404 not found instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com amy l. d. roberts & barbara rogoff 1 1 ) university of california, santa cruz, united states of america date of publication: june 24th, 201 2 roberts, a., & rogoff, b. (201 2). children’s reflections on two cultural ways of working together: “talking with hands and eyes” or requiring words. international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2), 73-99. doi: 1 0.4471 /ijep.201 2.06 http://dx.doi.org/1 0.4471 /ijep.201 2.06 http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2012.06 ijep– international journal ofeducational psychology vol. 1 no. 2 june 2012 pp.73-99 children’s reflections on two cultural ways ofworking together:“talking with hands and eyes” or requiring words amy l. d. roberts & barbara rogoff university ofcalifornia, santa cruz abstract forty-four pairs of mexican-heritage and european-heritage us children were asked to characterize differences between two contrasting cultural patterns of working together in video clips that showed a) mexican indigenous-heritage children working together by collaborating, helping, observing others, and using nonverbal as well as verbal communication, and b) middle-class european-american children working alone and using predominantly verbal communication. through experience in two cultural settings, bilingual mexican-heritage us children may become familiar with these contrasting cultural patterns that have been identified in research. mexican-heritage us children characterized the clips in ways that corresponded with researchers’ descriptions more often than did european-heritage children, when discussing working together and helping but not when discussing communication. the children from the two backgrounds differed in their treatment of talk. in addition to talking more overall, half of the european-heritage us children considered talk a requirement for working together or helping, excluding nonverbal communication as a way of working together or helping. in contrast, the mexicanheritage us children included nonverbal communication as a means of working together and helping, and some seemed to include nonverbal communication as a form oftalking. keywords: communication, collaboration, nonverbal, culture, intent community participation 2012 hipatia press issn 2014-3591 doi: 10.4471/ijep.2012.06 74 roberts & rogoffchildren's reflections on cultural patterns contrasting cultural patterns of interaction found in previous research. one cultural pattern has been noted among mexican indigenousheritage children: working together with collaboration and helping, attentiveness to others, and extensive nonverbal communication (with or without talk); the other pattern has been observed to be common among middle-class european american children: working primarily solo with reliance on talk. many bilingual mexican-heritage us children are likely to experience these contrasting approaches for working together across their home and school environments. having experience with two cultural approaches, and transitioning between them, may encourage children to identify and reflect on the cultural practices they are exposed to (orellana, 2009; zentella, 1997). in contrast, middle-class european american children are likely to experience similar ways of working together at home and at school, which may make it less likely for them to identify other ways of organizing interaction. in addition to investigating the correspondence of children’s reflections with the two patterns, we were interested in insights that the children might offer regarding cultural differences in ways of working together. as we will discuss, the children’s comments revealed unexpected cultural differences in whether they considered working together to be done exclusively through talk and whether nonverbal conversation is a kind oftalk. his study examined whether bilingual mexican-heritage us children viewing video clips of other children would be more likely than middle-class european american children to identifyt two cultural patterns of interaction research in indigenous-heritage communities of the americas has noted children’s extensive collaboration and help in ongoing community activities, observation of others’ efforts, and use of nonverbal communication (with or without talk) in reference to ongoing activity (cazden & john, 1971; chamoux, 1992; chavajay & rogoff, 2002; correa-chávez, roberts, martinez pérez, 2011; de haan, 1999; de leon, 2000; gaskins, 1999; mejía-arauz, rogoff, dexter, & najafi, 75ijep– international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) 2007b; paradise, 1994, 1996; philips, 1972; rogoff, mistry, göncü, & mosier, 1993). these common ways of working together in indigenousheritage communities of central and north america are posited to form a cultural pattern, called learning through intent community participation (rogoff, paradise, mejía-arauz, correa-chávez, & angelillo, 2003; rogoff, moore, najafi, dexter, correa-chávez, & solís, 2007; see also paradise & rogoff, 2009). a contrasting cultural pattern emphasizes solo engagement and reliance on verbal communication out of the context of ongoing, shared activity, such as in western schooling (candela, 2005; lipka, 1994; mcnaughton, 2005; philips, 1972; sharan & sharan, 1992; rogoff et al., 2007). children from highly schooled communities tend to engage in activities individually, even in the presence of a group, rather than in multi-way group engagements that have commonly been found in indigenous-heritage communities of the americas (chavajay & rogoff, 2002; mejía-arauz et al., 2007b; rogoff et al., 1993, 2003). middleclass european american children are likely to experience heavy use of talk and a focus on solo work at both home and school (heath, 1983; keller et al., 2006; laosa, 1980; tapia uribe, levine, & levine, 1993). children’s reflections on cultural patterns in the organization of interaction many bilingual mexican-heritage us immigrant children may be familiar with the forms of working together prevalent in indigenousheritage communities of the americas as well as those of schools (correa-chávez, rogoff, & mejía-arauz, 2005; mejía-aráuz, rogoff, najafi, & dexter, 2007b; mejia-arauz, rogoff, & paradise, 2005). mexican immigrants to california often come from rural communities in michoacán, jalisco, guanajuato, and more recently chiapas and oaxaca, mexico, where prior generations in many communities considered themselves indigenous (lópez, correa-chávez, rogoff & gutiérrez, 2010; passel, 2004). ethnographic accounts of rural mexican communities often describe practices that have also been observed in indigenous communities, including collaboration, helping, observation, and extensive nonverbal communication (lorente, 2006; lópez, najafi, rogoff, & mejía-arauz, in press). there are only a few studies of children’s reflections on cultural practices. young children associated their ethnic group membership with participation in cultural routines such as attending church (marks, szalacha, lamarre, boyd, & coll, 2007). similarly, bilingual children are especially aware of properties of language and quickly distinguish when to use which set of linguistic tools as well as the significance of their choices regarding participation in language communities (bialystok, craik, green, & gollan, 2009; brown, 2006; orellana, 2009; zentella, 1997). the privileged status of school ways may accentuate distinct patterns of interaction for children from nondominant communities (erickson, 1987; hurtado & gurin, 2004). with practices somewhat uniform across settings, middle-class european american children may have limited opportunities to reflect on the dominant cultural practices of us schools or on the differences between these and other ways of organizing learning. in addition, privileged status may make it difficult for middle-class european american children to notice or discuss racial and ethnic differences. the present study our study examined children's reflections on differences in the ways triads of mexican and us anglo children, shown in four video clips, worked together as they folded an origami frog during a scripted demonstration. we selected clips that epitomized the cultural contrasts in children’s interactions found in prior research (reviewed above). two clips showed mexican indigenous-heritage children collaborating, helping, attentive to each other’s folding, and using nonverbal conversation. the other two clips showed middle-class european american children working primarily solo and chatting, with limited helping, observing each other, or nonverbal conversation. we expected the bilingual mexican-heritage us children to be more likely than middle-class european american (“anglo”) children to identify the following differences that correspond with patterns found by researchers: 76 roberts & rogoffchildren's reflections on cultural patterns • more collaboration and helping in the mexican indigenous-heritage clips, using more attention to each other and nonverbal communication (with or without talk), • more solo work and more exclusively verbal communication among the children in the middle-class european american clips. method participants the participants were 23 pairs of monolingual anglo children and 21 pairs of bilingual mexican-heritage us children with likely roots in parts of mexico with indigenous histories, all attending california elementary schools. most of the children were in fourth or fifth grades (ages 9-11); a few children from both backgrounds were in sixth grade; grade levels did not differ significantly across the two backgrounds. all pairs were of the same gender; 12 pairs from each cultural background were female. children were contacted through their schools or afterschool centers. the children’s parents provided information on family demographics, nation of origin, and languages spoken in the home in a short telephone or printed questionnaire. almost all the mexican-heritage us children were born in the us (of the 62% whose parents responded to the question, only 8% were born in mexico). most of their parents were born in mexico (only 16% were born in the us). about half of the mexican-heritage us parents had completed high school (m = 10 grades); 63% worked in service jobs such as hospitality work, childcare, or landscaping. all the mexicanheritage us pairs reported that they spoke spanish at home; in 9 of the 21 pairs at least one child also spoke english at home. most of the mexican-heritage pairs (76%) had visited mexico; all had family in mexico and 3 children had gone to school there. all of the anglo children whose parents responded to these questions (83% did so) were born in the us and had parents who were born in the us and had completed at least 12 grades (m = 15 grades). parents worked a wide range of jobs such as cashiers, administrative assistants, 77ijep– international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) we also explored the children’s explanations of the cultural patterns they saw for potential insights; interesting patterns appeared in their reflections about nonverbal communication and talk. scientists, and ceos. all of the anglo pairs spoke english exclusively at home. less than half (35%) had been to mexico, usually to a resort or on a cruise; only 2 children reported having family or friends in mexico and none had gone to school there. procedure the videotaped sessions took place at a quiet table in the children's school or afterschool center. the bilingual mexican-heritage research assistant (ra), blind to the hypotheses of the study, followed a script using the language the children preferred, either english or spanish. in all but one case the interview was held predominantly in english, although several mexican-heritage us pairs spoke in spanish to each other and in english to the ra. the ra first engaged in a warm-up with each pair (decorating a paper bag to keep their origami frog in and conversing). then she showed the pair how to fold an origami frog, in preparation for viewing videoclips of other children folding the same figure according to the same script. the origami folding script was designed to be informal, encouraging children to help each other and primarily showing rather than telling the children how to make the folds without controlling children’s attention or progress (see mejía-arauz et al., 2005). the ra then showed the clips to each pair, after which she invited them to view the clips again without her so they could discuss the differences in how the children in the clips interacted. after the children reported their initial ideas of differences, the ra prompted them with questions related to differences observed in research. viewing the clips. the pairs of children watched four 20-second clips of children making the origami frog, selected from a previous study (mejía-arauz, roberts, & rogoff, 2007a). the four clips consisted of a triad of girls and a triad of boys from guadalajara, mexico, and a triad of girls and a triad of boys from california. the children in the mexican video clips were of indigenous descent, with indigenous mexican features; they whispered a few words in spanish (indecipherable to native speakers). the children in the us clips were white and spoke in english. 78 roberts & rogoffchildren's reflections on cultural patterns we selected clips that clearly showed the differences seen in previous research. the two mexican indigenous-heritage triads collaborated, helped, observed each other, and used nonverbal conversation; the two middle-class european american triads worked alone and chatted. the clips were similar in other respects, such as the children’s enjoyment of the activity and being at the same point in folding (a segment in which an adult was present but not involved with the children). the clips were played by clicking on still-frame images on a simple menu screen presented on a laptop computer (see figure 1). children were shown both clips from one place and then both clips from the other place. the order of presentation of the clips from the two places was counterbalanced, as was their left-right position on the screen. the ra explained that the children in the clips were from a school in mexico and a school in california, referring to the clips as “the ones from mexico” and “the ones from california.” (here we abbreviate the mexican indigenous-heritage clips as mexindigh clips and the 79ijep– international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) figure 1. the menu screen ofthe dvd used to present the four video clips middle-class european american clips as mceuram clips.)1 the ra asked the pair to focus on the differences between the two schools in how the children work together, explaining that she was interested in their insights because they are kids and might see things that adults could miss. she told them that the children in the videos were shown how to make the frog in exactly the same way as they were and that all the children in the clips finished the folding correctly. she showed each pair the four clips without asking questions or prompting children to talk about what they saw. if they began to discuss the clips, the ra waited before playing the next clip to allow for conversation between the children; she did not enter in. after watching all four clips with the children, the ra told them that she was going to let them look at the clips together, without her, to get ideas of the differences in how the kids work together on the folding. she checked that the children knew how to play the clips on their own, then asked them to let her know when they were "ready to talk about their ideas about differences in how the kids from the two places work together," and then she sat at a table a few feet away. both children’s conversations with and without the ra present were recorded and analyzed.2 reflecting on differences. when the children told her they were ready (or after 5 minutes if they had not called her), the ra rejoined them and asked, “what differences did you notice in how the kids from the two places worked together on the folding?” after the children reported what they noticed, the ra asked a series of focused questions, querying the children ifneeded to clarify which clips they referred to. the questions in the first half of the interview were designed to elicit the children's characterizations of differences in how the children from the two places worked together: 1. did kids from one place work together more on the frogs? 2. did kids from one place workalone more on the frogs? 3. were there differences in how much the kids from the two places paid attention to how the other kids were folding? how did they pay attention to each other? 4. were there differences in how much the kids from the two places 80 roberts & rogoffchildren's reflections on cultural patterns helped each other fold? what did they do? 5. were there differences in how the children from the two places communicated? 6. did the kids from one place talk less than others? 7. were the groups that talked less communicating in some other way? how? the second half of the interview dealt with children's explanations of the reasons for, and the origins of, the differences they had just described: 1. what makes them work together differently? what do you think? 2. how do you think they learned to work together in those ways? 3. do you think the differences relate to where the kids are from? why? 4. which place is most like how you worked together when you folded the frog? what did you do that was most like them? 5. which of those ways is more like how your parents would want you to act? the videotaped sessions lasted an average of 25 minutes (sd = 3.2), with no significant difference between the two backgrounds in the length of the interview. a procedural check of 50% of the data verified that the script was followed with all participants, with only occasional slight changes in the wording of questions (which did not change their meaning). coding a bilingual mexican-heritage coder, blind to the hypotheses, first recorded the pair’s words and nonverbal communication, as well as relevant contextual information. she then identified each pair’s (not individual children’s) statements of differences that related to our questions, in 5 topics (listed below), and she coded whether these statements corresponded with previous research. she also coded the pair’s explanations of the differences they reported. fifty percent of the data were coded for reliability. the 5 topics were: • working together or working alone included statements such as: “did it as a group,” “cooperated,” “did it by themselves,” “were independent,” or “ignored the others”, 81ijep– international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) • helping or not helping included statements such as: “fixed it for them,” or “showed them how,” • payingattention to each other or notpayingattention to each other included statements such as: “watched each other,” “monitored her folds,” or “spacing out”, • talking more or talking less included statements such as: “were talkative,” “were quiet” or “didn’t talk”, • other forms ofcommunication included statements such as “talked with their hands and eyes” and “communicated with looks”.3 raw number ofstatements regarding each topic. the coder segmented the children’s comments into topic statements— stretches of conversation that stick to a single topic, ending when a new topic emerges or there is a significant pause in the conversation (such as pausing to play a clip). a topic statement could last for a few words or many conversational turns by one or both children. the raw number of topic statements was reliable across coders: working together, r = .90; helping, r = .93; paying attention, r = .94; amount of talk, r = .96; other communication, r = .96. correspondence with research. each topic statement was coded for whether the children characterized the clips in ways that correspond with previous research — i.e., saying that the mexindigh clips showed more collaboration, helping, paying attention to each other, or nonverbal conversation, or saying that mceuram clips showed more working alone or talking. the rare cases in which children claimed that there were no differences between the groups or characterized the two clips from the same place differently were judged as contradicting research. if children changed their characterization of a clip within a topic statement, their final opinion was coded for that topic statement. confusing statements in which the coder could not tell whether the children’s views were consistent with or contradicted the research were counted in the analysis of the raw number of statements of each topic but were not included in the analysis of correspondence with research. (about 10% of statements were confusing, mostly in the topic of helping — seemingly due to anglo pairs trying to figure out whether it is possible to help without talking — discussed later). 82 roberts & rogoffchildren's reflections on cultural patterns because the pairs sometimes changed their characterization of a topic in different topic statements across the session, our measure of correspondence with research was the percent of each pair’s topic statements for each topic that corresponded with the patterns found in research. the percentage was calculated out of all topic statements that corresponded with research, contradicted research, were inconsistent, or showed disagreement within the pair of children. (confusing statements were excluded from the calculation ofpercentages.) the percentage of topic statements that corresponded with or contradicted research was reliable: working together, r = .97 and .99, respectively; helping, r = .97 and .99; paying attention, r = .90 and .88; amount oftalk, r = .98 and .91; other communication r = .83 and 1. cultural explanations ofdifferences. the coder determined whether the pair explained the differences between the two places in terms of cultural practices, citing communities' customary ways of working together as enduring practices and generalizing beyond individual habits or features of the particular event. for example, “kids from there are used to working in groups more” or “kids from mexico use sign language.” (the remaining explanations often focused on imagined personality or situational differences that went beyond the information provided in the clips or by the researchers, such as that children in the clip were quiet because they are shy or did not know the other children.) the coding ofcultural explanations was reliable, r = .83, p < .01. results we first present the raw frequency of statements on each topic, and then report the extent to which the children’s reflections were consistent with cultural patterns identified in research. finally, we examine whether the children gave cultural explanations ofthe differences they noted.4 raw number of statements of each topic the anglo children talked significantly more than the mexican-heritage us children, producing 47% more topic statements overall. this pattern of more talking by the anglo pairs appeared within all 5 topics, 83ijep– international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) and was significant for all topics except helping and paying attention (see table 1). table 1 mean raw frequency (and sd) and significance ofstatements in the 5 topics andoverall, across the two backgrounds mexican-heritage us anglo significance working together 3.1 (1.9) 4.8 (2.9) helping 7.4 (4.0) 8.4 (5.8) t = .71, p = .25 paying attention 2.3 (1.8) 2.8 (3.3) t = .63, p = .27 amount oftalk 3.9 (2.5) 7.9 (3.1) t = 4.75, p < .001 other communication 2.2 (1.6) t = 2.51, p < .01 total topic statements 17.8 (6.1) 26.1 (10.5) t = 3.24, p < .01 t = 2.33, p = .01 tellingly, the anglo children’s greater amount of talking was most notable in their reflections on the amount of talking of the children in the clips. this was partially due to their struggles with determining whether mexindigh clips could be working together or helping if they were not talking. for example, after an anglo child characterized the mceuram clips as working together and talking (“they're doing it all together, and they're talking”), he puzzled about the mexindigh clips without coming to a conclusion, “they're not talking at all but they're still doing it, so it's...”. the majority of pairs from both cultural backgrounds talked about all 5 topics.5 for both backgrounds, the topic of helping was the most frequently mentioned (among the mexican-heritage us children, almost twice as much as other topics); amount of talk was the next most common topic, then extent of working together, next extent of paying attention, and the least commonly mentioned topic was use of other forms ofcommunication. 84 roberts & rogoffchildren's reflections on cultural patterns 1.1 (1.0) there were no main effects for gender in the raw frequency of topic statements, and only one gender interaction: the mexican-heritage us boys mentioned paying attention more often than mexican-heritage us girls, f(1, 19) = 5.48, p < .05. correspondence with research patterns our analysis focuses on the extent to which children’s reports of cultural differences correspond with research describing mexindigh children collaborating, helping, attentive to each other’s folding, and using nonverbal conversation, and mceuram children working primarily solo and chatting. mexican-heritage us pairs described the clips in ways that correspond with research in 82.5% of statements overall. at least 80% of their statements corresponded with research for all topics except paying attention (see table 2). in contrast, a significantly lower percentage of anglo pairs’ descriptions corresponded with research (67.5% overall). less than 60% ofanglo pairs’ statements corresponded with research for all topics except for talk and other communication (which agreed with research in over 90% ofstatements). differences between the two backgrounds in statements that contradict research followed the same pattern as statements that correspond with research, but were more extreme. (see table 2.) the most marked difference between cultural backgrounds was in the topic of working together, where anglo pairs contradicted research in 63% of their statements, compared with 19% for the mexican-heritage us pairs. we tested our prediction — that mexican-heritage us children would identify cultural patterns consistent with previous research more often than anglo children — with planned comparisons. these are conservative, focused analyses appropriate to directional predictions (rosnow & rosenthal, 1996). in general, our prediction was upheld (see table 2). 85ijep– international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) correspond with research topic mexicanheritage us anglo planned comparisons working together helping paying attention amount oftalk other communication overall mexicanheritage us anglo planned comparisons 81.1 (33.5) 36.2 (38.6) t(41) = 4.04, p < .001 84.9 (18.3) 57.7 (33.8) t(42) = 3.26, p = .001 71.3 (37.7) 57.2 (45.3) t(36) = 1.06, p = .15 81.0 (35.9) 93.5 (10.1) t(42) = -1.60, p = .059 86.7 (35.1) 91.6 (24.3) t(32) = -.48, p = .32 82.5 (13.9) 67.5 (15.4) t(29) = 2.82, p < .01 18.9 (33.5) 63.0 (38.0) t(41) = 4.00, p < .001 15.2 (18.4) 41.7 (33.4) t(42) = 3.22, p = .001 24.5 (34.3) 42.8 (45.4) t(36) = 1.41, p = .17 15.1 (32.1) 4.0 (7.1) t(42) = -1.60, p = .059 13.3 (35.1) 7.4 (24.2) t(32) = -.59, p = .29 12.7 (13.0) 27.7 (16.6) t(29) =2.82, p < .01 although the findings fit our prediction in the topics of working together and helping, the difference went in the opposite direction for amount of talk. this pattern seems to stem in part from differences in children’s ideas about talk: some mexican-heritage us children seemed to regard nonverbal communication as talk, thereby judging the mexindigh clips as including more talk than indicated by researchers who have coded these particular clips, and than the general patterns noted in previous research. in turn, many anglo children seemed to exclude nonverbal communication as a way of working together and helping, thereby judging the mexindigh clips as including less working together and helping than the coding of these clips by researchers and than general patterns noted in research. we examine the evidence for these interpretations below. working together and helping. in line with our expectations, 86 roberts & rogoffchildren's reflections on cultural patterns table 2 mean percentage (and sds) of statements in the 5 topics and overall that corresponded with or contradicted research patterns, across the two backgrounds, andsignificance contradict research mexican-heritage us children's comments showed greater correspondence with research than did anglo children’s, by stating that mexindigh children work together and help each other more than mceuram children. (see table 2.) children from both backgrounds often drew connections between the topics of working together and helping, such as in reasoning, “they worked together by helping each other.” the anglo children’s lower correspondence with research for working together and helping was due in part to a view that because children in mexindigh clips did not talk much, they did not work together or help. half of the anglo pairs (11 of 23) mentioned verbal communication as necessary for working together or helping, compared to only 1 such instance among the 21 us mexican heritage pairs, chi2 (1) = 9.1, p = .003. for example: one pair, when asked why they thought the children in the mceuram clips worked together more, referred to the mexindigh children and explained, “because they don't talk.” a child responded to the ra’s question “do kids from one place work alone more on folding the frog?” by commenting “yeah. mexico. definitely… because they’re all quiet…” some anglo pairs may have missed the frequent nonverbal interactions in mexindigh clips, but others saw them and did not seem to consider them relevant, as in the following examples: a pair explained that the mexindigh boys “were helping each other more” than the girls from that background because “she was demonstrating how but she wasn't talking about it. [the boys did more helping] ‘cause they were talking about it.” 87ijep– international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) a child commented that the mexindigh girls were “less talkative,” and the partner agreed, “they aren't helping each other or telling them what to do.” the first child laughingly elaborated, “yeah. they're just kinda playing around with them and... stealing them [referring to a girl in the clip taking over work on girl’s figure].” the second child clarified that “they were showing them” and the first child specified the need to talk for helping: "yeah, but they weren't exactly like, there was only one gender difference in statements corresponding with or contradicting research. girls from both cultural backgrounds described working together in ways that correspond with previous research more often than boys, f = 4.53, p = .04. this difference was most notable among mexican-heritage us participants, f = 10.33, p < .01. amount of talk and other communication. both mexican-heritage us and anglo children's statements discussing the extent of talk corresponded highly with research, in saying that the mexindigh children talked less than the mceuram children. contrary to expectation, the anglo children’s statements corresponded at least as much with research as did those of the mexican-heritage us children, almost significantly more than the mexican-heritage us children.6 children from both cultural backgrounds also noted that the mexindigh children communicated in ways other than talk (ns), such as “with their eyes and their hands,” “looking at each other instead of talking,” “body language kinda,” “helping each other, like by eyes… and like with their hands… like if they could help them, like, fold,” “one person held up the other person’s frog and like they pointed to something and then they – and then the other person like nodded and then the person did something with it.” despite the children’s general agreement across cultural backgrounds about the extent of talk and other communication, there seemed to be differences in the ways talk was conceptualized. three mexicanheritage us pairs stated that children in the mceuram clips talked less, although these clips contained many more spoken words than the mexindigh clips. their comments suggested that they may have considered nonverbal communication to be a form of talk and, perhaps, they may have excluded the kind of off-task chat that occurred in the mceuram clips. for example, one mexican-heritage us pair stated that the mceuram children were not communicating and gave the mexindigh children’s helping as evidence that they were communicating. another pair 88 roberts & rogoffchildren's reflections on cultural patterns talking,” and contrasted the clip with the mexindigh boys’ clip, “they're talking. they might be helping each other.” noted that the children in the mexindighclips “talk with their hands and they [referring to the chatting in the mceuram clips] just talked about all kinds ofthings.” thus children from the two backgrounds often differed in their ideas about spoken words and nonverbal communication. whereas some of the mexican-heritage us children seemed to include nonverbal conversation in their definition of talk, many of the anglo children seemed to see spoken words as necessary for working together or helping. paying attention. the trend for the mexican-heritage us children’s characterizations of paying attention to correspond more often with research, compared to anglo children’s characterizations, did not reach significance. (see table 2.) cultural explanations of differences few pairs of either background explained the differences between places despite interview questions geared to elicit these explanations. the pairs that gave explanations generally gave only one or two across the whole session. the explanations given by children of both cultural backgrounds usually focused on the mexindigh clips or contrasted the mexindigh clips with the mceuram clips. this may suggest that children from both backgrounds see the middle-class european american ways ofinteracting as the norm. mexican-heritage us pairs gave cultural explanations of the differences they saw more often than anglo pairs (12 vs 9 of the pairs, respectively, t = 1.86, p < .05). the most common cultural attribution that emerged from the data was related to the mexican cultural practice of respeto (consideration). seven of the mexican-heritage us pairs referred to the mexindigh children as showing more respeto as a reason for the differences in the clips. when asked the interview question concerning whether respect related to the differences in how much children in the videos talked, five anglo pairs mentioned that the mexindighchildren were respectful. some mexican-heritage us pairs elaborated with connections between respeto and taciturnity that focused on not disturbing the activities of others and helping others when possible. one pair said 89ijep– international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) that talking through the whole video would be disrespectful. another child explained, “people in classes don’t have to scream because the teacher might be doing something, or the teacher might be taking a test with this kid… if you’re done and somebody’s not you have to be quiet because they’re still not finished.” one pair characterized the mceuram children as acting immature and disrespectful, by contrasting them with a mexindigh child who “was honoring and like, not going crazy”. some of the anglo children also elaborated, noting that the mexindigh children’s respectful approach allowed their peers time for quiet concentration, allowed others to focus, and avoided interrupting their work. three of the mexican-heritage us pairs mentioned helping as a way of showing respeto and two of these pairs suggested that this helping included not speaking. one group said, “the mexicans are helping and being really quiet so people don’t get really distracted.” another pair explained that mexican kids learn to work the way they do because “they've seen so many people help each other that they just knew… if somebody needed help that they could help them.” the mexicanheritage children’s explanations fit with portrayals of respeto as a practice of mutual support and recognizing the individual as a part of a larger whole (lópez et al., in press; ramírez sánchez, 2007; ruvalcaba, rogoff, lópez, correa-chávez, & gutiérrez, 2011; valdés, 1996). a few cultural explanations focused on schools, teachers, and parents of one place or the other encouraging children to work together or work harder. one mexican-heritage us pair said, “in mexico the teachers show how to work together,” and an anglo pair explained “a lot of schools in california really focus on like, working together. like you learn that in kindergarten.” three mexican-heritage us pairs explained that teachers and parents make children work harder in mexico. some of the remaining cultural explanations dealt with issues of poverty or resources (offered by 2 mexican-heritage us pairs and 2 anglo pairs). for example, two mexican-heritage us pairs suggested 90 roberts & rogoffchildren's reflections on cultural patterns that mexican practices were influenced by economic hardship and the need to appreciate opportunities to learn and work, such as “they’re poor. so they take more care in their work.” no explanations were offered to explain why anglo pairs talked more. this is consistent with the suggestion that children from both backgrounds acknowledged middle-class european american ways of interacting as normative. discussion our findings indicate that compared with anglo children, bilingual mexican-heritage us children more often identified cultural differences between mexican and anglo children’s ways of working together and helping in accord with patterns found in previous research. the pattern was similar but not significant in the topic of paying attention to each other. the finding that mexican-heritage us children commented much more about helping than the other topics may fit with the centrality of helping without being asked (being acomedido) in some mexican communities (lópez et al., in press; ramírez sánchez, 2007). the pattern of greater correspondence with research by the mexicanheritage us children was not upheld in the children’s statements regarding which groups talked more or communicated in other ways: the anglo children’s statements were at least as likely to correspond with research. however, the children’s explanations yielded interesting differences in what counts as talk and the role of talk in working together and helping. we discuss these below after considering the expected findings in working together and helping. awareness of cultural patterns of working together the finding that the mexican-heritage us children discussed working together and helping in ways that corresponded with research more often than the anglo children may relate to their bicultural experience giving them greater sensitivity to noticing cultural practices. bicultural experience may allow children and adults to move more fluidly across 91ijep– international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) cultural contexts, to adapt more readily to distinct cultural practices, and enhance understanding of others’ perspectives (orellana, 2009; quintana, 2008). such a “transcultural disposition” (orellana, 2009) may enhance social-emotional understanding and performance on theory of mind tasks (hoffman, 2008), as well as reflections on use of different languages and registers across contexts (zentella, 1997). although children who have experience with more than one repertoire of cultural practice may develop an understanding of culture and of which approach to use in which situation (gutiérrez & rogoff, 2003; rogoff, 2003), this experience can be challenging. indeed, learning the social conventions of schools may require significant cognitive effort for children unfamiliar with them, because they are neither self-evident nor often explained (buchanan-barrow, 2005; smetana, 1993). in the us, the social organization common in schools is often treated as normative, which may create difficulties for children whose home practices differ from what they encounter in school (delpit, 1995). awareness of multiple cultural ways may provide a measure of protection to minority children against feeling alienated or unwelcome in schools where cultural patterns of interaction may differ from those of their homes and where home practices may be deprecated (hurtado & gurin, 2004; yosso, smith, ceja, & solorzano, 2009). acknowledging and appreciating distinct cultural practices may enable minority children to establish a positive sense of community and a positive group identity (apfelbaum, 1979). cultural differences in concepts of talk and nonverbal communication the anglo children talked more in discussing the differences between the clips, themselves exemplifying one of the cultural differences found in prior research: more extensive talk has been noted among european american middle-class populations than among indigenous-heritage populations of the americas under some circumstances (deyhle & swisher, 1997; paradise & rogoff, 2009). many of the anglo children seemed to regard verbal talk as necessary for working together and helping. they struggled with how to characterize the clips showing mexican indigenous-heritage children 92 roberts & rogoffchildren's reflections on cultural patterns collaborating nonverbally, and half of the anglo pairs claimed that helping or working together could not occur without words. this is consistent with interviews that suggest that european american middleclass adults interpret talk as an indicator of learning and engagement (kim, 2002; li, 2005). the anglo children in this study tended to focus on talk as the normative means of interaction. one anglo child said that the middle-class european american children “were like more outgoing, talking to each other like a normal child.” in contrast, several us mexican-heritage children seemed to use a more inclusive definition of talk as including nonverbal communication, “talking with their hands and eyes.” this finding fits with the idea that emphasis on articulate nonverbal as well as verbal communication is common in some indigenous and mexican-heritage communities (mejía-arauz et al., 2007a, b; ruvalcaba et al., 2011). the findings may also relate to the cultural value ofrespeto, a form of consideration valued in mexico, in which people pay attention to the direction of the group, use subtle forms of communication, and avoid interrupting others’ activities (ruvalcaba et al., 2011; valdés, 1996; see also deyhle & swisher, 1997). about half of the mexican-heritage us children characterized extensive talk as lacking in respeto or being rude (e.g., “it is rude to talk through the whole video”). in sum, the study indicates that bilingual mexican-heritage us children’s reflections on how other children help and work together correspond more with research identifying cultural patterns of interaction than do those of middle-class european american children. the insights provided by the children’s reflections support the idea of distinct cultural patterns of social organization (rogoff et al., 2003, 2007). the us mexican-heritage children’s reflections are consistent with a pattern of community contribution involving collaboration, helping, and communicating in ways that do not interrupt the activities of others, such as using nonverbal conversation. in contrast, the anglo children’s reflections point to an emphasis on talk as a key aspect of working together and helping others. the findings suggest that schools and other mainstream institutions could build on bilingual children’s possible greater awareness of cultural patterns. in addition, their service to children would benefit 93ijep– international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) from an awareness of distinct cultural patterns in how children view working together, helping, and the role of talk and nonverbal conversation. 94 roberts & rogoffchildren's reflections on cultural patterns acknowledgments we are grateful for the thoughtful reflections of the children in this study and for the participation of valencia and bay view elementary schools, the santa cruz boys and girls club, la familia center, and barrios unidos. we also appreciate the children whose videoclips were used in the interviews. we thank andrea martinez and juanita correa for their work in data collection and coding and maureen callanan, kris gutiérrez, rebeca mejía aráuz, maricela correa-chávez, brigitte jordan, nancy trinh, suzanne gaskins, kathryn burleson, carly friedman, debbie siegel, and paloma visscher for their comments on the study and the manuscript. the research was funded by the national science foundation center for informal learning and schools (nsf # esi-0119787/sfe), a grant from the national science foundation (# 0837898; any opinions, findings, and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the nsf), a training grant from the national institutes of health (#t32hd046423-10), and an endowed chair from the university of california at santa cruz. 1 children from both backgrounds often referred to the clips as “mexican” and “american” or “from the us.” a few anglo children referred to the clips as “spanish” and “english.” three mexican-heritage us pairs used filial terms, such as “us mexicans”, “our people,” or “we do it like this.” 2 the few statements that occurred spontaneously, prior to questioning, fit the same pattern as statements in response to the questions. 3 the patterns were similar within and between backgrounds when complementary topics (mexindigh work together vs. mceuram work alone, helping vs. not helping, paying attention vs. not paying attention, and talking more vs. talking less) were examined separately. therefore, we do not distinguish these complementary ways of describing differences. 4 we also examined negative value judgments, which used disparaging words, tone, or expression. the few pairs who made these averaged about 1 per session (ns). eight were about the mexindigh children. four anglo pairs suggested that the mexindigh children were immature or inexperienced and two characterized them as less smart or less able than the mceuram children. the two negative value judgments made by mexicanheritage us children regarding the mexindigh clips characterized them as unsophisticated and dirty or less smart because their teachers help them less. two pairs from each background made negative value judgments about mceuram clips; 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(1997). growing up bilingual. ny: blackwell. plantilla revistas instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com psychological correlates of school bullying victimization: academic self-concept, learning motivation and test anxiety andrea caputo 1 1) department of dynamic and clinical psychology, university of rome “sapienza”, italy. date of publication: february 24 th , 2014 edition period: february 2014 june 2014 to cite this article: caputo, a. (2014). psychological correlates of school bullying victimization: academic self-concept, learning, motivation and test anxiety. international journal of educational psychology, 3(1), 69-99. doi: 10.4471/ijep.2014.04 to link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2014.04 please scroll down for article the terms and conditions of use are related to the open journal system and to creative commons attribution license (cc-by). http://ijep.hipatiapress.com/ http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2014.03 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ijep – international journal of educational psychology, vol. 3 no. 1 february 2014 pp. 69-99 2014 hipatia press issn: 2014-3591 doi: 10.4471/ijep.2014.04 psychological correlates of school bullying victimization: academic self-concept, learning motivation and test anxiety andrea caputo university of rome “sapienza” abstract the paper aims at detecting the association between students’ bullying victimization at school and some psychological dimensions, referred to academic self-concept (for both mathematics and reading), learning motivation (intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, commitment to study) and test anxiety. a questionnaire including these measures was completed by 3372 students (51.1% boys and 48.9% girls, mostly aged from 11 to 14 years) at grade 6 (n=1082), 7 (n=1113) and 8 (n=1177), coming from 54 middle schools of southern italy. t-tests are used for establishing differences in psychological dimensions between groups of students that experienced bullying and those who did not. in order to check the robustness of our findings and evaluate whether bullying victimization could be actually considered a determinant of these psychological measures, linear regression is used to predict each variable, also controlling for gender and grade level. results confirm most of the research findings on the correlates of bullying victimization: being victim of peer bullying strongly reduces academic self-concept (both in mathematics and reading) and commitment to study, whilst tends to increase both extrinsic motivation and test anxiety rates, independently from gender and grade level. no impact, indeed, is revealed on both math and reading intrinsic motivation. keywords: bullying; school victimization; academic self-concept; learning motivation; test anxiety. ijep – international journal of educational psychology, vol. 3 no. 1 february 2014 pp. 69-99 2014 hipatia press issn: 2014-3591 doi: 10.4471/ijep.2014.04 correlaciones psicológicas de la victimización del bullying escolar: auto-concepción académica, motivación para el aprendizaje y ansiedad en los exámenes andrea caputo university of rome “sapienza” abstract este artículo tiene como objetivo detectar la asociación entre la victimización por bullying en la escuela y algunas dimensiones psicológicas referidas al auto-concepto académico (en matemáticas y lectura), motivación para el aprendizaje (motivación intrínseca, extrínseca, compromiso con el estudio) y la ansiedad en los exámenes. unos 3372 estudiantes completaron un cuestionario con esas medidas (51,1% chicos y 48,9% chicas, la mayoría entre 11 y 14 años) en 6º (n=1082), 7º (n=1113) y 8º grados (n=1177), provenientes de 54 escuelas medias del sur de italia. se utilizaron t-tests para establecer diferencias en las dimensiones psicológicas entre grupos de estudiantes que experimentaron victimización por bullying y aquellos que no. para asegurar la robustez de nuestros resultados y evaluar si la victimización por bullying podría considerarse un determinante de las medidas psicológicas se utilizó la regresión linear para predecir cada variable, controlando género y grado. los resultados confirman muchos hallazgos sobre correlación con la victimización por bullying: ser víctima de bullying reduce fuertemente el auto-concepto académico (en matemáticas y lectura) y el compromiso con el estudio, mientras tiende a incrementar la motivación extrínseca y el grado de ansiedad en los exámenes, independientemente del género y del nivel de estudios. no existe impacto en la motivación intrínseca en matemáticas y lectura. keywords: bullying; victimización escolar; auto-concepto académico; motivación para el aprendizaje; ansiedad en los exámenes. international journal of educational psychology, 3(1) 71 ullying is a growing and significant problem which affects a substantial portion of school children around the world (smith et al., 1999; wang, iannotti, & nansel, 2009). bulling can be defined as a deliberate act aimed to inflict physical and psychological harm, that is commonly characterized by frequency, intention to hurt, and an asymmetric relationship between the bully and the victim (houbre, traquinio, & thuillier, 2006). bullying refers to a wide range of aggressive behaviors, such as name calling, extortion, physical violence, slander, damage to property, verbal intimidation and peer exclusion too (crick et al., 2001; salmivalli, kaukiainen, & lagerspetz, 2000). most of the scientific literature highlights that students exposed to systematic victimization by their peers suffer from adjustment problems, such as depression, loneliness, social anxiety, psychosomatic complaints, high suicidal ideation, diminishing self-esteem, school avoidance, poor academic achievement, low academic self-concept and lack of school enjoyment (kumpulainen et al., 1998; hawker & boulton, 2000; perše, kozina, & leban, 2011). in addition, bullying victimization shows several interpersonal correlates such as rejection, having few friends and low friendship quality that can persist into adolescence and beyond (ladd & troop-gordon, 2003; kochenderfer & ladd, 1996; rudolph & clark, 2001; kaltiala-heino, rimpelä, marttunen, rimpelä, & rantanen, 1999; rigby & slee, 1999). however, many of the correlates of victimization seem to be both antecedents and consequences of bullying, suggesting a vicious cycle by which children who are victims during school often continue to be bullied in the workplace (sharp, 1995; schafer, korn, smith, hunter, moramerchan, singer, & van der meulen., 2004; card, 2003). b caputo –school bullying 72 recent studies have confirmed the existence of bullying also in the italian schools (gini, 2004; genta, menesini, fonzi, costabile, & smith, 1996), considering that about one-half of pupils in primary (from 1st to 5th grade) school and one-third in middle (from 6th to 8th grade) school claimed to have been victims of peer violence (fonzi, 1997; baldry & farrington, 1999). comparative research reports that the incidence of bullying victimization in italy is higher than that which had been found in other european and western countries (menesini & modiano, 2003). in this regard, although anti-bullying policies and strategies are more and more provided to guarantee a safe environment for students, ‘very little is known about the issue of bullying and victimization by peers in italian schools and about the problems connected to it’ (genta et al., 1996, p. 97). the purpose of the present study is to test the association between students’ bullying victimization at school and some psychological dimensions, referred to as academic self-concept (for both mathematics and reading), learning motivation (intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, commitment to study) and test anxiety, in a sample of middle school students of southern italy. in more detail, we aim at evaluating whether these psychological correlates, related to learning process, could be predicted on the ground of students’ bullying victimization, also controlling for both gender and grade level. in this regard, the extant empirical literature has clearly and consistently documented an association between bullying victimization and the constructs we consider in the present study. in relation to academic self-concept, it is demonstrated that being victim of bullying leads to a negative self-evaluation in scholastic and social skills (neary & joseph, 1994; rigby & cox, 1996; stanley & aurora, 1998; marsh, parada, craven, & finger, 2004; marsh et al., 2011; jenkins & demaray, 2012) and to a maladaptive school functioning more in general (nishina, juvonen, & witkow, 2005). in fact, the internalization of being continually harassed may lead targets to believe they are worthless and international journal of educational psychology, 3(1) 73 failures and thus to have lower self-esteem. at the same time, certain negative levels of self-concept predict long-term bullying as well, suggesting that a negative academic self-concept and victimization are interdependent and that they reinforce one another (houbre, tarquinio, & lanfranchi, 2010). bullying experiences can also have both direct and indirect effects on school and learning motivation (nishina et al., 2005; schwartz, gorman, nakamoto, & toblin, 2005), such as decreases in school liking, developing negative attitudes towards school, and increases in school absenteeism (boulton & underwood, 1992; kochenderfer-ladd, 2004). the most frequently tested indirect (mediational) model presumes that emotional distress caused by negative peer encounters inhibits learning and performance (graham, bellmore, & mize, 2006; juvonen, nishina, & graham, 2000; schwartz et al., 2005). in other words, victimization is likely to negatively affect cognitive engagement defined as a student’s ability to self-regulate his/her investment in the learning process (harris, 2008), since bullied students have difficulties in making friends and progressively tend to feel like they do not belong at school and are not involved in classroom activities (houbre et al., 2006). in detail, student external regulation (i.e. considerateness to obtain rewards or avoid punishments) positively relates to self-reported bullying in class (roth, kanat-maymon, & bibi, 2011). in this sense, internal/external motivation and commitment to study may be assumed as valid indicators of behavioral school engagement, as this dimension pertains the feeling of being interested, cognitively aware, participating, and excited to get the most out of a learning experience (fredricks, blumenfeld, & paris, 2004). then, bullied student also have reduced emotional engagement in school activities and show some negative emotions such as boredom, anxiety, sadness, and fear while at school (fredricks et al., 2004). personally experiencing victimization is associated with daily increases in feelings of humiliation, anxiety, and anger (nishina & juvonen, 2005) that are not caputo –school bullying 74 compatible with school liking or academic competence. in more detail, many researchers associate suffering violence at school to anxiety in its different forms (ezpeleta, 2005; hawker & boulton, 2000), including also anxiety about school failure and evaluation (martínez-monteagudo, ingles, trianses, & garcia-fernandez, 2012). bullying thus increases victims’ school anxiety and lack of confidence through their internalization of the negative opinion of their tormentors (houbre et al., 2010). in this regard, we specifically consider the relationship between bullying victimization and test anxiety on which literature is mostly scarce because this negative response is related to school activities and performances and is not conceived as a global measure or as a personality trait. indeed, the general aim of this paper is not to provide a clinical viewpoint on bullying correlates from an individualistic perspective, but to explore the potential association between victimization and some psychological measures regarding student learning and achievement in the school context. as stated by smith and colleagues (2004) “from an evaluation standpoint, it is incumbent upon us to measure outcomes that are relevant to the educational system as it now exists. principals and teachers are pressed to ensure that their students meet academic standards. those of us who work in the bullying field have no doubt that these negative interactions impact on academic performance” (p. 322). method participants our sample was composed of 3372 italian students attending middle school cycle, corresponding to 6th (n=1082), 7th (n=1113) and 8th (n=1177) grade. in detail, boys were 51.1% while girls were 48.9%, mostly aged from 11 to 14 years. they came from 172 classes belonging to 54 different schools of four regions of southern italy (campania, calabria, apulia and sicily). international journal of educational psychology, 3(1) 75 this representative sample was built in the school year 2009/2010 as control group in occasion of the project valutazione m@t.abel+ 1 carried out by invalsi (italian acronym for national institute for the educational evaluation of instruction and training). this ongoing 3-years study aims at evaluating the effectiveness of a training program in mathematics, addressed to middle school teachers of southern italy, on students’ math competences and attitudes through a randomized control trial 2 . material student data. data are derived from the student questionnaire, validated by invalsi and used for the annual national assessment of student achievement in the italian context 3 . the questionnaire aimed to collect students’ demographic and background characteristics, previous school experience and learning attitudes. the following variables were assessed and analyzed in the course of this study. measures bullying victimization. to determine the degree of bullying victimization at school, a question of the student questionnaire was used. students were asked: ‘in school, did any of these things happen during the last month?’ in reference to four specific items, adapted from the student questionnaire used in the trends in international mathematics and science study (timss) 2007:  ‘something of mine was stolen’ (item 1);  ‘i was hit or hurt by other students’ (item 2);  ‘i was made to do things i didn’t want to do by other students’ (item 3);  ‘i was made to feel excluded by other students’ (item 4). caputo –school bullying 76 students could answer by yes or no. a binary variable was built which takes the value of one if at least one of the four aggressive episodes occurred and zero otherwise. the time of one month should be long enough to include all students who are affected by violence regularly and short enough that students can remember the situation and that it may still have an impact on their behavior. academic self-concept. the academic self-concept is defined as the student’s perception of competencies at school in relation to specific subjects. this perception can be seen as a cognitive evaluation of the abilities to accomplish certain tasks. according to the hierarchical selfconcept model of marsh and shavelson (1985), students’ academic selfconcept is a subcomponent in a model in which general self-concept is at the top of the hierarchy. in this study, both math and reading academic self-concept were measured on two different 4-point likert scales, ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’. each scale assessed three aspects referred to students’ beliefs (performance, learning process and peer comparison), which are expressed with the following statements:  ‘i am good at math/reading’ (item 1);  ‘i am able to learn math/reading quickly’ (item 2);  ‘i perform math/reading tasks better than my other classmates’ (item 3). learning motivation. student motivation deals with students' desire to participate in the learning process. but it also concerns the reasons or goals that underlie their involvement or non-involvement in academic activities. although students may be equally motivated to perform a task, the sources of their motivation may differ. international journal of educational psychology, 3(1) 77 intrinsic motivation. it refers to motivation that is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself, and exists within the individual rather than relying on any external pressure (lepper, 1988). it is based on taking pleasure in an activity rather working towards an external reward. in the present study, intrinsic motivation was measured for both mathematics and reading on a 4-point likert scale, ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’, by means the two following statements:  ‘i enjoy doing math/reading’ (item 1);  ‘i would like to take more math/reading in school’ (item 2). extrinsic motivation. it pertains whenever an activity is done in order to attain some separable outcome, such as obtaining rewards or avoiding some punishment. extrinsic motivation thus contrasts with intrinsic motivation, which refers to doing an activity simply for the enjoyment of the activity itself, rather than its instrumental value. for middle-school students, extrinsic motivation is often linked to get parents’ or teachers’ approval and to look good in front of classmates (lepper, 1988). it was measured on a 4point likert scale, ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’, by means the following four items:  ‘i study to please my parents’ (item 1);  ‘i study to please my teachers’ (item 2);  ‘i study to be given some presents at home’ (item 3);  ‘i study not to make a bad impression with my classmates’ (item 4). commitment to study. it concerns long-term, quality involvement and effort in learning more in general (ames, 1990), regardless of whether (or not) academic tasks are considered interesting. commitment to study affects students’ success at school and is often linked to intrinsic motivation because, according to the self-regulated learning theory, it represents the caputo –school bullying 78 observable behavior through which motivation can be effectively realized. it was measured on a 4-point likert scale, ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’, by means the following three items:  ‘when a subject is difficult i quit it’ (item 1);  ‘when i study a lot i get good results’ (item 2);  ‘i commit myself to study even when the subject is boring’ (item 3). test anxiety. this hypothetical construct consists of the components worry and emotionality (liebert & morris, 1967), respectively related to cognitive concerns about one’s own performance and physiological reactions to the test situation. the students were given four statements concerning the level of test anxiety they experienced during the standardized assessment tests. they were requested to express their level of agreement with these statements on a 4-point likert scale, adapted from the motivated strategies for learning questionnaire (mslq) by pintrich and de groot (1990) and then specifically validated in the italian context (poliandri, cardone, muzzioli, & romiti, 2011). the four statements regarding students’ emotional reaction during the test are:  ‘even before we started i was worried about having to take a test’ (item 1);  ‘i was so nervous that i couldn’t find the right answers’ (item 2);  ‘while i was answering i felt i was doing poorly’ (item 3);  ‘while i was answering i felt calm’ (item 4). procedure to verify the construct validity of each psychological measure considered, we computed cronbach's alpha to assess the internal consistency reliability across the items of each scale. in addition, exploratory factor analysis (principal component analysis for likert scales and multiple international journal of educational psychology, 3(1) 79 correspondence analysis for bullying victimization scale with dichotomous items) was used to provide evidence that the scales in question were unidimensional. in accordance with our research questions several statistical methods are used. a first insight into data is presented with descriptive statistics on bullying victimization and chi-square test is used to examine differences by gender and grade level. t-tests are used for establishing differences in psychological dimensions between groups of students that experienced bullying and those who did not. since these dimensions are measured on a 4point likert scale, mean scores are calculated that range from 0 (‘strongly disagree’) to 3 (‘strongly agree’). in order to check the robustness of our findings and evaluate whether bullying victimization could be actually considered a determinant of these psychological measures, we used a linear regression model to predict each variable, also controlling for gender and grade level by selecting enter method. results the psychometric properties of the scales used in the present study confirm the construct validity of each psychological measure as each of them has an acceptable internal consistency (cronbach's alpha>0.60). besides, the scales are unidimensional with a one-factor solution explaining a good percentage of the overall variance. caputo –school bullying 80 table 1 psychometric properties of the scales for the psychological measures used in the analysis scale number of items reliability (cronbach's alpha) unidimensionality variance explained by onefactor solution (%) bullying victimization bullying victimization 4 0.92 yes 91.67 academic self-concept math self-concept 3 0.69 yes 62.08 reading self-concept 3 0.73 yes 64.89 learning motivation math intrinsic motivation 2 0.78 reading intrinsic motivation 2 0.80 extrinsic motivation 4 0.72 yes 54.05 commitment to study 3 0.63 yes 57.37 test anxiety test anxiety 4 0.86 yes 70.05 note. in reference to math and reading intrinsic motivation no factor analysis was carried out to assess unidimensionality because the scales were composed of only two items. in table 2 descriptive statistics are shown which refer to the differences by gender and grade level between students who experienced (at least once in the prior month) school bullying episodes and students who did not. international journal of educational psychology, 3(1) 81 table 2 cross-tabulation of bullying victimization by gender and grade level grade level total 6 7 8 not bullied female 349 411 480 1240 49.02% 48.41% 51.45% 49.72% male 363 438 453 1254 50.98% 51.59% 48.55% 50.28% 712 849 933 2494 subtotals 70.50% 78.10% 81.34% 76.88% bullied female 135 121 85 341 45.30% 50.84% 39.72% 45.47% male 163 117 129 409 54.70% 49.16% 60.28% 54.53% 298 238 214 750 subtotals 29.50% 21.90% 18.66% 23.12% total 1010 1087 1147 3244 results show some differences among different grade levels, χ2 (1, n = 3244) = 36.83, p < .01 which confirm that school bullying victimization is significantly present at grade 6 (29.50%) and then tends to decrease to grade caputo –school bullying 82 8 (18.66%). the significance level is maintained independently from gender influences in each grade level. besides, boys are generally more bullied than girls (54.53% versus 45.47%), χ2 (2, n = 3244) = 4.17, p < .05. however, controlling for grade level, gender differences are evident only at grade 8 where 60.28% of bullied students are male, χ2 (1, n = 1147) = 9.58, p < .01. grouping students on the ground of their bullying victimization status, we evaluated differences in mean scores referred to the psychological measures we considered in the present study. in this regard, table 3 shows the statistically significant differences in psychological dimensions resulting from independent sample test. table 3 descriptive statistics and t-tests for independent samples comparing bullied and not bullied students on academic self-concept, learning motivation and test anxiety not bullied students (n=2505) bullied students (n=756) measures mean sd mean sd mean difference (se) t-test academic self-concept math self-concept 1.85 0.72 1.75 0.75 0.10 (0.03) 3.17 ** reading self-concept 2.16 0.61 2.05 0.68 0.11 (0.03) 4.06 *** learning motivation math intrinsic motivation 1.38 0.97 1.40 1.05 -0.03 (0.04) -0.65 reading intrinsic motivation 1.64 0.91 1.63 0.95 0.00 (0.04) 0.04 extrinsic motivation 0.80 0.66 1.01 0.73 -0.22 (0.03) -7.66 *** commitment to study 2.30 0.58 2.21 0.61 0.09 (0.02) 3.80 *** test anxiety international journal of educational psychology, 3(1) 83 test anxiety 1.33 0.74 1.49 0.78 -0.16 (0.03) -5.14 *** note. **significant at 0.01 level; ***significant at 0.001 level students who are victims of school bullying have a lower academic selfconcept, both in mathematics and reading, than their peers who are not bullied. in relation to learning motivation, they also show a higher extrinsic orientation and a poorer commitment to study. however, both math and reading intrinsic motivation are not significantly different in the two groups. then, bullied students experience higher test anxiety, thus indicating greater concerns about their own performance and affective response to test situations. linear regression analyses are also carried out to test the predictive relationship between bullying victimization and the psychological dimensions, controlling for both student’s gender and grade level (table 4). table 4 linear regression analyses of academic self-concept, learning motivation and test anxiety based on school bullying victimization dependent variables b se β r r² (adjusted) academic self-concept math self-concept -0.10 0.03 -0.06 ** 0.057 0.003 math self-concept (with controls) -0.13 0.03 -0.08 *** 0.187 0.034 gender male 0.15 0.02 0.10 *** − − grade (ref: grade 6) grade 7 -0.16 0.03 -0.11 *** − − grade 8 -0.25 0.03 -0.17 *** − − reading self-concept -0.10 0.03 -0.07 *** 0.070 0.005 reading self-concept (with controls) -0.11 0.03 -0.07 *** 0.194 0.037 gender male -0.21 0.02 -0.17 *** − − caputo –school bullying 84 grade (ref: grade 6) grade 7 -0.10 0.03 -0.08 *** − − grade 8 -0.10 0.03 -0.07 *** − − learning motivation math intrinsic motivation 0.02 0.04 0.01 0.010 0.000 math intrinsic motivation (with controls) -0.03 0.04 -0.01 0.212 0.044 gender male 0.23 0.03 0.11 *** − − grade (ref: grade 6) grade 7 -0.25 0.04 -0.12 *** − − grade 8 -0.43 0.04 -0.21 *** − − reading intrinsic motivation 0.00 0.04 0.00 0.001 0.000 reading intrinsic motivation (with controls) -0.01 0.04 -0.01 0.211 0.044 gender male -0.31 0.04 -0.17 *** − − grade (ref: grade 6) grade 7 -0.22 0.04 -0.11 *** − − grade 8 -0.27 0.04 -0.14 *** − − extrinsic motivation 0.22 0.03 0.13 *** 0.133 0.017 extrinsic motivation (with controls) 0.19 0.03 0.11 *** 0.269 0.071 gender male 0.28 0.02 0.20 *** − − grade (ref: grade 6) grade 7 -0.11 0.03 -0.07 *** − − grade 8 -0.19 0.03 -0.13 *** − − commitment to study -0.09 0.02 -0.07 *** 0.066 0.040 commitment to study (with controls) -0.10 0.02 -0.08 *** 0.197 0.038 gender male -0.15 0.02 -0.12 *** − − grade (ref: grade 6) grade 7 -0.10 0.02 -0.08 *** − − grade 8 -0.20 0.02 -0.16 *** − − international journal of educational psychology, 3(1) 85 test anxiety test anxiety 0.16 0.03 0.09 *** 0.093 0.008 test anxiety (with controls) 0.19 0.03 0.11 *** 0.244 0.058 gender male -0.31 0.03 -0.21 *** − − grade (ref: grade 6) grade 7 0.04 0.03 0.03 − − grade 8 0.15 0.03 0.10 *** − − ** significant at 0.01 level; *** significant at 0.001 level regression analyses results show that students’ psychological variables are predicted by bullying victimization at school, with the exception of math and reading intrinsic motivation, thus confirming our previous findings. bullying victimization determines a higher extrinsic learning motivation and test anxiety and is also likely to reduce academic self-concept and commitment to study. besides, the causal relationships between bullying and academic self-concept (in both mathematics and reading), extrinsic motivation, commitment to study and test anxiety are valid also controlling for students’ gender and grade level, without any relevant change in the magnitude of the coefficient on bullying victimization. in more detail, looking at the standardized regression coefficients, the strongest predictive relationships are detected for extrinsic motivation and test anxiety. the effects of control variables can be summarized as follows: males show higher math self-concept, math intrinsic motivation and also extrinsic motivation; on the contrary, females are characterized by greater reading self-concept, reading intrinsic motivation, commitment to study and test anxiety. in reference to grade level, math self-concept, math intrinsic motivation, reading intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and commitment to study progressively tend to decrease from grade 6 to 8. reading self-concept is equally lower in both grade 7 and 8 than in grade 6. caputo –school bullying 86 instead, test anxiety is significantly higher in grade 8 compared to other grade levels. discussion bullying victimization seems to be a phenomenon which mostly affects male students, consistently with already indicated in previous research (houbre et al, 2006), and is present at the beginning of middle school cycle (menesini & fonzi, 1997). in this regard, nishina and juvonen (2005) found that half of students encounter at least one incident of bullying during their first year in middle school. it may depend on the difficult transition from elementary to middle school, because students loose a bond to their single classroom teacher; their class sizes balloon, such that establishing individual relationships with subject matter teachers grow more difficult. besides, the pedagogy become more lecture and test-based and less interactive, and more time is spent in hallways and other unsupervised places. thus, the opportunities for isolation, alienation, and disengagement increase mightily, and any school-based havens from being bullied seem to fall away (seeley, tombari, bennett, & dunkle, 2009). in relation to academic self-concept, results confirm the consistent negative correlation with being bullied that has been found in other several studies (houbre et al., 2006; lodge & feldman, 2007; yang et al., 2006; houbre et al., 2010). bullying victimization seems thus leading to a negative self-view regarding the extent that students see themselves as being competent in school tasks, probably not depending on specific learning subjects since it is detected for both mathematics and reading. in this sense, it might be linked to other negative psychological effects of bullying that are more general, such as low self-esteem, depression and dysfunctional coping strategies, which reduce students’ personal sense of power in learning process because of the lack of peer reinforcement. however, we do not international journal of educational psychology, 3(1) 87 exclude that also a low academic self-concept may contribute to being victims of bullying behaviors by peers over time. besides, results show that learning motivation is also affected by bullying which determines poorer involvement in school activities and commitment to study. in fact, bullied students tend to be more extrinsically-oriented, although their intrinsic motivation in mathematics and reading is not significantly reduced. this probably suggests a relational dynamics according to which, independently from their interest or enjoyment in specific learning subjects or tasks, bullied students perceive a greater external pressure in accomplishing certain school results or outcomes. in this sense, they might behave so to get approval and be well accepted by their peers (callaghan & stephen, 1995; hawker & boulton, 2000), because they are likely to be more exposed to intimidation and social exclusion. then, although the relationship between bullying victimization and test anxiety is poorly investigated, findings on this theoretical construct seem to be consistent with wider scientific literature, according to which bullied students are more likely than their peers to report anxiety (fekkes, pijpers, & verloove-vanhorick, 2004; hawker & boulton, 2000; juvonem, graham, & schuster, 2003). since test anxiety is triggered by an imbalance between perceived capabilities and academic demands, we can hypothesize that for bullied students feeling anxious in front of test situation may be mostly caused also by lower academic self-concept and commitment to study, thus perceiving poorer abilities to accomplish certain tasks. although the negative impact of bullying victimization persists independently on gender and grade level, the effects of these control variables show some minor differences. boys tend to have a worse academic self-concept and intrinsic motivation in reading than girls, for whom these dimensions are lower in mathematics instead. these data reflect the gender gap in school achievement suggested by international comparative research (oecd, 2010) (according to which girls outperform boys in reading, whilst boys outperform girls in mathematics), thus remarking the negative impact caputo –school bullying 88 of bullying on students’ previous learning difficulties. besides, whilst boys are characterized by higher extrinsic motivation and lower commitment to study, girls are mostly affected by test anxiety. it seems to indicate different effects of victimization on learning regulation and strategies: boys tend to be more external-oriented in order to get approval and look good, differently from girls who are likely to internalize negative consequences of bullying and to have higher concern about their abilities and performances. then, students coming from grade 8 are the ones which show lower measures compared to other grades (poorer academic self-concept and learning motivation, and higher test anxiety) thus highlighting worst consequences of bullying victimization when it is present (and probably lasts) up to the end of middle school cycle. conclusions in sum, the present study confirms most of the research findings on the correlates of bullying victimization also in the italian context, where scientific literature on the issue seems to be almost scarce. being victim of peer bullying strongly reduces academic self-concept (both in mathematics and reading) and commitment to study, whilst tends to increase both extrinsic motivation and test anxiety rates, independently from gender and grade level. no impact, indeed, is revealed on both math and reading intrinsic motivation. in regard with the implications of this research for anti-bullying intervention in the italian context, we underline the importance of recognizing and intervening in school bullying in the early grades of middle school cycle, when (as shown by results) bullying episodes seem to occur more frequently, also because of higher negative impact that bullying has on students at a later time. besides, since it is often difficult to distinguish between bullying and just horsing around at this early stage, teacher and administrator training is international journal of educational psychology, 3(1) 89 needed in how to recognize the difference and how to handle incidents when they occur. in relation to this issue, the strong incidence of self-reported bullying at 6th grade also suggests the development of transition programs so as better to acclimate students to the abrupt and unhelpful shift from elementary to middle school in their educational environments and thus to prevent peer violence. looking at the specific psychological correlates of bullying in the school context, we recommend that schools adopt intentional student engagement strategies to create positive learning environments that produce academic achievement, in order to overcome the power of victimization to distance students from learning. for this purpose, some studies with young adults and teachers indicated that challenging academics, school-based extra-curricular activities, involved and understanding teachers and coaches, and a focus on the future possibilities ensuing from staying in school combined to keep victimized children engaged in their education (seeley, tombari, bennett, & dunkle, 2009). then, since extrinsic motivation and test anxiety are likely to be the main dimensions affected by bullying (whilst intrinsic motivation is not), we should pay a careful attention to student relationships inside the classroom and emotional distress (more than the cognitive one). the key-element highlighted by analyses we carried out is, in fact, the tendency of bullied students to avoid punishments, deriving from the internalization of the negative opinion of classmates and (probably as a consequence) also of teachers in evaluative situations. for this reason, we also recommend the use of cooperative learning programs, based on a mentoring approach, so that students are given opportunities to mentor and lead other students. bullies could thus learn using their power in caring, productive and enriching ways, while victim could be allowed to be in a position of strength and feel more competent. there are some limitations that need to be acknowledged regarding the present study, that may represent interesting recommendations for further caputo –school bullying 90 investigation. a limitation, that is common to many other studies, concerns the specific instrument used to assess bullying victimization. in fact, selfreport measures might underestimate the actual incidence and also variety of bullying episodes occurring at school, since students who are bullied might deny their status as victims so to avoid stigma and might be afraid to report aggressive acts by their peers. besides, the lack of measures on teacher and school support in providing a comfortable environment in which students feel free to denounce being bullied, does not allow to differentiate further among victims. another limitation concerns the causal relationship between school bullying victimization and the psychological dimensions analyzed. in this regard, academic self-concept, learning motivation and test anxiety might also be considered as moderating factors that can protect (or not) students from becoming victims. in this sense, they might in turn contribute over time to being bullied (or not) by peers, supporting a downward spiral which may perpetuate victimization. however, longitudinal data would be required to disentangle the pattern of these causal effects. despite these limitations, the specific contribution of the paper is manifold. at first, the analysis of psychological correlates of school bullying may allow teachers to detect some warning signals (i.e. lower math and reading self concept, poorer commitment to study, higher extrinsic motivation and test anxiety) which could suggest potential situations of victimization among students. this is particularly important when considering the underestimation of the phenomenon, mainly due to the tendency of bullied students to deny their status as victims because they are generally afraid to report peer aggression. in addition, this study highlights some interesting information with regard to the potential impact of school bullying on students’ characteristics which could contribute to the future research. indeed, our findings provide two relevant key-points which need to be further investigated: the lack of correlation between student victimization and intrinsic motivation, on the one side; and the different gender patterns international journal of educational psychology, 3(1) 91 with regard to the potential psychological effects of school victimization, on the other side. in relation to the first key-point, we found that bullied students tend to be scarcely committed in school activities and show poor efforts in learning, despite they can be interested in school tasks. this seems to suggest that victimization might mostly affect students’ ability to effectively express and guide their learning motivation to pursue particular activities, rather than students’ motivation in itself. this clue could thus help to differentiate low performing or disengaged students from bullied ones. indeed, as stated by wright and colleagues (2012), some students may get mislabeled as low achievers because they do not want to speak up in class for fear of getting bullied, while teachers can misinterpret their silence and scarce participation, thinking that these students are not motivated to learn. with regard to the second key-point, we found that bullying affects male and female students to varying degrees: boys mainly show higher extrinsic motivation and lower commitment to study, whilst girls report a greater extent of test anxiety. as discussed above, this could relate to different regulation strategies in terms of externalization or internalization of victimization consequences, according to which boys are more concerned about their exposure to the judgment of others while girls are more anxious to perform well. in this sense, the two-faceted focus on the learning environment or task could suggest different attitudinal and motivational dynamics of bullied students, respectively based on affiliation (for boys) or achievement (for girls). anti-bullying interventions should thus take into account also these different gender patterns in order to handle the maladaptive school functioning resulting from student victimization. caputo –school bullying 92 notes this project is carried out with eu funding pon istruzione 2007-2013 (valutazione matabel plus i-3-fse-2009-2). besides the author, the m@t.abel evaluation team comprises daniele vidoni (invalsi), gianluca argentin (università milano-bicocca), aline pennisi (ministry of finance), giovanni abbiati (università degli studi di milano). the views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the national institute for the educational evaluation of instruction and training. 