Carin Neitzel

Parenting behaviours during child problem solving: The roles of child temperament, mother education and personality, and the problem-solving context

Child temperament, parent openness to experience, conscientiousness, and education, and parent a priori assessments of the task were examined in relation to parenting behaviours during child problem solving. Mothers and their children (73 dyads) were visited the summer before kindergarten. Mothers’ cognitive, emotional, and autonomy support were coded as they provided assistance during four child problem-solving tasks. Mothers with more education provided more metacognitive information. Before education was considered, it appeared that mothers who perceived their children as difficult and who were less open to experiences were less likely to regulate task difficulty, encourage their children’s efforts, and encourage their children’s active role in problem solving. However, more educated mothers regulated task difficulty, encouraged their children’s efforts, and encouraged their children’s active role more when they perceived their children as difficult than when they perceived their children as easy. More educated mothers also were likely to regulate task difficulty and encourage their children’s active role regardless of their openness. Children perceived as difficult were most likely to be rejected and also were particularly likely to be rejected if the mother was highly conscientious. Conscientious mothers were likely to be overly controlling. When mothers perceived the task negatively they were less likely to provide metacognitive information, regulate task difficulty, and encourage the child’s active role; and were more likely to be overcontrolling and rejecting.

Children's early interest-based activities in the home and subsequent information contributions and pursuits in kindergarten.

This study examined the early interests of 109 children and their subsequent information contributions and pursuits in kindergarten. Four groups of children with similar interests were identified on the basis of the childrens profiles of activities in the home, tracked bimonthly for over a year. Activity patterns reflected conceptual, social, procedural, or creative interests. The role of early interests in understanding academic engagement was investigated, with gender, cognitive skill, and temperament statistically controlled. Observational data from throughout the school year revealed differences in the types of information that children contributed to discussions and pursued in class related to childrens early interests. Findings enrich understanding of young childrens academic behaviors and extend theoretical models of academic self-instruction behaviors such as information exchanges and pursuits in classrooms.

The relationship between students' reading orientations and their strategic activity during a collaborative reading task

This study examined the connection between middle school students’ beliefs about reading and their use of comprehension strategies during a collaborative reading activity. Seventy-one fifth- and sixth-grade students were videotaped while they worked in small groups to read and discuss short texts describing the reading habits and abilities of four fictitious readers. Students’ conceptions of successful reading were determined based on their rankings of these fictitious readers, and their strategic activity was indexed by coding their use of strategies and the participation roles they assumed while working together. The analyses revealed a strong relationship between students’ conceptions of reading and their patterns of interaction during the collaborative activity. The findings enrich our understanding of this relationship and raise important questions for future investigations.

YOUNG CHILDREN’S IDEAS ABOUT POVERTY: GENDER, RACE, SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS, AND SETTING DIFFERENCES

What are children’s responses to storybook characters portrayed as socioeconomically disadvantaged? Do these responses vary by gender, race, socioeconomic status, and setting? Sixty-two 8-year-old-children individually listened and responded to a story about a soup kitchen using two different communication systems: drawings and words. Categories generated from the data were analyzed using chi-square analyses, yielding statistically significant findings for each of the variables of interest. Results offer a unique, detailed picture of the conceptual schemas of 8-year-old children about poverty.

Work-themed play among young children in foraging and farming communities in Central Africa

In small-scale societies children have great access to observing adult roles and this is often reflected in their play, however very few empirical studies of work-themed play have been conducted despite substantial implications that this type of play has for social learning. The current study describes the work-themed play patterns of 1 1/2- to 4-year-old Aka and Bofi foragers and Bofi farmers in Central Africa and examines the extent to which subsistence economy, age, and gender predicted how often children were observed engaging in work-themed play and characteristics of work-themed play. Overall, farmer children engaged in more work-themed play than forager children. Very few gender differences were observed in work-themed play. Age and subsistence economy predicted tendencies for children to be near adults while engaged in work-themed play and to use objects in their work-themed play.

