Lisa Bardach, Claudia Neuendorf, Kou Murayama, Thorsten Fahrbach, Michel Knigge, Benjamin Nagengast, Ulrich Trautwein
{"title":"Does students’ awareness of school-track-related stereotypes exacerbate inequalities in education?","authors":"Lisa Bardach, Claudia Neuendorf, Kou Murayama, Thorsten Fahrbach, Michel Knigge, Benjamin Nagengast, Ulrich Trautwein","doi":"10.1038/s41539-023-00203-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-023-00203-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Early ability tracking increases inequalities in education. It has been proposed that the awareness of negative school-track-related stereotypes contributes to educational inequalities, as stereotype awareness interferes with students’ abilities to thrive, particularly those in lower, stigmatized tracks. The present study tested this assumption in a sample of 3880 German secondary school students from three tracks, who were assessed four times on stereotype awareness regarding their own school track and academic outcomes (achievement, engagement, self-concept) between Grades 5 and 8. Students in the lowest track reported higher levels of stereotype awareness than higher track students or students attending a combined track. Stereotype awareness increased across time in all tracks. Contrary to our preregistered hypotheses, however, the results from multigroup models revealed that (changes in) stereotype awareness were not more strongly related to (changes in) most outcomes in the lowest track in comparison with the other two tracks.</p>","PeriodicalId":48503,"journal":{"name":"npj Science of Learning","volume":"173 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138683389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The two-faced process of learning and the importance of Janus-faced solutions","authors":"Robin Samuelsson","doi":"10.1038/s41539-023-00210-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-023-00210-w","url":null,"abstract":"Significant developments have been made to our understanding of how children learn, putting essential pieces to the puzzle of what it means to be human. Theories of learning are, however, headed in diverging directions, and this perspective paper argues that this dispersion can recapitulate recurring schisms in developmental and learning sciences about learning as a predominantly individually constructed or socially transferred process. It is argued that this opposition is unnecessary and that an encompassing understanding of learning should consider both directions. This conciliatory approach considers how humans learn from others and what is known while exploring new solutions. This is important for understanding learning in childhood, seeing learning as a simultaneously individual and social process where humans actively explore and exploit knowledge about the world around them. Framing learning by the metaphor of a Janus face, looking back at what is known while exploring new knowledge, becomes illuminating for understanding learning and provides an essential background for designing educational practices based on active learning.","PeriodicalId":48503,"journal":{"name":"npj Science of Learning","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138683529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Stacee Santos, Hiram Brownell, Marie Coppola, Anna Shusterman, Sara Cordes
{"title":"Language experience matters for the emergence of early numerical concepts","authors":"Stacee Santos, Hiram Brownell, Marie Coppola, Anna Shusterman, Sara Cordes","doi":"10.1038/s41539-023-00202-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-023-00202-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Research has shown a link between the acquisition of numerical concepts and language, but exactly how linguistic input matters for numerical development remains unclear. Here, we examine both symbolic (number word knowledge) and non-symbolic (numerical discrimination) numerical abilities in a population in which access to language is limited early in development—oral deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) preschoolers born to hearing parents who do not know a sign language. The oral DHH children demonstrated lower numerical discrimination skills, verbal number knowledge, conceptual understanding of the word “more”, and vocabulary relative to their hearing peers. Importantly, however, analyses revealed that group differences in the numerical tasks, but not vocabulary, disappeared when differences in the amount of time children had had auditory access to spoken language input via hearing technology were taken into account. Results offer insights regarding the role language plays in emerging number concepts.</p>","PeriodicalId":48503,"journal":{"name":"npj Science of Learning","volume":"67 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138561659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Arithmetic skills are associated with left fronto-temporal gray matter volume in 536 children and adolescents","authors":"Nurit Viesel-Nordmeyer, Jérôme Prado","doi":"10.1038/s41539-023-00201-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-023-00201-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>There are large individual differences in arithmetic skills. Although a number of brain-wide association studies have attempted to identify the neural correlates of these individual differences, studies have focused on relatively small sample sizes and have yielded inconsistent results. In the current voxel-based morphometry study, we merged six structural imaging datasets of children and adolescents (from 7.5 to 15 years) whose levels of arithmetic skills were assessed, leading to a combined sample of <i>n</i> = 536. Controlling for individual differences in age, gender, as well as language, and intelligence, we found a unique positive relation between arithmetic skill and gray matter volume in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and middle temporal gyrus (MTG). Our results suggest that individual differences in arithmetic skills are associated with structural differences in left fronto-temporal areas, rather than in regions of the parietal cortex and hippocampus that are often associated with arithmetic processing.