Penny Van Bergen

The Effects of Mother Training in Emotion-Rich, Elaborative Reminiscing on Children's Shared Recall and Emotion Knowledge

The present study examined the impact of training mothers in high-elaborative, emotional reminiscing on childrens autobiographical memory and emotion knowledge. Eighty mothers were randomly allocated to one of two training conditions: in the reminiscing condition, mothers were encouraged to reminisce by asking their children (aged 3.5 to 5 years) elaborative Wh- questions, providing detailed descriptions, and discussing emotions, and in the control condition, mothers were encouraged to play by following their childrens lead. Forty-four mothers completed the study. Both immediately and 6 months after training, mothers in the reminiscing condition and their children each made more high-elaborative utterances and emotion references during shared recall than did mothers in the control condition and their children. Children of reminiscing mothers also showed better emotion cause knowledge after 6 months than did children of control mothers, but childrens independent recall to an experimenter did not differ according to condition. The findings suggest that an elaborative and emotion-rich reminiscing style can be taught to parents, with potential benefits for childrens shared (but not independent) memory contributions and for emotion knowledge development.

Detaining the Usual Suspects: Charting the Use of Segregated Settings in New South Wales Government Schools, Australia.

This article examines the increase in segregated placements in the New South Wales government school sector. Using disaggregated enrolment data, it points to the growing over-representation of boys in special schools and classes, particularly those of a certain age in certain support categories. In the discussion that follows, the authors question the role of special education in the development of new and additional forms of being ‘at risk’. In effect, they invert the traditional concept by asking: who is at risk of what? In focusing on the containment of risk, are modern practices of diagnosis and segregation perpetuating risks that already disproportionately affect certain groups of individuals? Do these perceptions of and responses to risk in local schools now place these students at greater personal risk of school failure and a future marked by social exclusion? And, finally, is that risk worth the cost?

The Minority Report: Disproportionate Representation in Australia's Largest Education System

The overrepresentation of students from minority ethnic groups in separate special education settings has been extensively documented in North America, yet little research exists for Australian school systems. The authors of this study systematically analyzed 13 years of enrollment data from the state of New South Wales and found stark, increasing differences in patterns of enrollment between Indigenous students, students from a language background other than English (LBOTE), and non-Indigenous English-speaking students. Although enrollments of Indigenous students in separate settings increased faster across time than did enrollments of Indigenous students in mainstream, enrollments of LBOTE students in mainstream increased faster than did enrollments of LBOTE students in separate settings.

To Educate You to Be Smart: Disaffected Students and the Purpose of School in the (Not so Clever) "Lucky Country".

This paper contributes to conversations about school, post-compulsory and further education policy by reporting findings from a three-year study with disaffected students who have been referred to special ‘behaviour’ schools. Contrary to popular opinion, our research finds that these ‘ignorant yobs’ do value education and know what it is for. They also have aspirations for a secure, productive and fulfilled life, although it may not involve university-level study. Importantly, we found that students who responded negatively with regard to the importance of schooling tended to envision future lives and occupations for which they believed school knowledge was unnecessary. The implications of this research for school, post-compulsory and further education policy are discussed.

The Psychology of Containment: (Mis) Representing Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties in Australian Schools.

The number of students in special schools has increased at a rapid rate in some Australian states, due in part to increased enrolment under the categories of emotional disturbance (ED) and behaviour disorder (BD). Nonetheless, diagnostic distinctions between ED and BD are unclear. Moreover, despite international findings that students with particular backgrounds are over-represented in special schools, little is known about the backgrounds of students entering such settings in Australia. This study examined the government school enrolment data from New South Wales, the most populous of the Australian states. Linear and quadratic trends were used to describe the numbers and ages of students enrolled in special schools in the ED and BD categories. Changes between 1997 and 2007 were observed. Results showed an over-representation of boys that increased across the decade and a different pattern across age for boys and girls. Consistent with international findings, these results indicate that trends in special school placements are unrelated to disability prevalence in the population. Rather, it is suggested that schools act to preserve time and resources for others by removing their more challenging students: most typically, boys.

