Adolescent Literacy and the Achievement Gap: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go From Here?

Reviews research and program initiatives focused on improving adolescent academic achievement by targeting literacy. Provides ideas for collaboration and coordination of funding efforts to improve the literacy achievement of under-performing adolescents

Design techniques for revealing adolescent memory processes related to information seeking: A preliminary study

This study investigates the effectiveness of design techniques as a means for uncovering metamemory, an attribute of metacognition, and its role in information seeking. A focus group with four adolescents aged 13 and 14 used design techniques such as brainstorming and sketching, metaphorical design and fictional inquiry, to help express their thinking about their own memory processes during the information search process. Results showed that metaphorical design and fictional inquiry are both effective tools for revealing conceptual thinking about metamemory and information seeking. Coupling these techniques with brainstorming and sketching helped the teens to visualize and communicate their ideas. Results from this study will contribute to knowledge about adolescent thinking, metamemory, and information seeking behavior, broaden the range of methodological approaches used in the study of information seeking behavior, and will provide cognitive models for the design of information systems and tools that scaffold metacognition. © 2012 ACM

Metacognitive Development and Conceptual Change in Children

There has been little investigation to date of the way metacognition is involved in conceptual change. It has been recognised that analytic metacognition is important to the way older children acquire more sophisticated scientific and mathematical concepts at school. But there has been barely any examination of the role of metacognition in earlier stages of concept acquisition, at the ages that have been the major focus of the developmental psychology of concepts. The growing evidence that even young children have a capacity for procedural metacognition raises the question of whether and how these abilities are involved in conceptual development. More specifically, are there developmental changes in metacognitive abilities that have a wholescale effect on the way children acquire new concepts and replace existing concepts? We show that there is already evidence of at least one plausible example of such a link and argue that these connections deserve to be investigated systematically

Developing critical reading skills : a coursebook evaluation study

The aim of the paper is to discuss the importance of teaching critical reading skills, particularly in a foreign language context. The paper consists of two parts: theoretical and empirical. In the first part, the theoretical considerations underpinning this aspect of reading are discussed. Two theoretical perspectives are focused on: a psycholinguistic-cognitive orientation, which views reading as a mental process during which the reader constructs their own representation of the text and a socio- cultural orientation, which emphasizes the importance of varied social and historical contexts in text production and text reception. Within each theory, practical possibilities on how to develop critical reading skills are explored. The practical part of the article presents the results of a small-scale coursebook evaluation study, whose main aim was to examine to what extent the Pioneer Plus coursebooks can help learners develop critical reading skills. The results of the study point to didactic materials and teaching activities that have the potential to facilitate this important component of language proficiency.peer-reviewe

Metacognition and Self-Scaffolding in MMORPGs: Case Study of an Adolescent Male Gamer

The genre of massively multiplayer online role-playing games has become increasingly popular with adolescent males. While researchers have studied the social aspect of online role-playing games, there is little known about the metacognitive and self-scaffolding processes that players engage in as they navigate these digital immersive environments. This case study focuses on the experience of an adolescent male gamer as he develops his knowledge, selfawareness and virtual identity

Implementing SBI in the foreign language classroom - mission (im)possible?

Udostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu „Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia”. Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00

The Enhanced Reading Opportunities Study: Early Impact and Implementation Findings

This report presents early findings from a demonstration and random assignment evaluation of two supplemental literacy programs that aim to improve the reading comprehension skills and school performance of struggling ninth-grade readers. On average, the programs produced a positive, statistically significant impact on reading comprehension among students

Multilateral Relationship between Information Literacy, Self-Concept and Metacognitive Ability

This study examined information literacy, metacognitive abilities and self-concept capabilities. The evaluation of this research indicated that self-concept is the totality of psychological, emotional, psychosomatic and mental development that provide confidence to individual in the ability to search, use, appraise and assess information resources, which are critical qualities needed to enable information literacy; an individual needs to be conscious and develop aptitude to identify useful information. Metacognitive ability is important because of the age of information overload which an individual is overwhelmed with which signified that information available is exceeding processing capacity of an average individual. Accordingly, once information overload ensues, it is possible that a decrease or decline in quality of decision-making will happen. In view of this, metacognitive ability becomes necessary in order to equip people with the critical ability to contemplate rigorously before action is taken. The objective of this research is to embark on content analysis of the subject matter of information literacy, metacognitive abilities and self-concept in which existing research was thoroughly evaluated in order to identify gap in research and bring out new knowledge. This research uses qualitative content analysis as a method of data collection in which existing journals and other information resources were evaluated. Research has been silenced on the triangular relationship of metacognitive ability, self-concept and information literacy, that is, the gap this research attempt to bridge

ADOLESCENTS' CONSTRUCTIVELY RESPONSIVE READING STRATEGY USE IN A CRITICAL INTERNET READING TASK

The goal of this study was to examine types and patterns of reading strategies that proficient adolescent readers used while reading on the Internet. Informed by research related to reading comprehension, intertextuality, and new literacies, I drew upon the model of Constructively Responsive Reading that had evolved from print reading to Internet reading (Afflerbach & Cho, 2009; Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995). The model offered an analytical tool to construct descriptions of the complexity of use of the four general types of strategies in Internet contexts: Realizing and Constructing Potential Texts to Read, Identifying and Learning Text Content, Monitoring, and Evaluation. Seven highly proficient adolescent readers (Mean Age = 17.5) individually performed Internet reading, with a goal to create a critical question about their self- selected controversial topic across two 45-minute sessions: Open Website Searching and Focused Website Learning. I used multiple sources to triangulate complementary data to infer participants' Internet reading strategy use. Participants' think-aloud verbal reports were synchronized with their reader-computer interactions recorded in the computer. These real-time strategy data were complemented by other contextual data (e.g., pre-/post-reading interviews, participant-generated critical questions). I integrated these data into Internet Reading Strategy Matrices of the individual participants, which were analyzed, both qualitatively and quantitatively. During the entire course of data analysis, I constantly referenced the model of Constructively Responsive Reading with the four strategy categories. My data analyses afforded detailed descriptions of diverse constructively responsive reading strategies in Internet contexts and dynamic patterns of such reading strategy use. Grounded-analysis of data resulted in the identification of an array of reading strategies and many instances of strategy interplay among the four strategy categories. Chi-squared analysis of aggregated strategy data revealed the goal-directed nature of strategy use, as participants' use of these four types of strategies was associated with two different session tasks. Also, analysis of the processing chains visualizing the flow of strategy use indicated differences in the performances of Internet reading strategy use among the participants and their distinctive modes of Internet reading. Overall, my study supported the theoretical model of Constructively Responsive Reading, with empirical data that described diversity and patterns of constructively responsive reading strategies in Internet contexts. The complexity of Internet reading was discussed with regard to constructively responsive reading that coordinates different roles and functions of the four general types of strategies

Genres of search: A concept for understanding successive search behaviour

The paper presents Genres of Search, a concept that contributes to our understanding of the successive search phenomenon. The concept is explained in the context of a case study that used naturalistic methods to explore the information-seeking behaviour of 10 participants, aged 16 to 18, as they searched for, selected, and used information for a school-based inquiry project on a topic related to the history of Western civilization. The study found an array of sub-searches, or Genres of Search, embedded within the information problem solving process, each genre representing a distinct information need. The Genres of Search concept is useful for mapping irregularities in successive searching and provides insight into the nature of the tasks involved in the search process