The stereotype that children who are more able solve tasks quicker than their less capable peers exists both in and outside education. The F > C phenomenon and the distance–difficulty hypothesis offer alternative explanations of the time needed to complete a task; the former by the response correctness and the latter by the relative difference between the difficulty of the task and the ability of the examinee. To test these alternative explanations, we extracted IRT-based ability estimates and task difficulties from a sample of 514 children, 53% girls, M(age) = 10.3 years; who answered 29 Piagetian balance beam tasks. We used the answer correctness and task difficulty as predictors in multilevel regression models when controlling for children’s ability levels. Our results challenge the ‘faster equals smarter’ stereotype. We show that ability levels predict the time needed to solve a task when the task is solved incorrectly, though only with moderately and highly difficult items. Moreover, children with higher ability levels take longer to answer items incorrectly, and tasks equal to children’s ability levels take more time than very easy or difficult tasks. We conclude that the relationship between ability, task difficulty, and answer correctness is complex, and warn education professionals against basing their professional judgment on students’ quickness.

Background Smartphone ownership has increased among teens within the last decade, with up to 89% of adolescents owning a smartphone and engaging daily with the online world through it. Although the results of recent meta-analyses suggest that engaging digital technology plays only a small role in adolescent well-being, parents, professionals, and policymakers remain concerned about the impact that the instant connectivity of smartphones has on adolescent well-being. Objective Herein, we introduce the protocol of a research study investigating the associations between adolescent smartphone use and different facets of well-being (social, physical, and psychological), with the aim to apply innovative methods to address the limitations of existing empirical studies. Methods This 12-month prospective study of adolescents uses a repeated measurement-burst design with the ecological momentary assessment methodology. Adolescents (N=203; age range 13-17 years) complete baseline assessments through online questionnaires, four 14-day intensive data collection bursts, and an online questionnaire at the end of the study. As part of the 4 measurement bursts, adolescent smartphone behavior is assessed objectively by passive data collection of smartphone data logs and through self-reports in short questionnaires administered via a custom-built Android app. Results The protocol describes the study objectives, research tools (including the development of the Android app and specialized software), and process (including pilot studies, the main study, and targets for machine learning approaches). Two of the 203 enrolled participants provided no data during the first data collection burst of the main study. Preliminary analyses of the data from the first data collection burst indicated an acceptable level of compliance (72.25%) with the daily questionnaires. The design of the study will allow for the assessment of both within- and between-person variabilities in smartphone behavior, as well as short-term variation and long-term change in smartphone behavior and how it impacts the indicators of social, physical, and psychological well-being. Conclusions The innovative methods applied in this study (objective smartphone logs, ecological momentary assessment, and machine learning) will allow for a more nuanced assessment of the links between smartphone use and well-being, informing strategies to help adolescents navigate the online world more constructively in terms of the development of their physical, social, and psychological well-being. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/35984

No abstract

The building design is a crucial factor that can be actively adjusted and optimized to prevent human and property threats in emergency scenarios. Previous research suggests that specific building layouts may significantly influence human behaviour during evacuation. However, detailed empirical data about human behaviour in various types of buildings with different layouts are still missing and only marginal recommendations from this field are reflected in actual construction practice. In this study, desktop VR technologies were employed to study human decision-making in problematic T-intersections in the context of an emergency evacuation. More specifically, we studied fundamental attributes of buildings such as the width and length of the corridors and the presence of stairs to explore how they influence the choice of the evacuation route. The space-syntax isovist method was used to describe spatial parameters of corridors, which makes the results applicable to all buildings. Behavioural data from 208 respondents were analysed using multilevel regression models. Our results support previous claims concerning the importance of specific spatial layouts of evacuation corridors because respondents systematically chose wider and shorter corridors with visible staircases as the preferred evacuation route. The present findings further promote the ongoing discussion on the design of marked evacuation routes and building design that takes human factors into consideration.

Cílem studie je provést sondu do procesu skríningu intelektového nadání žáků v běžné základní škole. Předmětem této sondy je srovnat dva typy postupů pro identifikaci potenciálně intelektově nadaných žáků -nominace pedagogů (včetně seřazení žáků dle míry domnělého nadání) a výsledků skupinově administrovaného testu fluidní inteligence (CFT 20-R). Současně byla zhodnocena délka praxe pedagogů jakožto faktoru, který může ovlivňovat souvislost nominace učitele a výsledků inteligenčního testu. Výzkumu se zúčastnilo 6 třídních učitelů vybrané základní školy, kteří posuzovali celkem 106 žáků ze čtvrtých a pátých tříd. Míra shody mezi oběma postupy je spíše nízká a není ovlivněna délkou praxe zapojených pedagogů. Byl však nalezen slabý vztah mezi pořadím vybraných žáků stanoveným pedagogem v rámci nominace a fluidní inteligencí měřenou testem. Tato z jištění a jejich možné příčiny jsou diskutovány společně s doporučeními pro další směřování v rámci identifikace nadaných dětí a s ním souvisejícím vzděláváním pedagogů.