The effects of worked examples in computer-based instruction: focus on the presentation format of worked examples and prior knowledge of learners

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of presentation formats of worked examples and the interaction effects between the presentation formats of worked examples and the prior knowledge of learners. An investigation with 97 middle school students working in four conditions (CPWE, CWE, PWE, and the control group) was conducted. The results indicate that CPWE was the most effective condition in retention and transfer. In addition, a partial expertise reversal effect was revealed in the element transfer test. High prior knowledge learners in both CPWE and PWE were superior to those who were in CWE and the control group, while low prior knowledge learners in CPWE were superior to those who were in other conditions.     

Protestant ethic endorsement,personality, and general intelligence

To learn if Protestant ethic endorsement predicted intelligence controlling for the big five personality factors, 364 college students from England and the United States completed a 65-item multifaceted work ethic endorsement measure, the 50-item Wonderlic Personnel Test, and a 60-item measure of the big five personality factors. A hierarchical multiple regression revealed that, after controlling for respondent's sex and the big five, work ethic facets accounted for 5.6% of the variability in Wonderlic scores. However, the direction of the relationship between PWE facets and Wonderlic scores depended on the PWE facet in question. Furthermore, the facets accounted for more variability than did a composite work ethic score. The discussion focuses on the multidimensional nature of PWE endorsement and future research with this construct.     

Applied positive psychology: Improving everyday life,health, schools,work, and society

Multiple disciplines guide our practice, but none is more relevant than the wholesome approach of positive psychology. In Applied Positive Psychology: Improving Everyday Life, Health, Schools, Work, and Society (2011), the editors address four core areas: society, human development, institutional organizations, and future directions. The strength of this book lies in its comprehensive compilation of research‐based, applied, and integrated practices for improving the living, working, and social conditions of those we strive to help every day. Applied Positive Psychology: Improving Everyday Life, Health, Schools, Work, and Society (ISBN: 978‐0‐415‐87781‐7) is published by Routledge.     

Expanding the Nomological Network of Work Avoidance: Antecedents and Consequences Across Contexts

Abstract

Work avoidance, or the goal to reduce effort in an achievement context, is related to disengagement and may offer insight into disengaged students and employees. To shed light on this issue, we investigated the antecedents of work avoidance in academic and work contexts to distinguish it from mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals. Two samples of employed college students (N?=?207, N?=?233) completed questionnaires about their jobs and in one sample about their introductory psychology class. Across both contexts, proposed antecedents of alienation, low need for achievement, and perceiving one’s competence needs as not being met predicted work avoidance. Work avoidance also accounted for additional variance when combined with achievement goals to predict citizenship behaviors, perceiving work/classwork as meaningless and wanting to leave/quit.     

What makes science hard? A Karplus lecture

Many able students are deterred from science because of the way science courses are packaged. To find out what makes science hard for otherwise intelligent students, the author employed nonscience faculty and graduate students as surrogate students in science. Their responses to the sequence of units, demonstrations, homework assignments, examinations, and the pace and structure of the courses constitute an internal criticism of science education that cannot be ignored.Sheila Tobias is the author ofOvercoming Math Anxiety (W. W. Norton, 1978),Succeed with Math (The College Board, 1987),They're Not Dumb, They're Different (Research Corporation, 1990),Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things Work and Most Don't (Research Corporation, 1992) andBreaking the Science Barrier (The College Board, 1992).     

Achieving quality education for minorities in mathematics,science, and engineering

The QEM Network was established to serve as a focal point for the implementation of strategies designed to achieve the six goals and 58 recommendations of the QEM Project report,Education That Works: An Action Plan for the Education of Minorities. InEducation That Works, we lay out a vision of a restructured education system that would ensure quality education for, and sustained educational achievement by, minority Americans. We discuss what some of the obstacles are that stand in the way of educational equity in our nation and why it is crucial from both moral and practical perspectives to overcome these obstacles. In a second publication,Together We Can Make It Work: A National Agenda to Provide Quality Education for Minorities in Mathematics, Science, and Engineering, issued in April 1992 by QEM's MSE Network, we lay out a plan for achieving specific goals for minorities in mathematics, science, and engineering. Achieving the goals ofEducation That Works and of Together We Can Make It Work requires that the current K-12 education system be totally restructured. The system we have in place produces only an educational elite that does not include significant numbers of minority students.     

Self-concept,school self-image,satisfaction, and involvement in an alternative high school

Alternative education emphasizes students' psychological development and academic achievement. The present paper reports a case study of the psychological correlates of students' adjustment to a small urban free school. It was expected that: (a) students would have high general self-concept, school selfimage, satisfaction, and involvement; (b) self-concept would discriminate between those high and low in school adjustment: and (c) there would be a positive relationship between school self-image, satisfaction, and involvement. Forty male and thirty female students voluntarily answered the New Morning Student Questionnaire (1972) and the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (Fitts, 1965). Results showed that students were psychologically well adjusted; they had a somewhat higher self-concept than the norm for high school students; self-concept was a good predictor of school self-image and satisfaction; and there was a positive relationship between school self-image, satisfaction, and involvement.     

