Difficulties in Reading Comprehension of Hungarian Primary School Students in Slovakia

Our study aimed to assess the level of reading comprehension, one of the cornerstones of education of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, and to answer the research question of what kind of deficits need to be addressed in the development of reading comprehension. The research was conducted with the participation of students from primary schools with Hungarian as the language of instruction in Slovakia. In our study, we shed light on the problems found in cognitive reasoning, accurate interpretation of information and complex reading comprehension. The extent to which the development of new cognitive schemata caused problems for the studied groups was also investigated. In several cases, the responses were not based on textual information, but only on the respondents’ existing schemas. The results also show that it was a problem for the learners to answer both the multiple-choice questions and the open-ended and explanatory questions.

“It is those people”: Religious Scripts and Organizing Compassion

The literature describes religious behavior as triggered by cognitive schemata, but we know little of how emotions and values influence organizational religious scripts. Drawing from an ethnographic and longitudinal qualitative case study in a faith-based institution, this paper analyzes how organizational religious scripts encode and enact compassionate activities. In this article, a process of acknowledging religious history, noticing pain, and living ethical spirituality is identified as forming compassionate behavior that enhances the script. The institutional context as well as the emotional experience of pain, suffering, and inequality can be a pervasive aspect of organizational spiritual life and frame organizational activities to reproduce and replicate organizational religious scripts and the moral engagement of reaching out to the sick and marginalized.

“Transparency” of Textbook Activities as Perceived by Chinese Middle School English Teachers With Different Professional Experience

Transparency of textbook activities, i.e., the degree of easiness for teachers to process and comprehend them, needs to be researched in terms of both materials design and materials use. This article reports on a study that investigates the impact of teachers’ professional experience and transparency of textbook activities (due to materials design) on teachers’ actual perception of the transparency of materials. The study adopted a mixed-methods design and collected quantitative data via a five-point scale survey from 115 secondary school teachers as well as interview data from 15 informants. Data analysis reveals that both teachers’ professional experience and transparency of textbook activities affect the degree of easiness teachers perceived as they understand and interpret the activities for pedagogical purposes. However, discrepancy exists between transparency in materials design and transparency in teachers’ perception. Lack of pedagogical knowledge about the relationship between teaching objectives, steps, and assessment and strong existing cognitive schemata developed from the stereotype of processing a familar set of teaching materials might hamper teachers’ perception of transparency.

Αποτελεσματική διδασκαλία γνωστικού σχήματος προβλημάτων αφαίρεσης σε μαθητές με ειδικές μαθησιακές δυσκολίες με τη χρήση πολλαπλών τρόπων αναπαράστασης της γνώσης

The present research examines the construction and activation of cognitive schemata corresponding to subtraction-compare and subtraction-equalize math word problems by primary school students with specific learning disabilities. In order to facilitate the participants in developing their cognitive schemata, we utilized multiple ways of knowledge representation (manipulatives, pictures, and arithmetic symbols) in the context of an intervention based on the principles of effective instruction. In order to evaluate the results, assessments were conducted prior and immediately after the implementation of the intervention, as well as three weeks after its completion. It was found that participants performed significantly better in problem solving both after the intervention and at follow-up, proving that they benefited from the instruction they had received. Results are discussed in regard to organizing appropriate instruction for students with mathematical difficulties and disabilities.

Suicide and Islam

The historical and philosophical aspects of suicide in Islam, as well as the influences of Islamic culture on the phenomena of suicide and attempted suicide are discussed, focusing chiefly on attitudes in Egypt. All studies show that suicide is less prevalent in Islamic societies compared to countries associated with other religions. Here, the reasons for suicide in different Islamic and Arabic countries are evaluated in relation to the sociocultural context. The cognitive schemata of Muslims follow the phrases of the Koran that humans were created for the main reason of worshipping God, and that life and death issues should be controlled by God and not by self-destruction. This faith can be a factor in preventing suicide attempts, especially in those practising their religious rituals. The phenomenology of psychiatric disorders in Islamic culture is characterized and dominated in its content, whether hallucinations or delusions by religious themes.

