Attitudes towards mathematics, achievement, and drop-out intentions among STEM and Non-STEM students in Norway

High mathematical ability is central in many domains. In the present study, we investigated relations between students’ high school mathematics background and current study program, and various mathematics-related outcomes. We expected that students who had attended higher-level mathematics courses in high school would report more positive attitudes towards mathematics and higher achievement in math-related classes at university than students who had attended basic mathematics courses in high school. We expected to find the same difference between STEM and non-STEM students. In addition, we expected that mathematics self-efficacy, but not general study-efficacy would predict students’ grades in mathematics-related courses. Lastly, we investigated whether STEM and non-STEM students differed in their drop-out intentions, and whether general study-efficacy and mathematics self-efficacy were related to students’ drop-out intentions. Data from a cross-sectional online questionnaire (N = 264; 177 women, 87 men) of Norwegian university students showed that high-school mathematics background is related to all aspects of students’ attitudes towards mathematics, even after controlling for GPA and general study-efficacy, whereas their current field of study is only related to the subjective value of mathematics. As expected, mathematics self-efficacy, but not general study-efficacy predicted grades in mathematics-related courses. Finally, drop-out intentions did not differ significantly between STEM and non-STEM students, and they were related to general study-efficacy

Parents’ hyper-pitch and low vowel category variability in infant-directed speech are associated with 18-month-old toddlers’ expressive vocabulary

The present study examines the acoustic properties of infant-directed speech (IDS) as compared to adult-directed speech (ADS) in Norwegian parents of 18-month-old toddlers, and whether these properties relate to toddlers’ expressive vocabulary size. Twenty-one parent-toddler dyads from Tromsø, Northern Norway participated in the study. Parents (16 mothers, 5 fathers), speaking a Northern Norwegian dialect, were recorded in the lab reading a storybook to their toddler (IDS register), and to an experimenter (ADS register). The storybook was designed for the purpose of the study, ensuring identical linguistic contexts across speakers and registers, and multiple representations of each of the nine Norwegian long vowels. We examined both traditionally reported measures of IDS: pitch, pitch range, vowel duration and vowel space expansion, but also novel measures: vowel category variability and vowel category distinctiveness. Our results showed that Norwegian IDS, as compared to ADS, had similar characteristics as in previously reported languages: higher pitch, wider pitch range, longer vowel duration, and expanded vowel space area; in addition, it had more variable vowel categories. Further, parents’ hyper-pitch, that is, the within-parent increase in pitch in IDS as compared to ADS, and lower vowel category variability in IDS itself, were related to toddlers' vocabulary. Our results point towards potentially facilitating roles of increase in parents’ pitch when talking to their toddlers and of consistency in vowel production in early word learning

The development of infants' action-related object knowledge : deferred imitation and eye tracking studies in 12- and 18-month-olds

