An assessment of congruence between learning styles of Cree, Dene, Metis and non-Native students and instructional styles of Native and non-Native teachers in selected northern Saskatchewan schools

The purpose of this study was to assess the congruence between the learning styles of Division III Cree, Dene, Metis and non-Native students, and the instructional styles of Native and non-Native teachers In Nothern Saskatchewan schools. The data for this study were collected by administering Canfield's Learning Styles Inventory and Canfield's Instructional Styles Inventory in six Northern Saskatchewan schools. The total sample of 464 consisted of 385 students and 79 teachers; the student sample was comprised of 81 Cree, 65 Dene, 134 Metis and 105 non-Native students, while the teacher sample consisted of 15 Native teachers and 64 non-Native teachers. The independent variables in this study were culture, sex and age; and the dependent variables were the 16 learning/instructional style scales, predicted levels of student academic performance and perceived responsibility of teachers for the students' learning process. The nine hypotheses posed in the study were tested by an examination of mean scores on 16 inventory scales; and by using one-way ANOVA with accompanying Newman-Keuls comparisons between ordered means. Overall differences in the sample of students and teachers classified by culture, sex and age were assessed by discriminant analysis. The findings of this study must be considered in relation to the following limitations: the size and nature of the sample, the difficulty of assessing learning/instructional style, and the existence of cultural bias. The major question of the study asked whether preferred instructional styles of Native and non-Native teachers were congruent or incongruent with the preferred learning styles of Cree, Dene, Metis and non-Native students. It was found that neither group of teachers was congruent with all components of learning style preferences in any student group, but both Native and non-Native teachers were congruent on more than 50 percent of all components. There was strong evidence in the study however that Native teachers were congruent with all student groups on a greater number of components than was true for non-Native teachers. Native teachers were congruent with all student groups in 54 (84.4%) out of 64 possible learning/instructional style components. The congruency rate for non-Native teachers was 40 out of 64 instances, or 62.5%. Certain components of learning style differed among students of Cree, Dene, Metis and non-Native backgrounds, with the Dene most different from the non-Native group. The Cree and the Metis were similar to each other, and fell midway between the Dene and the non-Native students. In sum, differences were found among the groups of Native students (free, Dene and Metis), as well as between the Native and the non-Native students. Although culture was found to relate to learning style, sex appeared to be an even stronger variable influencing student learning style preferences. Age was found to relate to the learning styles of the Dene and non-Native students but not of their Cree and Metis counterparts. The Cree and Metis students held the lowest expectations for their academic performance. The Dene students exceeded the Cree and Metis groups. The points of difference in instructional style indicated that non-Native teachers preferred to teach from logically and clearly organized materials, whereas Native teachers were more likely to encourage students to work independently. No other differences were found between cultural groups. Male and female teachers were found to prefer, to a modest degree, different approaches to teaching at only certain age levels. Female teachers at all age levels reacted more negatively to teaching about inanimate objects than did males. Younger female teachers preferred teaching by having students read written material and by teaching students about working with people, while males of the same age were more Interested in teaching by the experiential approach. In scores on teacher responsibility for the students' learning process, no differences were found among teachers classified by culture, sex and age. The teacher group as a whole appeared to share similar perceptions about their responsibility for student learning. This study showed that culture, sex and age related to differences in instructional style of teachers in patterns similar to the ways in which the variables influenced learning style among students. Among students, sex Influenced student preferred learning style to a greater degree than did cultural background by itself. Age was of second importance. Among teachers, sex was found to be the most important variable followed by culture and age, both of which were of similar degree of importance. Cultural background as an Isolated variable was relatively unimportant in relation to either learning or instructional style

Psycholinguistic nature of the Japanese orthography

Beginning with the adoption of the Chinese language and proceeding to modern script reforms, the Japanese orthography is reviewed briefly from an historical perspective. After the historical discussion, the two types of script, kana and kanji, are discussed from a phonetic perspective to clarify the relationship between the Japanese sound system and the Japanese orthography. In addition to the phonetic argument, from the visual perspective, the Japanese scripts of kana and kanji are discussed in terms of activation units of kanji, an adequate kanji content ratio in Japanese sentences, and the sense-determinative and sense-discriminative functions of kana and kanji

