Nontraditional Students' Service Needs and Social Support Resources: A Pilot Study

In response to a mail survey, 53 nontraditional undergraduates provided information about their reasons for reentering college, the likelihood of using services for nontraditional students, and sources of social support. Participants reported career, self‐improvement, and family issues as primary reasons for reentry. They reported they would be likely or very likely to use campus services, especially career counseling. More than 60% reported strong social support from family and friends.     

A Case of Inconsistent Equatings: How the Man With Four Watches Decides What Time It Is

A simultaneous equating of four new test forms to each other and to one previous form was accomplished through a complex design incorporating seven separate equating links. Each new form was linked to the reference form by four different paths, and each path produced a different score conversion. The procedure used to resolve these inconsistencies was applied separately at each score level. Considering each equating (at a given score level) as a simple additive increment and imposing constraints on those increments led to a system of seven equations in seven unknowns. The solution produced a set of adjusted increments, so that the linking of any new form to the reference form was the same by all four possible paths.     

A national perspective on teachers' efficacy beliefs in deaf education

Teachers' sense of efficacy, or the belief that teachers have of their capacity to make an impact on students' performance, is an unexplored construct in deaf education research. This study included data from 296 respondents to examine the relationship of teacher and school characteristics with teachers' sense of efficacy in 80 different deaf education settings in the US. Deaf education teachers reported high overall efficacy beliefs but significantly lower efficacy beliefs in the area of student engagement than in instructional strategies and classroom management. Teachers' years of experience showed a significant relationship with efficacy beliefs, yet it was the teachers' perceived collective efficacy of their educational setting that ultimately predicted teachers' sense of efficacy. These findings lend credence to the need for further examination of school processes that influence teacher beliefs and attitudes in deaf education settings.     

Living AnatoME: Teaching and learning musculoskeletal anatomy through yoga and pilates

Living AnatoME, a program designed in 2004 by two medical students in conjunction with the Director of Anatomy, teaches musculoskeletal anatomy through yoga and Pilates. Previously offered as an adjunct to the Gross Anatomy course in 2007, Living AnatoME became an official part of the curriculum. Previous research conducted on the program demonstrated its efficacy in providing relaxation and well-being to students who attended. In 2007, with all 144 gross anatomy students required to participate in a 1.5 hour Living AnatoME session on the upper and lower limbs, the impact of the program on students' comprehension of musculoskeletal anatomy was analyzed through the administration of 25-question pre- and post-tests, gauging knowledge in the following domains: upper limb, lower limb, muscle function, palpation, attachment/location, clinical correlate, and control (i.e., material not emphasized during the intervention). Analysis of postintervention tests revealed significant improvement in total Living AnatoME scores as well as in the domains of upper limb, muscle function, and palpation, indicating the possible efficacy of Living AnatoME in teaching anatomy. Performance on control questions also improved, although not significantly, which may indicate the role of other variables (e.g., additional study time) in increased performance.     

Supporting Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Critique and Adaptation of Science Lesson Plans Using Educative Curriculum Materials

Critiquing and adapting curriculum materials are essential teaching practices but challenging for many preservice teachers. This study explores the use of educative curriculum materials—materials intended to support both teacher and student learning—to help preservice elementary teachers develop their pedagogical design capacity for critiquing and adapting lessons. Preservice teachers received educative supports highlighting pedagogical principles and rationales for those principles. When provided with educative supports, most individuals attended to the principles targeted in the supports, engaged in an in-depth analysis with regard to the principles, and used the rationales from the supports to justify their analyses. However, few continued to do so in subsequent analyses when they no longer received support. Implications for science teacher education and curriculum design are discussed.     

Response to Mary Lou Rasmussen’s ‘Beyond Gender Identity’

When I was contacted by the editors of Gender and Education to see whether I wanted to respond to this article, I was not particularly keen to do so. I generally believe that critique is a good thing, and that direct responses have a tendency to come over as precious, petulant, and petty. However, having read the article several times, and having re‐read the paper to which Mary Lou Rasmussen refers, I feel that I have to.     

Neural Correlates of Direct and Reflected Self-Appraisals in Adolescents and Adults: When Social Perspective-Taking Informs Self-Perception

Classic theories of self-development suggest people define themselves in part through internalized perceptions of other people's beliefs about them, known as reflected self-appraisals. This study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the neural correlates of direct and reflected self-appraisals in adolescence ( N  = 12, ages 11–14 years) and adulthood ( N  = 12, ages 23–30 years). During direct self-reflection, adolescents demonstrated greater activity than adults in networks relevant to self-perception (medial prefrontal and parietal cortices) and social-cognition (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, temporal–parietal junction, and posterior superior temporal sulcus), suggesting adolescent self-construals may rely more heavily on others' perspectives about the self. Activity in the medial fronto-parietal network was also enhanced when adolescents took the perspective of someone more relevant to a given domain.