Can AI replace traditional language learning? A new study says not yet

When university students set out to learn English as an additional language, it’s not just about internalizing a new list of words: they also have to learn common word combinations. 

In order to sound fluent and natural, they’ll need to say “strong wind” but not “muscular wind,” or “reach a conclusion” but not “pull a conclusion” - a task that’s particularly challenging to learners who are stepping into terminology-heavy academic fields from economics to engineering. 

So what’s the best way to learn those invaluable combinations, also known as collocations? According to a new paper from the UBC Sauder School of Business, data-driven learning, with a little boost from AI, is still the most reliable option. 

According UBC Sauder lecturer Dr. Déogratias (Deo) Nizonkiza, the author of the study, the development of corpora — large, structured collections of texts and other language data — has been foundational for DDL approaches. It has happened in three major stages. 

In 1961, a groundbreaking collection of texts called the Brown Corpus was developed at Brown University, and comprised 500 text samples from media, religion, fiction, science and other sources, each one containing approximately 2,000 words. At roughly one million words, it represented the first large-scale collection of real-world American English, and it allowed researchers to effectively catalogue and analyze the language and its usage.  

In the 1980s, as technology advanced and computing became more widely available, the concept of data-driven learning, or DDL, was introduced. Instead of memorizing phrases from textbooks, learners could access increasingly massive databases of texts — with word counts eventually exceeding 100 million — to discover everyday language patterns. 

In 2008 came the Corpus of Contemporary American English, or COCA — a one billion-word database that comprises nearly 500,000 texts from 1990 to 2019 and allows students not only to search for specific words, but to look for examples in different contexts and academic disciplines.  

“That really significantly changed how we do things, specifically in the area of English for academic or professional purposes,” explains Dr. Nizonkiza. “But the searches took so much time, and people would get discouraged.”  

In addition to the sluggish searches, another stumbling block was that many language instructors didn’t even know the corpora existed, let alone how to use them, and those who did often treated DDL as a secondary activity — not a core teaching tool. 

Now with the advent of generative AI, or GenAI, says Dr. Nizonkiza, the process of searching for collocations has become far faster and more familiar — but that doesn’t mean educators should toss out the more traditional DDL approach.  

While GenAI tools such as ChatGPT can replicate some of the functions of the existing tools — it can identify and generate examples of common word combinations, for example — it’s often unclear where the examples come from, or how accurate they are.  

For the French-language study, whose title translates to At the Intersection of Corpora and Artificial Intelligence: A Critical Review of DDL Approaches to Teaching Collocations in Higher Education, Dr. Nizonkiza examined empirical evidence, including meta-analyses and systematic reviews, on the effectiveness of DDL.  

The literature shows that a hybrid approach that’s rooted in corpus-based teaching, and gets an added boost from GenAI, is the most effective.  

"We have to be very careful, because GenAI tools aren’t as precise as those traditional tools,” explains Dr. Nizonkiza. "So instead of relying perhaps on GenAI, we need to make sure that there is a combination of GenAI and the traditional corpora." 

The paper also provides a possible roadmap for that hybrid approach. For example, an English instructor could select a particular vocabulary — from the Economics Academic Word List, say — then identify common collocations like “control volatility”, “market volatility,” etc… From there, they can ask corpus-informed GenAI tools to generate examples of those collocations, which can be used to design structured exercises where students first fill in the blanks (e.g., “Portfolio diversification is a key strategy used by fund managers to ______ volatility in emerging markets”), then use AI to verify their answers. 

So rather than relying on popular AI platforms like ChatGPT or Copilot to generate examples, students complete the exercises — and only then use AI to verify and refine their conclusions.  

That process helps students to raise awareness of collocations, improve accuracy, and spur critical interactions with GenAI tools, says Dr. Nizonkiza. 

“It’s when they start university that they have exposure to these new words they haven't necessarily encountered in their everyday lives,” says Dr. Nizonkiza. “That's where having these tools, and being aware of what these tools can help them do, becomes essential.” 