</p>","PeriodicalId":48503,"journal":{"name":"npj Science of Learning","volume":"195 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138561668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Disentangling sensory precision and prior expectation of change in autism during tactile discrimination.","authors":"Laurie-Anne Sapey-Triomphe, Gaëtan Sanchez, Marie-Anne Hénaff, Sandrine Sonié, Christina Schmitz, Jérémie Mattout","doi":"10.1038/s41539-023-00207-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41539-023-00207-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Predictive coding theories suggest that core symptoms in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may stem from atypical mechanisms of perceptual inference (i.e., inferring the hidden causes of sensations). Specifically, there would be an imbalance in the precision or weight ascribed to sensory inputs relative to prior expectations. Using three tactile behavioral tasks and computational modeling, we specifically targeted the implicit dynamics of sensory adaptation and perceptual learning in ASD. Participants were neurotypical and autistic adults without intellectual disability. In Experiment I, tactile detection thresholds and adaptation effects were measured to assess sensory precision. Experiments II and III relied on two-alternative forced choice tasks designed to elicit a time-order effect, where prior knowledge biases perceptual decisions. Our results suggest a subtler explanation than a simple imbalance in the prior/sensory weights, having to do with the dynamic nature of perception, that is the adjustment of precision weights to context. Compared to neurotypicals, autistic adults showed no difference in average performance and sensory sensitivity. Both groups managed to implicitly learn and adjust a prior that biased their perception. However, depending on the context, autistic participants showed no, normal or slower adaptation, a phenomenon that computational modeling of trial-to-trial responses helped us to associate with a higher expectation for sameness in ASD, and to dissociate from another observed robust difference in terms of response bias. These results point to atypical perceptual learning rather than altered perceptual inference per se, calling for further empirical and computational studies to refine the current predictive coding theories of ASD.</p>","PeriodicalId":48503,"journal":{"name":"npj Science of Learning","volume":"8 1","pages":"54"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10700558/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138499850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yajing Zhang, Thi Kim Truc Huynh, Benjamin James Dyson
{"title":"Deliberately making miskates: Behavioural consistency under win maximization and loss maximization conditions.","authors":"Yajing Zhang, Thi Kim Truc Huynh, Benjamin James Dyson","doi":"10.1038/s41539-023-00206-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41539-023-00206-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We argue that the feedback traditionally used to indicate negative outcomes causes future detrimental performance because of the default goal of win maximization. In gaming paradigms where participants intentionally performed as well (win maximization) and as poorly (loss maximization) as possible, we showed a double dissociation where actions following wins were more consistent during win maximization, but actions following losses were more consistent during loss maximization. This broader distinction between goal-congruent and goal-incongruent feedback suggests that individuals are able to flexibly redefine their definition of 'success', and provide a reconsideration of the way we think about 'losing'.</p>","PeriodicalId":48503,"journal":{"name":"npj Science of Learning","volume":"8 1","pages":"55"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10700323/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138499849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sofieke T Kevenaar, Elsje van Bergen, Albertine J Oldehinkel, Dorret I Boomsma, Conor V Dolan
{"title":"The relationship of school performance with self-control and grit is strongly genetic and weakly causal.","authors":"Sofieke T Kevenaar, Elsje van Bergen, Albertine J Oldehinkel, Dorret I Boomsma, Conor V Dolan","doi":"10.1038/s41539-023-00198-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41539-023-00198-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The non-cognitive skills self-control and grit are often considered predictors of school performance, but whether this relationship is causal remains unclear. We investigated the causality of this association using a twin design. Specifically, we evaluated the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while controlling for genetic or environmental influences common to all three traits (i.e., confounding). Teachers of 4891 Dutch 12-year-old twin pairs (of which 3837 were complete pairs) completed a survey about school performance (school grades), self-control (ASEBA self-control scale), and the perseverance aspect of grit. Our analysis aimed to determine the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while simultaneously controlling for genetic or environmental confounding. Establishing the regression relationship corrected for confounding supports the interpretation of the regression relationship as causal. In all analyses, we corrected for sex, rater bias of the teachers, and parental socioeconomic status. Initially, in the standard regression, self-control, and grit explained 28.4% of the school performance variance. However, allowing for genetic confounding (due to genetic pleiotropy) revealed that most of this association could be attributed to genetic influences that the three traits share. In the presence of genetic pleiotropy, the phenotypic regression of school performance on self-control and grit accounted for only 4.4% (i.e., the effect size association with the causal hypothesis). In conclusion, self-control and grit predict school performance primarily due to genetic pleiotropy, with a much smaller causal effect (R<sup>2</sup> = 4.4%). This suggests that interventions targeting self-control and grit alone may yield limited improvements in school performance.