bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Developing deep learning approaches and personal teaching efficacy within a preservice teacher education context
Authors: Gordon Christopher , Debus Ray 
Published: February 2003

Background: University students' approaches to learning have been demonstrated to affect learning outcomes across a wide range of courses, favouring the use of a deep approach. Interventions to promote the use of deep approaches have had mixed success, with the most successful interventions involving large‐scale course redesign.Aims: This paper describes a study in which contextual modifications were implemented in an existing preservice teacher education programme to increase students' use of deep approaches to learning and reduce their reliance on the use of surface approaches, without the need for major redesign. Students' perceptions of their competence in performing the tasks of teaching (personal teaching efficacy) were also expected to improve in response to improvements in quality learning.Sample: Three cohorts of students (N = 134), enrolled in a preservice teacher education degree programme at a rural university in New South Wales, Australia participated in the study.Method: A longitudinal quasi‐experimental design was used, with Cohort 1 acting as a control while Cohorts 2 and 3 represented treatment groups. Repeated measures were taken on Biggs' (1987b) Study Process Questionnaire, a modified version of Gibson and Dembo's (1984) Teacher Efficacy Scale and the Academic subscale within Lefcourt's (1981) Multidimensional‐Multiattributional Causality Scale. An action research paradigm was embedded to enable the development and refinement of the altered teaching approaches.Results: Results indicated that the modifications to teaching methods, task requirements and assessment processes applied to the treatment group encouraged changes in students' approaches to learning by firstly reducing their use of surface approaches and later increasing the use of deep approaches. While both treatment and contrast groups exhibited equivalent growth in teaching efficacy, differences between cohorts were noted in the sources that informed personal teaching efficacy at the conclusion of the course.Conclusions: These findings suggest that the study succeeded in its major goal of improving the quality of teaching and learning in this teacher education programme. The results conform to the findings of previous research and are consistent with learning approach theory. While the specific contextual modifications used in the current study may not necessarily be transferable to other settings, the processes employed in the generation of those modifications could find wider applicability.
Reading, language and memory skills: A comparative longitudinal study of children with Down syndrome and their mainstream peers
Authors: Byrne Angela , MacDonald John , Buckley Sue 
Published: February 2003

Background: Many of today's young adults with Down syndrome never had the opportunity to learn to read. However, an increasing number of children with Down syndrome are currently attending mainstream schools and being taught to read. As a consequence, it is now possible to systematically study reading development in children with Down syndrome.Aims: The aim of this study was to chart the development of reading, language, and memory skills in children with Down syndrome and to investigate the relationships between these abilities.Sample: Twenty‐four children with Down syndrome aged between 4 and 12 were followed over two years and compared to 31 children matched for reading age, and 42 children of average reading ability, selected from the same mainstream classes as the children with Down syndrome.Method: Standardised assessments were administered annually to obtain measures of reading, spelling, language, memory, and general intelligence.Results: The children with Down syndrome had relatively advanced single word reading ability compared to their other cognitive skills. The reading progress of the children with Down syndrome did not differ significantly from that of the reading matched group even after two years. Different cognitive abilities were highly correlated with one another in all groups. However, after controlling for age, many of the partial correlations between reading and the other measures were reduced to non‐significant levels.Conclusions: Most children with Down syndrome are capable of learning to read single words. However, there was no evidence over this two‐year period to support the hypothesis that learning to read will help to enhance language and memory development in children with Down syndrome.
Teaching children to recognise rhyme does not directly promote phonemic awareness
Authors: Martin Michelle E. , Byrne Brian 
Published: February 2003

Background: Rhyming ability and phoneme awareness both predict aspects of reading development, with rhyming emerging earlier than phoneme awareness in most children. This study employed an experimental technique to elucidate the causal connections between these two aspects of phonological sensitivity.Aims: The purpose of this study was to examine whether teaching preschool children to detect rhyme promotes their ability to detect phoneme relations.Samples, Methods, Results: An experimental group of 23 children was successfully taught to rhyme, and compared to an untaught control group of 23 children in the ability to detect phonemes. Neither group showed any increase in phonemic awareness on an immediate or a delayed post‐test.Conclusions: The results do not support the hypothesis that rhyme sensitivity is a causal precursor of phoneme sensitivity. We conclude that teaching children to rhyme remains an important preliteracy activity, but not because it directly promotes phonemic awareness.
Relaxed conditions can provide memory cues in both undergraduates and primary school children
Authors: Cassaday Helen J. , Bloomfield Rachel E. , Hayward Natalie 
Published: February 2003

