Abstracts - Earli

However, good procedures for learning how to reflect-on-action and giving constructive feedbackon-actionremain crucial.J 1430 August 2007 17:00 - 18:20Room: 1.60Paper SessionInstructional strategiesChair:Tamara van Gog, Open University of The Netherlands, NetherlandsEvaluating the effects of a metacognitively-rich pedagogy in primary classrooms: ACTS inNorthern Ireland.Carol McGuinness, Queen’s University Belfast, United KingdomAngela Eakin, Queen’s University Belfast, United KingdomBrendan Bunting, University of Ulster, United KingdomNoel Sheehy, Queen’s University Belfast, United KingdomThe paper presents findings from a study that evaluated the effects a metacognitively-richpedagogy on children’s thinking skills in primary classrooms. ACTS (Activating Children’sThinking Skills) adopted an infusion methodology where a curriculum topic and a specific patternof thinking were taught together. The theoretical perspective with regard to children’s learningfocused on the development of their metacognitive capacities - on their ability to become proactiveabout their learning in terms of planning, monitoring and appraising their thinking. Comparisonswere made between a group of control children ((N=548, 25 classes) and two groups of childrenwho participated in the intervention for different lengths of time: ACTS 1/2 Years (N=412, 17classes) and ACTS 3 Years (N=292, 12 classes). The main finding was that participating in ACTShad a statistically significant positive effect on how children rated themselves with regard to theiruse of cognitive and metacognitive strategies, their willingness to work harder and to put in moreeffort. The pattern was characterized as a pro-active learning effect. However, the changes tooktime to build and were not even across all learners. The implications of the findings for policy, andfor classroom practices for teaching thinking, are discussed.Comprehension instruction and development of reading motivation in four Norwegian 9th gradeLanguage Art classroomsOistein Anmarkrud, University of Oslo, NorwayThe study examines the comprehension instruction and teachers support in development of readingmotivation in four 9th-grade classrooms in Norwegian lower secondary school. The researchdesign is a classroom study, with video recordings from the classroom and teacher interviews asthe primary data source. The analysis is based on 16 video taped lectures of Language Art fromfour different schools. In the 16 lectures, students read expository text. The video data has beenanalyzed with two levels of categories. The first level of categories focuses on teaching andinstructional formats, organisational structure, activities and patterns of interaction in theclassroom. The second level of categories examined the teachers’ instruction in comprehensionstrategies and their support for development of reading motivation. Overall there is little explicit– 560 –