A Study of the Child's Concept of the Teacher

Abstract

This study explores the concepts that elementary school children have of their teachers and some of the conditions that influence these concepts. The technique of exploration involves the use of the drawings that children make of their classes and teachers collected under standardized conditions. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that boys are more rejecting of their teachers than are girls, and that boys show no increase in rejection of their teacher as age increases, but that girls show an increasing rejection. Finally, the degree to which girls show a negative attitude towards their teachers depends to some extent on the characteristics of the teacher.     

The Influence of Creationism and Scientism on Attitudes towards Christianity among Kenyan Secondary School Students

The attitude towards Christianity of 624 form six students in Kenya was measured using the Francis scale of attitude towards Christianity Form ASC4B. Indices were developed to measure the view that science attains to absolute truth, the perception of Christianity as necessarily involving creationism, and personal religious behaviour. Sex, academic achievement, study of religion in form six, study of a science subject in form six, parental educational level and parental church attendance were taken into account in the analysis of the data by path analysis. No significant relationship was found between attitude towards Christianity and perception of Christianity as necessarily involving creationism, but the view of science as attaining to absolute truth does have a negative influence on attitude towards Christianity. The significant influences of students’ sex, mother's educational level and father's church attendance on attitude towards Christianity are all mediated through religious behaviour.     

High School Students’ Attitudes Towards Spiders: A cross‐cultural comparison

Spiders are traditionally considered to be among the least popular of animals. Current evidence suggests that a negative attitude towards spiders could be influenced by both cultural and evolutionary pressures. Some researchers suggest that science education activities could positively influence students’ perceptions of spiders. Their evidence is, however, ambivalent. Using a five‐point score Likert‐type questionnaire in which the items were developed in a similar way to four of Kellert’s categories of attitude (scientistic, negativistic, naturalistic, and ecologistic) towards invertebrates, we compared the level of knowledge of and attitudes towards spiders of high school students from two countries, Slovakia (n = 354) and South Africa (n = 382). The students represented different cultures and followed dissimilar science education curricula. Only among the Slovakian students there was a statistically significant but low correlation between knowledge and attitude (r = 0.30). The South African students scored higher in the categories of scientistic, naturalistic, and ecologistic attitudes. Comparison of attitude towards spiders of indigenous Africans from coeducational Catholic schools revealed that South African students have greater fear of spiders than Slovakian students, supporting the biological preparedness hypothesis. This hypothesis predicts a greater fear of spiders in South Africa than in Europe since several South African spiders possess venoms that are dangerous to humans. The results of this study are discussed from science education, cultural, and evolutionary perspectives.     

Validating ‘optimizing’ concepts: the importance of personal resolve,effective functioning,and academic striving

Abstract

Capitalising on current research progress, we explored via means of structural equation modelling (SEM), the operational nature of three newly developed optimising concepts: personal resolve, effective functioning, and academic striving. We conceptualised self-efficacy as a source of origin, and effort expenditure and motivation towards learning as adaptive outcomes of the three mentioned concepts. Correlational responses from Taiwanese university students (N?=?1010) affirmed our hypothesis regarding the operational nature of personal resolve, effective functioning, and academic striving – for example – (i) self-efficacy as a source of origin of personal resolve, effective functioning, and academic striving, and (ii) the effects of personal resolve and academic striving on effort, and the effects of effective functioning and academic striving on motivation towards learning. This significant evidence, overall, contributes to the study of optimal achievement best.     

