Effects of Journalistic Adjudication on Factual Beliefs,News Evaluations,Information Seeking,and Epistemic Political Efficacy

A frequent critique of contemporary journalism is that journalists rarely adjudicate factual disputes when covering politics; however, very little research has been done on the effects of such passive journalism on audiences. This study tests effects of active adjudication versus “he said/she said” journalism on a variety of outcomes, finding that adjudication can correct factual beliefs, increase perceived news quality, satisfy perceived informational needs, and increase the likelihood of future news use. However, for readers who were less interested in the issues under dispute, adjudication also reduced epistemic political efficacy, which is confidence in one's ability to find the truth in politics.     

Behavioral inhibition,negative parenting,and social withdrawal: Longitudinal associations with loneliness during early,middle, and late adolescence

Adolescent loneliness can have detrimental effects on physical and mental health, but there is limited understanding of its antecedents in infancy and childhood. A 20-year longitudinal, multi-informant, and multi-methods study (first data collection in 1998) was conducted to examine mechanisms underlying adolescent loneliness (N = 128, 52% boys, M_{age_baseline} = 1.23, SD = 0.02, 99% White, recruitment in Dutch urban, healthcare centers). Structural equation modeling showed that high infant behavioral inhibition (BI) was indirectly associated with high loneliness during adolescence via high childhood social withdrawal. This indirect effect was equally strong during early, middle, and late adolescence. Contrary to expectations, infant parenting did not moderate the relation between BI and social withdrawal. The results suggest a developmental cascade with infant BI showing long-lasting indirect effects on adolescent loneliness up to 20 years later via childhood social withdrawal.     

Deference to Scientific Authority Among a Low Information Public: Understanding U.S. Opinion on Agricultural Biotechnology

This study uses the contemporary debate over agricultural biotechnologyto conceptualize a theoretical model that can be used to explainhow citizens reach judgments across a range of science and technologycontroversies. We report findings from a mail survey of NewYork State residents that depicts a ‘low information’public relying heavily on heuristics such as value predispositions,trust, and schema to form an opinion about agricultural biotechnology.Science knowledge does play a modest role, with the news mediaserving as an important source of informal learning. Contraryto expectations and past research, we do not find any directeffects for news attention on support for agricultural biotechnology.Deference to scientific authority is a central value predispositionshaping support for agricultural biotechnology. Positively correlatedwith education, deference to scientific authority is the strongestinfluence on support for agricultural biotechnology in our model.Part of the variable's influence is direct, but part of it isalso indirect, as deference to scientific authority is a keypredictor of both trust in the sponsors of biotechnology andgeneralized reservations about the impacts of science. Received for publication July 18, 2005. Revision received December 2, 2005.     

French nursery schools and German kindergartens: effects of individual and contextual variables on early learning

The present article investigates the effects of individual and contextual variables on children’s early learning in French nursery schools and German kindergartens. Our study of 552 children at preschools in France (299 children from French nursery schools) and Germany (253 children from German kindergartens) measured skills that facilitate the learning of reading, writing and arithmetic at primary school. We also evaluated educational family practices and parents’ expectations of their children’s pre-school education. In order to take into account the hierarchical structure of our data, multilevel models were used in the analysis, which was carried out using MLwiN software version 2.02 (Rasbash et al. 2005). Although French nursery schools emphasise academic learning, we did not find any significant differences in overall performances between the French and German samples. However, significant differences were obtained for some subscale results. In addition, our results indicate that individual and contextual variables have an impact on the differences observed between children from the two countries.     