</p>","PeriodicalId":48503,"journal":{"name":"npj Science of Learning","volume":"8 1","pages":"53"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10696063/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138483267","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Laura Cassidy, Kayla Reggio, Bennett A Shaywitz, Sally E Shaywitz
{"title":"Prevalence of undiagnosed dyslexia in African-American primary school children.","authors":"Laura Cassidy, Kayla Reggio, Bennett A Shaywitz, Sally E Shaywitz","doi":"10.1038/s41539-023-00204-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41539-023-00204-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Dyslexia is among the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in children, yet despite its high prevalence all too frequently goes undiagnosed. Consequently dyslexic children all too often fail to receive effective reading interventions. Here we report our findings from a study using a teacher completed evidence-based dyslexia screener to first screen then test predominantly African-American children in grades kindergarten through second grade in two inner city public charter schools in New Orleans. Almost half (49.2%) of the children screened as at risk for dyslexia and of these the majority were found to be dyslexic on more detailed testing. Our results suggest that large numbers of African-American students with dyslexia may be overlooked in schools.</p>","PeriodicalId":48503,"journal":{"name":"npj Science of Learning","volume":"8 1","pages":"52"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10693615/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138479000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emilio Ferrer, Bennett A Shaywitz, John M Holahan, Sally E Shaywitz
{"title":"Early reading at first grade predicts adult reading at age 42 in typical and dyslexic readers.","authors":"Emilio Ferrer, Bennett A Shaywitz, John M Holahan, Sally E Shaywitz","doi":"10.1038/s41539-023-00205-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41539-023-00205-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Research indicates that the achievement gap in reading between typical and dyslexic readers is already evident in first grade and persists through adolescence. However, it is not known whether this reading gap persists into adult life. In this report we use an epidemiologic sample of 312 children (typical readers = 246; dyslexic readers = 66), followed longitudinally from age 5 through adulthood and examine two fundamental questions: 1) Is reading level in 1<sup>st</sup> grade predictive of reading proficiency in adulthood in typical and dyslexic readers? and 2) Are the trajectories of reading development from 1<sup>st</sup> through 5<sup>th</sup> grade predictive of reading proficiency in adulthood in typical and dyslexic readers? Our findings indicate that early reading levels in 1<sup>st</sup> grade as well as the trajectory of reading development through the first five years of school were associated with reading scores in adulthood. This association was stronger for dyslexic than for typical readers, especially the latter factor. These findings indicate that the achievement gap between typical and dyslexic readers persists far beyond adolescence, in fact, into adult life.</p>","PeriodicalId":48503,"journal":{"name":"npj Science of Learning","volume":"8 1","pages":"51"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10684638/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138452802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Disrupting links between poverty, chronic stress, and educational inequality.","authors":"Madeline B Harms, Sherona D Garrett-Ruffin","doi":"10.1038/s41539-023-00199-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41539-023-00199-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The income-achievement gap is a significant and stubborn problem in the United States, which has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. In this article, we link two emerging literatures that have historically been disparate: the neurobiology of poverty as a form of early life stress, and research on educational policies with the potential to reduce SES-based disparities in academic achievement. In doing so, we (1) integrate the literature on poverty-related mechanisms that contribute to early life stress, alter neurobiology, and lead to educational inequities, and (2) based on this research, highlight policies and practices at the school/classroom level and broader structural level that have the potential to address the problem of inequity in our educational systems. We emphasize that educational inequity is a systemic issue, and its resolution will require coordination of local, state, and national policies.</p>","PeriodicalId":48503,"journal":{"name":"npj Science of Learning","volume":"8 1","pages":"50"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10662171/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138177585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}