Adrien Pinard

Sentiment D'auto-Efficacité et Exercice Des Processus D'autorégulation Chez Des Éudiants de Niveau Collégial

Abstract This study examines the influence of self-efficacy on the self-regulatory mechanisms exercised during a verbal concept formation task. High or low-self-efficacy is experimentally induced among sixty four college students who subsequently have to solve, aloud, different problems of concept formation. Self-regulation was examined based on the utilization of the cognitive strategies required to solve the task, the monitoring strategies applied over the cognitive enterprise and the metacogrutive experiences emerging along the resolution. Both groups exhibite similar cognitive strategies, yet some of their monitoring strategies and metacognitive experiences are affected by their self-efficacy judgments. The nature of self-efficacy should be considered when studying the relationship between metacognitive knowledge aqd self-regulation as applied during the task resolution.

‘Prise de conscience’ and Taking Charge of One’s Own Cognitive Functioning

The first part of this article consists of a brief summary of a model outlining the metacognitive components involved in an individual’s taking charge of her own cognitive functioning. The second part reviews the main points presented by Piaget in his two books on the child’s progressive ‘prise de conscience’ of her practical activities. The third and main part is an attempt to see to what extent Piaget’s analysis of the development of ‘prise de conscience’ may help to clarify the still ill-defined problem of the origin of metacognitive knowledge and self-regulatory processes.

Piaget’s Framework for a Scientific Study of Consciousness

While largely unacknowledged, Piaget’s views on the epistemology of consciousness presaged key positions now held by contemporary philosophers and psychologists. This paper examines Piaget’s views about two fundamental epistemological problems central to any theory of consciousness: (1) the general problem of the subject-object relationship in any type of knowing; and (2) the specific problem of the physical-mental relationship within the knowing subject. Piaget adopts a unique form of internal interactionism toward the first issue and a sophisticated form of parallelism toward the second; he aimed for an eventual integrative monism while providing compelling reasons why such a monism may always exist in name only. While his approach to these problems did not solve them, his examination of the problems – and his proposed coordination of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience – is an important path toward consilience in the scientific study and understanding of consciousness.

The relationship between expertise and self-regulation in movement performance some theoretical issues

Although self-regulation has been advanced as a construct in sport psychology, little attention has been paid to the relationship between motor expertise and the actual self-regulation of a motor task. The present text examines the theoretical notions of self-regulation (on-line supervision and control), expertise, and performance, in the light of certain particularities implicated in motor skills, such as the nature of practical and conceptual knowledge and the relationship between them.

Generalization of Training Speaking Skills: The Role of Overt Activity, Feedback, and Child's Initial Level of Competence

72 children (mean age = 6–5) were assigned to 1 of 6 training conditions for speaking skills in a 2 (with or without feedback) × 3 (degree of overt activity) crossed design. Children in the active condition participated directly in three training exercises; each child in the passive condition observed the performance of the child in the active condition to whom he was matched; children in the active-passive condition received a combination of the two previous treatments. Children were given a pretest and immediate and delayed posttests, each of which was comprised of five tasks, four of which aimed at measuring possible transfer to other referential communication behaviors. Posttest evaluations showed that improvements in speaking behavior were related to the feedback condition, but not to the childs initial level of competence as assessed by global performance on the five pretest tasks. The reverse was true for the four transfer tasks. The amount of overt activity did not exert a significant effect on childrens performance of any of the five tasks. Possible causes of the difficulty of obtaining transfer in training experiments are discussed.

Interference effects in the conservation of weight.

On the assumption that the ability to overcome the effects of interference between the physical properties of an object is a basic component in the acquisition of conservation, we hypothesized that children would tend to negate conservation not only when the form of an object is altered but also when, without deforming the object, one of its properties (e.g., color or temperature) is altered; when variations (e.g., movement or orientation) are introduced into the concrete situation in which weight is exerted; or when other spatial properties (e.g., volume or surface) are made to interact with weight. The results indicate that children up to 8 years of age may have difficulty accepting the conservation of weight even when a transformation does not deform the object and that children up to 13 years may accept the conservation of weight but may find it difficult to explain why an object appears heavier in those instances where weight has to be coordinated with another spatial property. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.