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Pedagogy - Social Sciences - 02.03.2021

Parents depressed by pandemic had negative impact on kids’ education, well-being
Parent depression and stress early in the pandemic negatively contributed to young children's home education and anxiety, a University of Michigan study suggests. The stress could still be present today for some parents as their kids transition back to school while COVID-19 remains a danger. Continued support for children and parents will be needed, researchers said.

Innovation - Pedagogy - 26.02.2021

A Kazakh experiment in handwriting
New EPFL research on whether handwriting skills transfer when a child writes in two different alphabetic scripts may pave the way for cross-lingual digital tools for the detection of handwriting difficulties. Despite the increasing digitization of education and the use of use of tablets and laptops in schools, handwriting has maintained its central position in learning as the basis of many core educational activities such as taking notes, composing stories and self-expression.

Health - Pedagogy - 10.02.2021

Wider lockdown key to preventing Covid-19 surge if schools reopen
Wider restrictions must remain in place if schools reopen in March in order to keep the epidemic's R number below 1 in the UK, a new UCL-led modelling study suggests. The pre-print study, published on the site medRxiv, suggested that reopening schools to all pupils in some form on March 8 may lead to an increase in cases but that, if a broader lockdown remained, it was unlikely to cause the R rate to go above 1 and lead to the epidemic growing again.

Pedagogy - Psychology - 03.02.2021

Teaching pupils empathy measurably improves their creative abilities
Teaching children in a way that encourages them to empathise with others measurably improves their creativity, and could potentially lead to several other beneficial learning outcomes, new research suggests. We clearly awakened something in these pupils by encouraging them to think about the thoughts and feelings of others Helen Demetriou The findings are from a year-long University of Cambridge study with Design and Technology (D&T) year 9 pupils (ages 13 to 14) at two inner London schools.

Pedagogy - 01.02.2021

Parental control apps behaving badly
Researchers from EPFL and Spain's IMDEA Software Institute and IMDEA Networks Institute , have found that many parental control applications collect and share data without consent, and fail to comply with regulatory requirements.

Pedagogy - 12.01.2021

Family court decisions distorted by misuse of key research, say experts
Family courts are misunderstanding and misusing research around how children form close relationships with their caregivers, say an international group of experts. The decisions reached by family courts can have a major impact on a child's life, but as we've seen, these decisions may be based on incorrect understanding and assumptions Robbie Duschinsky Seventy experts from across the globe argue that widespread misunderstandings around attachment research have hampered its accurate implementation, with potentially negative consequences for decisions in family courts.

Pedagogy - 08.12.2020

Pupils can learn more effectively through stories than activities
Storytelling is the most effective way of teaching school children about evolution, say researchers at the Milner Centre for Evolution. Last updated on Tuesday 8 December 2020 A randomised controlled trial found that children learn about evolution more effectively when engaged through stories read by the teacher, than through doing tasks to demonstrate the same concept.

Campus - Pedagogy - 02.12.2020

Parents shouldn’t worry about their baby’s inconsistent sleep patterns
New parents often expect their baby to start sleeping through the night around the time they reach six months of age. But according to a new study led by Professor Marie-Hélène Pennestri, parents should view sleep consolidation as a process, instead of a milestone to be achieved at a specific age. Tracking 44 infants over a period of two weeks, she found that sleeping patterns vary greatly - not only for different babies, but also night to night for the same baby.

Pedagogy - Mathematics - 27.11.2020

Storybooks could help children’s maths
Tutoring programmes and storybooks can help improve children's attainment in maths, according to a new evidence review led by UCL researchers. The evidence review, published today by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and written by a team from the UCL Institute of Education, the University of Brighton, Loughborough University and Ulster University, synthesises the best international evidence about the teaching and learning mathematics for children in Early Years and Key Stage 1 (between the ages of 3 and 7).

Health - Pedagogy - 10.11.2020

Study completes COVID-19 antibody testing
Children of the 90s, a health study based at the University of Bristol, has today [10 November] published results from a study testing almost 5,000 participants for COVID-19 antibodies. The results found 4.3 per cent reported a positive result, of which a quarter were asymptomatic and did not report any symptoms in previous questionnaires.