Looks Like Me,Sounds Like Me! Race,Culture, and Language in the Creation of Digital Media

The technology education movement includes the introduction and application of digital books into science classrooms. These digital books are attractive alternatives to traditional texts because they can be customized for students. This qualitative study examined 35 students as they customized their own digital books. Using a variety of digital photos and videos, each student was asked to drag and drop images into their text. The students were provided with a variety of digital photos and videos to use to customize their books. The images were identical except for the racial cues of the characters. We used content analysis of students' selections and interviews of students (N = 35). We discovered that cues about racial authenticity served as the primary motivation for students selecting particular images. As students were given options, they consistently chose images that reflected their racial, gender, and linguistic identities. The results of this study indicate the need to recognize how racial cues can help students draw deeper connections to digital media if those cues are culturally authentic. This implies that culturally authentic racial cues would spawn deeper engagement for students.     

高职生时间洞察力与未来工作自我清晰度关系实证分析

采用时间洞察力量表和未来工作自我清晰度量表,通过整群抽样对432名高职生进行问卷调查。研究发现:未来工作自我清晰度与过去积极、未来呈显著正相关,与现在宿命、现在冲动呈显著负相关;未来、现在宿命、过去积极维度对未来工作自我清晰度具有显著的预测作用;未来取向被试的未来工作自我清晰度水平显著高于当下取向。结果提示,未来、过去积极对未来工作自我清晰度的积极作用,有必要针对职业教育特征,面向高职生开展相应的教育与干预。     

Secondary school students’ perceptions of teacher–student interaction and students’ attitudes towards project work

Project work (PW) provides one of the pathways for students’ self-inquiry learning and collaboration in Singapore schools. In this context, PW teachers function as facilitators. This study investigated quantitatively how a group of 270 secondary-school students (aged 14 years) perceived their seven PW teacher-facilitators’ face-to-face interactions with students based on the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI), and whether their perceptions of teacher–student interaction during PW classrooms were related with their attitudes towards PW learning as a whole. Seven out of eight QTI scales were associated with Enjoyment of Project Work Lessons and two QTI scales were associated with Attitude to Inquiry in Project Work. The findings are discussed in terms of how teachers who function as facilitators can translate their interpersonal behaviours into effective teaching strategies for communicating with students and facilitating students’ learning in PW classrooms.     

Intergroup Contact Attitudes Across Peer Networks in School: Selection,Influence, and Implications for Cross-Group Friendships

This study offers new insights into the power of peer networks for shaping intergroup relations in a diverse school. Data were drawn from a longitudinal study of sixth–eighth graders (N = 524; M_ageT1 = 11.87; 48% girls; 9% Asian American/Pacific Islander, 28% African American, 13% Latino, 1% Native American, 31% White, 5% Other, and 11% Multiracial) in the Midwestern United States. Students with more positive intergroup contact attitudes (ICA) were most likely to be friends with similarly minded students. Students with more positive ICA were less likely to select friends of the same race/ethnicity than those with less positive ICA. Finally, students’ ICA became more similar to their friends’ ICA over time. Results implicate school-level norms and contagion in students’ ICA.     

Promoting Student Learning in Criminal Justice,STEM, and Forensic Science: Aggie Sleuth Initiative (AggieSI)-Guided Inquiry Learning Experience

This study reported the first interdisciplinary Aggie Sleuth Initiative (AggieSI) conducted between the Departments of Political Science and Criminal Justice, Sociology and Social Work and Chemistry in order to interest underrepresented minority students in the field of forensic science at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCA&T). The AggieSI project involved a “simulated crime scene” and a “hypothetical narrative” that provided the “simulated circumstances” for the AggieSI exercise. The students worked in groups on their AggieSI projects in a guided inquiry laboratory experiment format. The students found their AggieSI project motivating, promoting the students’ critical thinking, problem-solving and teamwork skills with students from other departments. This project also promoted mutually beneficial collaborations and partnerships between NCA&T and the local Police Department to further promote forensic studies and to ensure justice and public safety in our community.     

What Lies Beneath Seemingly Positive Campus Climate Results: Institutional Sexism,Racism, and Male Hostility Toward Equity Initiatives and Liberal Bias

This study investigates what preservice elementary school teachers assume about children's capacities to learn about equity issues and how teachers might translate teaching for social justice into actual classroom practices. Participants said they did not see the age of their students as a barrier to teaching for social justice, although their ways of conceptualizing this varied considerably, and those teaching grade 4–6 students were generally more risk-taking in the curricular and pedagogical choices they made. We found that the concepts of childhood innocence and developmental appropriateness mediated the topics and approach to topics that beginning teachers considered. Roughly half the participants believed that younger children are relatively uninterested in the events of the day, are incapable of forming nuanced opinions, and are unable to analyze political issues; while the other half disagreed. Participants concerned about engendering negative emotional responses from elementary students made more limited and generic responses to name-calling or teasing rather than naming specific forms of oppression or prompting students to reflect critically on hurtful language and behavior.     

