Sources of Differences in Children's Understandings of Mathematical Equality: Comparative Analysis of Teacher Guides and Student Texts in China and the United States

This study reports findings from comparative samples of sixth-grade Chinese and U.S. students' interpretations of the equal sign. Ninety-eight percent of the Chinese sample correctly answered 4 items indicating conceptions of equality and provided conceptually accurate explanations. In contrast, only 28% of the U.S. sample performed at this level. We examine how teacher preparation materials, students' textbooks and teachers' guidebooks treat equality in each country. U.S. teacher preparation textbooks rarely interpreted the equal sign as equivalence. On the contrary, Chinese textbooks typically introduced the equal sign in a context of relationships and interpreted the sign as “balance,” “sameness,” or “equivalence” and only then embedded the sign with operations on numbers.     

A Comparative Analysis of the Distributive Property in U.S. and Chinese Elementary Mathematics Textbooks

This study examines presentations of the distributive property (DP) in two widely used U.S. elementary text series and one main Chinese text series along three dimensions: problem contexts, typical problem types within each problem context, and variability in using the DP. In general, the two U.S. texts were found to resemble each other but to differ considerably from the Chinese text series. Both U.S. texts are computation-dominated, presenting various strategies centering on “breaking apart a factor to perform multiplication.” These strategies limit the use of the DP mainly with whole numbers and in a regular direction. The underlying principle of these strategies is seldom made explicit. In contrast, the Chinese text approaches focus on the underlying principle and are well aligned with cognitive research suggestions. Multiple-step word problems with particular structures are used in a systematic and hierarchic manner across grades to help students learn and transfer the DP. The Chinese texts also tend to ask students to “compute in convenient ways” involving various numbers (e.g., whole numbers, decimals, fractions, and percents) and using the DP in both regular and opposite directions. The introduction of repeated variables is a timely application of the DP, which provides an entry to algebra (e.g., expressions and equations with repeated variables). The Chinese approaches (e.g., contextual interferences, spaced practice, and encoding variability) suggest alternative insights into developing U.S. students’ understanding of the DP and readying them for algebra.     

Molecular dynamics simulations of the size effect of titanium single-crystal nanopillars orientated for double prismatic slips

An inverse “smaller is stronger” trend is predicted on the basis of molecular dynamics simulations of α-titanium (Ti) single-crystal nanopillars orientated for double prismatic slips when the nanopillars are less than 7?nm wide. This trend is attributed to a significant increase in the surface energy due to the nucleation and propagation of edge dislocations on the surface of the pillars.     

Research Productivity and Performance of Journals in the Creativity Sciences: A Bibliometric Analysis

A bibliometric approach was employed to analyze the research productivity and performance of creativity studies between 1965 and 2012. A dataset was constructed using all publications and citations retrieved from four key journals that publish creativity research: Journal of Creative Behavior (JCB), Gifted Child Quarterly (GCQ), Creativity Research Journal (CRJ), and Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts (PACA). Major findings in this study include: (a) During the study period, the four journals have published 1,891 articles on creativity and they have been cited 11,709 times; (b) the impact factors of the four journals increased from lower than .50 in 2002 to over 1.0 in 2012; in 2012 PACA had the highest impact factor, followed by CRJ; (c) JCB published the most creativity papers and CRJ had the most citations; (d) about a third of the articles published in the four journals have never been cited. Implications for the field of creativity are discussed.     

Backward-walking biological motion orients attention to moving away instead of moving toward

Walking direction is an important attribute of biological motion because it carries key information, such as the specific intention of the walker. Although it is known that spatial attention is guided by walking direction, it remains unclear whether this attentional shift is reflexive (i.e., constantly shifts to the walking direction) or not. A richer interpretation of this effect is that attention is guided to seek the information that is necessary to understand the motion. To investigate this issue, we examined how backward-walking biological motion orients attention because the intention of walking backward is usually to avoid something that walking forward would encounter. The results showed that attention was oriented to the walking-away direction of biological motion instead of the walking-toward direction (Experiment 1), and this effect was not due to the gaze direction of biological motion (Experiment 2). Our findings suggest that the attentional shift triggered by walking direction is not reflexive, thus providing support for the rich interpretation of these attentional effects.     

不同强迫倾向个体信息加工方式的特点研究

采用Flanker范式,通过考察高低强迫倾向个体在Flanker任务上的差异,来研究强迫倾向个体信息加工方式的特点。研究结果显示,在Flanker任务中,高强迫倾向个体显示出较慢的反应速度,表现为更多的犹豫不觉的特性;高强迫倾向个体的信息加工方式以集中加工为主;高强迫倾向个体在信息加工的灵活性上存在不足,对情景的变化较不敏感。通过对强迫倾向个体的信息加工方式的研究,有助于丰富和发展强迫症的理论,同时为强迫症的临床治疗提供依据。     

小学生领导力萌芽与发展的实证研究

摘 要 本研究以四年级学生为研究对象,通过话语分析,探究了八个无领导小组八次讨论过程中领导力的萌芽状况及其影响因素。结果发现,小学生可自发出现领导力行为,但只有两个小组会涌现出明显的领导者,并表现为独立领导和协同领导两种不同模式。对学生和教师行为的综合分析显示,学生领导力的形成与教师示范、反馈及同伴互动存在密切关系,这对学生领导力的培养具有重要的启示意义。     

从《无上秘要》看六朝道教关于灾难的论述

《无上秘要》是北周时代在武帝宇文邕主持下编纂的一百卷道教类书,从其引用的道书大略可以看出六朝道教关于灾难的论述。本文分为灾难的成因、阳九百六与劫难、禳灾度厄的各种方法等三方面,简要地探讨了此一时期道教的观点。关于灾难的成因,其观点大致可分为自然主义与能动主义。劫运说是关于灾难的新说,它结合了本土的阳九百六观念。而禳灾度厄的方法,根据道教的发展历程,实可区分出防止灾难与消除劫难对人类的影响两条思路。本文认为其方法体现出人们希望消除灾难的良好愿望,当可起到抚慰人心的作用。     

关于阅读的眼动研究

本文对阅读的眼动研究作了一个概述,主要阐述心理学家利用眼动技术来研究人在阅读过程中的心理活动和心理现象以及信息加工过程：如阅读过程中的知觉广度、信息获取以及阅读过程中眼动的影响因素。此外．本文对眼动技术本身和眼动控制模型也做了深刻的阐述,并提出了自己的观点。     

道教戒律书考要

成熟的组织化的宗教都有自己的一套宗教道德,这些宗教道德主要体现于戒律。作为条文内容的戒律,是道教徒必须遵守的思想行为准则,其在道教内部结构的重要性仅次于教义。道教的戒律书可分为戒、律、科、清规、功过格和善书六类。前三类有严格的传授次序。本文仅就前三类考其要者。主要考证成书年代,对于内容要点及其文献价值亦予指出。