Dr Maria Zammit

ABSTRACT

Ten mothers were observed prospectively, interacting with their infants aged 0 ; 10 in two contexts (picture description and noun description). Maternal communicative behaviours were coded for volubility, gestural production and labelling style. Verbal labelling events were categorized into three exclusive categories: label only; label plus deictic gesture; label plus iconic gesture. We evaluated the predictive relations between maternal communicative style and children's subsequent acquisition of ten target nouns. Strong relations were observed between maternal communicative style and children's acquisition of the target nouns. Further, even controlling for maternal volubility and maternal labelling, maternal use of iconic gestures predicted the timing of acquisition of nouns in comprehension. These results support the proposition that maternal gestural input facilitates linguistic development, and suggest that such facilitation may be a function of gesture type.

This project aims to understand the processes of inclusion and transition into postgraduate education. Whilst there has been a research focus on transitions in schools and transitions to undergraduate study, postgraduate study has largely been ignored. This project includes the voices of both staff and students in generating data that has enabled the formulation of practical recommendations to HEIs surrounding the design of postgraduate learning environments and, importantly, recommendations for students and staff for managing learning and ensuring inclusion.

This article explores transition to postgraduate (PG) study in terms of the widening participation (WP) agenda. The research is located within a Communities of Practice framework, allowing for explanations of transition in terms of learning, identity and participation in practices. A qualitative ethnographic methodology is employed, and analysis reveals two themes: the heterogeneity of PG students, and the nature of PG teaching and learning. It is argued that the imperatives that the WP agenda generates are as compatible with PG as with undergraduate study, and that this may have been overlooked previously owing to assumptions of the homogeneity of postgraduates. However, students' experiences of academic practices do not always reflect the dogma of how teaching and learning should occur at PG level, and this may prevent full participation in PG study by those who might otherwise be included.

There has been relatively little research to date that has explored the transition to postgraduate study. This paper reports findings from a project (funded by the UK's Higher Education Academy) that sought to address this gap. The research project was ethnographic and explored university practice and student participation in five UK universities. A significant emergent feature of the research was that a multiplicity of identities construct student experience and contribute to student transition. This finding provides support for learning theory that argues for inextricable links between learning and wider social identities. Moreover, the process of negotiating an academic identity in light of wider experience and university practices emerged as a key factor in understanding transition together with the imperative for independent study, which was a particularly powerful practice that necessitated complex identity negotiations in order to enable full participation in the university community of practice.

This article outlines the design of a module introducing Developmental Psychology to distance learners undertaking a two-year part-time BPS accredited MSc Psychology (Conversion) degree. The module was redesigned to accommodate increased student numbers. Online learners differ significantly from those in face-to-face learning environments, in terms of both student characteristics and patterns of engagement. We applied psychological principles to the delivery of this asynchronous online module. Our aims in this module were (1) to create engaging, informative content, (2) to develop students’ critical thinking skills, and (3) to develop their ability to apply developmental psychological theory to the real world. We enacted five key principles in our module design: Naturalistic/warm delivery style; Collaborative teaching; Scaffolding; Reducing cognitive load; and Engaging activities to enhance learning. This article aims to prompt discussion from other practitioners who are involved in remote delivery about their experiences in adapting to a remote learning environment.

Babysign classes are increasingly popular across the UK. Benefits are said to include increasing child vocabulary, reducing frustration, and improving parent-child relations. A further relationship between the use of babysign and maternal mind-mindedness has been suggested. It was hypothesised here that parents choosing babysign classes would describe their child using more mind-minded comments than those attending other toddler classes and that their children would have greater language skills. The mind-mindedness scores of 34 mother-child dyads attending parent-toddler activities were measured using Meins et al.’s (2010) research protocol. Mothers also completed a communicative checklist for language and gesture use and understanding. Results indicate that mothers who choose to use babysign describe their children with significantly more mind-minded attributes, but language skills do not differ between the two groups of children. This supports the hypothesis that mothers using baby-sign would show more mind-mindedness than mothers not using babysign.

