Group‐Difference Effect Sizes: Gauging the Practical Importance of Findings from Group‐Experimental Research

Effect sizes are powerful tools for evaluating the practical importance of study findings that should be considered in the context of study characteristics such as participants, dependent variables, and comparison condition. In this article, we discuss how group‐difference effect sizes are used to gauge the practical importance of group experimental studies. We first define different types of group‐difference effect sizes and discuss how they can provide valuable information for research consumers. Second, we present guidelines for interpreting group‐difference effect sizes. Third, we discuss important contextual variables that should be taken into account when interpreting group‐difference effect sizes reported in the literature. Last, we provide two examples of how group‐difference effect sizes have been used in the learning disabilities research base.     

Becoming a Presidential Candidate: Social Media Following and Politician Identification

Political candidates increasingly use social media to tell their stories, share their thoughts and feelings and chronicle an unfolding election. We argue that the concept of identification—the process through which an audience member cognitively assumes the perspective of a media personality—can help illuminate how online campaigns can increase citizen support. This study employed a two-wave survey with a U.S. national sample conducted prior to the 2016 presidential election. Results of our analysis support our expectations that following Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on social media leads to increased identification with that candidate, which then affects candidate support.     

A view of the tip of the iceberg: revisiting conceptual continuities and their implications for science learning

This project explores conceptual continuity as a framework for understanding students’ native ways of understanding and describing. Conceptual continuity suggests that the relationship between the use of words in one genre and the scientific genre can exist at varying levels of association. This perspective can reveal the varied relationships between ideas explained in everyday or vernacular genres and their association to scientific explanations. We conducted a 2-year study involving 15 high school baseball players’ understanding of the physics involved in baseball. First, we conducted a quantitative assessment of their science understanding by administering a test prior to season one (2006) and season two (2007). Second, we examined the types of linguistic resources students used to explain their understanding. Third, we revisited our data by using conceptual continuity to identify similarities between students’ conceptual understanding in the informal contexts and their similarities to canonical scientific ideas. The results indicated students’ performance on the multiple-choice questions suggested no significant improvement. The qualitative analyses revealed that students were able to accurately explain different components of the idea by using a diversity of scientific and non-scientific genres. These results call attention to the need to reconstruct our vision of science learning to include a more language sensitive approach to teaching and learning.     

如何通过系统化途径提高大学质量

在全新的时代条件下,中国的高等教育在具有了更多发展机遇的同时,又面临着巨大的挑战。为了实现21世纪的教育目标,高等教育必须进行教育改革。高等教育的领导者们应通过系统化途径来提高教育质量和办学能力,通过系统化的思维和管理,提高整个系统的办学质量,从而实现预期的教育目标。     

Raising the profile of career guidance: educational and vocational guidance practitioner

In 2007 the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) launched the Educational and Vocational Guidance Practitioner credential (EVGP) as one means of formally acknowledging the knowledge, skills, and personal attributes that practitioners need in order to provide quality career development services to clients. This paper describes the foundational background to this initiative and some of the implications for training career practitioners and delivering career services.     

Kinetic and kinematic patterns during high intensity clean movement: searching for optimal load

The aim of the present study was to investigate loading effects on kinematic and kinetic variables among elite-weightlifters in order to identify an optimal training load to maximize power production for clean-movement. Nine elite-weightlifter (age: 24 ± 4years, body-mass: 77 ± 6.5kg, height: 176 ± 6.1cm and 1RM clean: 170 ± 5kg) performed 2 separate repetitions of the clean using 85, 90, 95% and 100%, in a randomized order, while standing on a force platform and being recorded using 3D-capture-system. Differences in kinematics (barbell displacement, velocity and acceleration) and kinetics (power, vertical ground reaction force (vGRF), rate of force development (RFD), and work) across the loads were statistically assessed. Results revealed significant load effects for the majority of the studied parameters (p < 0.01) and showed that typical bar-displacement, greatest bar-velocity and peak-power were achieved at 85 and 90% 1RM (p < 0.001). Additionally greater average power was shown for 90 and 95% (p < 0.01) and greater work and vGRF were shown for 90, 95 and 100% than 85% 1RM (p < 0.05). Load had no significant effect on peak-vGRF and peak-RFD (p > 0.05). The results of this study, suggest 90% 1RM to be the most advantageous load to train explosive-force and to enhance power-outputs while maintaining technical efficiency in elite-weightlifters.     

Identifying Sequences of Advice-Giving in Online Military Discussion Forums

Advice can be beneficial yet risky, particularly when offering suggestions in sensitive and unique situations. Applying the integrated model of advice-giving as a guiding framework, we examined 916 supportive messages exchanged on 12 web-based military discussion forums to investigate the link between the characteristics of support-seeking requests and the types of support provided. Only 1% of replies displayed the theoretically preferable sequence of emotional support, analysis of the problem, then advice. Individuals who used sad language were less likely to receive advice only and more likely to receive emotional support upfront. Users who sought advice often encountered responses that contained only advice. Responses to individuals who discussed their troubles or requested only emotional support followed a slightly different pattern. We discuss implications for advice-givers/receivers and users of military online forums.     

LivingPlessey in the context ofBrown: Cultural politics and the rituals of separation

This article examines the rituals of exclusion present in some public schools in southern Georgia. While ostensibly desegregated nearly twenty years afterBrown, many of these schools still articulate the concept of “separate but equal” through ritualized curricular practices. Such acts fly in the face of the stated purposes of integrated public schools. The writer analyzes this phenomenon relative to ritual theory and poststructural conceptions of power. Working from the analytics of Foucault and the work of McLaren, the writer argues that regardless of the rationales of the stated discourse of inclusion, the discourse of exclusion and separation is clearly the dominant form of social practice. The writer then discusses the impact of these discursive practices relative to the continuing problem of self-imposed segregation in schools and posits some possible courses of action. Extended implications of these practices are illustrated through interviews concerning the symbolic inequalities extant throughout the region.     

Gun Violence and the Meaning of American Schools

In the United States, targeted school shootings have become a distinct genre of violence. In this essay, Bryan Warnick, Sang Hyun Kim, and Shannon Robinson examine the social meanings that exist in American society that might contribute to this phenomenon, focusing on the question: “Why are schools conceptualized as appropriate places to enact this form of gun violence?” The authors analyze the social meaning of American schooling by using empirical data, everyday observations, films, and poetry, and then connect these points of meaning to stories of individual school shooters. Through this analysis, three aspects of school stand out. First, schools are places of both real and symbolic violence, where force and power often rule the day. Second, schools are places connected to expectations of hope and refuge, friendship and romance, and when these expectations are not met, bitter resentment flows against schools. Third, suburban schools are seen as places of expressive individualism, which, in rare cases, is manifest in terms of “expressive violence.” Together, these points of meaning can make schools, for some youth, seem like appropriate places to express violent intentions. The essay concludes by speculating about how this analysis can be applied to prevent school shootings.