2 the basic evaluation design sees schools and teachers within schools enrolling at a math training program (called m@t.abel) for the 2009/10 school year. the schools are randomised into two groups: one group receives the specialised training beginning in year 2009-10, the other group is delayed admission for one year, then released into treatment. 3 for the official validation of the questionnaire, see invalsi (2010). 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(1999). the nature of school bullying: a cross-national perspective. london, uk: routledge. smith, p. k., pepler, d., & rigby, k. (eds.). (2004). bullying in schools: how successful can interventions be? cambridge, u.k.: cambridge university press. stanley, l., & arora, t. (1998). social exclusion amongst adolescent girls: their self-esteem and coping strategies. educational psychology in practice, 14, 94-100. /doi/%2010.1023:a/1005299429060 /doi/%2010.1111:1467-9450.00166 /doi/%2010.1111:1467-9450.00166 /doi/%2010.1177:1534765607299911 /doi/%2010.1037:0022-0663.97.3.425 /doi/%2010.1037:0022-0663.97.3.425 http://www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/234205.pdf /doi/%2010.1177:1359104598033006 /doi/%2010.1177:1359104598033006 international journal of educational psychology, 3(1) 99 wang, j., iannotti, r., & nansel, t. (2009). school bullying among adolescents in the united states: physical, verbal, relational, and cyber. journal of adolescent health, 45(4), 368–375. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2010.07.012 wright, t. d., richardson, j. w., american public health association., & ebrary, i. (2012). school-based health care: advancing educational success and public health. washington, d.c.: apha press. yang, s. j., kim, j. m., kim, s. w., shin, i. s., & yoon, j. s. (2006). bullying and victimization behaviors in boys and girls at south korean primary schools. journal of the american academy of child and adolescent psychiatry, 45, 69-77. doi: 10.1097/01.chi.0000186401.05465.2c andrea caputo is psy d. candidate at the department of dynamic and clinical psychology, university of rome “sapienza”, italy. contact address: direct correspondence to andrea caputo at the department of dynamic and clinical psychology, university of rome “sapienza”, via degli apuli 1, 00185 roma, italy. e-mail address: caputo.and@libero.it /doi/%2010.1016:j.jadohealth.2010.07.012 /doi/%2010.1016:j.jadohealth.2010.07.012 /doi/%2010.1097:01.chi.0000186401.05465.2c /doi/%2010.1097:01.chi.0000186401.05465.2c mailto:cliang@ntu.edu.tw template journals hipatia press instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com list of 2022 reviewers date of publication: february 24th, 2023 edition period: february 2022 – february 2023 to cite this article: ijep editors. (2023). list of reviewers. international journal of educational psychology, 12(1), 110. doi: 10.17583/ijep.11902 to link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11902 please scroll down for article the terms and conditions of use are related to the open journal system and to creative commons attribution license (cc-by). http://ijep.hipatiapress.com/ http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11902 http://dx.doi.org/10.447/remie.2013.015 http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11902 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ijep – international journal of educational psychology, vol. 12 no. 24th february 2023, p. 110 2023 hipatia press issn: 2014-3591 doi: 10.17583/ijep.11902 list of 2022 reviewers we thank the individuals who were reviewers for the international journal of educational psychology over the year 2022. we deeply appreciate their contributions to the quality of this journal. rocío garcía carrión jorge manuel dueñas rada editors aitana fernández-villardón alba garcía-cid albert irigoyen zaragoza ane lópez de aguileta david navarro gonzález elisenda giner gota eugenia allotey garazi álvarez-guerrero garazi lopez de aguileta guillermo legorburo itxaso tellado juliene ferreira jyrki huusko kavitha karun laura ruiz-eugenio maite santiago-garabieta marta font palomar nerea gutiérrez-fernández sara carbonell sevilla sergi martín-arbós susana león-jiménez instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com list of 2022 reviewers date of publication: february 24th, 2023 edition period: february 2022 – february 2023 please scroll down for article 404 not found 508 resource limit is reached resource limit is reached the website is temporarily unable to service your request as it exceeded resource limit. please try again later. 508 resource limit is reached resource limit is reached the website is temporarily unable to service your request as it exceeded resource limit. please try again later. 404 not found instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com truth, beauty, and goodness reframed. educating for the virtues in the twenty­first century silvia molina1 1) department of pedagogy, university rovira i virgili, spain. date of publication: february, 24th 2012. to cite this review: molina, s. (2012). [review of the book truth, beauty, and goodness reframed. educating for the virtues in the twenty­first century, by howard gardner], international journal of educational psychology (ijep), 1(1), 70­72. doi: 10.4471/ijep.2012.05 to link this review: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2012.05 please scroll down for article the terms and conditions of use are related to the open journal system and to creative commons non­commercial and non­derivative license. ijep – international journal of educational psychology vol. 1 no. 1 february 2012 pp.70­72. review howard gardner. (2011). truth, beauty, and goodness reframed. educating for the virtues in the twenty­first century. new york: basic books. three classical virtues that have guided human thoughts and behavior through history, truth, beauty and goodness, are the focus of howard gardner’s book. gardner discusses the role and importance of these virtues in current society, which has seen important transformations since these virtues, “the trio”, were first conceptualized. the postmodernism and the advent of the digital media are two central events that have shaped societies in the last decades. in this new context, the classical virtues need to be “reframed”, and reframing the classical virtues in society entails rethinking how to educate on these three virtues. postmodern theories questioned the possibility to ascertain truth as well as its value for human existence, arguing that it is only an expression of power. these views also treated beauty as irrelevant and have been skeptical about goodness. the media technologies, in turn, challenge the ideas of truth, goodness and beauty, as they offer great amounts of information, with different levels of rigor and sometimes contradictory, offer different and new ways of relating to others, and allow mew forms of creating, acceding, and storing works of art. despite this challenging picture, gardner believes that the core characteristics of truth, beauty and goodness can be preserved and defends the usefulness and the deep meaning that the three virtues have for people today. he reviews the current status of the classical virtues from a multidisciplinary perspective, contributing with reflections from history, biology, psychology, sociology or anthropology. from this 2012 hipatia press issn 2014­3591 doi:10.4471/ijep.2012.05 71international journal of educational psychology (ijep), 1(1) review, he concludes that the search of truth is today possible if we base for people today. he reviews the current status of the classical virtues from a multidisciplinary perspective, contributing with reflections from history, biology, psychology, sociology or anthropology. from this review, he concludes that the search of truth is today possible if we base on scholarly disciplines and professional crafts, which have provided empirical contrastable knowledge through history. as regards goodness, he emphasises the need to differentiate between the “neighborly morality”, which characterises good relations with others, and “the ethics of roles”, which refers to being a “good worker” or a “good citizen” in changing societies with increasing new situations to deal with, new problems to solve and new forms of relation. finally, he contends that beauty should be formulated as the personal experience caused of an object which is interesting, its form is memorable and invites further encounters. the author acknowledges that the three virtues are qualitative different and that they have different histories, being the history of truth “convergent and confirmatory”, the history of beauty “divergent”, unpredictable and more dependable on personal experiences, and the history of goodness having one consolidated part –the neighborly morality– and another more recent –the ethics of roles–. furthermore, they are also different in terms of their relevance for life, being beauty the less determinant for survival. nonetheless, gardner clearly supports the importance of the three virtues, as he understands the experience of beauty as one main reason for living once survival is granted. in this regard, he considers: “the trio of virtues, while unquestionably in flux and under attack, remain essential to the human experience and, indeed, to human survival. they must not and will not be abandoned” (p.13). it is noteworthy the capacity gardner attributes to persons in the development of “the trio”. gardner gives to individuals, working alone or together, the power to achieve desirable goals, starting from the premise that: “what is distinctly human is our capacity to change, or to transcend, whatever traits and inclinations we may have as initial endowment, courtesy of evolution” (p.15). for this reason, he offers an educational approach to ensure the pass of these values to new generations, and also to improve the way in which adults can reconceptualise the virtues in this new context. silvia molina ­ truth, beauty, and goodness reframed72 silvia molina roldán university rovira i virgili silvia.molina@urv.cat tion synergies are noted as powerful to achieve these objectives: while the accumulated experience of old people can help young persons being introduced in values with a long tradition, they can introduce their elders in new realities such as the media, which provide new experiences and contexts to reframe them. what makes truth, beauty, and goodness reframed an essential book for teachers, educators and families, is being a relevant and meaningful work for today based on values that have always been on the agenda. instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com cristrina petreñas1 1 ) department of didactics and educational organization, university of barcelona, spain. date of publication: june, 24th 201 2. petreñas, c. (201 2). developing destinies. [review of the book developing destinies. a mayan midwife and town]. international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2), 1 75-1 77. doi:1 0.4471 /ijep.201 2.1 0 http://dx.doi.org/1 0.4471 /ijep.201 2.1 0 http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2012.10 ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology vol. 1 no. 2 june 2012 pp. 175-177 review. developing destinies. rogoff, b. (2011). developing destinies. a mayan midwife and town. new york: oxford university press. " developing destinies is a piece of the work that barbara rogoff initiated more than three decades ago in close collaboration with chona, a mayan woman from the san pedro community (guatemala) who knew her destiny from the very first day ofher life: becoming a midwife for her community. " in her analysis, barbara rogoffcombines the life story ofchona, the cultural practices of the community of san pedro where chona lives, and chona’s perspective on cultural traditions to elaborate a view of culture as a form of community life, as something dynamic, and as receiving continuous influence from individuals when they engage in community activities. rogoff illustrates these features with rich examples from chona’s life, her family, and the san pedro community. " the background theme throughout the book is the influence that elements of a new society have in the perpetuation or change of traditional cultural practices, such as those developed in san pedro thirty years ago. in this process, culture becomes dynamic and changes from generation to generation. another central message derived from this is that in order to understand individuals it is essential to take culture as a starting point, since people “are” in relation to their cultural practices. cultural participation in multiple practices or "cultural constellations" are intimately related to how individuals develop and change from generation to generation. to illustrate this, rogoff shows that today, in biology classes, children in san pedro learn where babies come from. 2012 hipatia press issn 2014-3591 doi:10.4471/ijep.2012.10 176 this is a quite new situation, since forty years ago the majority of children in san pedro did not receive formal schooling and completely ignored those questions as in the community those issues were taboo. thus, the cultural practice of formal schooling has transformed individuals and the dynamics of the community at once. other elements that have contributed to such transformation are the improvement of transportation, internet access, and the involvement in other occupations besides housework and agriculture. " in the midst ofthese changes, one ofchona’s worries is the lost ofthe midwife activity according to the mayan tradition, given the medicalization and application of western medicine to traditional midwife practices. responding to this concern, indeed, one of the main motivations of this book is to leave in writing the ancestral midwife practices that have left a print on the cultural practices of these indigenous communities. rogoff does this brilliantly through gathering the voice of one of the main characters in this activity, one of the few still remaining mayan midwifes in san pedro. " chona’s life story, through the accomplishment of her destiny, is still an example of how frequently a constellation of practices seems, over time, replacing others, instead of enriching constellations of practices between them. indeed, throughout the book is evident the confrontation between mayan tradition and the invasion of the western culture through power relations that eventually exclude the cultural practices that the inhabitants of san pedro have experienced for so long. in relation to this, rogoff claims that still children of the indigenous community of san pedro have knowledge of the cultural constellations of their community, because there is no difference between the life of adults and the life of children, contrary to what happens in nonindigenous communities. in san pedro, children are included in all the activities of adults, this is how they learn through their shared destinies between generations, such as the case of chona’s granddaughter and herself, who despite sharing the same destiny -becoming midwifesthe cultural reality oftheir generation is very different. the lesson to take home from this thorough book about development in context is that we assume, adopt, transform or reject the cultural practices of our community in the measure in which we participate in them. and when we transform cultural practices, we make them part of cristina petreñas developing destinies 177 cristina petreñas caballero university ofbarcelona cristinapetrenas@ub.edu our future development and that of others. this way: our generation’s inventions and patchwork solutions to today’s issues become tomorrow’s cultural traditions, along with whatever our generation carries forward from people who lived before (rogoff, 2011, p.292). international journal ofeducational psychology (ijep), 1(2) instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com editorial. the international journal of educational psychology: psychological research for the twenty­first century sandra racionero plaza1 1) university of barcelona, spain. date of publication: february, 24th 2012. to cite this editorial: racionero plaza, s. (2012). editorial. the international journal of educational psychology: psychological research for the twenty­first century, international journal of educational psychology (ijep), 1(1), 1­4. doi: 10.4471/ijep.2012.00 to link this editorial: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2012.00 please scroll down for article the terms and conditions of use are related to the open journal system and to creative commons non­commercial and non­derivative license. ijep – international journal of educational psychology vol. 1 no. 1. editorial. the international journal of educational psychology: psychological research for the twenty­first century sandra racionero plaza university of barcelona portant social challenges. this priority has left behind the old debate between descriptive and normative science, and between basic and applied research. the discussion is now focused on how to make scientific findings more relevant and useful in everyday life. commitment to this social turn is a central reason for the emergence of the international journal of educational psychology (ijep). more than fifteen years ago, in the culture of education, jerome bruner (1996) stated that research about teaching and learning processes in pursuit of particular goals that takes into account the cultural setting of development is the stuff not only of good policy research but good psychological science (p.176). it is that kind of psychological research and science which ijep aims at disseminating. ijep publishes works that do not only provide new insights about the psychological mechanisms involved in most pressing problems in education, such as school failure and disengagement, but the journal is mainly concerned with what is –in bruner’s words­ possible, that is, ijep shares how we can successfully tackle developmental threats to ultimately foster all students’ learning. it is the possible what administrators, policy­makers, educators, children, adolescents, and their families need to know for their activities in all the myriad of environments where learning and development take place every day and for every individual around the world. accordingly, scientific 2012 hipatia press issn 2014­3591 doi:10.4471/ijep.2012.00 i t is increasingly acknowledged that research should serve thepublic good. the international scientific community mainly agreesthat scientific inquiry should inform ways to address the most im­ studies of both qualitative and quantitative nature that deepen on psychological and socio­cultural strengths, actions, and programs that overcome threats to learning and development and open up opportunities for better education are of much interest for the international journal of educational psychology. under any circumstance no child or adolescent should be deprived from an education that aids flourishing all her or his capacities and developing strongly at social, cognitive and emotional levels. yet this right is rarely performed universally. one reason is because despite we have accumulated much understanding about how people learn and develop best, up to date, this knowledge has not been applied enough into creating suitable teaching and learning approaches, learning environments, and curricula. this disconnection between scientific research and practice in the field of learning and instruction is quite alarming. unless instruction in schools takes into account evidence from research in educational psychology and in other educational sciences, educational systems will keep failing students from most vulnerable groups and will discourage their educational expectations. as researchers in educational psychology we should address this detachment between scientific research and educational practice. the international journal of educational psychology is committed to do so. it contributes to keep lifting some educational practice above the level of supposition through publishing theoretical analyses and empirical studies of school and non­school learning environments that have proved to be tools, in vygotsky’s (1978) sense, that boost development. the final aim is that ijep articles and reviews aid effecting evidence­based changes in education. all the aforementioned principles (social utility of psychological research, the need for studying the possible, and evidence­based education) are reflected in this inaugural issue, which starts “on the shoulders of giants” (merton, 1965) with an article written by dr. jerome bruner. bruner sets the bases for the psychological study of educational processes; he claims that culture or mind cannot be understood without taking into account how they interact with each other in a given context, as it is through culture that we transcend our biological constrains. accordingly, bruner warns us that the study of mind apart from the “possible worlds” created by culture falls short to understand cognition. the international journal of educational psychology acknowledges this dialectic and provides a forum for the communication and discussion of new “possible worlds” created through scientific discovery and which make positive development and enhanced learning available to all. this translates into the sandra racionero plaza­ editorial2 publication not only of analyses of existing problems and constrains for better learning and development –the established, for bruner­, but also, and mainly, of social and cultural creations that can transcend those barriers –the possible­. this dialectic approach is evidenced in the findings reported in the article by stephen quintana. in his study of sojourner children’s understanding of nationality from a developmental point of view, quintana found that such understanding was influenced, on the one hand, by chronological age and, on the other hand, by degree of cross­national experience. issues of national, racial, and linguistic identity were found to be affected by age, but culture played an influential role as identifications based on racial salience were different depending on degree of exposure to different cultures. this finding illustrates another central postulate in bruner’s article: the need for psychology to study behaviour and mind in their context. this idea finds its roots in vygotsky’s (1978) theory of development, and today it is supported widely among central developmental psychologists (rogoff, 2003; lave & wenger, 1991). quintana’s paper also illustrates the aim of ijep of publishing articles that move us forward in the state of the art regarding central educational psychology issues and social challenges. quintana presents a new developmental model of sojourner children’s understanding of nationality, a relevant topic in societies which are increasingly diverse and require intercultural understanding to advance. the article by robert sternberg shows another central principle of ijep discussed before: the need for education to be grounded in research findings. in his article, sternberg argues that much teaching is ineffective because it is not applied in an ethical manner. the shortcoming of schools for developing ethical reasoning in children has had negative effects in society. but sternberg’s analysis goes beyondshedding light on the problem. sternberg announces both the possible: ethical reasoning can be taught across the curriculum, and the tool to turn the possible into experience: an eight­step model of ethical reasoning. schools do not need to try out ways to enhance the development of ethical reasoning in children; now they have an evidence­based model to be effective in that regard. this possibility approach is also well illustrated in the article by rocío garcía. her paper presents the theory of dialogic learning, an innovative learning theory in line with the contemporary dialogic turn of the learning sciences. garcía deepens into this theory through analyzing specific ways in which some principles of the theory manifest and which have proved to be successful in raising the academic achievement of children from vulnerable international journal of educational psychology (ijep), 1(1) 3 backgrounds. further, garcía’s article responds to another core principle of ijep, the one about making research relevant for the public. garcía proves that the inclusion of the voices of people from ethnic minorities in the research process, in close dialogue with researchers, eventually improves students’ learning and the school­community relations. as a whole, garcía’s article combines what bruner refers as good psychological science and good policy research. ijep also publishes reviews of books that share a new sight on central psychological and educational issues. as a first example of this, molina reviews gardner’s book truth, beauty, and goodness reframed. educating for the virtues in the twenty­first century. dr. gardner claims that as societies have undergone tremendous changes over the past decades, the three classical virtues that have guided human thoughts and behavior throughout history have also experienced an important transformation. therefore, gardner claims that if schools are to cultivate these virtues in society, the teaching of truth, beauty, and goodness should be re­ conceptualized. importantly, gardner shares how this can be done. overall, the set of articles and the book review that make up this first issue of ijep serve the general commitment of the journal to contribute from scientific research in psychology to an education that simultaneously provides excellence in learning and enables personal development for all. for ijep, this commitment is not a question of choice but the task of psychological research for the twenty­first century. references bruner, j. (1996). the culture of education. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. lave, j., & wenger, e. (1991). situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. cambridge: cambridge university press. merton, r. k. (1965). on the shoulders of giants. new york: free press. rogoff, b. (2003). the cultural nature of human development. new york: oxford university press. vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind in society. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. sandra racionero plaza ­ editorial4 instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com the paradox of the missing biological function in understanding: implications for moral and general education asghar iran­nejad 1 1) the university of alabama, united states of america date of publication: february 24th, 2013 to cite this article: iran­nejad, a. (2013). the paradox of the missing biological function in understanding: implications for moral and general education. international journal of educational psychology, 2(1), 1­18. doi: 10.4471/ijep.2013.16 to link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2013.16 please scroll down for article the terms and conditions of use are related to the open journal system and to creative commons non­commercial and non­derivative license. ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology vol. 2 no. 1 february 2013 pp. 1-18. the paradox ofthe missing biological function in understanding: implications for moral and general education asghar iran-nejad the university ofalabama abstract this essay argues that the endemic moral crisis and the crisis of confidence in education are related; and both are a function, in part, of a paradoxical divide between two types of human understanding: psychological and biofunctional. in the psychological realm, people cause understanding using the psychological theories they know. biofunctionally, understanding is caught by the understander, by analogy to catching a cold, caused by an unknown biological function, without the understander (a) having direct access to the cause, (b) knowing what the cause is, and (c) realizing how the cause works. this paradox introduces a divide between people’s psychological and biofunctional types of understanding. unwarily, people tend to overlook this divide thereby compromising their full understanding potential. in this essay, i elaborate on the nature of this paradox, the awesome divide that it causes, and its implications for moral and general education. keywords: moral education, crisis ofconfidence, biofunctional understanding, evolution, cognition as computation 2013 hipatia press issn 2014-3591 doi: 10.4471/ijep.2013.16 ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology vol. 2 no. 1 february 2013 pp. 1-18. 2013 hipatia press issn 2014-3591 doi: 10.4471/ijep.2013.16 la paradoja de la función biológica perdida en la comprensión: implicaciones para la educación general y moral asghar iran-nejad the university ofalabama resumen este ensayo sostiene que la crisis moral endémica y la crisis de confianza en la educación están relacionadas; y las dos existen en función, en parte, de división paradójica entre dos tipos de entendimiento humano: el psicológico y el biofuncional. en el ámbito psicológico, las personas causan el entendimiento usando las teorías psicológicas que conocen. biofuncionalmente, el entendimiento es pillado por quien entiende, como quien -por analogíapilla un resfriado, causado por una función biológica desconocida, sin que quien entiende: a) tenga acceso directo a la causa; b) conozca cuál es la causa; c) se de cuenta de cómo funciona esta causa. esta paradoja introduce una división entre los tipos de comprensión de las personas, el psicológico o el biofuncional. imprudentemente, las personas tienden a pasar por alto esta división comprometiendo su potencial de comprensión completo. en este articulo, desarrollo la naturaleza de esta paradoja, la formidable división que causa, y sus implicaciones para la educación general y moral. palabras clave: educación moral, crisis de confianza, comprensión biofuncional, evolución, cognición como computación example, in his letter of resignation from goldman sachs published in times op-ed (smith, 2012) on march 14, greg smith stated that it “makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off.” these publications are only a passing reminder of the widespread occurrences of moral disengagement, inhumane conduct, and dehumanization (bandura, 1999, 2002; pekarsky, 1982). nevertheless, the fact that departures from moral conduct are reasonably suspected or claimed to happen so readily in people is astonishing.   bebeau, rest, & narvaez (1999) commented on an ongoing concern that “american society is in a state of crisis, moral decay, or serious decline” (p. 18). the investigators further put out a call saying “if different approaches addressed different dimensions of development, if viewed as complementary rather than contradictory, we may be able to move beyond ideological and philosophical disputes to solid theorybuilding based on empirical findings” (p. 18). more than a decade has passed and morality is still on the list of endangered intellectual capacities (carter, 2005). close to two decades before that, schön (1983) had placed education on the list; and i have not seen yet any shining indicators that it has been taken offthe list.   assuming that both moral and general education are falling short of the expectation for their missions, i begin in this essay with the why question and continue to investigate what kind of moral and general education are likely to change things for the better. i believe a robust foundation of theory and research already exists for addressing these questions. interdisciplinary progress is converging from the related fields ofevolutionary biology (baumard, andré, & sperber, 2013; irannejad & bordbar, 2013), moral development (rest, narvaez, thoma, & bebeau, 2000), social learning (bandura, 1991; bandura, barbaranelli, caprara, & pastorelli, 1996), and neuroscience (greene & haidt, 2002; haidt, 2003) beckoning educational researchers to move beyond ideology and toward convergent integration (bebeau et al., 1999). edia reports and scientific publications on the failures of human morality appear at an alarming rate (anderson, 2012; haque & waytz, 2012; smith, 2012). to cite a mediam ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 2(1) 3 context, purpose, and definitions the central thesis of this essay is that today’s moral crisis and the crisis of confidence in general education are causally related and due, in part, to an awesome gap between psychological and biofunctional understanding (iran-nejad & ortony, 1984). for a clearer focus, it is useful to microscope the distinction. biofunctional is the kind of understanding that is caught spontaneously, rather than caused deliberately, by the understander (iran-nejad, 2012; iran-nejad & gregg, 2001). it is regulated effortlessly by some evolution-sculpted combination of multiple internal and external sources working together simultaneously (iran-nejad & chissom, 1992). the biological person may be able to advance the causes of this kind of understanding more readily by developing sensitivity to its overt symptoms (e.g., aha clicks, hindsight solutions to past problems, or the excitement or interest that comes with them) than familiarity with covert causes (e.g., how the mind recalls past ready-made events, how biology sounds understanding clicks, or what produces spontaneous excitement or interest). by contrast, psychological understanding is something the understander causes deliberately using the psychological or mind theories provided spontaneously by biofunctional understanding. moral and educational problem solving can benefit substantially from the complementary ways biofunctional and psychological kinds of understanding work together (iran-nejad, 2000; prawat, 2000).   to set the groundwork for where this article is going, i begin with what is frequently practiced in science, namely, using analogy. already overused are the spatial memory metaphors (roediger, 1980), technological metaphors such as the bottleneck (broadbent, 1958), the telephone switchboard (john, 1972), and the computer (neisser, 1967). to be sure, these metaphors have shed much light on people’s cognitive capabilities; but their continued use can only thwart the progress. instead, i turn for new metaphors to biological systems that are also used from time to time and are becoming more acceptable (mandler, 2007; miller, 1978). in particular, there is compelling evidence to propose that, by evolutionary design, understanding is the special biological function ofthe nervous system (drack, apfalter, & pouvreau, 2007; iran-nejad & ortony, 1984; weiss, 1949) just as breathing is a a. iran-nejad – paradox ofthe missing4 special function ofthe respiratory system and fighting germs is a special function of the immune system (gomez, 1996; iran-nejad & gregg, 2011). then, with biofunctional understanding already in place as the prerequisite, people may use its overt symptoms (e.g., revelation clicks) to cause their own psychological understanding deliberately using such psychological tools as theories ofhow the human mind or biology might work, learn, or understand. this is analogous to the fact that people can do things deliberately to an effortlessly functioning respiratory system, namely, holding one’s breath, taking deep breaths, coughing, smoking, and the like. the paradox of the missing biological function the sharp distinction between biofunctional and psychological kinds of understanding uncovers an intriguing paradox. there are several reasons behind the paradox and its direct tie with biofunctional understanding. first, the biology of the nervous system controls secretly the causes of understanding. some of the covert sources are distal but, nevertheless, inescapable. they may be hours, days, months, or even years removed from the proximal symptoms that they remotely produce in the form of what people experience after the fact as understanding. in addition, the biology of the nervous system leaves the psychological person of the understander completely in the dark about how it performs the special function of biological understanding. as a result, given the concept of biofunctional understanding and its remote ways and means, understanders have no psychological idea whatsoever about how that kind of understanding happens to them, just as someone may catch a cold or another illness without knowing anything at all about its distant causes and ways until psychologically detectable symptoms (e.g., the fever) reveal themselves.   second, and here is where the paradox begins, people know that they understand because they experience the symptoms of understanding psychologically; e.g., they might detect after the fact their own clicks of understanding (auble, franks, & soraci, 1979; iran-nejad & stewart, 2011). this is analogous to feeling the fever long after the person has caught the virus. ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 2(1) 5   third, and here is the crux of the paradox, understanders are faced with the impossible challenge ofmaking biofunctional understanding to happen without knowing how. as a result they must come up with some sort of a psychological theory (e.g., "to understand, i must connect ideas together") without knowing at all if the theory does indeed cause understanding. this means that there is an awesome divide between biofunctional and psychological understanding that acts like a mind-tobrain barrier impossible for psychological understanding to cross directly.   finally, and we are still caught in the grips of the awesome paradox, even if an understander happens to hit upon a theory that actually triggers biofunctional understanding directly, it is going to be impossible to tell because the resulting psychologically-caused understanding joins surreptitiously the silence of biofunctional understanding just as it occurs. the good news is that biofunctional understanding continues, even in the absence of psychological understanding just as breathing occurs in the absence of taking deep breaths or smoking and healing occurs even in the absence of nursing—sometimes. an even better piece of news is that biofunctional understanding does not have to wait on being triggered by psychological theories just as healing does not have to wait for nursing to begin. in fact, in the absence of psychological theories, the very young children do and develop most of their biofunctional understanding before they come up with their very first theories, learn how to use the new theories, and start reaping the benefits of the psychological symptoms of their biofunctional understanding or be led or misled by their own mind theories. as far as the contribution of their psychological understanding is concerned, many understanders would be confined unwarily to the realm of their mind theories. the immediate implication for schooling for moral and general education is to focus on enriching the pretheoretical sources of biofunctional understanding by virtue of its overt symptoms, while scientists are learning to close the gap between psychological understanding and biofunctional understanding (donoghue, nurmikko, black, & hochberg, 2007). this is never an easy task even for scientists given the large diversity of psychological theories not all of which are a good fit for causing biofunctional understanding. a. iran-nejad – paradox ofthe missing6 cognition in silent biofunctional understanding the results ofa study by iran-nejad and chissom (1992) offer a partial glimpse at cognition in silent biofunctional understanding. at one extreme, many psychological theories that leaners invent and use may cause no biofunctional understanding at all; they may be as ineffective as inert knowledge (bereiter & scardamalia, 1985; renkl, mandl, & gruber, 1996). at a less extreme level, somewhere in between, many theories may cause biofunctional understanding; but as silently as if no biofunctional understanding is happening at all. consider the statement (1) i make a list of possible exam questions and learn the answers to them. to those who use it, this statement promises to cause understanding in an academic setting. is the theory exemplified by this statement more effective in causing biofunctional understanding than the effectiveness ofa placebo pill on a growing infection? the answer to this question may point to significant contributions to learner selfefficacy, learned helplessness, or the like. at the other extreme, biofunctional understanding may be the very cause of the ubiquitous clicks of understanding. compare statement (1) with statement (2) discovering new ideas causes excitement in me. excitement may be a symptom of biofunctional understanding. to many such outcomes of their biofunctional understanding (i.e., the new ideas and the excitement that comes with them) may shine as strikingly as the sunshine itself (bransford & schwartz, 1999). learners might say they had a light bulb go on in their head; and, again, the frequency by which this occurs to a learner may be a significant contributor to that learner’s self-efficacy or learned helplessness. for example, one set of predictions might be that the theory in statement (1), if deliberately applied, may promise but cause no understanding and the outcomes implied by statement (2) may be true symptoms of self-efficacy; even though they may emerge effortlessly and spontaneously, from remote sources ofunderstanding, in the form of new ideas and excitement in the silence, so to speak, of biofunctional understanding.   in the iran-nejad and chissom study, 99 undergraduates rated statements like the above with regards to how frequently they experienced them in their studies. the results surprised the authors. both psychological understanding and biofunctional understanding ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 2(1) 7 correlated significantly with cumulative grade point average (gpa), rs=.22 and .42, respectively. however, the correlation between psychological understanding and gpa decreased to a nonsignificant level (partial r=0.13), when the contribution of biofunctional understanding scores was removed. by contrast, when the analysis removed the contribution of psychological understanding, the correlation between biofunctional understanding scores and gpa remained virtually unchanged (partial r= .39). given that people spend so much of their time in an academic setting with their psychological theories, and so little of it with their biofunctional understanding; it is surprising how little the former, and how much the latter, did for the participants of this study. the former literally had no better than a placebo effect and the latter accounted for all the variability.   it is critical to recognize that the theories that are psychologically well understood may be rigorous but not necessarily relevant in the sense described by schön (1987). given the paradox of the missing biological function, relevance is a function of the full cycle of psychological-biofunctional understanding. this does not reduce the value of either psychological or biofunctional understanding as distinct ideologies. it means that the psychological and the biofunctional complement each other in their contributions to human understanding. a straightforward and useful way to think about psychological understanding is in terms ofits level ofnoisiness, so to speak, compared to the completely silent biofunctional understanding. clearly, noisiness of the psychological theories of the participants in the iran-nejad and chissom (1992) study did not always help them toward their academic achievement measured by gpa, unless these theories were immediate outcomes ofbiofunctional understanding (e.g., discovering new ideas in an insight). a significant part ofthe problem is that many students go by the noise of psychological understanding and have no way of actively embracing the challenge of the silent biofunctional understanding. unfortunately, because of the hitherto unsuspected nature of the biofunctional understanding, education has unwarily overlooked it and focused exclusively on psychological understanding.   by the same token many investigators assume that the apparent effortlessness of the symptoms associated with biofunctional understanding is the trademark of automatic mind habits. in reality, the a. iran-nejad – paradox ofthe missing8 seemingly effortless work of biofunctional understanding is neither effortless nor automatic at all. rather, it is very hard work ofthe missing function that only seems to be effortless because it happens behind the stage in the silence of biofunctional understanding, a silence that is suddenly broken into the loud click ofunderstanding of some strikingly new idea along with considerable excitement as well as the loudly exclaimed aha outburst (auble et al., 1979).   these considerations suggest that moral and general educators might begin by cleaning the house ofpsychological understanding. there is an awesome divide between the covert work of biofunctional understanding and the overt occurrence of psychological understanding that favors the latter unfairly. the division begins with people’s potentially-fallacious psychological theories misleading them into expecting cause-effect access to the full range of genuine human understanding; while, in actuality, the theories may be delivering nothing of the sort, as the results of the iran-nejad and chissom (1992) study might suggest. moral and general education cannot afford to disregard this possibility. this divide is awesome because, for unwary understanders, it could amount to a fruitless journey lasting a lifetime, not to mention holding back the field ofeducation as a whole.   the journey across the silent stretch of biofunctional understanding with no contribution from psychological understanding is not very different from the state of the art in contemporary education. what may be seen a lot even today in the post-revolution cognitive psychology is cognition as structural computation inspired by the hardware-software division of the computer metaphor. students, who end up believing in this type of biofunctionally-unrelated cognition, are highly prone to construct their theories on the basis of the spatial metaphors of the prevalent storage-retrieval architecture of the information processing theory (mayer, 1996; roediger, 1980). teachers who believe in these metaphors build their theories of teaching based on them; and researchers who believe in them, base their scientific theories on them (rosenshine, meister, & chapman, 1996; sweller, van merrienboer, & paas, 1998). it is not difficult to imagine an epidemic of memory theories that run counter to the mission of education for understanding (bloom, 1984). what is needed is more research along the lines reported ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 2(1) 9 by iran-nejad and chissom (1992) for sorting out the effectiveness of psychological theories in causing biofunctional understanding. the biofunctional-psychological divide in the pretheoreticaltheoretical guise the biofunctional-psychological divide described so far may have been among us for centuries in philosophy in the guise of a distinction often reported between people’s pretheoretical intuitions and their official theories (see, e.g., nahmias, morris, nadelhoffer, & turner, 2005). some psychological theories such as helping the needy are more biofunctionally transparent to people’s pretheoretical intuitions. for example, no great distance is apparent between people’s pretheoretical intuitions about empathy or compassion and the theory that helping the needy is an intrinsically moral characteristic (baumard et al., 2013). having observed someone to help a person in need, most people are able to appreciate that empathy and compassion may be behind the deed. the fact that appreciation, a near synonym of understanding, closes the gap between pretheoretical intuition and moral theory supports the assumption that moral intuition is a special kind of understanding.   by contrast, there is more ofa divide between people’s pretheoretical moral intuitions and their theories behind, for example, paying or evading taxes (greene & haidt, 2002). this is probably why paying taxes is taken for granted rather than appreciated; and tax evasion is punished rather than treated by cultivating appreciation for it. the pattern seems to be the opposite for empathy and compassion. people appreciate empathy more than taking it for granted; and promote empathy more than punishing for it. another way of looking at the awesome divide is that paying and evading taxes assume psychological deliberation; whereas empathy and compassion assume nondeliberate motivation. why is it harder for people to appreciate paying taxes and easier to punish tax evasion? why is it easier for people to appreciate empathy and harder to punish for evasion of empathy or compassion? as greene and haidt (2002) have suggested, these questions may be addressed using the differences between evolution-ripe biofunctional a. iran-nejad – paradox ofthe missing10 understanding and relatively evolution-green psychological understanding. similarly, to use schön’s (1987) language, psychological theories behind tax payment and evasion are more rigorous--e.g., in legal terms—than relevant to the person ofthe individual in the swampy trenches of real life. by contrast, the theories behind empathy and compassion are more relevant than rigorous. schön seems to recommend a more direct focus in education on people’s pretheoretical intuitions. unfortunately, nearly three decades after schön, people’s pretheoretical intuitions are not a more well-known target for nurturing in today’s academic settings.   a similarly awesome divide is often found between scientific theories and the pretheoretical intuitions of study participants. consider the trolley dilemmas, well-known as a challenge to moral researchers and philosophers (greene & haidt, 2002). imagine a scenario where a stampeding trolley is about to kill five people caught inescapably on its tracks. the only hope for them is to hit a re-route switch to send the trolley to a set of side tracks, killing only one unfortunate soul on its way. most participants ok hitting the switch to save the five and kill the one. this is a rigorous decision based on easy but perhaps less relevant math, by schön’s (1987) definition, involving the cognition-ascomputation formula (5-1=4). unfortunately, as schön (1987) has capably demonstrated, the stone-solid rigor of the math on the safe hill of computational research is irrelevant to the dangers lurking in the swampy trenches of the real world. in the language of this essay, the psychological theory of 5-1=4 is inert; it is too lean in biofunctionalunderstanding potential. to appreciate how ingenious schön’s observation has been, imagine a similar scenario where no side tracks exist; but a fat person happens to be standing by who, if toppled would die but also stop the trolley and save the five. the pretheoretical intuitions of most participants say no to this one. as schön would explain, cognition as computation theories can explain the results of the first scenario based on rigorous mathematics; but are left in a quandary with the swampy trench ofthe second scenario. ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 2(1) 11 the two sides of the coin of moral understanding as already suggested, a growing body of research indicates that there are two sides to the coin of moral understanding. first, from a theoretical standpoint, the obverse side ofthis coin is moral engagement and the converse is moral disengagement (bandura, 1990; zengaro, 2010). from the biofunctional standpoint, the obverse is a cohering (or constructive), healing, and humanizing process and the converse is an incohering (or unconstructive), hurting, and dehumanizing process. there is evidence that this cohering/incohering process interacts intimately with moral performance dispositions (zengaro, 2010). a cohering performance disposition encompasses moral engagement, positive affect, and less negative emotion. in a game of sports, for example, a winning combination for a team may engage this performance disposition in its players and their fans. an incohering performance disposition involves moral disengagement, negative affect, and less positive emotion. in a game ofsports, a losing combination for a team may engage this moral performance disposition in its players and their fans. in a structural equation modeling study, zengaro, employed a theoretical structural equation model that contained multiple variables as indicators ofcohering (e.g., interest, positive affect, moral cognition) and incohering (i.e., moral disengagement, negative affect, and general aggression) performance dispositions. zengaro found that a cohering performance disposition was not but an incohering performance disposition was a significant predictor of the acceptance of sports aggression in italian adolescents.   in the process of biofunctional understanding, cohering (or constructive) mutualistic morality may be spontaneously rewarding as well as humanizing in the direction of camaraderie and more moral engagement (baumard, andré, & sperber, 2013). by the same token, incohering (or unconstructive) biofunctional understanding might be spontaneously punishing as well as dehumanizing in the direction of shame and moral disengagement. in a school setting, obvious cohering examples are empathy, altruism, passion and compassion. incohering examples are selfishness, greediness, aggression and bullying. whereas the choices for moral education in schooling should be clear, there is growing evidence that the academe actually works in favor of the a. iran-nejad – paradox ofthe missing12 dehumanizing suppression ofhumanizing emotions such as passion and compassion (neumann, 2006), rather than going for the process of humanizing education. the awesome gap that currently exists between people’s pretheoretical biofunctional understanding and the formal or official educational theories that drive the academe business may be in part responsible. conclusion the paradox of the missing biological function and the resulting divide between psychological theories and the biofunctional nature ofpeople’s understanding may be impacting the moral and general wellbeing of the science and practice of education. a tough immediate challenge is that we live more than ever in an era of confusion surrounding human and nonhuman intelligence. to survive this state of confusion, educational science must be more systematic and unambiguous about the fact that it is in the business of educating people and their biofunctional understanding. as blasi’s (1980) review of the literature pointed out decades ago, it is not surprising that “the present state of research and theory about moral functioning is the mixture ofopposite terminologies and metaphors” (p. 4), adding in a footnote that (a) there is “ambiguity in the terms cognition and cognitive, which has become more apparent with their increased popularity” and (b) when “these labels are applied to theories as diverse as piaget's and w. mischel's (1973), the result is utter confusion” (p. 3).   there are definite signs that not everything is well with the way educational science is serving the citizens. moral disengagement (bandura, 2002), dehumanization (haque & waytz, 2012; pekarsky, 1982), and inhumane conduct (bandura, 1990) are widespread. other educational woes include the pathologies of learning (shulman, 1999), the problem oftransfer (bransford & schwartz, 1999), and the puzzle of inert knowledge (bereiter & scardamalia, 1985). a hitherto unsuspected paradox in the way biofunctional understanding runs its natural course may be a significant contributor to these problems and the solutions.   the paradox introduces an awesome divide between the psychological theories people use in diverse settings and their ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 2(1) 13 biofunctional understanding (or pretheoretical intuitions). the problem is exacerbated by the nonhuman metaphors, spatial or technical, that make up the substance of today’s psychological theories. therefore, i have taken the step, long overdue, to turn to biofunctional metaphors for clarifying the nature of human understanding. a straightforward implication based on the metaphoric evidence from how other bodily systems function is that understanding is the special function of the nervous system. this assumption has led to the discovery ofthe paradox of the missing biological function and to the exploration of how people’s biofunctional understanding is the mirror for reflecting their pretheoretical intuitions. educational science and practice, then, can rely on these pretheoretical intuitions as a compass for using psychological theories in the service ofcausing further biofunctional understanding. references anderson, j. 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(2010). biofunctional embodiment ofmoral development: the impact ofaffect, moral cognition, maturation and experience playing sports on acceptance ofaggression in sports by italian adolescents (doctoral disstertation), university ofalabama, tuscaloosa, al. a. iran-nejad – paradox ofthe missing18 https://files.nyu.edu/jpd247/public/2251/readings/sweller_cog_arch.pdf http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2005-11237-001 http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1981-20493-001 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all http://rer.sagepub.com/content/66/2/181 instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com suzanne gatt1 & teresa sordé2 1 ) university of malta 2) autonomous university of barcelona date of publication: june 24th, 201 2 t gatt, s. & sordé, t. (201 2). ict alone is not enough, the whole village is needed. a community-based and dialogic approach to technology in schools. international journal of educational psychology, 1 (2), 1 53-1 74. doi: 1 0.4471 /ijep.201 2.09 http://dx.doi.org/1 0.4471 /ijep.201 2.09 http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2012.09 ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology vol. 1 no. 2 june 2012 pp.153-174 ictalone is not enough, the whole village is needed. acommunity-based and dialogic approach to technology in schools suzanne gatt university ofmalta abstract the socio-cultural context shapes learning and development. thus, schools cannot ignore neither the transformations shaping their surrounding societies, but be an active part of them, nor what those transformations mean for school learning. in this regard, technology has changed the way we think and learn, and learning has been shown to be deeply linked to the community of which we are part. however, benefits of involving the community in the ict use in schools are barely explored in the literature; this article is aimed to shed some light on that aspect. we draw from a successful case, the ariño school, and based on the dialogic learning theoretical framework, different strategies that promote a dialogic use of ict are presented: community involvement in self-sufficient classrooms, community involvement outside the school settings, and community digital literacy. this analysis leads to the proposal of a community-based and dialogic approach to technology in schools. keywords: ict, dialogic learning, educational success, rural schools, community involvement 2012 hipatia press issn 2014-3591 doi: 10.4471/ijep.2012.09 teresa sordé autonomous university ofbarcelona w 154 students attending the rural school ariño, compared her two children school to hers when she was a student there. the blackboard and the teacher standing in front ofthe well-seated and silence students working on their own or listening patiently to the teacher’s lesson have been substituted by pc tablets, dialogues and circles ofstudents, teachers and volunteers. this is how the ariño learning community—two rural partner schools— look like today. pilar reflected on the deep transformations the schools have undergone and in which ways neighbours have integrated information and communication technology (ict) in their everyday lives. the ariño village has been included in the information society, not only because ict has been made accessible but because they are used from a dialogic perspective. in this article, authors argue that in order to make ict relevant for social inclusion, there is a need to develop a dialogic use of ict that is means using ict following the dialogic learning principles (racionero & valls, 2007). the case ofariño shows how, the strong commitment of this community has led the village and the educational centre to be internationally recognized as “the school of the future.” (microsoft, 2007). the transition from an industrial to an information society has meant a shift from a focus on material resources to intellectual ones. not only has it changed the way people work and manage their finances, but also their daily lives: in how they access knowledge; communicate; as well as socialise. knowledge is a determining factor in the constitution and development of the information society, and consequently also in terms of people’s inclusion into it (castells et al. 1999). it is no longer true that “those who have the information have the power” since more and more information is easily accessible. the real challenge has changed from one of access to knowledge to that of selecting and processing knowledge to identify relevant information depending on the situation in hand (flecha et al, 1999, p. 65). this transition has not left education aside. learning should include a critical approach to the use of technology, facilitating the acquisition of skills to select and process the information. therefore, the teacher’s role has changed from one of a knowledge provider to that of a facilitator e were very surprised, since the classroom was very different to the ones we used to have. pilar, alumni and a mother of two suzanne gatt& teresa sordé ictalone is not enough 155ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(2) which helps students learn how to process and select relevant information from all that is available. the introduction of ict in classrooms becomes a much more complex issue than a mere technical one. it requires a transformation of the teaching and learning context. this transformation can be achieved from a dialogic approach involving on it all the social agents, including: the family; the community; and the peers (aubert, garcía & racionero, 2009). in this article, the case of ariño illustrates how the dialogic use of ict involving strong community participation benefits not only the students but the whole village. in doing so, the argumentation is structured into five parts. first, there is a literature review on the benefits of using ict counting with community involvement. second, the theoretical underpinnings of the dialogic use ofict are presented. it is followed by an explanation ofthe methodology used, and a description of the selected case. some of the findings related to the dialogic use of ict are reported here as well as all the transformations which have been generated beyond the school walls. the article ends with some final reflections emerged from the findings. ict and community involvement in the schools ict has deeply shaped the most recent developments of teaching and learning. educational success and social inclusion depend every time more on the skills to manoeuvre the existing information (gorz, 1983; castells et al, 1999; mcfarlane & sakellariou, 2002). according to buckingham (2007), the new digital divide is not only defined by the ict quality access, in terms of the equipment and the information resources, but more on the kind of support from other adults, if any, children receive in their ict use. children belonging to vulnerable groups or from lses backgrounds tend to have more difficulties in having this type of access (buckingham, 2007, p. 84). however, as argued here, by transforming the environment through community involvement in the dialogic use of ict, this new digital divide can be diminish and even reversed. these new tools and skills cannot be introduced at the school lonely ignoring what is going on in the outside society. there is a growing need to coordinate what happens in the school with what happens at home, the street and the new virtual social spaces (e.g. instant message systems, social networks and so on) (aubert et al, 2009). research exploring the potential of community involvement in the use of ict at the school is found to be an emerging field. while very limited attention has been paid in the community involvement in the ict educational literature, a similar pattern is found in the case ofschool and community participation in the case ofict access. some ofthe relevant work in the area and more specifically the identified benefits are reviewed in what follows. first, there is a body of research that has been exploring the crucial role that community involvement play in developing a critical use of ict. for more than a decade, digital competence has been considered as one of the basic key competences for lifelong learning in the european qualifications framework (european commission, 2005). key competences were defined as a combination ofknowledge, skills and attitudes which every individual needs for personal fulfilment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment. however, there is a need for a step beyond ofdigital competence: a critical use of ict. this skill should not only be learned for the academic purpose, but to be transferrable to the variety of contexts in which children are using ict today. in doing so, the traditional teaching and learning model based on the exclusive relationship between the teacher and the students is not enough. the research conducted from the critical media literacy shows how teachers and adults in general should support the critical use of the media (macedo & steinberg, 2007). the interaction with peers or adults instead of an isolated use contributes to elaborate more critical analysis of the messages. for this to happen, it is necessary to create the conditions that allow for these spaces to exist during school hours, after school programs, weekends, at home and so on. although children are very often much more grasped in the ict use, the contents are mainly produced within the existing gender, cultural, sexual, consumption, value and other systems. peers and adults can bring into dialogue their experience and knowledge to promote a more shared critical read of the world. 156 suzanne gatt& teresa sordé ictalone is not enough research has also identified new emerging risks like bullying and sexual abuse that should be seriously considered (livingston, 2003; layard & dunn, 2009). these risks need to be taken into account within the critical digital competences and as something to prevent by all the members of the educational community. the family involvement will not be enough and the entire community in its own diversity is necessary in the prevention of these types of misconducts. at the international youth advisory congress (2008), participants asked teachers, family members and other adults to get involve and to inform everybody about the risks involved. oliver, flecha and soler (2009) demonstrated how not only a major coordination among homes, communities and schools on the prevention ofgender violence is needed but also the involvement of the other women who without an academic degree have much to contribute to this issue. this coordination is developed through the creation of mixed committees composed by teachers, family members and students. these committees are in charge ofdefining preventive measures according to what has been decided by the entire learning community. a second benefit identified in the revision ofthe scientific literature on ict and community involvement is their positive association with the students’ academic achievement. the becta report (2006) conceptualized e-maturity where schools with greater levels of ict manage to achieve a faster increase in academic results than those with a low level. e-maturity was defined as the ability to make strategic and effective use of technology in order to improve educational results. the academic and non-academic benefits obtained from the inclusion ofict have been reported in the case of at risk groups, for example, cultural minorities and people with disabilities benefit from the use of ict for learning (edmunds, 2008; balanskat et al. 2006; meiring & norman, 2005). a third benefit is the transformations that take place beyond the school walls. different types of technological developments can support in more or less measure parental involvement with schools and their children’s learning (lewin & luckin, 2010; angus, snyder, & sutherland-smith, 2004; stevenson, 2008). schools cannot afford to be far removed from this reality if they do not want to be irrelevant. the schools’ role in fighting the digital divide 157ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(2) becomes especially important in those cases where access to ict is not possible at home but depends on the opportunities provided by the school. schools are not only places in which children are educated for future employment, but they are also bridges providing access to ict for the families in the community. the more families use ict, the more they are able to respond to the digital collaborative learning activities which their children are involved in (anastasiades, vitalaki & gertzakis, 2008). for that reason the involvement of families and communities becomes important, in the overcoming of the generational divide. thus, the dialogue held on the use of the media and the related material is extended to the daily interaction ofall ofthe members. the three benefits identified in the literature—a more critical approach to media literacy, positive influence in academic performance and benefits for the community—are all closely connected to the creation of dialogic spaces to use ict. in the next section, the seven principles of the dialogic learning are presented, serving as a frame for the dialogic use ofict. 