Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: A Vygotskian view (1989) Mary McCaslin Rohrkemper Springer, New York, NY. 143-167
We have all encountered the frustration of “hard” learning. It is a common experience. Some of us are able to cope with it, whereas others are not. The ability to take charge of frustration and maintain the intention to learn while enacting effective task strategies in the face of uncertainty-taking charge of one’s motivation, emotion, and thinking—is what I call adaptive learning. I refer to this process as adaptive learning rather than self-regulation because I want to stress inter- rather than intraz- individual states; a Vygotskian perspective highlights the role of the social/instructional environment in the development of adaptive learning. By social/ instructional environment I refer to parents, teachers, tasks, and peers that students influence and are influenced by as they engage in learning, be it about themselves, their community, or two-digit division.
Relating narrative, inquiry, and inscriptions: Supporting consequential play (2007) Sasha A Barab, Troy D Sadler, Conan Heiselt, Daniel Hickey and Steven Zuiker Journal of science education and technology, 16 (1), 59-82
In this paper we describe our research using a multi-user virtual environment, Quest Atlantis, to embed fourth grade students in an aquatic habitat simulation. Specifically targeted towards engaging students in a rich inquiry investigation, we layered a socio-scientific narrative and an interactive rule set into a multi-user virtual environment gaming engine to establish a virtual world through which students learned about science inquiry, water quality concepts, and the challenges in balancing scientific and socio-economic factors. Overall, students were clearly engaged, participated in rich scientific discourse, submitted quality work, and learned science content. Further, through participation in this narrative, students developed a rich perceptual, conceptual, and ethical understanding of science. This study suggests that multi-user virtual worlds can be effectively leveraged to support academic content learning.
Motivation and contemporary socio-constructivist instructional perspectives (1997) Daniel T Hickey Educational Psychologist, 32 (3), 175-193
The perspective generally referred to as socio-constructivism is prominent in contemporary educational reform efforts. This article argues for expanded study of the motivational issues presented by new curricular approaches that follow from this perspective. The conflict between the models of motivation that are most influential in education and socio-constructivist perspectives is explored, and newer models of motivation, including explicitly socio-constructivist ones, are described. A review of motivation's treatment in new curricular approaches further illustrates how socio-constructivist perspectives can expand and revise our understanding of classroom motivation. This review also illustrates how the expanded study of motivation might help demonstrate the value of new approaches, and yield important insights that can help advance them. Finally, this review shows h w ubiquitous intrinsically motivating instructional …
Situationally embodied curriculum: Relating formalisms and contexts (2007) Sasha Barab, Steve Zuiker, Scott Warren, Dan Hickey, Adam Ingram‐Goble, Eun‐Ju Kwon ... Science Education, 91 (5), 750-782
This study describes an example of design‐based research in which we make theoretical improvements in our understanding, in part based on empirical work, and use these to revise our curriculum and, simultaneously, our evolving theory of the relations between contexts and disciplinary formalisms. Prior to this study, we completed a first cycle of design revisions to a game‐based ecological sciences curriculum to make more apparent specific domain concepts associated with targeted learning standards. Of particular interest was using gaming principles to embed standards‐based science concepts in the curricular experience without undermining the situative embodiment central to our design philosophy. In Study One reported here, the same first‐cycle elementary teacher used the refined second‐cycle curriculum, again with high‐ability fourth graders. We then analyzed qualitative and quantitative data on …
Engaged participation versus marginal nonparticipation: A stridently sociocultural approach to acheivement motivation (2003) Daniel T Hickey The Elementary School Journal, 103 (4), 401-429
In recent years, some educational researchers who study motivation have been expanding their focus to consider the broader contexts of motivated activity. Sociocultural views of knowing and learning are an influential force in this movement. In this article I apply the sociocultural assumption that knowledge resides in contexts of its use to the study of achievement motivation. I then use this "participatory" view of knowing and learning to define a stridently sociocultural approach to "motivation-in-context." I contrast conventional behavioral and cognitive assumptions about engagement with the sociocultural notion of engaged participation in the coconstruction of standards and values in learning contexts. I also explore the complex issue of reconciliation between individual and social activity that is critical to contextual considerations of motivation. The conventional aggregative approach to reconciliation is compared to …
The motivational and academic consequences of elementary mathematics environments: Do constructivist innovations and reforms make a difference? (2001) Daniel T Hickey, Allison L Moore and James W Pellegrino American Educational Research Journal, 38 (3), 611-652
This study examined the effects of a videodisc-based mathematical problem-solving series known as The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury, as implemented by one school district within a constructivist-inspired reform of its math curricula. The motivational and academic consequences of both the specific innovation and the broader reforms were examined in 19 fifth-grade classrooms in two pairs of closely matched schools. One pair of schools served higher-achieving high-socioeconomic status (SES) students while the other pair served relatively lower-achieving low-SES students. Significantly larger gains on the Mathematical Problem-solving subtest of the ITBS were documented in the 10 classrooms where the Jasper activities were implemented, and in the 10 classrooms that were ranked as relatively more …
A multilevel analysis of the effects of external rewards on elementary students' motivation, engagement and learning in an educational game (2014) Michael Filsecker and Daniel Thomas Hickey Computers & Education, 75 136-148
This study investigated the effects of external rewards on fifth graders' motivation, engagement and learning while playing an educational game. We were interested in exploring whether the feedback-rich environment of the game could mitigate the predicted negative effects of external rewards. Data of students' engagement and learning were collected and analyzed at multiple levels. A quasi-experimental design was used to examine the effect of external rewards in one group (n = 50) compared to a control group without such rewards (n = 56). According to the results, the external rewards did not undermine students' motivation (e.g., at proximal and distal levels), however they did not foster disciplinary engagement. On the other hand, students in the reward condition showed significantly larger gains in conceptual understanding (proximal) and non-significantly larger gains in achievement (distal). These results …
Argumentation: A strategy for improving achievement and revealing scientific identities (2008) Dionne Cross, Gita Taasoobshirazi, Sean Hendricks and Daniel T Hickey International Journal of Science Education, 30 (6), 837-861
In this paper we explore the relationship between learning gains, measured through pre‐assessment and post‐assessment, and engagement in scientific argumentation. In order to do so, this paper examines group discourse and individual learning during the implementation of NASA Classroom of the Future’s BioBLAST!® (BB) software program in a high school biology classroom. We found that the argumentative structures, the quality of these structures, and the identities that students take on during collaborative group work are critical in influencing student learning and achievement in science. We provide recommendations for instructors implementing argumentation in their science classrooms, and provide suggestions for the development of future research in this area.
