The extended Theory of Planned Behaviour and college grades: the role of cognition and past behaviour in the prediction of students’ academic intentions and achievements

Understanding the underlying processes influencing college students’ academic achievement represents an important goal of educational research. The aim of the present study was to examine the utility of the extended Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and the relative influence of cognitive processes and measures of past behaviour in the prediction of grade intentions and actual grades in the context of higher education. Our results show that perceived behavioural control (PBC), subjective norms (SN) and past grades emerged as significant predictors and were able to explain 41% of the variance in grade intentions, while the influence of cognitive processes (planning and future orientation) was not significant. With respect to the prediction of actual grades, we found that habitual school attendance and past grades explained 26% of the variance in actual grades. Again, the influence of cognitive processes (planning and future orientation) was not significant. The main discussion is centred on the utility of the extended TPB in the prediction of academic achievement and the complex relationship between cognitive processes and past behaviour in predicting human actions in general. Limitations and implications of the study are also discussed.     

Ethical values and social care robots for older people: an international qualitative study

Values such as respect for autonomy, safety, enablement, independence, privacy and social connectedness should be reflected in the design of social robots. The same values should affect the process by which robots are introduced into the homes of older people to support independent living. These values may, however, be in tension. We explored what potential users thought about these values, and how the tensions between them could be resolved. With the help of partners in the ACCOMPANY project, 21 focus groups (123 participants) were convened in France, the Netherlands and the UK. These groups consisted of: (i) older people, (ii) informal carers and (iii) formal carers of older people. The participants were asked to discuss scenarios in which there is a conflict between older people and others over how a robot should be used, these conflicts reflecting tensions between values. Participants favoured compromise, persuasion and negotiation as a means of reaching agreement. Roles and related role-norms for the robot were thought relevant to resolving tensions, as were hypothetical agreements between users and robot-providers before the robot is introduced into the home. Participants’ understanding of each of the values—autonomy, safety, enablement, independence, privacy and social connectedness—is reported. Participants tended to agree that autonomy often has priority over the other values, with the exception in certain cases of safety. The second part of the paper discusses how the values could be incorporated into the design of social robots and operationalised in line with the views expressed by the participants.     

Sport education-based irregular teaching unit and students’ physical activity during school recess

Abstract

The aim of the study was to compare the effect of a Sport Education-based irregular teaching unit on the high-school students’ physical activity (PA) during school recess. A sample of 91 adolescents (45 girls) aged 13–16?years old met the exclusion criteria. The six classes were cluster-randomly assigned to the Irregular Sport Education group (Sport Education methodology with competitions in recess), Traditional Sport Education group (Sport Education methodology with competitions in Physical Education lessons), or to the control group (non-intervention). The students’ PA during school recess periods were objectively assessed by GT3X accelerometers. The results of the repeated-measures nested analysis of variance showed that the Sport Education-based irregular teaching unit significantly improved the students’ PA during recesses (p?<?0.001). The competitions phase of the Sport Education model performed at school recesses seems to be a valuable strategy for increasing students’ PA contributing to the achievement of the daily recommendations.     

The Persistence of Information Structures in Nordic Countries

This article examines to what extent the Nordic countries, which have been characterized as the world's leading information societies, show similar patterns of Internet use. The data consists of the Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish sections of the European Social Survey 2002 ( n = 7539) and 2004 ( n = 7211). The similarities and differences in the Internet use are analyzed using sociodemographic and economic information. Temporal changes in the distribution of use between population groups and between countries are also examined. The findings indicate that there are clear disparities in the Internet use patterns, which have not evened out in the early 21st century.     

Impact of question-answering tasks on search processes and reading comprehension

This study examined the effect of (a) high- and low-level questions and (b) reading the text before the questions asked on performance, delayed text recall, and deep text comprehension, as well as on specific text-inspection patterns. Participants were 37 undergraduate students who answered either high- or low-level questions using the software Read&Answer to read and answer questions on the computer screen. Additionally, half of the sample read first a text and then answered the questions (reading-first condition), whereas the other half answered the questions without having read the text in advance (no-reading-first condition). All participants had the text available to search for the answer. Results indicated that high-level questions facilitated deep comprehension but not immediate performance or delayed recall of text, independently of the reading condition, and that high- and low-level questions differentially affected text-inspection patterns.