Imitation paradigms are used in various domains of developmental psychological research to assess various cognitive processes such as memory (deferred imitation), action perception and action understanding (mainly direct imitation), as well as categorization and learning about objects (deferred imitation with a change in target objects and generalized imitation). Although these processes are most likely not independent from each other, their relations are still largely unclear. On the one hand, deferred imitation studies have shown that infants' performance improves with increasing age, resulting in the reproduction of more target actions after longer delay intervals. On the other hand, imitation studies focusing on infants' action understanding have found that infants do not necessarily imitate the model's exact actions – actions or action steps that seem to be irrational or irrelevant are omitted by infants under certain circumstances (selective imitation). Additionally, findings of imitation studies that require a transfer of the target actions to novel objects have demonstrated that infants do not only learn about actions, but also about objects, when they engage in imitation. The present dissertation aims at integrating different perspectives of imitation research by testing 12- and 18-month-old infants in deferred imitation tests consisting of functional vs. arbitrary target actions, and by combining deferred imitation with eye tracking in half of the experiments. A deferred imitation paradigm was chosen to assess memory performance. Systematic variation of target action characteristics enabled the assessment of infants' imitation pattern, i.e., if they would imitate one kind of target actions more frequently than the other. Functionality was chosen as the action characteristic in focus because function is an object's most important property, thus this variation might shed some light on infants' learning about objects in the context of an imitation test. The main goal of the eye tracking experiments was to tackle the relations between infants' visual attention to, and deferred imitation of, different kinds of target actions. The behavioral experiments revealed that both 12- and 18-month-olds imitated significantly more functional than arbitrary target actions after a delay of 30 minutes. In addition, while 12-month-olds showed a memory effect only for functional actions, 18-month-olds showed a memory effect for both kinds of actions. Thus, 12-month-olds imitated strictly selectively, and 18-month-olds imitated more exactly. This shows that the well established memory effect is modulated by target action functionality, which affects 12- and 18-month-olds' imitation differently. Furthermore, when retested after a two weeks delay, 18-month-olds' performance rates of functional and arbitrary target actions decreased parallel. This suggests that selective imitation is not affected by the duration of the retention interval, and that selection of target actions takes place at an earlier stage of action perception and memory processes. In the eye tracking experiments, both 12- and 18-month-olds' imitation patterns replicated the findings of the behavioral experiments, showing consistently higher imitation rates of functional than arbitrary target actions. Contrary to this, infants' fixation times to the target actions were not affected by target action functionality. This contrast was supported by statistical analyses that found no clear correspondence between visual attention to and deferred imitation of target actions. This suggests that selective imitation cannot be explained by selective visual attention. Nevertheless, finer-grained analyses of gaze and imitation data in the 18 months old group suggested that infants' increased attention to the social-communicative context of the imitation task was related to more exact imitation, i.e. imitation of not only functional, but also arbitrary target actions. The findings are discussed against the background of imitation theories, with regard to the relations between different cognitive processes underlying infants' imitation, such as memory, action perception and learning about objects.Imitationsparadigmen werden in verschiedenen Bereichen der entwicklungs-psychologischen Forschung eingesetzt. Sie dienen zur Untersuchung verschiedener kognitiver Prozesse, wie Gedächtnis (Verzögerte Imitation), Handlungswahrnehmung und Handlungsverständnis (meistens direkte Imitation), sowie