The Relationship between Young Children’s Source Monitoring and Serial Order or Item Information in Verbal or Visuospatial Working Memory Tasks

In this study, we examined the relationship between young children’s source monitoring of external information and serial order or item information in the working memory task. Seventy five children (mean age of the moon = 61.9) participated in Study 1. They were presented with three slides and were asked to remember what items appeared in which order, in which position, and how many items came out on each slide. A partial correlation showed that the score of the verbal serial order information and visuospatial position information were positively related to the score of the source monitoring task, even after controlling for age. We corrected the tasks and conducted study 2 for 72 participants (mean age of the moon = 60.3). Even after controlling for age and vocabulary, the score of the verbal item information and visuospatial position information showed a positive correlation with the score of the source monitoring tasks. Thus, it was suggested that accurate remembering of verbal item information and visuospatial position information is related to accurate source monitoring of external information

幼児における外部情報のソースモニタリングとワーキングメモリの関連

内容の要約広島大学(Hiroshima University)博士(心理学)Doctor of Philosophy in Psychologydoctora

Development of a revised mathematical questionnaire: For learners’ cognitive aspects

In this research, we develop the revised questionnaire measuring three cognitive aspects of elementary school children that helps to understand learners’ cognitive states and evaluate the effect of learning support program at Niko-Niko Room. It was consisted of three scales which are important for conducting learning support approaching from cognitive counseling: A scale for beliefs about learning mathematics, mathematical self-efficacy, and learning strategies on learning mathematics. 261 elementary school children in the 4―6th grades participated in our research. Results of factor analyses for each scale show that (a) the scale for children’s beliefs about learning was a four-factor structure, (b) the scale for children’s mathematical self-efficacy was consisted of a single factor, and (c) the scale for children’s learning strategy of mathematics was also a one-factor structure. After that, we proposed the “Revised edition mathematical questionnaire”, measuring the children’s beliefs about learning, self-efficacy, and learning strategies especially in mathematical support. This will be contributed evaluating about Niko-Niko-Room’s learning support program

Study support by cognitive counseling for a junior-high-school student who has difficulty with solving ratio-word-problems

This study is a case report of the cognitive counseling for a child who has difficulty with solving ratio-word-problems. The child in this study was a first-year junior-high-school female student. It was difficult for her to explain her idea in words. It seemed that the student has poor verbal working memory. To support her learning of ratio word problems, we used diagrams as an external resource for her thinking about meaning of the problems. In addition, we helped her use metacognition with cards that showed points to be paid attention to in the process of solving the problems. Our supports improved her performances of ratio word problems, and she came to draw diagrams spontaneously. In addition to that, she became able to control and monitor the process of calculation by herself

Creating and evaluating the sample of case report on individual learning support

In this study, we created the sample of case report for individual learning support, and examined its effect. We explained the format of the case report and how to form it. Also, we made comments on the content of the case report. As a result of the questionnaire conducted for the students who had used the sample and wrote the case report, most of them answered that the it had been helpful and useful. The students who had used it gained higher evaluation both in content and format than who didn’t use it. Specific comments on the contents and how to format the case report seemed to be useful

Effect of discussions about picture books among a group of young children on their narrations

In this study, we investigated how discussions about picture books among a group of young children would affect their narrations about the picture books. Thirty 5-year-old children participated in this study. The children received a verbal working memory task that required them to compare two non-words given sequentially over a headset. They also engaged in an activity involving picture books under one of two conditions. First, a female adult read one of two picture books to groups of children. Second, they answered questions about the picture book individually (the non-group activity condition) or in a group (the group activity condition). Finally, they were required to narrate a story about the picture book they were shown. We divided participants’ narrations into idea units (IUs): there are six types of IUs (basic IUs, point IUs, sophisticated IUs, picture IUs, erroneous IUs, and other IUs). Two university students independently classified the IUs. The results show that the partial correlations between the scores of the verbal working memory task and point IUs (r = .40) and between verbal working memory and other IUs (r = −.40) were significant when controlling for age in terms of months. This finding suggested that children with better verbal working memory would understand the main points of the stories. Although children were significantly more likely to report three types of IUs in the group activity condition than in the non-group activity condition, the differences were mediated by the content of the picture books: one picture book was more likely to stimulate the group activities, which facilitated the children’s narrations.本論文は，第2著者の卒業研究に基づいている