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Journal

Nouvelles perspectives en sciences sociales

DOI

10.7202/1126572ar 

 

Exposure to suicide attempts within one’s social network = subsequent suicide attempts

 Full report

Also see: https://www.nber.org/papers/w35603?utm_campaign=ntwh&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntwg14

The mental health of adolescents and young adults has been described as a public health crisis, with escalating rates of depression and anxiety¹ and high rates of suicide thoughts and behaviors.² Research on suicide has documented contagion effects associating exposure to suicide thoughts and behaviors in one’s social network with subsequent suicidal ideation and attempts.³ These effects have been explained using models including media copycat effects,⁴ social learning,⁵ and assortative relating⁶ and have been supported by both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.^7,8

A systematic review examined research on exposure to suicide and subsequent suicidal behavior, with the overall evidence suggesting elevated risk among exposed individuals, although findings varied across study designs and outcomes.⁹ However, findings have not always been consistent regarding whether exposure is mainly associated with the emergence of suicidal thoughts, with the transition from thoughts to behaviors, or both. For example, Bearman and Moody¹⁰ found that exposure to friends’ suicide attempts was associated with suicidal ideation among adolescents, whereas evidence regarding progression to suicide attempts has been less consistent. Studies have also varied considerably in design, developmental period examined, exposure measurement, and the extent to which they accounted for individual mental health risk factors and broader social contexts.¹¹ Accordingly, reviews have emphasized the need for longitudinal studies that distinguish between suicidal ideation and suicide attempt outcomes and examine how social network characteristics shape risk over time.⁹

Suicide prevention practices, especially in communities of young people, often mobilize strategies to minimize contagion.¹² However, contagion effects are not distributed equally across young people. Communities facing higher levels of risky social determinants of health and young people identifying with groups that experience disproportionate adversities, including discrimination, also have greater contagion rates.¹³ Although prior studies have documented associations between exposure and suicidality,^9,11 fewer have examined whether exposure predicts suicide attempt onset independent of depressive symptoms or whether exposure is associated with changes in mental health over time. In addition, much of the suicide contagion literature predates contemporary digital social environments or does not account for online social engagement,^4,14 despite the increasingly central role of digital networks in adolescents’ and young adults’ social lives. Furthermore, adolescence and young adulthood are developmental periods characterized by heightened sensitivity to peer influence,¹⁵ making social network exposures particularly relevant for understanding suicide risk.

This longitudinal cohort study examined whether exposure to suicide attempts in respondents’ social networks was prospectively associated with suicide attempt onset, suicidal ideation onset, and depressive symptoms across 2 waves of follow-up. 

Result of study: Exposure to suicide attempts within one’s social network was associated with subsequent suicide attempt onset and higher depressive symptoms over time.

State social media laws don’t always align with evidence-based strategies to support youth mental health

From TikTok bans and age verification requirements to media literacy lessons in schools, U.S. states are exploring a wide range of strategies to protect young people online. 

The flurry of legislation reflects growing concern about social media's role in youth mental health, as rates of depression and anxiety have increased in recent years. But policy approaches have varied considerably, and the scientific evidence backing their effectiveness is mixed. 

To better understand how states are responding, a research team led by social work researcher Melissa Villodas of George Mason University’s College of Public Health analyzed 16 enacted laws across 10 states. The study, published in The Journal of Policy Practice and Research, offers one of the first frameworks for organizing and assessing the growing patchwork of state social media laws.  

Researchers found the policies generally fell into three broad categories: 

1. Limiting access through measures like parental consent requirements, age verification, internet restrictions in school, and, in one case in Montana, an attempted ban on TikTok. This was by far the most common approach, despite relatively limited evidence that many of these measures improve mental health for young people. 
2. Reducing harmful exposure by restricting targeted advertising to minors, limiting potentially addictive platform features, and expanding parental controls. Existing research offers somewhat stronger, though still mixed, support for these approaches. 
3. Building media literacy by teaching students about topics such as misinformation, cyberbullying, online safety, and social media's effects on mental health. This was the least common approach, even though existing evidence suggests it may be a promising strategy, particularly when it addresses both the risks and benefits of social media use. 

Why does this matter? 

"Most research on this topic has focused directly on how social media affects young people's mental health," said Villodas, associate professor in the Department of Social Work and the study's lead author. "We wanted to understand what state governments are actually doing in response, whether those approaches are supported by existing evidence, and where additional research is needed.” She also emphasized the study’s “person-in-environment” perspective, a fundamental approach in social work that considers how broader forces, including public policy, can influence a young person’s experiences and mental health. 

The study uncovered one glaring disconnect: the policy approach used most often, limiting young people's access, had the least supporting evidence of its effectiveness. Meanwhile, media literacy training, included in just one enacted law in Florida, appeared to have some of the strongest evidence behind it. 

"Many states have focused on measures like parental consent and age verification, but the evidence for those strategies is still limited," Villodas said. "Media literacy has received much less attention, even though it may be one of the more promising approaches when it teaches young people about both the risks and the benefits of social media." 

The study captures the policy landscape through November 2024, but Villodas said its findings are designed to help policymakers evaluate future proposals as the evidence continues to evolve. 

