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In Their Own Words: Korean College Students' Academic Writing Development in an English as a Second Language Writing Class

Soo Eun Chae, Patricia A. Alexander, & Joshua Magda

We were particularly interested in the effect that students' participation in orchestrated experiences (i.e., college courses) designed expressly to promote their academic development for L2s over the semester. The first author was "embedded" in a college writing course where she worked as an unofficial assistant so as to look deeply at academic writing development in situ and over time. Multiple sources of data (i.e., field notes, blogs, interviews, work samples, teacher feedback, and focus group interactions) were gathered across the semester so as to forge developmental picture. A seires of coding (i.e. primary, axial, and selective coding) ended up with several themes from the focus group data and the blogs: Think in Korean and write in English; Depersonalization: This writing has little to do with my life; Forging group identity, Striving approval from the teacher; Five unique cases despite common patterns.

Identifying the Play Interests of Young Children

Jan Jablonski & Patricia A. Alexander

Individual interests are a natural base on which to build other learning, and may be a base on which to predict certain academic skills. While other researchers have examined the interests of young children in particular domains (eg., cars, dinosaurs), this project examines preferred play activities which are not domain-specific. Four methods for identifying preferred play activities are being evaluated for a group of 38 four and five-year olds. The methods are direct observation during free play at school, and interviews of children, parents, and teachers. Results will be subjected to quantitative and qualitative analysis in order to evaluate the reliability of each method as a way to identify preferred play activities.

Visual Comprehension: Cognitive Processing of Art Text by Pre-Adolescent and Adolescent Readers

Sandra M. Loughlin, Patricia A. Alexander, Daniel. L. Dinsmore, and Emily E. Fox

Decades of theory suggest that the cognitive processes required to comprehend art are similar to processes activated by reading traditional text. However, there is scant research in educational psychology literature that explicates these visual comprehension processes. The focus of this study is to examine how "reading" art text maps onto what we know about reading traditional text. We are using think aloud protocols to analyze the processing of pre-adolescent and adolescent readers comprehending art texts. Participants' preliminary think-aloud data reveals nine traditional text comprehension processes, including higher-level processes like elaborating and inferring. These preliminary results indicate that reading and art comprehension processes are in fact similar, and that art may provide fertile ground for practicing higher-level comprehension strategies.

Liliana Maggioni

This study focuses on the relation between teachers’ epistemic stances and students’ epistemic cognition in high-school history classrooms. In particular, it explores whether and how teachers’ pedagogical moves may influence students’ conceptions about the nature of history and the warrants of historical claims. In so doing, the study considers the influence of teachers’ goals and interest on their pedagogical choices and the relation between teachers’ epistemic stances and their goals. In addition, the study investigates students’ attitudes and responses to teachers’ interventions that may, in turn, affect teachers’ epistemic stances or influence the effectiveness of teachers’ pedagogical moves. Three history teachers and their students will participate in the study. The methodology of the research project is mainly qualitative, with data collected throughout one semester. A plurality of measures, including quantitative ones, is used to aid in comparisons across case studies and to corroborate data obtained through observations and interviews. Increased awareness of the processes that foster or hinder epistemic development in general and historical thinking in particular may help making informed pedagogical choices in the history classrooms, in teacher education and professional development programs, and in curriculum development.

Peer Collaboration In The Science Classroom: The Role Of Questions And Regulatory Processes In Conceptual-Knowledge Learning

Patricia Alexander & Fielding Winters

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role conceptual questions and regulatory processes play in students’ conceptual-knowledge learning as they use a computer-based multimedia learning environment to learn about the circulatory system. We employ quanitative and qualitative data analyses in this study, in an effort to determine the effects of questioning and collaboration on learning processes as well as products.