Bonnie Wing-Yin Chow

Classroom Discipline Across Forty-One Countries: School, Economic, and Cultural Differences

This study examined classroom discipline and its determinants through multilevel analyses of 107,975 students in 7,259 schools from 41 countries. In schools with proportionately more girls, better school discipline, higher achieving students, more teacher support, or better teacher-student relations, students reported better classroom discipline. Countries’ economies and cultural values were linked to reported classroom discipline. In countries that were poorer, more equal, or had more rigid gender roles, students reported higher classroom discipline. Moreover, school variables’ links to classroom discipline differed across countries. Specifically, in richer countries, teacher support and teacher-student relations had stronger, positive links to reported classroom discipline. In more equal countries, students’ mathematics achievement had stronger, positive links to reported classroom discipline. Moderation effects of cultural values were also explored.

Students’ Sense of Belonging at School in 41 Countries Cross-Cultural Variability

This study examined whether students’ sense of belonging at school (SOBAS) differed across attributes of countries, families, schools, teachers, or students. Multilevel analyses of survey and test data from 193,073 15-year-old students in 41 countries yielded four main findings. First, students in more egalitarian cultures often had higher SOBAS than those in more hierarchical cultures. Second, the teacher–student relationship had the strongest link with SOBAS and mediated the link between egalitarianism and SOBAS. Third, collectivism was not significantly linked to SOBAS. Finally, family characteristics (immigrant status, language spoken at home, socio-economic status [SES], books at home, family wealth, and family communication), schoolmates’ characteristics (SES and social communication), teacher characteristics (teacher–student relationship, teacher support and disciplinary climate), and student characteristics (reading achievement, self-efficacy, and self-concept) were also linked to students’ SOBAS and accounted for most of its variance. This ecological model shows how attributes at multiple levels are related to SOBAS.

Streaming, tracking and reading achievement: A multilevel analysis of students in 40 countries.

Grouping similar students together within schools (streaming) or classrooms (tracking) based on past literacy skills (reported by parents), family socioeconomic status (SES) or reading attitudes might affect their reading achievement. Our multilevel analysis of the reading tests of 208,057 fourth-grade students across 40 countries, and their parents’, teachers’, principals’, and their survey responses yielded the following results. Streaming was linked to higher reading achievement (consistent with customized instruction), but tracking was linked to lower reading achievement (consistent with more help opportunities). Students had higher reading achievement when classmates had stronger past literacy skills (suggesting sharing ideas) or extremely poor ones (help opportunities). Also, when classmates have higher family SES, students had higher reading achievement (suggesting sharing resources), with diminishing marginal returns. When classmates’ family SES differed more (more diversity), students with greater past literacy skills had higher reading achievement (Matthew effect). Lastly, when classmates had better reading attitudes, students with lower past literacy skills showed higher reading achievement (modeling, norms). When classmates’ reading attitudes differed more, students had higher reading achievement (contrasting cases), although extreme differences weakened this link (less homophily). These results suggest that streaming across schools and mixing of students within classrooms (by past achievement, family SES and reading attitudes) are linked to overall reading achievement.

Anxiety in reading and listening English as a foreign language in Chinese undergraduate students

This study tested relationships between foreign language (FL) reading and listening anxiety and learner variables in English as a foreign language (EFL). It tested links between foreign language anxiety (FLA) and its cognitive, affective and behavioral correlates in English (i.e. language learning strategies, learning motivation, and performance). Three-hundred-and-six Chinese undergraduates learning EFL were administered the measures via a questionnaire. Regression analyses indicated that EFL performance and EFL motivation were key factors that uniquely predicted EFL reading and listening anxiety. However, the role of EFL learning strategies was not significant after the effects of EFL performance and EFL motivation were controlled for. Despite this, mediation analyses revealed that EFL learning strategies had a significant indirect effect on EFL reading performance and listening anxiety levels with EFL learning motivation as a mediator. This suggests its secondary role in affecting FL anxieties. These findings provide important implications regarding assessment of students’ FL anxiety level as well as identification of and intervention for those with FL difficulties. These findings have extended past studies by highlighting the relative importance of these cognitive, affective and behavioral correlates on Chinese undergraduates’ EFL anxiety in specific domains.

Home environmental influences on children's language and reading skills in a genetically sensitive design: Are socioeconomic status and home literacy environment environmental mediators and moderators?

This twin study examined how family socioeconomic status (SES) and home literacy environment (HLE) contributes to Chinese language and reading skills. It included 312 Chinese twin pairs aged 3 to 11. Children were individually administered tasks of Chinese word reading, receptive vocabulary and reading-related cognitive skills, and nonverbal reasoning ability. Information on home environment was collected through parent-reported questionnaires. Results showed that SES and HLE mediated shared environmental influences but did not moderate genetic influences on general language and reading abilities. Also, SES and HLE mediated shared environmental contributions to receptive vocabulary and syllable and rhyme awareness, but not orthographic skills. The findings of this study add to past twin studies that focused on alphabetic languages, suggesting that these links could be universal across languages. They also extend existing findings on SES and HLEs contributions to reading-related cognitive skills.