In addition to Villodas, the study was coauthored by Michael Wheeler and Natalia Acevedo, both recent graduates of George Mason’s Master of Social Work program; Fadi Hamati of Columbia Cornell Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at New York-Presbyterian; and Ishita Kapur of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

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Journal

Journal of Policy Practice and Research

DOI

10.1007/s42972-026-00155-5 

Today more than ever, higher income students receive more merit-based aid

Also see Financial aid for students without financial need: How widespread is it?

THE SHIFTING ROLE OF INSTITUTIONAL AID: WHAT ABOUT NEED? 

 Full report

The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), in partnership with the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), identified the financial aid application process as a barrier to more equitable college access (NACAC & NASFAA, 2022). The maximum Pell Grant in 2025-26 covered just over a quarter of the average total cost of attendance at public four-year institutions nationally and while increasing the Pell Grant is important, it is time to shift the conversation to examine how institutions distribute financial aid. Since Donald Heller’s seminal work on the shift from need to merit-based aid over 20 years ago (Heller, 2006), the research on the distribution of institutional aid has been sparse. 

Recent threats to federal financial aid programs and cuts to research funding have left the fate of lowincome students and the institutions that serve them in the balance (Knox, 2025). This follows the dismantling of race-conscious admission policies by the U.S. Supreme Court in the cases of Students for Fair Admission, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina1, as well as the COVID pandemic, which also exacerbated the barriers for underserved, underrepresented students (e.g., students of color and those who are low-income and first-generation) from enrolling in college and persisting through to a degree. 

Many public institutions have shifted toward merit-based aid over the last 20 years as part of their strategic efforts to attract academically competitive students, increase enrollments, and, in some cases, attract out-of-state students who pay higher tuition rates (Knox, 2023). And many selective colleges, as part of their enrollment management strategies, have historically recruited the highest achieving students who often come from affluent families. The practice known as “financial aid leveraging” places a premium on student scores that would boost an institution’s ranking rather than focusing on student financial need, even favoring students “…who otherwise can pay full freight and help boost the institution’s bottom line” (Burd, 2024). 

This research provides a much-needed update to the literature, examining the distribution of institutional need and merit-based grants by income and race/ ethnicity, in both public and private institutions. We also analyze the change in institutional aid patterns over time, and the remaining need left for families to cover through loans and work earnings. In addition to highlighting the needs of students, this research demonstrates the importance of collecting and using national data to track financial and enrollment trends of students and institutions.

 Key Findings 

Using the most recent National Postsecondary Student Aid Study2 (NPSAS:20) data, we find that: 

1. Higher income students receive more merit-based aid. 

• Merit-based grant awards are largest for the highest income students at both public and private four-year institutions. • The highest income students are also the most likely to receive merit-based aid at public institutions. 

2. Higher income students receive need-based aid. 

• At private institutions, one-quarter of the highest income students receive need-based grants, indicating that some private colleges and universities use a very expansive definition of financial need, one that goes well beyond the definition used for federal Pell Grants and most state need-based grants. In addition, the median need-based grant awards are roughly the same amount for both the lowest and highest income quartiles. 

3. White students receive the most merit-based aid.

 • Looking at race and ethnicity, White students are more likely than other groups to receive merit-based grants in both sectors, and Black and Latino students are the least likely to receive merit-based grants at public institutions. 

4. Merit-based grants have increased significantly more than need-based grants. 

• Over the last 20 years, both public and private four-year institutions saw increases in the proportion of students receiving institutional grants, with the exception of need-based grants at private institutions.

• Students also saw increases in the size of median grant awards, even after controlling for inflation — particularly among merit-based grants at private institutions. 

5. The lowest income students have the highest unmet need. 

• Taking into account student budgets (total cost of attendance including tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, and other expenses), grants from all sources, and expected family contribution (EFC), students from families in the highest income quartile have little to no unmet need in both sectors, while those in the bottom half of the income distribution have the highest remaining need. 

• The unmet need distribution is particularly noteworthy when considering how grants are distributed. Families in the lowest income quartile have an EFC of 0, meaning they must fill in the remaining gap with loans or work earnings. 

• Given the high levels of unmet need identified among the lowest income quartiles, it is unclear how these students are able to pay for the remainder of their budgets. Even after the median loan amount, work earnings, family contributions and grants are taken into account, low-income students at private fouryear institutions still fall short of paying for college and associated expenses. 

