Mothering matters: Maternal style predicts puppies’ future performance

Bray et al. (2017, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(32), 9128–9133) recently showed that maternal interactions between service dog mothers and their puppies were predictive of puppies’ future success as a candidate service dog. These findings prompt questions into the role of genetics and early experiences and may provide useful selection tools for working dog breeding programs.     

Taking the Show on the Road in Holding Academic Classes in Community Agencies: Exploratory Study Findings

Social work educators often teach students clinical knowledge within a university classroom, whereas students tend to learn clinical practice through their practicum experiences. This article describes data from a cross-sectional, mixed-method study on one way to effectively bridge the gap between teaching clinical knowledge and practice to graduate students. In this study, students participated in a newly developed and delivered 3-hour weekly course, over 12 weeks, based around students’ observation of ongoing live family therapy sessions at a children’s mental health organization. Findings suggest that this course design can fill a gap between the classroom and practicum experiences for students.     

Computerized guidance and the structure of occupational information

Visiting professor in numerous universities. Author of over 100 publications in the field of vocational guidance and careers counselling.     

“From the Intuitive to the Intentional”: Designing a Constructivist Online Course

Online programs are becoming more ubiquitous in higher education; however, there has been a lack of research on the merit of this style of educating. Using the concept of constructivism as a framework, the idea that individuals construct their own understanding of world experiences, the authors generated a case study to explore the efficacy of teaching “havruta study,” text analysis in student pairs with instructor facilitation, in an online format. Findings suggest that, through careful consideration of communication styles and student needs, highly interactive in-house courses can be adapted to online settings.     

Factors related to the underachievement of university students in Turkey

The study aims to elucidate the characteristics of gifted underachievers at the university level and the reasons for their underachievement. The sample consisted of students from Bogazici University in Istanbul. The School Attitude Assessment Survey‐Revised (SAAS‐R) instrument was administered to 91 underachievers and a comparison group of 74 university students. The instrument employed five subscales: academic self‐perceptions, attitudes toward teachers, attitudes toward school, goal valuation, and motivation/self‐regulation. Findings indicated that the comparison students and the underachieving students differed on all five subscales of the SAAS‐R. In addition, the instrument correctly classified almost 80% of the students in the present sample as either underachievers or comparison students. Among the five subscales, the motivation/self‐regulation subscale was most predictive of underachievement status.