158 puigvert and flecha (2004) defined the dialogic use of ict drawing from the seven principles of the dialogic learning (aubert et al., 2009). these principles were created taking the contributions of freire, habermas, vygotsky, chomsky, scribner, and mead and many others into account. egalitarian dialogue is the first one. it means that agreements are reached through the force ofarguments and not through existing power relations (habermas, 1981) (e.g. a teacher versus an illiterate mother). the use of ict can lead to a more democratic and horizontal participation which is open to all (pulido, 2007). the dialogic use of ict involves the promotion of these types of spaces, for instance, by inviting community members to participate in discussions, consultations or blogs related to the school or the village. egalitarian dialogue means to promote all types of dialogic interactions, with everyone within the community, and not only with teachers, which has an impact on children’s learning. in this context, ict can promote a collaborative learning process in which the diversity of interaction stimulates the the dialogic use of ict suzanne gatt& teresa sordé ictalone is not enough construction ofknowledge. the second principle refers to the equality of differences that means that everyone, besides his or her own difference, have equal access to social opportunities. in terms of ict, this means that different strategies can be developed in respect to both diversity and equality. ict allows traditional models that tend to homogenise reality or participation to make way for more plural and democratic ones. for instance, there is not only one way to learn ict, different people learn using very diverse strategies. this leads us to the third principle, which is cultural intelligence. this is understood here to be the intelligence provided by each person through their own living experience. it includes academic and practical intelligence as well as communication skills (language and action). the more diversity in terms of types of intelligence which is contributed to the community, the richer education on the critical use of ict becomes. for example, if a discussion is being held in relation to the debate on freedom of expression and the regulation of online racist material, the debate will be richer if other people from the community also take part in it. if an immigrant father who volunteers in an antiracist association, a student cousin writing her master thesis on racism participate in the debate, as well as a grandmother who has experienced the nazi germany era, then different types of intelligence provide more information, criteria, and arguments which enrich the critical reflection process of all. thus students not only gain academic knowledge from the cousin, but also from the grandmother’s and the father life experiences. in that case, a greater instrumental dimension in learning, which is the third principle ofdialogic learning is achieved. through dialogue, the equality of difference, and value being placed on the intelligence and knowledge of each person, relationships involving greater solidarity are established between the people participating in that community. this contributes to one of the other principles, which is that of solidarity (freire, 1997). the democratising force of ict has led to many examples of how people can organise themselves into movements involving solidarity, and how they used it as a tool to coordinate each other and carry out joint actions. moving into the field ofthe local educational community, the promotion ofsolidarity two other principles which are the creation of meaning, based on the 159ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(2) 160 need to provide a meaning to all the actions we conduct (weber, 1968) and transformation instead ofadaptation (freire, 1997). the last but not least principle is transformation that occurs as soon as traditional interaction based on power begins to change progressively towards more egalitarian interaction. for example, the fact that assemblies are set up (in which teachers, families and also students participate) leads to end with the decision making monopoly that teachers had. all the transformations which are generated through the interaction established in the school and the use of ict, have a direct impact on interaction outside school. more opportunities for the future are created, since the community holds more debates on the current needs and challenges, while at the same time deciding how to respond to them together. in this debate the use of itc is seen as a crosscutting tool, although not as an end in itself. the aim is to overcome the inequalities generated by the digital divide, to accelerate children’s academic progress, and to improve the community overall opportunities. the dialogic use ofict helps to empower the whole community from a critical perspective. as a consequence of this learning children find that adults acquire a greater critical capacity for the use ofict and therefore enrich the interaction they share, while at the same time promoting their autonomy in relation to ict use. in turn this interaction between teachers, family members, and children, increases the well-being of the whole community, and the traditional problems of conflict or distance between the school and the family are overcome. the children also feel that they are in a more positive environment, and this promotes greater self-esteem for all the people involved. methodology the ariño case study has been conducted within the european sixth framework programe project includ-ed strategies for inclusion and social cohesion in europe from education” (2006-2011). the main aim of the includ-ed project is to analyze educational strategies that contribute to overcoming inequalities and promoting social cohesion, and educational strategies that generate social exclusion. with 15 partners from 14 countries in europe, the includ-ed project contains suzanne gatt& teresa sordé ictalone is not enough six projects which focus on researching the question of social exclusion and education from different perspectives, including the role of social structures, policies, social agents and transformative educational projects. the includ-ed research and the casestudy presented here are framed under the contributions of the critical communicative methodology (ccm) (gómez, latorre, sánchez & flecha, 2006). ccm starts from the premise that the creation of new knowledge arose from the egalitarian dialogue among researchers and the researched. researchers are responsible to bring in the scientific community advancements, not to hide it, but to share it and to create more and better intersubjective knowledge. the researched perspective is present throughout the entire research process. the dialogic creation of knowledge guarantees the excellence and quality of the findings as well as their relevance for the study end-users. reality is not only described or explained, but comprehended in order to inform its own transformation. the ariño case was selected because they were implementing some of the successful actions already identified by the includ-ed consortium (2009). ifeducation is aimed at facilitating the acquisition of those skills required by the information society, it is necessary to ensure that everyone participates through the dialogic use of ict. the selected case is an example of how this process can be achieved. under the umbrella of the includ-ed research project, this case has served to the purpose of filling the existing gap within the scientific literature a dialogic use ofict through community participation. the uniqueness of this school makes it to be a better scenario to explore in which ways the community involvement in the use of ict contribute not only to improve students’ academic performance but also to deeply transform rural village isolation. since the transformation of the school into a learning community, researchers have been following the development ofthis school, actively participating in the different processes involved. within this framework, the present case study draws from data collected through three different strategies. first ofall, information about the school and the village were collected throughout the life ofthe project, as an informal monitoring of the includ-ed successful actions implementation. second, open161ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(2) ended in-depth interviews with key players were conducted: the school head-teacher, family members volunteering at the school, students and alumni. a focus group with eight mothers was also organized. third, researchers have visited the school several times, conducting informal interviews with teachers, students, family members, and neighbours. during these visits, communicative observations were also conducted within and outside the classroom providing rich data on what goes on inside. the collected data was analyzed through the lens ofthe dialogic learning theoretical framework, as it can be seen in the following sections. 162 the case of the ariño learning community ariño is a small village located in a mining area in teruel, in the autonomous community of aragón (spain). the scarce population living there traditionally experienced isolation problems both physically (transport and road communication systems) as well as virtually, due to limited access to information and communication technology. thus, the crisis of the industry and the coal extraction left this area with the need to reorient the main economic activities to more appropriate for the existing times. in 2003, the transformation promoted by the school began when the educational community entered a reflective process on the social and economic opportunities in their area. with the objective that no child be excluded from the information society, the decision to transform the school into a learning community was oriented to create new opportunities for everybody. learning communities project consists in implementing those strategies that are based on research evidences about what works in overcoming situations of social and educational exclusion (díezpalomar & flecha, 2010). the project is based on dialogic learning theoretical framework including all the community. the more than a hundred schools in spain and latin america that participate in the project have showed to achieve both academic successes for all and better living together, transforming the school and its surrounding context. through the implementation of the successful actions, the ariño school became a state and international model in the ict use. suzanne gatt& teresa sordé ictalone is not enough the transformation process entails the whole community dreaming of the school they wish to have. once the dreams are identified and prioritized, the management of the school is organised so that these dreams can be achieved. mixed committees containing teachers, family members and other community representatives are created in order to coordinate their actions and to undertake the priority actions that have been set according to the community dream. in the ariño school, the main dream that came up was to end with the double isolation and to enter the technological era as a response to the industrial crisis. the entire community got involved not only in the process of obtaining the material resources but also in their implementation. in what follows three strategies of how to promote a dialogic use of ict are analyzed: community involvement within self-sufficient schools, community involvement beyond the school setting, and community digital literacy. 163ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(2) community involvement within self-sufficient classrooms since 2003, when its transformation into a learning community began, the school managed to obtain resources to develop what are known as self-sufficient classrooms. these are classrooms in which both students and teachers have access to all the information and resources they need online, with no need for any other didactic material. this is possible because in each classroom there is a computer, a video camera and a video projector which serves to screen the information onto a whiteboard. also, each student has a tablet pc which is connected to the central computer and to internet. the tablet pc allows keyboards and mice to be used instead ofpencils, and it works for students as real notebooks and textbooks with increased possibilities as compared to the traditional ones. it was the community who mobilized in order to acquire all these new equipments for the school. the profound transformation ofthe traditional classroom generates the possibility for more and better potential learning opportunities. in the present study, it is observed that what makes possible to take advantage of these opportunities is the ways in which these technological tools have been used. the egalitarian dialogue created in the interactions observed in the self sufficient classrooms have changed the teachers’ 164 roles, students and members of the community as well as the teaching and learning strategies used. the students take an active role in the classroom, volunteers promote this process and the teachers overview the accomplishment ofthe learning goals. the head-teacher explained in the following way these transformations: the same network, the same way of working, is something, it is the way we all learn. before there was no access to the information, to so much information so rapidly within the classroom, or the workplace, and when not working on the internet the teacher was the one who had the knowledge and who transferred this knowledge to the students. now it is the students who are capable of discovering and creating all of that knowledge in a relationship within a network which is produced with his or her classmates and with his or her friends in general. the dialogic use of ict involve egalitarian interactions take place at these selfsufficient classrooms. throughout our fieldwork, three different instances were collected: interactive groups, the school blogs and the school tv channel. in all these three spaces, interactions between teachers, volunteers and students take place moving beyond the traditional scheme of teacher-student or peer to peer interaction. volunteers can be family members or neighbours who are concerned about the children’s learning with no need to have any kind ofacademic credential. the benefits of having more adults in the classroom have been already pointed out in the literature, for instance, in the case of interactive groups (ig). ig involves the organisation of classrooms in small heterogeneous groups of students. each small group carries out different short activities, each coordinated by one adult who is in charge ofpromoting interactions among the students. parents, mothers and other family and community members facilitate the students’ small groups, while children use their tablet pc’s in order to carry out the activities. maria and lucia, two mothers who are not very familiar with ict, volunteer once per week in the natural science class at fourth grade. in one of the observations conducted, the students had several questions regarding the iberian fauna, so they had to look for the responses in internet. the mothers neither knew about iberian suzanne gatt& teresa sordé ictalone is not enough fauna nor more than the students to navigate the net. however, they were promoting students solidarity in finding out the information and sharing the responses and the strategies followed. this type of classroom organisation and the interactions that take place promotes learning being accelerated and also leads to opportunities for children to develop different kinds of interactions with the adults other than the teacher and other classmates. the inclusion of all members of the community, like maria and lucia, makes to take into account their cultural intelligence and enriching the learning experience. besides learning, motivation also increases when working in these groups, as students enjoy more working in interactive groups, as one of the mothers from the school explains in the following quote: 165ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(2) when you go into the classroom and do the [interactive] groups and they like that. (…) because for them it is also something different, and on top ofthat they also learn more things. maria and lucia contributions are equally valued to the one provided by lourdes, an electronic engineering who also volunteers in the maintenance of ict. the three of them are equally welcome, thus, the diverse experiences they offer contribute to enrich the learning opportunities ofall. the learning that occurs there is not only connected to the value system but also to the instrumental dimension. something that was recognized is that the school students end up acquiring better verbal expression competences. right from the pre-primary stage the boys and girls work on these competences through the participation in these activities in collaboration with the volunteers. one of the mothers described the difference between the activities carried out prior to the inclusion of ict into the classroom, and how learning is currently acquired: of course for example, if the pre-primary methodology adhered to what the teacher sets out, the child would still be at number 7, 8. three weeks at number seven. the children become tired of only painting number seven. they have more ability than that. therefore in this way more oftheir potential comes out… different study participants recognized that the dialogic use of ict contributed to an acceleration of learning in the school, and the children get better prepared for the transition from primary to secondary school. an alumnus explained her experience going through this process herself: 166 i felt i had some advantage in comparison to my classmates, as we know to do more things from animated power point presentations to producing and editing a video. we are very used and familiar to use the computer for everything. we base our statements on the grades, on the results they obtain later at high school, right? for example, the first school year which started with the tablet pcs in 4th year of primary in 2003 have now just finished their first baccalaureate year. the school coordinators from the high school always said to us that from that school year onwards the skills that our students had in comparison to the other students in the school were very notable. this is because they are children who know how to search for information, they know how to deal with it, they knew how to do those powerpoint’s, they know how to present them, things that, well, others did not have these skills. in some way this has ensured that they are in a situation which has allowed them to achieve greater success at school. in other words, it translated into their grades. the school head-teacher also acknowledged this fact: when teachers, parents, neighbors and students realize that learning is improving a meaning making moment emerges. the fact that the instrumental dimension of learning is reinforced motivates volunteers, teachers and also students to be more convinced about what they are doing, in the way they are doing it. two other examples of activities which are carried out in the selfsufficient classrooms with volunteers are the ariniños blog, and their school television channel. through these activities, it is the students themselves who, along with adults from the community, provide the contents for them. teachers, volunteers and students are are engaged in producing joined forecasts, interviews, reports, and other activities suzanne gatt& teresa sordé ictalone is not enough for the television and radio programmes. the contents are linked to the subjects they are studying at the school. before producing post or video a dialogue is held on what will be done, on the messages which will be created and how they will be presented. greater digital competence, more creative and critical use of ict, and instrumental learning are all achieved. everybody’s contribution is welcome from the grandmother who has never lived away from the mines to the young professional who is new in the village. this involvement makes the blog and the tv channel to be followed not only by the students and the families but for everybody from their homes. according to the participants interviewed, most part of them recognized a meaning making process through this collaboration. on the one hand, the students see how teachers, relatives and other neighbors are committed to their learning and collaborate together in doing so. family and community members feel that their participation is highly appreciated. the school becomes the village nerve center at the educational and the cultural creation levels. 167ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(2) community involvement beyond the school setting when students see how community members and families volunteer at the school, they are not learning about the theory of solidarity, but experiencing it in the practice. thus, solidarian community involvement is not confined within the school space and hours. it is precisely the flexibility and diversification of participation opportunities what has generated enthusiasm and more people involved. different types of volunteers in terms of tasks, times, and roles makes possible for a diverse range of people to participate, and for the students to benefit from this amount and diversified interactions, putting into practice the equality ofdifferences principle. the respect for different circumstances makes possible for any person to be able to contribute with her or his time to the shared school project. online volunteering is one of the ways to get involved at the school. there are family members without the time to be at the school, but they are able to collaborate from their homes. online volunteers can be in charge of other tasks related to the school blog, organizing the end of the year trip, looking for new resources or strategies to promote the 168 school project. a teacher explains an example of how this works in practice: there was a group of mothers, who we called the “technological mothers.” they offered to resolve any resource related problems that any of the new teachers had. in other words, if you needed any resources for your language class, maths class, social studies class, or knowledge of science. you would ask them about it and they would find it for you and if they didn’t find it then they would make it for well, we have a goblin called “adivipupi” who guesses and knows everything and the pre-primary children are very fond ofhim because he is in contact with them via a weekly email. this goblin suggests things to them and they, well, look for the information that is suggested to them, they write to him and reply to him, and he, well, especially if it is correct, well he is very happy (…) in fact it is a mother who dedicates 10 minutes a week on her computer…to the school from her office and she is constantly in contact with the tutor, the class teacher…this volunteer does not necessarily have to be physically present in the school. this is a form of participation, in which both the mother and the teacher liaise in order to carry out a learning activity in the classroom, without it being necessary for the mother to be there. at the beginning, “class representative” were appointed. they were volunteer family members in charge of supporting the dialogic use of ict by talking with families, explaining the learning, and also recruiting other people to get involved in the project. in a similar way, later on the technological mothers group was created. these were a group of stay home mothers who without any specific degree in ict provided support to the teachers. for instance, a teacher told us that if they were learning about pre-history and need to find electronic resources showing the ages evolution, they would ask this group to prepare some supporting materials (e.g. power point presentations, interesting links, videos) on the topic. the technological mothers felt that they were not only getting acquainted with ict but they were exposed to continuous learning and supporting their children academic progress: suzanne gatt& teresa sordé ictalone is not enough 169ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(2) all the different aspects of the dialogic use of ict identified until now connect with the last principle that is transformation. the transformations found in the learning, knowledge, values, interactions and so on are also transposed to the whole village. digital literacy is not confined within the teacher and the students but it is offered to the whole community. in less than ten years time, all the neighbours’ homes have moved from being isolated to be connected to the net. this figure would not have been that different to other similar villages, but what is found to be distinctive is the way this ict is used. an important part of it is due to the different strategies that have been identified as part of the community digital literacy both at the school and outside ofit. at the school, the family education program is aimed at facilitating the dialogic use of ict in the school and the community. families participate in ict courses for themselves. but this learning allows them to understand the digital language of their children, be part of it and appreciate the transformation the school. the head-teacher mentioned one of the fathers from the school, who began by taking part in a digital literacy course in the school, and who, as a result of this, is now in charge of the children’s digital video activities which they upload onto a blog. this case is not an isolated one. there are several family members who, having participated in these courses, have then continued their own education through direct participation in their children’s learning or in the school management. these are important transformations, if compared to their relationship with the school ten years ago. the dialogic use of ict promoted in ariño has led to the acquisition ofcritical digital competency that is transposed in every single domain. what is learned at the school by students and family members is also found at the homes’ dining rooms. thus not only the instrumental learning but also the dialogic use of ict. one of the interviewed mothers explained in which ways her son was bringing home what he learned at the school. the fact that she was attending the community powerpoint presentation containing what the teacher had asked for or whatever. community digital literacy 170 digital literacy program facilitated her comprehension and interaction with him. she recognized in which ways the families are more able to provide a response to the challenges which arise, as well as help their children in this process. she said: for them is much easier, they do not have any problem in using it, navigate online, they use as a tool part of their learning, much better than us. they learn really fast… i do not think they have ever asked me how to do something. it is in the other way round. i asked them about different things or how to look for something, and he finds it very quick. the other day my six year old nephew taught me how to screen an online video. when i was alone, it was stopping all the time, until he came and told me where to press in order to see the entire video. i had no idea about how to do it. the digital literacy has gone beyond the schools and home walls by extending it throughout the village. technologies and the dialogical processes have opened up more spaces for the inclusion of the whole community, not just to the children. a clear example that deeply transformed the entire community was the extension ofan open wireless coverage in the village, making it possible for students to work from home. this new resources increased students’ opportunities to communicate and interact with their peers and other adults. today, the families dream of their children being able to work and learn in the same way in secondary school. the transformation has not been confined to the village boundaries. the government ofaragón decided to extend the implementation of the ariño experience to all the primary schools in the autonomous community in spain. thus, the case has also gone international. in 2008, four children from the ariño school attended the government leaders forum—europe (glf) in berlin, a dynamic discussion platform for government, business and education leaders from across europe. during this forum the leaders discussed the role that ict plays in achieving success in education and the economy. the case of the ariño was presented at this forum as the school of the future , and thus became a role model at a global level. that same day, the testimony of the children from the ariño school were included into bill gates’ speech. vicente, one of the suzanne gatt& teresa sordé ictalone is not enough three children ofariño participating in the bill gates forum, showed him how to use the tablet pc. the children ofariño showed the world how they mastered and bill gates promised to send an email to the school. and he did. the ariño analysis serves to the purpose of adding new knowledge to the existing one on community involvement in ict. it shows in which ways the implementation of the dialogic use of ict involving the seven principles--egalitarian dialogue, equality of differences, solidarity, instrumental learning, cultural intelligence, the creation ofmeaning and transformation—works in a real case scenario. particularly, the ariño experience does not only teach us how the dialogic use of ict can be promoted at a school, a rural village and in the virtual space but also that their implementation has benefits for the students and their families and community. the transformations observed move beyond the classroom reaching homes, streets, regions and even international audiences. the dialogic use of ict has contributed to make the dream of making the information society available for everyone a reality. through solidarity and dialogue, families’ lives in the ariño have been deeply transformed. they have not only seen how their contributions were welcome at the school but also many of them have become active learners there. their incorporation into lifelong education processes have led to improve their critical use oftechnology and capacity to support their children learning. in short, the ariño school has gone from being a local project, specifically in the province of teruel, to a more global proposal to overcome inequalities in the field of ict and to promote successful actions in the improvement in academic performance. as the headteacher said: “we cannot go backwards; it is unthinkable to retreat in this process which has now been undertaken.” they know that there is only the way forward, and that the school and ict cannot do it be themselves, the entire village is needed. 171ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(2) final remarks 172 anastasiades, p.s., vitalaki, e., & gertzakis, n. 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(1968). economy andsociety; an outline ofinterpretive sociology. new york: bedminster press. 174 suzanne gatt is a senior lecturer in the department ofprimary education at the faculty ofeducation, university ofmalta, malta. teresa sordé is ramón y cajal researcher for the gedime (study group on immigration and ethnic minorities) in the autonomous university ofbarcelona, spain, and professor of sociology at the same university. contact address: direct correspondence to teresa sordé at autonomous university ofbarcelona, departament de sociologia, edifici b, 08193 bellaterra, spain. e-mail: teresa.sorde@uab.cat suzanne gatt& teresa sordé ictalone is not enough international journal educational psychology volume 00, issue 0, august, 14th, 2023, pages 1-14 annika ohle-peters, nele mcelvany & mark ullrich 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11558 students reading text-picture-material: the role of teacher competence and instructional quality annika ohle-peters1, nele mcelvany1, & mark ullrich2 1) tu dortmund university, center for research on education and school development (ifs) 2) goethe university frankfurt abstract learning material often consists of texts and instructional pictures, meaning the reader must extract and integrate information from two sources. research shows that students’ skills in integrating texts and pictures already vary in early secondary school. teachers’ professional competence and quality of instruction are important influences on the development of student’s skills. therefore, this study examines teachers’ professional competence in teaching with texts, instructional pictures, and instructional quality as predictors for developing students’ text-picture-integration skills. data from 136 fourth-grade teachers were collected in germany. a subsample of 34 teachers and 646 fourth graders participated in a video study investigating instructional quality. in a longitudinal study, we assessed teachers’ competence in teaching with texts and instructional pictures via questionnaires and tested students’ text-picture-integration-skills. in between, three lessons involving texts and instructional pictures were videotaped and analysed. multilevel regression models showed a small positive direct effect of teachers’ knowledge about student abilities on students’ text-pictureintegration-skills. furthermore, aspects of teachers’ competence were positively related to instructional quality, whereas “clarity and structure” positively predicted students’ text-picture-integration-skills. the presented paper contributes to research on text-picture-integration in primary school and how teachers and instruction can facilitate it. key words text-picture-integration, instructional quality, teacher competence, longitudinal multilevel analysis, video study to cite this article: ohle-peters, a., mcelvany, n., & ullrich, m. (2023). students reading textpicture-material: the role of teacher competence and instructional quality. international journal of educational psychology, august, 14th, 2023, 1-14. http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11558 corresponding author(s): annika ohle-peters orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5257-7942 nele mcelvany orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8649-5523 mark ullrich orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4484-1023 contact address: annika.ohle-peters@tu-dortmund.de http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11558 http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11558 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5257-7942 https://orcid.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4484-1023 mailto:annika.ohle-peters@tu-dortmund.de international journal educational psychology volumen 00, número 0, agosto, 14, 2023, páginas 1-14 annika ohle-peters, nele mcelvany & mark ullrich 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11558 la lectura de texto-imagen en estudiantes: el papel de la competencia del maestro y la calidad de la instrucción annika ohle-peters1, nele mcelvany1, & mark ullrich2 1) tu dortmund university, center for research on education and school development (ifs) 2) goethe university frankfurt resumen el material de aprendizaje consiste frecuentemente en textos e imágenes instructivas, lo que significa que el lector debe extraer e integrar información de dos fuentes. la investigación muestra que las habilidades de los estudiantes para integrar textos e imágenes ya varían en la escuela secundaria temprana. por su parte, la competencia profesional de los maestros y la calidad de la instrucción son influencias importantes en el desarrollo de las habilidades de integración de texto e imagen de los estudiantes. por lo tanto, este estudio examina la competencia profesional de los maestros en la enseñanza con textos, imágenes instructivas y la calidad de la instrucción como predictores para el desarrollo de las habilidades de integración de texto e imagen de los estudiantes. se recopilaron datos de 136 profesores de cuarto grado de primaria en alemania. una submuestra de 34 maestros y 646 alumnos de cuarto grado participaron en un estudio de video que investigó la calidad de la instrucción. el presente estudio longitudinal, evaluó la competencia de los maestros en la enseñanza con textos e imágenes instructivas a través de cuestionarios y se probó las habilidades de integración de texto e imagen de los estudiantes. específicamente, se grabaron y analizaron tres lecciones que involucraban textos e imágenes instructivas. los modelos de regresión multinivel mostraron un pequeño efecto positivo directo del conocimiento de los maestros sobre las habilidades de los estudiantes en las habilidades de integración de texto e imagen de los alumnos. además, algunos aspectos de la competencia de los maestros se relacionaron positivamente con la calidad de la instrucción, mientras que claridad y estructura predijeron positivamente las habilidades de integración de texto e imagen de los estudiantes. el presente artículo contribuye a la investigación sobre la integración de texto e imagen en la escuela primaria y cómo los maestros y la instrucción pueden facilitarla. palabras clave texto-imagen-integración, calidad instruccional, competencia docente, análisis longitudinal multinivel, estudio de vídeo cómo citar este artículo: ohle-peters, a., mcelvany, n., & ullrich, m. (2023). la lectura de textoimagen en estudiantes: el papel de la competencia del maestro y la calidad de la instrucción. international journal of educational psychology, agosto, 14, 2023, 1-14. http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ ijep.11558 correspondencia autores(s): annika ohle-peters orcid: https:// orcid.org/0000-0001-5257-7942 nele mcelvany orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8649-5523 mark ullrich orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4484-1023 dirección de contacto: annika.ohle-peters@tu-dortmund.de http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11558 http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/rise.xxxxx ijep – international journal educational psychology, 00(0) 3 tudents’ skills in reading and understanding learning materials are essential for their academic success. often, learning materials consist not only of texts but also of instructional pictures such as graphs, charts, or maps (e.g., hochpöchler et al., 2013), requiring the reader to integrate information from the text and picture (text-picture-integration; tpi). although access to information from two different sources has several advantages, these materials also impose cognitive challenges on students (e.g., ayres & sweller, 2005)—especially on young learners in primary school, who have little experience with this kind of material. teachers must be aware of the cognitive potential and challenges of this kind of learning material if they are to provide their students with adequate instruction and learning opportunities. even though texts and instructional pictures (text-picture-material; tpm) are frequently used in classroom instruction, teachers often have not received any systematic training at university on how to help students process them (mcelvany et al., 2012). studies have shown the importance of teachers’ professional competence for instructional quality and students’ competence development in various domains and countries (e.g., chung et al., 2022; darlinghammond, 2021). however, there is little research on how these relations transfer to teaching and learning with cognitively demanding materials such as tpm. hence, the present study addresses this research gap and aims to identify the links between teachers’ competence, instruction, and students’ tpi-skills. focusing on teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, their attitudes towards the importance of working with tpm, and their motivational orientations, we first tested for a potential direct effect of teachers’ tpm-related competence on their students’ tpi-skills. in a second step, we analysed videos from 34 primary school classes in which teachers explicitly used tpm in their instruction, and tested a mediation effect of instructional quality between teachers’ competence and students’ tpi-skills. thus, the presented study provides new evidence for the role of teachers’ competence for student learning in the context of teaching and learning with tpm while also advancing instructional quality research in primary school classes. text-picture-integration in learning materials school textbooks and learning materials often contain combinations of texts and instructional pictures designed to help students understand complex content, especially in natural science domains (opfermann et al., 2017; peterson et al., 2021). even in primary school, information is often delivered as a written text with an associated pictorial medium such as a map, diagram, or graph. international research has produced well-established theories on teaching and learning with multiple modes of representation such as tpm. according to dualcoding theory, for example, presenting information in the form of texts and instructional pictures addresses two different symbolic systems: the verbal and nonverbal. hence, students have to use separate subsystems when processing written language vs. nonverbal (paivio, 1990). based on cognitive load theory, brunken et al. (2003) describe a dual-task approach in multimedia learning. integrating information from two different sources is cognitively demanding for students due to the need to split cognitive resources because information is (a) presented in different modes (here, verbal and pictorial: dual-code assumption) and (b) received through different channels (here, written text and visual representation: dual-channel assumption) (brunken et al., 2003). the theory of multimedia learning (mayer, 2014) states that students select relevant information from both sources and organize it into a coherent mental model. then, the new information is integrated into already existing mental models. based on this theory, schnotz and bannert (2003) proposed an integrated model of text and picture comprehension describing how students select, organize, and integrate descriptive (text) and depictive (picture) information from different sources by applying parallel cognitive processes. readers use semantic processing to grasp the texts’ verbal organization and construct a propositional representation of the written information. simultaneously, they perceive the visual structure of the picture and construct a corresponding mental model. accordingly, relevant information is extracted from the text through symbolic processing and from the picture through analogue processing—with a person’s propositional representations and mental models assumed to interact continuously during the processes of model construction and inspection. theories and empirical research also indicate ways of facilitating these complex cognitive processes for students in school. concerning the presentation of texts and pictures, the multimedia principle states that students learn better from texts and pictures than from pictures alone (mayer & fiorella, 2014) as long as teachers adhere to basic principles of multimedia learning such as avoiding redundant information in the text s orem ipsum dolor sit amet, consect etur adipisci ng elit, sed do eiusmo d tempor incididu nt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. ohle-peters, mcelvany & ullrich – students reading text-picture-material 4 and picture and ensuring spatial and temporal contiguity (mayer, 2014). according to the deft framework (design, functions, tasks), teachers need to consider the design and pedagogical function of learning materials as well as the cognitive tasks students need to complete when learning with multi-representational materials (ainsworth, 2006). some useful instructional strategies to support students’ mental integration processes include providing directive help—explicitly pointing out relevant elements and relations—or nondirective help—supporting learners in identifying relevant aspects based on their prior knowledge of content or using visual cues such as colours, labels, legends, or prompts (e.g., shah & hoeffner, 2002). therefore, teachers need to be aware of potential challenges associated with tpm and teaching strategies to foster students’ tpiskills. role of teachers’ professional competence for instruction and students’ tpm reading according to empirically supported models of the relations between teachers’ competences and students’ achievement (e.g., darling-hammond, 2021), teachers need both cognitive and affective competence if they are to initiate successful learning processes. one widely established model of teachers’ professional competence by baumert and kunter (2013) includes cognitive and affective aspects. in this model, pedagogical content knowledge (pck) is one facet of teachers’ professional knowledge (shulman, 1986). it has been identified as a relevant predictor of instructional quality and student achievement (e.g., gess-newsome et al., 2019). pck is the kind of knowledge that matters for teaching and involves an understanding of how students learn a specific topic and what factors facilitate or complicate their learning processes (shulman, 1986). operationalisations of pck since then are diverse, but knowledge about student understanding is a relevant component of most of them (park & oliver, 2008). this encompasses knowledge about student abilities, which is essential for students’ understanding specific content such as texts and integrated pictures. teachers’ beliefs are regarded as an important basis for their decisions in the classroom. teachers’ beliefs include subjective theories about student learning (e.g., beliefs about the importance of practice reading tpm) and goal orientations (pajares, 1992). both have been shown to influence teachers’ behaviour in the classroom (e.g., leuchter et al., 2020; pamuk et al., 2017). teachers’ motivational orientations are another facet of professional competence. according to the theory of self-determination (ryan & deci, 2020), intrinsic motivation is crucial for human actions in general. however, research has also provided strong evidence for the importance of teacher motivation for instruction and student outcomes (e.g., han & yin, 2016). therefore, teachers’ intrinsic motivation to use tpm in their lessons should impact their teaching. teachers’ engagement can be described as a motivational concept that reflects their voluntary allocation of personal resources to a certain task. thus, engagement in fostering students’ tpi-skills can be understood as part of teachers’ cognitive engagement (klassen et al., 2013). empirical evidence shows that in general, all of the aforementioned aspects of teachers’ professional competence are relevant for teaching and student outcomes. however, few studies have investigated teachers’ competence and its relation to instruction and learning in the context of tpi. previous studies in the secondary school context uncovered moderate relations between teachers’ beliefs about reading routines and students’ self-reported engagement (schroeder et al., 2011). thus, the question of potential effects of teachers’ tpmrelated professional competence on primary school student learning and instructional quality must still be answered. instructional quality in teaching with tpm teachers’ professional competence plays an essential role for instructional quality, which itself impacts students’ learning processes (darling-hammond, 2021). various studies have demonstrated relations between instructional quality and multicriterial student outcomes, such as subject-related competence and motivational and affective outcomes (e.g., kyriakides et al., 2013). for secondary school, there is empirical evidence that students’ tpi-skills benefit from frequent use of texts and instructional pictures and the explicit discussion of tpm (oerke et al., 2019). the frequency is just one quantitative aspect of instructional quality. there are several frameworks systematizing characteristics of teaching quality (for an overview of classroom observation frameworks for instructional quality, see praetorius & charalambous, 2018). this research was guided by a three-dimensional framework encompassing (a) cognitive activation and deep content; (b) classroom management, clarity, and structure; and (c) supportive climate. a previous study based on this framework ijep – international journal educational psychology, 00(0) 5 adapted measures of instructional quality to teaching with tpm, describing three instructional characteristics (ohle & mcelvany, 2016). cognitive demand (basic dimension a) includes aspects of cognitive activation and instruction on processing information from texts and instructional pictures and includes facets like “extracting information from text and picture” or “reciprocal use of text and picture”. clarity and structure (basic dimension b) refers to the structure of learning processes in a lesson and includes facets such as “introducing the lesson’s topic” and “clarity of tasks”. motivational support (basic dimension c) describes teachers’ behaviour designed to motivate students and includes facets like “positive error culture” and “positive teacher-student interactions”. an overview of all facets and their corresponding indicators is provided in the supplement file (appendix a). based on the theoretically assumed functional chain of teacher-instruction-achievement, we investigated whether teachers’ professional competence offers a suitable explanation for differences in instructional quality between classes, and whether these characteristics of instructional quality have predictive potential for students’ tpi-skills. research questions to investigate the functional chain between teachers’ competence, instructional quality, and students’ tpiskills, the present study addressed two main research questions (rq) and according hypotheses (h): rq1: how do aspects of teachers’ tpm-related competence relate to students’ tpi-skills? assuming that teachers’ professional competence is essential for successful learning processes, we expect positive direct effects of (i) teachers’ knowledge about student abilities, (ii) their beliefs about the importance of practice, (iii) their intrinsic motivation to teach with tpm, and (iv) their engagement to foster all students’ understanding on students’ tpi-skills (hypothesis h1). rq2: are the relations between aspects of teachers’ tpm-related competence and students’ tpm-reading skills mediated by instructional quality? in terms of empirical evidence for the theoretically postulated functional chain from teacher competence to instructional quality and on to student outcomes, we expect positive relations between aspects of teachers’ tpi-related competence and instructional quality (hypothesis h2a) as well as a mediating effect of instructional quality on the relation between teacher competence and students’ tpi-skills (hypothesis h2b). methods participants data was gathered as part of the project (blinded for review) funded by the german research foundation (dfg). data from n = 65 primary school teachers (mage = 43.98 years [sd = 11.96]; mteaching experience = 17.10 years [sd = 10.81]; 86.2% female) and their classes (n = 1.165 students, mage = 10.45 years [sd = 0.59], 48.3% female, mean highest international socio-economic index of occupational status (hisei) mhisei = 51.02 [sd = 20.17]) was assessed. among teachers, 34.1% were qualified to teach primary school only and 63.3% were qualified to teach both primary and lower secondary school. participants were recruited in both rural and urban areas. although, the data basis was not representative, due to sample size, the sample demographics are comparable to those of a representative sample of primary school teachers in germany from the pirls 2011 survey. in pirls 2011, 40% of all students were taught by teachers above age 50, 91.2% of teachers were female, 78.2% had studied german as one of their subjects at university (59.9% in our sample) and 90.5% held a teaching qualification for primary school or above (tarelli et al., 2012). in our study, a subsample of n = 34 teachers (mage = 43.71 years [sd = 11.56], mteaching experience = 17.85 years [sd = 11.07], 85.3% female) participated in an additional video study element along with their classes (n = 646 students, mage = 10.41 years [sd = 0.58], 50.2% female, mhisei = 51.87 [sd = 20.13]). the class sizes varied between n = 15 and n = 27 students, the mean class size was mclass size = 19.00. teachers and students participated voluntarily and gave informed consent. for the video study, we asked teachers from the total sample, if they were willing to teach three lessons with tpm, provided by the research team, and to have those lessons recorded. again, participation in the video study was voluntarily and we collected video-specific informed consent from teachers and students. at the time of data collection, it was not prescribed by law to get a protocol approval of an ethics committee. ohle-peters, mcelvany & ullrich – students reading text-picture-material 6 measures teacher competence. aspects of teacher competence were operationalised for teaching with tpm and corresponding instruments were developed and evaluated on secondary school teachers in a preceding project phase (mcelvany et al., 2012; for an overview, see ohle et al., 2017). teachers’ knowledge about students’ abilities was assessed with 11 statements capturing the frequency of practicing reading strategies for tpm, which varied in their relevance for fostering students’ reading skills (e.g., “please think about your everyday practice in your subject and state how often you practice the following abilities: …relate information from two different sources [text/picture]”). teachers answered these items on a 6-point rating scale ranging from 1 (never) to 6 (very often). teachers’ responses were compared with expert ratings on the relevance of these strategies for students’ tpm skills (2 points = “strategy rated same as experts”, 1 point = “strategy was not rated worse than a strategy preferred by the experts”, and 0 points = “rating contrary to expert rating”). altogether, 38 comparisons of strategies were used to assess teachers’ knowledge about the importance of students’ abilities. in the optimised version (according to internal consistency), 28 comparisons remained; the reliability is reported in table 1. aspects of teachers’ motivational-affective competence were assessed with items rated on 4-point scales ranging from 1 (does not apply) to 4 (applies completely). teachers’ beliefs about the importance of explicitly practicing reading tpm in order to help students learn how to successfully obtain information from text and integrated pictures was evaluated with items such as: “reading and understanding texts with embedded pictures has to be practiced continuously.” the scale for intrinsic motivation to use tpm in lessons and to discuss it with students contained items such as: “i enjoy discussing lesson content by means of pictures that are integrated into school textbooks or other learning materials.” finally, teachers’ engagement to foster all students’ understanding of tpm was assessed with items such as: “i put a lot of effort into ensuring that all students understand the text and the picture.” table 1 provides an overview of the teacher competence scales and their reliabilities. table 1 teacher competence scales for total sample (n = 65) / video subsample (n = 34) scale cronbach’s α knowledge about student abilities n = 28 comparisons .82/.79 beliefs about importance of practice n = 4 items .74/.68 intrinsic motivation n = 3 items .89/.88 engagement n = 4 items .88/.87 confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the superiority of a three-factor model (total sample: χ² = 57.66; df = 40; cfi = .96; rmsea = .08/video subsample: χ ² = 62.29; df = 40; cfi = .90; rmsea = .13) for the motivational-affective competence aspects compared to a general-factor model (χ ² = 332.21; df = 44; cfi = .31; rmsea = .32/video subsample: χ ² = 189.62; df = 44; cfi = .31; rmsea = .31). instructional quality. we evaluated instructional quality by analysing videos of 99 lessons (three lessons per class, except for three classes with one missing lesson each). all lessons were rated in terms of three dimensions of instructional quality: (i) cognitive demand of tasks, (ii) clarity and structure, and (iii) motivational support (ohle & mcelvany, 2016); each dimension contained three to five facets, which were aggregated into a single measure for each dimension. a description of the coding manual can be found in the supplement file (appendix a). the instructional quality measures were rated on a 4-point scale: 0 = indicators of a facet did not occur in a lesson, facet was performed poorly 1 = indicators of a facet only occurred seldomly in a lesson, facet was performed rather poorly 2 = indicators of a facet occurred often in a lesson, facet was performed well 3 = indicators of a facet occurred very often in a lesson, facet was performed very well two independent raters were trained according to a coding manual and double-rated 10% of the video material, achieving a satisfactory interrater reliability of .80 < g-coefficient < 1.00. ratings for all facets were more stable within classes (.12 < icc < .28) than within lessons (.01 < icc .17). therefore, the ratings for each class were aggregated and the instructional quality measures were based on the mean scores for each facet. the three missing class means were estimated using multiple imputations in spss 22. student measures. students’ skills in reading and understanding tpm were assessed with multiple-choice tests at t1 and t2. this test was also developed in a previous project phase, focusing on secondary school ijep – international journal educational psychology, 00(0) 7 students. based on data of 48 classes in grade 5 (first year of secondary school; ohle et al., 2017), the easiest items were selected to assess tpi-skills of students at the end of primary school. students received three texts that were linked to corresponding instructional pictures via colour coding, letters and/or symbols. for each combination of text and picture, students had to answer six items requiring tpi. an item example is provided in the supplement file (appendix b). in the end, each test consisted of 18 items and the two tests (t1 and t2) were linked via six anchor items. the tests were analysed with item response theory using conquest (australian council for educational research [acer], 2007) and showed acceptable fit criteria (bond & fox, 2007) at both t1 (eap/pv reliability = .87; 0.91 < mnsq < 1.13; -4.1 < t < 4.1) and t2 (eap/pv reliability = .84; 0.75 < mnsq < 1.11; -6.3 < t < 2.6). the intraclass correlation of icc = .13 revealed large heterogeneity within classes, indicating that just 13% of the variance in students’ tpi-skills could be explained by classroomlevel factors. students’ figural cognitive abilities served as a control variable and were assessed using subtest 3 of the kft 4-12r (heller & perleth, 2000) at t1. students’ socio-economic background was measured via highest international socio-economic index of occupational status (hisei, ganzeboom, et al., 1992). procedure students’ tpi-skills were assessed a few weeks into grade 4 (t1) and at the end of the school year (t2). teachers completed a questionnaire on aspects of their professional competence at t1. a few weeks prior to t2, we videotaped three lessons per class. the lesson topic was “south america”, which is part of the 4th-grade curriculum in germany, but rarely taught. as a result, students’ prior content knowledge, as a factor that influences students’ tpm understanding (shah & hoeffner, 2002), should have been rather low and constant between classes. teachers were provided with tpm for each lesson to maintain consistent content between classes. the materials consisted of one text per lesson that was linked to an instructional picture via visual cues such as colours, legends, and letters (shah & hoeffner, 2002). in the first lesson, students read a text about countries in south america and were given a map that was linked to the text by colour-coding. in the second lesson, students received informational texts about animals living in different regions of south america; again, the regions were linked to this second map via colours and letters. in the third lesson, students read texts about people living in different countries in south america and connected information from the texts to graphs via symbols. teachers were allowed to plan their lessons independently in terms of the surface structure (methods) and deep structure (learning goals and processes) of instruction. they did not receive any guidelines on how to help students understand the material, in order to identify potential differences between teachers’ tpmrelated teaching practices. data analysis to answer the first research question – direct effects of teachers’ tpm-related competence on students’ tpiskills – we specified distinct multilevel regression models for each aspect of teachers’ competence using mplus 7 (muthén & muthén, 1998-2012). on the between level, aspects of teachers’ tpm-related competence were specified as predictors. on the within level, students tpi-skills at t1, age, gender, socio-economic background (hisei) and cognitive abilities were used as predictor variables for students’ tpi-skills at t2. to answer the second research question – relations between teachers’ competence and instructional quality and a potential mediation effect – we specified a multilevel path model using teachers’ tpm competence aspects as predictors of instructional quality, which was itself specified as a predictor variable for students’ tpi-skills at t2 on the between level. we also specified indirect paths between the aspects of teachers’ competence, instruction, and students’ skills. on the within level, the same predictors were specified as in research question 1. we used the full information maximum likelihood estimator (mlr algorithm) in the analyses in mplus to handle missing values. due to the small sample size, we report results with a significance level of p < .10. descriptive analyses were conducted with spss 22 (ibm corp., 2013). ohle-peters, mcelvany & ullrich – students reading text-picture-material 8 results descriptive results table 2 displays the means and standard deviations of teachers’ tpm-related competence. table 2 descriptive results for teachers’ tprm-related competence for total sample (n = 65) / video subsample (n = 34) scale m (sd) knowledge about student abilities 1.28 (0.26) /1.25 (0.24) beliefs about importance of practice 3.64 (0.39) /3.68 (0.38) intrinsic motivation 3.22 (0.51) /3.22 (0.52) engagement 3.17 (0.49) /3.09 (0.50) descriptive results from the video analysis showed that relevant activities for reading tprm (cognitive demand) occurred only rarely in the lessons (mcognitive demand = 0.96 [sd = 0.16]). clarity and structure were occurred slightly more frequently in the videotaped lessons (mclarity and structure = 1.77 [sd = 0.19]), indicating that teachers ensured that the tasks and lesson topic were transparent for the students. motivational support was also positively rated (mmotivational support = 1.65 [sd = 0.17]), indicating a positive learning climate. table 3 provides an overview of students’ tpi-skills at both measurement points, their cognitive abilities and the corresponding bivariate correlations. table 3 students’ tpi-skill at t1 and t2, their cognitive abilities, and bivariate correlations for total sample (n = 1.165) / video subsample (n = 646) m sd 1 2 3 1 tpi-skill t1 0.03/-0.02 1.04/1.03 - 2 tpi-skill t2 0.31/0.29 1.07/1.06 .72**/.71** - 3 cognitive abilities 47.20/47.01 10.96/10.78 .42**/.43** .39**/.37* * - note. ** p < .01 the low correlations between students’ tpi-skills and their cognitive abilities indicate the discriminant validity of the tpi-test. direct effects of teachers’ competence on students’ tpi-skills multilevel regression models revealed no statistically significant relations between teacher competences and students’ tpi-skills (hypothesis 1) on the between-level. in the video sample, we found medium-sized relations, which failed to reach statistical significance, possibly due to the small sample size. so, on a descriptive level, there was a positive relation between teachers’ knowledge about student abilities and students’ tpi-skills at t2 and negative relations between teachers’ a) beliefs about importance to practice reading tpm and b) teachers’ engagement to foster all students’ tpi-skills and students’ tpi-skills the end of the school year. on the within level, students’ tpi-skills at the beginning of the school year, age, socioeconomic background and cognitive abilities were positive predictors for their tpi-skills at the end of grade 4. detailed results are displayed in table 4. ijep – international journal educational psychology, 00(0) 9 table 4 direct effects of teachers’ tpm-related competence on students’ tpi-skill at t2 for total sample and video sample model 1 model 2 model 3 model 4 total sample video sample total sample video sample total sample video sample total sample video sample within level tpi-skill (t1) .64* .61* .64* .61* .64* .61* .64* .61* age -.06* -.07* -.06* -.07* -.06* -.07* -.06* -.07* gender -.02 -.05 -.02 -.04 -.02 -.05 -.02 -.05 hisei .08* .10* .08* .10* .08* .10* .08* .09* cognitive abilities .09* .09* .09* .09* .09* .08* .09* .08* r² .52* .49* .52 .49 .52 .49 .52 .49 between level knowledge about student abilities .05 .47 ------ beliefs about importance of practice ---.06 -.31 ---- intrinsic motivation -----.12 -.05 -- engagement -------.27 -.43 r² .00 .22 .00 .10 .01 .00 .08 .18 note. * p < .05; standardized coefficients are reported in this table. on the individual level, around half of the variance in students’ tpi-skills at t2 was explained by their age, gender, socio-economic background, and cognitive abilities. in the video subsample, 22% of the variance in students’ tpi-skills between classes could be explained by teachers’ knowledge. relations between teachers’ competence, instructional quality, and students’ tpi-skills on the between level, relations between aspects of teachers’ tpm-related competence and cognitive demand were found (hypothesis 2a). the better teachers were in differentiating between strategies to foster students’ tpi-skills and the more they believed that practicing reading tpm is essential for students’ tpi-skills, the more cognitively demanding their lessons were. higher cognitive demand meant that teachers explicitly thematised the information provided by the text and picture and how to integrate information from both sources. clarity and structure was not related to teachers’ competence; instead, it exhibited a medium positive relation to students’ tpi-skills. this means that students were better in integrating texts and pictures when the tasks and lesson topic were clear and previous knowledge was activated at the beginning of a lesson. motivational support was not related to teachers’ competence nor to students’ tpi-skills. in this model, there were no indirect effects of teachers’ tpm-related competence on students’ tpi-skills (hypothesis 2b). the full model is displayed in figure 1. ohle-peters, mcelvany & ullrich – students reading text-picture-material 10 figure 1 multilevel mediation model of teachers’ tpm-related competence, instructional quality and students’ tpiskills altogether, 49% of the variance in students’ tpi-skills at t2 on the individual level could be explained by their individual predictors. furthermore, 18% of the variance in students’ tpi-skills at t2 between classes was explained by the clarity of tasks and topics in the lesson. discussion this study aimed to investigate the role of teachers’ competence and instructional quality for the development of students’ tpi-skills during grade 4 in primary school. tpm plays an essential role in learning materials, especially in science classes (opfermann et al., 2017). hence, students’ tpi-skills should already be fostered before they enter secondary school. multilevel regression models no statistically significant direct effects of teachers’ competences on students’ tpi-skills at the end of primary school. in the video sub-sample, teachers’ knowledge about student strategies is the strongest predictor on the between level, but – probably due to the small sample size – this effect is not statistically significant. anyway, this result is in line with research results from other domains highlighting the relevance of teachers’ pck for student outcomes and instruction (e.g., kunter et al., 2013). teachers should be familiar with strategies to foster students’ tpi-skills and be able to compare the relevance of the strategies they use in the classroom. teachers’ tpm-related competences also predicted the amount of cognitive demand in their lessons. because the measures of teachers’ competence specifically focused on teaching with tpm, it seems reasonable that they explained the largest amount of variance in the tpm-specific measure of instructional quality. this finding underpins the importance of teachers’ knowledge and beliefs for instruction. regarding the initial question, whether findings on relations between teacher competences and student’s outcomes from other domains are transferable to the context of teaching and learning with tpm, the presented results precautiously suggest that functional chains are similar between domains. ijep – international journal educational psychology, 00(0) 11 concerning the relations between instructional quality and student outcomes, clarity and structure was a positive predictor of students’ tpi-skills on the classroom level. this aspect of instructional quality has also been identified as relevant for student learning in several other studies (titsworth et al., 2015). we unexpectedly found no significant effect of cognitive demand, which explicitly includes tpm instruction, on students’ tpi-skills. one possible explanation is the rather low level of cognitive demand found in the videotaped lessons overall. this can be problematic, especially for learners with low domain-specific prior knowledge, because it is these students in particular who benefit from teachers explicitly pointing out text– picture relations (richter et al., 2018). on individual level, similar to findings in other studies, students’ skills at the beginning of the school year were the strongest predictor for their skills at the end of grade 4. since the variables on class level, used in this study, only explained 18% of variance in students’ tpi-skills at t2, other (individual) factors contribute more to students’ tpi-skills. regarding the growing importance of digital media in school and students’ private lives, playing educational games and using different channels for learning might bear potential to foster students’ tpi-skills. limitations although the present study provides new empirical evidence on teaching and learning with tpm in primary school classes, it also has its limitations. one strength of the study was asking external observers to assess instructional quality during lessons involving the use of tpm and linking these measures with students’ skills, but the rather small sample size is a common limitation of video studies. altogether, 34 teachers and their classes participated in the video study, which limits the number of predictors of students’ outcomes that can be included on the classroom level. furthermore, only large effects can be identified with an acceptable level of statistical significance. further perspectives and conclusion regarding the assessment of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, future studies could improve the pck test by focusing on teachers’ evaluations of students’ abilities and their relevance for successfully working with tpm. furthermore, qualitative studies analysing individual teacher–student interactions could provide useful information on how to foster students’ tpi-skills. moreover, the collected video material could also be used to investigate the fit between teachers’ learning offers and students’ uptake of these offers or to investigate differentiated and personalised instruction. reading tpm is relevant for students’ outcomes throughout their school careers, since tpm is used in various domains and contexts. analysing the functional chain between teacher competence, instruction, and student outcomes in this specific context extends the empirical evidence on the importance of teacher competence for instructional quality. furthermore, this is—to the best of our knowledge—the first investigation of instructional quality specifically focusing on teaching and learning with tpm in primary school that applies video analysis. the results showed that teachers’ knowledge about students’ abilities in reading tpm and their belief in the need to practice the use of tpm relate positively to tpi-related quality aspects in their instruction. in accordance with the competence approach that professional knowledge can be promoted at university, teaching with tpm should be addressed in teacher education, possibly in courses on teaching methods. this would be a promising possibility to promote teachers’ professional knowledge in a context that is relevant for multiple school subjects and school types. it would also raise awareness for the challenges tpm poses for students and could encourage (future) teachers to address reading tpm explicitly in their classes. ohle-peters, mcelvany & ullrich – students reading text-picture-material 12 references ainsworth, s. 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(2015). two meta-analyses exploring the relationship between teacher clarity and student learning. communication education, 64(4), 385–418. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2015.1041998 https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1013180410169 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x015002004 https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2015.1041998 instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com from constructivism to dialogism in the classroom. theory and learning environments roseli rodrigues de mello 1 1 ) universidade federal de são carlos date of publication: june 24th, 201 2 to cite this article: mello, r.r. (201 2). from constructivism to dialogism in the classroom. theory and learning environments. international journal of educational psychology, 1(2), 1 27-1 52. doi: 1 0.4471 /ijep.201 2.08 to link this article: http://dx.doi.org/1 0.4471 /ijep.201 2.08 please scroll down for article the terms and conditions of use are related to the open journal system and to creative commons non-commercial and non-derivative license. http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2012.08 ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology vol. 1 no. 2 june 2012 pp.127-152 from constructivism to dialogism in the classroom. theory and learning environments roseli rodrigues de mello federal university ofsão carlos, fapesp cnpq abstract this paper discusses the move from learning theories from the industrial society to learning theories from and for dialogic societies. while in the past intrapsychological elements, such as mental schemata ofprior knowledge, were the key to explain learning, today theories point to interaction and dialogue as main means for achieving deep understandings of the curriculum. concepts arising from psychology and sociology are essential to understand this new conceptualization of learning: dialogic learning, which implies a historico-cultural analysis of mind and the concept of communicative action. this dialogic turn in the explanation of learning has also found its manifestation in classrooms. the interactive groups is one learning environment grounded in the theory of dialogic learning which leads to improved academic achievement and coexistence. the article points out some of the dialogic elements of interactive groups which explain those results, illustrating how the dialogic construction of knowledge can be favored in classrooms worldwide. keywords: interaction, group work, constructivism, dialogic learning, interactive groups. 2012 hipatia press issn 2014-3591 doi: 10.4471/ijep.2012.08 t 128 (aubert, flecha, garcia, flecha & racionero, 2008). taking educational approaches mainly grounded in knowledge produced by psychology, we highlight three schools of thought that have influenced school practices since the second halfofthe 20th century.   in the first school of thought we find psychological theories that see learning as something that results from and depends on “suitable” and “advanced” models of thinking and behavior, models embodied in the figure of the teacher or specialist. in this perspective, programming of the exposure, relationships, materials, and interactions discourages alternatives of group work or of interaction among peers in the classroom, except in the form oftutoring. in interactions between peers, the more advanced student would serve as a parameter for the less advanced one, and would thus be a source for the other to learn. it is assumed that the most capable will never benefit from the interaction, but indeed would run the risk of regressing (rosenthal & zimmerman, 1972). knowledge, understood as originating from a single stable and authoritative source, passes through the scrutiny of the teacher, a stable agent of authority, to be learned by each student. also, it is considered that all students should reach the same learning port. he organization of classrooms, since the school became part of educational systems, has assumed important variations according to the evolution of societies and learning theories figure 1. vertical diagram ofknowledge-teacher-student relationship.1 roseli r. de mello from constructivism to dialogism 129ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) later, in a different direction and concerned with the study and understanding of the processes of signification typical of human cognition, constructivist approaches began to strongly affect the organization of schools and classrooms (lima, 1990). as a whole, constructivist theories have shown that several sources of knowledge and different experiences are at play in a classroom, and that the teacher must stop assuming the role of a filter of knowledge to be conveyed to the student, or ofan organizer of the learning material to be used by the individual student, adopting, instead, the role of organizer of the students’ relationship with knowledge and with each other. starting from very different assumptions about intelligence, and thus producing very dissimilar theories and equally divergent school outcomes, we begin by discussing two constructivist theories, the piagetian and the ausubelian, which share a common vision of intelligence as something individual, but which differ from each other in their constitution.   in piaget’s constructivist theory, the structures and functions of human development are universal, occurring in unalterable sequential stages, with individuals varying only in their pace of learning according to their interactions with the physical and social environment (piaget, 1987; flavell, 1988). this pace can be modified by interaction among peers whose levels of learning differ from each other (perret-clermont, 1980; perret-clermont & schubauer-leoni, 1981). also, the starting and ending points, even at different paces, are common to everyone.   