This analysis focuses primarily on dependent, full-time students attending public and private non-profit four-year institutions, as these students are most likely to receive institutional aid. A separate analysis of independent, part-time students at community colleges shows a similar pattern of high-income and White students having the lowest unmet need. Unfortunately, with shrinking federal support, pressure may be on institutions to seek cost savings through reduced institutional aid expenditures, or to use financial aid more as an enrollment management tool than a college access lever for the neediest students. Cross-campus dialogue is needed to further explore how financial aid can be leveraged in the current environment to increase college access and economic mobility. 

The teacher pay penalty remained high in 2025

 

Teachers made 25.2% less than similarly educated professionals

Teachers earned 25.2% less than comparable college graduates in other professions in 2025, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

The relative teacher pay penalty—which is adjusted for education, experience, and demographic characteristics—was a slight improvement from 2024’s record high of 26.9%, but still more than four times the 6.1% penalty recorded in 1996. In other words, teachers earned on average 74.8 cents on the dollar in 2025 compared with other college graduates—much less than the relative 93.9 cents on the dollar that teachers earned in 1996. When broken down by gender, the relative teacher pay penalty was 34.5% for men and 20.0% for women.

Overall, simple inflation-adjusted weekly wages for public school teachers fell 6.2% over the last three decades, while wages for other college graduates rose 28.8% over the same period. 

Teachers were paid less than other college graduates in every state, with relative teacher pay gaps ranging from 10.4% in Rhode Island to 40.7% in Colorado. The teacher pay penalty was at least 25% in 25 states.

While teachers typically receive better benefits packages than other professionals, this only partially offsets the growing wage penalty that teachers face. After accounting for the difference in benefits, teachers’ total compensation penalty was 14.5% in 2025. 

As the report explains, providing teachers with competitive pay is necessary to retain and attract qualified workers. While there are many important factors impacting teacher retention and recruitment, pay consistently lands near the top of any list. 

Reversing these trends will require targeted, sustained investment in public education at the local, state, and federal levels. It will also require stronger support for public-sector collective bargaining, which has long been a driver of better pay and job quality for teachers.

“The decades-long teacher pay penalty has taken a heavy toll on public education. Yet, policymakers have failed to make the needed investments to reverse course. That failure is especially troubling in a country as wealthy as the United States, with more than enough resources for its public schools to be the envy of the world,” said report author Sylvia Allegretto, who is a senior economist at CEPR and research associate at EPI.

The Meritocratic Consensus and Stratification in Higher Education

 American colleges and universities are highly stratified by pre-college academic achievement, family background, and institutional resources. This study involves the meritocratic consensus in American higher education: colleges that high-testing students (who are generally also from high-income families) attend spend dramatically more on instruction than do those that enroll lower-testing students. 

Stratification by test scores has been largely stable since the 1960s, but the stratification of instructional resources has risen sharply since 1970 at both private and public institutions. Non-academic admissions criteria like athletics, legacy, and affirmative action are second-order in determining the allocation of students to universities. 

Potential economic justifications for the positive association of instructional expenditures with student prior achievement—q-complementarity between achievement and resources, convex social returns to high human capital, and incentives to invest in learning prior to college—have little empirical support. 

Resource stratification across universities has not increased in the past decade, largely due to increased public funding of universities that enroll lower-testing students through financial aid programs like California's CalGrant, but stratification within institutions is now rising swiftly.

Measuring the Welfare Gains from Cardinal-Preference Mechanisms in School Choice

 Ordinal mechanisms use rankings but not preference intensities. Cardinal mechanisms also elicit school utilities, allowing them to use students’ preferences over assignment lotteries. This study compares probabilistic serial with four cardinal mechanisms that maximize the same welfare objective under successively stronger restrictions: capacity-only, ε-envy-free, envy-free, and a welfare-maximizing cardinal-preference pseudomarket. 

Because the feasible sets are nested, maximum welfare weakly falls as the restrictions tighten from capacity alone to approximate no-envy, exact no-envy, and equal budgets with common prices. We establish positive and negative results on large-market truthtelling. All 44 theorem parts in the paper are machine-checked in the Lean 4 proof assistant. 

We develop methods for computing cardinal-preference pseudomarket equilibria for Seattle’s 898 students and 11 schools. 

Using set-identified cardinal preferences from Seattle high-school choice data, we estimate that, under exact capacity, capacity-only raises mean welfare over probabilistic serial by 0.053, equivalent to shifting 5.3 percentage points of assignment probability from the average student’s worst school to the top school. Exact envy-freeness retains 79% of this gain; best-found pseudomarket equilibria yield a mean gain of 0.002. 

The estimates show both the value of cardinal information and the welfare cost of pseudomarket fairness restrictions.

