Reexamining models of early learning in the digital age: Applications for learning in the wild.

AUTHORS: Rachel Barr, Heather Kirkorian

Young children are growing up in an increasingly complicated digital world. Research suggests that it is cognitively demanding to process and transfer information presented on screens during early childhood. In this review, the authors have provided an updated framework that integrates prior theoretical explanations to develop a new testable hypothesis, also considering how the research can be generalised. It also includes real-world applications for improving children’s learning and memory from screen-based media by adding supportive cues and reducing distraction and interference. The review concludes with a call for future collaborative research between researchers, content developers, and families to better understand age-related changes in both short-term and long-term learning from digital media.

Spontaneous past and future thinking about the COVID-19 pandemic across 14 countries: Effects of individual and country-level COVID-19 impact indicators.

Authors: Scott N. Cole, Ioanna Markostamou, Lynn Ann Watson, Krystian Barzykowski, İrem Ergen, Andrea Taylor, Sezin Öner

Nations had varying levels of morbidity and mortality and adopted different measures to prevent the spread of infection, as showcased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The effects of the pandemic on spontaneous past and future thoughts are yet to be explored. In this article, the authors conducted a multicounty online study exploring how both country- and individual factors are associated with this core aspect of human cognition. The findings showed that national and individual factors, both separately and jointly, predicted the frequency of people’s pandemic-related spontaneous thoughts, and that these thoughts had a negative emotional valence. As a result, this study provides novel insights toward better understanding spontaneous past and future thoughts.

Factors that influence deep/shallow lecture notetaking: Japanese and Chinese students’ strategies in math class.

Authors: Mengsi Liu, Yuri Uesaka

Lecture notetaking is beneficial for learning at different educational levels. However, there is a lack of consensus on effective lecture note-taking. In this article, the authors aimed to explore effective lecture notetaking and examined the effects of students’ learning beliefs, learning motivation, and teachers’ instructions on it. They compared Japanese and Chinese high school students. This study is the first to investigate effective lecture notetaking as a self-regulated strategy to be cultivated; this is an aspect that has been overlooked in past studies. The findings suggest that further investigation of teachers’ strategy instructions is required across both samples.

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