in the ausubelian perspective, individual intelligence is determined by the individual’s social background (including his or her cultural, racial and gender origins), which would determine his or her greater or lesser propensity for school learning, since each new lesson learned depends on existing prior knowledge to which the new lesson can be linked (ausubel, 1968; ausubel, novak & hanesian, 1980). thus, intelligence is equated with schooled ways of thinking, which posits socially marginalized groups as groups that are less capable (valencia & suzuky, 2011). it would be up to the teacher or teachers to prepare the lesson, the training courses, or the instructional material based on two elements: the student’s level ofprior knowledge and the structure of the contents to be learned, organizing the classroom based on meaningful learning by transmission on behalfof the teacher or by discovery. in the ausubelian perspective, it is primarily individual programs based on each student’s prior knowledge which are most valued. group work choices may consider the possibility of joining students who share the same type of origin, experience and levels of ability in the same classroom, or setting up different classrooms according to ability level. considering that students have unequal starting points, it is expected that the points ofarrival will be unequal as well. all research on ability grouping has demonstrated such student grouping to be ineffective in raising the levels of achievement of the less advantaged (includ-ed consortiu, 2009; oakes, 1985).   according to the piagetian and ausubelian constructivist theories, scientific/academic knowledge synthesizes reality, but its apprehension is determined by the student’s interpretative ability. in other words, the student grasps and learns knowledge: a) according to the consecutive and universal stages of development; b) depending on his or her group of origin and intrinsic motivation; c) through the stage at which he or she is, and d) in a manner determined by the starting cognitive point. in this framework, interactions serve to generate cognitive conflict between peers at the same developmental stage or at the border between two stages (ferreiro, 2001). such interactions serve for adaptation between peers at similar levels who collaborate with one another, or between peers at unequal levels to motivate the less advanced through a more affective than cognitive effect. overall, both approaches, illustrate that in the constructivist school ofthought ofpsychology we move from a vertical diagram of the relationship between knowledge, teacher and student, to a triangular diagram of relationships, which has been known as “interactive triangle” (see figure 2). more recently, delving deeper into the relationship between knowledge and meaning, principally under the influence of the soviet school, constructivist approaches of psychology have focused on the study of the relationship between meaning and sense in learning processes, which has led constructivist scholars to point to the need to consider dialogic and communicative perspectives ofinteractions. referring to this process, zittoun, mirza & perret-clermont (2007) point out that the criticisms ofthe piagetian theory about the insufficient attention to the cultural aspects of human development led piaget 130 roseli r. de mello from constructivism to dialogism himself to engage in new studies in different cultures (piaget, 1966). clinical trials about conservation (quantity, mass and volume) became a focal point in psychology, to verify the universality of the structures of thought, and were recognized as the most suitable model for the study of intelligence in different cultures. under theoretical and methodological criticisms (cole & scribner, 1974), researchers in the so-called transcultural or intercultural studies area produced a body ofknowledge that led to the advancement of understanding about psychological phenomena in relation to cultures which generates specific significations and meanings. according to zittoun, mirza, & perretclermont (2007), in reference to the methods of investigation and the results found: 131ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) figure 2. interactive triangle ofthe two-way relationship knowledge-teacherstudent.2 the decentration treated by intercultural research thus reveals a hitherto invisible dimension: the signification of the task is not given in itself. the person to whom the task is assigned interprets and (re)constructs it, making use of his “personal culture,” i.e., the languages, rules and modes of thought which he grew up with and to which he has access (p. 67). each person’s group oforigin and ofcoexistence are thus considered as sources and archives of knowledge that are deployed in any action of the individuals, which give meaning to the other, to his expectations and to his actions, thus enabling him to engage in interactions with the objects in specific activities, or to communicate with others if the task requires cooperation in the activity. unlike ausubel et. al. (1980), who consider base cultures as subcultures -therefore less complex and causing environments in which less gifted intelligences are produced-, intercultural and transcultural studies have brought fundamental elements of culture as the context for the successful psychological development ofindividuals.   returning to the piagetian perspective, the focus of analysis and understanding lies in the mental structures of the individual, built through constant interactions with the environment – physical and social – during his development. the mind of the child is primary and egocentric and therefore, from this perspective, there is primacy of the individual in relation to social exchanges and to the cultural environment.   in the other position are the sociocultural or historical-cultural approaches, which consider the human mind as social and cultural (vigotski, luria & leontiev, 1988). in this perspective, every act of the child is seen as occurring in an environment built culturally through the history of humanity (tomasello, 1999). thus, social interaction is constitutive of human development and of the mental processes of individuals. zittoun, mirza, & perret-clermont (2007) organize the productions of sociocultural or cultural historical approaches, which they call postpiagetian, into four distinct perspectives, as follows: (a) one that focuses on narrations and cultural works (bruner, 1960, 1983, 1990), (b) one that focuses on activity as a central concept in the analysis of culture and mind (scribner & cole 1981; james wertsch, 1991, 2002; rogoff, 1990, 1995, 1998, 2003; scribner, 1984), (c) one that focuses on the semiotic processes (valsiner, 2000; abbey, 2006; lawrence & valsiner 2003), (d) the one that focuses on dialogic processes, where are grouped the authors dedicated to the analysis of discursive processes and of negotiation of understanding and repositioning in group relations (pontecorvo, 2004; clôt, 1999; rochex,1999; muller & perretclermont, 1999). but what are the consequences of these most recent contributions to classroom organization and learning processes in school? how do they 132 roseli r. de mello from constructivism to dialogism support the social networking that individuals need for their development? in what follows we will answer this question through theories related to the concept ofdialogic learning. in today’s context, the production of academic knowledge is intense as information is widely disseminated and incorporated into production systems and social life. the new information and communication technologies generate networks of creation, diffusion and the incorporation of knowledge into production processes in real time (castells, 1999; ianni, 2004; flecha, 2000; aubert et al, 2008; racionero et al, 2012). in the information society, having access to information and knowledge networks, knowing how to select, among the multitude of accessible elements, analyzing what is found through critical scrutiny in order to make use of it become essential skills for effective functioning in many social spheres. importantly, the democratization of the information society also depends on all students developing these abilities. in addition, in current societies there is a growing demand for dialogue as a way to negotiate different aspects of life, and as a means to build coexistence in different social spaces. this phenomenon has been described as the “dialogic turn” of societies (flecha, gómez & puigvert, 2001). violence arises when dialogue is prevented, this augmenting inequalities. thus, the incorporation of dialogue in the construction of better alternatives in society is a requirement to ensure equal rights and a better life for all. the transformation of school education in the light ofdialogic needs and parameters is the subject of the next sections ofthis article.   the dialogic turn of society has also found expression in learning theories. in this sense, some scholars talk about a dialogic turn of educational psychology (racionero & padrós, 2011). this turn implies, on the one hand, placing interaction and dialogue at the center ofcurrent explanations of human learning, and design interactive learning environments that respond to how people learn in dialogic societies. 133ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) dialogic learning: interaction, intersubjectivity and learning in the information society 134 an essential view of theories of dialogic teaching and learning is that mind and cognition develops in social interaction. vygotsky (1996) contributes to the understanding that the mind is formed socially, assuming a movement that is initially interpersonal, and later becomes intrapersonal. the process of development of each individual takes place through his relationships with others in his surroundings, with the more experienced adults in the culture assuming a leading role. under the influence of vygotsky, bruner (2001) defines culture as “a set of tools with techniques and procedures to understand his world and deal with it” (p. 98), or “a way ofdealing with human problems: with human transactions of all types represented by symbols” (p. 99). in providing this definition, bruner can be considered one ofthe leading theoreticians of the concept of the social mind (correia, 2003). for him, communication between individuals in a process of interaction mobilizes and produces knowledge, because “by making use of language to achieve their ends, children have more than mastery of a communication code; they negotiate procedures and meanings and when they do this, they are learning the path of culture as well as the path of language” (alves et. al., 2007, p. 328). rogoff (1990, 1995, 1998) has been also central in explaining the role of culture in development; for her, individual and culture are seen to be in a state of constant development, dynamically linked and inseparable (costa & lira, 2002).   if intersubjectivity is the basis for the construction ofsubjectivity and intelligence, then, interaction is a factor driving development. but are all types ofinteractions equally effective in driving learning? what kind of interaction leads to deeper knowledge construction?   habermas (1987) helps us answer this question. it is in the interaction between different individuals that share unquestionable knowledge which belongs to the life world and is taken for granted how knowledge becomes problematized, enabling individuals to think about and examine it, and then make deliberate choices about its pertinence. thus, when their basic knowledge is questioned, individuals feel themselves challenged, a process that links knowledge creation and interaction to identity development. theoretical ground ofdialogic learning environments roseli r. de mello from constructivism to dialogism   each individual is constituted life worlds, whose knowledge he constitutes and reproduces, but that is called into question when such knowledge is removed from the general consensus, a situation only generated by the interaction between different individuals or by situations that call what is taken for granted into question. when this occurs, two paths are possible: conflict – if dialogue between the individuals cannot be established because there is no will to reach understanding or communicative consensus – or communicative action, producing new intersubjective knowledge that allows for joint action in the shared world. mind, knowledge and action in the world are thus permanently constituted in the processes of communicative action (habermas, 1987).   the deep relation between knowledge, its context of production, and its intended use is emphasized by both habermas (1987) and freire (1970, 1997). however, while habermas is more concerned with the rational use that is made of knowledge and of techniques and technologies, freire focuses more on the question of purpose of the production. freire (1970) offers a critical perspective on knowledge to be produced, taught and learned, based on for and against what and who such knowledge is created. habermas (1987) deposits elements of criticality in the presence of the greatest possible diversity of people upon analyzing the efficacy and correctness of the application of concepts, techniques and technologies to different contexts. the discussion between different individuals, assuming communicative rationality in the process of argumentation permeated by pretension of truth, appropriateness and authenticity is the way to achieve deeper understandings of reality and the result of reaching a state of intersubjectivity.   the concept of intersubjectivity is central to both these theoreticians. habermas (1987) and freire (1997) formulated theories that ontologically understood the individual and the system/s as inseparable. this perspective is compatible with psychological theories that consider mind and intelligence as social, understanding the processes of learning and subjectivity as intersubjective. habermas (1987) expresses this inseparability in the theoretical formulation of the relation between life world and system. freire (1997) expresses the dialectics between individuals and systems by conceptualizing objectivity and subjectivity 135ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) in dialectic relationship, or the link consciousness-world as inseparable.   in freire (2003), the concept of “unity in diversity” is central and embodies the notion that dialogue and unity among different people, unity in the diversity of their origins and life projects, are necessary to enable individuals to fight for decent living conditions and to respect different ways of being. the opposite is what produces inequalities (freire, 1970). this analysis shows how society and culture are present in the constitution of identities. note that freire (2003) draws attention to the fact that multiculturalism is not a “natural” process, but a product of colonialism, domination, and wars. hence, to be experienced as a source of knowledge and human enrichment, a political decision must be made about how to achieve coexistence and the protection of those that are different (mello, 2009a). for habermas (1987), the coexistence of different cultures, not just side by side but also with one another, requires communication between them. the author claims the need for deliberative democracy to ensure the rights of citizens with different cultural backgrounds to live under the same rights.   the concept ofdialogic learning (flecha, 2000; aubert et. al., 2008) is strongly underpinned by the aforementioned theories, and joins the most important interactionist and dialogic contributions from psychology, anthropology, sociology, pedagogy, etc to explain how people learn best in current dialogic societies. dialogic learning takes place when a series of principles, seven, develop in social interaction, namely: egalitarian dialogue, cultural intelligence, transformation, instrumental dimension, creation ofmeaning, solidarity and equality of differences.   egalitarian dialogue assumes that the statements and propositions of each participant are considered given the value of their contributions and not depending on their status in relation to age, profession, gender, social class, educational level, etc. this makes possible, for example, that the guide of a non-expert adult becomes acknowledged in the classroom as central to enhance all children’s school learning (tellado & sava, 2010). additionally, in environments designed upon the notion ofdialogic learning, participants are often allowed to use their cultural intelligence (flecha, 2000), that is, the set of academic, practical, and communicative abilities, to engage in knowledge construction. but this occurs in learning environments where three conditions are favored and 136 roseli r. de mello from constructivism to dialogism met: a) interactive self-confidence, b) cultural transfer (ofnon-academic abilities to academic settings), and c) dialogic creativity (new knowledge resulting from dialogue that capitalizes on everyone’s abilities).   importantly, by sharing different points of view and ways of solving problems through dialogue guided by validity claims, , transformation occurs at two levels: intrapsychological and interpsychologial. intrapsychological because though dialogue existing knowledge gets transformed and expanded. interpsychological because what is shared mentally is the result of the addition of every person’s knowledge in dialogue with the knowledge of the others, which generates a new state of mind. overall, dialogic learning is aimed at transformation, personal and socio-cultural, and not to adaptation.   transformation requires emphasis on the instrumental dimension of dialogue as a means for knowledge making. such instrumental dimension refers to those aspects of school knowledge which are required to trespass the doors of socio-economic access to the information society (apple & beane, 2007). also, in a society where social change is constant, it is easier to see more processes of loss of meaning (habermas, 1987). participation in dialogic learning emerges as an important instrument for the creation of meaning (elboj & puigvert, 2004). faced with multiple possible choices of how to live, it is difficult to design a single project for all groups or people, and it is difficult for the school to know which values to foster. but usually dominant groups impose their views and discourses, also in schools, and this generates crises ofmeaning. however, in dialogues where different points of view emerge and are acknowledged on the ground of argumentation, individuals come to know more possibilities and thus choose more freely and critically. such process creates more opportunities for gaining greater coherence between dreams and actual life. this in turn relates to the principle of solidarity. in dialogic learning environments participants share their knowledge for the benefit of all members ofthe group. egalitarian dialogue, cultural intelligence, transformation, the instrumental dimension, creation of meaning and solidarity are also accompanied by the principle of equality of differences or, as freire (2003) posed it, “unity in diversity”. this principle breaks with the 137ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) inertia that cultural relativism imposes on people from different cultural groups, turning traditions into a mold to which their members must conform (perpetuating not only the relations of power and dominance within their own cultures but also the relations ofpower ofthe dominant culture upon the others). through dialogic learning, each person builds new understandings about life and the world and reflects about his or her culture and that ofothers, thus gaining greater freedom to choose his way of living and relating to others, as well as creating respect for different modes ofliving (giddens, 1995).   the seven principles of dialogic learning are related among them, despite each exists on its own as well. in each, meaning, life experiences, emotion, cognition, culture, and other elements come together, involving different people with whom students interact. this, again, differentiates dialogic learning from prior conceptions ofteaching and learning. from the perspective of dialogic learning, the network of interactions and relationships that is formed around each student should be seen as a powerful learning generator of learning, which is no longer stable and merely triangular, as it was conceptualized in the constructivism approach. students’ developmental trajectories are embedded in complex networks that must be understood and taken into account in schools’ organization, including that of the classroom, as a space that fosters intersubjectivity. such constellation of spaces for students’ learning and development that dialogic learning environments need to take into account can be represented as follows: 138 roseli r. de mello from constructivism to dialogism interactive groups is an inclusive and dialogic type of classroom organization and student grouping (includ-ed consortium, 2009) that illustrates how the dialogic turn of societies has reached the classroom. when a classroom is organized in interactive groups, teachers create three or four small groups of students depending on the total number of students in the class. the criterion for group composition always is for the maximum heterogeneity in terms of mastery level, ability, culture, race, ethnicity, language, gender, life styles, etc. while meeting this criterion, the grouping is conceptually driven, with teachers making ongoing changes depending on subject areas, lessons within every subject, social relations among students, and suggestions from volunteers. family and community members participate in the classroom promoting dialogue and solidarity in the 139ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) figure 3. contexts ofinteraction, learning and development.3 interactive groups: dialogic classroom organization groups with the objective that all students reach the highest learning teachers create three or four small groups of students depending on the total number of students in the class. the criterion for group composition always is for the maximum heterogeneity in terms of mastery level, ability, culture, race, ethnicity, language, gender, life styles, etc. while meeting this criterion, the grouping is conceptually driven, with teachers making ongoing changes depending on subject areas, lessons within every subject, social relations among students, and suggestions from volunteers. family and community members participate in the classroom promoting dialogue and solidarity in the groups with the objective that all students reach the highest learning objectives. one community volunteer is placed in each group. this allows for the classroom teacher to manage the whole classroom dynamics while the students are working, or she or he can become an extra support in one of the groups. the activities in each group are approximately 20 minutes long, and after that time, each group moves to the next table and works on a different activity with a different adult. in some classrooms, it is the adult who moves rather than the students. the tasks in the groups are short and usually there is a thematic connection between them, with each focused on a different dimension of the lesson topic.   in the groups, students help each other and engage in dialogues to deepen the understanding of the content knowledge they are working on. the teacher is in charge of the classroom management, solves volunteers’ and students’ questions when necessary, and sometimes provides extra help for struggling students.   schools involved in the learning communities project (mello, 2009b), a project of educational and social transformation, apply a series ofsuccessful educational actions (seas), among which we find the interactive groups. all these schools have shown to raise the academic achievement of their students as well as to improve social relations organizing the classrooms into interactive groups (included 2006-2011). there are more than a hundred schools working as learning communities in spain, and there are also schools as learning communities in brazil and paraguay. in this article, the organization and learning processes in interactive groups are explored through the case of three brazilian schools. 140 roseli r. de mello from constructivism to dialogism three municipal primary schools in medium-sized towns in the interior of the state of são paulo, which had been transformed into learning communities, participated in a survey carried out from 2007 to 2009 to determine the impact of the educational project on their practices (mello, 2009b). the study was conducted with the participation of 34 professionals (teachers, coordinators and principals), 10 volunteers (women of various educational levels, ages and cultural backgrounds), and 50 students (9 and 10-year-old girls and boys from different cultural backgrounds). 141ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) method participants procedure based on the communicative methodology of research (gómez, puigvert & flecha, 2011), interviews were held with all the participants individually and in focus groups. the interviews (i) explored the participants’ experiences, analyses and points of view regarding the processes and outcomes of learning and interaction in interactive groups. transcripts of the interviews were coded by school (s1, s2 and s3), by category of the participant (professional – p –, student – s –, or volunteer – v –) and by number of participants (professionals: 1-34; students: 1-50, and volunteers: 1-10). in the two sessions of the focus groups (fg_1 and fg_2), conducted with each category ofparticipants, the focus of the discussion was how interactive groups contribute to learning and to improve the relations of coexistence in the classroom. finally, the paragraphs ofeach transcript of the interviews and the focus groups were numbered (§1-98) and, following the communicative methodology, they were assigned to two analytical dimensions: transformative (t.e.) and exclusionary (e.f.). results 142 in terms of simple frequencies, the analysis ofall paragraphs (a total of 681, distributed as follows: 250 from students, 348 from professionals and 83 from volunteers) led to the identification of 581 paragraphs about transformative dimensions of learning or living together in interactive groups, while 89 paragraphs indicated exclusionary dimensions. with respect to the transformative dimensions, four categories emerged: improvement in instrumental learning (s.: 128; p.: 195; v.: 59), improvement in respectful coexistence (s: 91; p:122; v: 14), learning while teaching and teaching while learning (s: 29; p: 2; v: 10), and changes in self-concept (s; 4; p: 0; v: 0). as for the exclusionary dimensions, two themes emerged: insufficient number of volunteers (s: 2; p.: 18; v.:0), and inappropriate behavior of some adolescents in their role ofvolunteer (s.: 0; p.: 9; v.: 1). the analysis of the data collected through the discussion groups, led to 791 paragraphs, distributed as follows: 112 from students, 535 from professionals, and 145 from volunteers. in terms of simple frequencies, the analysis of the paragraphs, led to the identification of663 fragments about transformative dimensions on learning or living together in the classroom, and 128 indicated exclusionary dimensions. with regard to transformative dimensions, the 4 categories that emerged in the interviews were the same as those from the analysis of the interviews: improvement in instrumental learning (s.: 86; p.: 149; v.: 121), improvement in respectful coexistence (s: 24; p: 343 ; v: 21), learning while teaching and teaching while learning (s: 7; p: 16; v: 0 ), and changes in self-concept (s: 0; p: 0; v: 2). as for the exclusionary dimensions, the same two themes that emerged in the interviews arose here too: insufficient number of volunteers (s: 2; p.: 18; v.:0), and inappropriate behavior ofsome adolescents in their role ofvolunteer (s.: 0; p.: 9; v.: 1). interactive groups have two main objectives: to accelerate learning and to improve relations of coexistence in the classroom. as the data analyzed shows, both objectives are strongly emphasized by the participants, who added two other benefits related to the guide by a an adult who is more experienced in the culture of reference: the particiroseli r. de mello from constructivism to dialogism pants’ improved self-concept, and the possibility of teaching and learning at the same time. exclusionary dimensions had to do with the need for more volunteers to promote supportive interactions in the interactive groups. to illustrate the qualitative part of the results of the study, in what follows, we highlight a series ofexcerpts from interviews with different categories of participants regarding the transformative dimensions that interactive groups bring to classroom insteractions. in the following quotation, a teacher highlights how interactive groups enhance learning processes and academic performance and, as a result, ultimately, students’ learning is accelerated: 143ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) in terms of simple frequencies, the analysis ofall paragraphs (a total of 681, distributed as follows: 250 from students, 348 from professionals and 83 from volunteers) led to the identification of 581 paragraphs about transformative dimensions of learning or living together in interactive groups, while 89 paragraphs indicated exclusionary dimensions. with respect to the transformative dimensions, four categories emerged: improvement in instrumental learning (s.: 128; p.: 195; v.: 59), improvement in respectful coexistence (s: 91; p:122; v: 14), learning while teaching and teaching while learning (s: 29; p: 2; v: 10), and changes in self-concept (s; 4; p: 0; v: 0). as for the exclusionary dimensions, two themes emerged: insufficient number of volunteers (s: 2; p.: 18; v.:0), and inappropriate behavior of some adolescents in their role ofvolunteer (s.: 0; p.: 9; v.: 1). the analysis of the data collected through the discussion groups, led to 791 paragraphs, distributed as follows: 112 from students, 535 from professionals, and 145 from volunteers. in terms of simple frequencies, the analysis of the paragraphs, led to the identification of663 fragments about transformative dimensions on learning or living together in the classroom, and 128 indicated exclusionary dimensions. with regard to transformative dimensions, the 4 categories that emerged in the interviews were the same as those from the analysis of the interviews: improvement in instrumental learning (s.: 86; p.: 149; v.: 121), improvement in respectful coexistence (s: 24; p: 343 ; v: 21), learning while teaching and teaching while learning (s: 7; p: 16; v: 0 ), and changes in self-concept (s: 0; p: 0; v: 2). as for the exclusionary dimensions, the same two themes that emerged in the interviews arose here too: insufficient number of volunteers (s: 2; p.: 18; v.:0), and inappropriate behavior ofsome adolescents in their role ofvolunteer (s.: 0; p.: 9; v.: 1). interactive groups have two main objectives: to accelerate learning and to improve relations of coexistence in the classroom. as the data analyzed shows, both objectives are strongly emphasized by the participants, who added two other benefits related to the guide by a an adult who is more experienced in the culture of reference: the particiwhen i first started working with the interactive group activity, i already felt the difference in the classroom. i could see that the students were faster in performing a given activity. i noticed that the activities proposed through the interactive groups accelerated the students’ learning. (s2-i-p13, §21 ). the characteristics of interactive groups make possible that students who otherwise would be left behind, in interactive groups engage in the same learning processes as higher achievers do and end up reaching the same curricular objectives. this perception is possible thanks to the support that students receive by peers and volunteers in every group: i have students who do not produce in some group or individual activities, but in the interactive group – i don’t know if it’s because there’s someone there that helps a lot – it isn’t is a presence of coercion, but a helpful presence, which is there to really help! so their interaction with the group is really cool! (s1-i-p1, §1). the same teacher completes her statement by pointing out the remarkable increase in the pace of children’s learning. in interactive groups children work more and complete learning activities that in a regular classroom usually take the double period oftime: 144 for example, the activity that i taught, which i knew took half an hour, the children now perform in ten minutes. sometimes i couldn’t believe they were able to do everything. (s1-i-p1, §2) in addition, in the interactive group, individual learning is seen as a responsibility of the whole group. therefore, when one student finds some difficulty in understanding the content knowledge, everyone gets committed to help him or her. in this process, teaching and learning take place simultaneously: the idea ofgroup work is that the activity has been completed when everyone has succeeded, when everyone has finished it, and not when only one has done so, that’s when they begin to understand the mechanism of the interactive group, right? and they begin to succeed in carrying out the activity. that’s when they begin to feel capable. and as they increase their pace, they become more and more capable! at this point, they wait the group day eagerly, because they know that, on that day, they will do everything with the others. (s2-i-p4,§7) as shown in the quotation above, as a student reaches the curricular objectives and is aware of her or his success thanks to the interactive groups, he or she improves his or her academic self-concept, and starts believing that it is possible to do it and to do it successfully with the help of peers and adults. but the gains are for everyone. in interactive groups, everyone benefits from the interaction because learning is intersubjective but also because interactions build upon the existing diversity among all participants. in this regard, the evidence collected shows that the higher the group’s internal diversity, the greater and deeper the learning of every individual that is part of it, from both the intellectual and the human and social standpoint. benefiting from vygotsky’s (1978) theoretical formulation about learning occurring through the mediation ofmore experienced individuals of the culture, in the interactive group, the volunteer himself contributes cultural diversity and instrumental knowledge, and also benefits from the interactions with the students. for example, some volunteers develop more motivation to learn contents of the school curriculum as they later teach that knowledge to the students, despite that is not required from volunteers: roseli r. de mello from constructivism to dialogism the responsibility for learning is shared by everyone in the classroom, but with different roles. it is up to the teacher, the professional with pedagogical knowledge, to assume the commitment of planning the content and activities to be worked on in interactive groups, to explain to the volunteers the activities in the groups, and guide them and solve their questions when it is necessary. the classroom teacher is the one who ensures the correct development of the whole classroom dynamics, encouraging mutual support and respect among the children, youths and/or adults. a fundamental point of which the volunteer takes care of is the way in which the activity is carried out jointly, so that when any student experiences difficulty in solving a given activity, the others also focus on helping him. this encourages role exchanges, in which students can both teach their classmates and learn from them, thereby learning, through egalitarian dialogue, to share efforts and act with solidarity (elboj et. al., 2001). children perceive this solidarity in the volunteers, appreciate their unique support, and acknowledge their positive influence in students’ learning: teacher also see as strength for children’s learning the fact that volunteers bring to the classroom new abilities, new knowledge, and new role models. the following quotation illustrates how for teachers diversity among adults in interactive groups is a source of instrumental learning: 145ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) i relearned what i was forgetting, because you also learn by teaching. i would consult the books in the school’s library collection, and whenever there was something i didn’t know i would stay there until i learned it so that i could pass it on to the students. (s2-gf1-v1, §3) each volunteer teaches in a different way, and they all help us to learn things that we often did not know. we like volunteers because they help us carry out the activities and because they want us to be smarter. (s3_i_s35, §2). i think the interactive group is important for students because it ensures the presence of other people in the classroom. the presence of more people allows for a certain degree of diversity in the classroom. the idea that only the teacher teaches is out. thus, also, according to teachers, the presence ofmore and diverse adults in the classroom also creates opportunities for the development of interactive confidence grounded in solidarity bonds, also necessary for learning: 146 children learn new things with new people, because each one has his particular way, a language, and a different way ofteaching. (s3_i_p31,§22). the students quickly create bonds with volunteers. they miss a volunteer when he doesn’t come or stops coming. when, for whatever reason, the interactive group is not held, they miss it. the students learn to trust these people. (s3_i_p31,§23) conclusions in the information society, where both the production of knowledge and its impact on the forms ofproduction and reproduction ofhuman life assume the form of networks among individuals, groups, and institutions, learning takes place intensely in different locations and in the interaction among different people. given these social changes that have increased the use of communication as a means for solving problems together, the psychological theories that see the formation of the mind in social, historical and cultural processes are more appropriate to support the development ofsuccessful school practices (bruner, 1960, 1983, 1990; scribner & cole, 1981; wertsch, 1991, 2002; rogoff, 1990, 1995, 1998, 2003; valsiner, 2000; muller & perret-clermont, 1999). in this regard, one of the most influential approaches in teaching and learning is dialogic learning (flecha, 2000; freire, 1970; wells, 2001), which builds upon the strengths of previous theories of learning but surpasses them in merging the most important dialogic contributions from different disciples in view of reaching a deeper understanding of how people create knowledge together. among other central differences with piagetian and ausubelian perspectives, in the dialogic learning perspective, the main aspect to take into account when designing instruction is not prior knowledge but where roseli r. de mello from constructivism to dialogism we want to bring the students, their zone of potential development (vygotsky, 1978). also, in dialogic learning, we move from interaction based on the constructivist triangle (piaget, 1966, 1987a), which advanced with respect to previous models of teacher-student vertical relationship regarding knowledge (rosenthal & zimmerman, 1972) to interactions with multiple others. in line with vygotskian theory, in order to achieve the potential level of development, learning environments need to be reorganized to foster interaction among peers with different level of competence and with more adults. interactive groups is a learning environment which responds to these needs. the results of the research discussed here (mello, 2009b) reveal that participation in interactive groups guided by adults and youth from the community, who join the classroom to promote interaction among diverse peers regarding curricular activities, favors instrumental learning, improves respectful coexistence in the classroom, strengthens the academic self-concept of the participants, as well as creates the conditions for learning and teaching simultaneously. these results are consistent with other research on processes of dialogic learning in interactive groups (racionero, 2011) and its outcomes in comparison to non-inclusive and non-dialogic classrooms (includ-ed consortium, 2009). overall, the review of the literature and the findings about the perceptions on learning in interactive groups inform us about the need and benefits for transforming school learning environments to make them align with the current tendencies and claims regarding how people learn and develop. while cooperative classrooms represented a step in this regard in relation to more traditional classroom organizations, other learning environments more in line with new learning realities, such as interactive groups, move a step further by means of diversifying interactions with adults from the community and benefiting from their unique contributions as guides ofchildren’s meaning making processes. on the ground of these findings, schools should open their doors, and that of their classrooms, to make social tendencies reform learning environments using the evidence of existing research about successful learning environments to ultimately improve all children’s learning and achievement. 147ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) 148 abbey, e. 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(1999). the cultural origins ofhuman cognition. cambridge, massachusetts: harvard university press. valencia, r., & suzuky, l. (2001). intelligence testing and minority students: foundations, performance factors, and assessment issues. thousand oaks, ca: sage. valsiner, j. (2000). culture and human development. london/thousand 151ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(2) oaks: sage. vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind in society: the development ofhigher psychological processes. cambridge: harvard university press. vygotsky, l. s. (1996). teoria e método em psicologia. são paulo: martins fontes. vygotsky l. s., luria, a.r. & leontiev, a. n. (1988). linguagem, desenvolvimento e aprendizagem. são paulo: editora da universidade de são paulo. wells, g. (1999). dialogic inquiry. towards a sociocultural practice and theory ofeducation. cambridge: cambridge university press. wertsch, j. v. (1991). voices ofthe mind. a sociocultural approach to mediated action. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. wertsch, j. v. (2002). voices ofcollective remembering. new york: cambridge university press. zittoun, t.; mirza, n. m. & perret-clermont, a. (2007). quando a cultura é considerada nas pesquisas em psicologia do desenvolvimento. educar, curitiba, 30, 65-76. 152 roseli rodrigues de mello is associate professor in the department oftheories and pedagogical practices at the federal university ofsao carlos, brazil. she is also director ofniase (nucle investigação e ação social e educativa). contactaddress: rod. washington luis, 235 são carlos, brazil (13565-905). e-mail: roseli@power.ufscar.br roseli r. de mello from constructivism to dialogism template journals hipatia press instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com/ preventive initiatives to promote psychological adjustment among primary students: findings of ruler approach in spanish public schools ruth castillogualda1,2, alvaro moraleda2 & marc a. brackett3 1) faculty of health, universidad camilo jose cela 2) faculty of education, universidad camilo jose cela 3) yale center for emotional intelligence, yale university date of publication: june 24th, 2023 edition period: february 2023 june 2023 to cite this article: castillo-gualda, r., moraleda, a., & brackett, m. a. (2023). preventive initiatives to promote psychological adjustment among primary students: findings of ruler approach in spanish public schools. international journal of educational psychology, 12(2), pp. 206-232. http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.10970 to link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.10970 please scroll down for article the terms and conditions of use are related to the open journal system and to creative commons attribution license (cc-by) http://ijep.hipatiapress.com/ http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.10970 http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.10970 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ijep – international journal of educational psychology vol. 12 no.2 june 2023 pp. 206-232. 2023 hipatiapress issn: 2014-3591 doi: 10.17583/ijep.10970 preventive initiatives to promote psychological adjustment among primary students: findings of ruler approach in spanish public schools ruth castillo gualda alvaro moraleda universidad camilo jose cela universidad camilo jose cela marc a. brackett yale university abstract mental health during childhood is a growing social challenge with important implications for optimal development. social and emotional learning (sel) interventions have been shown to prevent problems related to psychological maladjustment, as well as promote emotional well-being. this article aims to provide evidence for the impact of ruler (recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, regulating), an evidence-based approach to sel, on students’ mental health outcomes in spanish public schools. a total of 207 primary school students (50.24% girls, mean age of 9 years) participated in the study. the teachers in the intervention school as compared to the control school received ruler instruction consisting of 15 hours of professional development training, 3 hours of follow-up, and sel implementation guidelines throughout the school year. students completed the behavior assessment system (basc s-2). results showed significant impacts in the ruler as compared to control school, including a reduction of clinical symptoms, such as anxiety and atypicality, as well as emotional symptoms, such as the sense of inadequacy among 9 to 12 year old students. implications of these findings are discussed. keywords: psychological adjustment, childhood, social and emotional learning, schoolbased intervention, emotional intelligence ijep – international journal of educational psychology vol. 12 no.2 june 2023 pp. 206-232. 2023 hipatia press issn: 2014-3575 doi: 10.17583/ijep.10970 iniciativas preventivas para promover el ajuste psicológico en estudiantes de primaria: resultados del método ruler en colegios públicos españoles ruth castillo gualda alvaro moraleda universidad camilo jose cela universidad camilo jose cela marc a. brackett yale university resumen la salud mental en la infancia es un problema social creciente con importantes implicaciones para su óptimo desarrollo. se ha demostrado que las intervenciones en educación social y emocional previenen problemas relacionados con el desajuste psicológico, así como, promueven el bienestar. este artículo tiene como objetivo proporcionar evidencia del impacto de ruler, un enfoque de educación social y emocional basado en evidencia, en variables relacionadas con la salud mental de estudiantes de escuelas públicas españolas. participaron un total de 207 alumnos de primaria (50,24% niñas, edad media 9 años). el profesorado del colegio experimental recibió la intervención ruler que consistió en una formación centrada en desarrollo profesional docente de 15 horas, más 3 horas de seguimiento y plan de implementación de las herramientas sel durante todo el año escolar. los estudiantes completaron el sistema de evaluación de la conducta (basc s-2). los resultados mostraron una reducción de los síntomas clínicos, tales como la ansiedad y la atipicidad, así como el índice de síntomas emocionales, como el sentido de incapacidad, entre los estudiantes de 9 a 12 años, en comparación con los estudiantes cuyos profesores no recibieron la formación sel. se discuten las implicaciones de estos hallazgos. palabras clave: ajuste psicológico, infancia, educación socioemocional, intervención educativa, inteligencia emocional castillo-gualda et al. – preventive initiatives 208 iddle to later childhood, specifically the developmental period between ages 6 and 12 years, is crucial, in that it can be an optimal time or, on the contrary, a precarious one for the acquisition of the abilities that lead to psychological adjustment and wellbeing. this developmental stage is critical for the maturation of cerebral structures, which are fundamental for cognitive, emotional, and social development. a sequential increase in frontal lobe activity occurs, facilitating self-regulation, greater receptiveness to emotional states, increased tolerance for unpleasant emotions, and greater complexity of emotional experiences. the ability to verbally express feelings and the capacity to institute strategies to conceal one’s emotional state develop progressively (saarni, 1999). in addition, the continued maturation of the prefrontal cortex impacts the progressive acquisition of self-control and emotional regulation, such as reevaluation during a stage when one’s first difficulties and challenges must be addressed (mcrae et al., 2012; siegel, 2014; walker, 2002). mental health across development of childhood late childhood and adolescence become fundamental moments to lay the foundation for health socio-emotional development and the prevention of psychological maladjustment (burns & gottschalk, 2019; kressler et al., 2007). half of all mood disorders diagnosed in adulthood manifest symptoms at around 14 years old, though the symptoms are often neither recognized nor treated until later, which impacts future quality of life (world health organization, 2014). about 20% of children suffer from mental health problems (unicef, 2019). mental health problems can have an impact in children’s emotional healthy development, as well as school adaptation, responsible decisions and optimal social interactions which could also affect future adult functioning. notably, mood disorders are the primary cause of disability between the ages of 10 and 19, and suicide is the third most common cause of death during adolescence (world health organization, 2014). between the ages of 12 and 19, a distinctive increase of mental health problems in developed countries is noted; the most prevalent include substance abuse, anxiety, and depression (choi, 2018). in particular, anxiety disorders have a prevalence of 12.3% between the ages of 6 and 12 years and m ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 209 11.0% between the ages of 13 to 18 years (costello et al., 2011). in addition, in a very recent report developed by save the children, results also corroborated the prevalence of mental health disorders is higher from 11 to 14 years old, comparing to 4 to 10 years old. these results also concur with data reporting the increasing prevalence of mental health issues after the pandemic situation (aumaitre et al., 2021). research also shows some gender differences in anxiety and depression. these gender differences seem to be linked to a tendency of lower levels of life satisfaction among girls, across different cultures. contributing factors include the establishment of higher academic goals and self-perception of coping skills (who, 2016). the impact of covid-19 on children mental health now, more than ever, children mental health is a common problem worldwide. the increase of problems related to psychological maladjustment due to covid-19 have been recently documented. research shows an increase of mental health problems related to depression, anxiety, attachment/dependence issues, post-traumatic stress disorder, and emotional symptoms, such as irritability or sleep disruptions (aumaitre et al., 2021; brooks et al., 2020; racine et al., 2020). additionally, confinement and its associated stress since the beginning of the pandemic have exacerbated mental health problems. one study found that 86% of families reported changes in the emotional state of their children, such as irritability, agitation, nervousness, changes in sleep, or difficulty concentrating (orgilies et al., 2020). despite clinical initiatives to address the growing prevalence of problems associated with psychological maladjustment, the educational context is unique because not only is learning taking place, but it is also an environment where students develop socially and emotionally. a report issued by unesco, which establishes the framework of education for sustainable development 2030, points to education as the principle contributing factor to the construction of a more just and equal society through five main areas, including student empowerment as well as training and professional development of educators (unesco, 2020). castillo-gualda et al. – preventive initiatives 210 social and emotional learning to promote mental health in educational settings the implementation of educational practices based on the promotion of socioemotional skills and abilities through instruction and activities built into the curriculum is vital to fostering wellbeing and healthy development in childhood, especially for children at risk. research shows that early intervention helps to reduce inequality and promote healthy growth from an early age (oecd, 2015; yang et al., 2019). numerous investigations have shown the role that teaching children socio-emotional abilities has in academic and personal development. specifically, these abilities are related to better mental health, greater social competence, and improvements in both academic and professional performance from youth to adulthood (mayer et al., 2008; taylor et al., 2017). hence, the benefits of social and emotional learning (sel) is accumulating, including not only for the promotion of specific techniques to prevent psychosocial maladjustment, but also to enhance wellbeing for all stakeholders in the educational community. many sel initiatives are based on the theoretical framework of emotional intelligence, defined as “the ability to perceive and express emotion, assimilate emotion in thought, understand and reason with emotion, and regulate emotion in the self and others” (mayer & salovey, 1997). sel promotes the understanding, attitudes, and abilities related to recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating emotions (brackett, 2019). these underlying emotion skills help to optimize and promoting healthy self-awareness, empathy, self-management, responsible decision making, and social relationships (durlak et al., 2011). sel provides a framework for schools to systematically develop social and emotional competencies of children and adults, attending to their growing and changing needs (taylor et al., 2017). notably, throughout the last ten years, the methodological quality and understanding of necessary characteristics of sel have increased significantly to ensure rigor and quality in its implementation. the collaborative for academic, social, and emotional learning (casel) focuses its academic and scientific resources on adequate conceptualization and establishment of a curriculum intended to promote sel competencies and optimal academic performance of all students (maccann et al., 2020). casel’s efforts revolve ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 211 around defining the programs and tools backed by scientific endorsement, as well as their adequate implementation and sustainability1. there is ample scientific evidence to confirm the effectiveness of sel in decreasing disruptive and aggressive behaviors, enhancing classroom environment and quality of interactions, and reducing problems related to psychological maladjustment, such as depression and substance abuse (durlak et al., 2011). compared to classroom that did not receive sel training, evidence has shown that those which did had a reduction of clinical manifestations such as anxiety, depression, and social stress. furthermore, not only were emotional symptoms reduced in the short-term, but the effects continued to be evident six months later (ruiz-aranda et al., 2012). sel initiatives have also been shown to impact prosocial behavior and reduce direct aggression (castillo-gualda et al., 2013). similarly, the results show that sel tools play an important role in the management of unpleasant emotions, providing students with the ability to adequately recognize, understand, and regulate these emotions, which leads to the reduction of more reactive or impulsive strategies, such as aggressive behaviors (castillogualda et al., 2018; vega et al., 2021). the ruler approach to social and emotional learning one sel initiative with accumulating empirical evidence at an international level is ruler (brackett, 2019; brackett et al., 2019), which is found within the select criteria established by casel that was created to determine which sel initiatives comply with the criteria of rigor and methodological quality. ruler is a systemic approach based on emotional intelligence theory (mayer & salovey, 1997). ruler provides a series of tools to the entire educational community (educators, administration staff, families, and students alike) to promote the development of five emotion skills: recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating one’s own emotions as well as those of others. ruler uses scientifically endorsed tools that strive for a common vocabulary and its integration to the educational blueprint and culture. ruler’s theory of change is primarily based on the training of adults, the inclusion of ruler skills in school culture, integration of its tools in pedagogy, and subsequently, specific coursework with lessons included in curriculum content and adapted to students’ development, as well as training castillo-gualda et al. – preventive initiatives 212 for families (brackett et al., 2019). in ruler, the pathway to student development is adult intervention, ensuring that the culture and climate in a school allows for and provides the conditions for the development of both children’s and adults’ socio-emotional skills. among many goals, the integration of ruler tools and lessons in academic institutions aims to reduce negative attitudes toward classmates and school. students in ruler classrooms show higher levels of academic performance, perspective-taking skills, and problem-solving skills in addition to a greater ability to understand, express, and regulate their emotions, compared to students in control conditions. students in ruler classrooms also show improved levels of psychological adjustment and significantly fewer difficulties in school (brackett et al., 2012). schools that implement ruler tools into their curriculum show improvements in classroom emotional climate and teacher instructional skills and classroom organization, as well as closer relationships and better discipline, as compared to the control classrooms (hagelskamp et al., 2013). furthermore, ruler has also shown its efficacy in spanish-speaking populations, specifically in the integration of ruler initiatives by teaching staff of junior and senior high schools, which showed improvement in numerous variables related to classroom environment, such as relationship quality, student autonomy, respect for diversity, discipline, teaching quality, and student support (baumsteiger et al., 2021). these results corroborated the effectiveness of ruler on classroom environment and the emotional support that students receive, which was reported in a randomized controlled trial (rivers et al., 2013). together, these results have important implications because teaching staff can promote an optimal classroom environment (or not), which is associated with increased wellbeing and mental health of students, as well as fewer behaviour problems and instances of anxiety or depression (jennings & greenberg, 2009). in addition, the benefits of ruler have not only been demonstrated with children and adolescents, but for adults, too, including reduced burnout and stress related to work, improved teacher satisfaction and commitment, and the development of emotion-related skills (castillo-gualda et al., 2013; castillo-gualda et al., 2017; castillo-gualda et al., 2019; eisenberg et al., 2010; kurki et al., 2016). therefore, developing emotional skills in adults seems to be key for the promotion of co-regulation and to better prepare to attend to students’ personal needs. ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 213 materials and methods hypothesis of the present study the objective of the present study was to examine the impact of ruler, an empirically validated sel intervention, on variables related to children’s mental health, specifically among children between the ages of 6 to 12 years. based on the literature, we hypothesize that 1) ruler intervention promotes mental health and psychological adjustment by reducing levels of clinical, educational, and emotional maladjustment in primary school students. 2) according to literature documenting differences in emotional adjustment across childhood development. we hypothesized that the impact of the sel intervention is significantly greater during late childhood, between 10 and 12 years, in comparison with younger students from 6 to 9 years. procedure this study was developed with an ex post facto design, with a principal analysis aimed to evaluate if ruler training for teaching staff promoted mental health and psychological adjustment in primary school students in comparison with students whose teachers did not receive the training. ruler project took place in three phases through three consecutive academic years: (1) phase one: during the first year, 4 in-person training sessions (15 hours) focused on ruler abilities and the four tools (charter, mood meter, metamoment, and blueprint) for teachers; (2) phase two: during the second year, implementation and follow-up plan (3 hours) took place to introduce skills and lessons to students; (3) phase three: during the third year, the behavior assessment system for children, second edition (basc s-2) questionnaire was used to evaluate the students (reynolds and kamphaus, 2004, adapted by gonzález et al., 2004). the research group made a formal proposal of ruler approach to sel to the government of la rioja (spain). the proposal was approved as an educational innovation project, conducted by the center of innovation and castillo-gualda et al. – preventive initiatives 214 education from la rioja. two official announcements during two consecutive academic years were made for public schools to apply. one school participated in the first year, and other nine schools participated in the second year. from all of them, two schools were contacted by the research group to participate in the present study. the school that participated during the first official announcement was considered experimental school because at the moment of evaluation teachers were already trained in ruler and started ruler implementation (phase two). the experimental school is a public school of early childhood and primary education. it is a school characterized by the principle of coeducation and normalization and integration of students with special educational needs. they implement the project vida with ruler approach. the control school was selected from the nine participating schools during the second official announcement according to several characteristics such as proximity, strategic mission of schools and socio-cultural families’ characteristics. control school is a public school of early childhood and primary education. the educational project is based on six basic core elements: bilingualism, project work, co-education, library, sports and well-being, and coexistence. this school was considered as a control group assigned as "waiting list" procedure since, at the time of the evaluation, teachers have not started ruler implementation yet. experimental and control schools are situated within the same population, about five kilometers of distance. their curricula were based upon very similar methodological models, predicated upon project-based learning and based on equality and innovation. both institutions were chosen with shared characteristics in mind, such as socio-economic level and socio-cultural qualities of the student body. intervention the present intervention with ruler approach to sel is an evidence-based approach grounded on emotional intelligence theory (mayer and salovey, 1997), aimed to promote five set of skills: recognize our own emotions and those of others in facial expressions, body language, vocal tones, nonverbal signals and thinking patterns; understand causes and consequences of feelings; label our emotions with accurate vocabulary; express our feelings in accordance with cultural norms and social contexts; and regulate our ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 215 emotions by using helpful strategies to promote optimal growth and wellbeing. the ruler training provides a) teaching staff development of recognition, understanding, labelling, expressing, and regulation of emotions with the objective of improving the teaching-learning process and promoting an optimal environment; b) promoting adults’ social and emotional skills to encourage professional development and incorporation into their pedagogy; and c) constructing and solidifying the understanding necessary to integrate ruler tools into educational curriculum. a full description of ruler tools, theory of change and strategy is described elsewhere (brackett et al., 2019). participants the sample for this study consisted of 207 children from two public primary schools, located in spain. the sample was distributed by 49.76% boys and 50.24% girls. students were between the ages of 6-12 years (mean = 9.21, sd = 1.59). children from both schools completed a questionnaire, and their families signed an informed consent. the decision to participate was voluntary and anonymity and confidentiality were guaranteed regarding to data collection and processing. the study was carried out according to the declaration of helsinki. a total of 131 students were randomly selected in the experimental school and 76 students were randomly selected in the control school. the difference in sample size between schools was due to larger size of experimental school with a whole sample of approximately 680 students (3 groups for each grade). in comparison to control school with a total of approximately 400 students (2 groups for each grade). the initial sample consisted of 214 subjects, from which 7 were excluded due to reliability issues in their answers. in order to supplement the analyses, the sample was categorized, see table 1, and differentiated according to gender and age, splitting into two groups ages 6-9 years (middle childhood) and 10-12 years (late childhood). instruments the present study utilized the behavior assessment system for children, second edition (basc-2), an adaptation of the original version form 1992, modified to its spanish version (gonzález et al., 2004). the basc is a multidimensional test that measures several aspects of behavior and castillo-gualda et al. – preventive initiatives 216 personality, including dimensions of psychological adjustment (adaptive) as well as maladjustment (clinical). the self-report provides information regarding the total store and regarding two scales: the clinical scale (negative attitude toward school, negative attitude toward teachers, sensation seeking, atypicality, locus of control, somatization, social stress, anxiety, depression, and sense of inadequacy). the adaptive scale (interpersonal relationships, relationships with parents, self-esteem, and self-confidence). similarly, this test allows for the procurement of four global dimensions: maladjustment to school, clinical maladjustment, emotional symptoms index, and personal adjustment; and 12 subdimensions: negative attitude toward school, anxiety, negative attitude toward professors, atypicality, self-esteem, conduct problems, depression, social stress, locus of control, interpersonal relationships, relationships with parents, and sense of inadequacy. the spanish adaptation of the test, in similar age groups, presents adequate psychometric properties. regarding reliability, the internal consistency coefficient as well as the stability over three months elapsed time are elevated for all the global scales, specifically, .85 and .81 for maladjustment to school, .90 and .69 for clinical maladjustment, and .84 and .77 for personal adjustment (gonzález et al., 2004). for this study, cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient for internal consistency is greater than .80 for all the items analyzed. data analysis data analysis was completed using the statistical package spss (version 25.0). initially, we completed a descriptive analysis of the sample and calculated the mean score and standard deviation of the scales used. later, an analysis of variance (anova) was utilized to determine the possible differences in the dimensions and subdimensions by participation of the teaching staff in the training. there is no post hoc comparisons, since there were only two groups (yes/no teaching staff participation in the training) in the anova. results ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 217 the descriptive statistics (mean and sd) of the items are shown in table 2, of the sample in general, and differentiated by middle childhood (6-9 years) and late childhood (10-12 years). table 1 sample distribution by treatment, age, and gender group gender 10-12 years 6-9 years total control female 12 29 41 male 9 26 35 total 21 55 76 experimental female 34 29 63 male 34 34 68 total 68 63 131 total female 46 58 104 male 43 60 103 total 89 118 207 table 2 descriptive statistics of the mean (m), standard deviation (sd), and number (n) per dimension according to participation in the study and differentiated by the age of the students dependent variable group 10-12 years 6-9 years total m sd n m sd n m sd n clinical maladjustment control 17.43 7.69 21 17.00 7.36 55 17.12 7.40 76 experimental 13.07 8.76 68 15.65 7.94 63 14.31 8.45 131 total 14.10 8.68 89 16.28 7.67 118 15.34 8.17 207 maladjustment to school control 3.05 2.50 21 3.84 2.57 55 3.62 2.56 76 experimental 3.16 2.26 68 3.65 2.16 63 3.40 2.22 131 total 3.13 2.31 89 3.74 2.36 118 3.48 2.35 207 castillo-gualda et al. – preventive initiatives 218 dependent variable group 10-12 years 6-9 years total m sd n m sd n m sd n emotional symptoms index control 31.57 8.51 21 30.00 6.68 55 30.43 7.21 76 experimental 27.01 8.00 68 28.70 7.35 63 27.82 7.71 131 total 28.09 8.30 89 29.31 7.05 118 28.78 7.62 207 personal adjustment control 23.62 2.556 21 23.02 3.47 55 23.18 3.24 76 experimental 23.66 3.18 68 22.95 2.85 63 23.32 3.04 131 total 23.65 3.03 89 22.98 3.14 118 23.27 3.11 207 clinical scale control 29.29 15.20 21 30.15 13.18 55 29.91 13.67 76 experimental 22.94 15.01 68 27.92 13.60 63 25.34 14.51 131 total 24.44 15.21 89 28.96 13.39 118 27.01 14.34 207 adaptive scale control 23.62 2.56 21 23.02 3.47 55 23.18 3.24 76 experimental 23.66 3.18 68 22.95 2.85 63 23.32 3.04 131 total 23.65 3.03 89 22.98 3.14 118 23.27 3.11 207 negative attitude toward school control 1.38 0.74 21 1.95 1.16 55 1.79 1.09 76 experimental 1.57 1.08 68 2.05 1.22 63 1.80 1.17 131 total 1.53 1.01 89 2.00 1.19 118 1.80 1.14 207 anxiety control 9.05 3.96 21 7.42 3.63 55 7.87 3.77 76 experimental 6.59 4.29 68 6.92 3.58 63 6.75 3.95 131 total 7.17 4.32 89 7.15 3.60 118 7.16 3.91 207 negative attitude toward teachers control 1.38 0.74 21 1.95 1.16 55 1.79 1.09 76 experimental 1.57 1.08 68 2.05 1.22 63 1.80 1.17 131 total 1.53 1.01 89 2.00 1.19 118 1.80 1.14 207 atypicality control 4.24 3.16 21 5.00 2.80 55 4.79 2.90 76 experimental 2.65 2.74 68 4.52 3.02 63 3.55 3.02 131 total 3.02 2.91 89 4.75 2.92 118 4.00 3.03 207 ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 219 dependent variable group 10-12 years 6-9 years total m sd n m sd n m sd n self-esteem control 5.62 0.92 21 5.36 1.18 55 5.43 1.11 76 experimental 5.51 1.19 68 5.35 1.08 63 5.44 1.14 131 total 5.54 1.13 89 5.36 1.12 118 5.43 1.13 207 conduct problems control 2.48 2.25 21 2.51 2.12 55 2.50 2.14 76 experimental 2.25 2.29 68 2.79 2.00 63 2.51 2.16 131 total 2.30 2.27 89 2.66 2.06 118 2.51 2.15 207 depression control 3.00 2.43 21 3.31 2.22 55 3.22 2.27 76 experimental 2.38 1.92 68 3.10 2.23 63 2.73 2.10 131 total 2.53 2.05 89 3.19 2.22 118 2.91 2.17 207 social stress control 3.10 3.42 21 3.24 1.91 55 3.20 2.40 76 experimental 2.68 2.53 68 3.05 2.50 63 2.85 2.51 131 total 2.78 2.75 89 3.14 2.24 118 2.98 2.47 207 locus of control control 4.14 2.26 21 4.58 2.71 55 4.46 2.58 76 experimental 3.84 3.08 68 4.21 2.84 63 4.02 2.96 131 total 3.91 2.90 89 4.38 2.77 118 4.18 2.83 207 interpersonal relationships control 8.10 1.95 21 7.91 1.93 55 7.96 1.92 76 experimental 8.21 1.67 68 7.81 1.81 63 8.02 1.75 131 total 8.18 1.73 89 7.86 1.86 118 8.00 1.81 207 relationships with parents control 9.90 1.00 21 9.75 1.28 55 9.79 1.20 76 experimental 9.94 1.20 68 9.79 1.22 63 9.87 1.21 131 total 9.93 1.15 89 9.77 1.24 118 9.84 1.20 207 sense of inadequacy control 2.71 2.33 21 2.76 2.40 55 2.75 2.36 76 experimental 1.65 1.86 68 2.48 1.98 63 2.05 1.96 131 total 1.90 2.02 89 2.61 2.18 118 2.30 2.14 207 castillo-gualda et al. – preventive initiatives 220 dependent variable group 10-12 years 6-9 years total 76 m sd n m sd n m sd n experimental 48.18 14.56 68 53.49 13.10 63 50.73 14.08 131 total 49.72 14.98 89 54.51 12.71 118 52.45 13.90 207 in order to explore statistical differences between students whose teachers received sel training compared to students with teachers without sel instruction, a parametric comparison was completed through anova, see table 3. table 3 effects of the analysis of variance by teacher participation (yes/no) for all students (ss: sum of squares; df: degrees of freedom; ms: mean square) dependent variable ss df ms f p-value ηp2 clinical maladjustment 378.55 1 378.55 5.80 .017* .028 maladjustment to school 2.36 1 2.36 0.43 .514 .002 emotional symptoms index 327.59 1 327.59 5.78 .017* .027 personal adjustment 0.90 1 0.90 0.09 .762 .000 clinical scale 1005.38 1 1005.38 4.98 .027* .024 adaptive scale 0.90 1 0.90 0.09 .762 .000 negative attitude toward school 2.62 1 2.62 0.91 .342 .004 anxiety 60.37 1 60.37 4.00 .047* .019 negative attitude toward teachers 0.01 1 0.01 0.01 .942 .000 atypicality 73.94 1 73.94 8.34 .004* .039 self-esteem 0.00 1 0.00 0.00 .996 .000 conduct problems 0.01 1 0.01 0.00 .971 .000 depression 11.95 1 11.95 2.56 .111 .012 social stress 5.64 1 5.64 0.92 .338 .004 locus of control 9.54 1 9.54 1.19 .277 .006 ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 221 dependent variable ss df ms f p-value ηp2 interpersonal relationships 0.14 1 0.14 0.04 .834 .000 relationships with parents 0.31 1 0.31 0.22 .642 .001 sense of inadequacy 23.85 1 23.85 5.34 .022* .025 total 1051.21 1 1051.21 5.56 .019* .026 note. statistically significant differences at a level of .05 regarding the general results of the research, statistically significant differences were found (small effect size, ηp2 < .03) in several dimensions: clinical maladjustment (f = 5.80, p = .017), emotional symptoms index (f = 5.78, p = .017), and clinical scale (f = 4.98, p = .027); in various subdimensions: anxiety (f = 4.00, p = .047), atypicality (f = 8.34, p = .004), and sense of inadequacy (f = 5.34, p = .022); as well as in total score (f = 5.56, p = .019), with lower values in the students whose teachers attended the sel training when compared to those whose teachers did not. in addition, no statistically significant differences were found in any of the dimensions, according to gender (analyses omitted). according to existing evidence, it was hypothesized that age could play and important role in the results, with significant differences in the studied dimensions. therefore, the sample was divided according to the developmental period (middle childhood and late childhood). there were differences when comparing the age ranges, such as the clinical scale (p = .024), negative attitude toward teachers (p = .003), atypicality (p = .000), depression (p = .028), sense of inadequacy (p = .017), as well as the total score (p = .014). these results led us to analyze the two age ranges separately (tables 4 and 5). table 4 effects of the analysis of variance by teacher participation (yes/no) for students ages 6-9 years dependent variable ss df ms f p-value ηp2 clinical maladjustment 53.45 1 53.45 0.91 .343 .008 maladjustment to school 1.01 1 1.01 0.19 .671 .002 castillo-gualda et al. – preventive initiatives 222 dependent variable ss df ms f p-value ηp2 emotional symptoms index 49.75 1 49.75 1.02 .319 .009 personal adjustment 0.13 1 0.13 0.01 .910 .000 clinical scale 145.35 1 145.35 0.81 .370 .007 adaptive scale 0.13 1 0.13 0.01 .910 .000 negative attitude toward school 2.43 1 2.43 0.89 .350 .008 anxiety 7.27 1 7.27 0.56 .456 .005 negative attitude toward teachers 0.31 1 0.31 0.22 .644 .002 atypicality 6.66 1 6.66 0.78 .379 .007 self-esteem 0.01 1 0.01 0.01 .945 .000 conduct problems 2.38 1 2.38 0.56 .456 .005 depression 1.34 1 1.34 0.27 .604 .002 social stress 1.05 1 1.05 0.21 .650 .002 locus of control 4.14 1 4.14 0.54 .466 .005 interpersonal relationships 0.29 1 0.29 0.08 .773 .001 relationships with parents 0.07 1 0.07 0.04 .835 .000 sense of inadequacy 2.43 1 2.43 0.51 .477 .004 total 139.64 1 139.64 0.86 .355 .007 table 5 effects of the analysis of variance by teacher participation (yes/no) for students ages 10-12 years. dependent variable ss df ms f p-value ηp2 clinical maladjustment 304.32 1 304.32 4.18 .044* .046 maladjustment to school 0.21 1 0.21 0.04 .844 .000 emotional symptoms index 333.15 1 333.15 5.06 .027* .055 personal adjustment 0.03 1 0.03 0.00 .955 .000 ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 223 dependent variable ss df ms f p-value ηp2 clinical scale 645.86 1 645.86 2.85 .095 .032 adaptive scale 0.03 1 0.03 0.00 .955 .000 negative attitude toward school 0.10 1 0.10 0.03 .859 .000 anxiety 97.05 1 97.05 5.47 .022* .059 negative attitude toward professors 0.60 1 0.60 0.58 .449 .007 atypicality 40.62 1 40.62 5.02 .028* .055 self esteem 0.18 1 0.18 0.14 .713 .002 conduct problems 0.82 1 0.82 0.16 .692 .002 depression 6.12 1 6.12 1.46 .230 .017 social stress 2.81 1 2.81 0.37 .545 .004 locus of control 1.49 1 1.49 0.18 .677 .002 interpersonal relationships 0.20 1 0.20 0.07 .799 .001 relationships with parents 0.02 1 0.02 0.02 .900 .000 sense of inadequacy 18.28 1 18.28 4.68 .033* .051 total 685.81 1 685.81 3.13 .080 .035 note. statistically significant differences at a level of .05 results indicated that all statistically significant differences disappeared during the stage of 6-9 years in the two dimensions clinical maladjustment (f = 0.91, p = .343) and emotional symptoms index (f = 1.00, p = .319); in the clinical scale (f = 0.81, p = .370), as well as in the subdimensions and total score (f = 0.86, p = .355). however, in the age range made up of 10-12 years, despite there were no differences in the clinical scale (f = 2.85, p = .095) or total score (f = 3.13, p = .080). results showed statistically significant differences, with medium effect size, ηp2 > .04, in clinical maladjustment (f = 4.18, p = .044), emotional symptoms index (f = 5.06, p = .027), anxiety (f = 5.47, p = .022), atypicality (f = 5.02, p = .028), and sense of inadequacy (f = 4.68, p = .033), with decreased scores in the students who had teachers trained in sel. castillo-gualda et al. – preventive initiatives 224 discussion the present study advances our understanding of the effectiveness of ruler on mental health in students between 6 and 12 years of age. the results partially support the first proposed hypothesis: that ruler significantly reduces scores related to clinical maladjustment. specifically, the results show the impact that sel training completed by primary teaching staff had in the reduction of anxiety, atypicality and one’s sense of inadequacy, in comparison to students whose teachers had not received sel training. however, the results did not show evidence of a positive impact on the adaptive scale. consequently, we considered the role of age in the effectiveness of sel training on clinical variables. we predicted the benefits of the sel intervention to decrease variables related to psychological maladjustment would be stronger during late childhood, comparing to middle childhood. first, a significant reduction was achieved in three clinical subdivisions, anxiety, atypicality, and sense of inadequacy, of the basc-2 questionnaire. these results concur with prior evidence regarding sel’s effectiveness on children and youth (durlak et al., 2011; taylor et al., 2017; ruiz-aranda et al., 2012). it appears that the sel interventions were able to equip teachers with the understanding and abilities needed to provide their students with tools to recognize emotional experiences more effectively, empowering them to identify stimuli that could trigger physical or cognitive symptoms, facilitating the vocabulary to be able to express them adequately, and providing them with healthier strategies for emotional regulation, such as breathing techniques, self-talk, or reevaluation, which allow students to analyze stressful or challenging situations in a more well-balanced way. on the other hand, the incorporation of these tools into class in order to promote emotional awareness, such as the mood meter, could help teachers to obtain more complete information about students’ emotions, providing a better response to students’ needs (choi, 2018; costello et al., 2011; who, 2014); therefore, sel initiatives could prevent these types of emotional symptoms. regarding the emotional symptoms index variable, indicating internalizing problems, another variable that was shown to decrease significantly was sense of inadequacy. teachers who received the sel training could be more capable of naming, validating, and teaching more effective regulation techniques, providing strategies so that students are able to respond more deliberately and ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 225 connect with their own thoughts. in the presence of intense emotional experiences, there exists a percentage of children who resort to automatic responses, such as avoidance, isolation, rumination, or bad habits (who, 2014). however, providing the school with sel tools enables it to promote better coping strategies. for example, in ruler, educators and children learn a tool called the meta-moment. this teaches people to create greater distance between the stimulus and emotional response, facilitating the implementation of more helpful strategies and fostering a growth mindset regarding one’s own abilities to manage complex situations. prior investigations show how teaching staff can serve as optimal models for effective development of socioemotional abilities of students and the role of emotional co-regulation in the process (castillo-gualda et al., 2017; castillo-gualda et al., 2018; eisenberg et al., 2010; kurki et al., 2016). according to our second hypothesis, we obtained significant differences in our findings between the 10-12-year-old group and the 6-9-year-old group, which could be attributed to various aspects of development. late childhood and adolescence are vital moments during which a greater incidence of emotional alterations is reported (kessler et al., 2007). on the other hand, the transition from middle childhood to late childhood is a vital period during which girls and boys should be capable of progressively incorporating more cognitive strategies to manage the intensity of certain emotions (saarni, 1999). specifically, the maturation of the prefrontal cortex is a complex, non-linear process during which developmental changes of cerebral electrical activity from the age of 10 years forward are particularly evident. higher levels of dopamine as opposed to serotonin and later maturation of the prefrontal cortex versus the amygdala seem to explain more intense responses to emotionally intense stimuli during this developmental stage (mcrae et al., 2012; walker, 2002). in addition, according to prior literature, the higher prevalence of psychological maladjustment during late childhood in comparison to middle childhood, could explain why the results were seen in the age range of 10 to 12 years and not in the preceding group (aumaitre et al., 2021). our data corroborate previous evidence regarding the role of adults and social context in which children develop as a key aspect for healthy socioemotional development. the absence of compassionate models that provide a guide for healthy coping with stressful situations decisively influences children’s ability to learn and use effective emotional strategies (phillips et castillo-gualda et al. – preventive initiatives 226 al., 2004; phillips et al., 1994). consequently, providing teachers with sel tools that infuse in their daily relation with children could constitute a relevant way of prevention in educational settings. considering the preventive nature of sel initiatives, the present study provided some evidence regarding the role that ruler approach to sel might have in late childhood, before certain clinical manifestations can become more intense during adolescence (choi, 2018; costello et al., 2011). limitations first, the most important limitation of the present study is that it does not correspond to a pretest-posttest design, which would have identified the students’ levels of maladjustment to school, clinical maladjustment, emotional symptoms and personal adjustment, prior to intervention. for this reason, in future research it is suggested to increase the sample size and include pretest-posttest designs with a randomized control group to be able to identify the impact attributable to the sel intervention. second, the data collected do not allow for the reinforcement of the students’ socio-emotional abilities, nor the mediumto long-term effects of the intervention; thus, it is suggested to proceed with longitudinal studies that permit the incorporation of follow-up measures in order to advance the role that the developmental process plays on socio-emotional abilities. third, on the basis of a limited sample size, both in volume and in geographical disparity, it is notably the unequal distribution of participants, with larger number of students whose teachers had received sel training, comparing to those whose teachers had not received the training. additionally, the participation of only one school, both in the experimental and control group, make difficult the generalization of the results. consequently, the participation of more schools in the present research could have allowed for a comparison of the effectiveness of sel intervention in other school contexts (public, concerted, or private) and led to more socio-economic diversity. finally, in the present investigation, selfinformed measures of variables related to psychological maladjustment were used. in future research, it would be advised to carry out evaluations that consider socio-emotional abilities as such, not focus on alterations or clinical symptoms; thus, the impact on children could be more adequately measured ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 227 wherein the presence of certain emotional symptoms is less prevalent. similarly, it is suggested to evaluate ruler mid-time and long-time effects, introducing follow-up measures that also provide information regarding the quality of implementation and satisfaction with the sel program. despite these limitations, the present study supports, with empirical evidence, the benefit that an sel intervention based on emotional intelligence abilities (mayer & salovey, 1997), ruler, has on the decrease of variables related with maladjustment and clinical symptoms of students between the ages of 10 to 12 years. in addition, the present research emphasizes the role that sel training of adults can have on students, advancing the theory of change regarding the effectiveness of sel programs in general and of the ruler approach in particular (brackett et al., 2019). accordingly, the future of sel initiatives should focus on the need to develop in teaching staff the abilities to effectively co-regulate emotions in educational environments, contributing to the prevention of mental health problems in students from childhood. in conclusion, this study intends to advance understanding of the role that the training of teaching staff in sel tools and abilities can have on the prevention of problems related to clinical maladjustment in childhood, showing preliminary evidence of the role adults play in the creation of an adequate atmosphere for optimal development of children and youth. thus, including sel tools in the educational curriculum and pedagogy, will help professionals to be sensitive and responsive to emotional needs from childhood supporting their optimal development. schools are a great place where children and adults can develop protective abilities that help them manage unpleasant emotions particularly prevalent during these challenging times. references aumaitre, a., costas, e., sánchez, m., taberner, p., & vall, j. 