Perfectionism in Academically Gifted Students: A Systematic Review

Educational Psychology Review - Perfectionism has long been recognised as a psychological factor that can enhance or interfere with the healthy adjustment of young students who are academically...     

The effect of gender on students' sustainability consciousness: A nationwide Swedish study

This study extends previous environmental education research on gender differences by investigating the gender gap between boys' and girls' sustainability consciousness. The issue of whether the gender gap in environmental education can be identified also in sustainability education is addressed. It has been suggested that Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a teaching approach that could play a key role in diminishing the gender gap. However, the possible gender-specific effect of an ESD-oriented teaching approach is empirically untested. A survey instrument was used to detect the hypothesized gender gap in students' sustainability consciousness on a sample of 2,413 Swedish students aged 12–19. Findings reveal a gender gap in students' sustainability consciousness. The gender gap increases throughout the age span and is amplified in ESD-oriented schools.     

Sexual abuse during childhood and adolescence among Nicaraguan men and women: a population-based anonymous survey

AIMS: The objective was to describe experiences of sexual abuse occurring before 19 years of age among men and women in León, Nicaragua and to explore the possible association to later sexual risk behavior. METHOD: A sub-sample of literate urban men and women 25-44 years of age was selected from a representative sample of households in León. After an invitation to a public health event, 154 men (53% of the invited) and 213 women (66% of those invited) participated in giving written answers to an anonymous questionnaire. RESULTS: Twenty percent of men and 26% of women reported that they had experienced sexual abuse. Women had been victims of attempted or completed rape twice as often as men, 15% as compared to 7%. Thirty-three percent of the abuse towards boys and 66% of the abuse towards girls was committed by family members. Women who had experienced attempted or completed rape were more likely to later have had a higher number of sexual partners compared to non-abused or moderately abused women. CONCLUSIONS: Sexual abuse of children and adolescents of both sexes is common in Nicaragua. The results underscore the urgent need to address this serious problem more openly, and to make more resources available for the prevention of sexual abuse and for support to victims.     

Examining the Performance of the Modified ADF Goodness-of-fit Test Statistic in Structural Equation Models

The asymptotically distribution-free (ADF) test statistic depends on very mild distributional assumptions and is theoretically superior to many other so-called robust tests available in structural equation modeling. The ADF test, however, often leads to model overrejection even at modest sample sizes. To overcome its poor small-sample performance, a family of robust test statistics obtained by modifying the ADF statistics was recently proposed. This study investigates by simulation the performance of the new modified test statistics. The results revealed that although a few of the test statistics adequately controlled Type I error rates in each of the examined conditions, most performed quite poorly. This result underscores the importance of choosing a modified test statistic that performs well for specific examined conditions. A parametric bootstrap method is proposed for identifying such a best-performing modified test statistic. Through further simulation it is shown that the proposed bootstrap approach performs well.     

Assessment of situated orality: the role of reflection and revision in appropriation and transformation of research ethos

In this study, we aim to investigate how students on a cross-disciplinary postgraduate course in research communication describe the formative peer feedback they have received on their oral presentations and what impact they report it has had on their performance. The study is based on a qualitative analysis of 36 transcribed video recordings from the course. Our findings show that the students, through their reflections and revisions, clearly demonstrate to have appropriated and, in some cases, also transformed the course content: they were able to select parts of the feedback relevant to their development and redefine some of the concepts to suit rhetorical situations. Surprisingly, feedback on deficits in student presentations resulted both in reflection and revision, while affirmatory feedback resulted, if at all, in reflection only. These results may help develop effective educational tools for assessment of oral performances in higher education.     

The play's the thing: Theater professionals make sense of Shakespeare

This study examines how theater professionals (actors, directors and others) make sense of the works of a culturally iconic author (William Shakespeare). The research aims to address critique of the information studies/science field's excessive focus on active information seeking and searching by developing an alternative approach, and to understand sense-making as more than the problem-solving behavior of individuals: to see it as an embodied, social process, involving emotion as well as rationality. In doing so it draws on theoretical approaches from a range of different disciplines and traditions, including Dervin's sense-making, Foucault's discourse analysis and Derrida's deconstructionism.     

Regulation,Politics and Media

Paul P. Ashley's Say it Safely: Legal Limits in Publishing, Radio, and Television (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976—$9.50)

David E. Price, The Commerce Committees: A Study of the House and Senate Commerce Committees ($16.50, 358 pp.)

Peter N. Schuck, The Judiciary Committees: A Study of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees ($16.50, 446 pp.)

Harry R. Olsson, Jr.'s Legal and Business Problems of Television and Radio (Practicing Law Institute, 810 Seventh Ave., New York 10019—$20.00, paper)

Robert Agranoff's The Management of Election Campaigns (Boston: Holbrook Press, 1976—price not given)