Isolation drives lasting impact of cyberbullying on teens

 Teenagers who are subjected to online bullying are at greater risk of later emotional and behavioural difficulties, research suggests.

Young people who experienced cyberbullying were more likely to develop emotional and behavioural problems over the following six months if the experience led to feelings of loneliness and difficulties managing their emotions, a study shows.

The findings highlight the importance of supporting young people’s mental health after cyberbullying by helping them feel less isolated and supporting their emotional wellbeing.

The University of Edinburgh study is among the first to systematically examine the mechanisms linking online bullying and teenage mental health.

Around two-thirds of children worldwide report an increase in cyberbullying, with one in two saying they don’t know how to get the right support.

Researchers surveyed 501 adolescents to test whether more severe cyberbullying was associated with later greater emotional and conduct problems, and if so why.

They examined the results to investigate which emotional responses had the most influence on linking online bullying with later emotional consequences.

The team examined data from two senior Chinese high schools. China is particularly important as an example because of a high prevalence of cyberbullying, the researchers say.

The researchers analysed questionnaires which surveyed the adolescents aged 15 to 18 years about their online experiences, the research used the European Cyberbullying Intervention Project Questionnaire.

The surveys – which were repeated after six months – also measured loneliness, emotion regulation difficulties, self-esteem and emotional and conduct problems.

Findings showed that loneliness and difficulties in managing emotions appeared to have more influence than self-esteem issues in explaining why teenagers who experience online bullying were more likely to report later emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Problem with regulating emotions was a significant pathway to other emotional issues such as anxiety, while not being able to control impulses had a significant effect on the risk of conduct problems. 

This was the case even when other factors such as age and gender were taken into account.

Yixuan Li, PhD candidate, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Health in Social Science, who led the study, said: “Cyberbullying victimisation can have serious consequences for young people’s mental health, but our findings suggest that what happens afterwards also matters. Adolescents subjected to cyberbullying may feel increasingly lonely and may struggle to manage difficult emotions, which may help explain why some go on to experience emotional and behavioural difficulties. The clear message is that supporting young people after cyberbullying is important.”

The study builds on the team’s previous research which brought together evidence from 125 studies involving more than 260,000 participants from 33 countries.

The findings identified factors which influence the lasting impact of cyberbullying on teenagers’ mental health.

The current study identifies which of those pathways appear to play the most important role in linking cyberbullying with later emotional and behavioural difficulties.

The findings provide a more nuanced understanding of where prevention and intervention efforts may be most effective, the researchers say.

The study is published in the Journal of Affective Disorders (link to study: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2026.122151)

Elementary students respond more strongly about nature when told what it does for them

 How to teach children to care about the environment? Beyond including climate change and biodiversity in the curriculum, researchers argue that environmental ethics—how we frame the relationship between humans and nature—matters just as much. According to a study published in Ecological Economics on July 14, 2026, elementary school students respond more strongly, at least in the short term, when nature is framed around what it does for them rather than around its value in itself.

“Broadly speaking, educators often frame environmental issues through two different ethical lenses: anthropocentrism, which centers on human benefit, and ecocentrism, which emphasizes nature’s intrinsic value,” says Akinori Kitsuki, Associate Professor at Kyushu University’s Faculty of Arts and Science. “We know these perspectives influence how children learn and engage with the environment, but there had been little empirical evidence for it. That’s the gap we wanted to fill.”

To investigate, the team turned to Kushiro, Japan’s largest wetland and its first Ramsar site. Although protected as a national park, the wetland faces growing pressure from development along its edges, including a rapid expansion of solar farms. Balancing development with conservation will require active engagement from the local community.

The researchers ran a randomized controlled trial across all 21 elementary schools in Kushiro City, testing two versions of a 45-minute environmental education program. The lessons were the same throughout except for the opening, which raised one question: why protect the Kushiro Wetland? One version answered with the blessings the wetland provides to people, from drinking water to flood protection to recreation. The other showed how the wetland is sustained by the interconnections among its many creatures, from salamanders to cranes, and why that web of life has value in itself.

A follow-up survey conducted a week later found that only students who got the first version showed an improvement in interest in the environment. Students who got the second version showed no such change. As far as the researchers know, this is the first study to empirically demonstrate that different ethical framings in environmental education lead to different learning outcomes.

“Honestly, I didn’t expect that such a small difference in storytelling could produce such a clear, measurable gap,” Kitsuki admits. “One possible explanation is that a human-centered story connects to something close to children’s own lives, narrowing the psychological distance between them and the environment.”

The researchers also examined whether these classroom effects extended to parents. While the ethical framing itself didn’t seem to matter here, parents’ interest in the environment improved after their child took the class, suggesting a form of intergenerational learning, where what children learn in school spills over to shape attitudes at home.