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(2019). can early childhood curriculum enhance social-emotional competence in lowincome children? a meta-analysis of the educational effects. early education and development, 30(1), 36-59. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2018.1539557 ruth castillo gualda: faculty of health and faculty of education, universidad camilo jose cela orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0086-8574 álvaro moraleda: faculty of education, universidad camilo jose cela orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3638-8436 marc a. brackett: yale center for emotional intelligence, yale university orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5245-0244 contact address: rcastillo@ucjc.edu https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838021991296 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00161 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/326320 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/112750 https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2018.1539557 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0086-8574 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3638-8436 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5245-0244 mailto:rcastillo@ucjc.edu template journals hipatia press instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com/ the cognitive profile of intellectual giftedness david asensio1, jon andoni duñabeitia1 & ana fernández-mera1 1) international chair in cognitive health, universidad nebrija, spain date of publication: july 21th, 2023 edition period: july 2023 october 2023 to cite this article: asensio, d., duñabeitia, j.a., & fernández-mera, a. (2023). the cognitive profile of intellectual giftedness. international journal of educational psychology, published july 21th 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11828 to link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11828 please scroll down for article the terms and conditions of use are related to the open journal system and to creative commons attribution license (cc-by) http://ijep.hipatiapress.com/ http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11828 http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11828 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 2023 hipatia press issn: 2014-3575 doi: 10.17583/ijep.11828 ijep – international journal of educational psychology – online first – first published july 21th2023 the cognitive profile of intellectual giftedness david asensio jon andoni duñabeitia universidad nebrija universidad nebrija ana fernández-mera universidad nebrija abstract previous literature has suggested the existence of a close relationship between individuals’ intellectual abilities and their cognitive profile, understood as their performance in tasks tapping into the different cognitive domains. this relationship has typically been discussed in populations characterized as having high intellectual abilities, as is the case of gifted children and adolescents. in this study, the cognitive profile in domains of memory, attention, coordination, perception, and reasoning of a group of gifted children and adolescents was contrasted with a control group similar in age distribution, gender and socioeconomic level but with normotypical development. the results indicated that participants in the gifted group scored higher than those in the control group in all cognitive domains. the differences in cognitive abilities were not consistent across all areas, meaning that some cognitive abilities did not show significant differences, while others did. these results help to identify a more precise cognitive profile of gifted individuals, yielding a better understanding of the relationship between intelligence and cognitive abilities. the study provides evidence that allows delving into the most differential and characteristic aspects of giftedness. keywords: giftedness, talented children, cognitive skills, executive functions, iq 2023 hipatiapress issn: 2014-3591 doi: 10.17583/ijep.11828 ijep – international journal of educational psychology – online first – first published july 21th 2023 el perfil cognitivo de las altas capacidades david asensio jon andoni duñabeitia universidad nebrija universidad nebrija ana fernández-mera universidad nebrija resumen la literatura previa ha sugerido la existencia de una estrecha relación entre las capacidades intelectuales de los individuos y su perfil cognitivo, entendido como su rendimiento en tareas que abordan los diferentes dominios cognitivos. esta relación se ha discutido típicamente en poblaciones caracterizadas por tener altas capacidades intelectuales, como es el caso de los niños y adolescentes superdotados. en este estudio se contrastó el perfil cognitivo en dominios de memoria, atención, coordinación, percepción y razonamiento de un grupo de niños y adolescentes superdotados con un grupo de control similar en distribución de edad, sexo y nivel socioeconómico, pero con desarrollo normotípico. los resultados indican que los participantes del grupo de superdotados tuvieron una puntuación mayor que el grupo control en todas las áreas cognitivas. las diferencias en las habilidades cognitivas no fueron consistentes entre todas las áreas, lo que significa que algunas habilidades cognitivas no mostraron diferencias significativas, mientras que otras sí lo hicieron. estos resultados ayudan a identificar un perfil cognitivo más preciso de las personas con altas capacidades, a comprender mejor la relación entre inteligencia y las capacidades cognitivas, y aportan evidencias que permiten profundizar en los aspectos más diferenciales y característicos de la superdotación. palabras clave: altas capacidades, niños superdotados, capacidades cognitivas, funciones ejecutivas, ci asensio, duñabeitia & fernandez-mera– the cognitive profile of intellectual giftedness 3 ntelligence, understood as a person's ability to learn from experience and to adapt, shape, and select environments (sternberg, 2012), is a broad concept that has been studied for more than a century (binet & simon, 1904; spearman 1904). a large part of the literature on intelligence has focused on identifying what makes a person intelligent, with children with high intellectual abilities being the target subjects of many studies (namely, gifted, or talented children with a high iq). while it is true that the broad concept of intelligence is still used to refer to gifted children, research has tried for years to further refine the concepts underlying intelligence, resulting in the g-factor, often more or less successfully parameterized as intelligence quotient (iq) in a series of standardized tests. however, these concepts remain unspecific and insufficient to describe the complexity of the concept of intelligence. in this regard, a wide variety of relevant factors should be considered, such as motivation and creativity (renzulli, 1978), or personality (fries et al., 2022). one of the most interesting trends is to break down the intelligence concept into cognitive abilities (chekaf et al., 2018; rowe et al., 2014; wai et al., 2022), which makes it possible to study how these are profiled in gifted children. while some authors open the debate as to whether these profiles are reliable and how they should be interpreted (canivez & watkins, 1998), these models are broadly accepted (fiorello et al., 2002). in this way, intelligence would be the tip of an iceberg composed of a large pool of cognitive abilities (gow, 2016; schneider & newman, 2015). the age variation of intelligence (breit et al., 2020; sternberg, 2012) also serves as an additional clue of the potentially intimate relationship with cognitive abilities, as both change in a similar way (borella et al., 2019; gow 2016). with these premises and based on the systematic review conducted by bucaille et al. (2021), a natural research question would be how different gifted children’s cognitive abilities would be as compared to their peers with normotypical intelligence. domain-general cognitive abilities could be understood as a set of brain processes that allow a person to perform from the most basic activities, such as perceiving a stimulus in the environment, to more complex activities, such as organizing a week of hard work. as with intelligence, cognitive abilities have also been extensively studied for decades (atkinson & shiffrin, 1968; baddeley & hitch, 1974; broadbent, 1958; diamond, 2013; lezak, 1982; i ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 00(0) 4 norman & shallice, 1986; sohlberg & mateer, 1989). individual cognitive abilities or processes tend to be grouped into different cognitive areas or domains, such as attention (sohlberg & mateer, 1989), memory (baddeley & hitch, 1974), or executive functions (hereafter efs; lezak, 1982), among others. this latter set of cognitive abilities (i.e., efs) represents one of the cognitive areas that is to be most tightly associated with intelligence (chen et al., 2019; deary et al., 2009; debraise et al., 2020; gray et al., 2022; takeuchi et al., 2021). this close relationship between efs and intelligence is endorsed by neuroimaging data showing that these cognitive skills are mainly managed by the prefrontal cortex of the human brain (friedman & robbins, 2021; jones & graff-radford, 2021) and that intelligence is also related to this same area (sternberg, 2012). one could think of two types of approaches when measuring intelligence depending on whether the tests focus on the g-factor or on an aggregate of cognitive abilities: mono-ability iq tests (raven, 1938), and composite abilities iq tests (wechsler, 2008). this lack of agreement in the approach to the assessment of intelligence puts the developers in a bind. considering that the selected theory or definition will direct how the type of test and its outcome will be, the developers of such tests have made a great effort to choose the most robust and functional ones. although the iq score has traditionally been a basic concept for determining giftedness (pfeiffer, 2015), in recent years there has been increasinginterest at the international level in exploring beyond the concept of iq. as schneider and flanagan (2015) point out, the developers of intelligence tests have based on a series of theories of intelligence, following a pattern of overlapping waves, starting in 1904 and lasting until current days. the first wave of tests measured general intelligence; the second wave focused on specific aspects of test performance (e.g., comparing the outcomes, such as failures and successes, on a specific type of item); the third wave introduced more rigorous psychometric methods for interpreting individual profiles; and the fourth wave of tests had welldeveloped operational theories, improving the interpretation of the results. as noted by zajda (2019) in his review about current models and theories of intelligence, gardner (2012) grouped theories of intelligence into four types: (1) psychometric theories, based on individual differences in academic success; (2) cognitive theories, based on various processes involved in performance and specific mental operations; (3) cognitive-contextual asensio, duñabeitia & fernandez-mera– the cognitive profile of intellectual giftedness 5 theories, which framed mental processes in a socio-cultural context; and (4) biological theories, which try to cover the relationship between intelligence, the brain, and its functions. in this line, over and above the selected focus and approach of each test (namely, the wave a test belongs to), the developers of intelligence tests also fall into one of these groups at the theoretical level. according to britannica (2021), the most widely used intelligence tests today are the stanford-binet intelligence scale (binet & simon, 1904) and the wechsler scales (wechsler, 2008). both tests can likely be categorized within psychometric and cognitive theories, respectively, at least in their early versions. in the case of the most current computerized intelligence tests, such as the adaptive test of general intelligence (abad et al., 2020), they would still be framed within the group of psychometric theories, since cognitivecontextual theories and biological theories are more difficult to operationally transfer to a test. while these tests have traditionally been used to measure intelligence level and to validate categorization as high-iq or talented (cao et al., 2017; gignac, 2015) they do not provide data on the specific cognitive profile associated with a given iq, although some approaches have been made (schneider, 2013). stemming from the seemingly tight link between iq and cognitive skills, the current study was set to obtain a more comprehensive and detailed view of the cognitive state of gifted children compared to their normative peers. by analyzing the differences between high-iq and average-iq children in different cognitive domains we will be in a better position to draw a much more accurate and precise profile for gifted and average children, exploring differences between these populations beyond an isolated data point of iq (guignard et al., 2016). in the case of gifted children who already have an exceptional iq, one could tentatively predict differences with respect to the general population also in their cognitive abilities, or at least in some of them (steiner & carr, 2003). while some data has been provided specifically concerning an enhanced performance of talented children in tasks tapping into working memory (aubry & bourdin, 2021; aubry et al., 2021), it remains to be seen if and how the differences between gifted and average-iq children extend to various cognitive domains and skills. ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 00(0) 6 the current study explored whether gifted children have a better cognitive profile than the general reference population and their peers with normative intelligence, and if so, in which specific cognitive domains and subdomains would be these differences more salient. thus, the aim of the study is to quantitatively identify the cognitive profile of giftedness and to delimit the relationship between intelligence and cognitive abilities. methodology instruments a battery of computerized cognitive test was used to provide a quantitative description of cognitive domains and skills of the participants. the instrument used in this regard was the cognitive assessment battery (cab)™ (cognifit inc., san francisco, us), validated against classical well-known tests (haimov et al., 2008). this instrument is an online assessment battery widely used in children (conesa & duñabeitia, 2021; reina-reina et al., 2023), adults (chandler et al., 2013), the elderly (thompson et al., 2011), both healthy (tapia et al., 2022) or with a pathological condition (duñabeitia et al., 2023; haimov et al., 2008). it is composed of a set of 17 neuropsychological tasks based on classical neuropsychological tests —such as the digit span task, the stroop test, etc.— that can be performed either from a computer, tablet, or smartphone. the version of the test that was used provides an accurate and immediate measurement of 21 cognitive abilities, grouped into 5 cognitive domains. the attention domain groups the cognitive abilities focused attention, divided attention, inhibition, and updating. the perception domain includes the cognitive abilities of visual perception, spatial perception, auditory perception, visual scanning, and recognition. the memory domain contains the cognitive abilities of short-term memory, visual short-term memory, auditory short-term memory, contextual memory, visual memory, naming, and working memory. the reasoning domain consists of the cognitive abilities of shifting, planning, and processing speed. the coordination domain includes the cognitive abilities eye-hand coordination and response time. asensio, duñabeitia & fernandez-mera– the cognitive profile of intellectual giftedness 7 data collection the participants in this study were 176 spanish children aged 8 to 17 years (i.e., 113 participants in the high.ability group, and 63 participants in the group of children with normotypical development). the participants in the sample of children with high abilities were recruited from spanish associations and institutions for people with high abilities. all of them had the corresponding psycho-pedagogical report for the official diagnosis of high ability that accredits them within this population group. all the psycho-pedagogical assessments were carried out and signed by qualified professionals who had followed the official protocols of each autonomous community and thus were registered in the corresponding registry of each community. in spain, the identification protocols follow the guidelines of the state education regulations in force at any given time. they also use technically adequate detection instruments. the tests administered to participants in this sample, include the wechsler intelligence scale for children-v (wisc-v; wechsler, 2014), the stanford-binet-5 (sb-5; roid et al., 2004), the kaufman assessment battery for children-ii (kabc-2; kaufman et al., 2005), and the woodcock-johnson test of cognitive abilities-iv (wj-iv; mather & jaffe, 2016). all these tests can be identified as composite abilities iq tests, which goes beyond simply measuring iq. the participants of the sample of students with normotypical development came from schools in different spanish provinces. a mandatory criterion for inclusion in the normotypical development group was a sufficiently good school performance as attested by their teachers. as a double check for inclusion of participants in each group of the study, an initial screening was performed to ensure that they rigorously met the appropriate eligibility criteria (del rosal et al., 2011; janos & robinson, 1985; mccallister et al., 1996). for this purpose, a commercially available test was used (matrices-tai test, adaptive test of general intelligence; abad et al., 2020). for a child to be considered a participant in the high ability group, over and above having the pre-existing psycho-pedagogical report, their results in this test had to yield a general index (gi) corresponding to a high or very high percentile according to the interpretation norms. this doublecheck procedure ensured that all participants in the gifted group were in fact ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 00(0) 8 gifted children. after this initial selection, 113 participants were included in the high-ability group (36 females). their mean age was 11.22 years (sd=2.14). in addition, all participants recruited from schools with normotypical development also completed the general intelligence test to ensure that, following the same general rules of test interpretation, they did not obtain scores corresponding to high or very high percentiles. this procedure avoided possible cases of children with high abilities that had not yet been identified. the final sample included in the normotypical development group consisted of 63 participants (22 females). their mean age was 11.78 years (sd=2.12). parents of children in the high ability and normotypical development groups completed a socioeconomic status questionnaire (macarthur scale of subjective socioeconomic status; adler et al., 2000) in which they selfassessed their perceived status, and the results showed no differences between the groups (mean of the high ability group=6.42, sd=1.01; mean of the normotypical development group=6.63, sd=1.13). all families were informed of the nature, purpose, and protocol of the present study and signed informed consent for the participation of their children. the protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the universidad nebrija. data analysis the cognitive data acquired were compared between the groups of gifted children and normotypical development children by means of repeated measures anovas following two different approaches. first, the ageand gender-adjusted percentile scores obtained in each of the cognitive domains measured by the cognitive assessment battery (cab)™ were contrasted between the groups. and second, a series of repeated measures anovas were carried out to explore the potential differences between the groups in the skills that constitute each of the cognitive domains. the whole analysis routine was run using jamovi (the jamovi project, 2022) operating on r (r core team 2021) using the packages afex (singmann, 2018) and emmeans (lenth, 2020). asensio, duñabeitia & fernandez-mera– the cognitive profile of intellectual giftedness 9 results the results obtained after data analysis of the descriptive data are reported in table 1. table 1 means, standard errors, and 95% confidence intervals of the scores in each cognitive domain and in each skill for each of the groups. high-iq group average-iq group 95% confidence interval 95% confidence interval cognitive domain mean standard error lower upper mean standard error lower upper attention 65.7 1.57 62.6 68.8 53.3 2.10 49.2 57.5 divided attention 73.3 1.97 69.4 77.2 62.8 2.64 57.6 68.0 focused attention 52.1 2.44 47.3 56.9 45.8 3.26 39.3 52.2 inhibition 70.4 2.29 65.9 75.0 58.4 3.07 52.4 64.5 updating 66.8 2.62 61.7 72.0 46.3 3.50 39.4 53.3 coordination 61.6 2.07 57.6 65.7 51.2 2.77 45.7 56.7 eye-hand coordination 59.2 2.41 54.5 64.0 48.9 3.23 42.5 55.2 response time 64.1 2.70 58.7 69.4 53.5 3.61 46.4 60.7 memory 78.3 1.39 75.6 81.1 67.5 1.86 63.9 71.2 auditory short-term memory 73.2 2.10 69.1 77.4 61.3 2.81 55.7 66.8 contextual memory 85.1 1.45 82.3 88.0 77.2 1.94 73.3 81.0 naming 79.7 2.19 75.3 84.0 59.7 2.93 53.9 65.4 short-term memory 75.8 2.13 71.6 80.0 66.4 2.85 60.8 72.0 visual memory 76.8 2.01 72.8 80.8 68.2 2.70 62.9 73.5 visual short-term memory 72.5 2.41 67.8 77.3 67.0 3.23 60.7 73.4 working memory 85.2 1.61 82.1 88.4 73.0 2.15 68.8 77.3 perception 68.9 1.20 66.6 71.3 58.9 1.60 55.7 62.0 auditory perception 84.8 1.59 81.7 88.0 74.0 2.13 69.8 78.2 recognition 80.2 1.80 76.7 83.8 67.3 2.42 62.5 72.1 spatial perception 52.9 2.68 47.6 58.1 45.3 3.58 38.2 52.4 ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 00(0) 10 visual perception 82.5 1.90 78.7 86.2 65.2 2.54 60.2 70.2 high-iq group average-iq group 95% confidence interval 95% confidence interval cognitive domain mean standard error lower upper mean standard error lower upper visual scanning 44.3 2.76 38.9 49.8 42.6 3.69 35.3 49.9 reasoning 68.6 1.77 65.1 72.1 60.3 2.38 55.6 65.0 planning 61.5 2.73 56.1 66.9 53.4 3.66 46.2 60.7 processing speed 68.3 2.63 63.1 73.5 60.6 3.53 53.6 67.5 shifting 76.2 2.13 71.9 80.4 66.8 2.86 61.2 72.4 the first analysis approach concerned the exploration of the differences between groups (the group factor with the levels gifted and normotypical) across the cognitive domains that were measured (the cognitive domain factor with the levels attention, memory, coordination, perception, and reasoning). the 2*5 repeated measures anova showed a significant main effect of group (f(1,174)=23.6, p<.001, η2partial=0.119), that showed an overall higher cognitive performance of the gifted group as compared to the normotypical group. the main effect of cognitive domain was also significant (f(4,696)=44.56, p<.001, η2partial=0.204), showing that the percentile scores were different across the domains (see table 1 and figure 1). importantly, the two factors did not interact with each other (f<1 and p>.66), showing that the higher scores obtained by the gifted group were similar across cognitive domains. asensio, duñabeitia & fernandez-mera– the cognitive profile of intellectual giftedness 11 figure 1 mean score (in percentile) and individual data points in each of the cognitive domains obtained by each group. data from the gifted group is represented in light grey, and data from the normotypical group is displayed in black. error bars correspond to 95% confidence intervals. the second analysis followed a fine-grained approach aimed at investigating potential differences between the two groups at test in the magnitude of the contrasting differential effects in each of the skills that constitute each of the cognitive domains. the anova on the data corresponding to the skills that jointly contribute to the attention cognitive domain (namely, divided attention, focused attention, inhibition and updating) showed a significant interaction with group (f(3,522)=3.14, p=.025, η2partial=0.018). post hoc pairwise comparisons using the tukey correction method for multiple contrasts showed that the gifted and the normotypical groups significantly differed in all skills except for focused attention (t(174)=1.545, ptukey>.77; see figure 2a). the anova on the coordination cognitive domain showed that the difference between the groups was similar for the two skills tested (eye-hand coordination and response time), given the lack of an interaction (f<1 and p>.96; see figure 2b). the anova on the high-iq average-iq ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 00(0) 12 skills constituting the memory cognitive domain (auditory short-term memory, contextual memory, naming, short-term memory, visual memory, visual short-term memory and working memory) showed a significant interaction with the factor group (f(6,1044)=3.18, p=.004, η2partial=0.018). post hoc pairwise tests demonstrated that the groups did not significantly differ in short-term memory (t(174)=2.64, ptukey=0.32), visual memory (t(174)=2.56, ptukey=0.37), and visual short-term memory (t(174)=1.36, ptukey=0.98). the difference between groups in contextual memory closely approached significance (t(174)=3.29, ptukey=0.07), and the difference in the rest of skills were significant (ts>3.4 and pstukey<.05; see figure 2c). the results of the analysis on the skills associated with the perception cognitive domain showed a significant interaction with the group factor (f(4,696)=2.87, p=.022, η2partial=0.016), demonstrating that while the scores in some of the skills significantly differed between the gifted and normotypical groups (see figure 2d), the scores in spatial perception (t(174)=1.69, ptukey=0.80) and visual scanning (t(174)=0.38, ptukey=1) were similar across groups. finally, the analysis of the skills associated with the reasoning cognitive domain showed similar differences between the groups in the three skills tested (planning, processing speed and shifting), as suggested by the lack of an interaction (f<1 and p>.93; see figure 2e). figure 2 mean score (in percentile) of each of the cognitive skills obtained by each group grouped by domains: a) attention, b) coordination, c) memory, d) perception, e) reasoning. error bars correspond to 95% confidence intervals. divided att. = divided attention, focused att. = focused attention; a.stm = auditory short-term memory, c.mem. = contextual memory, stm = shortterm memory, v.mem. = visual memory, v.stm = visual short-term memory, w.mem. = working memory; auditory p. = auditory perception, spatial p. = spatial perception, visual p. = visual perception, visual scan = visual scanning. asensio, duñabeitia & fernandez-mera– the cognitive profile of intellectual giftedness 13 figure 2 a) b) c) d) e) high-iq average-iq ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 00(0) 14 discussion the current study was designed to explore the potential differences between gifted children and a matched group of children with a neurotypical development in terms of their cognitive profile, stemming from the idea that the higher performance of the former group in iq tests could be also linked to a higher performance in cognitive tests not directly tapping into comprehension-knowledge aptitude (newton & mcgrew, 2010). the results of this study help us conclude that there is an inherent difference not only in the intellectual profile, but also in the cognitive profile between talented or gifted children and their peers. as a baseline measure, we observed that the normotypical group obtained scores close to the median, i.e, 50th percentile, which reinforces the idea that the measurement is correct and follows the expected distribution, and that the selected normotypically developing sample performs as expected for a control group. in contrast, the group of high-iq children showed a significant overall difference in their cognitive scores as compared to the control group (a difference of around 11 percentile points), suggesting that intellectual giftedness comes hand in hand with cognitive giftedness too. these significant differences were found both in the overall score, in the scores of the five core cognitive domains, and in most of the scores of the individual cognitive abilities. another question at stake in the current study was whether gifted children excel in all cognitive abilities equally, or if the differences observed with their peers are unevenly distributed across cognitive domains. the general analysis showed that the mean differences obtained across the five tested cognitive domains were markedly homogeneous (i.e., 12 percentile points in attention, 10 in coordination, 11 in memory, 10 in perception, and 8 in reasoning), demonstrating that the overall better cognitive performance of the gifted group was not restricted to a given cognitive domain or area. a more fine-grained analysis of each of the cognitive domains and the skills that were tested within them showed that there are cognitive abilities in which the scores of the group of gifted children were significantly higher than those of their normotypical peers, while these differences were much more modest or even negligible in other specific skills. asensio, duñabeitia & fernandez-mera– the cognitive profile of intellectual giftedness 15 one interesting finding that deserves attention is the specific group of cognitive abilities in which the difference between talented children and adolescents and their peers is more marked. the importance lies in the fact that one could tentatively suggest that those cognitive skills could presumably be more strongly associated with intelligence. in this line, our results showed that the gifted group obtained a significantly higher score in those cognitive abilities directly or indirectly related to efs, such as working memory, inhibition, monitoring, or divided attention (see also aubry, 2021). this finding endorses the idea that efs have an important implication in what we understand today as intelligence, as already suggested before (chen et al., 2019; deary et al., 2009; debraise et al., 2020; gray et al., 2022; takeuchi et al., 2021). executive functions are highly complex cognitive abilities that allow for the abstract processing of information, and their proposed tight link with iq stems from the idea that intelligence allows us to abstract information from our experience to adapt to the environment or context (sternberg, 2012). nonetheless, other cognitive abilities typically related to efs such as planning and shifting (miyake et al., 2000) did not show significant differences between the groups. one explanation for this may be given by diamond (2011), when she stated that group differences are clearer the more complex the executive function is, and when the cognitive demand in an environment or stimulation program is not increasing, there tends to be no improvement in executive functions. therefore, it can be inferred that the lack of cognitive challenge in the school stage can end in a lower activation of executive functions. this is an interesting starting point for future studies that could be aimed at deciphering the underlying components of executive factors that predict higher levels of intelligence and to experimental interventional approaches aimed at training different components of efs and testing changes in the long term at iq-related levels. although different ways to improve intelligence have already been proposed (dilmurod et al., 2020), by focusing on cognitive abilities, this process becomes more self-evident, given the large body of evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of cognitive training methods (conesa & duñabeitia, 2021; diamond & ling, 2016; emihovich et al., 2020; spencer-smith et al., 2020). on the other hand, the group of gifted children also showed significant and large differences as compared to controls in an array of basic cognitive ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 00(0) 16 abilities with a high perceptual load, such as naming, contextual memory, auditory short-term memory, auditory perception, recognition or visual perception. these results align well with recent data demonstrating the enhanced cognitive skills related with verbal comprehension and, critically, visuo-perceptual abilities of moderately gifted and gifted children (see pezzuti et al., 2022). together, these data provide tentative support to the hypothesis of an earlier development of biological processes associated with sensoriomotor and linguistic skills in gifted children that later in time may result in a higher iq as compared to normotypically developing children (vaivre-douret, 2011). taken together, these findings help us quantify and qualify the core cognitive differences between gifted children and those with normotypical intellectual development, while acknowledging that the variability of the intellectual profiles of the sample limits the scope of these findings. identifying these differences is not only interesting when assessing and recognizing high abilities in children, but also opens the possibility of refining and making more precise interventions aimed at favoring students’ intellectual development in order to maximize their results in different contexts, but especially within the school environment. applying progressive and scalable cognitive training programs in the classroom environment or in complementary activities according to the level of intelligence can favor a holistic attention to students and achieve the optimization of cognitive abilities, not only for students with high abilities, but also for students with normotypical development or those with greater difficulties. this would lead to an optimization of talents and could have a significant impact on school performance and personal development. although the results of this study are enlightening and help to answer the main questions initially posed, we deem it essential to continue research on the cognitive profile of gifted individuals to better understand the seemingly intrinsic relationship between intelligence and domain-general cognition. however, a cautionary note is advised when interpreting these results, given that it is important to bear in mind that the school context is multifactorial and that this study only addresses cognitive aspects. future studies should be directed at collecting a much broader set of variables that consider the holistic and integral vision of educational intervention, so as not to neglect the personal, emotional, and social development of the students. besides, another asensio, duñabeitia & fernandez-mera– the cognitive profile of intellectual giftedness 17 clear-cut limitations of the current study is its cross-sectional nature, which does not allow for solving the existing chicken and egg question arising from the origin of the differences. whether the enhanced cognitive skills of gifted children boost intellectual abilities, or whether the higher intellectual abilities snowball to cognitive skills is a question that remains open. future longitudinal and training studies could help us determine the origin of the differences and better characterize the underlying 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(2019). current research of theories and models of intelligence. curriculum and teaching, 34(1), 87-108. https://doi.org/10.7459/ct/34.1.07 https://doi.org/10.1089/brain.2020.0769 https://doi.org/10.31083/j.jin2101010 https://www.jamovi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1089/tmj.2011.0059 https://doi.org/10.1155/2011/420297 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2022.101650 https://doi.org/10.1037/t15169-00 https://doi.org/10.7459/ct/34.1.07 asensio, duñabeitia & fernandez-mera– the cognitive profile of intellectual giftedness 25 david asensio: international chair in cognitive health, universidad nebrija, spain orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7114-7817 ana fernández-mera: international chair in cognitive health, universidad nebrija, spain orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2690-3892 jon andoni duñabeitia: international chair in cognitive health, universidad nebrija, spain orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3312-8559 contact address: jdunabeitia@nebrija.es https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7114-7817 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2690-3892 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3312-8559 mailto:jdunabeitia@nebrija.es overburdened & underfunded: california public schools amidst the great recession http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2012.07 ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychologyvol. 1 �o. 2. june 2012 pp. 100-126 holbrook mahn university of�ewmexico 201 2 hipatia press issn 201 4-3591 doi: 1 0.4471 /ijep.201 2.07 abstract vygotsky’s work is extensive and covers many aspects of the development of children’s meaning-making processes in social and cultural contexts. however, his main focus is on the examination of the unification of speaking and thinking processes. his investigation centers on the analysis of the entity created by this unification – an internal speaking/thinking system with meaning at its center. despite the fact that this speaking/thinking system is at the center of vygotsky’s work, it remains little explored. this article relies on vygotsky’s writings, particularly thinking and speech, to describe his examination of the speaking/thinking system. to analyze it he derives the unit – znachenie slova – “meaning through language.” in thinking and speech vygotsky describes the origins and development of znachenie slova as a unit of the speaking/thinking system. he also details his genetic, functional, and structural analysis of the processes through which children internalize meaning in social interaction and organize it in an internal, psychological system. the foundation of this system is the child's ability to generalize by using symbolic representation in meaningful communication. vygotsky’s analysis of the structure of generalization in the speaking/thinking system is central to his examination of how children make meaning of their sociocultural worlds. keywords: meaning making, psychological systems, vygotsky, methodology, unit analysis vygotsky's analysis of children's meaning making processes educators and psychologists and other social scientists, but because the concept meaning has a variety of uses reflecting different disciplines, its meaning is often elusive. therefore, a question is raised for educational psychologists, “what is the nature of the concept of meaning used in studies on children’s meaning making in classrooms?” the search for an answer to this question comprises a substantial portion of the life work of the russian educational psychologist, lev vygotsky (1 8961 934).   an important aspect of vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaningmaking processes is his examination of the origins and development of the human species’ ability to make and communicate meaning. he compares it to the processes used higher primates to make meaning of their worlds and highlights a fundamental difference – the sociocultural world into which the child is born, including cultural practices and the communicative use of language. vygotsky’s examination of the processes the individual child develops to create meaning through the acquisition and use of language addresses the central question posed above on the nature of children’s meaning-making processes.   vygotsky (1 987) makes it clear in his main work thinking and speech that the central focus of his research is the examination of the relationship between the processes used in thinking and the processes involved in the reception and production of spoken and written speech and their unification in rechnoi myshlenie, (literally “speech thinking"). the fact vygotsky uses this concept to represent a psychological process/formation/system is lost when translating it “verbal thinking.” in spite of its centrality, vygotsky’s analysis of the speaking/thinking system at the center of the creation of meaning has not received as much attention as his analyses of other concepts. this article’s purpose is to describe the system created through the unification of speaking and thinking processes through a precise and explicit examination of vygotsky’s writings on children’s meaning-making processes.   unlike other psychologists of his time, who examined mental t he ways in which children make meaning of their physical, social, and cultural worlds and of their own cognitive and affective processes have been studied extensively by 1 01ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology 1(2) functions in isolation, vygotsky analyzed the human psyche and consciousness as interconnected systems and examined mental functions as processes interrelated in systems. internal systems of the human psyche are based on the unity of the brain and mind and are activated and shaped through sensuous activity and communicative interactions in specific social situations of development. vygotsky’s examination of the origins and development of the speaking and thinking processes and their unification into a system with meaning at its core rests on the concept of the human psyche as a system of systems. “the structure of meaning is determined by the systemic structure of consciousness” (1 997a, p. 1 37); therefore, vygotsky examines “the systemic relationships and connections between the child’s separate mental functions in development” (1 987, p. 323). vygotsky views the speaking/thinking system as a “unified psychological formation” (1 987, p. 44), as a “complex mental whole” (p. 45). the internal, dynamic relationship between thinking and speaking processes represents a “unique and changing set of relations,” the development of which should be viewed as “a psychological system” (1 997a, p. 92).   in his study of the human psyche and its systems, vygotsky relies heavily on marx and engels to develop a methodological approach that analyzes phenomena as processes, as dynamic systems in which unification with other processes and systems is central to development. vygotsky’s approach investigates a phenomenon’s origins, examines the forces behind its development, and reveals interconnections and interactions with its environment. vygotsky’s methodological approach early in his career, vygotsky argues, in the historical meaning ofthe crisis in psychology (1 997a), that developing a methodological approach appropriate to the investigation of the human psyche is the main challenge facing psychology. he articulates a goal of developing a methodological approach to the study of consciousness that addresses the problems inherent in the two dominant approaches to psychology of his time: behaviorist approaches that attempt to legitimatize psychology by adopting methodological approaches wholesale from the hard 1 02 mahn vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making sciences, and metaphysical approaches that deal exclusively with subjective reactions and therefore do not even attempt to explain the origins and development of human consciousness. vygotsky describes three key aspects to his approach: 1 ) the use of marx and engels’ dialectical approach; 2) analysis of complex systems by examining interconnections with other systems; and 3) analysis using units. he analyzes mental functions as processes in systems examining their origins, development, and interfunctional relationships with the goal of revealing “the unified and integral nature of the process being studied” (1 987, p. 46). to establish his methodology for this analysis, vygotsky turns to the works of marx and engels, particularly german ideology (1 976) and theses on feuerbach (1 969), in which they describe their methodological approach (mahn, 201 0).   vygotsky’s approach incorporates the key tenet of dialectical logic that nothing is constant but change and that all phenomena are processes in motion. “to study something historically means to study it in motion. precisely this is the basic requirement of the dialectical method” (1 997b, p. 43). to study the relationship between think and speaking, vygotsky examines their unique origins and initial independent paths of development.   understanding the development of the thinking and speaking processes is key to understanding the nature of their unification. vygotsky analyzes the dialectical relationship of thinking and speaking processes in a “pure, independent, uncovered form” (1 997b, p. 53), focusing times ofqualitative transformation in the relationships between mental processes, that lead to the creation of the new mental formations, bringing about new systems. the internal relationships between thought and word with which we are concerned are not primal. they are not something given from the outset as a precondition for further development. on the contrary, these relationships emerge and are formed only with the historical development of human consciousness. they are not the precondition of man’s formation but its product (1 987, p. 243). 1 03ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology 1(2) analysis of units in thinking and speech, vygotsky reports on experimental studies he and his colleagues conducted to analyze the unification of the thinking and speaking processes and of “the unified psychological formation” (1 987, p. 44) – the speaking/thinking system of meaning – that results. after emphasizing the importance of maintaining the integrity of the system as a whole when analyzing the unification of thinking and speaking processes, vygotsky poses the question: “what then is a unit that possesses the characteristics inherent to the integral phenomenon of rechnoi myshlenie [the speaking/thinking system] and that cannot be further decomposed? in our view, such a unit can be found in znachenie slova, the inner aspect of the word, its meaning” (p. 47). in partitioning the whole into a unit, “the term ‘unit’ designates a product of analysis that possesses all the basic characteristics ofthe whole. the unit is a vital and irreducible part of the whole” (p. 46) that is derived through an analysis that examines the “concrete aspects and characteristics” (p. 244) of the whole.   during a conference with his closest collaborators in 1 933 near the end of his life, vygotsky clarified how he was using znachenie slova: “meaning is not the sum of all of the psychological operations which stand behind the word. meaning is something more specific – it is the internal structure of the sign operation” (1 997a, p.1 33). however, vygotsky’s analysis of znachenie slova as the internal structure of the speaking/thinking system is lost when it is translated into english as “word meaning.” the russian znachenie translates to “meaning” and slova to “word,” but slova represents language as a whole, as reflected in the sentence, “in the beginning was the word.” more accurate, expanded renditions ofznachenie slova are “meaning through language use” or “meaning through the use of the sign operation.” the key is that znachenie slova reflects the essence of the internal psychical system created by the unification of speaking/thinking processes. meaning communicated through language is a central aspect of znachenie slova, but focusing on the external meanings of words and processes of semiotic mediation without analyzing the origins and development of their interrelationship with thinking processes overlooks what vygotsky 1 04 mahn vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making feels is essential – that znachenie slova maintain the essence of the internal psychical system of which it is a unit. analysis of znachenie slova in thinking and speech vygotsky presents his analysis of znachenie slova revealing the relationship between thinking and speaking and disclosing “the internal essence that lies behind the external appearance of the process, its nature, its genesis” (1 997b, p. 70). he analyzes znachenie slova from three perspectives: genetic, looking at its origins; structural, examining the development of psychological functions and processes and their interconnections; and functional, investigating psychological activity and motivating factors in the speaking/thinking system. vygotsky looks at the development of meaning as a process, one that is shaped by its systemic relationship with other psychical functions, processes, structures, and systems. as a preliminary step to the study of the unification of thinking and speaking processes and the discovery of its qualitative and quantitative characteristics and categories and concepts, vygotsky argues that a first step is “an analysis of available information on its phylogenesis and ontogenesis” (1 987, p. 40), which he does in chapters 2 and 3 in thinking andspeech critically analyzing theories of piaget and stern on the relationship between thinking and speaking. then in chapter 4 he examines the “theoretical issues concerning the genetic roots of thinking and speech” (p. 40) – looking at the origins of symbolic representation in early humans and comparing and contrasting human thinking processes and language use to higher primates’ thinking and communicative abilities. these chapters provide the foundation for vygotsky’s analysis of the unit znachenie slova in the last three chapters.   in summarizing his work at the end of thinking and speech, vygotsky states: “the discovery that znachenie slova changes and develops is our new and fundamental contribution to the theory of thinking and speech. it is our major discovery” (1 987, p. 245). the development of meaning is a process that has its foundation in the infant’s physical brain and in those elementary thinking processes with which humans are born and which develop in infancy – mechanical 1 05ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology 1(2) memory, involuntary attention, perception, etc. these elementary mental functions are shaped by the sociocultural situation into which children are born, as well as through their interactions with others and their environment. the development of perception, attention, and memory leads to communication between the child and caretakers, with the latter ascribing communicative intent to the infant’s gestures and sounds. this early social interaction provides a foundation for the development of children’s communicative intentionality and symbolic representation – key elements in the acquisition of language. as children develop, a qualitative transformation in social interaction takes place as communication of meaning is enhanced by the development of the ability to generalize through “the creation and the use of signs” (1 997b, p. 55).   two basic functions of speech – revealing reality in a generalized way and communicating meaning in social interaction – are important components of vygotsky’s speaking/thinking system. “it may be appropriate to view znachenie slova not only as a unity ofthinking and speech, but as a unity ofgeneralization and social interaction, a unity of thinking and communication” (1 987, p. 49, italics in original). vygotsky uses generalization to refer to the mental act of abstracting from a concrete object to develop a concept of the object in its manifold manifestations and not to general versus local meaning.   understanding the potential for confusion about the significance of meaning, and having established “the changeable nature of meaning”, vygotsky says, “we must begin by defining it correctly. the nature of meaning is revealed in generalization. the basic and central feature of any word is generalization. all words generalize” (1 987, p. 249). it turns out that just as social interaction is impossible without signs, it is also impossible without meaning. to communicate an experience of some other content of consciousness to another person, it must be related to a class or group of phenomena. as we have pointed out, this requires generalization. social interaction presupposes generalization and the development of verbal meaning; generalization becomes possible only with the development of social interaction (1 987, p. 48). 1 06 mahn vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making   the structure of generalization that is produced through ongoing development of the ability to generalize provides the foundation for the internal speaking/thinking system and is revealed in vygotsky’s analysis of znachenie slova. through the development of this system, children acquire the ability to generalize and use symbolic representation, underscoring vygotsky’s main discovery that the psychological nature of meaning changes.   at the conclusion of thinking and speech vygotsky writes that he has not fully analyzed the speaking/thinking system but has only revealed its complexity, which i have tried to capture in the figure below. in the discussion following the diagram, i use vygotsky’s writings to describe the significance of the numbered items within the diagram as well as their relationships with other aspects in the diagram. (the numbers of each section below refer to the numbers in the diagram.) the concept being described in each section is written in capital letters for clarification. (referring back to this diagram at the beginning of each numbered section may help to see the particular interrelationship being described.) 1 07 meaning is a necessary, constituting feature of the word itself. it is the word viewed from the inside. this justifies the view that znachenie slova is a phenomena of speech. in psychological terms, however, znachenie slova is nothing other than a generalization, that is a concept. in essence generalization and znachenie slova are synonyms. any generalization – any formation of a concept – is unquestionably a specific and true act of thought. thus, znachenie slova is also a phenomenon of thinking (1 987, p. 244). ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology 1(2)   (1 ). the individual psyche is demarked by the vertical line near the middle of the figure and includes the psychological functions, processes, structures, and systems that determine its course of development. the psyche as the unification of the brain and mind, involves interrelationships of numerous systems – historical, social, cultural, biological, natural, emotional, chemical, electrical, physical, activity, mental… among others. vygotsky recognizes the importance of the interrelationships of all of these systems, but his focus is on how these interrelationships lead to and enhance the development of the human psyche. in critiquing an approach that isolates functions for analysis, vygotsky writes: figure 1. vygotsky’s speaking/thinking system with meaning at its center 1 08 mahn vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making these processes are essential in the development of the systems that constitute consciousness. in his analysis of the origins and development of these systems, for both the species and the individual, vygotsky incorporates an examination of the roles played by social, cultural, historical, and natural forces. his central focus is on the interconnections among all of these processes and how they influence the development of humanity’s and of the individual’s ability to construct and communicate meaning through language.   (2). the individual psyche develops through interaction with social cultural natural historical sources. for the social aspect vygotsky relies heavily on marx and engels’ analysis of the role of labor in the development of human social formations and of how humans changing nature through labor changed humanity. vygotsky focuses on “human sensuous activity” (marx, 1 933, p. 471 ) and in particular the way in which humans develop higher psychical processes. to do so he takes a historical approach looking at the genesis of those processes for the species and for the individual. the historical development of humanity and its social forms of organization are key forces in the development of the human psyche.   vygotsky’s genetic analysis of the species looks at the time when “humanity…crossed the boundaries of animal existence” (1 997b, p. 44) and examines two different processes in that crossing: because [that approach] causes the researcher to ignore the unified and integral nature of the process being studied, this form of analysis leads to profound delusion. the internal relationships of the unified whole are replaced with external mechanical relationships between two heterogeneous processes. (1 987, p. 46). the result has been that the relationships between thought and word have been understood as constant, eternal relationships between things, not as internal, dynamic, and mobile relationships between processes (1 987, p. 283). 1 09ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology 1(2)   on the one hand, it is the process of biological evolution of animal species leading to the appearance of the species homo sapiens; on the other, it is the process of historical development by means of which the primordial, primitive [hu]man became cultured. (1 997b, p. 1 5)   vygotsky argues that natural and cultural forces create “autonomous and independent lines of development” (p. 1 5) for the species and for the individual. for humanity, “culture creates special forms of behavior, it modifies the activity of mental functions, it constructs new superstructures in the developing system of human behavior” (p. 1 8); for the child, natural and cultural processes “are merged in ontogenesis and actually form a single, although complex process” (p. 1 5), which has its origins at birth. unlike for the human species, which had reached an almost complete biological form by the time higher psychical processes developed, growth and cultural development occur at the same time for the child. cultural development of the child is still characterized primarily by the fact that it occurs under conditions of dynamic change in organic type. it is superimposed on processes of growth, maturation, and organic development of the child and forms a single whole with these. only by abstraction can we separate some processes from others. (p. 1 9)   vygotsky uses abstraction to examine two interrelated but distinct processes that play a central role in the development of the human psyche: first, the processes of mastering external materials of cultural development and thinking: language, writing, arithmetic, drawing; second, the processes of development of special higher mental 1 1 0 mahn vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making   these processes are intertwined from the beginning, but it is only by abstracting one from the other that we can begin to understand their essence.   in his analysis of the cultural development of the child, vygotsky focuses primarily on the role that language plays in the development the speaking/thinking system in phyloand ontogenesis. natural and cultural forces are central in the development of the human psyche. vygotsky appreciates the tremendous force that culture has on an individual, but his focus is not primarily on cultural practices. instead, it is on the cultural development of the individual, especially the acquisition of the ability to communicate through language. to study the relationships between individuals and their social, cultural, natural, and historical sources of development vygotsky uses the concept of perezhivanie.   (3). perezhiva�ie describes individuals’ interactions with and experiences in the environment – their sociocultural worlds. vygotsky conceives of the environment broadly to include the whole “ensemble of social relations,” a phrase marx uses to describe the essence of humanity in his theses on feuerbach (1 933, p. 473). “the essential factors, which explain the influence of environment on the psychological development of children and on the development of their conscious personalities, are made up of their perezhivanie” (vygotsky, 1 994, p. 339). this term refers to the way people perceive, emotionally experience, appropriate, internalize, and understand interactions in their social situations of development. “perezhivanie is a unity where, on the one hand, in an indivisible state, the environment is represented, i.e.that which is being experienced…and on the other hand, what is represented is how i, myself, am experiencing this, i.e., all the personal characteristics and all the environmental characteristics are represented in perezhivanie” (vygotsky, 1 994, p. 342). there is no adequate translation in english of the russian term perezhivanie, and single or two-word translations do not do justice to the concept. the functions not delimited and not determined with any degree of precision and in traditional psychology termed voluntary attention, logical memory, formation of concepts, etc. (p. 1 4) 1 1 1ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology 1(2) translators of vygotsky’s article (1 994), “the problem of the environment,” in which he explains perezhivanie, write “the russian term [perezhivanie] serves to express the idea that one and the same objective situation may be interpreted, perceived, experienced or lived through by different children in different ways” (p. 354). vygotsky points out that the way in which an experience is perceived and made sense of actually affects the environment, not physically, but perceptually. perezhivanie describes the way that individuals participate in and make meaning of “human sensuous activity.” throughout the discussion of the development of the speaking/thinking system, it is important to keep perezhivanie in mind, because a criticism of vygotsky’s work is that it focuses too narrowly on internal processes. however, in his analysis of the development of the speaking/thinking system, vygotsky continually emphasizes the role that social interaction plays in its construction.   (4). social situation of development describes the relationships of individuals to their environments and is key to the “unity of the social and the personal” (1 998, p. 1 90). this unity expresses “a completely original, exclusive, single, and unique relation, specific to the given age, between the child and reality, mainly the social reality that surrounds him. we call this relation the social situation ofdevelopment at the given age” (p. 1 98). it is important to note that vygotsky conceives of the social situation of development as a relation, not a context. the child is a part of the social situation, and the relation of the child to the environment and the environment to the child occurs through the experience and activity of the child himself; the forces of the environment acquire a controlling significance because the child experiences them. (p. 294)   the stage that children have achieved in their development is a key factor in determining the nature of interactions in their social situations of development. the concept of perezhivanie, experience in a social situation of development, is key to understanding the role social 1 1 2 mahn vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making the basic finding of our research is that relationships of generality between concepts are closely associated with the structure of generalization (i.e., they are closely associated with the stages of concept development that we studied in our experimental research). each structure of generalization (i.e. , syncretic, complexes, preconcepts, and concepts) corresponds with a specific system ofgenerality and specific types ofrelationships of generality between general andspecific concepts (p. 225, italics in original). …thus, in concept development, the movement from the general to the specific or from the specific to the general is different for each stage in the development of meaning depending on the structure of generalization dominant at that stage. (p. 226) processes play in the development of an individual’s speaking/thinking system.   (5). the speaking/thinking system is represented by the largest oval, reflecting a more developed system. because this system develops, it would occupy far less space graphically in its initial stages. it is important to recognize that vygotsky is looking at the unity of thinking and speaking processes by examining meaning/znachenie slova at the center of the internal speaking/thinking system. using the foundation described in the four sections above, vygotsky analyzes the structure that is created through the development of one’s ability to generalize.   (6). the structure of generalization co-develops with the speaking/thinking system and provides a framework for it. the ability to generalize develops as children acquire language and begin to develop varies kind of concepts, representing different modes of thinking. both the meaning created in the speaking/thinking system and the structure of generalization change as children acquire a new and expanded understanding of different concepts.   in chapter 5 of thinking and speech vygotsky examines the origins of this structure – the initial unification of the thinking and speaking processes – through his analysis of znachenie slova. the foundation 1 1 3ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology 1(2) for the structure of generalization includes the generalization involved in a pointing gesture. the use of a gesture as symbolic representation lays the foundation for the unification of thinking and speaking in a system. the speaking/thinking system is created when children, in interaction with adults, apply language to amalgamated visual images. in this act of generalization, children bring together “a series of elements that are externally connected in the impression they have had on a child but not unified internally among themselves” (1 987, p. 1 34) into what vygotsky calls a syncretic heap or group. an example is children associating the word “doggie” with their sensual and emotional experiences with their pet and then grouping other objects or events that evoke the same subjective impressions under the word “doggie”.   the next step in the development of the structure of generalization occurs when the “representatives of these [syncretic] groups are isolated and once again syncretically united” (p. 1 35) – a generalization of a generalization. to trace the development of the structure of generalization, vygotsky describes how different modes of thinking create “the formation of connections, the establishment of relationships among different concrete impressions, the unification and generalization of separate objects, and the ordering and the systematization of the whole of the child’s experience” (p. 1 35). he illustrates the unification of speaking and thinking processes by showing how the use of a word facilitates the development of voluntary attention, partitioning, comparison, analysis, abstraction, and synthesis. the word tail will help the child focus attention, isolate, abstract, generalize and synthesize features. this kind of unification of speaking and thinking processes is critical to the entire process of the development of meaning.   as the syncretic form of thinking, the “connection-less, connectedness” (p. 1 34) of visual images develops, a qualitative transformation takes place and the next form of thinking – thinking in complexes – emerges and brings about fundamental changes in the structure of generalization. “the complex-collection is a generalization of things based on their co-participation in a single practical operation, a generalization of things based on their functional collaboration” (p.1 39). the child includes objects in a complex based on empirical connections. 1 1 4 mahn vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making vygotsky (1 987) gives an example of a chained-complex as a child uses a word for a duck in a pond and then uses the same word for any kind of liquid, for a coin with an eagle on it, and for anything round. in the development of thinking in complexes, children’s forms of thinking move through five different phases, always in a dialectical relationship with the changing content of thinking, which is key to understanding vygotsky's claim that znachenie slova develops.   the development of the form of thinking facilitates the development of the content of thinking – meaning created through the unification of thinking and speaking processes. the content of thinking reflects increased capacity with language, facilitating the ability of children to “use words or other signs as means of actively directing attention, partitioning and isolating attributes abstracting these attributes and synthesizing them” (1 987, p. 1 30). this ability to use abstract thinking leads to “the isolation of the meaning from sound, the isolation of word from thing, and the isolation of thought from word [which] are all necessary stages in the history of the development of concepts” (1 987, p. 284). at times in this process there are qualitative transformations such as those between syncretic thinking and thinking in complexes and those between thinking in complexes and thinking in concepts.   