Background: Memory can be impaired by changes between the contexts of learning and retrieval (context‐dependent memory, CDM). However, the reminder properties of context have usually been investigated by experimental manipulation of cues in isolation, underestimating CDM that results from interactions between cues.Aims: To test whether CDM can be demonstrated using multiple contextual cues combined to create relaxing versus neutral contexts at separate learning and memory testing stages of the experiments.Sample: Forty university undergraduates (in Experiment 1), and forty 9‐10 year‐olds (in Experiment 2).Methods: All participants were given age‐appropriate tasks under either relaxing or neutral conditions. The next day they were tested for retrieval or practice effects, under the same or different (relaxing versus neutral) conditions.Results: For both age groups, there was a (mostly asymmetric) CDM effect with performance generally best in the relaxing—relaxing condition. There was also some overall benefit of having learned under relaxed conditions.Conclusion: A relaxed learning environment can provide effective retrieval cues, as well as improve learning.Comment: For both primary school children and university students, the educational implication of these findings is that learning can be improved in a relaxed state. For this benefit to be fully manifest, the assessment of learning should also take place under relaxed conditions.
General cognitive ability in children with reading comprehension difficulties
Authors: Nation Kate , Clarke Paula , Snowling Margaret J. 
Published: February 2003

Background: Children with specific reading comprehension difficulties read accurately and fluently but are poor at understanding what they read.Aims: This study investigated cognitive ability in children with poor reading comprehension with a view to determining the relationship between general cognitive ability and specific reading comprehension difficulty.Sample: Twenty‐five poor comprehenders and 24 control children, matched for chronological age and word reading ability, participated in this study.Methods: General conceptual ability (GCA) was assessed using the British Ability Scales (2nd edition; BAS‐II); good and poor comprehenders' performance on different subscales was compared and related to underlying skills in reading accuracy, reading comprehension and number.Results: There was a general tendency for poor comprehenders to achieve lower scores on verbal tasks than on non‐verbal and spatial tasks. Although the poor comprehenders scored significantly below the control children across most subtests, most obtained GCA scores within the normal range. For these children, reading comprehension was significantly below GCA‐expected levels. A subset of poor comprehenders with below average GCA showed a clear hyperlexic profile in which comprehension was not unexpectedly poor but rather, reading accuracy was surprisingly good.Conclusions: These findings highlight the heterogeneity of children presenting with poor reading comprehension. Although most poor comprehenders have weaknesses that appear to be restricted to the verbal domain, a minority have more general cognitive impairments.
Measuring self‐reported studying and learning for university students: Linking attitudes and behaviours on the same scale
Authors: Waugh Russell F. 
Published: February 2003

Background: The relationships between self‐reported Approaches to Studying and Self‐concept, Self‐capability and Studying and Learning Behaviour are usually studied by measuring the variables separately (using factor analysis and Cronbach Alphas) and then using various correlation techniques (such as multiple regression and path analysis). This procedure has measurement problems and is called into question.Aims: To create a single scale of Studying and Learning using a model with subsets of ordered stem‐items based on a Deep Approach, a Surface Approach and a Strategic Approach, integrated with three self‐reported aspects (an Ideal Self‐view, a Capability Self‐view and a Studying and Learning Behaviour Self‐view).Samples: The stem‐item sample was 33, all answered in three aspects, that produced an effective item sample of 99. The person convenience sample was 431 students in education (1st to 4th year) at an Australian university during 2000.Method: The latest Rasch Unidimensional Measurement Model Computer Program (Andrich, Lyne, Sheridan, & Luo, 2000) was used to analyse the data and create a single scale of Studying and Learning.Results: Altogether 77 items fitted a Rasch Measurement Model and formed a scale in which the ‘difficulties’ of the items were ordered from ‘easy’ to ‘hard’ and the student measures of Studying and Learning were ordered from ‘low’ to ‘high’. The proportion of observed student variance considered true was 0.96. The response categories were answered consistently and logically and the results supported many, but not all, the conceptualised ordering of the subscales. Students found it ‘easy’ to report a high Ideal Self‐view, ‘much harder’ to report a high Capability Self‐view, and ‘harder still’ to report a high Studying and Learning Behaviour for the stem‐items, in accordance with the model, where items fit the measurement model. The Ideal Self‐view Surface Approach items provided the most non‐fit to the model.Conclusion: This method was highly successful in producing a single scale of Studying and Learning from self‐reported Self‐concepts, Self‐capabilities, and Studying and Learning Behaviours, based on a Deep Approach, a Surface Approach and a Strategic Approach.
Teacher gender‐related influences in Greek schools
Authors: Hopf Diether , Hatzichristou Chryse 
Published: February 2003

