Level up learning: a national survey on teaching with digital games

Digital games have the potential to transform K-12 education as we know it. But what has been the real experience among teachers who use games in the classroom? In 2013, the Games and Learning Publishing Council conducted a national survey among nearly 700 K-8 teachers. The report reveals key findings from the survey, and looks at how often and why teachers use games in the classroom, as well as issues they encounter in their efforts to implement digital games into their practice

The Use of mobile phones for conducting acoustic surveys of calling amphibians

Although real-time acoustic surveys by human observers are the most common and widespread protocol in use for calling amphibian monitoring, new methods have surfaced with technological advancements; most notably automated recording. Automated recording can gather large amounts of survey data with minimal effort. Mobile phone technology has the potential to be used as a tool for calling amphibian monitoring. I conducted a study in 2006 to evaluate mobile phone capabilities in this regard. While conducting standard acoustic surveys of calling amphibians in the field, I made simultaneous recordings using a digital voice recorder and a mobile phone. I listened to the recordings made by both devices in random order as an expert observer, and identified the species as I heard them. Next, I trained volunteers and had them conduct surveys of the recordings as I had done. I found no differences in expert detection errors between recordings made using the digital recorder and those made using a mobile phone. However the same comparison of volunteer detection errors showed that there were significantly more under-detections found in recordings made with the mobile phone, and significantly more over-detections in recordings made using the digital recorder. After upgrading microphones and repeating the study in 2007, I found no differences in total detection errors for either expert or volunteers between recordings made using both devices

Mothers\u27 Cognitions and Structural Life Circumstances as Predictors of Infants\u27 and Toddlers\u27 Television and Video

Recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics reaffirmed their official policy discouraging screen media use with children under two (AAP, 2011). Their statement counters the normative use of TV/ video products with infants and toddlers, as parent surveys indicate the majority of these children watch TV/videos regularly. This dissertation research was designed with the underlying premise that the majority of existing research links heavy infant/toddler television and video exposure to disadvantageous health and developmental outcomes and many clinicians and child advocates seek to reduce that exposure. As little is known about the factors associated with more or less screen media use with infants and toddlers, this study examines in-depth the maternal cognitive and structural life circumstance factors predictive of TV/video exposure rates among very young children. Guided by the Integrative Model of Behavioral Prediction (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010), this survey study examines the relationships between children\u27s estimated rates of foreground and background TV/video exposure and their mothers\u27 demographics (e.g., race/ethnicity), structural life circumstances (e.g., number of children in the home; employment), and cognitions (e.g., attitudes; norms). Thus, this study essentially tests two competing explanations for infants\u27 and toddlers\u27 TV/video exposure: (1) that mothers base their children\u27s TV/video exposure on their own psycho-social cognitions about that exposure; and (2) that mothers are more or less apt to allow their child to be exposed to TV/video based on unalterable realities of their lives, regardless of TV/video-related cognitions. The results suggest that mothers\u27 structural circumstances and cognitions (i.e., attitudes, normative pressure, and perceived behavioral control) respectively contribute independent explanatory power to the prediction of children\u27s background and foreground TV/video exposure, though demographic factors explain very little variance in each case. Mothers\u27 attitudes as well as their own TV/video viewing behavior were particularly strong predictors of each type of child media exposure. With regards to foreground TV/video exposure, mothers\u27 regulatory focus orientation and beliefs about early childhood brain development moderated relationships between discrete beliefs regarding infant/toddler TV/video exposure and broader integrative model constructs in notable ways. Implications of these findings for behavioral prediction theory and for future campaigns to reduce infant/toddler TV/video exposure are discussed

How and Why Parents Guide the Media Use of Young Children

Abstract Children use electronic screens at ever younger ages, but there is still little empirical research on howand why parents mediate this media use. In line with Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, we explored whether children’s media skills and media activities, next to parents’ attitudes about media for children, and several child and parent-family characteristics, predicted parental mediation practices. Furthermore, we investigated children’s use and ownership of electronic screens in the bedroomin relationship to the child’s media skills. Data from an online survey among 896 Dutch parents with young children (0–7 years) showed that children’s use and ownership of TV, game consoles, computers and touchscreens, primarily depended on their media skills and age, not on parent’s attitudes about media for children. Only touchscreens were used more often by children, when parents perceived media as helpful in providing moments of rest for the child. In line with former studies, parents consistently applied co-use, supervision, active mediation, restrictive mediation, and monitoring, depending on positive and negative attitudes about media. The child’s media skills andmedia activities, however, had stronger relationshipswith parental mediation styles, whereas age was not related. Canonical discriminant analysis, finally, captured how the five mediation strategies varied among infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and early childhood children, predominantly as a result of children’s media skills, and media activities, i.e., playing educational games and passive entertainment use

Can retail investors beat the market by using technical trading rules? Evidence from the Nordic countries

This thesis examines the performance of three simple technical trading rules in Nordic countries: Variable-length simple moving average (V-SMA), Fixed-length simple moving average (F-SMA), and Trading range break out (TRB). I find that technical trading rules have some predictive power. Overall, the strongest results are obtained at shorter time intervals using the V-SMA rule. Particularly the results for Iceland are strikingly strong: all the V-SMA rule tests are statistically significant. The average daily (annual) returns for conditional buy, sell and buy-sell difference are 0,093% (27%), -0,128% (-28%) and 0,221 (77%), respectively. These returns are enormous when compared to the unconditional buy-and-hold return of 0,021% (5,6%). Iceland’s break-even transaction cost percent, which would eliminate trading gains, ranges from 1,1% to 11,7%, indicating that retail investors are able to beat the market even after transaction costs. The results are confirmed using a bootstrap simulation, which indicates that the results cannot be explained by the random walk. However, the results for the other countries are more mixed