Measuring intelligence of minority children in Canadian multicultural contexts

Canadianization for the items of WISC and WISC-R would not guarantee the proper difficulty level for the substituted items. Failure of adjusting the questioning items of Information subtest indicate an American cultural bias with respect to a main-stream Canadian population. For Native children, cultural content bias against Native children is indicated in the question items of the WISC-R Information subtest. The degree of acculturation seems to influence, to a certain degree, IQ tests' results of Native children. Cultural fair tests to remove cultural effects on IQ scores did not indicate a strong predictive power for academic achievement. The attempt at computing an Estimated Learning Potential (ELP) also failed to predict a child's academic success. A simple re-calculation of WISC-R scores based on family size, family structure, socio-economic status and urban acculturation does not indicate ELP. The two attempts at cultural free tests and ELP scores also failed to assess intelligence of minority groups as a predictor of child's school achievement. Though a compromise, but the most careful and sensitive approach to assess intelligence of Canadian minority children have to be a multiple assessment approach using already established tests as a part of the information used to assess a child's learning abilities in order to facilitate adequate education and counselling

Possibility of 'Decision Tree' Analysis on Collocation Frequencies: In the Case of conjunctive Particles kara, node and noni co-occurring with Adverbs at the Middle and End of Sentences

SPSS社のAnswerTree3.0Jに搭載されたCHAIDで決定木を描く統計手法が、コーパスから得られる2つ以上の変数からなる共起頻度を分析するのに有効であるかどうかを検討した。本研究では、3種類の接続助詞「から」「ので」「のに」が、7種類の副詞「何しろ」「何せ」「せっかく」「現に」「どうせ」「実際」「本当に」と共起する場合に、文中と文末の表現でどちらが使われるかを、新潮文庫の100冊を使って解析した。決定木(図1を参照)は、3種類の接続助詞と7種類の副詞の共起頻度によって、接続助詞の位置が文中にくるか文末にくるかを予測するという分析結果を描いたものである。決定木から5つの特徴を読み取ることができる。まず第1に、接続助詞「ので」と「から」が副詞との共起頻度において文中・文末で顕著な違いを示した。「ので」は文末ではほとんどみられず(5回あるいは4.59%)、「から」は頻繁にみられた(220回あるいは31.56%)。第2に、副詞「何しろ」と接続助詞「から」がもっとも典型的な文末表現であることが分かった(この種の組み合わせの合計324回のうち140回あるいは43.21%)。第3に、接続助詞「から」と副詞の「せっかく」の共起は、かなりあるものの、文末では非常に少ないことも分かった(この種の組み合わせの合計67回のうち6回あるいは8.96%)。第4に、接続助詞「から」と副詞「何せ」「現に」「どうせ」「実際」「本当に」はいずれも、文中・文末にほぼ同じようなパターンで共起していることも示された。第5に、接続助詞「のに」は副詞の文中・文末の共起パターン(文中が78.82%、文末が21.18%)が、全体の共起頻度(文中が72.73%、文末が27.27%)と類似していた。以上のように、AnswerTree3.0Jによる決定木の手法は、複数の変数からなる共起頻度データを構造的に分析することができ、今後のコーパス研究において有効な手段の一つとなるであろう。Using 'decision tree' drawn by a statistical algorism CHAID in SPSS AnswerTree3.0J, the present study investigated the collocation frequencies of three conjunctive particles(kara, node and noni) appearing in the middle of at the end of sentences, with seven selected adverbs(nanishiro, nanise, sekkaku, gen'ni, doose, jissai, and hontooni). Collocation frequencies were taken from the corpus of the Shinchoo Bunko Collection of 100 Novels. Analysis results depicted in the decision tree predict two different particle positions(middle and end) of three conjunctive particles appearing with the seven adverbs. Five noteworthy collocation tendencies were observed. First, the conjunctive particles node and kara showed distinctive differences in the middle and ending positions when appearing with the adverbs: node was seldom seen at the end of sentences(5 times, or 4.59%), while kara was often seen at the end (220times, or 31.56%). Second, the combination of the adverb nanishiro and the conjunctive particle kara occurred most frequently at the end of sentences(140 out of 324 times, or 43.21%). Third, although kara occasionally appeared with the adverb sekkaku, this combination was seldom observed at the end of sentences(6 out of 67 times, or 8.96%). fourth, the conjunctive particle kara showed a similar pattern of collocation frequencies in the middle and at the end of sentences when combined with the five adverbs nanise, gen'ni, doose, jissai and hontooni.Fifth, the conjunctive particle noni appeared in the middle and at the end of sentences(78.82 0n the middle and 21.18-0x1.47b00bfff994p-149t the end), similar to the overall percentages of the conjunctive particles(72.73-1073777684n the middle and 27.27 0x0.006c8000006c9p-1022t the end). As such, in structurally depicting the collocation frequencies of conjunctive particles and adverbs, 'decision tree' analysis has considerable potential as a statistical approachi in duture collocation studies

