The purpose of the current study was to examine whether being interested in a particular text topic affects reading comprehension processes and products of skilled and less-skilled comprehenders...Show moreThe purpose of the current study was to examine whether being interested in a particular text topic affects reading comprehension processes and products of skilled and less-skilled comprehenders differently. Fifty-two upper elementary school children read six expository texts, three of which the topic of the text was rated as interesting and three of which the topic was rated as uninteresting. Eye-tracking was used to monitor the processes while reading. Reading comprehension products were assessed by two types of questions (i.e., literal and inferential), each designed to reflect a different level of comprehension. Students were also asked about how much knowledge they already had about each of the topics. The results indicated that being interested in a topic does not change reading comprehension processes of both skilled and less-skilled comprehenders, suggesting that they do not benefit from interesting topics compared to noninteresting topics. In addition, topic interest affected the amount of literal questions answered correctly. However, no such results were shown for inferential questions. With skilled comprehenders scoring better on both types of questions, and no interest topic x reading comprehension skill interaction being observed, this indicates that less-skilled comprehenders also do not benefit enough from an interesting topic regarding reading comprehension products. The results are discussed in the light of standards of coherence, cognitive abilities, and background knowledge.Show less
Dit onderzoek beschrijft hoe leerlingen van de bovenbouw van de Paschalis scoren op de vier dimensies van betrokkenheid, namelijk gedragsmatige betrokkenheid, emotionele betrokkenheid, cognitieve...Show moreDit onderzoek beschrijft hoe leerlingen van de bovenbouw van de Paschalis scoren op de vier dimensies van betrokkenheid, namelijk gedragsmatige betrokkenheid, emotionele betrokkenheid, cognitieve betrokkenheid en agentic engagement tijdens reken- en taallessen waarbij expliciete directe instructie wordt gegeven. Daarnaast beschrijft het onderzoek hoe leerkrachten deze betrokkenheid kunnen signaleren en hoe leerkrachten betrokkenheid kunnen vergroten. Om dit in kaart te brengen is er een vragenlijst afgenomen bij 95 leerlingen en zes leerkrachten waarin zij op een vijfpuntsschaal aangaven in welke mate zij, of de vijf cognitief sterkste leerlingen uit hun klas betrokken zijn tijdens reken- en taallessen. Middels open vragen werd in kaart gebracht wat leerkrachten zouden kunnen doen om betrokkenheid te vergroten. Zoals verwacht scoorden leerlingen die rekenen leuk vinden hoger op emotionele betrokkenheid dan leerlingen die rekenen niet leuk vinden en leerlingen die taal leuk vinden scoorden hoger op emotionele betrokkenheid dan leerlingen die taal niet leuk vinden. Er werden geen verschillen gevonden in de mate van agentic engagement wanneer deze werd bekeken op basis van de vaardigheidsscores van leerlingen voor rekenen en taal. Leerlingen scoorden in het algemeen hoog op betrokkenheid waarbij zij het hoogst scoorden op gedragsmatige betrokkenheid en het laagst op agentic engagement. Betrokkenheid zou vergroot kunnen worden door leerplezier te vergroten en door instructie aan te laten sluiten op het juiste niveau.Show less
The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of the seductive allure of neuroscience explanations (SANE effect), the finding that people overvalue psychological arguments when framed...Show moreThe aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of the seductive allure of neuroscience explanations (SANE effect), the finding that people overvalue psychological arguments when framed in terms of neuroscience findings, among teachers in the Netherlands. This study is based on the work of Im, Varma & Varma (2017) and also examined the possible role of three moderating variables, i.e. educational background, neuroscientific knowledge and attitude towards educational neuroscience. Participants (N = 310) read eight articles about educational topics in one of the four conditions corresponding to four levels of neuroscientific framing: psychological finding alone, with an extraneous neuroscience finding (verbal), with an extraneous neuroscience finding (verbal) and graph, and with an extraneous neuroscientific finding (verbal) and brain image. Participants were randomly assigned to one level of neuroscientific framing and rated the credibility of each article’s argument on a 7-point Likert scale. The results show that there was a general SANE effect when educational articles were accompanied by both extraneous verbal neuroscience findings and brain images. Extraneous verbal neuroscientific framings, either alone or accompanied by graphs, did not influence the credibility of the application of psychological findings to educational topics. The results did not support the expectations that teachers’ educational background or neuroscientific knowledge play a role in the SANE effect. However, the results suggest that the teacher’s attitude towards educational neuroscience does influence the SANE effect: teachers who were very positive towards the use of neuroscience in education were sensitive for the SANE effect and teachers who were moderate to not positive about this were not. On the basis of the results of this research and previous SANE studies, future studies to further investigate the mechanism of the SANE effect among teachers, the role of the effect and neuromyths in education, and how to build a bridge between neuroscience and education are suggested.Show less