“And no flowers grow there and stuff”: Young children's social representations of poverty

Purpose – The study reported here analyzed the meanings that 8-year-old children of different demographic backgrounds constructed about poverty. Methodology/approach – Six children with different demographic profiles were selected from a larger study for closer examination of their conceptions of poverty (Chafel & Neitzel, 2004, 2005). Content analysis was used to arrive at an in-depth interpretation of the childrens ideas expressed in response to a story about poverty and interview questions. Findings – The children communicated perspectives about poverty that appear to reflect their demographic profiles. Yet, they also shared a common ideology about the poor different from the dominant societal view. Research implications – By selecting typical children, recognizing the interrelatedness of sources of influence, and considering the data holistically, it was possible to achieve an in-depth understanding of the childrens conceptions. Originality/value of paper – With insight into the more humane conceptions that children have about the poor, adults can take steps to nurture these ideas so that as they grow older children continue to oppose discrimination and challenge the status quo.

Messages From the Milieu: Classroom Instruction and Context Influences on Elementary School Students’ Self-Regulated Learning Behaviors

ABSTRACT This study addressed questions about the relations among teacher instructional interactions, classroom environmental contexts, and students’ subsequent self-regulated learning behaviors in upper elementary school. One hundred and six 4th- and 5th-grade students from five classrooms in two schools in two communities (one urban and one rural) in the southern United States participated in the study. Each student was observed in ongoing classroom learning activities during teacher-directed and student-centered academic tasks throughout the school year. A structured observational protocol was used to record information about instruction and feedback provided to students by teachers, classroom and environmental contextual features, as well as students’ self-regulated learning behaviors. Findings revealed that teachers’ instructional information and feedback content both directly and indirectly predicted students’ self-regulation behaviors in the classroom. However, features of the classroom environment and structure influenced how the students made use of the available information and mediated the effects of classroom social interaction.

“I Would Like to See How They Got Poor and See What It's Like to Be Poor”: An Analysis of Young Children's Responses to a Critical Literacy Text About Poverty

Sixty-four 8-year-old children listened to a reading of a critical literacy text about poverty and then responded to interview questions about the story. The content on which the children focused their attention, the processes that they employed to engage with the text, and the particular stance(s) taken varied significantly by ecological setting or socioeconomic status for some categories of response. These findings are consistent with Rosenblatts (1994) theory and have important implications for practice. Mindful of variations in response, practitioners can become more sensitive to childrens constructed meanings about poverty and scaffold accordingly.

Differences in Kindergartners' Participation and Regulation Strategies across Time and Instructional Contexts.

ABSTRACT This study addressed questions about the function of children’s various participation and regulation strategies in different instructional contexts and at different points in time in school. The developmental trajectories of kindergartners’ academic participation and regulation strategy selection and use across the school year in teacher-directed and child-centered instructional contexts were investigated. Sixty-eight children participated in the study. To assess academic participation and regulation strategies, the children were observed in their kindergarten classrooms during teacher-led and child-directed activities on four occasions throughout the school year. At the start of kindergarten, the young children participated more frequently during teacher-directed activity than during student-centered activity; however, the children used deeper-level participation strategies and regulated more frequently in student-centered activities than in teacher-directed activities. Additionally, there were unique trajectories of change in the children’s profiles of participation and regulation strategy use over the school year, in general as well as within and across instructional contexts. The study findings also indicate that early participation and regulation strategies may differentially influence future patterns of participation and regulation.

Reflecting on online learning designs using observed behavior

Educators, as designers of resources, experiences, and environments for learning, make judgments and assumptions about learners and how design choices will affect them. While some uncertainties can be resolved through the design process, others must be addressed experientially, through action (implementation or enactment) punctuated by reflection. Online learning designs, since they are often motivated by broad, asynchronous accessibility, offer both unique challenges and opportunities for design reflection. The challenges tend to concern greater diversity among larger learner populations, and therefore a need to account for greater potential variance in learner experiences. The opportunities arise from the nature of the medium, where use can be passively observed through interactions between learners and the learning environment. In this paper, we address the use of observed behavior as a lens for design reflection on a large corpus of online learning resources focusing on cybersecurity for adult learners.