Understanding Shared Familiarity and Team Performance through Network Analytics

In this article, we propose a network approach to understanding team knowledge with archival data, offering conceptual and methodological advantages. Often, the degree to which team members’ possess shared knowledge has been conceptualized and measured as an aggregate property of a team as a whole. Rather than an aggregate property, however, we argue that shared team knowledge is more appropriately conceptualized as a network of knowledge overlaps or linkages between sets of team members. We created shared knowledge networks for a sample of 1,942 software teams based on members’ prior experiences working with one another on different tasks and teams. We included metrics representing topological features of team shared knowledge networks within predictive models of team performance. Our results suggest that network patterning provides additional predictive power for explaining software development team performance over and above the effects of average level of knowledge similarity within a team

Indicators of Mathematics Skill Acquisition in Children with Mild Intellectual Disability: Phonological Awareness, Naming Speed, and Vocabulary Knowledge

Deficiencies in mathematics skill constrain students’ educational achievement and subsequently, their employment outcomes. This study included 265 school-identified students with mild intellectual disabilities. The research questions investigated the extent to which phonological awareness, color naming speed, and vocabulary knowledge, was related to mathematics skill after controlling for grade level via regression analyses. Further, the mediating effects of expressive vocabulary on the relationship between receptive vocabulary and mathematics skill as well as the indirect effect of receptive vocabulary knowledge on mathematics skill through expressive vocabulary were examined. The findings indicated that after controlling for grade level, phonological awareness, naming speed, and vocabulary knowledge were significantly related to mathematics skill. The mediating effects of expressive vocabulary as well as the indirect effects of receptive vocabulary knowledge on mathematics skill were also significant

Feature Statistics Modulate the Activation of Meaning During Spoken Word Processing.

Understanding spoken words involves a rapid mapping from speech to conceptual representations. One distributed feature-based conceptual account assumes that the statistical characteristics of concepts' features--the number of concepts they occur in (distinctiveness/sharedness) and likelihood of co-occurrence (correlational strength)--determine conceptual activation. To test these claims, we investigated the role of distinctiveness/sharedness and correlational strength in speech-to-meaning mapping, using a lexical decision task and computational simulations. Responses were faster for concepts with higher sharedness, suggesting that shared features are facilitatory in tasks like lexical decision that require access to them. Correlational strength facilitated responses for slower participants, suggesting a time-sensitive co-occurrence-driven settling mechanism. The computational simulation showed similar effects, with early effects of shared features and later effects of correlational strength. These results support a general-to-specific account of conceptual processing, whereby early activation of shared features is followed by the gradual emergence of a specific target representation.This work was supported by a European Research Council Advanced Investigator grant (under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013/ ERC Grant agreement no 249640) to LKT, and a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship and Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione Fellowship to KIT. We thank Ken McRae and colleagues for making their property norm data available. We are very grateful to George Cree and Chris McNorgan for providing us with the MikeNet implementation of their model.This is the final published version. It first appeared at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.1223

Analogical reasoning in children's reading and addition

The purpose of the research was to examine the role of analogical reasoning in children's early reading and addition and to look for possible commonalities in children's performance across these two educational contexts. The research comprised four studies. Study I was a preliminary investigation of individual differences in children's use of analogies in beginning reading. In this study, 55 five-to six year-old beginning readers were presented with the traditional clue word analogy task incorporating either real word or non-word test items. After the presentation of an initial clue word that was decoded for them, children were asked to read a series of related and unrelated target words. Distinct patterns of analogy emerged with regard to the children's ability to use different combinations of orthographic and phonological relations using cluster analysis. The findings illustrated the usefulness of identifying profiles of orthographic and phonological relations for characterising children's development in learning to read. Study 2 was designed to extend the findings from Study 1 by examining whether children's traditional analogical reasoning abilities, short-term memory and their reading related skills could provide some explanations for these patterns of individual differences in reasoning skills in beginning reading. The results of Study 2 supported those of Study 1 revealing distinct patterns in children's use of orthographic and phonological relations. Although single word reading and early phonological knowledge were systematically related to these different patterns of analogy, measures of traditional analogical reasoning skill were unable to account for differences in children's profiles. The purpose of Study 3 was to systematically explore the possibility that analogies are important for children's addition. In this study, 66 five-to-seven year-olds were given an addition-based analogy task designed to assess their ability to solve series of addition problems that were either conceptually related or unrelated to a solved addition problem. Similar to Study 2, children also solved a series of traditional analogical reasoning tasks, designed to assess their ability to solve analogies based on thematic, causal and visual relations. The results indicated that children's use of analogy to solve commuted addition problems was systematically related to their profiles of addition problem solving skills, although no relation was found between children's use of addition analogy and traditional analogical reasoning tasks. In Study 4,69 five-to-six year-olds were given a revised version of the reading and addition analogy tasks presented in Studies 2 and 3 to examine possible similarities in children's analogical reasoning skills across the two domains. Individual self-reports of strategies showed that the children relied on a wide repertoire of strategies for solving related analogy problems in reading and addition. Furthermore, children's patterns of responses to solving analogical problems indicated that most children who reported using analogy strategies in early reading had high levels of analogical reasoning in addition. The findings suggest that there may be a common analogical reasoning component underlying the two domains of reading and mathematics. Overall, the four studies suggest that children's ability to reason about conceptual relations are an important aspect of their development in reading and addition and that the study of analogical reasoning across different educational contexts can provide important insights into children's cognitive development