Not all semantics: Similarities and differences in reminiscing function and content between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians

This study explored why and how Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians remember the past. Indigenous Australians traditionally share a strong oral tradition in which customs, personal and cultural histories, and other narratives are passed across groups and between generations by word of mouth. Drawing on this tradition, in which inherent value is placed on sharing knowledge and maintaining connectedness with others, we hypothesised that Indigenous Australians would be more likely than non-Indigenous Australians to report reminiscing to fulfil social functions (but not self or directive functions). Furthermore, we hypothesised that Indigenous Australians would recall personal past experiences more elaborately than would non-Indigenous Australians. In Study 1, 33 Indigenous Australians and 76 non-Indigenous Australians completed Websters Reminiscence Functions Scale. As predicted, Indigenous participants reported higher scores on subscales related to social functions than did non-Indigenous Australians: particularly “Teach/Inform” and “Intimacy Maintenance”. They also scored higher on the “Identity” subscale. In Study 2, 15 Indigenous and 14 non-Indigenous Australians shared three memories from the distant and recent past. While Indigenous and non-Indigenous narratives did not differ in either emotion or elaboration, Indigenous Australians provided more memory context and detail by including a greater proportion of semantic memory content. Taken together, these findings suggest differences in both why and how Australians remember.

Understanding student engagement with research: a study of pre-service teachers’ research perceptions, research experience, and motivation

This study reports on findings from a research project that investigated the extent to which pre-service teachers at a major metropolitan Australian university engage with research, and the factors that influence their level of engagement or disengagement. Results from survey responses (n = 235) and focus group interviews suggest that attitudes towards research are more positive among pre-service teachers who possess research experience and those who are intrinsically motivated with respect to their university studies. The article discusses the implications of these results for the effective organisation and promotion of research activities for pre-service teachers.

Adding Color to Conflict: Disruptive Students’ Drawings of Themselves with Their Teachers

Building on work examining teachers’ perceptions of the student-teacher relationship, this study investigated how young students draw themselves with their teachers. Fourteen kindergarten and first-grade teachers each nominated 2 disruptive and 2 well-behaved students. Students then completed 1 drawing of themselves with their classroom teacher and 1 with a support teacher (e.g., librarian, art teacher) at 2 time points: the end of the school year (Phase 1) and the beginning of the next year (Phase 2). In coding for 8 markers of relationship quality—vitality/creativity, pride/happiness, vulnerability, emotional distance, tension/anger, role reversal, bizarreness/dissociation, and global pathology—we found no differences in the way that disruptive and well-behaved students depicted their own relationships with teachers. Gender and phase effects were identified, however, with boys depicting greater relational negativity than girls and all students portraying greater emotional distance at the beginning of the school year.

Recasting Lecture Material Using Podcasts: An Educational Psychology Case Study

The aim of the current study was to investigate the characteristics of effective podcasting in an educational psychology class. Given the practical context in which the investigation was embedded, an action research approach was used. In Cycle One, a How To procedural lecture was recast as a series of 37-min podcasts. Students surveys demonstrated that the podcasts led to enhanced enjoyment and understanding of the assignment procedures being scaffolded. In Cycle Two, a traditional live lecture was withdrawn from the curriculum. Instead, students were required to access the lecture podcast that had been recorded using iLecture 1 year earlier. Students rated the podcast less favorably than they did podcasts for topics in which a live lecture was also available. To investigate these somewhat discrepant findings, a participatory approach was used in Cycle Three. A student focus group identified two key factors driving their perceptions of podcasts: the provision of choice and the lecturer’s intent. Students felt disengaged when they perceived that no effort had gone into the preparation of the lecture. In contrast, they were engaged when they perceived that sufficient scaffolding and support had been provided. Together, the findings suggest that supplementary podcasts are an effective tool for facilitating student learning. When podcasts are used as the primary method of instruction, however, efforts must be made to address students’ perceptions of lecturer intent.

Collaboration and prospective memory: comparing nominal and collaborative group performance in strangers and couples

ABSTRACT To perform prospective memory (PM) tasks in day-to-day life, we often enlist the help of others. Yet the effects of collaboration on PM are largely unknown. Adopting the methodology of the “collaborative recall paradigm”, we tested whether stranger dyads (Experiment 1) and intimate couples (Experiment 2) would perform better on a “Virtual Week” task when working together or each working separately. In Experiment 1, we found evidence of collaborative inhibition: collaborating strangers did not perform to their pooled individual potential, although the effect was modulated by PM task difficulty. We also found that the overall collaborative inhibition effect was attributable to both the retrospective and prospective components of PM. In Experiment 2 however, there was no collaborative inhibition: there was no significant difference in performance between couples working together or separately. Our findings suggest potential costs of collaboration to PM. Intimate relationships may reduce the usual costs of collaboration, with implications for intervention training programmes and for populations who most need PM support.