Preschool Attendance and Executive Function Mediate Early Academic Achievement Gaps in East Asia and the Pacific     

Jin Sun  Li Zhang  Eva Chen  Carrie Lau  Nirmala Rao 《Early education and development》2018,29(8):1039-1060

Research Findings: This study investigated the relationship between family socioeconomic status (SES) and children’s early attainment, and the roles of preschool attendance and executive function (EF) in this association. Participants were 3,331 children (1,584 girls) ranging in age from 36 to 71 months from Cambodia, Mongolia, and Vanuatu. Children’s language, literacy, and mathematics attainment and EF were assessed using the East Asia-Pacific Early Child Development Scales. Mothers reported on family demographics and children’s preschool experience. Results indicated significant associations between SES and academic attainment in all three countries. Further analysis showed that preschool attendance and EF were significant mediators of SES- related disparities in attainment, but differed by country. Both served as parallel and sequential mediators in the associations between SES and performance in language, literacy, and mathematics in Mongolia. However, only preschool attendance mediated the association of SES with literacy attainment in Cambodia, and only EF mediated that with children’s mathematics and language performance in Vanuatu. Although SES is substantially related with early achievement in these developing countries, our findings indicate that preschool attendance and EF may attenuate this relationship. Practice or Policy: Implications for the provision of early childhood education programs and public policy are discussed.  相似文献   

Sensorimotor Control of Speech and Children’s Reading Ability     

Mark R. van den Bunt  Margriet A. Groen  Steve Frost  Airey Lau  Jonathan L. Preston  Vincent L. Gracco 《Scientific Studies of Reading》2018,22(6):503-516

Studies of the role of phonological representations in learning to read have almost exclusively focused on speech perception. In the current study, we examined links between sensorimotor control of speech, reading, and reading-related abilities. We studied two languages, English and Dutch, which vary in the regularity of their spelling-to-sound mappings. There were 236 American and Dutch children, 4 to 8 years old, who performed an altered auditory feedback task in which the first formant of the /?/ vowel was altered. A stronger response to altered feedback for literate relative to preliterate children was observed, and this was particularly the case for the Dutch children. Moreover, the magnitude of the responses was related to precursors of reading in preliterate children and to reading skill in literate children. We propose that these findings could be related to changes in children’s speech production skills that facilitate the integration of orthographic and phonemic information.  相似文献   

The effect of culture and belief systems on students’ academic buoyancy     

Junu Dahal  P. W. C. Prasad  Angelika Maag  Abeer Alsadoon  Lau Siong Hoe 《Education and Information Technologies》2018,23(4):1465-1482

Increasingly, learner motivation is implicated in student failure at universities. This has led to intense research into internal or external variables that might buoy resilience to failure. This research investigates the impact of strong cultural connectedness and strong belief systems on the academic buoyancy of international students studying at an Australian University. For this purpose, we surveyed 102 tertiary students at a Sydney university. Results demonstrate that, in the event of academic failure, students’ academic buoyancy remains high if they have support through strong cultural connections and from their belief systems. We further endeavored to identify if academic buoyancy was fed by intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. This research contributes to the understanding of the sources of strengths available to international students from primarily collective cultures studying overseas. There are implications for educational practice in terms of identifying students ‘at high risk’ if they are unable to draw strengths from cultural connections and belief systems.  相似文献   

Log-periodic quantum magneto-oscillations and discrete-scale invariance in topological material HfTe5     

Huichao Wang  Yanzhao Liu  Yongjie Liu  Chuanying Xi  Junfeng Wang  Jun Liu  Yong Wang  Liang Li  Shu Ping Lau  Mingliang Tian  Jiaqiang Yan  David Mandrus  Ji-Yan Dai  Haiwen Liu  Xincheng Xie  Jian Wang 《国家科学评论(英文版)》2019,6(5):914

Discrete-scale invariance (DSI) is a phenomenon featuring intriguing log-periodicity that can be rarely observed in quantum systems. Here, we report the log-periodic quantum oscillations in the longitudinal magnetoresistivity (ρ_xx) and the Hall traces (ρ_yx) of HfTe₅ crystals, which reveal the DSI in the transport-coefficients matrix. The oscillations in ρ_xx and ρ_yx show the consistent logB-periodicity with a phase shift. The finding of the logB oscillations in the Hall resistance supports the physical mechanism as a general quantum effect originating from the resonant scattering. Combined with theoretical simulations, we further clarify the origin of the log-periodic oscillations and the DSI in the topological materials. This work evidences the universality of the DSI in the Dirac materials and provides indispensable information for a full understanding of this novel phenomenon.  相似文献   