Dit onderzoek gaat over betrokkenheid van leerlingen op basisschool Paschalis. Hier presteren leerlingen op cognitief gebied bovengemiddeld. Leerkrachten willen graag dat de cognitief sterkste...Show moreDit onderzoek gaat over betrokkenheid van leerlingen op basisschool Paschalis. Hier presteren leerlingen op cognitief gebied bovengemiddeld. Leerkrachten willen graag dat de cognitief sterkste leerlingen ook betrokken zijn, en zochten naar tools om de betrokkenheid te vergroten. Het doel van dit onderzoek was om de betrokkenheid van bovenbouwleerlingen op de Paschalis te peilen en om handvatten toe te reiken om de betrokkenheid te vergroten. Dit is onderzocht middels de volgende onderzoeksvraag: Hoe ervaren bovenbouwleerlingen op de Paschalis hun betrokkenheid tijdens de lessen waarbij expliciete directe instructie wordt gegeven? Komt dit overeen met hoe hun leerkrachten dit ervaren en hoe kunnen zij de betrokkenheid van hun leerlingen vergroten? Bovenbouwleerlingen en -leerkrachten vulden een vragenlijst in. De vragenlijsten bestonden uit gesloten en open vragen. De gesloten vragen hadden betrekking op de vormen van betrokkenheid, en de open vragen op de huidige situatie en hoe betrokkenheid vergroot kan worden. De algemene betrokkenheid van leerlingen op de Paschalis is relatief hoog. De vier vormen van betrokkenheid verschillen significant van elkaar, waarbij agentic engagement als het laagst wordt ervaren. Leerlingen en leerkrachten lieten hierbij een soortgelijke verdeling zien. Er is onderzocht of het vaardigheidsniveau van leerlingen invloed had op de betrokkenheid, wat voor zowel taal als rekenen niet significant bleek te zijn. In de open vragen van de vragenlijst zijn er suggesties gegeven om de betrokkenheid te vergroten, waarbij spelletjes en actieve werkvormen genoemd werden. Om betrokkenheid te vergroten kan er ingespeeld worden op het vergroten van agentic engagement, en op suggesties van de leerlingen.Show less
Reading comprehension is a complex but important skill to function well in society. Reading motivation is of great importance in the development of reading comprehension skills. International tests...Show moreReading comprehension is a complex but important skill to function well in society. Reading motivation is of great importance in the development of reading comprehension skills. International tests shows that the reading skills and reading motivation of secondary school students has deteriorated in recent years. The aim of the current research is to examine the reading motivation of students in higher professional education and university. First, the influence of the Standard of Coherence on the reading comprehension level of students was investigated. The Standard of Coherence is a collective term for intrinsic reading motivation, extrinsic reading motivation, the desire to read difficult texts and the desire to understand texts. Secondly, it was investigated to what extent the Standard of Coherence differs between students in higher professional education and university. Participants were 47 Dutch students, of which 25 students from higher professional education and 22 students from university. All students completed a questionnaire as a measure of the reader's Standard of Coherence. In addition, the reading comprehension level of the students was determined by means of the inference test and CBM-Maze test. The results show that the individual elements of the Standard of Coherence as well as the Standard of Coherence itself are not significant predictors of the reading comprehension level. In addition, the results don’t show that the Standard of Coherence differs between students in higher professional education and university. Follow-up research should clarify the extent to which reading motivation decreases with the transition from secondary school to further education and the role of gender in the relationship between the Standard of Coherence and the reading comprehension level. Based on the current results, teachers are advised to continue to offer scientific literature in higher professional education and university in a comparable way as they are used toShow less
While reading a text, the reader makes a mental representation of this text to understand it. Reading comprehension is one of the most important tasks in primary school. It is important for success...Show moreWhile reading a text, the reader makes a mental representation of this text to understand it. Reading comprehension is one of the most important tasks in primary school. It is important for success in all subjects in school, but it is also important in daily life. The aim of this study is to investigate if readers a text understand better if they are interested in the subject of the text than when they are less interested. In addition, it is investigated whether the difference is different for low-motivated readers than for highly-motivated readers. The following research question has been formulated: ‘Do readers understand a text better when they are very interested in the subject of a text than when they are uninterested in the subject of the text? And is the difference non-identical for highly intrinsically motivated readers and low intrinsically motivated readers?’ To answer the research question, the reader has completed a reading task and a questionnaire about reading motivation. The reader has chosen three interesting topics and three uninteresting topics to read. After reading the text, the reader was asked to answer three literal questions and three inference questions about the text. In this way, it could be investigated whether interest in a specific text plays a role in text comprehension. The reader also completed a questionnaire about reading motivation to investigate whether the difference is different for highly motivated readers than for low-motivated readers. In this research, attention is only paid to intrinsic motivation. The research has shown that interest has no influence on text comprehension and there is no difference for highly motivated readers and low-motivated readers. Despite these results, it is still recommended to look for texts that arouse the interest of children. According to the literature, interest and motivation are effective factors for text comprehension.Show less
