Integrative module technology of future engineers training in the field of ecological-economic safety

© Authors. The paper relevance is conditioned by the society and the state need to train the specialists who are ready to work in conditions of high ecological production risks. The paper purpose is to develop and justify the system on forming the technical universities graduates' professional competence in the field of environmental and economic safety on the basis of integrative-modular learning technology's implementation. The authors presented a structural and functional model for integrating the future specialists' training content in the field of environmental and economic safety. The research's leading approach is a systematic approach that allows considering the future specialists' professional competence forming process in the field of environmental and economic safety on the basis of integrative-modular technology. The authors develop a criteria-leveled component aimed at revealing the level of the professional competence formation in the field of environmental and economic safety. The system diagnostics containing the necessary set for criteria allowing estimating the level of graduates' professional competence formation in the sphere of ecological and economic safety is p resented. The paper is intended for researchers, practitioners, enterprises managers involved in the issues on environmental and economic production activities and engineers' vocational training

COVID-19 first lockdown as a window into language acquisition: Associations between caregiver-child activities and vocabulary gains

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting closure of daycare centers worldwide, led to unprecedented changes in children’s learning environments. This period of increased time at home with caregivers, with limited access to external sources (e.g., daycares) provides a unique opportunity to examine the associations between the caregiver-child activities and children’s language development. The vocabularies of 1742 children aged8-36 months across 13 countries and 12 languages were evaluated at the beginning and end of the first lockdown period in their respective countries(from March to September 2020). Children who had less passive screen exposure and whose caregivers read more to them showed larger gains in vocabulary development during lockdown, after controlling for SES and other caregiver-child activities. Children also gained more words than expected (based on normative data) during lockdown; either caregivers were more aware of their child’s development or vocabulary development benefited from intense caregiver-child interaction during lockdown

Quantifying Sources of Variability in Infancy Research Using the Infant-Directed-Speech Preference

Psychological scientists have become increasingly concerned with issues related to methodology and replicability, and infancy researchers in particular face specific challenges related to replicability: For example, high-powered studies are difficult to conduct, testing conditions vary across labs, and different labs have access to different infant populations. Addressing these concerns, we report on a large-scale, multisite study aimed at (a) assessing the overall replicability of a single theoretically important phenomenon and (b) examining methodological, cultural, and developmental moderators. We focus on infants’ preference for infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS). Stimuli of mothers speaking to their infants and to an adult in North American English were created using seminaturalistic laboratory-based audio recordings. Infants’ relative preference for IDS and ADS was assessed across 67 laboratories in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia using the three common methods for measuring infants’ discrimination (head-turn preference, central fixation, and eye tracking). The overall meta-analytic effect size (Cohen’s d) was 0.35, 95% confidence interval = [0.29, 0.42], which was reliably above zero but smaller than the meta-analytic mean computed from previous literature (0.67). The IDS preference was significantly stronger in older children, in those children for whom the stimuli matched their native language and dialect, and in data from labs using the head-turn preference procedure. Together, these findings replicate the IDS preference but suggest that its magnitude is modulated by development, native-language experience, and testing procedure

The Role of Russian Parents’ Education in the Development of Intuitive Theories of Parenting

Previous research in English-speaking countries has shown that parental education predicts significantly parental attitudes and theories about parenting which, in turn, guide parental interaction with their child and might impact the child’s mental development. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no research aimed at studying the role of parental education in shaping the views of Russian parents on their children’s education and development. The current study aimed to analyze the role of Russian parents’ education in their intuitive theories of parenting, by controlling for the region where the families live, and taking into account the age and sex of their child. Intuitive theories of parenting were studied using the Early Parental Attitudes Questionnaire (EPAQ). The sample consisted of 995 parents who have children aged 1 to 7 and live in Moscow, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and Republic North Ossetia in Russian Federation. Two profiles of intuitive theories of parenting were identified. Differences and similarities in intuitive theories of parenting between regions, when controlling for parents' level of education were also identified. The results characterize modern parenthood in three geographically distant Russian regions and can be useful in understanding the profile of a modern parent, as well as for developing educational programmes aimed at self-development and increasing parental competence in Russian parents

Integrative module technology of future engineers training in the field of ecological-economic safety

© Authors. The paper relevance is conditioned by the society and the state need to train the specialists who are ready to work in conditions of high ecological production risks. The paper purpose is to develop and justify the system on forming the technical universities graduates' professional competence in the field of environmental and economic safety on the basis of integrative-modular learning technology's implementation. The authors presented a structural and functional model for integrating the future specialists' training content in the field of environmental and economic safety. The research's leading approach is a systematic approach that allows considering the future specialists' professional competence forming process in the field of environmental and economic safety on the basis of integrative-modular technology. The authors develop a criteria-leveled component aimed at revealing the level of the professional competence formation in the field of environmental and economic safety. The system diagnostics containing the necessary set for criteria allowing estimating the level of graduates' professional competence formation in the sphere of ecological and economic safety is p resented. The paper is intended for researchers, practitioners, enterprises managers involved in the issues on environmental and economic production activities and engineers' vocational training

COVID-19 first lockdown as a window into language acquisition: Associations between caregiver-child activities and vocabulary gains

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting closure of daycare centers worldwide, led to unprecedented changes in children's learning environments. This period of increased time at home with caregivers, with limited access to external sources (e.g., daycares) provides a unique opportunity to examine the associations between the caregiver-child activities and children's language development. The vocabularies of 1742 children aged8-36 months across 13 countries and 12 languages were evaluated at the beginning and end of the first lockdown period in their respective countries(from March to September 2020). Children who had less passive screen exposure and whose caregivers read more to them showed larger gains in vocabulary development during lockdown, after controlling for SES and other caregiver-child activities. Children also gained more words than expected (based on normative data) during lockdown; either caregivers were more aware of their child’s development or vocabulary development benefited from intense caregiver-child interaction during lockdown

Young children's screen time during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 12 countries.

Older children with online schooling requirements, unsurprisingly, were reported to have increased screen time during the first COVID-19 lockdown in many countries. Here, we ask whether younger children with no similar online schooling requirements also had increased screen time during lockdown. We examined children’s screen time during the first COVID-19 lockdown in a large cohort (n = 2209) of 8-to-36-month-olds sampled from 15 labs across 12 countries. Caregivers reported that toddlers with no online schooling requirements were exposed to more screen time during lockdown than before lockdown. While this was exacerbated for countries with longer lockdowns, there was no evidence that the increase in screen time during lockdown was associated with socio-demographic variables, such as child age and socio-economic status (SES). However, screen time during lockdown was negatively associated with SES and positively associated with child age, caregiver screen time, and attitudes towards children’s screen time. The results highlight the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on young children’s screen time