Babysign programmes are claimed to among other things, increase child receptive and expressive vocabulary, reduce child frustration and improve parent-child relations (e.g. Acredolo et al, 1999; Goodwyn et al 2000; Pizer et al, 2007). There are two possible explanations for this: 1) Improved parent-child communication reduces child frustration improving parent-child relations; 2) using babysign compels parents to view their children as communicative partners, thus increasing parents’ mind-mindedness. Mind-mindedness’ (MM), is defined as a parent’s tendency to treat the child as an intentional being (Meins et al 2001). To tease apart these two explanations, we set out to explore relationships between three types of parent-toddler activity (babysign, music class, toddler group) and current measures of parental mind-mindedness. Using Mein et al’s (2003) research protocol we compared the mindmindedness scores of 45 parents attending one of the three activities with their 6-12-month-old. Parents also completed a communicative checklist. In line with previous work, we found effects of activity type on receptive but not productive vocabulary. A relationship between activity type and mind-mindedness was also found. Results therefore supported the notion that baby-sign promotes parent mindmindedness.

Pointing while naming accounts for as much as 90% of maternal infant directed communicative behaviour (O’Neill, Bard, Linnell & Fluck, 2005). We set out to examine the relation between maternal pointing and the emergence of infant pointing, with three goals in mind. First, to investigate the notion that maternal pointing is contingent on the infants’ ability to produce and comprehend pointing. Second, to investigate changes in maternal and infant pointing during a relatively abstract task versus a relatively concrete task. Finally, to establish the value of maternal pointing as a means of scaffolding word learning. With this in mind, we calculated the frequency and duration of points produced by 12 mothers during interaction with their infants in the month prior to the infants first reported point, the month of the infants first reported point, and the month of the infants first observed communicative point. Dyads were observed while engaged in three tasks designed to differentially elicit pointing, a picture description, free interaction and a word description task. Mothers also completed a communicative checklist prior to each visit. We found effects of both context and infants communicative status on frequency and duration of maternal pointing. Maternal point rate and duration were highest during the picture task. During the month prior to the infants’ reported production of pointing mothers tended to produce few points, but those points were held for longer than in subsequent sessions. The highest rate of maternal pointing was observed during the month of the infants’ first observed point. Infants’ lexical knowledge of each stimuli item also influenced maternal point rate, but not duration. Correlations between maternal pointing and infant word learning suggest that pointing may scaffold emergent language ability.

Abstract

Speech directed towards young children (‘motherese’) is subject to consistent systematic modifications. Recent research suggests that gesture directed towards young children is similarly modified (gesturese). It has been suggested that gesturese supports speech, therefore scaffolding communicative development (the facilitative interactional theory). Alternatively, maternal gestural modification may be a consequence of the semantic simplicity of interaction with infants (the interactional artefact theory). The gesture patterns of 12 English mothers were observed with their 20‐month‐old infants while engaged in two tasks, free play and a counting task, designed to differentially tap into scaffolding. Gestures accounted for 29% of total maternal communicative behaviour. English mothers employed mainly concrete deictic gestures (e.g. pointing) that supported speech by disambiguating and emphasizing the verbal utterance. Maternal gesture rate and informational gesture–speech relationship were consistent across tasks, supporting the interactional artefact theory. This distinctive pattern of gesture use for the English mothers was similar to that reported for American and Italian mothers, providing support for universality. Child‐directed gestures are not redundant in relation to child‐directed speech but rather both are used by mothers to support their communicative acts with infants.

We present data collected as part of a qualitative ethnographic project following social science postgraduate students through their transition in three UK universities. The ability of students to affect and be affected by the CoP is central to the shift from peripheral to full member of a CoP (Lave & Wenger, 1991). However, it is not wholly evident that this occurs in educational settings. Tobbell (2003) argues that often students never become part of the CoP because they are not given opportunity to enact change in that system. Each of the three universities involved in this research articulate the aim of providing student-led research training for postgraduate students that is carried out in a way that aims to enable reciprocity, thus providing students with direct opportunity to enact change to the educational system. However, in only one case could we identify practices that enabled such reciprocity. It seems, therefore that practice may fall short of policy.

This paper discusses an ongoing research project which is exploring the experiences of postgraduate students in transition from undergraduate work or from non-academic work. The research is of a qualitative ethnographic design and is taking place in three universities in the UK (two in England, one in Scotland). The project, sponsored by the Higher Education Academy, is of one year duration and this paper is reporting interim data and analysis.