基因组的监察者   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Nelson C.Lau  David P.Bartel 《科学中国》2003,(10)

在显微镜下观察,活细胞显得很平静,但在平静的外表下,生化反应却在活跃地进行着.动植物细胞的DNA基因组包含了数以千计的基因,如果不加干涉,细胞的转录机制将同时转录基因组中全部基因:解开DNA双螺旋,将每个基因转录成单链的信使RNA,最后将信使RNA翻译成蛋白质.奇怪的是,很少量的双链RNA分子能够使蠕虫甚至其后代不自主地扭曲.  相似文献   

‘The most important thing is to learn the way to learn’: evaluating the effectiveness of independent learning by perceptual changes     

Ken Lau 《Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education》2017,42(3):415-430

The mission of universities today is not only to nurture experts in various professions, but also to cultivate lifelong autonomous learners. Independent learning and pedagogies that aim to foster learner autonomy have grown in importance over the past decade. However, the extent to which independent learning is successful in fostering autonomy has not been fully addressed; nor has a robust method for evaluating independent learning been available. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an independent learning component attached to a taught course by tracking changes in learners’ perceptions. Primary data were collected from course participants’ responses to two questionnaires. In total, 221 and 157 completed questionnaires were returned at the beginning and the end of the course, respectively, among which 95 paired responses enabled comparisons that revealed a general trend. In addition, a more focused investigation was carried out with nine participants who took part in semi-structured interviews and completed independent learning logs. The study, using a short-term longitudinal approach, revealed participants’ growing understanding of independent learning and its relevance to English language enhancement, particularly for those with no prior experience of any form of independent learning.  相似文献   

Cognitive abilities and motivational processes in science achievement and engagement: A person-centered analysis     

Shun Lau  Robert W. Roeser 《Learning and individual differences》2008,18(4):497

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CAI update: The ABC's of CAI     

Chak Chi Lau 《Performance Improvement》1979,18(5):24-25

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A relatedness analysis of government regulations using domain knowledge and structural organization     

Gloria T. Lau  Kincho H. Law  Gio Wiederhold 《Information Retrieval》2006,9(6):657-680

The complexity and diversity of government regulations make understanding and retrieval of regulations a non-trivial task. One of the issues is the existence of multiple sources of regulations and interpretive guides with differences in format, terminology and context. This paper describes a comparative analysis scheme developed to help retrieval of related provisions from different regulatory documents. Specifically, the goal is to identify the most strongly related provisions between regulations. The relatedness analysis makes use of not only traditional term match but also a combination of feature matches, and not only content comparison but also structural analysis.Regulations are first compared based on conceptual information as well as domain knowledge through feature matching. Regulations also possess specific organizational structures, such as a tree hierarchy of provisions and heavy referencing between provisions. These structures represent useful information in locating related provisions, and are therefore exploited in the comparison of regulations for completeness. System performance is evaluated by comparing a similarity ranking produced by users with the machine-predicted ranking. Ranking produced by the relatedness analysis system shows a reduction in error compared to that of Latent Semantic Indexing. Various pairs of regulations are compared and the results are analyzed along with observations based on different feature usages. An example of an e-rulemaking scenario is shown to demonstrate capabilities and limitations of the prototype relatedness analysis system.

Gio WiederholdEmail:

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Within‐year changes in Chinese secondary school students' perceived reading instruction and intrinsic reading motivation     

Kit‐ling Lau 《Journal of Research in Reading》2016,39(2):153-170

This study aimed to expand on existing research about motivational change by investigating within‐year changes of adolescents' intrinsic reading motivation and perceived reading instruction among students from different grades and achievement levels. Six hundred and ninety five students from 10 secondary schools in Hong Kong voluntarily completed a questionnaire that measured these two variables at the beginning and near the end of a school year. The study's findings indicated that students' intrinsic reading motivation was generally stable over a school year. A significant increase in the perceived degree of mastery goal structure in reading instruction was observed near the end of the school year. Students' perception of instruction remained a strong and positive predictor of intrinsic motivation after controlling their prior motivation and other background variables. Different factors affecting students' motivational change are discussed to provide insights for promoting their reading motivation and counter the prevalent trend of motivational decline.  相似文献