the pseudoconcept is key to the transformation from thinking in complexes to thinking in concepts. the child and the adult both focus on an object designated by a word, and in that shared contact they are able to communicate; however, they use different forms of thinking to arrive at the point where they are using the same word for an object. the “child thinks the same content differently, in another mode, and through different intellectual operations” (1 987, p. 1 52). the child and the adult have different modes of thought as the basis for their speaking/thinking systems. the child and adult understand each other with the pronunciation of the word “dog” because they relate the word to the same object, because they have the same concrete content in mind. however, one thinks of the concrete complex “dog” [the pseudoconcept] and the other of the abstract concept “dog”. (p. 1 55) 1 1 5ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology 1(2) adults also use pseudoconcepts as they go through the process of transforming everyday concepts into scientific concepts – ones within systems. drawing on mathematics, vygotsky gives an example of the transition from the mode of thinking in complexes to the mode of thinking in concepts. the transition from preconcepts (e.g., the school child’s arithmetic concept) to true concepts (e.g., the adolescent’s algebraic concept) occurs through the generalization of previously generalized objects. the preconcept is an abstraction of the number from the object and, based on this, a generalization of the object’s numerical characteristics. the concept is an abstraction from the number and, based on this a generalization of the relationships between numbers (1 987, p. 230).   critical of the theories of his day, vygotsky writes, “all have overlooked the generalization that is inherent in the word, this unique mode of reflecting reality in consciousness” (1 987, p. 249). consequently, they miss that “each structure of generalization has a characteristic degree of unity, a characteristic degree of abstractness or concreteness, and characteristic thought operations associated with a given level of development ofznachenie slova” (1 987, p. 225).   before describing the final mode of thinking in the structure of generalization – thinking in concepts – i look at the different ways in which vygotsky uses meaning and then relate them to his use of the concept ofsense (smysl).   (7). the concept of meaning is central to vygotsky’s theory, but because he uses meaning with a number of different connotations in thinking and speech, there is often confusion about what he means when he uses znachenie slova. vygotsky argues that children do not have to create or invent their language draw on the developed speech of the adults around them. this adult speech is based on systems of meaning captured as sociocultural meaning in human knowledge and understanding. vygotsky examines how meaning develops in a historical, natural, sociocultural context from humans’ first use of language to the fully developed systems of knowledge in modern times. at times, vygotsky uses meaning to refer to individual 1 1 6 mahn vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making words – meanings captured in dictionaries – lexical meaning (7a). at other times he uses meaning to refer to meaning in a social context (7b) – the way in which knowledge and concepts are conveyed in an individual’s particular sociocultural context. there is a level of fluidity in sociocultural meaning ranging from the most fixed, meanings that are codified in the dictionary, to the most fluid, meaning in language use (7c) – language in specific utterances, written and spoken sign operations in particular social situations of development.   meaning/znachenie slova (7d) that is internally appropriated through the sign operation and incorporated into an individual’s speaking/thinking system is influenced by the social situation of development – who is interacting with the individual, what is the meaning being conveyed, and where the child is in the developmental process. there is a constant interplay between the sociocultural meaning and the meaning that is being created in the speaking/thinking system. in analyzing external sociocultural meaning, the focus should go beyond just the meaning and use of a particular word and also focus on the processes through which meaning is conveyed in phrases, sentences, idioms, metaphors, and larger texts, and then how it is internalized into the individual’s meaning system. vygotsky uses the concept of sense (smysl) to help explain the internalization process – a dialectical process through which sense develops the speaking/thinking system and is developed by it.   (8). through the concept of sense vygotsky examines the “three basic characteristics of the semantics of inner speech” (1 987, p. 275) and focuses primarily on the “unique semantic structure” of inner speech, “indeed, the entire internal aspect of speech that is oriented toward the personality” (1 987, p. 283). attempts to describe vygotsky’s use of sense without considering that he is specifically using it to analyze an internal system miss his central points. it is true that the internal “unique semantic structure” has its origins in sociocultural meanings, but there are always going to be degrees of divergence between sociocultural meanings and the sense of words or concepts incorporated as meaning in an individual’s speaking/thinking system.   children’s first words are dominated by the sense of visual perception and their emotional experience of the social situation of 1 1 7ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology 1(2) until their exposures to and interaction with adults in their social situations of development cause sociocultural meanings of words to play a more significant role in children’s creation of meaning. the internalization process through which the child makes meaning of sociocultural meanings shapes the way that they are incorporated into an individual’s sense. in this process, vygotsky points out that the “child’s word may correspond with the adult’s in object relatedness, but not in meaning” (1 987, p. 1 53), thus creating a different sense. sense (smysl) is an important component in the speaking/thinking system with sociocultural meaning as an essential but subordinate part of sense. this subordination is a defining characteristic of inner speech. “in inner speech, we find a predominance of the word’s sense over its meaning” (1 987, p. 274). “the meaning of the word in inner speech is an individual meaning, a meaning understandable only in the plane of inner speech” (p. 279). “to some extent, [sense] is unique for each consciousness and for a single consciousness in varied circumstances” (p. 276). therefore, the sense of a word is never complete. sense is “the aggregate of all the psychological facts that arise in our consciousness as the result of the word” (pp. 275-276) and is a transformative component in the development of the speaking/thinking system. “ultimately, the word’s real sense is determined by everything in consciousness which is related to what the word expresses…[and] ultimately sense depends on one’s understanding of the world as a whole and on the internal structure of personality” (p. 276).   essential to the speaking/thinking system is the lifelong, dynamic, dialectic interplay between sociocultural meaning and sense that develops in the internalization processes. sense’s course of development includes: the early trial and error period of syncretic images; the process of thinking in complexes; the development of everyday and scientific concepts; and adolescents' development of conscious awareness of their own thinking processes – thinking in concepts. there is an ongoing dialectical interaction in this development between the existing, relatively stable, external sociocultural meanings and sense in the speaking/ thinking system.   the way in which sociocultural meaning is transformed as it is internalized can be seen at the level of single words in the difference 1 1 8 mahn vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making between the individual’s sense of the word and common usage based on dictionary meanings. the word mother, for example, invokes for every individual a very personal sense of the word. at the same time there is the sociocultural meaning of the word denoting both a biological and cultural relationship. the divergence between sociocultural meaning and an individual’s sense exists in both the internalization and externalization processes. language can never fully express an individual’s sense of a concept or a thought.   (9). just as there is an individual’s system of meaning and a sociocultural system of meaning, there is a sociocultural system of concepts (9) and an individual’s system of concepts (9a). the interaction with adults through the use of the pseudoconcept described above in (6) lays the groundwork for the next transformation in conceptual development as the child moves from concrete to abstract thinking, and from thinking in complexes to thinking in concepts. a system of concepts is built on the structure of generalization in the speaking/thinking system, being influenced by and influencing it, in a dialectical relationship. “the development of concepts or znachenie slova presupposes the development of a whole series of [mental] functions…voluntary attention, logical memory, abstraction, comparison, and differentiation” (1 987, p. 1 70). although the foundation for concepts is laid when children begin to acquire language, they do not use concepts existing in systems until they reach adolescence. as the child begins to isolate and abstract separate elements, and “to view these isolated, abstracted elements independently of the concrete and empirical connections in which they are given” (1 987, p. 1 56), the speaking/thinking system undergoes a qualitative transformation as the child begins to think in concepts. “the concept arises when several abstracted features are re-synthesized and when this abstract synthesis becomes the basic form of thinking through which the child perceives and interprets reality” (p. 1 59). the most important psychological process for adolescents in acquiring the ability to think in concepts is the development of an "internal meaningful perception of their own mental processes” (p. 1 90), through which they gain conscious awareness of their thinking processes. this introspection “represents the initial generalization or abstraction of internal mental forms of activity” (p. 1 90). vygotsky argues that this 1 1 9ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology 1(2) generalization and abstraction can only be accomplished through the process of developing a system of concepts, the source of which is the system that exists externally and includes scientific concepts, which are generally, but not exclusively, introduced at school. as it is internalized, this system of concepts becomes part of the process that is developing meaning in the speaking/thinking system. “psychologically, the development of concepts and the development of znachenie slova are one and the same process” (1 987, p. 1 80).   vygotsky argues that scientific/academic concepts “can arise in the child’s head only on the foundation provided by the lower and more elementary forms of generalization which previously existed” (p. 1 77). the systematic use of concepts transforms the structure of generalization as the system of scientific concepts “is transferred structurally to the domain of the everyday concepts, restructuring the everyday concept and changing its internal nature from above” (p. 1 92). a dialectical relationship is established with the everyday concepts in which the “scientific concept grows downward through the everyday concept and the everyday concept moves upward through the scientific…. in this process, [everyday concepts]...are restructured in accordance with the structures prepared by the scientific concept” (p. 220). the link between the everyday and scientific concepts as they move in opposite directions is that “of the zone of proximal development” (p. 220).   this systematization of concepts brings about a qualitative transformation in the speaking/thinking system, generating changes in adolescents’ volition and creating a conscious awareness of their own thinking processes. 1 20 only within a system can the concept acquire conscious awareness and a voluntary nature. conscious awareness and the presence of a system are synonyms when we are speaking of concepts, just as spontaneity, lack of conscious awareness, and the absence of a system are three different [ways of] designating the nature of the child's concept (pp. 1 91 -1 92). mahn vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making the adolescent’s speaking/thinking system, which incorporates conscious awareness and systematization of concepts, yields a qualitatively different view of reality, because it has different relationships of generality than that of a system based on everyday concepts. (the following quote from vygotsky, describing this different view, ends the description of the items in the diagram above.) according to a well-known definition of marx, if the form of a manifestation and the essence of things coincided directly, then all science would be superfluous. for this reason, thinking in concepts is the most adequate method of knowing reality because it penetrates into the internal essence of things, for the nature of things is disclosed not in direct contemplation of one single object or another, but in the connections and relations that are manifested in movement and in the development of the object, and these connect it to all of the rest of reality. the internal connection of things is disclosed with the help of thinking in concepts, for to develop a concept of some object means to disclose a series of connections and relations of that object with all the rest of reality, to include it in the complex system of phenomena (1 998, p. 54). inner speech and the speaking/thinking system after analyzing the construction of the structure of generalization and the creation of a system of concepts, vygotsky uses functional analysis to examine the internalization of speech and its mediation of thought central to the creation of meaning in the speaking/thinking system. the unit znachenie slova reveals “the complex structure of the actual process of thinking, the complex movement from the first vague emergence of thought to a completion in a verbal formulation” and shows how “meanings function in the living process” of the speaking/thinking system (1 987, p. 249). in each stage in development “there exists not only a specific structure of verbal meaning, but a special relationship between thinking and speech that defines this structure” (p. 249). vygotsky examines this relationship by describing the different planes through which “thought passes as it becomes embodied in the word” (p. 250). 1 21ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology 1(2)   vygotsky begins his analysis with the external plane and then proceeds to the different internal planes, focusing mainly on inner speech. “without a correct understanding of the psychological nature of inner speech, we cannot clarify the actual complex relationships between thought and word” (p. 255). as opposed to piaget, who proposed that egocentric speech – articulated speech directed to oneself – disappears, vygotsky argues that it becomes internalized in the form of inner speech as part of the process of intermental/external functioning becoming intramental/internal functioning. in this internalization process the function and structure of language changes, which in turn changes the speaking/thinking system. the transformations in the internalization of speech include fragmentation, abbreviation, and agglutination, along with predicativity. “the simplification of syntax, the minimization of syntactic differentiation, the expression of thought in condensed form and the reduction in the quantity of words all characterize this tendency toward predicativity that external speech manifests under certain conditions” (p. 269). experimental research on inner speech reveals that: the structural and functional characteristics of egocentric speech develop along with the development of the child. at three years of age, there is little difference between egocentric and communicative speech. by seven years of age, nearly all of the functional and structural characteristics of egocentric speech differ from those of social speech. (p. 261 ) 1 22 vygotsky’s analysis of znachenie slova reveals the internal planes in the speaking/thinking system from external speech to inner speech, from inner speech to pure thought, and, ultimately, to the “motivating sphere of consciousness, a sphere that includes our inclinations and needs, our interests and impulses, and our affect and emotion. the affective and volitional tendency stands behind thought” (p. 282). thought motivated in the affective/volition system combines with language in the speaking/thinking system leading to production of written or oral language. in this process “thought is not only mediated externally by y signs. it is mediated internally by meanings” (p. 282). “where external speech involves the embodiment of thought in the word, in inner speech mahn vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making the word dies away and gives birth to thought. to a significant extent, inner speech is thinking in pure meanings, though as the poet says ‘we quickly tire of it’” (p. 280). there is a qualitative difference between the external meaning and function of language and the meaning and function it acquires through internalization into internal speaking/thinking systems. this outline of the characteristics of inner speech leaves no doubt concerning the validity of our basic thesis, the thesis that inner speech is an entirely unique, independent, and distinctive speech function, that it is completely different from external speech. this justifies the view that inner speech is an internal plane of rechnoi myshlenie [the speaking/thinking system] which mediates the dynamic relationship between thought and word. (1 987, p. 279, italics in original) qualitative transformations in the speaking/thinking system for vygotsky, psychological systems do not proceed on a linear path; rather their courses are determined by qualitative transformations in the relationships between mental functions and other psychological processes. these qualitative transformations take place in the speaking/thinking system and affect and are affected by the development of the structure of generalization. analyzing these qualitative changes leads vygotsky to the central discovery of his research – that znachenie slova develops. his analysis of znachenie slova reveals that transformations in interpsychological relationships result in the speaking/thinking system’s development. they include the:       (a) development of higher psychological processes through     reconstruction of elementary processes;     (b) development of the structure of generalization in stages marked     by different modes of thinking – syncretic, complexive, and     conceptual;     (c) development of scientific/academic concepts in relationship to     spontaneous/everyday concepts; 1 23ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology 1(2)     (d) internalization of speech and the development of inner speech;     and     (e) transformations in the relationships of mental functions that bring     about periods of “crisis” in children’s development at approximately     ages one, three, seven, and thirteen. the unification of speaking and thinking processes brings about transformations “from direct, innate, natural forms and methods of behavior to mediated, artificial mental functions that develop in the process ofcultural development” (1 998, p. 1 68, italics in original). the higher psychological processes depend on new mechanisms that result not from the gradual, linear development of the elementary processes, but from “a qualitatively new mental formation [that] develops according to completely special laws subject to completely different patterns” (1 998, p. 34). the development of this new formation, the speaking/thinking system with meaning and concepts at its core, leads to a transformation in which elementary “processes that are more primitive, earlier, simpler, and independent of concepts in genetic, functional, and structural relations, are reconstructed on a new basis when influenced by thinking in concepts” (1 998, p. 81 ). conclusion vygotsky states that his study had only just begun and that he had merely been able to show the complexity of the system that is created through the unification of thinking and speaking. he was not able to conduct more research on it as he died shortly after completing thinking and speech. his work, banned by stalin’s bureaucracy in 1 936, remained virtually unavailable until 1 956. when once again it began to see the light of day, it was through interpretations, which claimed that vygotsky’s unit znachenie slova was used to analyze consciousness as a whole and that it was not adequate for that task (leontiev, 1 981 ). vygotsky clearly states he is using znachenie slova to examine the speaking/thinking system and not consciousness as a whole; nevertheless, leontiev rejects vygotsky’s unit and substitutes an evolving series of units tied to human activity to analyze consciousness. leaving to a further discussion the question of whether or not this substitution has merit, it has contributed to obscuring vygotsky’s analysis of the unit znachenie slova to reveal the speaking/thinking 1 24 mahn vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making system, resulting in the phenomenon that vygotsky put at the center of his analysis being overlooked. while it is impossible in a short article to do justice to vygotsky’s analysis of znachenie slova to reveal the complexity of the speaking/thinking system through which children make meaning of their worlds, i hope that this exploration has shown the value of reading vygotsky's work, both broadly and deeply. through such a reading, scholars can gain a better understanding of his notion of consciousness as a system of systems and also can see the overall coherence in his work as it evolved during his lifetime. such an understanding can also stimulate further exploration of vygotsky’s analysis of the way that children make meaning of their worlds through the development of speaking/thinking systems. acknowledgements 1 25ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology 1(2) references thanks to vera john-steiner, as always, for her ongoing inspiration and thoughtful collaboration. seth chaiklin’s, jim lantolf’s, and aaro toomela’s insightful comments on the paper helped shape its final form. a special thanks to the many graduate students, colleagues, and friends who have commented on this paper and to susan metheny and izabella kovarzina, who helped with translations from russian. leontiev, a.n., (1 981 ). the development ofmind. new york, ny: progress publishers. mahn, h. 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(1 997b). the collectedworks ofl. s. vygotsky: vol. 4. holbrook mahn is associate professor in the department of language, literacy & sociocultural studies at the university of new mexico, college of education, united states of america. contact address: direct correspondence to the author at 21 2 hokona hall, college of education, university of new mexico, albuquerque, nm 871 31 . e-mail:hmahn@unm.edu 1 26 mahn vygotsky’s analysis of children’s meaning making template journals hipatia press instructions for authors, subscriptions, and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com/ exploring teacher-family partnerships in infant center-based care: a comparative study of teachers' and mothers' perspectives and influential factors vera coelho1,2, sílvia barros3,4, carla peixoto1,4 , manuela pessanha3,4, joana cadima2,5 , & donna bryant6 1) university of maia, department of social and behavioral sciences 2) center for psychology at university of porto 3) school of education, polytechnic institute of porto 4) center for research and innovation in education (ined), school of education, polytechnic institute of porto 5) faculty of psychology and educational sciences of porto university 6) university of north carolina date of publication: june 24th, 2023 edition period: february 2023 – june 2023 to cite this article: coelho, v., barros, s., peixoto, c., pessanha, m., cadima, j., & bryant, d. (2023). exploring teacher-family partnerships in infant center-based care: a comparative study of teachers' and mothers' perspectives and influential factors. international journal of educational psychology, 12(2), pp. 178-205. http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.10638 to link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.10638 please scroll down for article the terms and conditions of use are related to the open journal system and to creative commons attribution license (cc-by) https://hipatiapress.com/hpjournals/index.php/ijep/index http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.10638 http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.10638 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ijep – international journal of educational psychology vol. 12 no.2 june 2023 pp. 178-205. 2023 hipatia press issn: 2014-3591 doi: 10.17583/ijep.10638 the exploring teacher-family partnerships in infant center-based care: a comparative study of teachers' and mothers' perspectives and influential factors vera coelho sílvia barros university of maia polytechnic institute of porto center for psychology at university of porto carla peixoto manuela pessanha university of maia polytechnic institute of porto joana cadima donna bryant university of porto university of north carolina abstract teacher-family partnerships are crucial elements of high-quality early childhood education. the factors influencing these partnerships, particularly for children under age 3, are not well known. this study compares teachers' and mothers' perspectives on their partnership and the ideal practices they would like to see implemented. additionally, it investigates child, family, and program-level factors predictive of partnership practices. participants were mothers and teachers of 90 infants who completed the real-ideal teacher-parents partnership scale; mothers rated child’s temperament, and classroom quality was observed 6-months after infants entered childcare. home environment was assessed before infants entered childcare. both mothers and teachers reported a medium-high number of practices being implemented, but ideally, would like more practices to be implemented. the frequency of mother and teacher reports of real and ideal practices were significantly associated, although teacher reports were higher. findings from the regression analyses showed that teacher level of education (having a master) was uniquely and positively associated with both teachers' and mothers' reports of real partnership practices, and was significantly associated with teachers' reports of ideal partnership practices. mothers' education level predicted their ideal partnership practices. findings highlight the importance of teacher education for partnerships, especially considering the variability in legal requirements regarding qualifications for teaching infants across europe. keywords: teacher-family partnerships, infant care, teacher qualification, partnership, childcare ijep – international journal of educational psychology vol. 12 no.2 june 2023 pp. 178-205. 2023 hipatia press issn: 2014-3591 doi: 10.17583/ijep.2023.10638 exploración de la colaboración entre maestros y familias en los centros de atención infantil: un estudio comparativo de las perspectivas de maestros y madres y los factores influyentes vera coelho sílvia barros university of maia polytechnic institute of porto center for psychology at university of porto carla peixoto manuela pessanha university of maia polytechnic institute of porto joana cadima donna bryant university of porto university of north carolina resumen la colaboración entre maestros y familias es un elemento crucial de la educación infantil de alta calidad. no se conocen bien los factores que las influyen, especialmente en el caso de los niños pequeños. este estudio compara las perspectivas de maestros y madres sobre sus prácticas ideales y reales de colaboración. investiga los factores a nivel de niño, familia y programa que predicen la colaboración. participan madres y maestros de 90 niños que rellenaron la escala de colaboración real-ideal familias-maestros; las madres valoraron el temperamento del niño; la calidad del aula se observó 6 meses después de que los niños entraran la educación infantil. tanto madres como maestros informaron de un número medio-alto de prácticas aplicadas, pero, idealmente, desearían que se aplicaran más. la frecuencia de los informes de madres y maestros sobre prácticas reales e ideales se asoció significativamente, aunque los maestros fueron más elevados. el nivel educativo de los maestros (tener un máster) se asociaba única y positivamente con los informes de los maestros y de las madres sobre las prácticas reales de asociación, y se asociaba significativamente con los informes de los maestros sobre las prácticas ideales de colaboración. el nivel educativo de las madres predijo sus prácticas ideales de colaboración. los resultados apuntan a la importancia de la cualificación para mejorar la colaboración, especialmente si se tiene en cuenta la variabilidad de los requisitos legales relativos a la cualificación de los maestros en las aulas de educación infantil en europa. palabras clave: relaciones maestro-familia, cuidado de niños, cualificación del profesorado, relaciones, cuidado de niños coelho et al. – infant center-based care 180 artnerships between families and teachers of young children play an important role in fostering children’s development and well-being (e.g., castro et al., 2004; swartz & easterbrooks, 2014). the teacherfamily partnership has been identified as a key component of highquality programs for early childhood education and care (ecec), and its associations with children’s positive outcomes are highlighted (e.g., castro et al., 2004; cottle & alexander, 2014; lang et al., 2020). however, most literature about teacher-family partnerships focuses on preschool or schoolaged children, leaving a need to better understand what the teacher-family partnership involves when the child is an infant or toddler (coelho et al., 2019; elicker et al., 1997). understanding teacher-family partnership in infant centrebased programs can be particularly important as parents with infants are mostly dependent on teachers to know what the child experienced and how the child behaved during the out-of-home care. consequently, parents’ feelings of anxiety and their levels of security and satisfaction with their infant care arrangements are largely dependent on the relationship with the teacher. this study documents perceptions of mothers and teachers about the real (i.e., implemented) and ideal (i.e., desired) partnership practices in centre-based infant childcare, and explores associations between these practices and characteristics of the child, family and childcare program. the teacher-family partnership is defined as a collaboration between families and teachers, aiming to achieve common goals in the process of child education and care (e.g., owen et al., 2000). partnership enhances families’ and teachers’ knowledge about the child in both home and centre, thus allowing valuable connections between children’s experiences in each context (dunst & dempsey, 2007; leavitt, 1995; owen et al., 2000). thus, successful partnerships between parents and teachers require that both can collaborate from an equal position, sharing responsibility for the child’s care (rouse & o’brien, 2017). strong and supportive connections between family and educational contexts have been described as essential for children’s development and wellbeing (drugli & undheim, 2012; jeon et al., 2021; lang et al., 2020; owen et al., 2008; shpancer, 1998; white et al., 2020). even though it is broadly recognized – by researchers, educators and policymakers – that partnership between families and childcare centres is important (e.g.,; national association for the education of young children [naeyc], n.d.; swartz & easterbrooks, 2014), several authors (e.g., drugli & p ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 181 undheim, 2012; owen et al., 2000; perlman & fletcher, 2012; shpancer, 2002) underline the scarceness of studies on family-childcare partnerships, especially in the infant and toddler years. stronger partnerships are particularly relevant in infant ecec programs for several reasons. infants depend mostly on teachers or other adults to have their basic needs ensured, with responsive and sensitive interactions being pivotal for infants to feel secure and accomplish positive developmental outcomes (cadima et al., 2020; pinto et al., 2019; white et al., 2020). importantly, families are dependent on those same adults to get information about their child’s care in ecec. reciprocally, practices in ecec can further attend to each child when parents are engaged, and thus the development of positive partnerships for families’ satisfaction with childcare services and continuity of care between settings. predictors of teacher-family partnerships several family, child, teacher and program characteristics have been studied in relation to teacher-family partnerships in early education, regarding family characteristics, pirchio and colleagues (2011) found that the frequency of teacher-family communication for children under age 3 was negatively associated with maternal age, education level and family income, indicating that teachers tended to communicate more often with younger mothers, less educated mothers, and mothers from lower income families. contradictory findings have been also found, with more partnership activities being positively associated with parents’ education level and family income (shpancer, 1998; swartz & easterbrooks, 2014). murray and colleagues (2015) reported less teacher-family involvement in preschool among families from lowsocioeconomic status. larger family size and more traditional childrearing beliefs have been related to fewer family-childcare interactions (shpancer,1998). additionally, bradley (2010, p. 136) noted that families characterized by “chaos at home” (e.g., more disorganized family environments, absence of family routines, overpopulated family environments, nuclear family members’ instability) are more likely to have less productive and efficient relations and to communicate less with their children’s teachers. on the other hand, more stimulating home environments were positively associated with better teacher-family communication during preschool (murray et al., 2015). coelho et al. – infant center-based care 182 considering child-level variables, gender, age and temperament seem to be related to teacher-family partnerships, particularly for school-age children. for ecec, studies shown that teachers and parents communicate more when children are younger (e.g., rimm-kaufman & pianta 1999), when comparing communication in infant/toddler classrooms with preschool classrooms (e.g., endsley & minish, 1989). however, results are inconsistent. swartz and easterbrooks (2014) found that children’s age was related to the perceived quality of teacher-family-partnerships, as reported by families and teachers. child temperament has been studied as, particularly for children with more difficult temperaments, good communication between families and teachers has the potential of buffering the challenges faced in their education and care. in a study involving children under the age of 3, more positive temperament characteristics were positively associated with stronger teacher-family partnerships, whereas more difficult temperament was associated with less teacher-family communication (pirchio et al., 2011). this may indicate that both teachers and families may not feel confident or may not have the adequate competencies for approaching and discussing with each other the most difficult aspects of children´s behaviour in childcare. among center-level variables, literature shows that high-quality classrooms and positive partnerships are usually valued by parents, particularly during the ecec (coelho et al., 2015; leavi, 1995). overall, high-quality centers are characterized by more positive teacher-family partnerships (e.g., elicker et al., 1997; endsley & minish, 1989; owen et al., 2000; perlman & fletcher, 2012); with stronger teacher-family partnerships observed when more sensitive and supportive teacher-child interactions in ecec exist (owen et al., 2000). teacher level of education has been highlighted as an important feature of the quality of childcare settings, being key for ensuring teachers have the necessary knowledge and competence to provide infants with the care and high-quality interactions they need (barros et al., 2018; cadima et al., 2020; ward, 2018). some studies point to the positive effects of a university-level degree compared to lower education levels regarding the quality of infant care (cadima et al., 2020). not only, but particularly in countries such as portugal where teachers in infant classrooms are not required to have a specialized training or qualification, studies have indicated that lower teacher educational levels are associated with lower childcare quality and less communication between teachers and families (e.g., barros et al., 2018; coelho et al., 2019; nichd early child care research network, 1996; phillips et al., 2000). possible ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 183 associations between teacher level of education and teacher-family partnerships requires further exploration. infant childcare services in portugal portugal has a split system regarding the education of young children, one for children younger than age 3 and one for children aged 3-6. childcare centers for under-3sare regulated by the ministry of solidarity, employment and social security, with a low level of involvement by the ministry of education (portaria n. º 262/2011, de 31 de agosto), regardless of the recognition that childcare goals include both social support and a pedagogical dimension. according to the portuguese law, it is not mandatory to have a teacher with a higher education degree in center-based infant classrooms. as such, in portugal the minimum requirement to work in infants’ classrooms is to have completed compulsory education in force, what may vary according to the person’s age1. the lack of training in ecec may reduce a teacher’s ability to intentionally support infant development and learning and has also been a factor negatively associated with childcare quality (e.g., nichd early child care research network 1996; phillips et al., 2000). recent data shows that about 20% of portuguese children enter childcare during their first year of life, a number that is almost twice the european average (oecd, 2019); and those infants spend a high number of hours in childcare (coelho et al., 2019), with childcare being mostly attended by children of working families. in this context, it is particularly critical to understand how to support parents who do have to and want to place their infants in childcare centers. because infants cannot tell their parents what happens in their classroom, or their teachers what happens at home, parent-teacher partnership is the primary (or even the only) way that both parents and teachers have to know what the child does in each setting to better respond to child needs. literature is scarce on partnerships during infant care (cadima et al., 2020). so, the present study was designed for analyzing parents and infant teachers’ perspectives about the partnership practices being implemented as well as the partnerships idealized. coelho et al. – infant center-based care 184 the current study earlier work suggests that both families and teachers need to have knowledge, skills, and dispositions for partnering with each other (chiu et al., 2017), with several barriers influencing the effective implementation of partnership practices during infant care (e.g., bang et al., 2021. thus, knowing the relationship between teachers’ and families’ perceptions of the relevant partnership practices is important, as well as what would be the characteristics of an ideal partnership for them. therefore, the goals of this study were to: (a) describe and compare teachers’ and mothers’ reports regarding real and ideal partnership practices, and (b) explore the associations between teacher and mother reports of partnerships and characteristics of the child (i.e., temperament, gender), family (i.e., home environment, mother education), and childcare program (i.e., quality of teacher-child interaction, teacher education). method participants this study is part of a broader project about infants’ transition and adjustment to childcare (fcomp-01-0124-feder-029509; fctdc ptdc/mhcced/4007/2012). participants were 90 mothers of infants attending centrebased childcare, and the 90 lead teachers in the classrooms attended by these families’ children. all ecec centres from the greater metropolitan area of porto, portugal, registered at the ministry of solidarity, employment and social security website, were randomly sequenced and contacted until 90 institutions that met the criteria for the broader study (i.e., having a list of infants registered to start attending childcare at the first school-year semester) agreed to participate. only one infant classroom per centre participated. among all families that had their infant registered to start attending the centre, one family in each center was randomly selected. the study recruited 90 of the 232 programs that met the criteria. ninety-one percent were private non-profit and 8.9% were private for-profit centers. classrooms had, on average, 6.38 children enrolled (sd = 2.34, range =1 12). infant:adult ratio ranged from 1:1 to 8:1 (m = 3.38, sd = 1.49). all leadteachers were female. their age ranged from 20 to 64 years old (m = 42.5, sd = 9.97). note that lead-teachers are the adults responsible for the infant ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 185 classrooms. lead-teacher education level ranged from elementary school (four years of formal education) to a higher education degree (master in ecec). overall, 92.5% had no higher degree in ecec. professional experience in childcare varied between 1 month and 37 years (m = 8.36 years, sd = 6.5). regarding family characteristics, mothers were, on average, 30 years old (sd = 3.55), with high educational levels. fifty-nine percent of mothers had a university degree, 38% had a high-school degree (12 years of formal education), and 3% had less than the basic level of education (less than 9 years of education). ninety three percent of mothers were married; the number of family members ranged between 2 and 6 (m = 3.67, sd = 0.68). thirteen percent of mothers were unemployed, while 86.8% were working. mothers employed spent, on average, 38 hours (sd = 16.6) in out-of-home tasks related to their jobs (e.g., working hours, traveling to work). family income was on average 1640 euros (sd = 678). measures real and ideal teacher-family partnership practices were assessed with the real-ideal teacher-parents partnership scale: childcare (gaspar, 1996). the questionnaire has two versions: the parent version and the teacher version. it includes 41 partnership practices. for each practice, parents and teachers were asked to report if it was being implemented (real practice) and if they would like it to be implemented for a good teacher-family partnership (ideal practice; figure 1). so, for each of the 41 practices, respondents could mark it was being implemented and they thought that ideally it should be implemented; the practice was being implemented but ideally this would not be necessary; the practice was not being implemented and, ideally, it should be done; or the practice was not being implemented and, ideally, they believe it was not necessary. a total score (sum) is calculated for real practices being implemented (maximum of 41) and for practices that respondents think would be ideal (maximum of 41). coelho et al. – infant center-based care 186 figure 1 example from the real-ideal teacher-parents partnership scale: childcare (gaspar, 1996) – parent version both dimensions of the parent and teacher questionnaires – real and ideal practices – presented good reliability in this study (cronbach’s alphas of .70 and .74 for teachers real and ideal practices, respectively; and .84 and .81 for mothers real and ideal practices, respectively). classroom quality was observed with the classroom assessment scoring system infants (class-infants; hamre et al., 2014). the class-infants assesses the quality of interactions between teachers and infants in ecec, comprising one overall construct composed by four dimensions (relational climate, teacher sensitivity, facilitated exploration, and early language support). for this study, all observers received certified training and reached the authors’ training standards through a certified test. during data collection, a gold standard observer made 25.6% of observations with another observer. the exact agreement average was 68.8%, within-one point agreement was 98.9%, and weighted kappa was 0.72. in this study, the global score was used (α=.94). childcare structural characteristics were documented through the infant classrooms’ structural characteristics questionnaire. this questionnaire collects structural indicators such as number of teachers in the classroom, teachers’ education level, experience in childcare, number of children per classroom. regarding education level, a dichotomic variable was created: 1 = no degree in ecec; 2 = higher-education degree in ecec. child temperament was assessed using the infant behavior questionnaire – short version (ibq-r; rothbart, 1981). this is a widely used measure of infants’ temperament. evidence of its adequacy, reliability and validity is shown in several studies (e.g., clark et al., 1997; klein et al., 2009; rothbart, a b in the crèche, i have been informed about: i think it would be a good idea that the crèche informs me about: yes no yes no my child progresses. my child behavior. the childcare regulation. ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 187 1981). three broad factors can be computed (gartstein & rothbart, 2003): surgency/extraversion, negative affectivity, and orienting/regulation. in this study, all factors presented good reliability (α = .82 for surgency/extraversion; α = .89 for negative affectivity; and α = .81 for orienting/regulation). in this study, only the negative affectivity factor was used considering previous literature identifying that a more difficult temperament can affect teacherfamily partnership (e.g., pirchio et al., 2011). home environment was documented with the home observation for measurement of the environment inventory (home; caldwell & bradley, 1984). this inventory captures both the quality and quantity of support and stimulation provided to the child in home environment. the infant-toddler version of the home includes 45 items organized in six subscales: responsiveness, acceptance, organization, play/learning materials, involvement, and variety of experience. items are scored based on direct observation of parenting behaviour and on a semi-structured interview. all observers received training in the measure. in this study, a home global score was computed by combining all the items from the scale. cronbach’s alpha for the global home environment score was acceptable (α = .69). procedures the portuguese national data protection authority approved all measures, data collection and confidentiality procedures. informed consents were obtained from the centres’ directors, the teachers responsible for the infant classrooms, and parents. data was collected in two moments. the first moment – before infant transition to ecec– the home measure was completed during a home visit. home visits lasted, on average, 2 hours; all families considered mothers as the main respondents. mothers completed a socio-demographic questionnaire. the second moment was 6 months after infants entered centre based ecec. this time frame was chosen to ensure that mothers and teachers had time to establish a partnership. at this moment, each classroom was observed during a full morning with the class-infant. teachers completed a questionnaire on structural and socio-demographic data. teachers’ and mothers’ reports on real and ideal partnerships were collected. mothers completed the ibq-r. coelho et al. – infant center-based care 188 data analyses analyses were conducted using the statistical package for the social sciences (spss) 26. analysis began by exploring measuring reliability and examining all measures descriptively. pearson correlations were conducted for exploring associations between mothers and teachers reports on real and ideal practices. then, variance analyses were conducted. paired t-tests were used to compare mother and teacher reports. effect sizes were estimated as cohen’s d (cohen, 1992) to interpret significant associations. finally, linear regression analyses were performed to understand child, family and childcare level predictors of teacher-family partnership practices. kolmogorov–smirnov test for dependent and independent variables show that the distributions were normal for all variable except for: real partnership mother report, ideal partnership mother report, maternal education; teacher-child interactions and teacher degree in ecec. for these variables, data was visually explored through histograms and p-plots. graphics showed the variables´ distribution was not extremely asymmetric. additionally, the behaviour of the sample was further analysed trough the exploration of means, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis for the variables to be included in the regression analysis. means and sd showed the data presented some variability; skewness, and kurtosis were between –1 and +1 for all variables, except for teacher education (skewness = 3.207; kurtosis = 8.47). thus, considering the reasonable sample size (n = 90), and the information above, we can consider that no major violations of normality were found (field, 2009). however, we underline that our results may be interpreted carefully considering this. four models were tested for predicting: mothers’ reports on real practices; mothers’ reports on ideal practices; teachers’ reports on real practices; teachers’ reports on ideal practices. for models predicting mothers’ reports, child gender and temperament, home environment, maternal education, quality of teacher-child interactions and teacher qualification/degree in ecec were included as predictors. in models predicting teachers’ reports, only ecec characteristics were entered as predictors, namely quality of teacher-child interactions and teacher qualification/degree in ecec. ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 189 results real and ideal partnerships: mothers and teachers reports teachers reported that about 48.8% (m = 20.5, sd = 4.39) of the practices listed in the real-ideal teacher-parent partnership scale were implemented for meeting infants’ needs, while mothers reported, on average, the implementation of about 37.4% of practices (m = 15.7, sd = 6.32; table 1). among the partnership practices mentioned as being implemented by most of teachers (above 90%) were: giving information to families about the centre’s attendance rules, child’s progress, difficulties and behaviour, using informal conversations with parents during pick-up and drop-off moments, and inviting parents to celebrations at the centre (e.g., christmas, family day). on the other hand, most teachers did not involve parents in defining the global activities planning (92%), did not discuss the planned activities with parents (85.6%), or send a written plan of activities for families´ information (86.7%). on their ideal practices’ reports, only 14% of teachers agreed that, ideally, it was a good idea to have a partnership practice that promotes the involvement of families in defining the activities plan and 18% reported that it would be a good idea to discuss the activities plan with families. regardless, 83.9% agreed that, ideally, families should receive a written plan of activities for being informed about the child activities in childcare. the same practices that were identified by most teachers were also mentioned by most mothers. for example, a high percentage of mothers reported that the centre shared with them information about attendance rules (100%), child progress (94.4%), child behaviour (91.1%), and child difficulties (95.6%), and families were invited to celebrations at the centre (e.g., christmas celebrations, family day; 82.2%). among the practices that were seldom used, 88.9% of mothers reported that families were not involved in planning childcare activities; 75% of mothers reported that families did not participate in the childcare evaluation, 77.8% mentioned that families were not invited to individual meetings, and 77.5% mentioned that they were not invited by the childcare teachers to participate in sessions about relevant themes (e.g., about child development and/or parental practices). coelho et al. – infant center-based care 190 table 1 mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum values for real an ideal teacher-family partnership practices, family, child, and childcare variables particularly for these seldom used practices as perceived by mothers, we note that mothers believe such practices are important. thus, 80% of mothers would like (ideal practices report) to be invited for sessions about relevant themes, 81% would like to participate in the childcare evaluation, and 76% would like to be invited for individual meetings with teacher. regarding the participation in defining the childcare activities plan, only 41% of mothers would like this practice to be implemented; however, 87.1% mention that they would like to receive information about the activities plan, with 70% reporting that receiving a written document with the activities plan would be a good partnership practice. despite the similarities between teacher and parent responses, there was high variability across informants, with a minimum of 4 practices (out of 41), n m (sd) min. – max. scale teacher-family partnership real partnership – mother report 90 15.7 (6.32) 4-35 0-41 ideal partnership – mother report 90 24.8 (5.19) 11-35 0-41 real partnership – teacher report 90 20.5 (4.39) 12 -31 0-41 ideal partnership – teacher report 90 21.6 (4.59) 13-34 0-41 family level variables maternal education 90 14.4 (3.57) 4-22 global home environment 90 32.8 (4.16) 23-42 0-45 child level variables negative affectivity 90 3.89 (0.79) 1.99-5.91 1-7 ecec level variables teacher-child interactions 90 3.25 (0.82) 1.63-5.75 1-7 teacher degree in ecec 1 (no; %) 90 92.5% note. 1 = no degree in ecec; 2 = degree in ecec. ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 191 and a maximum of 35 practices as reported by mothers. the same variability was present in teachers’ reports, although the minimum number of reported implemented practices was higher (12) for this group of participants (table 1). overall, teachers tended to identify and report more partnership practices, when compared to mothers, t(89) = 6.84, p < .001, d = 0.88. reports of mothers and teachers were significantly associated both for real and ideal partnership practices (r = .27, p < .001 for real practices; r = .21, p < .05 for ideal practices), pointing to some attunement regarding the importance of partnerships. moreover, both mothers and teachers reported that partnerships during infant care would, ideally, include greater number of practices (m = 21.6, sd = 4.59 for teachers’ report; m = 24.8, sd = 5.19 for mothers’ report) than what was implemented (real practices vs. ideal practices: t(89) = -3.69, p < .001, d = 0.26 for teachers’ reports; t(89) = -13.9, p < .001, d = 1.56 for mothers’ reports). when comparing the number of ideal partnership practices for teachers and mothers, mothers showed the desire for a greater number of partnership practices, t(89) = -4.86, p < .001, d = 0.68. predictors of real and ideal partnership practices regarding the childcare level predictors included in the model, descriptive data (table 1) showed that the quality of the classrooms was moderate, with a class-infant mean of 3.25 (sd = 0.82) for teacher-infant quality of interactions. concerning the family level predictors, the quality of the home environment (caldwell & bradley, 1984) was, on average, moderate (m = 32.8, sd = 4.16), and showed a wide range, from 23 to 42. overall, mothers rated low negative affectivity values (m = 3.89, sd = 0.79) regarding child temperament, indicating that most mothers did not perceive their infants as temperamentally difficult. in models predicting teachers’ real and ideal practices only ecec characteristics were entered as predictors. four models were tested (table 2) to identify relevant factors affecting real and ideal teacher-family partnership practices. coelho et al. – infant center-based care 192 table 2 family, child and childcare predictors of mother and teacher real and ideal reports of partnership practices teachers having a university degree in ecec was the only significant predictor of real partnership practices reported by teachers (β =.24, se = 0.92, p =.023), as well as their perceptions about ideal practices (β =.29, se = 1.04, p =.007). the percentage of variability of teacher reports on real and ideal practices explained by the variables included in the model ranged between 26% and 29%. models for the mothers’ reports on real practices showed that teachers with a university degree in ecec was the only significant predictor, although the r2 coefficient is weak. mothers’ reports on ideal practices were only predicted by the mothers’ educational level (table 2). mother teacher real partnership ideal partnership real partnership ideal partnership r2 .18** .09 .26* .29* family level variables global home environment β (se) -0.01(0.16) -0.08(0.13) maternal education β (se) -0.13(0.19) 0.28(0.17) * child level variables negative affectivity β (se) 0.19(0.87) 0.21(0.76) ϯ gender (male = 1; female = 2) β (se) -0.20(1.27) ϯ -0.11(1.10) ϯ ecec level variables teacher-child interactions β (se) 0.06(0.16) 0.09(0.68) 0.07(0.67) 0.02 (0.58) teacher degree in ecec β (se) 0.27(1.39)* 0.06(1.20) ϯ 0.24(0.99)* 0.29(1.04)* note. ϯ p < .08.* p < .05. ** p < .01. ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 193 discussion the importance of teacher-parent partnerships for children’s positive developmental outcomes is widely recognized, although information about such partnerships in infant centre-based care is limited. the present study showed that mothers and teachers of infants in center based childcare reported a moderate number of partnership practices being implemented (real); and seemed to be aligned regarding the need for more partnership practices than the ones currently being implemented. this is in line with finding from previous studies conducted in preschools (e.g., einarsdottir & jónsdótti, 2019). our study also showed that mothers’ and teachers’ reports on partnership practices were similar, in line with other studies reporting that teachers’ and parents’ rates of centre-related aspects tend to be correlated (e.g., drugli & undheim, 2012; leavitt, 1995), and that teachers and parents tend to agree on the factors that contribute to positive partnerships (galinsky et al., 1994). examples of the most reported practices by both teachers and families suggest that most practices involve communication whereas families’ involvement practices in daily ecec activities is seldom. for example, very few teachers and very few mothers mentioned that parents were involved in the definition and discussion of the ecec activities or that parents visited or spent time in the classroom on a regular basis. the teacher-family partnership in ecec implies a collaborative process in which frequent and bidirectional communication, opportunities for families’ involvement in ecec activities and a shared decision-making process are pivotal (owen et al., 2000; weiss et al., 2014). our results highlight that teacher-family partnership practices considered in infant centre-based care are especially those related to informational communication, pointing to the need to further expand these practices to other dimensions. the training of ecec professionals for a broader understanding of what partnerships with families mean and how they can be achieved, could be delivered in coursework or inservice professional development. it is noteworthy that teacher education level, namely, having a degree in ecec, was found to be a significant predictor of more implemented partnership practices as reported by teachers and mothers. this can suggest that teacher qualification in ecec has the potential to affect practices and can be pivotal in improving partnership practices in centre-based infant care. as mentioned, in portugal there are no legal requirements regarding levels of education for teachers working in infant classrooms coelho et al. – infant center-based care 194 (cadima et al., 2022; portaria n. º 262/2011, 31 de agosto), with no specific guidelines regarding educational practices for infant classrooms. this study contributes to the understanding that teacher qualifications are important for both teachers’ and mothers’ communication and collaboration, particularly regarding the identification of the desire of more partnership practices. teachers and mothers generally agreed on which real partnerships practices were being implemented, although teachers reported implementing a significantly higher number of partnership practices compared to mothers. these different perceptions are possibly related to the fact that parents and lead teachers do not always have compatible schedules and time to communicate is often scarce. drugli and undheim (2012) analyzed teacher-family communication during the pick-up and drop-off situations and reported that, although most parents and teachers were satisfied with their daily communication, parents more than teachers felt that the quality of communication could be improved, particularly during the pick-up moments. in addition, although both teachers and mothers reported that, ideally, more partnership practices could be implemented, mothers reported the desire for a significantly greater number of partnership practices compared to teachers. this is in line with previous research involving preschoolers, which identified that, although teachers and families both value partnership and communication as a way of collaborating with each other, mothers tend to report the need for more communication than teachers (cantin et al., 2012; owen et al., 2000). similarly, some studies highlight that families often feel a general lack of knowledge of what happens in ecec, pointing out that the partnership practices being implemented are not ideal or are not responding to all family needs (drugli & undheim, 2012; leavitt, 1995). for example, parents working for longer hours tend to report a higher desire for the continuity of practices in family and centre-based settings, as well as the desire for better partnerships (baumgartner et al., 2017). thus, we underline that this desire for more partnership practices can also be related to the parents´ working situation. in portugal in 2020, 75% of mothers and 87.2% of fathers with children under 6 years old were employed, and only 9.4 of mothers and 4.8 of fathers worked part-time (eurostat, 2022). this situation probably increases the number of hours children, including infants, spend in childcare, as well as the need of closer partnerships with their infants’ teachers. note that in portugal most childcare centers work for long hours: 84% open between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. and close between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m. (56%) or between 7:00 and 8:00 ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 195 p.m. (40%) (gabinete de estratégia e planeamento / ministério da solidariedade, emprego e segurança social, 2021). previous studies highlighted that parent, more than teachers, felt, that the quality of communication could be improved, particularly during the pick-up moments (drugli & undheim, 2012). literature also suggests that socioeconomic status (ses) may play a role in families’ and teachers’ ideas and practices regarding continuity of care and childcare quality (e.g., baumgartner, 2005). although ses is not known for families in this study, we highlight the fact that a relatively high proportion of mothers participating in this study had university degree, a factor that may contribute to their desire for more partnership practices. studies show that higher maternal education and higher family ses tend to be associated with increased use of ecec in infancy (petitclerc et al., 2017) and with the selection of higher-quality ecec (e.g., vandenbroeck et al., 2008). in this study, child temperament was not related with either teacher or mother reports. previous studies found mixed results concerning the relations between child temperament and teacher-family partnership in childcare (pirchio et al., 2011; swartz & easterbrooks, 2014). in our study, we underline that low levels of negative affect regarding child temperament were reported, which may have hindered the study’s ability to capture relations. additionally, the few studies on relations between temperament and teacher-family partnerships in childcare were conducted with older chidren, and not infants. thus, the lack of associations between child temperament and teacher-family partnership may be related to child age. particularly for children under 12 months, it is possible that the implementation and desire of partnership practices may be more associated with the characteristics or challenges of this developmental period (for parents and caregivers), namely the fact that parents with infants are mostly dependent on teachers to have information about how their child fared during the childcare day, than related to children´s characteristics such as temperament. indeed, previous studies have reported that teachers and parents communicate more when caring for infants and toddlers than when caring for preschoolers (e.g., endsley & minish, 1989; rimm-kaufman & pianta, 1999). regardless, the mentioned studies did not considered temperament. more research is needed for better understand how child temperament affects partnerships, particularly during infant care. childcare teachers with a university degree in ecec were more likely to implement more partnership practices as evidenced by the teachers’ reports on coelho et al. – infant center-based care 196 the number of practices being implemented, as well as by the mothers’ corroborating reports. considering the importance of connecting early education centres and families, frequently stated in early education and development literature, governmental guidelines, and legislation (e.g., drugli & undheim, 2012; portaria n.º 262/2011, 31de agosto; owen et al., 2008), our results have important implications for teacher initial training and teacher recruitment for infant classrooms. specifically in portugal and other countries where legislation requirements for infant ecec classrooms do not mandate that teachers have a specific qualification; these results highlight that teachers who are well prepared are able to implement more partnership practices and ideally would like to implement even more. these findings add to previous studies highlighting the importance of teacher initial education for ecec quality (barros et al., 2018; barros & aguiar, 2010), showing that teacher qualifications are not only relevant for high quality practices but also for stronger partnerships with families. teacher qualifications can potentially play a role in shaping teacher ideas or practices in partnering with families. thus, the relevance of both initial qualification and on-the-job training, particularly for building positive partnerships between infants’ teachers and families, requires further examination and research. in this study, the quality of teacher-child interactions was not related to mothers’ or teachers’ reports about real and ideal partnership, contrary to previous research in childcare. we note that previous research focused on partnerships in infant classrooms is scarce, so more studies are needed to better understand such partnerships. in this scope, we highlight that our study focuses exclusively on infant classrooms and registers low variability regarding teacher-infant interactions quality, which may have influenced the ability to capture significative relations between teacher-infant interactions and implemented partnership practices. additionally, the lack of significant associations may be related with the method for data collection, as teacherchild interactions were assessed through observation by trained researchers and partnership was assessed using a self-report measure. future studies collecting data through observation both for quality and partnerships practices are needed to clarify such relations in infant centre-based childcare. some limitations of this study must be acknowledged. first, we point out than the use of a self-report questionnaire to assess teacher-family partnerships might have captured some social desirability answers, reflected in a greater number of practices being reported as implemented both by teachers and ijep – international journal of educational psychology, 12(2) 197 mothers. regarding study participants, on average mothers who participated had a relatively high education level, which may not be representative of the portuguese population. this bias in the mothers’ level of education may be due to the criteria for participation in the broader study in which these data were gathered. in the scope of the larger project, childcare professionals were asked to present the study to mothers who had registered for their infant to enter the centre in advance, i.e., mothers who had planned their infant’s entrance in childcare in due time. this might have led to the selection of more educated working mothers who, besides planning this moment in advance, were also sensitive to the relevance of partnerships with the professionals caring for their child at the centre. some variability was registered in mothers’ educational level, with 3% of mothers in the study having a basic level of education. nonetheless, this study was not able to further explore if patterns of associations were different for mothers with higher or lower levels of education. future studies are thus needed to address this issue. educational level was a significant predictor of mothers’ report on ideal practices, showing that more educated mothers are eager of more partnership practices in the scope on their infant care arrangements. although this study was conducted before the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, we are aware that the pandemic contributed to an increase in the challenges faced by ecec professionals in communicating and establishing strong and positive partnerships with families. a recent study in ecec (otero‑mayer et al., 2021) found that families believe they don´t have the tools and time for educating their children at home, underlining the need for improving school-family cooperation at the start of the child’s education, i.e., beginning with attendance in infant centre-based childcare. it is noteworthy that, in many countries, both mothers and fathers of young children return to work during their infant’s first 6 weeks to 12 months of life and, thus, the need to place the child in centre-based care is becoming more prevalent. at the same time, the role played by the quality of centre-based care in fostering children’s social and cognitive development from an early age, while providing a caring and safe environment for parents to leave their children when they are at work, is emphasized (e.g., castro et al., 2004; swartz & easterbrooks, 2014). therefore, future studies are needed, particularly about how the pandemic affected the partnership between teachers and families caring for and educating infants. coelho et al. – infant center-based care 198 conclusion teacher-family partnerships are crucial for the development of young children who attend out-of-home ecec settings. this study is among the first to document the various forms of teacher-family partnerships in infant classrooms and to examine the at onement between mothers' and teachers' perspectives on ideal and real practices. results underline the need for greater investment in continuous opportunities for family involvement in childcare, and effective participation. finally, it highlights the importance of teacher education for partnerships, suggesting the need of further studies for a broader characterization of teacher-family practices in infant care. conflict of interest the authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. author contributions vc, sb, mp, jc, db and cp made substantial contributions on (a) to the conception and design of the study; 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(2020). expectations and emotions concerning infant transitions to ecec: international dialogues with parents and teachers. european early childhood education research journal, 28(3), 363– 374. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1350293x.2020.1755495 vera lúcia coelho: university of maia, department of social and behavioral sciences; center for psychology at university of porto orcid : https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3741-0885 carla peixoto: university of maia, department of social and behavioral sciences; center for research and innovation in education (ined), school of education, polytechnic institute of porto orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3927-3818 manuela pessanha: school of education, polytechnic institute of porto; center for research and innovation in education (ined), school of education, polytechnic institute of porto orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6446-0845 joana cadima: faculty of psychology and educational sciences, university of porto; center for psychology at university of porto orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8814-8899 donna bryant: frank porter graham child development institute at the university of north carolina orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9539-7386 contact address: vcoelho@umaia.pt https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3741-0885 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3927-3818 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6446-0845 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8814-8899 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9539-7386 instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com can collaborative knowledge building promote both scientific processes and science achievement? carol k. k. chan, ivan c. k. lam & raymond w. h. leung1 1 ) faculty of education, the university of hong kong, hong kong date of publication: october 24th, 201 2 to cite this article: chan, c. k. k., lam, i. c. k., & leung, r. w. h. (201 2). can collaborative knowledge building promote both scientific processes and science achievement? international journal of educational psychology, 1(3), 1 99-227. doi: 1 0.4471 /ijep.201 2/1 2 to link this article: http://dx.doi.org/1 0.4471 /ijep.201 2.1 2 please scroll down for article the terms and conditions of use are related to the open journal system and to creative commons non-commercial and non-derivative license. http://ijep.hipatiapress.com http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2012.12 ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychologyvol. 1 no. 3 october 2012 pp.199-227. can collaborative knowledge building promote both scientific processes and science achievement? carol k. k. chan, ivan c. k. lam & raymond w. h. leung theuniversity ofhongkong abstract this study investigated the role of collective knowledge building in promoting scientific inquiry and achievements among hong kong high-school chemistry students. the participants included 34 grade 10 (15-16 years old) students who engaged in collective inquiry and progressive discourse, using knowledge forum®, a computer-supported collaborative learning environment. a comparison class of35 students also participated in the study. the instructional design, premised on knowledge-building principles including epistemic agency, improvable ideas and community knowledge, consisted ofseveral components: developing a collaborative classroom culture, engaging in problem-centered inquiry, deepening the knowledge-building discourse, and aligning assessment with collective learning. quantitative findings show that the students in the knowledge-building classroom outperformed the comparison students in scientific understanding with sustained effects in public examination. analyses of knowledge-building dynamics indicate that the students showed deeper engagement and inquiry over time. students’ collaboration and inquiry on knowledge forum significantly predicted their scientific understanding, over and above the effects of their prior science achievement. qualitative analyses suggest how student’s knowledge-creation discourse, involving explanatory inquiry, constructive use of information and theory revision, can scaffold scientific understanding. keywords: knowledge building, scientific inquiry, collaboration, technologymediated learning. 2012 hipatia press issn 2014-3591 doi: 10.4471/ijep.2012/12 ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychologyvol. 1 no. 3 october 2012 pp.199-227. ¿puede la construcción colaborativa del conocimiento promover los procesos científicos y el rendimiento en ciencias? carol k. k. chan, ivan c. k. lam & raymond w. h. leung theuniversity ofhongkong resumen este estudio investigó el rol de la construcción colectiva del conocimiento en la promoción de la indagación científica y de los resultados entre estudiantes de química de instituto de hong kong. las y los participantes fueron 34 estudiantes del décimo curso (15-16 años) que participaron en indagación colectiva y discurso progresivo, utilizando el foro del conocimiento®, un entorno de aprendizaje basado en el ordenador. una clase de comparación de 35 estudiantes también participaron en el estudio. el diseño instruccional, bajo las premisas de principios de construcción del conocimiento incluyendo la agencia epistémica, ideas improbables y conocimiento comunitario, consistieron de muchos componentes: el desarrollo de una cultural de aula colaborativa, participación en la investigación centrada en problemas, profundización en el discurso constructor de conocimiento y alienar la evaluación con el aprendizaje colectivo. los resultados cuantitativos muestran que las y los estudiantes en el aula de construcción de conocimiento rindieron por encima de las y los estudiantes del grupo comparativo en la comprensión científica con efectos sostenidos en la evaluación pública. los análisis de la dinámica de construcción de conocimiento indican que las y los estudiantes mostraron una implicación e indagación más profundas a lo largo del tiempo. la colaboración e indagación de los y las estudiantes en el foro del conocimiento predijeron de forma significativa la comprensión científica de las y los estudiantes, por encima de los efectos de su previo rendimiento en ciencias. los análisis cualitativos sugieren que el discurso de creación del conocimiento de las y los estudiantes, que incluye indagación explicativa, revisión de la teoría y uso constructivo de la información, puede andamiar la comprensión científica. palabras clave: creación de conocimiento, indagación científica, colaboración, aprendizaje mediado por la tecnología 2012 hipatia press issn 2014-3591 doi: 10.4471/ijep.2012/12 learning science (scott, asoko & leach, 2007). despite much enthusiasm, science learning is often reduced to surface forms of constructivist learning, with students busily engaged in gathering information from the web and completing predetermined tasks (scardamalia & bereiter, 2006); scientific inquiry is often limited to sequences of activities and fixed standards that focus on isolated skills rather than authentic inquiry (chinn & malhotra, 2002). the real goal of science for the creation of knowledge remains to be investigated, along with how knowledge-creation can be integrated with school curricula and assessment in classrooms.   