Looking ahead, the team plans to extend the study to other age groups, including adults, and build a broader body of evidence on how different ethical approaches shape learning. In time, they hope these findings can inform both environmental policy and curriculum design.

Kitsuki emphasizes that the findings do not make anthropocentric framing preferable to ecocentrism. While it increased students’ short-term interest, recognizing nature’s intrinsic value remains important for long-term conservation and a sustainable society. The challenge, he suggests, is how educators communicate these ideas. For ecocentric messages in particular, hands-on experiences such as fieldwork may help students connect with nature in a more personal and lasting way.

“Environmental education needs to look beyond technical content,” Kitsuki concludes. “Environmental ethics are rarely addressed in teacher training, yet the ethical lens educators choose is a fundamental part of how they design their lessons. We hope this study encourages educators to give that choice more thought.”

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Journal

Ecological Economics

DOI

10.1016/j.ecolecon.2026.109150 

Preschool teachers overwhelmingly support play-based learning

 

While play-based curricula is linked to academic success, urban teachers report lower perceived support from families

 Thinkers from Plato to Maria Montessori have championed play as one of the most powerful ways that young children learn and grow. American preschool teachers overwhelmingly agree — but a new study finds that teachers in urban settings feel less family support for play-based learning than their suburban counterparts.

The study, published in the Early Childhood Education Journal, drew on survey data from 110 preschool teachers in two Midwestern states to examine how classroom play is supported across urban, suburban and rural settings. Researchers looked at three key factors: teachers’ own knowledge and beliefs about learning and play, their perception of family support for play and their perception of curricular support for it.

While teachers’ beliefs about play and curricular support didn’t differ by region — 96.9% agreed or strongly agreed that play supports academic learning — urban teachers were significantly less likely than suburban teachers to say families in their classrooms viewed play as essential to learning.

According to Erin Fox, lead author of the study and a recent graduate with a doctorate in human development and family science from The Ohio State University, both research and anecdotal stories from teachers and parents point to growing pressure in preschool settings to prioritize direct academic instruction, which can limit children’s time for play.

Fox was curious about how this tension was taking shape across communities and set out to explore equity in access to high-quality, play-based preschool.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is that play doesn’t support learning,” Fox said. “In general, I think most people would agree that play supports social emotional development, but may be less likely to understand how play can also support early literacy or math skills.”

Far from being just a “break” or a way for kids to burn off energy, playful learning is an evidence-based teaching strategy: The researchers define it as an active learning approach that combines child-directed, engaging elements with intentional adult guidance.

“From the outside, it might just look like kids are playing, but when you actually talk to the teachers, it’s very intentional and there are clear learning goals behind it,” said Kelly Purtell, a co-author of the study and associate professor of human sciences at Ohio State. The paper is part of a larger study focused on understanding how teachers use and think about play experiences in preschool and early elementary school classrooms.

Purtell notes a broader cultural shift in the way conversations about school readiness have come to dominate how families view preschool.

“When talking to teachers, both formally and informally, they’ve expressed that when some families send their kids to preschool, they really expect them to be there to learn and to be ready for kindergarten,” Purtell said. An increased focus on formal academic preparation, she added, shapes broader expectations of what preschool should look like.

As to why teachers in urban areas reported feeling less support from families around playful learning, the researchers speculate that parents in urban areas might be more exposed to narratives around the importance of school readiness, Purtell said, and there is a growing need to better educate parents and families about the important role of play-based learning in ensuring school readiness.

Parental concerns about kindergarten preparation are well-placed and understandable, Purtell said, and she hopes to help broaden how people think about school readiness.

“Play-based learning is a developmentally appropriate learning strategy,” she said, “and it’s something parents should feel comfortable talking to their children’s teachers about — to better understand how and why teachers are using play in the classroom — and how that’s helping kids develop and get ready for the transition to school.”

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Journal

Early Childhood Education Journal

DOI

10.1007/s10643-026-02276-8 

The hidden high costs of ‘free-to-play’ videogames

 Digital media, including videogames, are a central part of leisure activities for many adolescents and adults. For more than a decade, the industry has increasingly relied on highly profitable financing models in which games can be played free of charge (‘free-to-play’ games), while additional purchases are offered through so-called microtransactions. As the industry repeatedly emphasizes, these purchases are voluntary. 

However, the term ‘microtransaction’ can be misleading. Individual purchases of €100 or more can hardly be considered small, especially for children and adolescents. For the average player more frequent and smaller payments may be more common, but focusing on the average player may conceal an important problem. 

