Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity International University, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-88).

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of St Andrews, February 2008.

Thesis (B.A. (Hons.)) - University of Queensland, 2004. / Includes bibliography.

No description available.

Various studies have been implemented concerning the physiological and psychological components of attending behavior, particularly in the area of the exceptional child. Little has been done, however, to develop specific behavioral definitions of attending behavior and to incorporate these into treatment-based research programs involving normal children attending a regular public school. The purpose of this investigation was to discover if children from a regular public elementary school who are deficient in attending behavior skills can be taught these skills in a short-term behavior modification program and to determine if the skills thus learned facilitate learning within the regular classroom setting.

An experimental study of the effects of active participation on student learning was conducted with two levels of treatment of the independent variable. Intact groups were used because it was reasoned that results generated in classroom settings would likely be more generalizable to other classroom settings. The study was conducted in a medium-sized suburban school district mainly residential in character. Five project teachers were trained to teach a lesson on simple probability. Each teacher taught four lessons to fifth grade classes, two with Treatment I (active student participation) and two with Treatment II (no active student participation). The lessons were alike in all possible respects except the treatment. Immediately upon completion of instruction the students were administered a 15-item multiple choice posttest. The lesson and posttest were both researcher-developed instruments. The instruction and testing lasted about one hour for each class. The total number of students was 447. The research hypothesis for the study was that the posttest mean of classes taught with active participation would be greater than the posttest mean of classes taught without active participation. The statistical hypothesis was stated as (mu)(,1) = (mu)(,2). The results of a t-test were found to be statistically significant at the .05 level causing the statistical hypothesis to be rejected and the research hypothesis to be accepted. From this study, it appears that teaching is more effective when active student participation is incorporated into the teaching method. Additional research is recommended to test the retention of the effect and to test the effect with different age groups.

In the wild, a variety of inter-group behavioural differences have been reported for chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and it has been suggested that these may have resulted from social learning. To determine whether chimpanzees show the necessary propensity for social learning, groups of captive chimpanzees were tested in a series of experiments involving the use of two-action and bidirectional apparatuses. For comparison, and to shed light on any contrasts between our own and chimpanzee learning strategies, similar tests were also conducted with children (Homo sapiens) to ascertain the nature of their observational learning when watching conspecifics. Through the use of open diffusion and diffusion chain techniques, it was shown that both species learnt how to operate different foraging devices from observing an expert conspecific and this learning was strong enough for the generation of behavioural traditions which passed along multiple test ‘generations’. Additionally, ghost conditions were used to distinguish imitative and emulative learning by both species. With one of the two test devices used (the Slide-box) the first evidence for emulation learning by chimpanzees, through the use of a ghost condition, was shown. Children in this condition also showed apparent emulation; a contrast to previous research which has concluded that children tend to rely on imitation. Additionally, to test its potential for use in future social learning experiments, the ability of chimpanzees to learn from video-footage of an unknown conspecific was tested. It was found that the chimpanzees not only learnt how to operate two devices from observing this footage but also used the same alternative method used by the model chimpanzee.

This report will illustrate the positive and negative aspects of the social nature of learning through a review of sociocultural related research. In consideration of the billion dollar issues associated with the current state of students’ mental health, and the poor educational experiences of low income students, it seems the current focus on academic achievement in isolation, isn’t working. Socioemotional elements underlie the cognitive processes involved in all higher levels of thinking and problems solving. From a sociocultural perspective, for optimal learning to occur, teachers and students must establish positive affective relationships. Through greater understanding of effective teaching practices that consider the socioemotional elements involved learning, and universal interventions promoting positive child and youth development, schools can promote children’s social and emotional wellbeing while simultaneously improving academic achievement. / text

Primates are known for being highly social species, living in groups of various compositions with different social structures. The study of social or observational learning has largely focussed on investigating non-human primates' abilities to imitate, with a more recent shift towards examining the social context of social learning. This shift has presented opportunities to investigate how the social context of different species affects the diffusion of socially learnt behaviours. In this thesis, I set out to monitor the spread of different experimentally seeded and naturally occurring socially learned behaviours in brown (tufted) capuchin monkeys (Sapajus sp.) and common squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus).These species were selected as they form mixed species groups in the wild, and display marked differences in their social tolerances, thus presenting the opportunity to investigate conspecific and heterospecific social learning in related but differently bonded social groups. My results show evidence of social learning from conspecifics in capuchin and squirrel monkeys, attesting to that already documented in capuchin monkeys and indicating for the first time, that common squirrel monkeys can learn socially. Additionally, I demonstrate that capuchin monkeys are influenced by squirrel monkeys when foraging for food in mixed species groups. Furthermore, although squirrel monkeys are not as socially tolerant as capuchin monkeys, individuals who were better connected within the foraging test area learned experimentally-seeded techniques of models faster and more faithfully. When performing socially contagious anointing behaviours, regardless of tufted capuchin monkeys being influenced by the amount of resources provided for them to anoint with, they still performed more socially anointing than has been previously documented in other captive species, corroborating the levels of social anointing demonstrated in semi-free ranging groups. Further support was found for anointing demonstrating a social bonding and medicinal function in tufted capuchin monkeys.

The purpose of this study was to identify the preferred learning styles of Greek EFL students and teachers in Greece. The learning styles examined were visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, group and individual. The study was conducted at a private English language school in Piraeus, Greece. Ninety-two Greek EFL students (33 male and 59 female) ranging in age from 13 to 22, and 11 Greek EFL teachers (3 male and 8 female) ranging in age from 22 to 52 constitute the sample. The study used the self-reporting learning style questionnaire that Reid (1987) developed to measure the preferred learning style preferences of ESL students in the U.S., and is a partial replication of Reid's study. The instrument was used to determine the major, minor and negligible preferred learning styles of Greek EFL students and teachers. Data from the learning style questionnaires were analyzed using paired t-tests, unpaired t-tests, single-factor and two-factor ANOVAs. Statistical analysis indicated kinesthetic learning as a major learning style for students, and visual, kinesthetic and tactile learning as major learning style preferences for teachers. No negligible learning styles were reported for either group. Students tended to prefer teacher-centered learning styles (visual, auditory and individual learning) slightly more than student-centered learning styles (kinesthetic, tactile and group learning). Furthermore, teachers tended to prefer student-centered learning styles slightly more than teacher-centered learning styles. Data from both groups (teachers and students) suggested interaction effects for age and gender. The results of this study raise questions concerning the reliability of Reid's instrument. Neither subject groups in this study, nor subjects in Hoffner's (1991) or Pia's (1989~ studies, identify negligible learning styles on the part of the subjects. This raises questions related to the reliability of Reid's instrument. It suggests that further study needs to be conducted in measuring learning style preferences in culture specific studies.