Designing assessments and assessing designs in virtual educational environments (2009) Daniel T Hickey, Adam A Ingram-Goble and Ellen M Jameson Journal of Science Education and Technology, 18 (2), 187
This study used innovative assessment practices to obtain and document broad learning outcomes for a 15-hour game-based curriculum in Quest Atlantis, a multi-user virtual environment that supports school-based participation in socio scientific inquiry in ecological sciences. Design-based methods were used to refine and align the enactment of virtual narrative and scientific investigations to a challenging problem solving assessment and indirectly to achievement test items that were independent of the curriculum. In study one, one-sixth grade teacher used the curriculum in two of his classes and obtained larger gains in understanding and achievement than his two other classes, which used an expository text to learn the same concepts and skills. Further treatment refinements were carried out, and two forms of virtual formative feedback were introduced. In study two, the same teacher used the curriculum …
Collaborative design as a form of professional development (2015) Joke Voogt, Therese Laferriere, Alain Breuleux, Rebecca C Itow, Daniel T Hickey and Susan McKenney Instructional science, 43 (2), 259-282
Increasingly, teacher involvement in collaborative design of curriculum is viewed as a form of professional development. However, the research base for this stance is limited. While it is assumed that the activities teachers undertake during collaborative design of curricular materials can be beneficial for teacher learning, only a few studies involving such efforts exist. Additionally many lack specific theoretical frameworks for robust investigation of teacher learning by design. The situative perspective articulated by Greeno et al. (1998) and third-generation activity theory as developed by Engeström (1987) constitute useful conceptual frameworks to describe and investigate teacher learning by collaborative design. In this contribution, three key features derived from these two theories, situatedness, agency and the cyclical nature of learning and change, are used to describe three cases of collaborative design in …
Integrating curriculum, instruction, assessment, and evaluation in a technology-supported genetics learning environment (2003) Daniel T Hickey, Ann CH Kindfield, Paul Horwitz and Mary Ann T Christie American Educational Research Journal, 40 (2), 495-538
This article describes an extended collaboration between a development team and an evaluation team working with GenScope, an open-ended exploratory software tool. In some respects, this was a routine evaluation, documenting substantial gains (of roughly 1 SD) in genetics reasoning ability in all but 1 of 17 classes, despite challenges presented by school computer-lab settings. Relative to matched comparison classes, larger gains were found in technical biology and general science courses but not in college prep or honors biology courses. In other respects, our effort illustrates the value of new views of assessment, technology, and research. The alignment of a sophisticated research assessment and simple classroom assessments shed light on initial failures, spurring revision. By refining the GenScope activities and …
Cast-off youth: Policy and training methods from the military experience (1987) Thomas G Sticht, William B Armstrong, Daniel T Hickey and John S Caylor Praeger Publishers.
This report summarizes a two-year study of the military's experience with" cast-off" youth of our society. It takes as a point of departure the highly controversial social experiment that occurred in the midst of the Vietnam War and the War on Poverty called Project 100,000. This publicly announced foray of the military into social action provides a jumping-off place for a historical view of just how the military has gone about testing, training, and employing the" one-third of our nation" generally considered untrainable and unemployable because of low aptitude scores on military selection tests.
Educational psychology, social constructivism, and educational practice: A case of emergent identity (2001) Mary McCaslin and Daniel T Hickey Educational psychologist, 36 (2), 133-140
Psychology has long been a field beset with identity crises of one sort or another. At midcentury, psychology openly struggled with self-definition-what is psychology?-and the role-whom or what does it serve?-it was to play in individual and societal issues. Educational psychology has suffered similar identity issues. This article examines briefly the history and futility of educational psychology's in-house fights over mission and contests for theoretical dominance, allegedly in the name of unity. This article suggests instead the desirability of collaboration among diverse participants and theoretical integration for the improvement of educational practices. This article illustrates this goal with discussion of current work within a social constructivist framework.
A comparative, sociocultural analysis of context and motivation (2001) Daniel T Hickey and Mary McCaslin Pergamon Press.
Hickey and McCaslin discuss issues in defining the conceptual and theoretical understanding of contextual motivation. They explore context-oriented motivation from different epistemological perspectives, with a particular focus on sociocultural perspectives. Being" cautiously provocative" they argue that different assumptions about knowing and learning lead to very different assumptions about engagement in learning that, in turn, support different models of practice for motivating that engagement. They review how rationalist views of knowing and learning support a characterization of context as a source of information that can stimulate or inhibit the intrinsic sense-making processes that are necessary for learning to occur. Empiricist assumptions about knowing and learning, instead, construe context as the source of both the associations that represent knowledge and the incentives for engaging in activity that …
Relating narrative, inquiry, and inscriptions: A framework for socio-scientific inquiry (2007) SA Barab, T Sadler, C Heiselt, D Hickey and S Zuiker Journal of Science Education and Technology, 16 (1), 59-82