Interactions in vocational education: negotiation of meaning of students and teaching strategies

This study aimed to describe verbal student–teacher interactions in vocational education from a socio-cultural perspective on negotiation of meaning. Teaching as part of these interactions is addressed by a combination of diagnosing, checking and intervening strategies. A study was conducted in which students (n students?=?20) and teacher (n teachers?=?5) from Social Work (SW) and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) worked together in small groups (n groups?=?5) discussing vocational core problems. Each group held five discussions (n discussions?=?25). All discussions were audio recorded and transcribed before they were analysed for negotiation of meaning including teaching strategies. The results showed that 5–8% of the interactions include negotiation of meaning. Interactions in SW groups revealed more negotiation of meaning than in interactions in ICT groups. Teaching strategies mainly included checking and intervening activities in favour of diagnosing activities. Furthermore, teachers used meta-cognitive and conceptual interventions most frequently. The implications of these results are discussed by reflecting on occupational differences and on how negotiation of meaning including teaching strategies can be enhanced.     

High School Students' Jobs: Related and Unrelated to School

Work experience can be beneficial to high school students, especially when the work is regular and less than 20 hours/week. Previous studies have found that school-related work experience provides more learning opportunities with fewer negative consequences than jobs unrelated to school. This study analyzed responses of 22,183 seniors from 868 high schools who had been employed during the school year. In this study, contrary to previous studies, students with school-related jobs expected to get less education and were academically less able than those whose jobs were unrelated to school. Comparisons of students' self-reports of the quality of their jobs failed to confirm the hypothesis that school-related jobs were more advantageous than jobs unrelated to school. Black students were nearly twice as likely to report having school-related jobs as non-Hispanic white students. The difference in job quality may result from schools underinvesting in high-quality cooperative education, internships, and other forms of work-based learning.     

Preadolescent perceptions of challenging and difficult course activities and their motivational distinctions

The present research sought to determine if primary school students differentiate between classes that are challenging and those that are difficult, and how these distinctions relate to their motivation and achievement. Results indicated that there are three types of challenges/difficulties. Challenging classes are those that are demanding of the students but within their ability, are important and are tied to interests; students in these classes are more likely to adopt mastery goal orientations. Purely difficult classes are not valued, require a lot of effort, but are threatening to students’ efficacy. Classes that are difficult compared to others are those that are more demanding for the student than other students or other classes. These classes are not valued and are also seen as a threat to efficacy. Both purely difficult and difficult compared to others classes were negatively related to achievement, and students in these classes are more likely to adopt performance avoidance goal orientations.     

The relation between specialty choice of psychology students and their interests,personality, and cognitive abilities

The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate differences in interests, personality, and cognitive abilities between students majoring in the six specialties of psychology at the University of Amsterdam. Results show that students at Social Psychology and Work and Organizational Psychology were on average more extraverted than students of other specializations, that students of Psychological Methods and Psychonomics were relatively more open to experience, and that students at Clinical Psychology were on average more neurotic. Differences in cognitive ability were small, but significant, with the highest scores among students of the more research-oriented specialties. With discriminant analyses on the basis of nine interest scales, 53% of the students were correctly categorized in the specialization chosen two or years after interests were measured. Interest profiles of the specialties follow differences in interest in helping people, abstract vs. concrete topics, and technical issues. Person-specialization congruence failed to predict academic performance.     

Transfer of PREPaRE school crisis training: Moderating effects of trainee characteristics

The National Association of School Psychologists developed the PREPaRE School Crisis Prevention and Intervention Training Curriculum to help schools plan for and prevent school crises and to help mitigate the effects after a crisis occurs. In this study, 279 participants who attended the PREP aRE training between 1 and 24 months before the survey date completed measures assessing work environment, trainee characteristic, and training design variables as well as the transfer of PREP aRE-specific knowledge and skills. Utilizing structural equation modeling, unique effects of Work Environment and Trainee Characteristic variables on knowledge and skill transfer and the extent to which Trainee Characteristics moderate effects of the Work Environment were assessed. Results indicated a significant moderating effect such that trainees who were less motivated compared to those who were more motivated demonstrated greater transfer when they worked in more supportive, open, and rewarding environments. Overall, results from this study provide evidence to support addressing many individual and contextual variables to improve the transfer of PREP aRE-specific knowledge and skills. Implications for practice are discussed.