Background. Although there is a wealth of empirical studies examining the effects and the correlates of student gender in school, teacher gender has rarely been a research focus. Since Greece is one of the few Western countries with an about equal percentage of male and female teachers at primary and secondary levels of public education, it offers itself as a well‐suited context for exploring teacher gender‐related influences.Aims. The aim of the study was to examine gender‐related differences in Greek classrooms focusing on teacher gender. It was hypothesised that due to the societal context clear gender effects could be detected. It was also assumed that teacher‐student interaction patterns would be influenced by teacher gender not so much as a main effect but as interaction effects involving variables such as student gender, student achievement, grade, and teacher specialisation.Samples. The samples consisted of 1041 elementary school (mean age = 11.4 years) and 862 secondary school (mean age = 14.3 years) students in public schools in Greece.Methods. A multi‐informant and multiperspective approach to academic and psychosocial competence was used, involving teacher, peer, and self‐ratings. Achievement data were also obtained.Results. Several significant teacher gender differences were found in teachers' assessment of students' competence at both age groups. Furthermore, various domains of children's self‐concept were found to be different in classes of female and male teachers.Conclusions. The findings indicate the need to use teacher gender as a relevant variable in future research.
The influence of classroom peers on cognitive performance in children with behavioural problems
Authors: Bevington Jason , Wishart Jennifer G. 
Published: February 2003

Background. Identifying factors linked to underachievement is fundamental to understanding the associated academic difficulties and crucial to the development of effective intervention strategies. Underachievement in a number of academic domains has been shown to be associated with behavioural problems in the classroom but the nature of the association and direction of any causal link has yet to be clarified.Aims. This study explored the association between poor academic achievement and behavioural problems by examining the direct effects of peer presence on classroom performance in children with identified behavioural difficulties. Specifically, it was hypothesised that independent performance on a cognitive task would decrease as number of classroom peers present increased.Sample. A total of 24 children attending two special schools for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties participated in the study. Age range was 9‐14 years.Methods. A within‐subjects design was used in which performance on a set of perceptual/conceptual matching tasks was assessed under three conditions: the child working alone, alongside one other peer, or within a group of six. Measures of non‐verbal intelligence and academic attainment were collected, along with teacher ratings of the severity of each child's problem behaviour.Results. Performance was found to be significantly influenced by peer presence, both in terms of number of correct responses and time taken to complete the matching tasks. Direction of effects on these two performance indicators differed according to number of peers present.Conclusions. Findings highlight the importance of contextual factors in determining classroom performance in children with behavioural difficulties. Given the current pressure to educate all children in mainstream classes, findings have implications for classroom management.
Attributional styles in boys with severe behaviour problems: A possible reason for lack of progress on a positive behaviour programme
Authors: Eslea Mike 
Published: February 2003

Background. The number of exclusions from British schools has been increasing in recent years: the vast majority are because of disruptive behaviour. Increasing the effectiveness of behaviour control is therefore a priority for educators.Aims. This study tests the hypothesis that children who do not respond well to a behaviour modification regime exhibit a depressed attributional style.Sample. The sample comprised 26 boys aged 7‐11 in a special day school for children with behaviour problems.Method. Participants were interviewed about positive and negative aspects of school life: responses were coded using the Leeds Attributional Coding System (Stratton et al., 1988). School records were then used to identify children making good progress through the Positive Behaviour Programme (N = 13) and those making little or no progress (N = 8).Results. Mean proportions of stable, global, internal, personal and controllable attributions were compared by progress group (high/low) and outcome (positive/negative) using mixed‐design ANOVA. High progress children made significantly more global and internal attributions for positive than for negative events, while low progress children made more personal attributions for negative than for positive events.Conclusions. A depressed attributional style may act as a barrier which hinders the generalisation and internalisation of traditional behaviour modification methods. Increased teacher‐awareness of attribution could increase the effectiveness of remedial programmes.
Early reading intervention can be effective and cost‐effective
Authors: Nicolson Roderick I. , Fawcett Angela J. , Moss Helen , Nicolson Margaret K. , Reason Rea 
Published: February 2003