La violence médicale envers les jeunes enfants

Medical Violence Toward Young Children. Two types of medical “abuse” are to be considered: (1) Mandatory violence in the form of preventive medical activities, i.e., immunizations, and curative medical activities, i.e., intensive care medicine. Means of decreasing the psychological trauma associated with these inevitable activities are considered. (2) Avoidable medical violence, of which three different forms can be identified: ? In the institutions: separation of mother and child is still a common occurrence in maternity hospitals and in pediatric hospital services. ? In medical practice: too often symptoms common in infants and children are dealt with by prescribing unnecessary drugs (cough, cold, crying during the night). ? In placement of children under the pretence of medical cures for such foggy diagnoses as “rickets” or “recurring rhinopharyngitis,” which are cover-ups of the inability or refusal on part of the physician to apprehend a child's real problems. Such placements are apt to irreversibly destroy the psychological bonds of the child with his family.The physicians and health care personnel in general should be better prepared to cope with their own subconscious mechanisms, which often result in questionable automatic reflexes and decisions. This would result in a decrease in physical or symbolic abuses toward children.     

The Role of Students’ Scientific Epistemic Beliefs in Computer-Simulated Problem Solving

Research on how epistemic beliefs influence students’ learning in different contexts is ambiguous. Given this, we have examined the relationships between students’ scientific epistemic beliefs, their problem solving, and solutions in a constructionist computer-simulation in classical mechanics. The problem-solving process and performance of 19 tenth-grade students, with different scientific epistemic beliefs, were video recorded and inductively coded. Quantitative analysis revealed that different sets of epistemic beliefs were conducive to different aspects of students’ problem-solving process and outcomes. Theoretically sophisticated beliefs were in general associated with logical strategies and high solution complexity. However, authority dependence was associated with high degree of adherence to instructions. Hence, there might not be a universal relationship between the theoretical sophistication of students’ epistemic beliefs and quality of learning outcomes. We suggest that the conduciveness to desired outcomes is a better measure of sophistication than theoretical non-contextualized a priori assumptions.     

Effective peer assessment processes: Research findings and future directions

Despite the popularity of peer assessment (PA), gaps in the literature make it difficult to describe exactly what constitutes effective PA. In a literature review, we divided PA into variables and then investigated their interrelatedness. We found that (a) PA's psychometric qualities are improved by the training and experience of peer assessors; (b) the development of domain-specific skills benefits from PA-based revision; (c) the development of PA skills benefits from training and is related to students' thinking style and academic achievement, and (d) student attitudes towards PA are positively influenced by training and experience. We conclude with recommendations for future research.     

The characterization of commercial artists’ alkyd paints

There is little information in the conservation literature with respect to artists’ alkyd paints; thus, artists and conservators are somewhat at a loss about how to use and treat alkyds. Recently, analytical methods have been developed to identify the components in these polymers (oil modified polyesters), rates of cross-linking and mechanical properties. Presented in this paper are some of the characterization results of artists’ alkyd paints using THM (thermally assisted hydrolysis and methylation) gas chromatography– mass spectrometry (THM–GC/MS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy–attenuated total reflectance (FTIR–ATR). Four brands of artists’ alkyd paints containing alkyd resin have been analysed; one containing a phthalic anhydride and pentaerythritol based alkyd resin, two containing isophthalic acid and pentaerythritol based alkyd resins, and the final one containing both phthalic anhydride and isophthalic acid and pentaerythritol based resins among the colours studied.     

Sport to the Rescue of the Suburbs: Sport to Educate? Sport to Reassure? When Politicians Respond to the Signs of Disturbance of Law and Order

Since the beginning of the 1980s, sport has appeared to be the last recourse against the worsening of living conditions, lack of job security and the ghettoisation of certain boroughs that stand out mostly because of continuing urban riots and juvenile violence. All of this is continually exaggerated by the media and politicians in their continual desire to dramatise and exaggerate. Certain sub-issues immediately emerge: what are the theoretical or ideological foundations on which this concept of making sport a lever for preventive policies is based? And what sport are we talking about? Is it the physical activities and sport (PAS) practised in the schools and institutes, civil sport or sport in the streets? Why do young people increasingly abandon civil/federated sport to practise ‘adventure sports’ or self-organised sports? Can self-organised sports and, more precisely, sport played outside the tower blocks favour the ‘self-control of impulses’? And if they can, under what conditions can they favour socialisation and contribute to preventing vandalism or violent acts? If it must be admitted that the links between sport and education, sport and prevention, sport and insertion, etc., are considered to be self-evident, they are rarely analysed or questioned.