Perception of Native English Reduced Forms in Adverse Environments by Chinese Undergraduate Students

Previous research has shown that learners of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) have difficulties in understanding connected speech spoken by native English speakers. Extending from past research limited to quiet listening condition, this study examined the perception of English connected speech presented under five adverse conditions, namely multi-talker babble noise, speech-shaped noise, factory noise, whispering and sad emotional tones. We tested a total of 64 Chinese ESL undergraduate students, using a battery of listening tasks. Results confirmed that the recognition of English native speech was more challenging for Chinese ESL learners under unfavorable listening conditions, in comparison to a noise-free listening condition. These findings carry significant implications for the importance of training and assessments on connected speech perception across various listening environments.

Coarse and fine N1 tuning for print in younger and older Chinese children: Orthography, phonology, or semantics driven?

Visual expertise in distinguishing words from objects and word-like stimuli is a fundamental skill that is important for children to become proficient readers. This expertise can be indexed by the N1 component of ERPs at the neural level. However, the nature of N1 tuning for print is controversial in terms of onset of the latency, lateralization and the neural mechanism of the N1. This study aimed to investigate whether two groups of Chinese children could discriminate characters/character-like stimuli from visual controls (i.e., coarse N1 tuning) and distinguish characters from character-like stimuli (i.e., fine N1 tuning). We also explored the cognitive-linguistic correlates of N1 tuning. Seventeen children in the younger group (M=7.7 years) and 13 in the older group (M=9.4 years) were all required to finish a character decision task with character, pseudocharacter, noncharacter, and stroke combination conditions using ERP testing. Both the pseudocharacters and noncharacters were unpronounceable, and the main difference between the two conditions was in orthographic presentation (i.e., radical position). Children were also administered measures of reading fluency, reading accuracy, RAN, phonological skill and vocabulary knowledge. ERP results showed that a significantly larger N1 was observed in the characters, pseudocharacters, and noncharacters as compared to the stroke combinations in both groups. The N1 for characters and pseudocharacters was also significantly larger than that for noncharacters in both groups. Both coarse and fine N1s were larger for younger children than for older children, and the N1 was bilateral in younger children, but left lateralized in older children. Correlational analyses showed that the coarse N1 tuning of real characters versus visual controls was moderately correlated with reading fluency and accuracy but not RAN, phonology, or vocabulary. Taken together, our study suggests that both coarse and fine N1 tuning occurs in both younger and older children, when performing character decisions. Under such task demands, orthography, rather than phonology or semantics, seems to be the driver of coarse N1 tuning for print in Chinese children.

Less is More in Hong Kong: Investigation of Biscriptal and Trilingual Development Among Chinese Twins in a (Relatively) Small City.

One salient characteristic of twin studies and the related behavioral genetics paradigm is the requirement of a large sample size. Countries or regions that are large in size and highly populated are at an advantage when implementing twin studies. However, given the fascinating and promising results obtained from twin studies, many researchers based in smaller countries or regions may still want to conduct twin studies in order to address local and theoretical issues. In this article, we have outlined the development of twin studies in Hong Kong, one of the Special Administrative Regions of China. The historical development and design of the two major twin studies of language and reading development implemented within Hong Kong are discussed, providing insights to researchers who also aspire to conduct twin studies in small regions.

Differential influences of parental home literacy practices and anxiety in English as a foreign language on Chinese children's English development

ABSTRACT This study investigated the differential influences of maternal and paternal factors on Chinese childrens English as a foreign language development. It took into account both behavioral (i.e. parental home literacy practices, HLP; and childrens vocabulary knowledge) and emotional (i.e. parental and childrens foreign language reading anxiety, FLRA) aspects of home literacy environment and childrens language outcomes. Forty-eight Chinese first graders were tested individually on English vocabulary knowledge. Subsequently, both parents of participating children completed a questionnaire rating their HLP on English as a foreign language, their FLRA and their childs FLRA. Results from hierarchical regression analysis showed that paternal HLP predicted childrens English vocabulary knowledge and paternal FLRA predicted childrens FLRA, after controlling for childrens age, family income and parental education level. However, when the effects of maternal factors were accounted for, these paternal factors did not uniquely contribute to childrens English vocabulary knowledge or FLRA. In contrast, maternal HLP and FLRA explained unique variance in both childrens English vocabulary knowledge and FLRA, even after paternal factors were accounted for. These results have provided a more comprehensive picture of how home literacy environment contributes to childrens foreign language development, by indicating maternal and paternal contributions both behaviorally and emotionally.