This paper reports on a study carried out by tutors and students on Early Childhood Studies degree courses at a University in England. The research explored perspectives of three to six-year-old children's outdoor play in Danish forest kindergartens with the aim of troubling and informing approaches to outdoor pedagogy. Inspired by Somerville and…

Two experiments critically examined a predictive-coding based account of the vulnerability of short-term memory (STM) to auditory distraction, particularly the disruptive effect of changing-state sound on verbal serial recall. Experiment 1 showed that providing participants with the opportunity to predict the contents of an imminent spoken…

Previous studies have shown that test anxiety is related to attention bias. It is not clear, however, whether a congruent test-threat manipulation is required to elicit this bias or whether the bias is a result of automatic or conscious processes. In the present study we used a mood induction procedure to examine attention bias in test anxious…

Children as young as pre-school are experiencing difficulties related to stress, anxiety and inattention which could be supported through the use of mindfulness. However, there is very little research on how to effectively deliver mindfulness approaches within Early Years (EYs) practice. A year-long action research project was conducted with an…

Perspective-taking plays an important role in daily life, allowing consideration of other people's perspectives and viewpoints. This study used a large sample of 265 community-based participants (aged 20-86 years) to examine changes in perspective-taking abilities--a component of "Theory of Mind"--across adulthood, and how these changes…

Over the last 2 centuries there has been a rapid increase in the proportion of children who grow up in cities. However, relatively little work has explored in detail the physiological and cognitive pathways through which city life may affect early development. To assess this, we observed a cohort of infants growing up in diverse settings across…

This study aimed to examine the impact of a universal, school-based intervention, the Good Behavior Game (GBG), on children's behavior, and to explore any subgroup moderator effects among children at varying levels of cumulative risk (CR) exposure. A 2-year cluster-randomized controlled trial was conducted comprising 77 primary schools in England.…

Research has demonstrated that learning is impaired if students multitask with media while encountering new information. However, some have gone further and suggested that media-multitasking (as a general activity) may have a negative impact on cognitive control processes. If this were the case, students who are heavy media-multitaskers generally…

It is well established that test anxiety is negatively related to examination performance. Based on attentional control theory, the aim of this study was to examine whether increased effort can protect against performance debilitating test anxiety. Four hundred and sixty-six participants (male = 228; 48.9%; White = 346, 74.3%; mean age = 15.7…

This paper overviewed some of the research that had already been conducted in schools to support student wellbeing and reported back on research that the author had conducted in her own school, evaluating an intervention that aimed to help Year 12 students cope better with stress. The results showed a small but significant improvement in students'…

Paying attention is a critical first step toward learning. For children in primary school classrooms there can be many things to attend to other than the focus of a lesson, such as visual displays on classroom walls. The aim of this study was to use eye-tracking techniques to explore the impact of visual displays on attention and learning for…

The practitioner's own self is a resource in early childhood education and care (ECEC). It is proposed that an experiential training focusing on the "professional self" helps to raise awareness of how psychological dispositions may impair or enhance quality of provision. A key concept in such training is emotional labour, explored with…

Academic boredom usually contributes adversely towards student engagement and performance across a diverse range of settings including universities. The formal study of academic boredom in higher education remains, however, a relatively underdeveloped field and one surprisingly neglected in the UK. Rooted in Control-Value Theory, details of a…

In this paper, we discuss how iPads offer innovative opportunities for early literacy learning but also present challenges for teachers and children. We lent iPads to a Children's Centre nursery (3- to 4-year-olds), a primary school reception class (4- to 5-year-olds) and a Special School (7- to 13-year-olds), discussed their potential uses with…

A substantial proportion of children underachieve in reading (Brooks & Tough, 2006; Doubek & Cooper, 2007; Tymms & Merrill, 2007). This paper builds on the existing evidence base for the link between reading and rhythm, presenting findings of an investigation into a rhythm-based music intervention. Following participation in the…