Aims. To develop and evaluate an intervention strategy for children at risk of reading failure in their first year at school.Samples. Classes in four UK infant schools with different demographic characteristics were screened to identify children most at risk of reading failure (62 in total, mean initial age 6.0 years). Control children, matched overall for age and reading performance, were selected from comparable schools.Methods. The selected children were given an individually adaptive, curriculum‐based, support programme with the emphasis on word building and phonics skills in the broad reading context. The programme was administered to children in groups of four for two half‐hour sessions per week for 10 weeks.Results. The intervention group improved significantly in mean reading standard score (from 89.0 to 92.8), whereas the control group made no overall improvement. The intervention proved cost‐effective, with mean ‘effect size’ comparable to those reported for Reading Recovery, yet with only 10% of the costs. Despite the clear progress of the intervention group overall, 25% remained ‘problem readers' (with reading still at least 6 months behind). Of these problem readers 88% had initial ‘at risk’ or ‘borderline risk’ scores on the DEST screening test, compared with only 28% of the ‘recovered readers’.Conclusions. The following three‐stage intervention strategy is promising: (i) children at risk of reading difficulties are identified before 6 years; (ii) at risk children are given a small‐group intervention programme for 3‐4 months; (iii) children still failing to make progress may then be given continuing targeted additional support.
Approaches to studying for students in higher education: A Rasch measurement model analysis
Authors: Waugh Russell F. 
Published: February 2003

Background. The revised Approaches to Studying Inventory (Entwistle & Tait, 1994) comprises 38 self‐report items designed to measure student approaches to learning in a higher education context. A Rasch analysis (Waugh & Addison, 1998) using data from an Australian university showed that some improvements could be made. The inventory was further revised to include 40 attitude items and 40 corresponding behaviour items based on a Deep Approach, a Surface Approach, a Strategic Approach, Clarity of Direction in Studying and Academic Self‐Confidence towards Studying.Aims. The aims were to create a new interval level scale, analyse its psychometric properties using a modern measurement model, the Extended Logistic Model of Rasch (Andrich, 1988 a, 1988 b; Rasch, 1980), and investigate the conceptual design of the inventory.Sample. The sample consisted of 369 students (mainly first year) from an Australian university and is basically a convenience sample. There are 83 (22.5%) undergraduates studying in Business, Education and Nursing; 161 (43.6%) undergraduates studying Health Science, 84 (22.8%) studying undergraduate Management; and 41 (11.1%) in 2nd year Nursing.Method. The data were analysed initially with the whole sample for the 40 attitude items and for the 40 behavioural items separately. Items not fitting the model were then discarded (12 attitude items and 12 behavioural items). The analysis was repeated using the 56 valid items together and the items of each of the five subscales separately (Deep Approach, Surface Approach, Strategic Approach, Lack of Direction in Studying and Academic Self‐Confidence towards Studying).Results. Fifty‐six of the 80 items form a good scale with satisfactory psychometric properties. Its conceptual design based on attitudes, behaviour and the five learning orientations is confirmed. All the attitude items fall at an easier position on the scale than their corresponding behaviour items. Nineteen of the 20 items of the Strategic Approach subscale, 20 items of the Deep Approach subscale, 4 of the 20 items of the Surface Approach subscale, 4 of the 10 items of the Clarity of Direction in Studying subscale, and 9 of the 10 items of the Academic Self‐Confidence towards Studying subscale, fit the model.Conclusions. The Extended Logistic Model of Rasch was useful in creating an interval level scale of student attitudes and behaviours towards studying, and for analysing its psychometric properties and conceptual design. The scale is confirmed as involving attitudes and behaviours as a measure of a variable based on five orientations to learning. Attitudes are easier than their corresponding behaviours and the Rasch model helps to explain how behaviours are influenced by attitudes.
Things don't get better just because you're older: A case for facilitating reflection
Authors: Frydenberg Erica , Lewis Ramon 
Published: February 2003

Aims. This study reports on the coping actions of Australian secondary students and highlights the role schools may play in helping adolescents to both document, and if desired, modify their current styles and strategies of coping.Sample. A sample of 829 Australian school students (11‐18 years) participated in the study.Methods. All participants completed the General Form of the Adolescent Coping Scale (ACS, Frydenberg & Lewis, 1993 a), and gender, age and SES were the predictors of coping.Results. Girls sought more social support but less professional advice than did boys. In addition, girls professed less ability to cope and were more likely to utilise strategies such as tension reduction, self‐blame and worry. In contrast boys were more likely to seek relaxing diversions or physical recreation, to ignore the problem and to keep problems to themselves. There was also a greater usage of two non‐productive coping strategies by older adolescents but the tendency was more noticeable for females. Finally, adolescents from white collar backgrounds expressed less worry and were less likely to engage in wishful thinking or to seek spiritual support than were students from low SES.Conclusions. The reported data provide a reference point for student selfevaluation of their own adaptive behaviour.