research.stmarys.ac.uk/ TITLE Understanding the beliefs informing children's commonsense theories of motion: The role of everyday object variables in dynamic event predictions.
Recent research with primary school children has indicated that while younger children believe a light ball will roll down an incline faster than a heavy ball-matching their beliefs about horizontal motion-older children believe the heavy ball will roll down faster-matching their conceptions about fall. Tentative suggestions regarding the cause of this age shift were made, but no clear conclusion could be reached. The present research aimed to resolve this issue by addressing the subjectivity of children's predictions. Children (N = 210) aged 5-11 completed a paper-based task where the trajectories of a heavy and a light ball needed to be contrasted for three motion dimensions-horizontal, fall and incline-to address how trajectory predictions compare. The findings suggest that a declining salience of the horizontal dimension in the reasoning process appears to contribute to the age-related shift. It is proposed that these developmental changes in making predictions about object motion can be explained on the basis of fragmentation and knowledge integration. The importance of this work lies in contributing towards clearer models of how commonsense theories of motion develop across childhood. This, in turn, bears implications for curriculum structures and teaching approaches in primary science.
This short reflection piece seeks to examine the importance of online feedback in light of higher education student experiences during times of Covid-19. In doing so, it seeks to address how online approaches need to be harnessed further to minimise experiences of ‘missing out’ of education. The review summarises key advantages provided by online feedback implementation at the university level. It then continues by outlining the main challenges in this domain – challenges that will be even more pertinent in the current climate. Finally, the conclusion offers some thoughts on how student engagement with online feedback might be fostered further, in the hopes of mitigating the interference emphasised by the current global situation.
A small but growing body of evidence suggests that alongside misconceptions in predictions about object motion, adults and children hold relevant underlying conceptions, reflected in recognition, which provide greater understanding of such events. However, the relationship between knowledge retrieved in predictions and in recognition is unclear. One significant element contributing to misconceptions about motion is object mass. This aspect was used to provide further insight into the knowledge relationship. Predictions and recognition of fall in 5-to 11-year-old children (N = 121) were addressed in the present study. The results suggest that children's recognition of object motion is far better than their expressed anticipation of such events, as they normally recognised correct events as correct and rejected incorrect ones yet predictions were typically in error. Response time data provide additional insight. The findings are discussed in relation to different models of knowledge representations, favouring a hybrid model.
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