Social Sciences - Pedagogy - 06.10.2020

Children use make-believe aggression and violence to manage bad-tempered peers
Children are more likely to introduce violent themes into their pretend play, such as imaginary fighting or killing, if they are with playmates whom peers consider bad-tempered, new research suggests. For some children, this could actually be a way of developing their social and emotional skills Zhen Rao Academics from the University of Cambridge believe that the tendency for children to introduce aggressive themes in these situations - which seems to happen whether or not they are personally easy to anger - may be because they are 'rehearsing' strategies to cope with hot-headed friends.

Pedagogy - 02.10.2020

Cheating birds mimic host nestlings to deceive foster parents
The common cuckoo is known for its deceitful nesting behaviour - by laying eggs in the nests of other bird species, it fools host parents into rearing cuckoo chicks alongside their own. While cuckoos mimic their host's eggs, new research has revealed that a group of parasitic finch species in Africa have evolved to mimic their host's chicks - and with astonishing accuracy.

Pedagogy - 01.10.2020

Parents, not schools, hold the key to maths success
Image by Jürgen Eick from Pixabay.com Parental influence has a far greater impact on a child's attainment in mathematics than any factor related to school environment, a new study published today from the University of Sussex reveals. Parents' own academic ability and their relationship with their child are much stronger indicators of a pupil's likely success with the subject than a pupil's feelings towards their school or individual teachers, new research by psychologists at the University of Sussex indicates.

Pedagogy - Social Sciences - 28.09.2020

Busy Pictures Hinder Reading Ability in Children
New CMU study shows extraneous images draw attention from text, reducing comprehension in beginning readers Reading is the gateway for learning, but one-third of elementary school students in the United States do not read at grade level. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are exploring how the design of reading materials affects literacy development.

Pedagogy - Health - 21.09.2020

Machine Learning Models Identify Kids at Risk of Lead Poisoning
Machine learning can help public health officials identify children most at risk of lead poisoning, enabling them to concentrate their limited resources on preventing poisonings rather than remediating homes only after a child suffers elevated blood lead levels, a new study shows.

Psychology - Pedagogy - 17.09.2020

Housing wealth matters for children’s mental health
Children growing up in families with expensive homes have fewer emotional and behavioural problems, finds new research led by the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) based at the UCL Social Research Institute. The study, published today in Child Development, is one of the first to look at the links between family wealth and children's development.

Pedagogy - 26.08.2020

Low levels of wellbeing among children in Wales
Children in Wales have some of the lowest levels of wellbeing among children across 35 countries, a team of Cardiff University researchers has found. The team, from the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD), surveyed over 2,600 children from across Wales about their own happiness, satisfaction and psychological wellbeing, as well as how respected they feel and their inclusion in decision-making processes.

Pedagogy - 18.08.2020

New study to consider how touchscreens affect pre-schoolers’ play
A new research project will look at how touchscreens affect the way two and three year olds play and what impact this has on children's development. Leading the study is Dr Elena Hoicka , a senior lecturer in Psychology at the University of Bristol, whose research focus is on the role of creative play in early cognitive development.

Social Sciences - Pedagogy - 18.08.2020

Undocumented parents teach Latino kids to be overly cautious
Parents who are undocumented immigrants are more likely than documented parents to teach mistrust to their children and to be wary of interactions with law enforcement personnel and non-Latinos, say University of Michigan researchers. These messages, in turn, can lead to higher levels of depression among those adolescents, they say.

Pedagogy - Career - 29.07.2020

The future of work is flexible - says new study
Lockdown has also had a disproportionately negative impact on parents, especially mothers, with a majority noting that they have been carrying out more housework and care New research from the University of Kent and the University of Birmingham has found that mass homeworking during the COVID-19 lockdown has presented significant challenges for parents, particularly mothers, but has also changed the way that many people intend to work in the future.