新疆那拉提景区居民的旅游社会影响感知研究

以新疆那拉提景区居民对旅游影响的感知和态度为研究对象。在问卷调研获取研究数据的基础上,通过运用描述性统计、聚类分析和相关分析等方法,对居民总体感知的态度水平、不同居民人口学特征的态度差异水平、不同态度居民的社区参与水平进行分析。结果显示：总体上居民对旅游影响表示满意,对负面影响指标虽然得分较低,但均没有表现出不满意态度;除了不同性别居民对居民态度不具显著性差异,不同年龄、民族、职业和受教育水平居民对居民态度均有一定差异;根据居民对旅游影响的态度,可以分为淡漠支持者和矛盾支持者两类,前者对经济、社会、文化和环境影响的态度均低于后者。     

The Development of Consciousness Through the Supervision Process

The process of supervision can be regarded as an integrative process that enables the development of consciousness, since it helps counselors become aware of problems and search for ways of solving them. In this article the processes of supervision that lead towards growth and development of the professional and personal selves of an individual are examined. The process of supervision is related to several theoretical concepts that explain development in adulthood. Special emphasis is given to wisdom as a potential, natural stage of adult development, to the systemic or ‘construct aware’ stage of reasoning and to an attitude of self-questioning.     

近年家族小说文化内涵探讨

以文化研究为视角 ,近二十年的中国当代家族小说可划分为两大基本类型 :“社会、历史、文化”型家族小说和“个体存在、心理、文化”型家族小说。“社会、历史、文化”型家族小说着眼点在对家族文化的思考 ,对传统家族伦理道德、文化人格持矛盾心态 ,肯定其凝聚力 ,否定其负面作用。“个体存在、心理、文化”型家族小说则从人本主义角度出发 ,关注个体在家族中的命运及个体独特的生命体验 ,表现出传统家族的解体以及传统伦理道德的丧失 ,对传统家族文化扼杀人的生命力、创造力持积极的批判态度。两类家族小说对传统文化、人性的新思考折射出近年来人们文化思考的活跃和时代、文化的变迁。     

An inquiry into the efficiency of WhatsApp for self‐ and peer‐assessments of oral language proficiency

Social networking applications such as WhatsApp have been extensively used for language research; however, they have rarely been applied for language assessment purposes. To explore the efficiency of WhatsApp for assessment purposes, 30 Iranian English learners doing self‐ and peer‐assessments on WhatsApp are studied. The changes and the reasons for the changes in their attitudes towards the two assessment types are also investigated. In a multi‐phase study, the participants were trained on the new concepts of mobile‐assisted self‐ and peer‐assessments. They were also involved in the concurrent tasks of self‐ and peer‐assessments as well as think‐aloud protocols and filled out four attitude questionnaires before and after their involvement in the two assessment types. Finally, they were interviewed for the reasons of change(s) in their attitudes. The t‐test and think‐aloud results show that though the participants assigned different grades to themselves and their peers, this is not a procedural difference. The questionnaire results show that the participants generally adopted negative attitudes towards mobile‐assisted assessments after being involved in them. They also gave various reasons for the change(s) in their attitudes. The results can substantially contribute to the ongoing debates on the use of alternative assessments through mobile device applications.     

Attitude towards mathematics: emotions, expectations and values

This article suggests a new framework for analysing attitude and changes in attitude. After reviewing relevant findings in the field of psychology of emotions, the author will provide a new conceptualisation for attitude. Four different evaluative processes are identified as aspects of attitude: emotions aroused in the situation, emotions associated with the stimuli, expected consequences, and relating the situation to personal values. The usefulness of this analytical framework will be illustrated with an exemplary case study. An ethnographic case study of Rita, a lower secondary school student, will be analysed. The case study will describe her negative attitude towards mathematics, and then examine how negative emotions developed during problem solving situations. Within half a year her attitude towards mathematics changed dramatically to more positive.This revised version was published online in September 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Social and personal aspects of self knowledge: a balance of individuality and belonging

Concerns with persistent self-stereotyping by adolescents about academic achievements and body image focus attention on sources of self concepts. A self categorization approach to self concepts highlights a sense of individuality at a personal level, and a sense of belonging at a social level. This study investigates developmental trends in these social aspects of self knowledge for adolescent girls and boys (N=461) 11 to 17 years old. Results suggest that Individuality and Belonging are separate constructs, with considerable variability among adolescents. On average, a sense of individuality seems stronger for older adolescents and a sense of belonging seems more moderate for older adolescents. The implications are for individual differences as well as age-related variations in the personal and social basis of adolescent self concepts.     

Reflecting Caring and Power in Early Childhood Education: Recalling Memories of Educational Practices

This paper examines university social science and education students' views of research methodology, especially asking whether a negative research orientation towards quantitative methods exists. Finnish (n?=?196) and US (n?=?122) students answered a questionnaire concerning their views on quantitative, qualitative, empirical, and theoretical methods, their readiness to use quantitative and qualitative methods in their own research, and the difficulties they experienced in quantitative methods' learning. Students were clustered in groups according to their views. Students had varying combinations of views on the methods, that is different research orientations towards methods were found in both countries. Some of the students had a dichotic attitude towards quantitative and qualitative methods; they seemed to “choose their side” between these methods. In both countries a negative research orientation towards quantitative methods was found. It was connected with either difficulties in quantitative methods' learning or with a lower appreciation of empirical methods than that of other students. Major subject and study year had no effect, so the views were not discipline‐specific and students seemed to already have them on entering university. Views were quite stable during the course. A reduction in difficulties experienced with quantitative methods' learning was connected with a lowered over‐appreciation of qualitative methods at the end of the course.     

Reinventing Governance: The Role of Boards of Governors in the New Austrian University

In the last decade, the university sector in many European countries has undergone manifold changes in relation to the design of governance structures and processes. Accordingly, a board of governors with far-reaching competences was implemented by the latest reform of the Austrian higher education system in 2002. Drawing on an empirical research project, this paper contrasts the basic ideas of this reform with insights into the concrete practice of the new governance structure. The results show that board members’ personal factors such as personality, experience, and their attitude towards the multi-faceted nature of university governance, strongly influence the boards’ identity formation and actual work. It is concluded that such factors must be regarded when implementing governing boards in universities by means of university reform.

     

消极体育态度的形成及转变方法和途径

消极体育态度具有一般态度的心理学特点,它是人的内在的心理准备状态,是决定体育行为的潜在因素.消极体育态度的形成与其对体育的认识、体育活动的体验和有否相应的行为意向有关,并受到个体的生活环境和社会实践的影响.因此,只有遵循态度转变的规律,从其心理结构入手,改变体育的认识,情感和意向,优化体育活动环境,控制体育态度的影响因素,才能实现对消极体育态度的有效转变.     

Personal and Social-Contextual Factors in K–12 Academic Performance: An Integrative Perspective on Student Learning

Our extensive literature review in the fields of educational, social, and cognitive psychology has led us to identify about a dozen variables that demonstrate direct empirical links to academic achievement at the K–12 level. Those variables are grouped into four major categories: student engagement, learning strategies, school climate, and social-familial influences. We then categorize the first two variables as personal factors and the latter two as social-contextual factors. We document empirical findings that have shown particular relationships between the reviewed personal and social-contextual factors and academic achievement, mainly in the areas of reading and mathematics. Based on our conceptualization, we propose an integrated perspective that students’ personal factors in the domains of behavior, affect, attitude, and cognition as well as their social-contextual environment have to work in concert to produce optimal school performance. We conclude with a discussion on educational implications and future research to be addressed.     

Attitudes of Slovene teachers towards the inclusion of pupils with different types of special needs in primary school

Numerous studies show that a successful implementation of inclusion of children with special needs (SN) largely depends on the teachers’ positive attitude towards it. The empirical research that is presented in the main part of the article analyses attitudes of a representative sample of Slovene teachers (n = 1360) regarding four domains of impact (impact of inclusion on pupils with SN, on peers, on teachers and on the classroom environment). In this, we controlled the role of the following two relevant characteristics of the sample: the category of SN (physical impairments, mild intellectual disabilities, learning difficulties and behavioural/emotional disorders) and the category of professional expertise of teachers in working with pupils with SN. We applied the Impact of Inclusion Questionnaire. The results show that teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion are determined by the type of SN the integrated pupils have. In the case of pupils with physical impairments, teachers expressed the highest level of consent and the lowest in the case of pupils with behavioural and emotional disorders. Our study shows that besides the type of SN, teachers’ professional expertise in working with pupils with SN is another important factor that determines the level of agreement with inclusion. It turned out that the teachers who had taken part in different forms of education and training had a more positive attitude towards all domains of impact.     

青少年自我教育期望、学习态度和学业表现的关系研究

本研究利用PISA2015年数据探究了青少年自我教育期望、学习态度和学业表现之间的关系,研究了青少年自我教育期望对学习态度和学业表现的影响,同时考察了学习态度在其中的中介作用。研究发现:学生自我教育期望正向影响学习态度;青少年自我教育期望正向影响学业成绩;学生自身教育期望可以通过学习态度对学业表现产生促进作用。     

The Empirical Attitude, Material Practice and Design Activities

This article is an argument about something that is both important and severely underemphasized in most current science curricula. The empirical attitude, fundamental to science since Galileo, is a habit of mind that motivates an active search for feedback on our ideas from the material world. Although more simple views of science manifest the empirical attitude through relation of theories to data, we describe more recent philosophical scholarship that characterizes the relation of theories to data through phenomena (regularities in nature’s behavior that can be identified and characterized through data). This view highlights the centrality of material practice, in which scientists design data collection events to inform phenomena. Thus manifestation of the empirical attitude in science is characterized as a design endeavor that involves considerably sophisticated coordination among theories, phenomena, data, and data collection events. If we want students to learn how to participate in such work, curricula should break down these complex processes into more basic components at least at the outset. Our recommendation is to begin with design activities that can focus on the empirical attitude initially without the complex coordination with phenomena and data. We present an example of such an activity and share results that suggest design activities can target the empirical attitude and be built upon in curricula to gradually include coordination with phenomena and theories.     

Learner error,affectual stimulation,and conceptual change

Pupils' expectation‐related errors oppose the development of an appropriate scientific attitude towards empirical evidence and the learning of accepted science content, representing a hitherto neglected area of research in science education. In spite of these apparent drawbacks, a pedagogy is described that encourages pupils to allow their biases to improperly influence data collection and interpretation during practical work, in order to provoke emotional responses and subsequent engagement with the science. The usefulness of this approach is borne out quantitatively by findings from a series of three randomized experiments (n = 158) which show superior gains using this pedagogy that are still significant 2 and 3 years after the initial treatment. In addition, pupils who experienced more intense emotions during treatment demonstrated the most gains after 6 weeks. This research is one element of a large‐scale study of expectation‐related observation in school science whose findings impact generally on the proper consideration of empirical evidence and the learning of science content. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:151–173, 2010     

PREDICTING EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL‐BEING IN ADOLESCENTS USING TIME ATTITUDE PROFILES

Using cluster analysis of Adolescent Time Attitude Scale (ATAS) scores in a sample of 300 adolescents (M age = 16 years; SD = 1.25; 60% male; 41% European American; 25.3% Asian American; 11% African American; 10.3% Latino), the authors identified five time attitude profiles based on positive and negative attitudes toward the past, present, and future. Four of the profiles identified in the present study were conceptually similar to profiles that emerged in a study in a German sample. Adolescents with profiles characterized by higher positive attitudes than negative attitudes (i.e., Positive, Optimistic, and Balanced) reported more favorable educational and psychological outcomes than did adolescents with profiles marked by higher negative attitudes (i.e., Negative and Pessimistic). These findings provide support for the generalizability of time attitude profiles and the pattern of relationships between ATAS profiles and other constructs.     

Reinventing Governance: The Role of Boards of Governors in the New Austrian University

In the last decade, the university sector in many European countries has undergone manifold changes in relation to the design of governance structures and processes. Accordingly, a board of governors with far‐reaching competences was implemented by the latest reform of the Austrian higher education system in 2002. Drawing on an empirical research project, this paper contrasts the basic ideas of this reform with insights into the concrete practice of the new governance structure. The results show that board members’ personal factors such as personality, experience, and their attitude towards the multi‐faceted nature of university governance, strongly influence the boards’ identity formation and actual work. It is concluded that such factors must be regarded when implementing governing boards in universities by means of university reform.