Abstract

There are few intervention programs designed for reducing bullying in the classrooms. The purpose of the study was to determine the effectiveness of an intervention program based on the principles of applied behavior analysis to reduce bullying in the classroom. The program was designed to train elementary school teachers in the application of eight behavioral techniques (i.e., stimuli control, cost of response, reinforcing alternative responses, self-control of anger, group contingencies, task analysis, monitoring, and shaping). Eight teachers from three public schools were trained and they implemented the program during a whole school year. Those teachers had 223 students. From that total 28 were identified as bullies and 28 as victims. The bullying behavior of those 28 children as well as the disruptive behaviors of the 223 students were measured pre, during and post treatment. Results showed that the intervention program was successful in reducing bullying as well as disruptive behaviors. The program was especially effective in reducing antisocial behavior.

Abstract

Although digital media literacy is recognized as the essential competencies required for living in a new media age, it just starts to gain focus in Taiwan's elementary education. One of the reasons is examination-oriented education, with the result that diverts scarce resources away from this informal learning. The other reason is that educators tend to think digital media education as a series of purely technical operation, which might lead student digital media learning to mindless work. Therefore, this study designed a media exhibition based on Kolb's experiential learning model for teaching students concepts of stop-motion films and techniques of film production. A design experiment involved 247 third-grade elementary students that were grouped to visit the experiential exhibition. The findings suggest that the students have improved their knowledge of stop-motion films. Analysis of these produced films also shows that they have improved their media ability to represent their ideas and communicate with others. Through the analysis of the influence of demographics on the knowledge test, the findings revealed that the experiential exhibition is more effective for female elementary students and students' relevant previous experiences may not affect their acquired knowledge. Given those results and observations, we believe that the proposed experiential exhibition is a promising way to carry out digital media literacy education in elementary schools.Although digital media literacy is recognized as the essential competencies required for living in a new media age, it just starts to gain focus in Taiwan's elementary education. One of the reasons is examination-oriented education, with the result that diverts scarce resources away from this informal learning. The other reason is that educators tend to think digital media education as a series of purely technical operation, which might lead student digital media learning to mindless work. Therefore, this study designed a media exhibition based on Kolb's experiential learning model for teaching students concepts of stop-motion films and techniques of film production. A design experiment involved 247 third-grade elementary students that were grouped to visit the experiential exhibition. The findings suggest that the students have improved their knowledge of stop-motion films. Analysis of these produced films also shows that they have improved their media ability to represent their ideas and communicate with others. Through the analysis of the influence of demographics on the knowledge test, the findings revealed that the experiential exhibition is more effective for female elementary students and students' relevant previous experiences may not affect their acquired knowledge. Given those results and observations, we believe that the proposed experiential exhibition is a promising way to carry out digital media literacy education in elementary schools.

Abstract

The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has extended to all contexts of our lives in the last few years, modifying our communication, learning, entertainment and socialization habits. The aim of the present research is to investigate about primary-age children's habits with these tools, as well as these children's perception of parental mediation in this area. In this study we used an ex post facto descriptive methodology by survey. A questionnaire was applied for data recollection to 422 children of private schools in Santiago de Chile aged between 9 and 12 years old. The results point to an early access to electronic devices and the transversal and homogeneous use during childhood. There is no doubt that ICTs play an active role in daily life for most of these children. No significant differences in age or sex were detected in our study, but we encountered risky behaviours in how children use ICTs and in their perception of parental mediation. The complexity becomes more evident the more time they have with electronic devices connected to the Internet without adult supervision. This finding raises the need for the application of intervention programs on parental mediation of children's use of ICTs in order to promote a safe, responsible and ethical use of these tools.