Multiple component remediation of developmental reading disabilities: A Controlled factorial evaluation of the influence of IQ, socioeconomic status, and race on outcomes

Results from a controlled evaluation of remedial reading interventions are reported: 279 young disabled readers were randomly assigned to a program according to a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design (IQ, socioeconomic status [SES], and race). The effectiveness of two multiple-component intervention programs for children with reading disabilities (PHAB + RAVE-O; PHAB + WIST) was evaluated against alternate (CSS, MATH) and phonological control programs. Interventions were taught an hour daily for 70 days on a 1:4 ratio at three different sites. Multiple-component programs showed significant improvements relative to control programs on all basic reading skills after 70 hours and at 1-year follow-up. Equivalent gains were observed for different racial, SES, and IQ groups. These factors did not systematically interact with program. Differential outcomes for word identification, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary were found between the multidimensional pro- grams, although equivalent long-term outcomes and equal continued growth confirmed that different pathways exist to effective reading remediation

The Roles of Symbolic Mapping and Relational Thinking in Early Reading and Mathematics

Thesis advisor: Elida V. LaskiThis research explored the roles of symbolic mapping and relational thinking in early reading and mathematics learning. It examined whether symbolic mapping and relational thinking were predictive of children’s reading and mathematics knowledge; the extent to which these domain-general cognitive scores explained correlations between the two domains; and whether these cognitive scores mediated relations between verbal intelligence and reading and mathematics. Furthermore, the present research explored whether home learning experiences were predictive of children’s symbolic, relational, reading, and mathematics scores. Participants in Study 1 were 86 preschool children from the Boston area. Children completed an assessment of verbal intelligence and a range of symbolic, relational, reading, and mathematics measures. Results showed that reading and mathematics scores were highly correlated; symbolic and relational scores were predictive of domain-specific performance; and symbolic and relational thinking mediated relations between verbal intelligence and reading and mathematics knowledge. These findings suggest that symbolic mapping and relational thinking may provide foundational cognitive skills that support early learning. Study 2 investigated whether home learning experiences were related to children’s symbolic, relational, reading, and mathematics scores. Participants were the 86 parents of children from Study 1. Parents reported the frequency with which they and their child engaged in various activities. Findings showed a significant relation between symbolic learning experiences and children’s reading and mathematics scores, but no relations between learning experiences and children’s symbolic or relational scores. There was a strong association between parents’ beliefs about the importance of mathematics for kindergarten readiness and children’s reading and mathematics scores. The results suggest that homes rich in symbolic learning experiences may best support children’s early learning, but parental beliefs about mathematics may differentiate highly effective and less effective learning environments. Taken together, these two studies contribute to our understanding of the constructs of symbolic and relational thinking as foundations for early learning in reading and mathematics. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for improving school readiness via increased intentionality in early educational activities.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology

Spatial processes in linear ordering

Memory performance in linear order reasoning tasks (A > B, B > C, C > D, etc.) shows quicker, and more accurate responses to queries on wider (AD) than narrower (AB) pairs on a hypothetical linear mental model (A – B – C – D). While indicative of an analogue representation, research so far did not provide positive evidence for spatial processes in the construction of such models. In a series of 7 experiments we report such evidence. Participants respond quicker when the dominant element in a pair is presented on the left (or top) rather than on the right (or bottom). The left-anchoring tendency reverses in a sample with Farsi background (reading/writing from right to left). Alternative explanations and confounds are tested. A theoretical model is proposed that integrates basic assumptions about acquired reading/writing habits as a scaffold for spatial simulation, and primacy/dominance representation within such spatial simulations

The Effect Of Word Sociality On Word Recognition

While research into the role of semantic structure in the recognition of written and spoken words has grown, it has not looked specifically at the role of conversational context on the recognition of isolated words. This study was a corpus-based and behavioral exploration of a new semantic variable - sociality - and used on-line behavioral testing to obtain new word recognition data using the visual and auditory lexical decision tasks. The results consistently demonstrated that sociality is one of the most robust predictors of lexical decision performance. Overall, it appears that the visual lexical decision task is quite sensitive to the likelihood of words being used in conversations about people, and there is evidence suggesting this effect is multimodal and may extend beyond lexical decision

