Comparing Swedish and Norwegian teachers' professional development: How human capital and social capital factor into teachers' reading habits

The present study compares how Swedish (n = 340) and Norwegian (n = 236) teachers' human capital and social capital support reading habits as an aspect of professional development. The overall aim was to describe how teachers' human and social capital support their professional development as measured by the aspect of reading habits during leisure time. Our research questions were: To what extent do Swedish and Norwegian teachers differ in their reading habits during leisure time? To what extent do young and old Swedish and Norwegian teachers differ in their reading habits during leisure time? To what extent does Swedish and Norwegian teachers' social capital (collegial talk, principal talk) predict their reading habits during leisure time? To what extent does Swedish and Norwegian teachers' human capital (based on their age, education, and work years) predict their reading habits during leisure time? We compared teachers' reading habits between countries. Older teachers read, on average, more fiction, nonfiction, and newspapers. However, younger teachers in both countries are more prone to read digital texts than older teachers. By contrast, teachers' social capital only seemed to matter in Sweden, while talks with the principal had no effect in either country.     

Can learning potential in schizophrenia be assessed with the standard CVLT‐II? An exploratory study

This study examined the potential of using the regular administration of a common neuropsychological test, the CVLT-II, to assess learning potential in schizophrenia. Based on List A trial 1 performance and the learning slope, a schizophrenia sample was divided into three learning potential groups (non-learners, learners and high-achievers) that differed in the use of learning strategies. High-achievers utilized more semantic clustering than learners and non-learners, and non-learners were less consistent in words recalled than the other two groups. This standard administration approach is a promising, time-saving alternative to the modified tests of learning potential used so far.     

Organization in visual episodic memory: relationships between verbalized knowledge, strategy use, and performance

Relationships between verbalized knowledge (metamemory), strategy use, and performance were examined in a memory task for visually presented episodes. Kindergarten, second-grade, and fifth-grade students were asked to reconstruct a sequence of pictures forming an episode from an array of original pictures and foils. The episodes varied on two dimensions; materials type and the logic of the sequence. Materials were either typical (familiar animal characters and scenes) or atypical (geometric figures) story materials. Sequences either readily conveyed a story (logical) or were rearranged to present a random ordering of pictures (illogical). Children were questioned about their use of a story line to help remember the picture sequences (general questioning) and were asked more specific questions concerning the reasons for their picture selection during the task (specific questioning). Children at all ages recalled logical sequences better than illogical ones. Second- and fifth-grade children recalled animal episodes better than geometric form episodes. Children at all ages showed a correspondence between strategy use and metamemory as assessed by verbalization of relationships among pictures during the specific questioning. However, when the more typical general question format was used to assess metamemory, strategy use preceded verbalized knowledge of strategy use.