It has been suggested that working memory training programs are effective both as treatments for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other cognitive disorders in children and as a tool to improve cognitive ability and scholastic attainment in typically developing children and adults. However, effects across studies appear to be variable, and a systematic meta-analytic review was undertaken. To be included in the review, studies had to be randomized controlled trials or quasi-experiments without randomization, have a treatment, and have either a treated group or an untreated control group. Twenty-three studies with 30 group comparisons met the criteria for inclusion. The studies included involved clinical samples and samples of typically developing children and adults. Meta-analyses indicated that the programs produced reliable short-term improvements in working memory skills. For verbal working memory, these near-transfer effects were not sustained at follow-up, whereas for visuospatial working memory, limited evidence suggested that such effects might be maintained. More importantly, there was no convincing evidence of the generalization of working memory training to other skills (nonverbal and verbal ability, inhibitory processes in attention, word decoding, and arithmetic). The authors conclude that memory training programs appear to produce short-term, specific training effects that do not generalize. Possible limitations of the review (including age differences in the samples and the variety of different clinical conditions included) are noted. However, current findings cast doubt on both the clinical relevance of working memory training programs and their utility as methods of enhancing cognitive functioning in typically developing children and healthy adults.

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Is working memory training effective? A meta-analytic review

Working memory (WM) is a cognitive system that strongly relates to a person’s ability to reason with novel information and direct attention to goal-relevant information. Due to the central role that WM plays in general cognition, it has become the focus of a rapidly growing training literature that seeks to affect broad cognitive change through prolonged training on WM tasks. Recent work has suggested that the effects of WM training extend to general fluid intelligence, attentional control, and reductions in symptoms of ADHD. We present a theoretically motivated perspective of WM and subsequently review the WM training literature in light of several concerns. These include (a) the tendency for researchers to define change to abilities using single tasks, (b) inconsistent use of valid WM tasks, (c) no-contact control groups, and (d) subjective measurement of change. The literature review highlights several findings that warrant further research but ultimately concludes that there is a need to directly demonstrate that WM capacity increases in response to training. Specifically, we argue that transfer of training to WM must be demonstrated using a wider variety of tasks, thus eliminating the possibility that results can be explained by task specific learning. Additionally, we express concern that many of the most promising results (e.g., increased intelligence) cannot be readily attributed to changes in WM capacity. Thus, a critical goal for future research is to uncover the mechanisms that lead to transfer of training.

https://analyseeconomique.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/is-working-memory-training-effective.pdf

Is working memory training effective

One of the first books to shine a light on the broad scope of translation studies,
this Routledge Translation Classic is widely regarded as a pillar of the discipline.
Authored by one of the most infl uential translation theorists of the twentieth
century, Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame shows
how rewriting – translation, anthologization, historiography, criticism, editing –
infl uences the reception and canonization of works of literature.
Firmly placing the production and reception of literature within the wider
framework of a culture and its history, Andre Lefevere explores how rewriting
manipulates works of literature to ideological and artistic ends, and demonstrates
how rewriting a text can give it a new, sometimes subversive, historical or
literary status.
Ranging across various literatures, including Classical Latin, French, and
German, and here reissued with a new foreword by Scott G. Williams, this is a
seminal text for all students and specialists in translation studies, literary theory,
and comparative and world literature.

Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame

While contemporary political science (as, for example, in such subjects as political socialization, studies of public opinion, etc.) tends to emphasize the study of values and tastes (because of an assumption that political outcomes—like market outcomes—are determined by the amalgamation of individual preferences), the older tradition of political science emphasized the study of institutions. The line of research in political theory followed during the last generation has involved seeking an equilibrium of tastes; but it has revealed that such an equilibrium exists only rarely, if at all. The inference then is that prudence in research directs the science of politics toward the investigation of empirical regularities in institutions, which, though congealed tastes, are “unstable constants” amenable to scientific investigation.

Implications from the Disequilibrium of Majority Rule for the Study of Institutions

Grounded theory's popularity persists after three decades of broad-ranging critique. In this article three problematic notions are discussed—‘theory,’ ‘ground’ and ‘discovery’—which linger in the continuing use and development of grounded theory procedures. It is argued that far from providing the epistemic security promised by grounded theory, these notions—embodied in continuing reinventions of grounded theory—constrain and distort qualitative inquiry, and that what is contrived is not in fact theory in any meaningful sense, that ‘ground’ is a misnomer when talking about interpretation and that what ultimately materializes following grounded theory procedures is less like discovery and more akin to invention. The procedures admittedly provide signposts for qualitative inquirers, but educational researchers should be wary, for the significance of interpretation, narrative and reflection can be undermined in the procedures of grounded theory.

/pdf/reinventing-grounded-theory-some-questions-about-theory-4qg4hz6dkb.pdf

T. S. Eliot

Papers

Shakespeare and the Elizabethans

The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical Edition: Apprentice Years, 1905–1918

The cultivation of Christmas trees

The Criterion, 1922-1939

A reading of Eliot's Four quartets