Kategorisierung und Lernen über Objekte (Verzögerte Imitation mit Objektwechsel und generalisierte Imitation). Obwohl diese Prozesse wahrscheinlich nicht unabhängig voneinander sind, sind ihre Zusammenhänge noch ungeklärt. Zum einen haben verzögerte Imitationsstudien eine altersbedingte Leistungssteigerung bei Säuglingen und Kleinkindern gezeigt. Das bedeutet, dass ältere Kinder mehr Zielhandlungen über längere Zeiträume behalten können als jüngere Kinder. Darüber hinaus haben Studien über das frühkindliche Handlungsverständnis gezeigt, dass Kinder nicht unbedingt die exakte Handlung des Modells imitieren: irrational oder irrelevant erscheinende Handlungen oder Handlungsschritte werden unter Umständen weggelassen (selektive Imitation). Weiterhin deuten Befunde von Studien, in denen die beobachteten Zielhandlungen auf ein neues Objekt übertragen werden müssen, darauf hin, dass Kinder durch Imitation nicht nur über Handlungen, sondern auch über Objekte lernen. Ziel der vorliegenden Dissertation war es, die unterschiedlichen Bereiche der Imitationsforschung näher zusammenzubringen. Deshalb wurden 12 und 18 Monate alte Kinder mit verzögerten Imitationstests, in denen funktionale vs. arbiträre Zielhandlungen variiert wurden, untersucht. In der Hälfte der Experimente wurde die Methode der Verzögerten Imitation mit Eye Tracking kombiniert. Verzögerte Imitation wurde als Paradigma gewählt, um die Gedächtnisleistung der Kinder zu erfassen. Die systematische Variierung von Zielhandlungsmerkmalen ermöglichte die Untersuchung des Imitationsmusters der Kinder, also der Frage, ob sie einen Zielhandlungstyp häufiger imitieren würden als den anderen. Als zu variierendes Zielhandlungsmerkmal wurde die Funktionalität der Handlungen gewählt, weil Funktion die wichtigste Eigenschaft eines Objektes ist. Somit kann diese Variation einen Einblick in das Lernen über Objekte im Kontext eines Imitationstests bieten. Das wichtigste Ziel der Eye Tracking Experimente war es, Zusammenhänge zwischen der visuellen Aufmerksamkeit, die Kinder verschiedenen Zielhandlungstypen schenken, und der nachfolgenden Imitation zu untersuchen. Die behavioralen Experimente zeigten, dass sowohl 12, als auch 18 Monate alte Kinder nach einer Verzögerungsphase von 30 Minuten signifikant mehr funktionale als arbiträre Zielhandlungen imitierten. Im Weiteren zeigten 12 Monate alte Kinder nur einen Gedächtniseffekt für funktionale Zielhandlungen, während 18 Monate alte Kinder einen Gedächtniseffekt für beide Zielhandlungstypen zeigten. 12 Monate alte Kinder imitierten also selektiv, und 18 Monate alte Kinder imitierten etwas exakter. Dieser Befund deutet darauf hin, dass der bekannte Gedächtniseffekt in verzögerten Imitationsstudien von der Funktionalität der Zielhandlungen, die die Leistung verschiedener Altersgruppen unterschiedlich beeinflusst, moduliert wird. Im Weiteren zeigte die verzögerte Imitationsleistung 18 Monate alter Kinder bei einer erneuten Untersuchung nach zwei Wochen, dass die Imitationsraten der zwei Zielhandlungstypen parallel abstiegen. Dies deutet darauf hin, dass selektive Imitation nicht von der Dauer des Behaltensintervalls beeinflusst wird und dass die Selektion der zu imitierenden Zielhandlungen in einer früheren Phase der Wahrnehmungs- und Gedächtnisprozesse stattfindet. Die Imitationsleistung beider Altersgruppen in den Eye Tracking Experimenten replizierte die Befunde der behavioralen Experimente. Kinder in beiden Altersgruppen imitierten mehr funktionale als arbiträre Zielhandlungen. Im Gegensatz dazu waren die auf die Zielhandlungen gerichteten Fixationszeiten der Kinder nicht von der Funktionalität der Zielhandlungen abhängig. Dieser Kontrast wurde von statistischen Verfahren, die keinen klaren Zusammenhang zwischen Blick- und Imitationsverhalten zeigten, unterstützt. Dies deutet darauf hin, dass selektive Imitation nicht mit selektiver visuellen Aufmerksamkeit erklärt werden kann. Nichtsdestotrotz deuteten detailliertere Analysen in der Gruppe von 18 Monate alten Kindern darauf hin, dass höhere Aufmerksamkeit auf den sozial-kommunikativen Kontext des Imitationstests mit exakterer Imitation, also mit der Imitation von sowohl funktionalen, als auch arbiträren Zielhandlungen, zusammenhängt. Die Befunde der Experimente werden vor dem Hintergrund aktueller Imitationstheorien und im Hinblick auf die Zusammenhänge zwischen verschiedenen kognitiven Prozessen, die Imitation bedingen – so wie Gedächtnis, Handlungswahrnehmung und Lernen über Objekte – diskutiert

