Early Adolescents’ Food Selection After Evaluating the Healthiness of Remote Peers’ Food Choices

This study investigates whether asking early adolescents to evaluate the food choices of remote peers improves their own food selection. Participants were students from fifth (N = 219, M_age = 9.30 years) and sixth grades (N = 248, M_age = 10.28 years) of varying nationalities living in the United Arab Emirates (race and ethnicity were not collected). Students saw peers’ healthy or unhealthy food choices before picking their own food. In some conditions, students also critically evaluated the healthiness of the peers’ choices. Evaluation of peer choices led to healthier decisions (d = .53) to the point that it offsets the negative impact of observing unhealthy peer choices. This effect is larger for sixth graders compared to fifth graders.     

The learning styles neuromyth: when the same term means different things to different teachers

Although learning styles (LS) have been recognised as a neuromyth, they remain a virtual truism within education. A point of concern is that the term LS has been used within theories that describe them using completely different notions and categorisations. This is the first empirical study to investigate education professionals’ conceptualisation, as well as means of identifying and implementing LS in their classroom. A sample of 123 education professionals were administered a questionnaire consisting both closed- and open-ended questions. Responses were analysed using thematic analysis. LS were found to be mainly conceptualised within the Visual-Auditory-(Reading)-Kinaesthetic (VAK/VARK) framework, as well as Gardner’s multiple intelligences. Moreover, a lot of education professionals confused theories of learning (e.g., behavioural or cognitive theories) with LS. In terms of identifying LS, educators reported using a variety of methods, spanning from observation and everyday contact to the use of tests. The ways LS were implemented in the classroom were numerous, comprising various teaching aids, participatory techniques and motor activities. Overall, we argue that the extended use of the term LS gives the illusion of a consensus amongst educators, when a closer examination reveals that the term LS is conceptualised, identified and implemented idiosyncratically by different individuals. This study aims to be of use to pre-service and in-service teacher educators in their effort to debunk the neuromyth of LS and replace it with evidence-based practices.

     

Automatic Activation of Adolescents’ Peer‐Relational Schemas: Evidence From Priming With Facial Identity

This study provides experimental evidence for automatic, relationship‐specific social information processing in 13‐year‐old adolescents. Photographs of participants’ liked, disliked, and unknown peers were used as primes in an affective priming task with happy and angry facial expression probes and in a hypothetical vignette task. For the affective priming, reaction times were faster for congruent than for incongruent prime–probe pairs when the prime visibility was high and the prime–probe stimulus onset asynchrony was long. In the vignette task, participants attributed more hostility toward the protagonist, experienced more anger, and were more likely to retaliate when the disliked peer served as a prime. It is concluded that peer‐relational schemas and related affect are activated automatically upon perception of a peer.     

Anxious solitude across contexts: girls' interactions with familiar and unfamiliar peers

Cross-situational continuity and change in anxious solitary girls' behavior and peer relations were examined in interactions with familiar versus unfamiliar playmates. Fourth-grade girls (N=209, M age=9.77 years, half African American, half European American) were identified as anxious solitary or behaviorally normative using observed and teacher-reported behavior among classmates. Subsequently, girls participated in 1-hr play groups containing 5 same-race familiar or unfamiliar girls for 5 consecutive days. Results support both cross-situational continuity and change in anxious solitary girls' behavior and peer relations. Although anxious solitary girls exhibited difficulty interacting with both familiar and unfamiliar playmates relative to behaviorally normative girls, elements of their behavior improved in unfamiliar play groups, a context in which they received less peer mistreatment.     

Examining Relations of Power in a Process of Curriculum Change: The Case of VCE Physics

Through interviews with members of the setting panel, this paper probes the process of setting the first external test for the VCE Physics course when it was implemented in 1992. The development of the course itself had been highly contested, but the contest was enacted largely outside the structures set up for formal negotiation between interested parties. Consequently the process was obscure, and the issues never clearly articulated. However, the outcome was that the course was much closer to a traditional course in physics than had originally seemed likely. The test setting panel provided a microcosm in which the contest that had shaped the development of the course was replayed. In the deliberations of the panel, certain discursive mechanisms can be identified as having operated to ensure that particular decisions became inevitable. Once identified in the deliberations of the test panel, similar mechanisms can be discerned during the process of devising the course itself. Some implications are noted for future efforts to reform curriculum and assessment in physics, and for current classroom practice.     

Children's Theories of the Self

This article provides a theoretical review of the developmental origins of children's “folk theories” about the nature of the self, linking theoretical developments in philosophy with empirical discoveries from developmental psychology. The article first reviews children's views about the material nature of the self, outlining evidence that children naturally think about the self as distinct from the body. It then discusses children's understanding of the persistence of the self over time and, finally, explores children's views about conflict within the self. Together, these findings suggest that preschoolers possess stable, coherent, and predictive theories about the nature of the self that are stable across individuals, early emerging, and in some cases undergo interesting developmental change.     

Exploring the interplay between the motivational climate and goal orientation in predicting maximal oxygen uptake

Drawing upon achievement goal theory, this study explored the interplay between the perceived motivational climate, achievement goals and objective measurements of maximal oxygen uptake (VO_2max). The results of a study of 123 individuals from three Norwegian military academies revealed that under the condition of a high-performance orientation there is a stronger positive relationship between performance climate and VO_2max for individuals reporting a low (rather than high)-mastery orientation. Furthermore, we found that for individuals with a high-mastery orientation there is a stronger positive relationship between mastery climate and VO_2max for individuals reporting a low (rather than high)-performance orientation. These findings contribute to achievement goal theory by providing support for an interactionist person–environment fit perspective. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

The pleasures of learning at work: Foucault and phenomenology compared

This paper provides a comparative account of two conceptualisations of pleasure. The first draws on Foucault’s analysis of bio‐power. The second provides a phenomenological account where pleasure is viewed as an aspect of our immediate consciousness. These conceptualisations are illuminated through an analysis of employees’ accounts of learning at work. Overall, the paper demonstrates how, in a Foucauldian analysis, pleasure disappears as it becomes a cipher for power whereas within the phenomenological account pleasure is foregrounded but power disappears. The concluding section focuses on the problems of both conceptualisations and explores whether we should simply accept that different analytical frameworks do different work for us or whether we should be more concerned at the losses, and gains, associated with theoretical choices. The conclusion further asks whether a concern to foreground pleasure in accounts of learning represents an antidote to the pessimism of much critical analysis or whether we should treat pleasure as a morally duplicitous category that encourages political apathy.