although it is widely recognized that students need to engage in discourse in science learning, less attention has been paid to how the learning environment can be designed to foster scientific understanding mediated by collective discursive practice and in particular, how it can address multiple goals of scientific inquiry, and discourse practice and school science. the possibilities for developing scientific inquiry mediated by technology merit investigation; at the same time, there is also a need to examine how students can learn the science concepts required by school curricula while working as communities ofscientists to create new knowledge and improve their scientific practice. this study reports on an approach that is based on knowledge building, mediated by a computer-supported collaborative learning environment called knowledge forum® that focuses on students working collaboratively as members of a scientific community advancing the frontiers oftheir knowledge.   a major research strand regarding collaborative learning is the use of computer-supported collaborative learning (cscl) environments (stahl, koschmann, & suthers, 2006). an influential example ofan educational model using cscl technology is “knowledge building”, also known as knowledge creation, which is defined as “the production of knowledge that adds value to the community” (bereiter & scardamalia, 2010; scardamalia & bereiter, 2006). this model of knowledge building postulates that knowledge advancement is the collective work of a community, analogous to scientific communities, and that knowledge is t is now widely accepted that students need to work together to engage in collaborative inquiry and scientific discourse, and to develop the practice of scientists when they are involved ini 201ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(3) improvable through discourse (bereiter, 2002; scardamalia & bereiter, 2006). knowledge building has been characterized as “knowledge creation”, a third metaphor for learning (paavola, lipponen, & hakkarainen, 2004) that integrates the “knowledge-acquisition” (cognitive) and “participation” (situated) learning metaphors (sfard, 1998). while knowledge building is now an increasingly popular term in the education literature, this model goes beyond students sharing and co-constructing joint understanding, often in group settings; it emphasizes “collective cognitive responsibility” and collective practices ofthe community to advance the community knowledge.   knowledge forum™ (see www.knowledgeforum.com), consisting of a multimedia database, constructed by students themselves, was designed to support collective knowledge advances and progressive discourse (scardamalia & bereiter, 1994; 2006). in knowledge-building communities, students make progress not only in improving their personal knowledge, but also in developing collective knowledge through progressive inquiry. when learning science in a knowledgebuilding classroom, students use knowledge forum to pose cuttingedge problems, generate theories and conjectures, search for scientific information, elaborate on the ideas of others, and co-construct explanations, thereby collectively revising and refining their ideas.   learning science is difficult because students often have to tackle information that is different from or contradictory to what they believe. many students experience conceptual difficulties in understanding the various levels (macroscopic, microscopic and symbolic) of scientific knowledge, and develop alternative conceptions in the complex process of learning (treagust, chittleborough & mamiala, 2003). research has placed increased emphasis on student agency and epistemology; research into intentional conceptual change, for example, postulates that such changes need to be regulated and controlled by students (sinatra & pintrich, 2003). this study proposes that knowledge-building pedagogy that emphasizes students’ epistemic agency and social metacognition will foster their scientific understanding, because when they collaborate to build knowledge, they have opportunities to reflect on their beliefs and understanding by comparing the beliefs and models of others with their own. conflictual views can be identified and resolved collaboratively when students are working as a community of inquirers. 202 chan, lam, &leung-knowledgebuilding further, when knowledge is constructed through discourse among student participants, students may understand better that knowledge is not handed down by authority, and will have opportunities to reflect on the nature ofscience and sources ofknowledge.   various studies have investigated the knowledge-building dynamics of how knowledge building can support scientific understanding and knowledge creation (see review, chan, 2012; caswell & bielaczyc, 2001; van aalst & truong, 2011). oshima, scardamalia and bereiter (1996) investigated differences among students with highand lowconceptual progress and identified the importance of problem-centred knowledge. hakkarainen (2004) analyzed the written productions of young students in physics posted onto a csile database (computersupported intentional learning environment, the earlier version of knowledge forum). these young students engaged in epistemological inquiry and pursued explanation-driven inquiry with some moving toward theoretical scientific explanation. van aalst and chan (2007) examined how students' collective assessment and meta-discourse using knowledge-building portfolios can scaffold their conceptual understanding in high-school science. zhang, scardamalia, reeve and messina (2009) examined the socio-cognitive dynamics of knowledge building by investigating the collective cognitive responsibility of fourth-grade students in advancing their science knowledge.   although there has been major progress in research on knowledge building, there is still a need for stronger empirical evidence to support the role of collective knowledge building in students’ scientific understanding. in comparison with other inquiry models, knowledge building emphasizes the complex dynamics of scientific inquiry and there may be concerns that science content in school curricula may be neglected. in particular, since this model of knowledge building emphasizes collective and community advances, it is useful to examine whether it has educational benefits for individual students and how knowledge-building dynamics may contribute to the effects. while many studies in the knowledge building literature have been conducted among elementary school students, this study examined high-school students learning chemistry in hong kong classrooms, with a comparison group, to investigate how the knowledge-building approach 203ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(3) and discourse affect students’ scientific understanding. teachers and educators may also be interested to see whether the increasingly popular inquiry-based approach to learning science, in this case knowledge building, has an effect on standardized tests and assessments used in public examinations. as the knowledge-building model is implemented increasingly in different countries, it would also be of interest to examine how the approach works with students in different cultural settings, and in particular in educational contexts that emphasize teacher-centered approaches and examinations.   accordingly, this study investigated knowledge building and scientific understanding among a group of grade 10 students (aged 1516 years) studying chemistry in a high-school classroom in hong kong. the research questions are: (1) do students involved in knowledge building perform better on chemistry assessment tasks based on the school curricula than do their peers? (2) how do knowledge-building activities predict students’ scientific understanding? and (3) how do students engage in knowledge-building discourse and how might it foster their scientific understanding? methods participants the participants were thirty-four students in a knowledge-building class and another thirty-five students in a comparison class attending a grade 10 (15-16 years old) chemistry course at a hong kong catholic girls’ school. students had a high-average ability and english was the medium of instruction in their classrooms. the students studied using english and wrote on knowledge forum in english. the comparison class studied the same chemistry curriculum during class; after school, while the knowledge-building students wrote on the forum, the comparison class worked on text-book exercises. students in both classes had similar academic achievements and were taught by the same teacher. the classroom setting both classes were taught using the chemistry curriculum determined by the education bureau (ministry of education) in hong kong. the 204 chan, lam, &leung-knowledgebuilding teacher designed the learning environment, integrating the school curriculum with knowledge-building pedagogy. primarily, the goal was to engage students to interconnect abstract concepts in chemistry on the macroscopic, microscopic, and symbolic levels. the study lasted several months (jan-august) and had three periods: phase 1: initial use of knowledge forum (jan-feb); phase 2: full use of knowledge forum (march-april); and phase 3: use of knowledge forum after school examinations in the summer (july-august). usually schoolwork finishes at the end of the academic year, which is followed by the summer holidays. in this study, the knowledge-building class continued to work beyond the end of term and into the summer months. they continued their collaborative inquiry, mediated by knowledge forum, despite the absence ofthe teacher. principle-based instructional design the design of the knowledge-building environment was premised on a set of interrelated knowledge-building principles (scardamalia, 2002), and several key principles, including epistemic agency, improvable ideas, constructive use of authoritative information, and community knowledge, that inform the classroom design. “epistemic agency” is a principle that focuses on having students take high-level agency charting their own inquiry; the principle of “improvable ideas’ focuses on students viewing ideas as objects of inquiry that can be improved continually; “constructive use of authoritative information” emphasizes students using new information as resources to refine their theories; and “community knowledge’ focuses on collective inquiry and advances in collective knowledge. while there were different classroom activities, the design emphasized developing a knowledge-building culture with students taking collective cognitive responsibility. based on other studies conducted in hong kong classrooms, different components were included (chan, 2008; lee et al., 2006) and described as follows:   development of a collaborative classroom culture. before the implementation ofknowledge forum, all of the students were provided with learning experiences to help create a collaborative knowledgebuilding culture. classroom activities such as jigsaws, collaborative 205ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(3) concept mapping and group-based scientific inquiry experiments may be commonplace now in science classrooms; in this study, the focus was placed on helping students to put their ideas to the forefront, and these ideas are public artefacts that can now be open to inquiry and improvement through students’ collective efforts. students own their problems and inquiry with epistemic agency and they work for collective advances in community knowledge. through these principles and design activities, the students began to acculturate to the knowledge-building practice of asking productive questions, putting forth theories for revision and solving complex problems. they also activated their prior knowledge and articulated the abstract and particulate nature ofchemistry concepts.   collaborative problem-centered inquiry. the teacher worked with the students and designed the knowledge forum views to promote knowledge building and aligned authentic problems with the school curriculum (e.g., acids and bases, neutralization) (figure 1). several views (discussion areas) were created, based on scientific or everyday issues (e.g. the nature of 2-in-1 shampoo), and the students engaged in inquiry into authentic problems. knowledge forum supported epistemic agency and metacognition by having the students work with scaffolds (metacognitive prompts, e.g., “i need to understand”, “my theory”). a key principle was that the students viewed ideas as improvable as they generated questions, posed alternative theories and hypotheses, brought in new information, considered different students’ views, and collectively advanced their community knowledge. problems emerging from the computer discourse were discussed in class, and several emergent problems, such as the chemistry of bleach and antiseptic alcohol, were formulated by the students. these ideas were integrated with their prior knowledge of chemistry concepts and were aligned with the topics in the chemistry curriculum. 206 chan, lam, &leung-knowledgebuilding   rise-above and deepening the knowledge building discourse. as the unit continued, there were many more notes in the database but the discussion could be fragmented and scattered. knowledge forum designs support higher-level themes (theories) emerging from diverse ideas as students pursue idea improvement and deepening of the discourse. over time, the teacher worked with the students to identify sub-themes, note clusters, and questions that needed further inquiry and revision. note clusters were moved into rise-above views to help focus and extend the collective inquiry. primarily, students worked collectively to deepen their inquiry through examining productive ideas and inquiries, scaffolding emergent discussions and theory refinement. online and offline discourse worked together as students engaged in meta-discourse in knowledge-building classroom talks.   concurrent and transformative assessment. rather than focusing on teacher-led assessment, this principle emphasizes assessment as concurrent, embedded and transformative for students' knowledge figure 1. a view on knowledge forum illustrating students’ collective inquiry. 207ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(3) building. the students reflected on their work and assessed the knowledge-building discourse, noting high-points in their knowledge advances. specifically, the students had to select and write a reflective summary of four notes to assess the knowledge advances they had made, guided by the knowledge-building principles. such reflections helped to promote a metacognitive understanding of their own knowledge building process and were rated and attributed as part of the course assessment.   the knowledge-building and comparison students both studied the same curriculum during the semester. however, whereas the knowledge-building students wrote computer notes after class, the comparison class students were asked to work on textbook exercises and problems after class. measures   forum participation. student participation, interaction and collaboration on knowledge forum was assessed using server log information via the software program called the analytic toolkit (atk) developed by the knowledge building research team at the university oftoronto (burtis, 1998). the analytic toolkit provides a wide range of indices to show participation and collaboration in knowledge forum, and we reported several common ones used in the literature: (a) the number of “note contribution” (notes written); (b) the percentage of notes “read” that reflect community awareness; (c) the number of “scaffolds” as metacognitive prompts (e.g., i need to understand, my theory, a better theory); (d) the number of “note revisions” that reflect recursive processes; (e) the percentage ofnotes with “keywords” to help other members identify and access notes; (f) the percentage of notes “linked” that refer to notes that build onto and notes that make references to other notes. the atk measures have been used in numerous classroom studies and have been validated in other knowledge-building research studies (chan & chan, 2011; van aalst & chan, 2007).   question asking and epistemological inquiry. how questions are posed is an important indicator of epistemological inquiry, as it reflects how students view ideas as objects of inquiry in knowledge building 208 chan, lam, &leung-knowledgebuilding (hakkarainen, 2004). in this study, we examined all of the questions in this chemistry database. different levels ofquestions emerged, resulting in a five-point scale characterizing responses ranging from fact-finding questions to explanatory and scientific-inquiry based questions. the scale development was based on earlier work on knowledge building (chan, burtis, & bereiter, 1997) and epistemological inquiry (hakkarainen, 2004) and the rating of student questions on knowledge forum (lee et al., 2006). examples of different levels of questions are included in the descriptions that follow. in this study, a second rater scored 30% of the responses and the inter-rater reliability based on pearson correlation was 0.71. level 1 simple questions. questions at this level sought a single piece of information, usually of fact-finding types. these questions were usually ofthe simple “what” and “yes/no” questions: "what ph do sweets have?" (#102), "what is ammonium sulphate?" (#29). level 2 simple questions with personal non-scientific guesses. questions at this level were similar to those in level 1 but they included some personal presuppositions: "but is the damage as serious as using dye to dye your hair? i think lemon juice is not that strong as those dyes...." (#31). level 3 general information-seeking questions. these questions sought general information about a topic, and were usually ofthe “how” and “what’ variety: "what happens if concentrated acids react with metal carbonates/hydrogen carbonates???" (#67).   level 4 explanation-seeking questions. questions at this level sought explanations about a problem: many home computers use ink jet printers. the print head works by squirting minute droplets ofink at the paper. this ink must be liquid before squirting but must not smudge or rub offonce on the paper. 209ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(3) how do we explain ink jet printing involving neutralization? (#262)   level 5 scientific conjecture or theory-seeking questions. questions at this level identified areas of conflict and put forth some plausible conjectures. some may also have been questions that identified conflicts between ideas, or between conjectures and events, or that had the potential to modify current views, a website said that "if you have swallowed some bleach, drink milk so as to counteract the effect of naocl in the body through neutralization." does it work?? but milk is slightly acidic, will chlorine gas evolve in our stomach?? it seems very horrible! actually is egg acidic? so is the same reason implied? (#82)   scientific understanding. at the end of the semester, students from both the knowledge building and comparison classes were assessed by an examination in chemistry consisting of questions designed to probe their conceptual understanding of chemistry based on the school curriculum. the students had to apply knowledge and explain new phenomena. the examination consisted of both forced-choice questions and open-ended questions, related to the curriculum and for examining scientific understanding. the students were also asked some unfamiliar questions that required them to show a good understanding of relevant chemistry concepts. as an example, one question asked, “a student tested the ph of two aqueous solutions, hydrochloric acid and ethanoic acid. she found that both had a ph 4. she concluded that the two acids were equally concentrated and also equally strong. do you agree? explain your answer.” this question tested the students’ understanding ofthe concepts ofstrength (strong or weak) and concentration (dilute or concentrated) of the acids. we also examined the students’ public examination results as a delayed posttest to investigate whether working on knowledge building had affected their performance in science. 210 chan, lam, &leung-knowledgebuilding results we first examined the effects ofthe knowledge-building environment on the students’ scientific understanding followed by analyses of how knowledge building dynamics may have contributed to their scientific understanding. effects of knowledge building on scientific understanding an anova showed no differences between the two classes in their prior achievement scores in grade 9 chemistry. the mean scores for scientific understanding for the knowledge building class and the comparison class after the program were 80.6 (12.4) and 70.1 (13.3), respectively (sd in parentheses). an ancova that controlled for prior chemistry achievement showed a significant difference in scientific understanding between the two classes, f (1, 67) = 18.73, p<.01, suggesting the knowledge-building students outperformed the comparison students.   we also examined the performance of the two classes in the public examinations taken one year later as a delayed posttest to investigate the effects on science achievements and to test whether the students’ understanding was sustained. we translated the letter grades into numeric values (a=5, b=4, c=3, d=2, e=1) and the results show that the knowledge building class obtained an average score of3.8 (1.1) in the public examinations, while the comparison class obtained an average score of 3.5 (1.3). thus, although the two classes had similar achievements in chemistry when they started form four (grade 10), the knowledge-building students had obtained significantly higher chemistry scores at the end of form four, and continued to perform better at the end ofform five (grade 11) in public examinations. student contribution in knowledge forum and changes over time to investigate knowledge-building dynamics and their possible effects on scientific understanding and achievements, we examined the students’ contribution to knowledge forum and how these changed over time. the results from the analytic toolkit showed that the overall 211ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(3) degree of student participation in knowledge forum was high, with each student creating, on average, 40.6 (17.0) notes and reading 66% of all notes. the percentages ofnotes linked and notes with keywords were also high (77% and 74% respectively), suggesting a high degree of interaction in the knowledge forum discussions. although there is no norm against which to make a direct evaluation, comparisons with student participation levels in other computer forum discussions (lipponen et al., 2003) indicated that the students were participating actively in this knowledge-building community.   we examined changes in the students’ participation over three periods of phase 1, phase 2, and phase 3 (table 1). a manova showed significant differences in atk indices across all three phases, suggesting change over time. post-hoc tests showed significant differences in all atk indices, indicating gains in participation and collaboration from phase 1 to phase 2. between phases 1 and 3, posthoc tests also indicated significant gains in the number of notes created and the percentage ofnotes linked. taken together, there was significant growth in atk indices from phase 1 to phase 2, and various indices were higher in phase 3 compared to phase 1. phase 1 phase 2 phase 3 # ofnotes written 3.7 (5.7) 26.0 (13.5) # ofrevision 0.5 (1.5) 2.7 (4.2) 2.1 (3.2)* # ofscaffolds 0.7 (1.2) 3.3 (5.5) 1.5 (3.7)* % ofnotes read % oflinked notes 30.8 (41.7) 77.5 (21.1) 58.2 (38.9)** 10.9 (8.4)** 43.2 (37.1) 72.6 (30.2) 42.8 (35.1)** # ofproblems 2.1 (3.1) 9.6 (6.4) 3.1 (3.5)** % with keywords 42.2 (47.3) 72.0 (15.3) 58.5 (40.7)** table 1 participation andcollaboration in knowledgeforum overtime note: *p < .05; **p < .01. 212 chan, lam, &leung-knowledgebuilding we examined the frequency and quality of the questions posed over the three periods (table 2). we classified the questions as high-level (levels 4 and 5) or low-level (levels 1, 2 and 3). the mean number of highlevel questions posed per student was 0.6 in phase 1, 3.8 in phase 2 and 1.4 in phase 3. combining question quality and frequency generated an inquiry score; for example, a student who posed one level 1 question, one level 2 question, and two level 3 questions would have an inquiry score of 2.25 (the total question value divided by the number of questions asked). epistemological inquiry and changes over time phase 1 phase 2 phase 3 # ofquestions 1.5 (2.5) 9.6 (6.6) # ofhigh-level questions 0.6 (0.9) 3.8 (2.9) 1.4 (1.7)** inquiry scores 1.7 (2.0) 2.6 (0.8) 2.4 (1.8)* 3.0 (2.8)** table 2 depth ofinquiry on knowledgeforum overtime note: *p < .05; **p < .01.   a manova showed significant differences for all inquiry measures across the three phases. post-hoc tests indicated significant differences on all three measures between phases 1 and 2 suggesting increased depth ofinquiry. there were no differences in inquiry scores in phases 2 and 3, which suggests that the students maintained their levels of inquiry over the summer. taken together, the qualitative ratings of the questions (inquiry) showed a similar pattern with the quantitative indices of forum participation. there was a general growth trend, and the students maintained an interest in knowledge-building inquiry, working on knowledge forum by themselves even after their examinations. 213ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(3) prediction ofknowledge building measures on scientific understanding we conducted analyses to examine how students’ knowledge-building engagement and inquiry might predict their scientific understanding. we first combined the six participation (atk) scores using factor analysis. two factor scores were generated; the first termed “productivity" (notes written, notes read, revisions and scaffolds) explained 40% of the variance, and the second, termed “collaboration” (notes linked, keywords), explained 22% of variance. “productivity” included the indices that focused more on student participation, such as the number of notes written, revisions made, scaffold uses, and notes read. “collaboration” focused on students interacting and collaborating with each other, such as linking to and referencing the notes of other classmates, or using keywords to make their notes more accessible in a search. these two indices have been identified in other studies on knowledge building (e.g., lee et al., 2006).   we found significant correlations among various measures, specifically that scientific understanding was correlated with prior science achievement based on the grade 9 exam results (r = .67, p<.001) and atk collaboration (r =.61, p<.001). a hierarchical multiple regression analysis on scientific understanding was conducted with prior science achievement (grade 9 scores) entered first, followed by atk collaboration scores, and then the inquiry scores (table 3). the results showed that prior science achievement contributed significantly to scientific understanding (r2= .45). when the atk collaboration scores were entered, r2 changed to .56 adding 11% of variance; when depth of inquiry scores was entered, r2 changed to .63, adding an additional 6% of the variance. all changes were statistically significant. these findings suggest that, over and above prior science achievement, students’ collaboration indices in knowledge forum and the quality of the questions they asked contributed significantly to scientific understanding. what is ofparticular interest is that it is not productivity but collaboration that contributes to scientific understanding. 214 chan, lam, &leung-knowledgebuilding r r2 r2 change prior science achievement .67 .45 atk collaboration .75 .56 .11** depth ofinquiry .79 .63 .065* .45*** table 3 multiple regression of prior science achievement, collaboration (analytic toolkit), depth ofinquiry on scientificunderstanding note: *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001. knowledge-building discourse and processes we provide an example based on student writing on knowledge forum to illustrate how knowledge building was manifested and how it might scaffold students’ scientific understanding. this selection was based on the teacher’s recollection of how he came to realize that it is possible for students to pursue problems collectively and engage in creating knowledge for the community. the example illustrates how students demonstrate epistemic agency, charting their own course of inquiry and viewing ideas as improvable and supported by constructive use of scientific information to refine their explanations. the inquiry from which the excerpt was taken started with a question raised by jacqueline, who wrote: "my mum has gone to the supermarket for[three] times… but still can't buy bleach [to kill the sars virus]. too many people want it nowadays… can we use alcohol to kill the bacteria too?" she wanted to know whether alcohol has the same function as bleach in killing the sars virus although she mistakenly used the term “bacteria” instead of “virus”. this wonderment question sparked an inquiry into the relative properties of the two disinfectants and their effects on the sars virus. the discourse continued with another student’s observation about the strength of commercially sold alcohol. 215ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(3) she wrote: "the normal alcohol [sold on the market] contains 75% alcohol" (cindy). this provided more information about household alcohol and led to further puzzlement: "why is it 75%?" (jacqueline).   a common theme is that students were engaged in posing problems and puzzlement. these two short exchanges helped the students to think more deeply about the effects of alcohol on bacteria and viruses and to question why only 75% alcohol, rather than pure alcohol, is used for sterilization. the puzzlement leading to a formulated problem brought about a search for new information; jacqueline continued the explanatory discourse and wrote a paraphrased version ofan explanation she found in a science book. she wrote: the concentration of pure alcohol is so high that it will, in no time… completely solidify the protein on the surface of the bacteria, so forming a layer ofhard membrane. this layer prevents the alcohol from further diffusing into the bacteria… but the situation is different for alcohol mixed with water. the diluted alcohol will not quickly solidify the protein on the surface of the bacteria; it can diffuse into the bacteria and solidify all the protein content inside… that is why... diluted alcohol works better than pure alcohol in sterilization. this explanation provided a plausible mechanism ofhow alcohol can kill bacteria at a microscopic level (by solidifying the protein of the bacteria) and why water is needed for proper disinfectant activity. however, the discourse did not stop there with this initial explanation. other members of the community continued with the search for explanation that deepened the inquiry –macy posed herpuzzlement as follows: mmm.... but then do you mean that the "protective protein layer" will block the bacteria from coming out? and [will] they be kept in our skin? or even enter the body? wow.... that's terrifying…but is the layer formed on the bacteria... or somewhere else? 216 chan, lam, &leung-knowledgebuilding macy was trying to clarify two related points pertaining to the explanation where the “protective protein layer” is formed and what the consequences are of such a layer being formed. it can be seen that the students were posing queries and that they felt comfortable to write about their ‘uneasiness’ and what might not make sense to them. it is through such queries that the collective discourse can be deepened for idea improvement and theory revision. it is interesting to note that macy did not refer to the book directly when she posed her questions, but rather to jacqueline’s note: “do you mean that…”. it seems that, to macy the authoritative information had become jacqueline’s own ideas. the second point put the initial explanation to a more rigorous test by further considering the possible consequences that arose, thus opening the door for theory revision and “improvable” explanation.   the explanatory discourse went to a deeper level with another explanation given by youde, which she had found in another science book. she paraphrased and wrote: alcohol = ethanol (c 2 h 5 oh)… it has strong diffusing power. it can drill into the bacteria and denature its protein; and so kill the bacteria. in the past, people thought […followed by a few lines paraphrasing jacqueline’s initial explanation]. but in fact, just pure alcohol or pure water cannot denature the bacteria’s protein. it is only with water and alcohol together that has the power… protein is composed of long spiral chains... on the inside of the chains, there are many “base clusters” that dislike water. [on] the outside are many “base clusters” that like water. there exist attractive forces between these two different kinds of base clusters… these attractive forces have to be broken down first… since the non-polar part of alcohol [molecules] is –c 2 h 5 , it can only destroy the attractive forces among the base clusters that dislike water…and water molecules can only destroy the attractive forces among the base clusters that like water…so water and alcohol need to work together in appropriate concentration..to sterilize. as the students engaged in the pursuit of deepening inquiry, this new explanation not only refuted the old one but also brought out more chemical knowledge about alcohol (alcohol = ethanol (c 2 h 5 oh)) and 217ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(3) the structure of bacteria protein (protein is composed of…) by giving more details at the microscopic level. the students’ understanding of the original problem was revised and deepened continually, illustrating the characteristics of knowledge-building discourse and reflecting theory revision in science. specifically, the problem on finding substitutes for bleach to kill bacteria (actually a virus) led successfully to a progressive scientific inquiry. it began with the wonderment question of whether alcohol can kill bacteria as bleach does. this puzzlement was formulated into a scientific problem: the role played by the concentration of alcohol in killing bacteria. these questions then led to an initial explanation aided by scientific information about how alcohol can kill bacteria (by solidifying the bacteria’s protein); the original macroscopic question was examined at the microscopic level. the discourse continued to progress as the students viewed ideas as objects of inquiry for refinement, and the initial explanation was subject to query. new questions were raised and these puzzlements led to reformulation with a new explanation that elaborated on the microscopic structure of alcohol (with symbolic formula provided) and the protein of bacteria. primarily the students worked collectively grappling with emergent problems and extending their knowledge.   several discourse moves are manifested in this example, including the posing of wonderment questions, explanatory discourse, constructive use of information, and theory revision. quite different from the knowledge transmission approach common in traditional hong kong classrooms, the students here took the emergent approach of intertwined questions and explanations in pursuit for idea improvement. their discourse shows that the information was not viewed as something given from outside the community. on the contrary, they treated it as their public “property” or as an “object” that could be value-added or modified by any one of them (e.g., “do you [not the text] mean…”). this suggests that the knowledge-building approach not only shaped the way in which the students went about their scientific inquiry, but also their epistemology of science. most importantly, they were inquiring both to learn science content and also as scientists themselves formulating problems, posting initial ideas, revising their theories, and working at the cutting edge of the knowledge of the community. 218 chan, lam, &leung-knowledgebuilding discussion this study has investigated the role ofcollaborative knowledge building mediated by a computer-supported learning environment in fostering scientific understanding. our results show that the knowledge-building students outperformed the comparison students on scientific understanding; student collaboration and inquiry scores in knowledge forum predicted scientific understanding over and above prior science achievement. the results also show several productive knowledgebuilding discourse moves, including wonderment questions, explanatory inquiry, constructive use of information, and theory revision that might help scaffold scientific understanding. issues relating to the effects and roles ofknowledge building in fostering scientific inquiry are discussed.   whereas earlier studies in knowledge building have included evaluation designs with comparison groups (scardamalia, bereiter & lamon, 1994), more recent studies have focused on elucidating the rich dynamics of knowledge building (see review, chan, 2012). since the knowledge-building approach emphasizes collective agency and emergent processes, there may be concerns that students, while engaged actively in knowledge-building inquiry processes, may not be learning adequate science content. one contribution of this study is that it provides additional evidence about the positive roles of collective knowledge building on scientific understanding and achievements, including a comparison group with delayed tests, thus enriching the knowledge-building literature. specifically, our results show that the students who had experienced knowledge building outperformed the comparison students in school tests of scientific understanding and sustained their advantage in public examinations one year later. furthermore, within-group comparisons using hierarchical regression analysis show that collaboration in knowledge forum and depth of inquiry were significant predictors of scientific understanding over and above the effects of prior science achievement. we have provided evidence that the students’ active involvement in knowledge building did influence their science learning scores beyond prior science achievements.   it is interesting to note that the knowledge-building students obtained higher grades in public examinations than did the comparison students. 219ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(3) these findings suggest that student gains were not achieved at the expense of school learning. rather, by deepening their understanding through explanation-based knowledge-building discourse, the knowledge forum students might have integrated their knowledge about chemistry better than did their counterparts in the comparison class. they made both individual and collective advances as they worked collectively and there were gains in both science concepts and authentic scientific practice. such findings are important for developing knowledge-building innovations in different school contexts, and in particular those that emphasize standard curricula and examinations (chan, 2011).   although the quantitative findings provide general support for the positive effects ofknowledge building on learning science, it is through examining the knowledge-building dynamics that a deeper understanding can be gained of how knowledge building scaffolds scientific understanding. our findings show that the students’ participation and inquiry improved over time, with them becoming increasingly engaged in their participation and collaboration in the forum. the participation indices were much higher than those reported in the literature for online discussions (lipponen et al., 2003). in addition, the students engaged in deeper inquiry over time, moving from descriptive to explanatory questions. the level of questions asked has been shown to be important in scientific inquiry in cognitive research (chan et al., 1997; okada & simon, 1997). congruent with epistemological inquiry, idea improvement may be illustrated by moving scientific inquiry from the descriptive level to the questiondriven explanatory level (hakkarainen, 2004). the progress of the students in the knowledge forum discussions can be gauged in part by the level of their question-driven inquiry as represented by the questions they raised. elaborating and building on peers’ questions is important for science understanding in a developing knowledge-building community. the solving of real-life problems through collaborative problem-centered inquiry activates prior knowledge to enhance their problem-solving abilities in the context ofchemistry.   the importance of question asking and explanatory inquiry has been well documented (hakkarainen, 2004; lee et al., 2006; zhang et al., 2009), but we further show that collaboration in knowledge forum, as 220 chan, lam, &leung-knowledgebuilding measured by the atk collaboration index, contributes to science understanding over and above the effects of prior science achievement. importantly, it was not the number of notes the students wrote or even how many thinking prompts (scaffolds) they used that made the difference. rather, it was the extent to which they elaborated and built on their classmates’ postings, questions and ideas that most enhanced their scientific understanding. such empirical findings support theories of collaborative knowledge building -they are consistent with the socio-cognitive dynamics emphasizing community connectedness (zhang et al., 2009) and social dynamics (van aalst, 2009) in knowledge-building communities. for classroom implications, it is important to encourage students to work collectively, building on, linking to, and referencing others' ideas rather than just working on their own ideas.   qualitative analyses suggest that knowledge-building discourse may support conceptual, social and epistemic goals of science learning. in chemistry, the conceptual schema includes three levels of representations including macroscopic, microscopic and symbolic ones for explaining observed chemical phenomena (treagust et al., 2003). excerpts from the knowledge-building students’ discourse suggest that collective problem formulation and co-construction help students to move from one level of representation to another while developing a deeper understanding of chemical explanations. we have also demonstrated that, when engaged in knowledge-building discourse, students had opportunities to articulate their views and to examine their own understanding with regard to others’ models, thus helping them to develop metacognition and agency.   the knowledge-building approach to scientific inquiry focuses on students working socially and collectively as a community of inquirers, in which their goal is not only to improve their individual understanding of science, but also to view the ideas of the community as conceptual artifacts for improvement. in some ways, knowledge building may be closer to authentic scientific inquiry when this is understood to mean idea improvement and collective knowledge advances. the high-school students in this study were engaged in inquiry processes similar to those in scientific and scholarly communities – they were engaged in posing 221ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(3) problems, forming conjectures and hypotheses, searching for information, and co-constructing explanations as they deepened their inquiry and refined their theories. the discourse analyses show how the students made progress in both scientific concepts and scientific processes of inquiry through working collaboratively, and emphasizing collective agency and progressive inquiry.   excerpts from the discourse show how the students developed new ways of viewing the nature of knowledge. information from science books is not information “out there”, but a resource for them to build and revise their theories. they might be developing an epistemic understanding about the nature of knowledge and the notion that ideas are improvable. during this process, the students might develop into active agents and knowledge builders. it is interesting to note that the students in this study continued their inquiry during the summer without the presence of the teacher. they may even have developed a different epistemological understanding, whereby they no longer saw the teacher as the sole source and authority ofknowledge (hofer & pintrich, 2002), but could possibly see themselves and their peers as resources for learning and knowledge advancement.   knowledge-building inquiry, as shown in this study, may help students to achieve multiple goals, allowing them simultaneously to develop an understanding of science concepts, to reconsider their views ofscience as evolving (“in the past, people thought”), and to engage in the scientific practice by posing problems, constructing explanations and improving collective understanding. knowledge building, through its primary focus on community knowledge growth, the scaffoldings provided by its principles and technology, and its focus on researchand explanatory-based inquiries into authentic problems, may help to address the persistent problems in science learning, namely difficulties in studying science, usually with an excessive focus on the symbolic level, the impoverishment ofstudent metacognition, and students’ views of science as authoritative rather than evolving knowledge. as noted above, we conjecture that the students not only developed scientific understanding and inquiry skills, but also changed their views about learning and knowledge. however, these possible relationships among epistemological beliefs, knowledge building, and conceptual change need to be investigated further. 222 chan, lam, &leung-knowledgebuilding   there are various limitations to this study that point to areas of further research. first, as in many technology-related studies that include multiple interacting factors, the comparison class was not a strong control, and thus the results should be interpreted with caution. the class curriculum was similar and the comparison students were asked to complete other work in the time the other students spent on knowledge forum after school. we included the comparison class to provide some background to our findings; it is noteworthy that intraclass regression analyses also revealed the benefits of knowledge forum participation and inquiry. second, scientific understanding was examined primarily using school examination results. although the paper included questions probing for qualitative understanding, and it has the advantage ofassessing how collaborative inquiry-based learning such as the knowledge building model can be aligned with school science, more elaborate measures would be useful. finally, further investigation should be undertaken to examine the roles of the teacher and classroom dynamics in fostering the growth of the knowledgebuilding community. conclusions this study has shown how the design of a collaborative knowledgebuilding environment supports collaboration, inquiry and explanatory discourse in ways that facilitate both scientific processes and science achievement. we have provided additional empirical evidence to the knowledge-building literature, suggesting that collective knowledge building can have beneficial effects on school science learning. such findings are important in light ofincreased emphasis on both curriculum standards and reformed approaches. as well, knowledge-building discourse, mediated by a computer-supported environment, addresses conceptual, epistemic, and social goals of science learning that allows students to develop a deeper understanding of science concepts, to reconsider their views of science, and to work together in a community to advance their knowledge frontiers. this study suggests that knowledge building can bridge “real science” and “school science” and can foster both “science learning” and “learning about science”, 223ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(3) because of its emphasis on both the advancement of subject-matter understanding, together with epistemic beliefs, and scientific practice of theory building through a knowledge-building community. it also provides an example of how knowledge building can foster science learning in a cultural and educational context that places great emphasis on examinations. how knowledge building can be integrated in classroom practice in science education is the major question that requires further investigation. references bereiter, c. 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(2007). student-directed assessment of knowledge building using electronic portfolios. journal ofthe 226 chan, lam, &leung-knowledgebuilding http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/00346543074004557 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327809jls0303_3 http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/0013189x027002004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0950069032000070306 carol k. k. chan is professor in the faculty of education at the university ofhong kong. ivan c. k. lam is ph. d. student in the faculty of education at the university ofhong kong. raymond w. h. leung is m. phil. student in the faculty of education at the university ofhong kong. contact address: direct correspondence to carol k. k. chan at ckkchan@hku.hk 227ijep– international journal ofeducationalpsychology, 1(3) learningsciences, 16, 175-220. doi: 10.1080/10508400701193697 vanaalst, j. (2009). distinguishing knowledge-sharing, knowledgeconstruction and knowledge-creation discourses. international journalofcomputer-supportedcollaborativelearning, 4, 259-288. doi: 10.1007/s11412-009-9069-5 vanaalst, j., & truong, m.s. (2011). promoting knowledge creation discourse in anasian primary five classroom: results from an inquiry into life cycles. international journal ofscience education, 33, 487-515. doi: 10.1080/09500691003649656 zhang, j., scardamalia, m., reeve, r., & messina, r. (2009). designs for collective cognitive responsibility in knowledge-building communities. journal ofthe learningsciences, 18, 7-44. doi: 10.1080/10508400802581676 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10508400701193697 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-009-9069-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500691003649656 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10508400802581676 treagust et al., 2003 instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com addressing adolescent depression in schools: evaluation of an in­service training for school staff in the united states carmen r. valdez1 & stephanie l. budge2 1) university of wisconsin­madison, united states of america 2) university of louisville, united states of america date of publication: october 24th, 2012 to cite this article: valdez, c., & budge, s. (2012). addressing adolescent depression in schools: evaluation of an in­service training for school staff in the united states. international journal of educational psychology,1(3), 228­256. doi: 10.4471/ijep.2012.13 to link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2012.13 please scroll down for article the terms and conditions of use are related to the open journal system and to creative commons non­commercial and non­derivative license. http://www.hipatiapress.info/hpjournals/index.php/ijep ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology vol. 1 no. 3 october 2012 pp. 228-256 addressing adolescent depression in schools: evaluation ofan in-service training for school staffin the united states carmen r. valdez stephanie l. budge university ofwisconsin-madison university oflouisville abstract this study evaluated an adolescent depression in-service training for school staff in the united states. a total of 252 school staff (e.g., teachers, principals, counselors) completed assessments prior to and following the in-service and a subsample of these staff participated in focus groups following the in-service and three months later. questionnaire and focus group data suggested that the in-service increased school staff’s perceived awareness and knowledge of adolescent depression and knowledge of how to connect with depressed students, guide their learning process, and connect with students’ parents. school staff viewed the in-service as a valuable tool for their school and provided suggestions for the refinement of the in-service. finally, perceived changes in teacher behavior were reported three months later. implications and future directions were presented. keywords: adolescent depression, teachers, school-based program, depression awareness, training. 2012 hipatia press issn 2014-3591 doi: 10.4471/ijep.2012.13 ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology vol. 1 no. 3 october 2012 pp.228-256 tratando la depresión de adolescentes en las escuelas: evaluación de un programa de formación continuada de personal escolar en estados unidos carmen r. valdez stephanie l. budge university ofwisconsin-madison university oflouisville resumen este estudio evaluó un programa de formación continuada del personal escolar en estados unidos sobre la depresión de adolescentes. un total de 252 representantes del personal escolar (profesorado, directivos, asesores) completó las evaluaciones antes y después de la formación y una submuestra de este personal participó en grupos de discusión después de la formación y al cabo de tres meses. los datos de los cuestionarios y los grupos de discusión sugirieron que la formación continuada incrementó la conciencia y el conocimiento de la depresión adolescente y el conocimiento sobre como conectar con estudiantes deprimidos, guiarles en su proceso de aprendizaje y conectar con sus padres. el personal escolar vio la formación como una válida herramienta para su escuela y presentaron sugerencias para su mejora. finalmente, tres meses más tarde se percibieron cambios en el comportamiento del profesorado. se presentan las implicaciones y las futuras líneas de trabajo. palabras clave: depresión en adolescentes, profesorado, programa basado en la escuela, concienciación sobre la depresión, formación. 2012 hipatia press issn 2014-3591 doi: 10.4471/ijep.2012.13 230 valdez & budge addressing adolescent depression in schools woodward, 2002). adolescent depression is frequently accompanied by decreased academic achievement, self-esteem, and competence, and increased interpersonal difficulties (calear & christensen, 2010; fergusson & woodward, 2002). early detection and intervention are critical to abate adolescent depression and associated risks (moor et al., 2007).   schools are an ideal setting for preventing depression because they can reach a large proportion of adolescents whose depression might not be identified (chamberlin, 2009). in addition, school-based services for depression may be more acceptable to adolescents than traditional mental health services, given the convenience of these services and the reduced stigma and cost of services in school settings (calear & christensen, 2010; chamberlin, 2009). despite the promising role of schools in addressing adolescent depression, rates of adolescent depression continue to be unabated (herman, et al, 2004).   schools in the united states are increasingly looking toward evidence-based interventions to address adolescent depression. while interventions have been developed for adolescents and evaluated in randomized trials (see calear & christensen, 2010), adopting these interventions in schools outside of the research context has proven challenging (olin, saka, crowe, & hoagwood, 2009). evidence-based interventions may require significant operational funds and training, and availability of space and staff time, all of which may not be available in schools (olin et al., 2009). to overcome these obstacles, recent studies have increasingly incorporated school staff as program leaders in school-based interventions. however, an schools in the united states are increasingly looking toward evidence-based interventions to address adolescent depression. while interventions have been developed for adolescents and evaluated in randomized trials (see calear & christensen, 2010), adopting these interventions in schools outside of the research context has proven challenging (olin, saka, crowe, & hoagwood, 2009). evidence-based interventions may require significant operational funds and training, and availability of space and staff time, epression is common in adolescence and is linked to future depressive episodes, anxiety, early alcohol and substance initiation, and suicide attempts and completion (fergusson &d 231ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(3) all of which may not be available in schools (olin et al., 2009). to overcome these obstacles, recent studies have increasingly incorporated school staff as program leaders in school-based interventions. however, an examination of these interventions reveals that teachers are less effective at implementing them than specialized school mental health professionals or researchers (calear & christensen, 2010).   less favorable outcomes of teacher-led depression interventions may be a function of limited training in depression intervention (maag & swearer, 2005) and limited time available for implementation of intensive interventions (evers, prochaska, van marter, johnson, & prochaska, 2007). thus, efforts should focus less on training teachers to intervene clinically with their depressed students, and more on training teachers to detect adolescent depression and offer supportive strategies to students within the classroom setting (maag & swearer, 2005). teachers are well-positioned to detect depression because of their regular student interactions (puura et al., 1998), affording them the opportunity to notice student changes in mood and behavior, peer relationships, classroom participation, and school performance and attendance (auger, 2004; maag & swearer, 2005).   teachers often struggle to identify depression in students (auger, 2004; burns et al., 1995). in a study by auger, there was only a .22 correlation between teacher-identified depressed adolescents and selfidentified depressed adolescents. burns and colleagues found teachers recognized signs of depression in only 0.6%-16% of depressed adolescents. in a more recent study by moor and colleagues (2007), teachers were only able to identify as depressed half of their students who had been clinically diagnosed with depression by a mental health professional. for school counselors to receive timely referrals of depressed adolescents, improving teachers’ recognition of adolescent depression is paramount (maag & swearer, 2005).   in addition to increased detection, teachers could learn classroom strategies that are consistent with their teaching practices and that aim to enhance their interactions with depressed students (maag & swearer, 2005). for example, teachers could be taught about the value of establishing a personal connection with depressed adolescents (e.g., showing warmth, providing individualized attention), of enhancing adolescents’ learning of classroom curriculum (e.g., pacing assignments, using motivational techniques, praising for effort, making instructional modifications), and of connecting these students to supportive peers and other school professionals (herman et al., 2004). teachers would also be well-positioned to initiate parent involvement for students for whom they have concerns about depression (auger, 2004). training teachers to detect signs of adolescent depression and to incorporate classroom-based support strategies is more likely to sustain in schools than using specialized interventions.   low-cost, less intense depression awareness programs for teachers need to be evaluated. school-based depression awareness programs have been widely used in the united states, but many have limited effectiveness data. other programs, such as “red flags” in ohio (newman, smith, newman, & brown, 2007), are difficult to replicate because they lack uniformity in implementation. without uniformity, schools may adopt partial elements of programs to save costs. however, sub-optimal program levels may not address the needs of at-risk adolescents.   one promising program, “it’s time! adults addressing youth and teen depression” (hereafter called “it’s time!”), is a school-based inservice for school staff. “it’s time!” was developed at inhealth wisconsin, a non-profit outreach organization. program developers facilitate the program and train other facilitators via modeling and observation, review of program content and manuals, discussion of strategies, and ongoing face-to-face, phone, and email coaching and support. “it’s time!” is implemented uniformly across schools.   theoretically, “it’s time!” is based on the transtheoretical model (prochaska, johnson, & lee, 2009) and theory of social support (house, 1981) to create change. the transtheoretical model posits that change occurs when one recognizes a need for change, believes there is realistic hope that one can make the change, and has a plausible plan for change and the maintenance of it (prochaska et al., 2009). “it’s time!” trains school staff to recognize that adolescent depression is an important issue and that prevention is possible and can be accomplished with the right tools and supports in place. in addition, “it’s time!” is based on social support theory which contends that identification of 232 valdez & budge addressing adolescent depression in schools depression is more likely to occur within a supportive environment (i.e., schools) in which emotional, instrumental, and informational resources for change can be provided (house, 1981). these resources include establishing a personal connection with depressed adolescents, supporting depressed adolescents academically, and collaborating with parents and school professionals to coordinate care.   “it’s time!” aims to increase awareness, improve intervention and support skills, and promote connections to resources in school settings (see table 1). 233ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(3) table 1 description of“it’s time!” in-service topics/activities format time (minutes) video/slides experiential x 10 educational topics x 75 brain chemistry ofdepression depression in the school setting what helps teens who are depressed importance ofawareness and treatment importance ofpersonal connections things school staffcan do to help behavioral responses and crisis management depression causes and signs   the in-service is a low-intensity (2-hour) and low-cost program ($1000) that has been conducted in over 75 public and private schools in wisconsin, as well as oregon, vermont, north carolina, illinois, indiana, minnesota, and maine. an unpublished evaluation of the program conducted in five schools shows that a percentage of in-service school staff increased their (a) curiosity about students’ attitudes, behaviors, and academic problems (82%), (b) strategies to create positive connections with depressed students (82%), (c) conversations with other school staff about how to better understand and connect with these students (66%), and (d) contacts with parents about how to best understand and connect with their child (44%) (inhealth wisconsin, 2006).   this study is the first external evaluation conducted of the “it’s time!” program. the evaluation was exploratory because program developers were interested in expanding the scope of the intervention based on consumer feedback. thus, this study examined whether staff participating in the “it’s time!” in-service would (a) perceive increased knowledge of depression from pre to post-test, (b) perceive increased knowledge of strategies to use with their students, and (c) value the use of the program in schools. finally, staff perceptions of increased use of supportive strategies with students with depression over a three-month time period were explored. possibilities for program expansion were also explored during focus groups. completion of"what do you believe" exercise hope and lessons learned snowball activity reframing activity x 10 x x 15 20 234 valdez & budge addressing adolescent depression in schools table 1 (continued) description of“it’s time!” in-service topics/activities format time (minutes) video/slides experiential method five high schools and one middle school in southeastern and south central wisconsin were recruited by the program developers to participate in “it’s time!”. schools received the in-service free of cost for agreeing to participate in the evaluation. the in-service was offered at the beginning of the academic year as part of mandated professional development training for school staff. participation in the study was voluntary and all procedures were conducted in accordance with the institutional review board of the evaluators’ university. the in-service and evaluation were conducted at each participating school.   four of the schools were located in the suburbs of two adjoining cities and the remaining two were urban within one of the cities. based on school records, more than half of students in the urban schools in this study were african american and more than half of students were eligible for free or reduced lunch. over three quarters of suburban students were non-hispanic white and no more than one-fifth of students was eligible for free or reduced lunch. the suburban schools were significantly larger and accounted for 94% of school staff. one of the urban schools was a charter school for children who had a history of being bullied.   of 252 school staff participating in this study, 85% were teachers, 5% were school counselors, 3% were special education teachers, and the remaining 6% were other personnel and administrators. more than half (62%) of the school staff were female and 95% were non-hispanic white. all invited school staff participated in the in-service and evaluation. participants design and procedure a multi-time point design was utilized to evaluate school staff’s perceived knowledge of depression and use of supportive strategies with their depressed students. preand post-questionnaires were administered and a first round of focus groups took place on the same 235ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(3) day ofthe in-service (post) and again three months later (follow-up).   the evaluation team consisted of a faculty member and five graduate students from a local university. before the in-service began, the evaluation team handed out packets with the instruments to the entire school staff at the end of their mandated school orientation. after reading a consent form and agreeing to participate in the evaluation, further instructions for participation in the study were given. individuals who participated in the focus groups were nominated by the principal at each participating school and had different levels of experience with a student with depression. 236 in-service description the in-service was conducted by inhealth staff and consisted of a 75minute video presentation, supplemental materials, and two interactive activities. these components were scripted in a manual and presented sequentially over two hours.   video presentation. the video presentation consisted of 15 real stories of local students, parents, and teachers/other adults and informational slides. student stories told of their experiences with depression, typical and atypical symptoms, and ways that teachers offered effective support. parents discussed their experience of dealing with their children’s depression and teachers provided examples of ways in which they identified and supported their students with depression. the informational slides were alternated with the video stories to maintain participants’ interest and to reinforce the content ofthe stories.   supplemental materials. immediately following the video presentation, school staff were provided two handouts intended to reinforce knowledge of depression and to increase staff’s sense of competence in addressing adolescent depression. the “reframing” handout included examples of situations in which adults can effectively interact with students by altering their perspectives and behaviors. the “talking with parents” handout provided strategies to reach out to parents ofstudents experiencing depression.   interactive activities. next, groups of 10-20 persons each were formed for two interactive activities which were designed to engage valdez & budge addressing adolescent depression in schools actively school staff through experiential learning (bonwell & eison, 1991). at the beginning of the in-service, school staff engaged in the snowball activity by discussing myths, facts, and how their personal beliefs about adolescent depression were formed from prior life experiences. staff wrote these beliefs anonymously on a piece of paper, crumpled the paper into a ball, and tossed it into a box. at the end of the in-service, facilitators created an imaginary physical space in the room designated to represent different beliefs of adolescent depression. school staff retrieved one of the ‘snowballs’ from the box and physically moved to the sign (“strongly agree,” “agree,” “disagree,” and “strongly disagree”) that was consistent with the beliefs on their snowball. they then discussed why the person who completed that snowball might have held that belief and how that person’s beliefs might have changed after the in-service.   in the script rewrite activity, a handout with five scripted scenarios involving interactions with depressed adolescents was distributed to school staff to help them develop a plausible plan for supporting students. school staff role-played the scenarios for 30 minutes. next, they were asked to read the “reframing” handout described above and revise and role-play the new interactions. measures all measures were developed by the authors with expert input and pilot tested at a school similar to those in the study receiving the in-service but not participating in this study.   effectiveness preand post-in-service questionnaires. school staff completed a 10-minute questionnaire prior to the video presentation, which consisted of six open-ended items that assessed need for the inservice and baseline knowledge of depression and strategies with depressed adolescents. an open-ended questionnaire was developed to assess participants’ own pre-existing (pre) and acquired (post) knowledge of depression and strategies. this format contrasts with a forced-choice or likert questionnaire that might alert participants to desired responses (maag et al., 1988). the questionnaire was rooted in dsm-iv-tr depression symptomology (american psychiatric association, 2000) and in program evaluation literature (owen & 237ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(3) rogers, 1999). the questionnaire included an open-ended item measuring staff’s baseline awareness and knowledge of adolescent depression (i.e., “what indicators get you to suspect that a student might be depressed?”). three additional items evaluated existing use of strategies with depressed students: “what specific strategies have worked for you to (a) connect with adolescents who might be depressed, (b) guide the learning process of adolescents who might be depressed?, and (c) talk to parents ofadolescents who might be depressed?”   assessing perceived changes in knowledge about depression at the end of the in-service, four items paralleling the baseline knowledge and the existing use of strategies from the pre-in-service questionnaire items were administered: “now that you have seen the program, what indicators of depression were new or clarified for you that you will look for in adolescents who might be depressed?,” “what new strategies will you plan to use to (a) connect with adolescents who might be depressed?, (b) guide learning in the classroom for adolescents who might be depressed?, and (c) talk to parents ofadolescents who might be depressed?”   focus groups. each of the six schools agreed to participate in focus groups following the completion ofthe in-service and post-questionnaires. facilitated by members of the evaluation team, the focus groups were semi-structured (see table 2) and consisted of 4 to 7 individuals each (41 total), with a range of sex, age, and teaching/work experience.   focus group questions were designed to evaluate school staff’s acceptability of the in-service, particularly the in-service’s strengths and limitations, and recommendations for improvement and further development. the focus groups were audio-recorded and lasted 60 to 90 minutes. three months after the initial focus groups, two schools participated in follow-up focus groups. these focus groups consisted of both school staff who had and had not participated in the initial focus groups to obtain a range of responses. the follow-up focus groups consisted of six questions designed to assess staff-reported perceived changes over time in their recognition of depression and strategies with depressed adolescents. 238 valdez & budge addressing adolescent depression in schools table 2 focus group questions at postin-service and three-month follow-up post-in-service questions   1. what did you think about the in-service overall?   2. what did you think about the content ofthe video?   3. what did you think about the interactive activities?   4. what, ifanything, did you learn from the in-service?   5. how do you think this invice could be used in your school?   6. were there any specific experiences that you would have liked to   see discussed in the in-service? three-month follow-up questions   1. since the last focus group, what are you doing differently with   students who might be depressed?   5. what would you think ofa web-based training program for   teachers and other school staffabout youth depression?   2. what kind ofstrategies would you like to learn about regarding   your students with depression?   3. what cultural aspects, ifany, would you like to see added to the   in-service?   4. what kinds offollow-up in-service programs do you need? 239ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(3) pre-in-service and post-in-service questionnaires. open-ended responses from the questionnaires were entered into tables and coded in teams of 2-3 trained members from the evaluation team. to establish reliability, data were also coded individually by the two authors of this study. based on content analysis methodology outlined by krippendorff (2004), the open-ended responses were broken down into recording/coding units by making categorical distinctions, which are codes that are distinguished to be separate based on specific description. thus, the coders analyzed the content specifically for each question, identifying when a new coding unit arose and tallying the number of participants who mentioned the same coding units. the two coders reached consensus ifthe coding units were coded in separate ways.   focus groups. after the data had been transcribed, the focus groups were coded in three separate phases based on focus group methodology outlined by krueger and casey (2000) and morgan (1997). in the first phase, data were coded in order to reflect the main ideas of each paragraph. after the main ideas had been coded, these were placed into larger categories that captured emerging themes. lastly, these categories were placed into three larger categories: strengths of the in-service, areas for improvement and suggestions for the in-service.   to ensure rigor, credibility checks were utilized. first, triangulation consisted of comparing the focus group data with the other measures from this study, as well as other outside reports of school staff’s experiences with depression. this was achieved by extracting the main themes from the content codes and the focus groups to determine if there were aspects that were convergent or divergent. second, coded information was reviewed by an auditor who was not involved in the data collection or analysis to determine applicability ofcodes. 240 valdez & budge addressing adolescent depression in schools integrity of methods results questionnaires awareness and perceived knowledge of adolescent depression. prior to the in-service, school staff identified common indicators of depression among adolescents. these indicators and the percentages ofstaff endorsing these indicators include: withdrawal from others and activities (22%), change in behavior (17%), drop in grades (16%), change in mood and affect (13%), and change in eating and sleeping habits (9%), among others. a few of these indicators were new for a number of school staff after the in-service, particularly withdrawal (17%), behavior changes (14%), and changes in eating and sleeping habits (6%). atypical signs of depression emerged for a percentage of school staff (25%) that were not reported prior to the in-service. these signs include sensitivity to noise, physical pain, masking (expressions of happiness), and anxiety.   strategies to connect with depressed adolescents. over half of school staff (51%) reported that establishing a positive teacher-student relationship was an important tool to connect with adolescents on the pre-in-service questionnaire. the relationship would be formed by spending more individualized time with students, regularly monitoring students’ feelings and school activities, and offering encouragement, trust, consistency, respect, and active listening. school staff also reported connecting with adolescents by seeking involvement from others, with 18% of school staff involving other school staff and other students, and 8% contacting parents. on the postin-service questionnaire, 55% of school staff endorsed the importance of the teacher-student relationship. as part of this relationship, school staff indicated that genuine interest and the use of soft questions (e.g., “how are you doing today?”) were important strategies. soft questions were contrasted with questions that convey critical comments (e.g., “why are you always late to class?”). twenty-four percent of school staff also endorsed educating students about depression via self-disclosure and examples. for some, writing a note to a student as an invitation to talk would prove helpful; for others, it would be handing out an index card for students to write the name of a school staff member in whom they can confide. in addition, a few school staff (11%) indicated that they would allow accommodations for students.   