Young children’s grounding of mathematical thinking in sensory-motor experiences

Dissertation articles have been removed from the digital version, due to copyright issues. They can be read in the printed edition.Hovedmålet med avhandling min er å utvikle kunnskap om små barns forankring av matematisk tenkning i sensoriske-motoriske erfaringer, mens et delmål er å øke forståelsen for hvordan utendørs design kan støtte slike erfaringer. To intervensjoner som engasjerte 27 barn i alderen 3 til 5 år ble gjennomført som et samarbeid mellom 4 barnehagelærere i to barnehager og to forskere. Intervensjonene la grunnlaget for tre fokusstudier der det empiriske materialet består av video av barna i individuelle etter-tester. Teorien kroppslig situert kognisjon (Embodied Cognition) er brukt i analysen der en detaljert vurdering av koherens mellom oppgave adferd og det matematiske målområdet i det respektive delstudiet dannet grunnlag for sammenlikning og en fler-kasus dybdeanalyse av karakteristikker innenfor og på tvers av identifiserte mønstre for kroppslig situering av matematisk tenking. Tre forskjellige aspekter ble fokusert på: Karteristiske trekk ved delmengde-kjenneres (dvs. barn som ikke viser ferdigheter i bruk av telling for å produsere små mengder) evner til å behandle små mengder som helheter gjennom tale og kroppslig interaksjon i en stor sirkel med 50 merker (fokus studie 1); barnas evner til å gjenskape symmetrisk strukturerte kroppslige erfaringer med tallmengder for å støtte additive resonnement, og barnas evner til kroppslig modellering av tellebasert addisjon (fokus studie 3). Resultatene viste karakteristiske og divergerende trekk ved delmengde-kjenneres kroppslig situering av kardinaltallbegrepet som også omfattet produksjon av små mengder over målt begrepsnivå, og videre hvordan sensoriske-motoriske erfaringer kan støtte telle-basert addisjon og resonnement rundt del-helhet relasjoner. Avhandlingen gir et bidrag til forskningsområdet knyttet til tidlig strukturbasert kroppslig læring i matematikk, og spesielt gjennom funn som viser karakteristikker i barns situering, avlastning og koherens av matematisk tenkning i bevegelse og motorisk interaksjon. Uventede funn var inkludering av estetiske, rytmiske og sammensatte bevegelsesmønstre i den kroppsbaserte matematiske tenkningen. I lys av det kroppslige situerte perspektivet bør resultatene oppmuntre til design av utendørs aktiviteter som involverer bevegelse og rytme i den tidlige læringen av matematikk. For å konkludere understreker avhandlingen rollen som kroppslig bevegelse og fysisk interaksjon med romlige strukturer kan utgjøre i små barns matematiske tenkning.ABSTRACT: The main objective of my dissertation is to develop knowledge about young children’s grounding of mathematical thinking in sensory-motor experiences while a sub-goal is to increase the understanding of how outdoor embodied designs can facilitate such experiences. Two embodied training programmes engaging 27 children aged 3 to 5 years were conducted as a collaboration between four kindergarten teachers in two kindergartens and two researchers. These interventions led to three focal studies, where the empirical material consists of video footage of the children in individual post-tests. The data are analysed through the framework of Embodied Cognition, involving detailed attention to each child’s cohering of task behaviour with the mathematical targeting domain addressed in the respective focal study, followed by a cross-case comparison and a multi-case analysis across and within the identified patterns of grounding of mathematical thinking in bodily action. Three different aspects were focused on: Characteristic features of subset-knowers’ (i.e., children unable to use counting for exact numbering) abilities in establishing congruence between the idea of cardinality and verbalised body-spatial mapping of small sets (focal study 1); children’s re-enactment of canonical structured experiences of numerosity in reasoning about additive compositions (focal study 2) and children’s congruency in the physical grounding of counting based addition (focal study 3). The results showed recurring and deviating patterns of subset-knowers’ grounding of the idea of cardinality in bodily production of small sets that also exceeded their knower-level, and the findings showed how sensory-motor action might concur with counting-based addition and support reasoning about additive compositions. Unexpected findings comprise the inclusion of expressive body movements (e.g., rotation, rhythm, force, and tempo) in the situating of mathematical thinking. The dissertation study contributes to the field of educational research on early structured-based bodily learning of mathematics as it revealed characteristics of young children’s situating, off-loading and cohering of mathematical thinking in full-body interaction. In light of the embodied perspective, this should encourage the design of activities outdoors that involve movement and rhythm in the early learning of mathematics. In conclusion, this dissertation underlines the role that bodily movement and physical interaction with spatial structures can play in young children’s mathematical thinking