The average player can hide the real problem 

Similarities between free-to-play models and gambling are not limited to the well-researched and gambling-like mechanism of buying loot boxes, where players buy a randomized selection of virtual items, the contents of which are unknown at the time of purchase. Battle passes, virtual currencies, rotating shops, paid progression, personalized offers, and time-limited events can encourage repeated spending.  

A new study showed that spending on microtransactions is highly concentrated among a small minority of players. The highest-spending 10%, whom we simply called ‘heavy spenders’ — deliberately avoiding the gambling-derived term ‘whales’ — accounted for the majority of all money spent. The degree of inequality in spending, meaning that a small minority spent a lot of money while many players spent much less, was also remarkably similar to that found in gambling more generally. 

The researchers also found that heavy spending was not limited to adolescents from affluent families, and the prevalence of problematic behaviors such as gaming disorder and gambling disorder appeared to be higher among heavy spenders. Like gambling, a substantial share of free-to-play games’ revenue may be generated by individuals who are more likely to experience addictive behavior.  

Gambling is subject to varying degrees of legal regulation because of the potential for harm. However, videogames are subject to much less stringent regulations. 

How could regulation help? 

Regulation should expand beyond gambling-like loot boxes alone. While political efforts are currently being made to regulate social media because of its potentially addictive features, videogames remain comparatively underregulated, aside from specific provisions within the Digital Services Act. Several European countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands have attempted to regulate individual mechanics, particularly loot boxes. Research suggests that these approaches have had limited success, but the current momentum surrounding the regulation of social media could also be used to address dark patterns in videogames — design features that manipulate or steer players towards choices that primarily benefit the game provider, including increased spending.  

A particularly useful approach would be to introduce friction that interrupts the regularity and immediacy of purchases. In gambling research, event frequency — in this case, the frequency of microtransactions in games — is considered one of the strongest indicators of the addictive potential of a product. Similar principles should be considered when assessing monetization systems in digital games. 

Persistent addictive behavior and the associated spending is likely to be a problem that predominantly affects adults, and our study did not address this. Nevertheless, children and adolescents require greater protection. At present, responsibility for this protection is largely placed on parents and caregivers, who may struggle to help heavy spenders disengage, particularly when they are confronted with games that incorporate sophisticated design features intended to maximize player engagement and spending. Most young people use videogames competently and without experiencing serious problems, but a system should not be considered safe simply because many users experience no obvious harm. When a small minority of young players generates most of the revenue, that minority deserves particular protection.  

Numbers alone suggest the free-to-play economy is not really free. The monetization of videogame playing is of increasing concern and vulnerable players need protection from potentially exploitative practices. 

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Journal

Frontiers in Public Health

DOI

10.3389/fpubh.2026.1867460 

Children prefer fair punishment to unequal treatment

Consistent enforcement of rules is more important than the severity of the punishment itself, and children expect adults to treat every member of their group impartially and equally. Moreover, fair punishment brings emotional relief to children, according to research by scientists from SWPS University and the University of Michigan.

Children are keen observers, and their sensitivity to social injustice is evident from an early age. Even preschoolers are able to recognise situations in which rules are being broken, and expect that antisocial behaviour will be punished. As they get older, their sense of fairness becomes increasingly sophisticated: they not only expect that violations will be punished, but also understand that punishment should be proportional to the severity of a transgression.

Impartiality and equal treatment

In a study published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (a follow-up to an earlier study by the same team, published in the journal Cognition), as part of an international project, scientists Katarzyna Myślińska-Szarek, PhD (SWPS University) and Professor Felix Warneken (University of Michigan) focused on children's sense of fairness and their reactions to rule-breaking. Children from Poland and the United States, aged 6-9 (122 individuals), were shown picture stories in which characters engaged in a rule-breaking behaviours, for example, used smartphones at school or left mess after lunch. After watching a story, children answered a series of questions such as whether the character should be punished and whether the punishment was fair.

The primacy effect, previously described in a paper published in the journal Cognition, is crucial in children's assessment of situations. The decision made by a guardian or teacher regarding the first child who broke a rule sets a standard for subsequent instances. This means that if the first offender is punished, their peers believe the second should suffer the same punishment. If the first offender escapes consequences, children expect the second offender to be treated with the same leniency. Children are guided by so-called meta-norms, principles that dictate that rules must be applied impartially and equally to everyone.

In a more recent study, researchers also investigated what happens when both characters in a story face the same consequence - either both are punished or both escape punishment. They found that in this situation, almost all children (97%) believed the teacher did not need to change anything. However, when the consequences were different, as many as 93% of children demanded equal treatment. This shows that children focus not on punishment or its absence, but on equal treatment.

