This research examined whether bilingualism would accelerate or hinder the cognitive as well as academic development of the Korean American individuals in an Oregon school district by analyzing the standardized test scores at grades 3, 5, 7, and 9. Eleven monolingual and 27 bilingual students released the Survey of Basic Skills (SBS) as well as Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) scores for this study. The analyses of the test scores revealed that the Korean-American students in this school district were performing at a much higher level against the national norm (the 50th percentile), or the school district norm (the 75th percentile). The bilingual Korean-American students made far greater progress both cognitively and academically from grades 3 to 9 (CogAT: 76.0 %ILE- 87.0 %ILE, SBS Composite: 77.0 %ILE- 87.0 %ILE) than their monolingual counterparts who hovered around the 85th percentile against the national norm. It was learned that the bilingual Korean-Americans were both cognitively and academically as developed as their monolingual counterparts by the time they were in 5th grade. Telephone interviews conducted with 46 bilingual and 23 monolingual Korean-American high school students as well as 30 written questionnaires returned by their parents revealed that the Korean-American students in this particular school district could not become naturally bilingual, but that a commitment both by the students and their parents was necessary to maintain their ethnic language. The parents of the bilingual students were making more efforts to pass on the Korean language to their offspring than the parents of monolingual students. The Korean-American families were very much integrated into the social mainstream, and were trying to achieve educational as well as economic successes on American's terms while maintaining their ethnic identity.

This thesis explores cultural specificity and universality in maternal metacognitive guidance of preschoolers’ puzzle-solving. Anglo-Australian and immigrant Indian mothers’ interactions with their 4-year-old children on a puzzle-solving task were videotaped, and the mothers were interviewed about their views on child development, adult guidance and interpretations of puzzle-solving. The nature of the metcognitive guidance was analysed with respect to task initiation, task regulation, metcognitive guidance, strategic assistance, speech styles, and forms of sustaining the child’s mindfulness. The results generally supported the notions of cultural universality and specificity in maternal metcognitive guidance. While similarities were noted in mothers’ collaboration, supportive intent and verbal strategic guidance, differences were revealed in task initiation, linguistic mediation, non-verbal strategic guidance and metacognitive modeling. The findings on metcognitive guidance as a function of gender of the child indicated similarities, suggesting that differential guidance of male and female children’s metacognitive learning may be less pronounced in the preschool years compared with later childhood years. Indian mothers guided and supported their male children’s metcognitive/strategic learning more frequently than did Australian mothers. The findings are discussed in the light of notions of socio-cultural and activity theories. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) (Education)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Psychology, August 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy

The primary purpose of the present study was to investigate the joint effects of culture and attribution of outcome feedback on reasoning performance. This study attempted to address four major research questions: (a) Do Canadian and Chinese students have different cultural values and causal attribution patterns? (b) Do pre-experimental individual differences in causal attribution patterns lead to differences in Canadian and Chinese students' inductive reasoning performance? (c) Does attribution of outcome feedback affect Canadian and Chinese students' inductive reasoning performance? (d) Do Canadian and Chinese students conduct deductive reasoning differently as a function of outcome feedback and reasoning task contents? A total of 120 college students (60 Canadian and 60 Chinese) performed three phases of computerized experimental tasks. The research design involved 2 types of culture groups (Canadian and Chinese) under 3 conditions of outcome feedback (success, failure, and control) as two independent variables. The dependent variables observed were the number of instances used or correct responses made and response time, when possible. In terms of culture differences, Canadian students appear to be distinct and articulate about the matters of socio-cultural values, while Chinese students are relatively less distinct and articulate. When making attribution for other people's success, both Canadian and Chinese students held internal factors (i. e., good effort and high ability) as responsible. When accounting for other people's failure, Canadian students picked controllable factors (i.e., lack of effort), while Chinese students picked both controllable and uncontrollable factors (i.e., largely lack of effort and occasionally difficult task) as the reasons. However, following the success outcome feedback about their own reasoning performance, Canadian students emphasized mostly high ability and, occasionally, effort as the reasons, while Chinese students picked mostly good luck and, occasionally, high ability. Given the failure outcome feedback about their own task performance, Canadian students attributed to lack of effort and bad luck as causes, while Chinese students exclusively picked lack of effort as the explanation. Chinese subjects' inductive and deductive reasoning performances remained relatively unswayed by success or failure outcome feedback, whereas Canadian subjects' reasoning performance remained good only when success feedback was received. When failure feedback was provided, Canadian subjects' reasoning performances deteriorated and remained poor throughout the experiment. While Chinese students' reasoning performance is not predictable from their low-ability attribution of other people's failure outcome, Canadian students' reasoning performance is highly predictable; that is, the more they attributed others' failure to low ability, the faster they completed the culture-fair inductive reasoning task. On the other hand, when making attribution based on their own experience, given success feedback, Canadian students attributed their performance to their high ability. Given failure feedback, Canadian students attributed their performance to their lack of effort, with improved performance commensurable to their verbal causal attribution. The present findings indicate that Canadian and Chinese college students showed differences in causal attribution patterns, depending on when they explain others' success/failure experiences or their own, and further that upon receipt of failure outcome feedback, Canadian students' reasoning performance deteriorated, while Chinese students' performance remained insensitive to success or failure outcome feedback. Further fine-grained analyses of such causal attribution patterns interacting with outcome feedbacks and cognitive performance needs some more careful studies.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (PhD) -- University of Western Sydney, Nepean, 1999. / "A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education" Bibliography : leaves 234-256.

Thesis (M. A.) (Hons) -- University of Western Sydney, 2003. / A thesis submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Hons) at University of Western Sydney. Includes bibliography : leaves 256 -258.

Thesis (M.A.)--Columbia International University, 1999. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-122).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2006. / Thesis directed by Donald B. Pope-Davis for the Department of Psychology. "April 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-111).