No evidence for adult smartphone use affecting attribution of communicative intention in toddlers: online imitation study using the Sock Ball Task.

Adults infer others’ communicative intentions, or lack thereof, from various types of information. Young children may be initially limited to attributions based on a small set of ostensive signals. It is unknown when richer pragmatic inferences about communicative intentions emerge in development. We sought novel type of evidence for such inferences in 17-to-19-month-olds. We hypothesized that toddlers recognize adults’ smartphone use in face-to-face interactions as incongruous with ostension and would rely on this interpretation when inferring the communicative intention of a model in a new imitation task conducted entirely online, dubbed the Sock Ball Task. In Experiment 1 with a between-subject design, we tested the hypothesis by assessing toddlers’ (N = 48) imitation of sub-efficient means and the goal-outcome presented by a model, who interrupted her ostensive demonstration either by using a smartphone or by fiddling with her wristwatch, depending on the condition. We expected toddlers to imitate the sub-efficient means more faithfully in the wristwatch condition than in the smartphone condition. But there was no significant effect of condition on imitation of neither means nor goal. Thus, our hypothesis was not borne out by the results. In Experiment 2, using a within-subject design, we first assessed toddlers’ (N = 24) performance in a no-demonstration baseline and then again after a no-disruption ostensive demonstration. In all three conditions with ostensive demonstration (Experiment 1: smartphone, wristwatch; Experiment 2: no-disruption), toddlers produced the demonstrated sub-efficient means significantly above the baseline level. In the no-disruption condition, goals were also imitated significantly above the baseline level. We conclude that the Sock Ball Task is a valid research tool for studying toddler imitation of novel means actions with objects. We end by discussing suggestions for improving the task in future studies

Developmental trend towards exact imitation in the second year of life: Evidence from a longitudinal study

Findings from previous cross-sectional studies showed that while toddlers around their first birthday imitate selectively, that is, they systematically omit some kinds of target action steps or they copy only the goal, but not the means of the modeled actions, older toddlers imitate more exactly. The aim of the present article is to provide longitudinal evidence for this developmental trend and to investigate how imitation of different kinds of target action steps contributes to inter-individual differences in overall imitation performance. The present analysis of longitudinal deferred imitation data contrasted toddlers’ imitation of functional and relevant (FURE) versus arbitrary and irrelevant (ARIR) target action steps at the ages of 18 and 24 months. The results show that the difference between the imitation rates of these two kinds of target action steps decreased with age, supporting the developmental trend from selective towards more exact imitation. In addition, findings of the present analyses point to the prominent role of toddlers’ imitation of arbitrary and irrelevant target action steps in shaping inter-individual variability of overall deferred imitation performance

Properties of infant-directed speech and its relation to expressive vocabulary in 18-month-old toddlers in Northern Norway

The current study will examine the acoustic properties of infant-directed speech (IDS) to 18-month-old Norwegian toddlers, and will assess whether these properties, or the (articulatory) effort that parents make when speaking IDS as compared to adult-directed speech (ADS), i.e., the acoustic differences between the two registers, are related to toddlers' expressive vocabulary size. The data was collected in Tromsø, Norway, from parents speaking a Northern Norwegian dialect, and parental input was recorded in the lab, from the child's main caregiver that could be either child's mother or father. To avoid effects of linguistic variables, e.g., consonantal context (known to influence vowels, see Steinlen & Bohn, 1999; Steinlen, 2005), between the two registers, both IDS and ADS were elicited via a storybook reading task

A variation of the social context in the warm-up period influences 18-month-olds’ imitation

The present study aimed to investigate how the prior social disposition of a model in a warm-up period influences 18-month-old infants’ subsequent imitation. Infants were randomly assigned to an interactive and social warm-up period (n = 19) or a non-interactive and non-social warm-up period (n = 19) with the model prior to the imitation task. They then participated in an imitation task with different types of actions: novel means actions, arbitrary vs. functional actions and necessary vs. unnecessary actions. An additional social warm-up control group (n = 14) and a non-social warm-up control group (n = 14) were recruited to assess the spontaneous production of the target actions in the absence of the demonstration. The results showed that infants in the experimental groups performed significantly more target actions than infants in the control groups, showing an imitation effect. Furthermore, the results of the experimental groups showed that the overall imitation performance of the target actions was higher in the social condition than in the non-social condition. This imitation enhancing effect of the social warm-up period held true for the novel means actions and functional vs. arbitrary actions, however not for the necessary vs. unnecessary actions. Implications of the results for theory and future studies are discussed in terms of infants’ social motivation and its relation to infants’ imitative behavior