strategies to guide the learning process of depressed students. prior to and following the in-service, 26% of school staff and 40% of school staff, respectively, reported that curriculum accommodations 241ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(3) were important in guiding the learning process of students experiencing depression. the primary accommodations reported were providing additional assistance on assignments, breaking down assignments into smaller steps, offering alternate assignments, and extending deadlines. other accommodations included forming small groups, allowing short breaks, and creating structured activities. prior to the in-service, 36% of school staff endorsed forming a one-to-one relationship with the student to guide their learning process. this relationship was characterized by using self-disclosure, dedicating individual time to student, and motivating students through their interactions. after the in-service, 14% of school staff endorsed the use of this strategy. a number of school staff reported strategies not mentioned prior to the in-service. promoting a quieter environment in the classroom (12%), using supportive and soft questions (17%) and using an index card to connect adolescents to supportive adults (8%), as described above were also important.   strategies to talk to parents of depressed students. on the preinservice questionnaire, 58% of school staff reported that they communicate with parents about their concerns when they suspect a student is depressed. at the end of the in-service, 67% of school staff reported that they would talk with the parents of depressed students’ about their concerns. at both time points, school staff reported that contact with parents needs to focus on asking about and describing specific behaviors and signs of depression, discussing emotional and academic changes in the student, and creating an open dialogue in which parents feel comfortable asking questions. teachers would approach parents about these topics with calm, honesty, active listening, and empathy. after the in-service, school staff who endorsed talking to parents added that they would ask parents more questions about their children’s functioning and avoid placing blame on the family. existing strategies were also reinforced by the in-service. these include holding parent-teacher conferences (18% pre-, 6% post-), providing parents with resources to help adolescents (7% pre-, 8% post-), maintain regular contact (6% pre-, 4% post-), and involve other school professionals (2% pre-, 4% post-). 242 valdez & budge addressing adolescent depression in schools 243ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(3) focus group themes areas of strength of in-service. a first area of strength identified by school staff was the format ofthe in-service. school staff indicated that the student stories were real, genuine, and heartfelt, instilled hope, and the most helpful aspect of the presentation. one focus group participant indicated, “i thought it was really good, coming from their hearts. i was really impressed, it was better than the [other programs] we have.” staff reported that it was also helpful that the stories were local. staff noted that the parent stories provided powerful and refreshing perspectives about students’ depression. staff stated that the video was applicable to a wide audience of parents, students, and teachers. the video was described as “up-to-date,” “well-edited,” and appropriate in length.   a second area of strength identified by school staff was the presentation of the in-service. many school staff reported that the presentation was “informative,” and “effective at raising awareness about depression and increasing compassion towards students.” school staff expressed that the in-service facilitators were excellent, dynamic, and interesting. importantly, school staff commented on the importance of the training at the beginning of the school year “because it raised awareness into the upcoming year.”   the content ofthe in-service was a third strength identified by school staff. many of the school staff mentioned that the statistics about depression and recovery were powerful: when [the facilitator] presented the statistics that, yes, people can get help and you can make a difference, it’s like, okay, maybe i can do something in my little way in the classroom just to help that person and to have them connect with me. so i felt it empowered me that, yes i can make a difference.   similarly, school staff indicated that the video challenged their stereotypes of depressed students and emphasized that depression can affect any individual. a number of school staff also mentioned that the physiological aspects of the presentation were informative and that the diagrams were helpful in explaining how depression manifests in the brain. one focus group member commented that the presentation about the brain helped her to understand how powerful these physiological influences are and how early they can predispose adolescents for depression.   the final strength identified by school staff was the in-service’s applicability to teachers. participants expressed learning (a) the value of establishing a personal connection with students, (b) the importance of supporting the student rather than understanding the causes of depression, and (c) the use of simple communication strategies. school staff commented on the utility of using a 3x5 index card for students to identify an adult in school with whom they would feel comfortable talking about their depression. one member described what was helpful for her: it made me think about the times when i’ve tried to be firm and what a tremendous impact of what we say has on these kids for a long time and so it made me think really carefully about using gentle words.   areas for improvement of the in-service. a first area of improvement identified by school staff participating in the focus group referred to tools for addressing students’ depression. although an overwhelming majority of staff reported increased awareness of depression among their students, many indicated not having enough knowledge of how to proceed in supporting their students. some participants stated that they would have liked more practical information about how to (a) carry out curriculum modifications, (b) engage in communication with students and parents about depression, and (c) provide resources and improve access to community services for their students.   a second area for improvement identified by school staff pertained to issues ofdiversity. some focus group participants reported that the video was not sufficiently representative of racial minority students orstudents of different sexual orientations, academic abilities, and lifestyles (e.g. gothic). a teacher from an urban school noted: …i liked that [the video] was local. i noticed however, that for some people it may seem really racially or ethnically diverse; for us it was not diverse at all. and that’s wisconsin and that’s [our 244 valdez & budge addressing adolescent depression in schools town] in particular, so segregated here. you might want to have different videos for different audiences that have more people who look like them. and as was discussed there are a lot of cultural issues that come up [with] depression, and we need to make sure that those cultural issues are addressed differently for different audiences.   a third area for improvement was the role of the teacher in addressing students’ depression. several teachers struggled with integrating their role as a teacher with that of counseling. one member mentioned that teachers should work within a larger team of professionals, and not be expected to provide counseling. teachers at one school expressed concern about mandatory reporting if they asked students too many questions about their lives. the length of the inservice was identified by school staff as a fourth area for improvement. in particular, some staff indicated that the informational slides of the video portion were too long and wished more time had been allocated to the interactive activities.   finally, school staff indicated that the interactive activities could be improved. school staff indicated that the skit rewrite activity was more helpful than the snowball activity because it provided a positive and alternative way of thinking and interacting with adolescents. they wished there was more time for this activity and that the groups were broken down even further to allow for more discussion. many liked the snowball activity because they liked learning about other people’s perspectives; however, some found the activity difficult to understand.   recommendations for the in-service. a first recommendation made by school staffwas that the in-service be adapted to students. focus group participants stated that the video-stories could effectively be shown to students with some modifications. suggested modifications included (a) simplified and shorter presentation of statistics; (b) reduced information about biology; (c) decreased focus on parents; (d) increased focus on peer support; (e) increased explanation of treatment; (f) decreased number of interactive activities; and (g) addition of a facilitator training program for teachers, peers, and counselors. they also stated that the in-service presentation be conducted in smaller groups to allow for more 245ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(3) meaningful discussion. the following comment was indicative of adaptations for adolescents suggested by participants: i think i would have [peers], maybe not a parent because they really can’t empathize with a parent… they could talk about how it impacted their family but they’d have to hear it from a person of their age group.   a second recommendation for improving the in-service is that it be adapted for parents. participants indicated that parents with children of all ages might benefit from watching the video if it was shown during pta meetings or made available to parents online. staff thought that the video for parents could be accompanied by a list of resources to get their children in services. finally, it was suggested that a separate video be made for teachers on how to approach and collaborate with parents about their children. a focus group member discussed showing the video to parents: our video policy is that when we have certain things that are questionable, that we offer a previewing. i wonder whether you said this is something we’d like to show students and those parents who are most concerned might [come].   incorporating diversity into the in-service was a third recommendation made by school staff. a common suggestion from school staff participating in the focus group was to increase representation of different minorities in the in-service. a few from the urban schools mentioned that an in-service specific to urban african american adolescents could include the following: (a) how to talk to young african american males about depression, (b) using a community effort to address this population, and (c) workshops led by an african american speaker from the community to talk about his or her own depression. they suggested that this approach could be adapted to other groups ofadolescents, such as sexual minorities.   fourth, school staff recommended additional training opportunities. school staff overwhelmingly requested a follow-up in-service consisting of practical and experiential activities. this training could be achieved 246 valdez & budge addressing adolescent depression in schools by including (a) role-plays of teachers responding to students, (b) reenactments of effective classroom strategies, (c) teacher-created vignettes about students with depression for group discussion, and (d) legal guidelines for student disclosure and mandatory reporting.   a fifth recommendation made by school staff pertained to suggested content areas. one participant suggested that it would be helpful to talk about the different types of therapy that are available for depression. school staff from one particular school mentioned that it would be helpful to have a segment on post-partum depression, since they had many pregnant students. they also shared that it would be important to include more information about physical pain and somatic symptoms that often accompany depression and how those may affect students. the last suggestion made was to provide more information about how students feel about taking medications in school. the following is a specific suggestion made by a focus group member: we now have a sense of diagnosing the problem; now [we’re] searching for the “what next? how do you seek this help?” especially with people with limited income and limited education, how do you seek help, what is a reasonable thing.   a sixth recommendation pertained to the timing ofthe in-service. in order to enhance learning, many school staff suggested dividing the inservice into sections over a few days or follow-up sessions, rather than one day. many also thought it would be helpful to conduct the program shortly after school has started so they can use the information with specific students in mind. additionally, they stated that it would be helpful to show the video to teachers and students but within a close timeframe so the teachers could provide a context and support to students. the timing of the in-service is crucial as noted by a focus group member: i would want to [get a follow-up training], not right away, like maybe a month, six weeks, give you time to observe the kids out there and get frustrated enough that you want to know where to go and then answer questions for you. ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(3) 247   a final recommendation referred to supporting materials. school staff indicated that it would be helpful to have a handout of the presentation at the beginning of the in-service so they could follow the presentation and keep for future reference. they also shared that it would be helpful to have a handout of mental health resources, particularly for uninsured students. follow-up focus groups   addressing what has changed for the schools and for them personally since the initial focus groups three months prior, school staff from two of the high schools (one urban, one suburban) reported changes in their interactions with students. one teacher mentioned that she is “not more lenient, but gives depressed students different assignments.” another teacher mentioned that she shares her own experience of depression when she is talking with her students. as one teacher reported: one of the things the video did was… made me rethink my way, because i tend to be really strict about accepting late work and so really recognizing what the students are going through and thinking about depression and the impact on grades and how to handle that in the classroom, it kind of turned me around a little bit and i was thinking okay this is something that i need to be a little bit more conscious of, and not just being hard line about it.   one school has since implemented check-ins about their students with depression with the other teachers at staff meetings allowing for better coordination of student services. another school has since invited speakers to talk about depression to school staff. school staff from both schools said that these conversations were rare prior to the in-service and that the in-service brought it to the forefront for all school staff. school staff reported additional areas in which they desired increased knowledge and skills. regarding resources and strategies, staff from one school indicated that they wanted to learn more about empathy to help them interact with students. they also expressed a desire to learn more about substance abuse and self-injurious behaviors in their students since these are increasingly common among their students. 248 valdez & budge addressing adolescent depression in schools finally, staff wanted to learn more about outside resources. others expressed interest in learning about student pressures and stressreduction techniques school staff can use with their students who are beginning to show signs of depression. other staff stated interest in strategies to engage parents in regular conversations about the emotional health of their children. a focus group member mentioned: one of the things that i thought was still lacking was a very direct process of what to do with a student who is making comments about being suicidal. there is somebody who's coming to train us on that because it was something that i still felt like i didn't absolutely know what to do. ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(3) 249 discussion the current study was an exploratory evaluation of the “it’s time! adults addressing youth and teen depression” in-service for school staff in a middle school and high schools in two midwestern u.s. cities. benefits of the in-service is that (a) it targets school staff as natural change agents in the students’ natural environment, (b) the information is disseminated to staff via varied instructional methods to enhance learning of knowledge and skills, (c) the content of the in-service is manualized to ensure integrity of implementation by facilitators, (c) the in-service can be implemented in a brief period of time and at a relatively low cost, and (d) the materials were developed locally, thereby increasing acceptability among school staff.   our first area of examination was whether school staff who participated in the in-service would report increased perceived knowledge of adolescent depression after the in-service. findings suggest the in-service increased staff’s reported knowledge of common signs of depression, and introduced new signs of depression that were not mentioned by staff prior to the in-service, including student masking (i.e., expressions of happiness), sensitivity to noise in the classroom, physical pain, and anxiety. whether perceived knowledge translates into actual use of strategies with students with depression should be the next step in the in-service’s evaluation.   with respect to our second area of examination that school staff would perceive learning new strategies in dealing with adolescent depression, a comparison of the preand the post-questionnaires showed that the staff reported learning new strategies to connect with depressed adolescents and guide their learning process. it appears that for some staff, the strategies were not new but were reinforced by the in-service. in addition, strategies reported on the post-questionnaire that had not been previously mentioned by staff on the pre-questionnaire included using supportive, empathic questions to connect with students, providing a quieter classroom environment, and providing an index card to students to identify a teacher or school staff they trusted and could turn to about their depression. finally, strategies to connect with parents of depressed adolescents were new for some school staff but no strategies were reported that had not been previously mentioned by other school staff.   the third area of examination was whether school staff who participated in the in-service would perceive the in-service as an acceptable and feasible tool to dealing with depression. qualitative data from focus groups immediately following the in-service and three months later suggested that the in-service was valued by school staff because it used real, local stories of students and teachers to educate staff about adolescent depression. many school staff considered the inservice to be the best training they had received on adolescent depression. others suggested that the in-service could be made available to adolescents and their parents. staff from the urban schools expressed a need for more cultural diversity in the stories and more inclusion of contextual factors affecting many urban adolescents. school staff would have liked follow-up sessions to reinforce their new strategies with adolescents and parents.   three months later, focus group participants provided preliminary evidence of sustained perceived knowledge and the emergence of behavior change during the three-month period following the in-service. specifically, many teachers noted positive changes in their behavior with students to connect on a personal level and to facilitate their learning process. individual staff also reported feeling more empathy and caring for their students, which positively influenced how they 250 valdez & budge addressing adolescent depression in schools ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(3) 251 supported their students’ learning in the classroom. one school had also changed their procedures for addressing adolescent depression. as a result of the in-service, this school initiated regular staff meetings to coordinate services for students with depression.   the findings of this preliminary evaluation are consistent with other depression awareness programs, such as the adolescent depression awareness program (adap) (swartz et al., 2010) and the “red flags” program (newman et al., 2007), which have been widely used in maryland and ohio, respectively. in all of these programs (including “it’s time!”), a school-based curriculum using multiple teaching modalities (e.g., videos, interactive activities, discussion) was used to raise awareness of adolescent depression. like “it’s time!,” these programs show promise in increasing awareness of adolescent depression and of mobilizing supportive strategies when a student is depressed. although adap is designed for students, teachers, and parents, published evaluation data appears to be available for the student curriculum only, thus limiting the generalizations that can be made to the teacher program. furthermore, “red flags” does not have uniform implementation of instructional materials, making it difficult to replicate in other studies. limitations this study was limited to measuring perceived awareness and knowledge and the findings cannot confirm that these perceptions or self-reports translate into actual changes in these domains or that they lead to improved services for adolescents (moor et al., 2007). while initial evidence from the follow-up focus groups points to the inservice’s potential for increasing coordination among staff regarding students with depression and enhancing staff interactions with these students, a systematic evaluation of school staff behavior (e.g., studentreported staff interactions with students, referral rates, school-wide initiatives) and adolescent outcomes (e.g., reduction in school absences, enhanced academic skills and performance, reported somatic complaints) is warranted.   second, the use of questionnaires and focus groups allowed for an schools can play a critical role in the identification of students with depression and in the prevention of risk and promotion of student wellbeing (calear & christensen, 2010). “it’s time!” holds promise of improving recognition of depression by targeting school staff who already have regular contact with depressed students. the in-service targets strategies that are accessible to and readily implemented by school staff, including connecting with students on a personal level, providing classroom accommodations, and reaching out to other professional staff to support students (maag & swearer, 2005). promoting these types of skills increases the acceptability and sustainability of these types of programs in schools (herman et al., 2004).   this study points to the importance of collaboration between educational psychologists and educators in detecting student depression. because educational psychologists rely on teacher referrals of students with depression, working closely with teachers is instrumental (maag et al., 1988). educational psychologists could do this by (a) training school staff in the recognition of depression, (b) laying out clear guidelines for referrals, (c) visiting classrooms to assist in the identification and exploration of potential program impact and acceptability, and the multi-time design allowed for an exploration of perceived knowledge and change over time. however, the exploratory nature of this evaluation and the non-experimental design (e.g., lack of comparison group) precluded complex comparisons and statistical quantification of the in-service’s effectiveness. a longitudinal, experimental design with more time points and randomization of schools to comparison and intervention conditions is needed to test the efficacy ofthe in-service.   a third limitation of this study is the generalizability of findings to other school settings. since data collection took place in public schools, it may be difficult to generalize the findings to private schools. however, a major strength of our sampling is the inclusion of both urban and suburban schools from small and large metropolitan cities in the midwest. implications and recommendations 252 valdez & budge addressing adolescent depression in schools ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(3) 253 monitoring of adolescents, and (d) serving as liaison between teachers and parents and between school, family, and community resources (maag et al., 1988; maag & swearer, 2005). additionally, psychologists can be actively involved in the implementation, evaluation and sustainability of programs (pfeiffer & reddy, 1998), such as “it’s time!”   proponents of school-based mental health services have a unique opportunity to shape public policy (herman et al., 2004). drawing attention to the role of schools in preventing depression and other risks for adolescents (e.g., pregnancy) in a manner that is cost-effective and sustainable can lead to increased funding of school training programs and nation-wide wrap-around services in schools, such as school health centers (chamberlin, 2009).   the debilitating nature of depression in adolescents calls for specific, cost-effective programs to be implemented within the schools. by training school staff to become familiar with adolescent depression, schools have the potential to promote students’ mental health and their associated educational outcomes (herman et al., 2004). references american psychiatric association (2000). diagnostic and statistical manual ofmental disorders (4th ed. , text revision). washington, dc: author. auger, r. w. 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(2007). red flags depression awareness program. in d. roth, and w. j. lutz (eds.), new research in mental health (pp. 344-366). ohio department ofmental health. olin, s. s, saka, n., crowe, m., & hoagwood, k. e. (2009). implementing evidence-based interventions in schools: issues and challenges in social-emotional learning and mental health programs. in s. rosenfield and v. w. bernenger (eds.), implementing evidence-based academic interventions in school settings (pp. 253-283). new york: oxford press. owen, j.m., & rogers, p.j. (1999). program evaluation: forms and approaches. london: sage publications. pfeiffer, s. i., & reddy, l. a. (1998). school-based mental health programs in the united states: present status and a blueprint for the future. educational and child psychology, 15, 109-125 prochaska, j., johnson, s., & lee, p. (2009). the transtheoretical model ofbehavior change. in s. a. shumaker, j. k. ockene, and k. a. riekert (eds.), handbook ofhealth behavior change (3rd edition). new york: springer publishing company. ijep – international journal ofeducational psychology, 1(3) http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1149&context=edpsychpapers http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s0140197105001673 carmen r. valdez is assistant professor in the department of counseling psychology at the university ofwisconsin-madison school ofeducation, united states ofamerica. stephanie l. budge is assistant professor in the department of educational and counseling psychology at the university of louisville college ofeducation and human development, united states ofamerica. contact address: direct correspondence to carmen r. valdez at department ofcounseling psychology, university ofwisconsinmadison, 301 education building, 1000 bascom mall, madison, wi 53706. phone: 608-263-4493. email: cvaldez@wisc.edu. 256 valdez & budge addressing adolescent depression in schools puura, k., almqvist, f., piha, j., moilanen, i., tamminen, t., kumpulainen, k., & koivisto, a. (1998). children with symptoms ofdepression—what do the adults see? journal of child psychology and psychiatry and allied disciplines, 39, 577585. doi:10.1017/s0021963098002418 swartz, k. l., kastelic, e. a., hess, s. g., cox, t. s., gonzalez, l. c., mink, s. p., & depaulo jr., j. r. (2010). the effectiveness ofa school-based adolescent depression education program. health education & behavior, 37, 11-22. doi: 10.1177/1090198107303313 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1469-7610.00353/abstract http://heb.sagepub.com/content/early/2007/07/25/1090198107303313.abstract the effects of a web-based vocabulary development tool on student reading comprehension of science text instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://ijep.hipatiapress.com student perceptions of cognitive efficiency: implications for instruction bobby hoffman1 1) university of central florida, united states of america date of publication: june 24th, 2013 to cite this article: hoffman, b. (2013). student perceptions of cognitive efficiency: implications for instruction. international journal of educational psychology, 2(2), 109­143. doi: 10.4471/ijep.2013.22 to link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2013.22 please scroll down for article the terms and conditions of use are related to the open journal system and to creative commons non­commercial and non­derivative license. ijep international journal ofeducational psychology vol. 2 no. 2 june 2013 pp. 109-143 studentperceptions of cognitive efficiency: implications for instruction this study used a phenomenological approach with content analysis to create a model of how students perceive cognitive efficiency (ce), which is generally described as increases in the rate, amount, or conceptual clarity of knowledge, versus cognitive costs needed to attain knowledge. graduate education students completed a five-item open-ended survey to measure perceptions of ce and what factors they believed enhanced or inhibited ce. analysis of results revealed that student perceptions of ce predominantly focused on malleable aspects of self-regulated and reflective cognition, aligning with many descriptions of expert teaching. students described a diminished emphasis on knowledge acquisition and information processing, in contrast to views typically associated with ce in instructional and psychological research (hoffman & schraw, 2010; van gog & paas, 2008). practical teaching and learning implications, including suggestions for instructional practice and future research are presented. keywords: cognitive efficiency, student perceptions, instruction. bobby hoffman university ofcentral florida abstract 2013 hipatia press issn 2014-3591 doi: 10.4471/ijep.2013.22 ijep international journal ofeducational psychology vol. 2 no. 2 june 2013 pp. 109-143 percepciones de las y los estudiantes sobre la eficiencia cognitiva: implicaciones para la instrucción este estudio utilizó un enfoque fenomenológico con análisis de contenido para crear un modelo de cómo las y los estudiantes perciben la eficiencia cognitiva (ec), que se describe de forma general como el incremento en la tasa, cantidad o la claridad conceptual de conocimiento versus los costes cognitivos necesarios para conseguir el conocimiento. estudiantes graduados completaron una encuesta semi-abierta de cinco ítems para medir percepciones de ec y qué factores creían que aumentaban o inhibían la ec. el análisis de los resultados reveló que la percepción de las y los estudiantes sobre la ec se focalizó predominantemente en aspectos maleables de la cognición auto-regulada y reflexiva, acorde con muchas descripciones de enseñanza experta. las y los estudiantes describieron un énfasis reducido en la adquisición del conocimiento y el procesamiento de la información, en contraste con visiones típicamente asociadas con ec en la investigación instruccional y psicológica (hoffman & schraw, 2010; van gog & paas, 2008). también se presentan implicaciones para la práctica de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje, incluyendo sugerencias para la instrucción y para la futura investigación. palabras clave: eficiencia cognitiva, percepciones de las y los estudiantes, instrucción. bobby hoffman university ofcentral florida resumen 2013 hipatia press issn 2014-3591 doi: 10.4471/ijep.2013.22 verplanken, 2006), is a growing topic of research in the domains of neuroscience (ansari & derakshan, 2011; bassett, bullmore, meyerlindenberg, apud, weinberger, & coppola, 2009; doppelmayr, klimesch, hödlmoser, sauseng, & gruber, 2005; neubauer & fink, 2009; rypma et al., 2008), psychology (cates, burns, & joesph, 2010; pyc & rowson, 2007; stilley et al., 2010), and instruction (ayres & van gog, 2009; kalyuga, 2006; kirschner, paas, & kirschner, 2009; scharfenberg & bogner, 2010). although most conventional definitions ofce are domain specific, ce is generally described as increases in the rate, amount, or conceptual clarity ofknowledge, versus cognitive costs such as mental effort needed to attain knowledge. currently, there is little consensus regarding a conceptual model of efficient cognition or agreement how to measure and evaluate efficiency outcomes (hoffman, 2012; hoffman & schraw, 2010; van gog & paas, 2008; whelan, 2007).   research in ce differs from most research on teaching and learning in that it focuses on optimal performance under restricted conditions, rather than on simple performance, while accounting for constraints such as time, effort, working memory, neurological processing, motivation, or variation in strategy use. research in ce is important for both theoretical and practical reasons. from a theoretical perspective, cognitive and neurological views of learning emphasize that the constraints in human information-processing architecture must be considered to determine what constitutes optimal problem solving, learning, and associated pedagogy (kirschner, sweller, & clark, 2006; rypma et al., 2008; stanovich, 2009). from a practical perspective, understanding student beliefs and perceptions has been closely linked to learning, motivation, and achievement (pianta, hamre, & stuhlman, 2003), and more specifically ce is one of the primary considerations to inform instructional design (beckmann, 2010). the development of a theoretical model that effectively articulates student perceptions of ce will assist educators in designing learning materials, pedagogy, and educational contexts that recognize student perceptions and meet the evolving teaching challenges encountered in the classroom (corno, 2008; lópez, 2007; valli & buese, 2007). c ognitive efficiency (ce), also known interchangeably as mental efficiency (paas, tuovinen, tabbers, & van gerven, 2003; stilley, bender, dunbar-jacob, sereika, & ryan, 2010; ijep international journal ofeducational psychology, (2)2 111   student perceptions of what constitutes efficient cognition have not yet been empirically considered. in order for instruction to be relevant and engaging it should align with students’ needs and understanding about thinking and learning (mccaslin & good, 1996; perry, turner, & meyer, 2008). in addition, the appraisal of student thinking is highly relevant to foster abandonment of notions that may be misguided or inaccurate (linn & eylon, 2008). assessment of student thinking is linked to promoting student conceptual knowledge (fraivillig, murphy, & fuson, 1999), is instrumental in advancing constructivist pedagogy (bereiter & scardamlia, 1989), and ultimately creates opportunities for learning (flutter, 2006; flutter & rudduck, 2004; gillen, wright, & spink, 2011). specific knowledge of student perceptions about ce will provide valuable insight to support instruction that matches student needs (corno, 2008; pianta et al., 2003).   the current study sought to answer three specific research questions using qualitative methods: how do learners describe cognitive efficiency; how do learners believe that cognitive efficiency can be enhanced; and what obstacles are described as inhibiting learners from being cognitively efficient? a phenomenological approach was used as existing literature has not documented student perceptions, or compared these perceptions to existing exemplars of ce found in expert teaching descriptions (bereiter & scardamalia, 1993; berliner, 2001; corno, 2008; feldon, 2007; hammerness, darling-hammond, bransford, berliner, cochran-smith, mcdonald, & zeichner, 2005; sternberg & horvath, 1995). the concordant views of students, teachers, and researchers may be invaluable in proposing instructional strategies that might promote efficient cognition in the classroom. the diverse perspectives ofce researchers in education, psychology, and neuroscience interpret ce as either a physiological phenomenon contingent upon optimal neurological functioning, or as competency in knowledge acquisition when accounting for constraints on learning such as limited time or accelerated effort. ce research is typically situated within the framework of cognitive load theory, which assumes a limited capacity working memory, and in absence of automatic information processing, bobby hoffman perceptions ofcognitive efficiency112 the need to dedicate more cognitive resources and effort when learning intrinsically complex material (kalyuga, 2007). during knowledge acquisition, the relative effectiveness of instruction materials, the modality of delivery or pedagogical style can influence how learners regulate mental effort, and subsequently achieve ce.   quantitative changes in the rate, amount, or frequency of knowledge acquisition can also determine ce (hoffman & schraw, 2009). greater ce is associated with quicker learning, or the acquisition of more complex knowledge with a minimal investment of time or effort (cates, burns, & joseph, 2010). learners needing more time or exerting greater effort to achieve similar results in comparison to their own performance, or to the performance of others, are described as cognitively less efficient (van gog & paas, 2008).   all views of ce emphasize the importance of working memory capacity (wmc), which refers to “the limited-supply cognitive resources that can be allocated flexibly depending on the demands ofthe task” (hambrick & engle, 2003, p. 181). when learners automate cognitive processing the limits of working memory are moderated and ce improves. distinct efficiency advantages are created as automation requires fewer cognitive resources, reduces the need for attentional focus, and allows for faster processing of information (unsworth & engle, 2007). for example, in mathematics, learners that bypass time consuming computational strategies can allocate capacity towards activities such as rehearsing new material, engaging in analogical mapping, or algorithmic approaches to problem solving. these activities eventually strengthen networks for math knowledge and improve overall competency in performance (royer, tronsky, chan, jackson, & marchant, 1999). automaticity frees up cognitive capacity to think about the problems to be solved, and to assist in learning additional content.   most models of ce emphasize the mediating role of strategy use in reaching learning goals. even when wmc is taxed, or when automaticity fails, learners can use strategies to enhance ce (calvo, eysenck, ramos, & jimenez, 1994; hoffman & spatariu, 2008; swanson, kehler, & jerman, 2010; walczyk & griffith-ross, 2006). strategy choice influences ce since strategies vary in the amount of cognitive resources needed to execute the strategy, and some strategies, ijep international journal ofeducational psychology, (2)2 113 such as direct fact retrieval, are less time-consuming and less effortful. conversely, some strategies are counterproductive to ce. when learners evoke self-regulatory approaches to monitor and reflect upon their progress towards learning goals additional task demands are created, and thus capacity must be appropriated between primary and secondary tasks (feldon, 2007; van gog, kester, & paas, 2011). overreliance on automaticity can also lead to deficits in ce due to “arrested skill development” (feldon, 2007, p. 131), resulting from a decrease in conscious monitoring, or a premature automation of skills prior to achieving expertise.   the research cited reveals that ce is a contextualized and task dependent cognitive process that is reliant on fast, controlled, yet automatic processing of information combined with the judicious use of strategies. dual process models of cognition, using clear empirical distinctions from neuroscience and cognitive psychology (feldon, 2007; hoffman, 2012; stanovich, 2004; 2009) mirror a similar multiplicative view to explain optimal cognition. two complimentary, yet different modes of cognition are proposed, generally labeled as autonomous and controlled (see stanovich (2004; 2009) and evans (2008) for analysis and comparison). autonomous processing, largely domain specific, is implicit, reflexive, heuristic, and relatively non-demanding of cognitive resources. controlled processing is methodical, resource demanding, conscious, and analytical. the two symbiotic components work in tandem balancing physiological capability, learner motivations, and environmental constraints, with the goal of completing task demands. ce results when the two systems coordinate to reaching learning objectives with minimal time, low effort, and consistent accuracy. how ceapplies to teaching and learning understanding the variation between the research findings described above and student perceptions ofce is highly relevant for at least three applied reasons related to teaching and learning. first, pre-instructional beliefs and lack of congruence between instructional objectives and learner understanding can perpetuate construct misconceptions (chinn & brewer, 1993) and impede construction ofknowledge (greene, muis, & pieschl, 2010; hammer, 1996). misalignment of student and teacher bobby hoffman perceptions ofcognitive efficiency114 perceptions has been linked to inferior learning climates (gillen et al, 2011; pianta et al., 2003) and academic risk factors such as impaired student-teacher relationships (fan et al., 2011). potential consequences of cognitive inefficiency due to learner/teacher misalignment include ignoring critical content, misperceiving meanings and application of new knowledge, and inferior construct representations in memory, leading to poor recall (vogel-walcutt, marino carper, bowers, & nicholson, 2010).   second, some learning contexts, typical to many higher education classrooms, exacerbate the need for ce. learners completing standardized or classroom testing under time limits, or students needing to rapidly learn material, are especially vulnerable to inefficient cognition (walczyk, & griffith-ross, 2006). unlike simple learning without time considerations, restricted conditions place additional demands upon learners to achieve fast performance, and time restrictions negate the value of using compensatory strategies that typically mitigate ce during unrestricted tasks (hoffman & spatariu, 2008; walczyk, wei, griffith-ross, goubert, cooper, & zha, 2007). in a study of cognitive disruptions, similar to the type found in many classrooms, bailey and konstan (2006) found up to 27% longer task completion times and more errors on interrupted computational and reading tasks then when compared to an uninterrupted control group. the elimination of interference allowed for more focused attention and superior performance suggesting that counterproductive contextual variables can impede ce.   from a traditional information processing perspective (ericsson & kintsch, 2007), ce is a prerequisite for the use and refinement of higher-order thinking skills. many instructional situations require that learners decipher relevant and key knowledge constructs from an abundance of facts by actively filtering out extraneous and irrelevant information. ineffective filtering, or the dedication of time and effort to ancillary aspects of a task, may result in cognitive overload, or a focus only on non-salient task aspects (kalyuga & sweller, 2005). learners addressing irrelevant task aspects have been associated with nonproductive haphazard memory searches for solutions (vogel-walcutt et al., 2010), or failure to eliminate non-essential steps in the learning process (kalyuga, 2006). the cognitively inefficient learner is ijep international journal ofeducational psychology, (2)2 115 disadvantaged, with impoverished resources dedicated toward shallow learning and unavailable to be used for reasoning, evaluative, and metacognitive strategies often found related to deeper learning, improved performance, and knowledge transfer (corbalan, kester, & van merriënboer, 2009).   third, several descriptions of expert teaching mention the need for efficient cognitive processing as a necessary component to be considered a teaching expert (bereiter & scardamalia, 1993; berliner, 2001; feldon, 2007; hammerness et al., 2005; hattie; 2003; sternberg & horvath, 1995). expert teaching denotes the culturally determined qualities and practices that describe teachers deemed superior in comparison to normative or defined standards of performance, knowledge, or productivity (national board of professional teacher standards, 2012). teaching expertise is not an automatic function of experience (berliner, 2001), but instead involves the application of broad domain knowledge and a repertoire of teaching strategies (fenstermacher & richardson, 2000) that results in superior student achievement.   models of teaching expertise vary broadly (see hattie, 2003; tsui, 2009 for reviews), but in regards to ce several themes transcend theoretical models. “adaptive experts” (bransford, derry, berliner, hammerness, & beckett, 2005, p. 48) rapidly retrieve information with minimal attentional resources, practice higher-order thinking skills routinely, judiciously and quickly direct cognitive resources and attentional control (sternberg, 1998), while concurrently monitoring, evaluating, and adapting teaching strategies in response to classroom activity (artzt & armour-thomas, 1998). other expert teaching approaches suggest that superior working memory capacity, coupled with automatized schemas and routines (feldon, 2007; hammerness et al., 2005), and regulation and economization of mental resources, coordinated with a strong emphasis on metacognitive awareness are essential for teaching expertise (bereiter & scardamalia, 1997). expert teachers devote greater cognitive resources to activities that promote learning, successfully manage the elimination of extraneous cognitive load and are far less likely to be consumed by prescriptive routines (feldon, 2007). table 1 summarizes empirically supported ce bobby hoffman perceptions ofcognitive efficiency116 exemplars represented in a variety ofexpert teaching descriptions. a u to m a ti c it y / w o r k in g m e m o r y f il te r in g o f e x tr a n e o u s c o g n it iv e lo a d r e fl e c ti v e c o g n it io n / s p e e d /d e p th o f k n o w le d g e a c q u is it io n s p e e d o f p r o c e ss in g a d a p ti v e s tr a te g y u se bereiter & scardamalia, 1993 x x x berliner, 2001 x x x x feldon, 2007 x x x x hammerness, darlinghammond et al., 2005 x x x x x hattie, 2003 x x x x x sternberg & horvath, 1995 x x x x x schulman, 1987 x x r e g u la ti o n o f m e n ta l e ff o r t x table 1 ce exemplars included in expert teaching descriptions the present study the present study sought to aggregate perceptions of students understanding of ce. although domain-specific descriptions of ce are well-articulated in education, psychology, and neurological research, no study to date has investigated student perceptions of what is considered optimal cognition. graduate education students completed a five-item ijep international journal ofeducational psychology, (2)2 117 opened-ended survey developed by the author to measure perceptions of ce and what factors they believed enhanced or inhibited ce.   phenomenological qualitative methods using content and comparative analysis were employed (miles & huberman, 1994). this method ideally fit the purpose of the study due to the intent to determine if student’s perceptions of ce differed from research descriptions and in absence of any previous qualitative analysis of the ce construct. since research-based findings describe ce as a multidimensional construct, qualitative approaches were ideal to disentangle the perceptions of students, as qualitative designs can reveal how constituent parts interact to define the construct. findings should provide new evidence that will enable instructors to better align instructional materials and methods with student expectations, and provide a further understanding of the nature of how learner beliefs may be linked to instruction promoting ce. method participants study participants were from a large southeastern u.s. public university (n = 47, f = 33, m = 14) and were a convenience sample of 80% education majors taking a graduate level course in learning and instruction. the majority of the participants were in-service teachers or individuals completing education courses for alternative route teaching certification. the participant demographic data indicated 78.7% were caucasian; 10.6% hispanic; 4.2% african-american; 4.2% asian; and 2.1% did not indicate an ethnicity. the average participant age was 31.4 and the mean grade point average ofparticipants was 3.26. participation was encouraged by offering students extra-class credit resulting in 100% student participation from two different class sections taught by the same teacher. the sample of graduate education students was selected based upon anticipated future work in teaching and instruction and because of the emphasis on efficiency in some models of expert teaching (berliner, 2001; bereiter & scardamalia, 1993; darlinghammond & bransford, 2005; feldon, 2007; sternberg & horvath, 1995). bobby hoffman perceptions ofcognitive efficiency118 procedures data was gathered by administering an in-class survey that consisted of five open-ended questions designed to determine the student’s perceptions of ce, and factors perceived as influencing the facilitation or inhibition ofce (see table 2). table 2 survey questions 1. what is cognitive efficiency? 2. how do you know when you are cognitively efficient, how can you tell? 3. what factors decrease your ability to be cognitively efficient? 4. what factors increase your ability to be cognitively efficient? 5. do you believe cognitive efficiency is a general trait, or a trait that changes according to the subject matter you study or the task you do?   _______general  _____ changeable  ______ both   the survey was administered prior to any class discussion of cognition or motivation during the term ofthe course to avoid responses being biased by any specific cognitive theory. any participant indicating advanced knowledge of cognitive or motivational processes was excluded from the study. advanced knowledge was determined by selfselection by the participants or exclusion by the researcher, if the participants had taken any previous courses in cognitive, motivational, or educational psychology at the graduate level. no participants required removal from the study. the survey questions were developed by the author based upon emerging research themes in cognitive load (van gog & paas, 2008; paas, tuovinen, tabbers, & van gerven, 2003) and cognitive efficiency theory (hoffman, 2012, hoffman & schraw, 2010, stilley et al., 2010; verplanken, 2006) that attempt to measure and define constructs related to information processing. participants were informed that the intent of the research was to learn about how students ijep international journal ofeducational psychology, (2)2 119 defined cognitive efficiency under the premise that the research results could provide instructors with additional knowledge to enhance the efficiency ofinstruction. method ofinquiry andanalysis   design the current inquiry used a phenomenological lens to examine student’s perceptions of ce. a phenomenological approach was chosen to offer researchers and practitioners a descriptive, reflective, and interpretive analysis of individual perceptions (richards & morse, 2013) that were previously unknown. phenomenological premises (giorgi, 1997) emphasize the researcher’s goal of discovering the psychological substance of a phenomenon, not a “universal or philosophical essence” (p. 100). data using the phenomenological approach allows the researcher to construct knowledge and understand the nature of the individual inquiry, with the current intent to analyze and compare previously unreported student perceptions of ce with those found in published research.   data analysis method content analysis in three phases (creswell, 2008; miles & huberman, 1994) was employed by the author to generate one or more codes from each survey response in order to summarize the data and create general categories from the full data set. during the first phase of content analysis, data repetitions and linguistic connections were used to generate 383 individual in-vivo codes (labels phrased in the exact words of participants) or lean codes (labels phrased in the words of the researcher). a summary is provided in table 3. descriptive code generation was used to determine individualized accounts ofce and the factors related to the facilitation and inhibition of efficient cognition. for example, when answering the question “what does it mean to be cognitively efficient?” a participant indicated “to be able to think coherently and rapidly without missing significant information”. this statement generated the in-vivo codes of “coherence” and “speed”, and bobby hoffman perceptions ofcognitive efficiency120 the lean code of“thoroughness”.   in the second phase of analysis, cluster coding was used to consolidate the phase one data to create 14 condensed categories, positioning each category at the center of the participant thought process, and relating to similar codes from phase one (creswell, 2007). the phase two coding was completed individually by two trained graduate assistants resulting in 92% coding agreement. the initial categories were developed as a result of shared discussions between the coders. initial discrepancies and ambiguous codes were resolved through discussion with the author until 100% coding agreement was reached. for example, phase two analyses included the consolidation of terms “fewest steps”, “precision”, and “accomplish the task effectively” into the category “organization”. table 3 frequency ofcondensedcategories by theme condensed categories 0 cognitive/affective environmental total time to complete task physiological 0 40 40 organization 0 10 44 54 distraction 0 32 32 64 resources 10 0 1 11 timely completion oftask 0 0 10 10 concentration 0 17 0 17 interest 0 15 0 15 awareness 0 8 0 8 ability 0 18 0 18 health 44 0 0 44 accomplish task 30 0 0 30 decision making 5 7 0 12 performance 42 0 0 42 stress 5 13 0 18 total 136 120 127 383 ijep international journal ofeducational psychology, (2)2 121   the third coding phase led to the identification of three main categories. physiological influences included individual differences, health, or measurable conscious actions related to one’s physical condition, but unrelated to cognition, that a participant described as related to efficiency. cognitive or affective determinants represented what the participant was thinking or feeling when completing a task and being cognitively efficient. cognitive and affective exemplars of ce were combined due to the interdependence of the constructs as described in the neuropsychology (ray & zald, 2012) and education literature (d'mello & graesser, 2011; efklides, 2011; pekrun, elliot, & maier, 2009). the environmental category emerged from codes that described the influence of factors external to the person attempting to complete a task, but were not related to the internal physiological state of the respondent. these themes and condensed categories served as the basis for the analysis and subsequent development ofa model indicating what strategies contributed to enhancing ce (see figure 1).   next, an adaptive prototype design framework (sternberg & horvath, 1995) was used to create a table comparing student perceptions ofce to research descriptions, including instructional implications for each ce exemplar (see table 4). prototype models, originally conceived by rosch (1973) were designed to eliminate the “fuzziness” of discrepant categorical exemplars. the prototype view contrasts similarities and differences among exemplars to evaluate the confluence of evidence on a particular topic. analysis and results the process of analysis was initiated by using the expertise of the researcher as a foundation of domain knowledge to describe results, assess intention, and ascribe meaning (richards & morse, 2013), while accurately transforming the essence of participant perceptions of ce. intentionality (van manen, 1990) was a planned analysis strategy, whereby the researcher sought to reflect on experienced phenomena, which included comparisons to descriptions of ce in neurological, psychological, and educational literature. the analysis process was repeated individually for each question described below. bobby hoffman perceptions ofcognitive efficiency122 what is cognitive efficiency? responses to the main research question, “what is cognitive efficiency?” generated 84 unique codes. participants most frequently associated ce with completing a task quickly by utilizing time effectively (33.3%), with minimal resources (14.2%), and in an organized (21.4%) and reflective manner (13.0%), while minimizing intrusive thoughts (10.7%) and limiting environmental distractions (5.9%). the confluence of responses led to the conclusion that students perceived ce as the conscious ability to monitor cognitive operations while completing a task as quickly and as accurately as possible.   responses coded as attributing ce to physiological attributes (22.6%) focused on the deliberate and conscious regulation of mental resources, not specifically task related, or the physiological readiness to complete a task. mental resources included “targeted attention”, “avoidance of day dreaming” and the “regulation of effort”, but excluded cognitive strategies such as planning, setting learning goals, or executing strategies used to complete a task. physiological readiness included ample sleep, energy, and nutrition minimally necessary to attempt and complete a task.   cognitive and affective determinants of ce (32.1%) were based on descriptions of what the person was thinking and feeling while completing a task under the perception ofefficiency. cognitive factors included concentration, interest, and ability, whereas affective factors targeted reducing anxiety, avoiding stress, and fostering adaptive task motivation. substantial variability existed in the type of cognition described by participants. some participants emphasized an information processing view of ce (ericsson & kintsch, 2007) for example, stating ce is “to do something with the least number of steps and in the shortest amount of time while still doing it effectively”. however, another participant indicated ce was “the ability to think logically and rationally” suggesting a reflective approach to evaluating efficient cognition. others contended that ce was not possible without “decisiveness”, “higher-order thinking skills”, “creativity”, or “confidence”.   codes related to environmental factors (45.2%) emphasized the importance of controlling one’s context and conditions of thinking to ijep international journal ofeducational psychology, (2)2 123 achieve and maintain ce. participants clearly indicated that the greatest environmental threats to ce were a result ofdistractions (16.6%) due to self-imposed stress such as lack of sleep (15.4%) or food deprivation (11.4%), or factors such as “noise”, “movement”, or “chaos”. one participant indicated, when there are “too many things going on at a time, the environment is not conducive to the task.” another stated “the need to be aware and monitor what works for me”. the comments suggested that participants felt willing and capable to self-regulate their learning and thinking environments to foster ce.   comparative analysis (miles & huberman, 1994) revealed a number ofdistinct contrasts in the perceptions ofce. a majority ofparticipants (34) focused on the process of thought, while others (13) indicated their ce was based upon the quality of task outcomes. there was little variability in individual answers concerning the antecedents of ce. participants implied that either internal processes (e.g., attention, deep concentration) determined ce (55.3%), or that external attributes such as controlling distractions were wholly responsible for their ce (29.7%). only nine participants (19.7%) indicated that ce involved the regulation of both internal and external factors. finally, participants were asked to evaluate the domain specificity of ce. only two participants (4.2%) believed ce was exclusively a domain general trait, whereas most participants (53.1%) indicated ce was domain specific, or contingent on a specific task (40.4%).   surprisingly, few participants alluded to the importance of background knowledge, or effortful cognitive processing as contributory to ce in contrast to widely accepted views of information processing (hoffman & schraw, 2010; van gog & paas, 2008) and neurological perspectives of ce (rypma et al., 2008). frequently participants stressed the influential role of self-regulatory strategies such as planning, monitoring, and reflective thought in achieving ce, a view consistent with many social-cognitive (zimmerman, 2001) and dualprocess theories of cognition (evans, 2008; smith & decoster, 2000; stanovich, 2004).   although student perceptions were partially incongruent with information processing and neurological perspectives of ce, many parallels between student perceptions and expert teaching models were observed. resemblance across perspectives centered on the need for bobby hoffman perceptions ofcognitive efficiency124 rapid schematic organization of knowledge, the elimination of thought irrelevant to learning, and strategy adaption. table 4 lists typical exemplars of ce aligned with a representative sample of student responses in conjunction with descriptions found in various teaching models. table 4 ce research exemplars, student perceptions, teaching descriptions, and instructional inferences ce exemplar sample student perceptions sample teaching description instructional inference regulation ofmental effort “to use time wisely and work smart.” “in your mind you are able to get organized and focused all at once to accomplish a goal.” executive control including planning, monitoring, and evaluating. the reinvestment of cognitive resources (sternberg & horvath, 1995). view students as active participants in the construction ofknowledge; sequence learning objectives logically; openly discuss potential difficulties learners may encounter during the learning process (artzt & armour thomas, 1998). automaticity or enhanced working memory capacity “performing multiple tasks simultaneously, to find or create a path ofleast resistance.” “when you don’t have to reread instructions, coming to conclusions without a huge investment of effort.” “operations that once took thought and planning come to be done with little or no effort” (bereiter & scardamalia, 1993, p. 119). present brieflessons that do not overload learners. embed repetition into lessons that promote automaticity ofprocedures. consider just in time lessons, activation of existing mental models, and supportive scaffolding for non-repetitive knowledge (van merriënboer, kirschner, & kester ,2003). ijep international journal ofeducational psychology, (2)2 125 filtering of extraneous cognitive load “mentally efficient means that you have mental order. you don’t waste time daydreaming.” “to cut out a lot of white noise, other thoughts, other words.” “unnecessary structural or semantic content that occupies space in working memory”….teachers “develop more elaborate schemas to process information efficiently and their actions require less mental effort.” (feldon, 2007, p. 126) remove anxiety producing learning cues that might activate stress in highanxious individuals, introduce preparatory periods that help learners adjust to restricted conditions. provide learners with compensatory strategies to overcome anxiety (ansari & derasham, 2011). use of reflective cognition “you do not know ifyou are mentally efficient because if you realize, metacognitively that your mind has wandered offtask and you are no longer efficient.” “to have a rational thought process when completing tasks.” reflection and conscious deliberation (tsui, 2009). “the teacher’s skillfulness in monitoring…inflight decisionmaking in dynamic environments (berliner, 2001). given available resources, provide explicit instruction on how to monitor for efficient cognition with a focus on the evaluation of the thought process. (helsdingen, van gog, & van merriënboer ,2011). expert teachers monitor the learning process, learning outcomes and their own intrinsic interest, while seeking selfevaluation ofteaching techniques (kreber, castleden, erfani, & wright, 2007). bobby hoffman perceptions ofcognitive efficiency126 speed ofor depth of knowledge acquisition “mental efficiency is achieved when the individual uses the minimal amount oftime required to complete a thinking task.” “asolid education teaches you how to think.” expert teachers "can spontaneously relate what is happening….can quickly recognizes sequences ofevents occurring in the classroom which in some way affect the learning and teaching ofa topic.” (hattie, 2003, p. 5) the depth of pedagogical content knowledge (schulman, 1987). emphasize that efficient thinking and learning involves understanding of both the process and outcome ofknowledge acquisition (artzt & armour thomas ,1998). create a classroom with structure and predictability including the use of scripted routines that promote learner preparation (konrad, helf, & joseph, 2011). speed of information processing “to be able to think coherently and rapidly” “not missing significant and important information, but achieving a desired outcome quickly and thoroughly.” “people who are high on efficiency can rapidly retrieve and accurately apply appropriate knowledge and skills to solve a problem or understand an explanation” (bransford et al., 1995, p. 49). to promote quick individual understanding, during intrinsically complex learning, focus on practical application of knowledge, instead of theoretical mastery (scharfenberg & bogner, 2010). adaptive strategy use “using the fewest steps possible to reach a decision or understanding” “know when to change gears and what does or doesn’t work for you” an adaptive teacher …has a propensity to check students’ thinking and understanding on a continuous basis in a variety ofways and has a hesitant attitude about using any one approach with every student” (corno, 2008, p. 171). employ contextualized thinking by demonstrating responsiveness to changing circumstances and student thinking through impromptu decision making during, not after instruction (berliner, 2001). ijep international journal ofeducational psychology, (2)2 127 how do you know whenyouare cognitively efficient? students reported that they monitored ce by reflecting on their progress towards meeting learning goals. completing the task at hand (22.6%), with the fewest possible distractions (20.8%), in the quickest amount of time (22.2%) were reported as the most common actualizations of ce. focused attention of mental resources was frequently described as necessary to achieve ce (25.9%). students remarked, being “focused in the clearest possible manner”, having “thoughts flow without interruption”, and being “able to think without getting distracted” as representative ofbeing cognitively efficient.   mental resources were described in cognitive, affective, and physiological terms included “working smart”, “feeling confident”, and having “a clear head”. specific cognitive determinants included having both interest and experience in the subject matter. some participants claimed that they knew they were being cognitively efficient when they understood the information, “when you understand something, you can communicate”. another participant indicated a problem-solving focus stating “when i am able to see all sides ofthe situation and work toward a solution i am cognitively efficient”. others equated ce with physical well being and the regulation ofstress. one student indicated “i can tell when i am cognitively efficient because i am not stressed out and worried that i am forgetting things, i feel calm when i am cognitively efficient”. what factors decreaseyourability to be cognitively efficient? the reported impediments to achieve ce were largely based upon physiological factors, such as sleep and food deprivation (19.4%), stress (13.9%) or illness (12.9%). environmental constraints including noise, and cognitively disruptive aspects of learning were cited as detrimental to ce by 13.9% ofparticipants. a variety ofchangeable factors such as the ability to control distractions and lack ofmotivation were additional reasons that inhibited efficient cognition. lack of task focus and maladaptive motivation were also cited as inhibitory to ce, as one individual stated, “use it or lose it” when referring to the need to dedicate resources to a task when trying to be efficient. only 6.45% of bobby hoffman perceptions ofcognitive efficiency128 respondents indicated lack of ability or intelligence as interfering with their ability to achieve ce, suggesting that most learners in the current sample held an incremental and controllable view ofefficient cognition. what factors increaseyourability to be cognitively efficient? four primary strategies evolved from the 84 codes developed to describe how ce may be improved: modeling optimal health (16.6%), limiting distractions (16.6%), gaining more experience through practice or increasing knowledge (15.4%), and organizing thoughts and resources (10.7%). little emphasis was placed on motivational criteria typically associated with task success such as goals, task challenge, or effort (csikszentmihalyi, 1997; pintrich, marx, & boyle, 1993); however six students indicated interest was a necessary component to increase ce.   students allocated the regulation of ce into two broad categories: behavioral (48.8%) and mental control (38.2%). behavioral control means specific actions that individuals take related to the physical task environment or surroundings, such as “organizing the work setting”, or removing “external interference”. whereas mental control means monitoring or orchestrating changes in cognitive processes including, “deep thinking”, “centeredness”, or “having a clear mind”. figure 1 provides a graphic representation by theme of what strategies students considered when attempting to improve ce. ijep international journal ofeducational psychology, (2)2 129 discussion the current study sought to understand student perceptions of efficient cognition. several of the views espoused by students differed in emphasis from research-based perspectives of efficient cognition (hoffman & schraw, 2010, van gog & paas, 2008) and efficiency in descriptions of expert teaching (berliner, 2001; bereiter & scardamalia, 1993; darling-hammond & bransford, 2005; feldon, 2007; sternberg & horvath, 1995). first, beyond the need for attentional control, bobby hoffman perceptions ofcognitive efficiency130 figure 1. model ofstrategies used to increase ce students significantly understated the role of working memory and processing resources as instrumental in ce. second, students associated success in cognitive tasks as largely dependent upon physiological readiness and stamina. last, students placed substantial importance on the role of experience, not qualitative changes in learning as a determinant of ce. given the influence of learner conceptions on selective attention, deeper processing, and more accurate retrieval (pintrich et al., 1993) the incongruence between research findings and student perceptions may have notable ramifications for learning and teaching.   the descriptions of ce suggested that students have their own clear conceptions of what constitutes optimal cognition. as such, students described how they assessed and evaluated discrepancies between states of routine performance and visualized states of optimal cognition. the self-evaluation and contextual remedies described closely parallel representations of self-regulated learning strategies designed to promote academic achievement (pintrich, 2000; zimmerman, 2001). models of self-regulation employ specific metacognitive strategies whereby learners consciously and actively regulate cognitive resources, motivation, and behavior in an effort to enhance progress towards reaching learning goals. in the context of ce these self-regulatory strategies involve maximizing resources to quickly and accurately attain error-free performance. the model depicted in figure 1, developed from aggregation of responses, suggests that student perceptions of how to enhance ce and research-based descriptions of self-regulation may be closely aligned, ifnot indistinguishable.   the most frequently contemplated strategies to improve the efficiency of cognition were internal controllable factors such as focused attention on task goals, or blocking out aversive environmental stimuli. students’ advocacy of these types of control strategies suggests a minimized awareness that cognitive capacity, and thus ce, can be mediated by the use of information processing strategies. students may not believe, or may not be aware, of their ability to modify the transactional aspects of cognition. two plausible explanations may account for the diminished emphasis by students, unconscious automatization of resources, or lack of motivation to use certain strategies. both social-cognitive and dual process theories suggest that some types of cognitive associations such ijep international journal ofeducational psychology, (2)2 131 as explicit rule-based processing associated with problem solving and complex learning takes longer and are more effortful and thus may be subject to learner motivation (karoly, 1993; smith & decoster, 2000; stanovich, 2004). in addition, many laboratory accounts of selfregulatory behavior contend that some self-regulated learning strategies are a depletable, yet renewable resource, and learners may fail to activate strategies despite capability (bannert & mengelkamp, 2008), or personal agency (pintrich & zusho, 2002).   only one-fifth of students stated that ce could be improved by both internal and external regulatory approaches, suggesting that student perceptions of ce may align with polarized views of motivational processes during learning, such as dichotomous entity or incremental views of intelligence, or related performance and mastery goal orientations (dweck, 1986). most students viewed ce as a contextually driven, domain-specific phenomenon and thus may believe task success is influenced by effort allocation, or ability, but not both. partitioning intellectual efficiency into two classes may also account for the heavy reliance by some students upon physiological readiness as a ce prerequisite. in absence of the belief that ce is controllable by internal regulation, students may overly rely upon manipulation oftheir physical environment as the best method to enhance ce. interpretations of this nature are critical to teaching effectiveness as learner beliefs have been empirically linked to receptivity of conceptual revision (pintrich et al., 1993; mason, 2007), strategy choice (zimmerman, 1989), and student motivation (dweck & leggett, 1988). these findings are especially relevant for educational contexts with restricted conditions such as standardized testing. students with misaligned perceptions of ce may needlessly forgo helpful strategic interventions and inadvertently hinder test performance.   despite the apparent incongruity of student perceptions with information processing research several commonalities exist with expert teaching descriptions (see table 4). the similarities focus on quickly regulating effort during knowledge acquisition, automating procedural knowledge, and eliminating extraneous cognitive load while using a variety of adaptive learning strategies. although no models of expert teaching focus exclusively on ce, several models consider promoting learner efficiency as a necessary prerequisite to achieve developmental bobby hoffman perceptions ofcognitive efficiency132 trajectories for teaching expertise (bereiter & scardamalia, 1993; feldon, 2007; sternberg & horvath, 1995). the investigation of corollaries across teachers, students, and researchers serves as the basis for the prototype view (sternberg & horvath, 1995) used to create table 4, which served as a foundation to suggest instructional inferences that inform ce. recommendations for practice isolated knowledge of student’s perceptions of ce may be considered inert in absence of instructional implications that foster the development of ce in the classroom. table 4 displays the nexus of student perceptions and a cross section of evidence from expert teaching descriptions to suggest that several logical inferences may be proposed to cultivate efficient thinking, learning, and problem solving among students.   first, learners need to know that ce is a multidimensional construct that is influenced by knowledge acquisition, enhanced processing ability, judicious effort, and adaptive strategy use. instructors providing greater awareness that ce can be simultaneously regulated by both internal and external strategies may assist students in making gains in both the amount and quality of knowledge they must master. approaches that emphasize both the algorithmic nature of information processing and the analytic reflective aspects of learning closely mirror dual-processing descriptions of cognition (evans, 2008; smith & decoster, 2000; stanovich, 2004) and may be well suited to deconstructing ce.   second, adaption of strategies that foster ce are highly relevant in light of ongoing changes in teaching standards that emphasize the need for learners with better critical thinking and problem-solving ability as a means to address authentic learning challenges within and outside the classroom. third, researchers and instructors should consider the importance placed on self-regulation by learners and investigate how reflective cognition and metacognitive awareness influence ce. student perceptions suggested that ce and self-regulated learning were closely aligned implying that accurate and well-calibrated metacognitive activity may be a materially similar construct as ce. 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