news 2023

The SP80 team has just attached a kite to its sailboat, in another step towards its goal of breaking the current world record and reaching a speed of 150 km/h.

Researchers find that babies don't begin to process phonetic information reliably until seven months old which they say is too late to form the foundation of language. We believe that speech rhythm information is the hidden glue underpinning the development of a well-functioning language system. Professor Usha Goswami Parents should speak to their babies using sing-song speech, like nursery rhymes, as soon as possible, say researchers.

A landmark study from Monash University has found that infants and toddlers are capable of engaging in imaginary play, correcting previously held academic beliefs that they were unable to, and confirming the profound significance of imaginative play in early childhood education. Funded through the Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship scheme, the five year programmatic study, which involved researchers from the Faculty of Education at Monash University, engaged with over 2,500 educators and young children.

Students who are more digitally skilled also perform better in math. New research from Renae Loh and others at Radboud University shows that in countries with better availability of ICT in schools, math performance benefits greatly. It further suggests that improving the ICT environment in schools can reduce inequality in education between countries.

Even in digital courses, it's not just the spoken word that counts. Aspects such as tone of voice, eye contact and the appreciation experienced are also important, as a study by the University of Würzburg shows . With the corona pandemic came its big boom: digital lectures. Depending on the incidence and the respective regulations, lecturers and students met digitally in specially set up Zoom meetings.

Nearly half (48%) of Welsh children aged seven to 11 are regularly using social media, according to a survey led by academics at Cardiff University. The School Health Research Network's (SHRN) Primary School Student Health and Wellbeing Survey is delivered in partnership with Public Health Wales and funded by the Welsh Government.

Study using data from 10,000 people in the UK found that those who had a closer bond with their parents at age three tended to display more socially-desirable behaviours like kindness, empathy and generosity, by adolescence. As children, we internalise those aspects of our relationships with our parents that are characterised by emotion, care and warmth Ioannis Katsantonis A loving bond between parents and their children early in life significantly increases the child's tendency to be 'prosocial', and act with kindness and empathy towards others, research indicates.

Children's mental health worsened across the board in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the steepest decline was experienced by those from wealthier families - with employed parents or from higher income households Children's mental health worsened across the board in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the steepest decline was experienced by those from wealthier families - with employed parents or from higher income households.

Fathers can give their children an educational advantage at primary school by reading, drawing and playing with them, according to a new report published today. Research including Professors Mark Elliot and Colette Fagan from The University of Manchester found that children do better at primary school if their fathers regularly spend time with them on interactive engagement activities like reading, playing, telling stories, drawing and singing.

Data visualizations, including diagrams, are a frequent sight in the media. Histograms, in particular, are popular for their ability to present data concisely. Unfortunately, many people find these diagrams challenging to interpret. Lonneke Boels conducted an investigation into why this occurs, using artificial intelligence to analyse eye movements.

A team from the University of Geneva and HEP Vaud has developed an innovative method for studying teaching authority and assessing its effectiveness. How does pedagogical authority operate in the classroom? A team from the University of Geneva and the University of Teacher Education, State of Vaud (HEP Vaud) has produced one of the first in-depth field studies on this subject.

Study: Contextualized High School Performance: Evidence to Inform Equitable Holistic, Test-Optional, and Test-Free Admissions Policies Indicators of high school grades and standardized test scores that consider the levels of school, neighborhood and family resources available to students are strongly associated with students' success in college, according to new University of Michigan research.

Researchers use synthetic data to improve a model's ability to grasp conceptual information, which could enhance automatic captioning and question-answering systems. Powerful machine-learning algorithms known as vision and language models, which learn to match text with images, have shown remarkable results when asked to generate captions or summarize videos.

When the children's creativity meets scientific expertise, new ideas are born - for example, about what the sustainable world of tomorrow might look like.

If you have concerns your child is having trouble reading, new research shows it's likely something that needs attention. As children across the country head back to class this week, a new study from Western researchers shows parental concern is often an accurate indicator of children's reading difficulty.

Education about domestic abuse equips and empowers friends, colleagues, and neighbours to respond in positive and helpful ways when someone discloses experiences of abuse, finds a new study by researchers from UCL and SafeLives. The study, published in the journal Trauma, Violence & Abuse , synthesised the findings of 11 existing studies from around the world that examined the effects of domestic abuse training for colleagues, neighbours, or faith leaders.

Disadvantaged teenagers are at greater risk of email scams and need better protection, according to an international study by a UCL researcher. The findings, published in the British Journal of Educational Studies , were based on more than 170,000 students aged 15 and show that one in five from low-income families or deprived areas could fall victim to phishing.

In the case of boredom, we think of many situations in life but intuitively not of exams. However, an international team of academics led by Thomas Götz from the University of Vienna has now studied exactly this phenomenon of test boredom for the first time and found remarkable results. According to the study, school students are actually very bored during exams.

Supplementary family childcare in Switzerland lacks qualified staff. This has a negative impact on both the development of the children and the well-being of the employees. This is shown by a study conducted by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. In Switzerland, a considerable proportion of staff in supplementary family childcare work without formal qualifications.

Researchers at the Milner Centre for Evolution evaluated the effectiveness of conservation educational activities in the Cape Verde Island of Maio. Increasing understanding of conservation issues in schools doesn't necessarily translate into attitude change, says new research from the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath.