Toward an Understanding of the Development of Skilled Remembering: The Role of Teachers’ Instructional Language

Although there is a rich literature on children’s strategies for remembering, little attention has been paid to characterizing developmental change within individual children and to examining mediators that may bring about such change. To address these issues, we assess children’s memory skills over time while simultaneously examining communicative interactions in the classroom. Children are not taught memory strategies in an explicit manner, but these skills emerge in the context of the elementary school classroom. Accordingly, we use longitudinal and experimental methodologies to examine the ways in which the language of instruction contributes to the development of children’s memory and cognitive skills. The basic findings are discussed here in terms of possible applications in the classroom that may impact teachers’ instruction and students’ learning.

Incremental hypothesis revision in causal reasoning across development

We explore whether children’s strategies on a causal learning task show a bias observed in adults towards “exploitative” hypothesis revision. Adults and children (ages 4–6) were presented with evidence which initially seemed to conform to a simple, salient rule (e.g. blue blocks activate a machine), but then encountered evidence that violated this rule. The true rule in the "near" condition was more complex, but could be reached through iterative revision of the salient rule, while in the "distant" condition, the true rule was comparatively simple, but incremental revision could not yield the true rule. Participants then predicted the behaviour of a set of new blocks. Adults performed better in the near condition, while in the distant condition adults did not appear to revise their initial hypothesis significantly. Unlike adults, children's overall performance in both conditions was similar, while condition differences may reflect a broader search for alternative solutions.

Food-Choice Values of Elementary School Children and Strategies Used to Influence Mothers’ Food Purchasing Decisions

Objectives This study aimed to understand the values held by elementary school children in constructing food choices and the strategies they used to influence their mothers’ food purchasing decisions. Methods Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 40 elementary school children (aged 6–11 years) and their mothers living in South Carolina. Food choice information was collected only from children and strategies to influence mothers’ food purchases were collected from both children and mothers. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and open-coded. Coding matrices were used to compare children's and mothers’ responses on the children's strategies to influence mothers’ food purchasing decisions. Results Children most valued taste, texture, and flavor of the food items, followed by perceived benefits, happiness, craving, following family and friends, the items’ healthfulness, preparation, and presentation when they made food choice decisions. Children reported 157 strategies that they used to influence mothers’ purchasing decisions. Mothers had concordance with 80 strategies that children mentioned. In mother-child dyads, more concordance was observed between mothers and sons than between mothers and daughters. The most common and successful strategies from both the children's and mothers’ perspectives were reasoned requests, repeated polite requests, and referencing friends. Other strategies included offers to contribute money or service, teaming up with siblings, writing a shopping list, and grabbing desired items. Mothers perceived that children had a lot of influence on their food purchasing decisions. Conclusions Children were aware of the strategies that would get positive reactions from their mothers. Mothers’ acknowledgement of children's influence on their food purchase decisions suggests that children can serve as change agents for improving mothers’ food purchases if children prefer healthy foods. Interventions are needed for mothers to help address children's strategies to influence mothers to purchase unhealthy foods and make healthy foods more appealing to children instead of yielding to children's requests for unhealthy items. Funding Sources SPARC grant and Ogoussan Doctoral Research Award from the University of South Carolina.

Unit Fractions as Superheroes for Instruction

The complexity of understanding unit fractions is often underappreciated in instruction. We introduce a continuum of children's understanding of unit fractions to explore this complexity and to help teachers make sense of children's strategies and recognize milestones in the development of unit-fraction understanding. Suggestions for developing this understanding are provided.

ADAPTASI DAN VALIDASI SKALA STRATEGI SIBLING CONFLICT

Sibling conflict has some influences on children’s development, positively and negatively. It is not only about the frequency, but also about the strategies used in managing conflict. The main purpose of this study was to adapt and to validate Sibling Conflict Strategy Scale developed by Recchia (2009), so it can be used by parents in Indonesia to identify their children’s strategies. The process of adaptation was guided by the International Testing Commission (ITC) Guidelines model for test adaptation, which include forward – backward translation processes, followed by expert reviews to test language and conceptual equivalence. Then, we conducted the validation process by testing the Content Validity Index (CVI) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Two hundred and six parents in Surabaya who have children in the age range of 52-87 months (M = 71.21) were participated in the pilot study. The result showed that each indicator, dimension, and construct met all the Goodness of Fit criteria (RMSEA < .08; CFI > .9). In addition, the value of Construct Reliability (CR) > .70 and Average Variance Extracted (AVE) > .50 were also obtained. Thus, the Sibling Conflict Strategy Scale can be used as a valid and reliable measurement to measure children’s sibling conflict strategies in Indonesia.

Preservice Teachers’ Learning to Respond on the Basis of Children’s Mathematical Understanding

This study examined the extent to which preservice teachers (PSTs) develop their capacity to attend to children’s strategies and interpret and respond on the basis of children’s mathematical understanding in the context of two well-designed assignments: Inquiry into Student Thinking assignment and tutoring assignment. The two assignments were assigned after 6 and 10 weeks of instruction, respectively. The analysis revealed that PSTs attended to children’s strategies and interpreted children’s mathematical understanding but struggled with the component skill of responding to children’s mathematical understanding in the two assignments. Although the nature of tasks selected differed across the two assignments, generally PSTs focused on tasks that would develop children’s mathematical understanding. The findings have theoretical implications for a hypothesized trajectory of professional noticing of children’s mathematical understanding and the design of mathematics methods courses.