A recent study (Liu, 2005a, 2005b) revealed a limited number of alternative models of the universe held by young students in Taiwan and in Germany. In line with the previous findings, these alternative models frequently fall into two groups: earth-centred and sun-centred views, which draw a correspondence to the ideas in the European history of…

A cross-cultural experiment testing the effect of personal choice on learning was conducted with fifth and sixth graders from Canada (n=130) and Taiwan (n=153) using a computerized foreign language learning task. The results show that choice had no significant impact on children's interest, effort, or learning outcome. Although comparable to their…

Examined the relationship between phonological awareness and reading skills in eight-year olds from Britain, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Found that performance of Chinese children on phonological tests was not significantly related to their reading ability, in contrast to performance of English children, whose results continued to show a significant…

The paper reports a cross-cultural investigation conducted in 2001-2002 that seeks to reveal students' alternative ideas in two countries, Taiwan and Germany. It was carried out by means of semi-structured interviews in a story form. The targeted students were arbitrarily selected from grades 3 to 6 in both countries and amounted to 64. The…

The "computers are social actors" paradigm asserts that human-to-computer interactions are fundamentally social responses. Earlier research has shown that effective management of the social presence in user interface design can improve user engagement and motivation. Much of this research has focused on adult subjects. This study…

This study describes the application of a Web-based portfolio for appreciation and peer assessment for visual-art education in elementary school. Besides examining the effectiveness of the proposed system in enhancing visual art education, this study also addresses how Web-based portfolios can help teachers to assess student learning progress and…

A study was conducted to investigate: (1) the relationships between the results from various forms of assessment and the patterns of correlation across content areas; (2) how cognitive components correlate with the test results from different classroom assessments; and (3) how content areas affected the relationships. Data were collected from a…

A total of 30 kindergarten and second, fourth, and sixth grade students from Taiwan and the United States were asked to make category inclusion and typicality judgments for 6 categories. Findings suggested that cultural familiarity with instances plays an important role in the development of category knowledge. (RH)

Describes the school-based extracurricular programs in several societies in East Asia, suggesting that Americans use such information to develop more effective extracurricular programs. In those countries, schools are responsible for developing and conducting extracurricular programs, which they consider important for keeping students productively…

The main purpose of this study was to explore the effects of long-term constructivist-oriented science instruction on elementary school students' process of constructing cognitive structures. Furthermore, such effects on different science achievers were also investigated. The subjects of this study were 69 fifth graders in Taiwan, while they were…

A total of 87 college professors, childhood development experts, and school teachers from the United States, Canada, the Republic of Korea, and the Philippines participated, along with 34 representatives from the host country of Taiwan, in a seminar to exchange views and experiences related to the role of the arts in child development. This volume…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of various translation methods used in imported instructional video programs on Taiwan elementary school students' visual and verbal memory. Following pretesting, 128 fourth grade students from an urban public elementary school in northern Taiwan participated. The students in 4 experimental…

Traditional Chinese personality characteristics such as inner harmony, concern for others, submissiveness to authority, and respect for learning so pervade Chinese biographies that they constitute cultural themes. In order to determine whether such themes are more evident in Chinese than in Western youth, a cross-cultural study of self-concept was…

Harter's Perceived Competence Scale for Children was administered to 714 Taiwanese fifth graders; results were compared with those from American samples. Cultural differences were found. Results among Chinese replicate the measures' factorial validity and, across the two groups, indicate a high correlation between perceived cognitive competence…

This research investigated the relationships among teacher expectancy, student perception, and student self-concept. A sample of 1,598 Taiwanese elementary school children in grades 3-6 were administered a school self-concept scale and a measure of their perceptions of teachers' positive and negative oral feedback in academic and nonacademic…