The Effect of Morphemic Homophony on the Processing of Japanese Two-kanji Compound Words

Two experiments investigated the effect of kanji morphemic homophony on lexical decision and naming. Effects were examined from both the left-hand and right-hand positions of Japanese two-kanji compound words. The number of homophones affected the processing of compound words in the same way for both tasks. For left-hand kanji, fewer morphemic homophones led to faster lexical decision and whole-word naming. For right-hand kanji, the number of morphemic homophones did not affect either lexical decision or naming. This effect of homophonic density suggested that, when a kanji-compound word is to be processed, phonological information of its kanji constituents is automatically activated and reverberates back to generate a series of orthographic representations of kanji morphemic homophones, but not in a completely parallel fashion

Congruence between learning styles of Cree, Dene and Metis students, and instructional styles of Native and non-Native teachers

To ascertain possible differences and similarities in learning styles of Cree, Dene (Chipewyan), and Metis students and the instructional styles of Native and non-Native teachers in northern Saskatchewan, Canfield's Learning Styles Inventory was administered to 280 grade 7-9 students (81 Cree, 65 Dene and 134 Metis) and Canfield's Instructional Styles Inventory to 79 teachers (15 Natives and 64 non-Natives). Results showed significant differences on four scales of learning style, indicating Dene students were less negative towards a competitive learning situation ; were least negative towards learning through written materials ; and had less preference for learning by direct experience than Cree or Metis students. Findings also indicated that non-Native teachers more strongly preferred to teach from logically and clearly organized materials than did Native teachers, and that Native teachers were more likely to encourage students to work independently. Although both Native and non-Native teachers were congruent on more than 650f all instructional learning components with all student groups, it was found that native teachers were congruent with all student groups at a higher percentage and on a greater number of components than was true for non-Native teachers

A review of psychological studies of kana and kanji processing : A single phonological route to a multiple interactive activation

In the present study on a review on Kana and Kanji processing, the historical background of psychological studies on Kana and Kanji is described to understand how the interactive activation models were developed as a universal explanation for language processing. The early studies on Kana and Kanji script in the 1960s are discussed in the framework of evolutional theories which focused only on the script capability of phonological representations. In the 1970s, studies of Japanese dyslexia found distinct phonological and orthographic routes to assess the mental lexicon by Kana and Kanji. In the early 1980s, neurological studies revealed that the nature of linguistic tasks resulted in a shift of hemispheric specification. In the late 1980s, psychological studies proposed the intricate model that Kana and Kanji processing interactively involve both phonological and orthographic processing. This further developed in the 1990s as the interactive activation (IA) theory and the parallel distributed processing (PDP) theory