Juliette Walma van der Molen

Parental Mediation of Children's Emotional Responses to a Violent News Event

In a survey among 451 elementary school children (8 to 12 years old), the authors investigate (a) to what extent childrens exposure to news coverage of a violent news event is related to their feelings of fear, worry, anger, and sadness and (b) to what extent active (i.e., helping children understand what they see on the news) and restrictive (i.e., keeping children from watching the news) parental mediation strategies moderate the impact of the news. Findings show that childrens news exposure is significantly related to their emotional responses. Active mediation successfully reduces the relations between news exposure and fear, worry, and anger but only among the younger children in the sample. Restrictive mediation has no or even an opposite effect. However, findings also suggest that the effectiveness of the mediation may depend on the childs level of news exposure.

Children's and Adults' Recall of Television and Print News in Children's and Adult News Formats

Experiments comparing television and print news have shown that children learn most from television, whereas adults learn most from print. An experiment was conducted in which both 96 children (5th and 6th graders) and 96 adults (university students) were presented with a sequence of five news stories, either in their original televised form or in a printed version. Half of the participants were presented with stories taken from a childrens news program (high audiovisual redundancy), whereas the other participants were exposed to corresponding stories adopted from an adult news program (low audiovisual redundancy). Results indicated that both children and adults learned most from television stories when presented in a childrens news format, whereas the recall advantage of television disappeared when adult news stories were involved. The results suggest that the correspondence between verbal and visual content of television stories is decisive for the relative effectiveness of television and print.Experiments comparing television and print news have shown that children learn most from television, whereas adults learn most from print. An experiment was conducted in which both 96 children (5th and 6th graders) and 96 adults (university students) were presented with a sequence of five news stories, either in their original televised form or in a printed version. Half of the participants were presented with stories taken from a childrens news program (high audiovisual redundancy), whereas the other participants were exposed to corresponding stories adopted from an adult news program (low audiovisual redundancy). Results indicated that both children and adults learned most from television stories when presented in a childrens news format, whereas the recall advantage of television disappeared when adult news stories were involved. The results suggest that the correspondence between verbal and visual content of television stories is decisive for the relative effectiveness of television and print.

Children's Direct Fright and Worry Reactions to Violence in Fiction and News Television Programs

OBJECTIVE To examine whether violence in fictional and news television content frightens and worries children. STUDY DESIGN Mixed factorial. Type of reaction (fright, worry) and television programming (violent news, violent fiction) were within-subjects factors, whereas age, sex, and television viewing frequency were between-subjects factors. Participants included 572 children (47% boys), aged 8 to 12 years, from 9 urban and rural primary schools in the Netherlands. The main exposure was to descriptions of 8 threats frequently depicted in fictional and news programs (eg, murder, war, house fires). Children reported whether they were frightened or worried by these threats. RESULTS Violent threats increased both fright and worry. These 2 reactions could be distinguished from one another in a factor analysis. When violent content was described as news, it produced more fear reactions than when it was described as fiction. Fright and worry were greater in girls than in boys, in younger children than in older children, and in light television viewers than in heavy television viewers. CONCLUSIONS Pediatricians should inform parents, educators, policy makers, and broadcasters about the potentially harmful effect of violent programming on childrens emotions, especially in the case of news programming.

Professional Development for Primary Teachers in Science and Technology

I have been pleased to discover the VTB-Pro three-years project carried in the Netherlands (Broadening technological education in primary school). Focusing on professional development of teachers and presenting first hand testimonies and research, the present book demonstrates how to deal with this issue, so critical for a renewed pedagogy. With proper methods, the knowledge of science, the interest in science and technology, the pedagogical skills can all be improved among teachers who often have no or little affection for science. I N T E R N A T I O N A L T E C H N O L O G Y E D U C A T I O N S E R I E S I N T E R N A T I O N A L T E C H N O L O G Y E D U C A T I O N S E R I E S

Primary teachers conducting inquiry projects: effects on attitudes towards teaching science and conducting inquiry

ABSTRACT This study used an experimental, pretest-posttest control group design to investigate whether participation in a large-scale inquiry project would improve primary teachers’ attitudes towards teaching science and towards conducting inquiry. The inquiry project positively affected several elements of teachers’ attitudes. Teachers felt less anxious about teaching science and felt less dependent on contextual factors compared to the control group. With regard to attitude towards conducting inquiry, teachers felt less anxious and more able to conduct an inquiry project. There were no effects on other attitude components, such as self-efficacy beliefs or relevance beliefs, or on self-reported science teaching behaviour. These results indicate that practitioner research may have a partially positive effect on teachers’ attitudes, but that it may not be sufficient to fully change primary teachers’ attitudes and their actual science teaching behaviour. In comparison, a previous study showed that attitude-focused professional development in science education has a more profound impact on primary teachers’ attitudes and science teaching behaviour. In our view, future interventions aiming to stimulate science teaching should combine both approaches, an explicit focus on attitude change together with familiarisation with inquiry, in order to improve primary teachers’ attitudes and classroom practices.

Primary Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Science and Technology

The study on primary teachers’ attitudes towards science and technology has received considerable research attention over the last decades. However, if one looks at the extant literature in this domain, a major problem that becomes apparent is the lack of consistency in the conceptualization of what is meant by teacher attitudes. Attitude is a complex and multidimensional construct and a clear definition and thorough theoretical understanding are essential for research in this area. The present chapter is intended to shed more light on this construct and to present the results of a focus group study amongst pre- and in-service primary teachers that investigated both their personal attitudes towards science and technology and their attitudes towards teaching science and technology at primary school level.