There is a growing tendency in Asia for English as a foreign/second (EFL/ESL) programs to be implemented in the early years of primary schooling. Government policies supporting teaching primary school English are often framed in terms of globalization and the need to compete with other Asian neighbors. In the case of Taiwan, this notion…

The construct of self-esteem has received considerable attention in recent years. Self-esteem is defined as a personal judgment of worthiness that is expressed in attitudes that individuals hold for themselves. This study compared self-esteem of American and Chinese children. Subjects included 446 American elementary school students from the…

A reading test was constructed in English, Japanese, and Chinese to assess the validity of the claim that children learning to read Chinese and Japanese do not evidence reading disabilities. Large samples of fifth-grade children in Japan, Taiwan, and the United States were given the test along with a battery of 10 cognitive tasks. (Author/RH)

First and fifth grade students who scored high or low on a mathematics test were tested for intellectual ability and reading achievement. Students and their mothers were interviewed. Results indicated that factors associated with levels of achievement in mathematics operate in a similar fashion across three cultures that differ greatly in their…

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…

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…

In Taiwan, the moral curriculum has been part of the elementary school curriculum for decades. The 1993 edition of the Taiwan curriculum standard has a new subject titled "Morality and Health" that integrates previous "Life and Ethics" and "Healthy Education" subjects. This study explored the curriculum-development…

Compares mathematics teaching in 280 first and fifth grade classrooms in Japan, Taiwan, and the United States in terms of time management, organization, problem solving, evaluation, and coherence. Findings show that classrooms in Japan and Taiwan differ markedly from those in the United States. (RJC)

Kindergartners and first through fifth graders in Taiwan, Japan, and the United States were assessed on achievement and cognitive ability. While there were few gender differences in curriculum-based tests of mathematics computation and reading, cognitive tests revealed gender differences in the fifth grade in all three cultures. (RH)

The pragmatic function of conveying given and new information is one of the most important universal communicative functions that language serves. This study investigates how Mandarin-speaking children and adults utilize surface cues of word order, marked grammatical structure, and emphatic stress to determine whether information is given or new…

Recent calls for educational reform have focused on secondary schools, but results emerging from a cross-national study suggest that the reasons for American students' achievement problems lie not only in American schools but also in American homes. In the study, American, Taiwanese, and Japanese first and fifth graders were tested in reading and…

This book contains a compilation of papers presented at the International Conference on Education and New Developments (END 2017), organized by the World Institute for Advanced Research and Science (W.I.A.R.S.). Education, in our contemporary world, is a right since we are born. Every experience has a formative effect on the constitution of the…

Academic risk taking--the selection of schoollike tasks ranging in difficulty and probability of success--was examined for 602 students in grades 4, 6, and 8 in Taiwan. Results of a self-report measure of tolerance for failure and a risk-taking task are discussed concerning self-enhancement versus self-assessment goals, metacognitive skills, and…

Compares mathematics achievement of children in Taiwan and the United States by analyzing the arithmetical learning contexts of each. Interviews with parents and teachers identify cultural beliefs about learning arithmetic; interviews with students identify level of sophistication of arithmetical concepts. Found greater understanding by Chinese…