Frontline Learning Research

Language-dependent knowledge acquisition

2024-06-17T05:55:14-07:00

Within the research on bilingual learning, first studies have revealed that content learned in one language is retrieved more slowly when participants have to switch language from instruction to testing (i.e., language-switching costs, LSC). These costs are attributed to language-dependent knowledge representations. However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying LSC are still largely unknown. We investigated these mechanisms by using strategy as well as translation self-reports and by analysing oscillatory parameters in the electroencephalogram (EEG). Thirty-six university students learned arithmetic facts of three different operations over four days either in English or in German. Afterwards, they were tested in both languages with concurrent assessments of self-reports and electrophysiological activity. As expected, LSC in response latencies were observed in all arithmetic tasks. More importantly, analyses of self-reports and EEG revealed that both translation processes and calculation procedures contribute to LSC, with translation processes being the main cognitive mechanism underlying LSC. These results corroborate previous findings of language-dependent knowledge representations in arithmetic fact learning and shed new light on the cognitive mechanisms underlying LSC and possible educational consequences.

Supporting Integration of Multiple Source Perspectives Through Dialogic Argumentation

2024-05-10T10:09:10-07:00

We report a study examining, for the first time, the effectiveness of engagement in dialogic argumentation in relation to its ability to promote integration of multiple source perspectives in an argumentive writing task after reading controversial multiple texts. Sixty-four primary school students engaged in a dialog-based intervention aiming to support them to learn to argue. Participants’ argument skills have been improved and transferred to a writing task completed after reading novel multiple texts on new, non-intervention, topics. In particular, the experimental group participants showed gains in their ability to integrate multiple source perspectives in an argumentive writing task after reading controversial multiple texts, compared with a control group which engaged in business-as-usual school curriculum. Microgenetic data revealed a progressive development of experimental participants’ integration skill throughout their engagement in the argumentive discourse activity. The findings have important educational implications. They show that learning to argue by engaging in dialogic argumentation is a promising pathway for supporting the ability to integrate multiple source perspectives after reading controversial multiple texts.