographical production of students who have a DLD are similar to those of the younger students (CL). Lastly, significant correlation links between the performance of reading and production word tasks were identified in the three groups of participants.
The primary goal of the present study was to examine elementary teachers' strategies, attitudes, and beliefs regarding hypothetical shy (i.e., quiet), exuberant (i.e., overly talkative), and average ...(i.e., typical) children. We explored whether these strategies and beliefs varied as a function of the gender of the hypothetical child as well as teachers' own shyness. Participants were 275 elementary school teachers (241 women, 34 men) ranging in age from 23 to 64 years (M = 40.97, SD = 10.02). Teachers were presented with vignettes depicting hypothetical children displaying shy/quiet, exuberant/talkative, or average/typical behaviors in the classroom and responded to follow-up questions assessing their strategies and beliefs. Teachers also completed a self-report measure of shyness. Among the results, teachers were more likely to respond to exuberant/talkative children with high-powered and social learning strategies and to employ peer-focused and indirect strategies for shy/quiet children. Teachers also believed that shy/quiet children were less intelligent and would do more poorly academically than would exuberant/talkative children. However, some of these findings were moderated by teachers' own level of shyness. Results are discussed in terms of their educational implications for the social and academic functioning of shy and exuberant children.
Background: Current efforts to promote reasoning, problem solving, and discussion are often framed as advancing equity, but scholarship suggests individual students' opportunities to learn can vary ...considerably in classrooms that attempt to take up these approaches to teaching mathematics. Noticing students' mathematical strengths and positioning their contributions as competent is among aspects of instruction associated with more equitable learning outcomes for students from marginalized groups, but research has yet to comprehensively examine the range and nuance of this aspect of teachers' practice in classrooms that feature broad distributions of participation. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine teachers' instructional practice with respect to assigning competence in two mathematics classrooms that demonstrated high levels of student participation. We investigated the kinds of situations in which teachers positioned students as competent, and the ways assigning competence opened opportunities to participate. Setting: Data were collected at a public elementary school in a culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse neighborhood in southern California. Participants: Participants included two teachers and 45 students from two third-grade classrooms. Teachers had participated in ongoing professional development focused on leveraging children's mathematical thinking in instruction. Research Design: We drew from qualitative methods for analyzing video to investigate classroom interactions from 12 mathematics lessons. Data sources included video recordings, transcripts, and student work. We used Studiocode software to parse each lesson into phases and episodes. Drawing from previous studies, we identified a subset of episodes in which teachers explicitly positioned a student's contribution as competent. An iterative process of coding and discussion was used to analyze patterns with respect to student participation, teacher support, and the unfolding of rights and obligations related to participating in mathematical activity. Findings: Analyses revealed different kinds of situations in which students participated in mathematically substantive ways (in terms of providing detailed explanations of their ideas or engaging with the details of a peer's idea) and teachers positioned their contributions as competent. These situations included highlighting, clarifying, and amplifying contributions; supporting the specificity of student contributions; recognizing emergent ideas; and validating unprompted attention to mathematical details. Assignments of competence emerged in ways that were integrated into teachers' ongoing efforts to surface and make explicit the details of their mathematical ideas, while also broadening the kinds of contributions students could make to joint mathematical work. Conclusions: Helping students to know what it could look and sound like to participate in the moment while recognizing a wide range of contributions as competent created openings for students who in many classrooms might be excluded or relegated to the periphery of conversations. Making competence explicit was a contingent, relational practice that required teachers to find specific ways of leveraging student strengths to support their participation. Recommendations for advancing mathematics teaching must attend to the nuances with which particular practices unfold to open or constrain individual students' opportunities to learn.
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