Yu, Yue

Teaching and learning in everyday life are fundamentally social. When children observe demonstrations from adults, for example, what they learn from those demonstrations often depends on their inferences about the intentions and knowledge states of the adults, which in turn depend on the adults’ choice of pedagogical methods. This chapter summarizes the literature on the effects of different pedagogical methods on children’s learning and discusses insights from empirical investigations and computational models of pedagogical reasoning. Specifically, the Bayesian model of pedagogical reasoning has formalized teaching and learning in pedagogical settings where teachers intentionally choose examples to guide learners (Shafto et al., Cogn Psychol 71:55–89, 2014). Applying this model to research with children, studies have shown that presenting the same piece of information in different ways may lead children to learn differently. For example, whereas direct instructions are efficient in transmitting information, they may restrict children’s own exploration and discovery as the model predicted (Bonawitz et al., Cognition 120:322–330, 2011). On the other hand, reframing these instructions into “pedagogical questions” may facilitate both information transmission and further learning at the same time (Yu et al., Dev Sci 21, 2018). Building upon these studies, it has been suggested that computational modeling and data science tools could be used to study how adult guidance can be optimized in terms of timing and form, to facilitate children’s learning during everyday activities (Yu et al., Front Psychol, 9[1152], 2018). Such tools may have implications for both formal and informal education in Singapore and may open up new areas for future research.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a significant challenge to the well-being of families with children. Although previous studies have documented COVID-related deterioration in parents’ mental health, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. It is also unclear how much of the deterioration is due to the pandemic itself, versus mandated lockdown measures. We conducted a cross-sectional study in Singapore to examine perceived changes in parents’ lives and mental health related to the pandemic and lockdown measures. In June 2020, when Singapore had just exited a nationwide lockdown, we asked families to retrospectively report on the family dynamics, daily activities, and mental health of family members during the phases before local transmission (Pre-pandemic), during local transmission but before the lockdown (Pre-lockdown), and during the lockdown (Lockdown). Results from 180 mothers and 166 fathers from 198 families showed significant changes in jobs and income, childcare arrangements, family dynamics, and parents’ perceived mental health across the three timepoints. Mothers’ increased time spent on housework was associated with the increase in their mental health problems from Pre-lockdown to Lockdown. Parents’ increased conflict with other adults in the household was associated with the increase in their mental health problems from Pre-pandemic to Pre-lockdown, and from Pre-lockdown to Lockdown. Mental health problems increased more for young mothers, parents with a graduate or professional degree, and fathers high on authoritarian values. Findings suggest that both the pandemic and the imposed lockdown measures impact parents’ lives and family dynamics, in turn leading to deterioration in parents’ mental health.

Religiousness has been proposed to promote prosociality among young people. Few investigations, however, have examined the underlying processes that facilitate these links, especially in non-Western and collectivistic societies. This study investigated the mediating role of the 5Cs (competence, confidence, connection, character, and caring) of positive youth development on the associations between religiousness, empathy, and altruism, while controlling for age and gender, among Southeast Asian emerging adults during COVID-19. Data were obtained from 1,888 emerging adults (M^age = 21.85; SD^age = 2.81) from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand. Structural equation modeling showed that confidence, connection, and character mediated religiousness and altruism while confidence, connection, character, and caring mediated religiousness and empathy, even after controlling for the covariates. However, confidence yielded negative relations with both outcomes. The results highlight the importance of distinguishing self-oriented and other-oriented thriving characteristics in facilitating empathy and altruistic behaviors in difficult situations.