The Manifestation of “The Other” and the Possibility of Self-Redemption - Reconsidering the Authenticity of Where Yellow Sails are Flying

Authenticity, as a research topic in the field of urban problems, is a concentrated reflection of many cultural anxieties caused by urbanization. This article selects the movie Where Yellow Sails Are Flying, trying to clarify the inherent logic and theoretical contexts of authenticity, including what it is, how to define its perceptual, imaginative and practical connotation in the ontology angle. And then pointing out that “human”, as the core of cognitive schemata in practice, has the meaning of otherness of others, so cannot be attributed to an object of “being” or theoretical reality. It not only contains Benjamin’s Messianic unknowable dimension, but also is closely related to the negation of the metaphysical system of presence in the post-modern context. Finally, authenticity, as a kind of cultural politics and practice, is considered to be a collection of blindness and insight, distorting the experience by generalizing and abstracting while displaying the fracture of the signifier and signified. It is only through multiple cultural perspectives can individuals escape from the history of “the other”. This paper also uses the relevant arguments of scientists or philosophers such as Slavoj Žižek, Zygmunt Bauman and Jacques Lacan to critically interpret the theory of authenticity.

Parental Attitudes in Child Maltreatment

An information-processing approach to maladaptive parenting suggests that high-risk and maltreating parents are likely to hold inaccurate and biased preexisting cognitive schemata about child development and child rearing. Importantly, these schemas, which may include values, beliefs, expectations, and attitudes, are known to influence the way parents perceive and subsequently act toward their children. However, the few studies specifically addressing parental attitudes only considered global maltreatment, not distinguishing abuse from neglect. Moreover, few have considered dual-process models of cognition, relying mostly on the explicit level of parental attitudes that can be prone to various biases. Based on the Social Information Processing (SIP) model of child abuse and neglect, this study examines the association of parents preexisting cognitive schemata, namely explicit and implicit parental attitudes, and child abuse and neglect. A convenience sample of 201 mothers (half with at least one child referred to child protection services) completed a measure of explicit parental attitudes and a speed-accuracy task related to parenting. Abuse and neglect were measured with self-report and professionals-report instruments. Overall, the results support the hypothesis that maladaptive parenting is related with more biased preexisting cognitive schemas, namely attitudes related to parenting, but only for neglect and particularly when reported by professionals. Moreover, the results observed with both the explicit and implicit measures of attitudes were convergent, with mothers presenting more inadequate explicit attitudes also exhibiting an overall lower performance in the implicit attitudes task. This study is likely to contribute to the SIP framework of child abuse and neglect, particularly for the elucidation of the sociocognitive factors underlying maladaptive parenting, while also providing relevant cues for prevention and intervention programs.

The psychology of experimental psychologists: Overcoming cognitive constraints to improve research: The 47th Sir Frederic Bartlett Lecture

Like many other areas of science, experimental psychology is affected by a “replication crisis” that is causing concern in many fields of research. Approaches to tackling this crisis include better training in statistical methods, greater transparency and openness, and changes to the incentives created by funding agencies, journals, and institutions. Here, I argue that if proposed solutions are to be effective, we also need to take into account human cognitive constraints that can distort all stages of the research process, including design and execution of experiments, analysis of data, and writing up findings for publication. I focus specifically on cognitive schemata in perception and memory, confirmation bias, systematic misunderstanding of statistics, and asymmetry in moral judgements of errors of commission and omission. Finally, I consider methods that may help mitigate the effect of cognitive constraints: better training, including use of simulations to overcome statistical misunderstanding; specific programmes directed at inoculating against cognitive biases; adoption of Registered Reports to encourage more critical reflection in planning studies; and using methods such as triangulation and “pre mortem” evaluation of study design to foster a culture of dialogue and criticism.

The psychology of experimental psychologists: Overcoming cognitive constraints to improve research

Experimental psychology is affected by a "replication crisis" that is causing concern in many areas of science. Approaches to tackling this crisis include better training in statistical methods, greater transparency and openness, and changes to the incentives created by funding agencies, journals and institutions. Here I argue that if proposed solutions are to be effective, we need also to take into account people's cognitive constraints that can distort all stages of the research process: designing and executing experiments, analysing data, and writing up findings for publication. I focus specifically on cognitive schemata in perception and memory, confirmation bias, systematic misunderstanding of statistics, and asymmetry in moral judgements of errors of commission and omission. Finally, I consider methods that may help mitigate the effects of cognitive constraints: better training, including use of simulations to overcome statistical misunderstanding, specific programs directed at inoculating against cognitive biases, adoption of Registered Reports to encourage more critical reflection in planning studies, and using methods such as triangulation and "pre mortem" evaluation of study design to make a culture of criticism more acceptable.