Cannabis og rehabilitering : avhengighet, sosial identitet og attribusjon

Masteroppgave pedagogikk - Universitetet i Agder 2016Hensikt og mål med denne studien er å kartlegge faktorer som kan gjøre seg gjeldende i rehabiliteringsprosessen, og hvor målet er å avslutte rusatferd i forhold til cannabis. For å legge til rette for en best mulig rehabiliteringsprosess kan det være vesentlig å imøtekomme de ulike utfordringer og behov som gjør seg gjeldende hos den enkelte som utøver rusatferd. Med utgangspunkt i aktuell forskning innen rehabiliteringsfeltet er fenomenene avhengighet, sosial identitet og attribusjon utvalgt som aktuelle rammefaktorer for videre analyse. Studien er gjennomført med utgangspunkt i kvalitativ metode, og hvor fem deltakere som har vært-, skal- eller er i et individuelt hasjavvenningsprogram er intervjuet. For et par av deltakerne har avhengighet vært knyttet opp mot manglende kontroll over egen atferd, mens det for andre har omhandlet motivasjonskonflikt. Dette støttes ved både studien til Skog (2003) og Miller; Gold & Pottash (1989), og som har to ulike tilnærminger til fenomenet avhengighet. Når det gjelder rammefaktoren sosial identitet så har det også her fremkommet ulike perspektiver, og som også i likhet med avhengighet på ulike måter støtter opp om det utvalgte teorigrunnlaget. For eksempel så har den sosiale identiteten og selvkategoriseringen som er knyttet opp mot tilhørighet inn mot rusmiljøet vært en viktig- og til dels et positiv element ved utøvelsen av rusatferden hos deltakerne ( Tajfel & Billig, 1973; Turner, Tajfel & Brown, 1979; Turner, 1985; Smith & Mackie, 1995 m.fl.). Disse elementer gjør seg også gjeldende inn mot rehabiliteringen, men skifter da til å omhandle etablering av ny sosial identitet inn mot rusfrie nettverk og relasjoner, eller ved gjenopptagelse av nettverkene den enkelte hadde før rusatferden startet (Buckingham, Frings & Albery, 2013). Gjenopptagelse av konvensjonelle roller som for eksempel student, arbeidstaker og familiemedlemskap har også vært viktige elementer for deltakerne i rehabiliteringsprosessen. Disse elementer støttes også ved de teoretiske tilnærmingene som for eksempel hos Dingle, Cruwys & Frings (2015); Buckingham et.al.,2013 med flere. Til sist så har også bevissthet og refleksjoner omkring attribusjoner når det gjelder både starten-, vedvarelsen- og avslutningen på rusatferden gitt ulike funn som støttes ved ulike tilnærminger og perspektiver (Kelley, 1973; Weiner, 2010; Martinko & Thomson, 2010, m.fl). De ulike perspektiver som er fremkommet i denne studien kan være aktuelle i utformingen av et rehabiliteringsinnhold som i størst mulig grad er tilpasset aktuelle utfordringer og beho

Reading touch screen storybooks with mothers negatively affects seven-year-old readers’ comprehension but enriches emotional engagement

Touch screen storybooks turn reading into an interactive multimedia experience, with hotspot-activated animations, sound effects, and games. Positive and negative effects of reading multimedia stories have been reported, but the underlying mechanisms which explain how children’s learning is affected remain uncertain. The present study examined the effect of storybook format (touch screen and print) on story comprehension, and considered how level of touch screen interactivity (high and low) and shared reading behaviors (cognitive and emotional scaffolding, emotional engagement) might contribute to comprehension. Seven-year-olds (n = 22) were observed reading one touch screen storybook and one print storybook with their mothers. Story comprehension was inferior for the touch screen storybooks compared to the print versions. Touch screen interactivity had no significant effect on comprehension but did affect shared reading behaviors. The mother-child dyads spent less time talking about the story in the highly interactive touch screen condition, despite longer shared reading sessions because of touch screen interactions. Positive emotional engagement was greater for children and mothers in the highly interactive touch screen condition, due to additional positive emotions expressed during touch screen interactions. Negative emotional engagement was greater for children when reading and talking about the story in the highly interactive condition, and some mothers demonstrated negative emotional engagement with the touch screen activities. The less interactive touch screen storybook had little effect on shared reading behaviors, but mothers controlling behaviors were more frequent. Storybook format had no effect on the frequency of mothers’ cognitive scaffolding behaviors (comprehension questions, word help). Relationships between comprehension and shared reading behaviors were examined for each storybook, and length of the shared reading session and controlling behaviors had significant effects on comprehension, but the mechanisms driving comprehension were not fully explained by the data. The potential for touch screen storybooks to contribute to cognitive overload in seven-year-old developing readers is discussed, as is the complex relationship between cognitive and emotional scaffolding behaviors, emotional engagement, and comprehension. Sample characteristics and methodological limitations are also discussed to help inform future research