The results show that young children expect rules to be applied impartially and equally to every group member, and that being treated differently by an adult provokes strong resistance and undermines their sense of justice, says Katarzyna Myślińska-Szarek, PhD, a psychologist and sociologist from the SWPS University Faculty of Psychology in Sopot, the first author of the study.

The researchers also investigated whether it mattered if the characters in a story knew they were treated differently from their peers. It turned out that it was important: unless the story character knew what had happened to the peer, their emotions were assessed primarily based on their own punishment (or its absence). However, when the character learned that a peer had been treated differently, children were much more likely to attribute negative emotions (sadness, anger, guilt) to them regardless of the actual consequences. This demonstrates that children as young as six years old take into account what the person knows when assessing how they feel.

Punishment as an emotional reset

The experiment also yielded important observations on the psychology of emotions, related to how children perceive the consequences of breaking rules. A fair punishment does not evoke only negative emotions. While it may be unpleasant, it offers the punished child a sense of relief. Facing the consequences allows for closure for a difficult situation and releases the child from the burden of guilt.

Avoiding punishment, however, causes the initial joy of escaping the consequences to give way to guilt and sadness, especially when the child learns that another peer has been punished for the same offence.

Children do not analyse situations solely in terms of their own benefit. Their emotional reactions and assessment of situations depend on whether they know how others have been treated, explains Katarzyna Myślińska-Szarek. Leniency shown to one child in a group is not perceived as kindness, but as a violation of the principle of equality. Favouritism and selective enforcement of rules destroy a sense of fairness and cause discomfort even in the child who ultimately escapes punishment.

The results obtained among children from Poland and the US were consistent, confirming that sensitivity to double standards is universal and develops regardless of cultural context.

What are the implications of the study result for parents and teachers? It turns out that building authority and children's trust requires absolute consistency, because the first decisions after breaking rules establish the standard that children then expect to be consistently applied. Children measure the clarity and permanence of rules not by the severity of the punishments, but by whether adults enforce them impartially, predictably, and free from double standards, which is why it is important to ensure equal treatment.

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Journal

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

DOI

10.1016/j.jecp.2026.106553 

Exercise is linked to better mental health among college students

 Infrequent exercise is associated with a higher prevalence of common mental disorders such as depression and anxiety among higher-education students in Norway, according to a study published August 19, 2026, in the open access journal PLOS One by Michael Grasdalsmoen from Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, and colleagues. The findings highlight the potential value of consistent physical activity rather than intense, prolonged exercise sessions.

Common mental disorders are leading causes of disability worldwide in young adults. The transition to higher education is a particularly vulnerable period, underscoring the importance of identifying modifiable protective factors during this developmental stage. Physical inactivity remains pervasive among young adults, even though past research has suggested that regular exercise is associated with better mental health. However, relatively few studies have examined prospective associations between physical exercise and the later development of common mental disorders using standardized diagnostic instruments.

To overcome this limitation, Grasdalsmoen and colleagues conducted a prospective study to examine associations between physical activity and subsequent anxiety and depression. The participants included in the final analysis were 10,460 full-time, higher-education Norwegian students who were aged 18–35 years. They completed questionnaires that assessed exercise frequency, intensity, duration, and total weekly hours at baseline, in addition to a self-administered diagnostic instrument one year later.

The results revealed that lower levels of physical exercise were associated with a higher risk of clinically defined common mental disorders 1 year later. In particular, associations were more consistent for exercise frequency compared with intensity or duration. Low exercise intensity predicted anxiety and depression among women, whereas shorter weekly exercise duration was a stronger risk factor among men. The probability of common mental disorders declined as the total amount of exercise increased, up to approximately 10 hours per week.

In addition, the study provided support for meeting the World Health Organization recommendation of at least 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week.

Overall, the findings suggest that consistent engagement in exercise, rather than intensity or duration, may be particularly important for curbing anxiety and depression among higher-education students.  Although causality cannot be established from the observational study, encouraging regular exercise may represent a beneficial component of broader strategies to support student mental health, especially for individuals with emerging or subthreshold symptoms.

The authors add: “Our findings show that students who engage in regular physical exercise are at lower risk of developing common mental disorders over time. These findings highlight the importance of making physical activity an accessible and natural part of student life.”

“Mental health among students is a growing public health concern. Our findings suggest that supporting students to be physically active may contribute to better mental health and should be recognized as an important part of a healthy learning environment.”

 

Complete study: https://plos.io/4wwXhAB