Data Science Support at the Academic Library

Data science is a rapidly growing field with applications across all scientific domains. The demand for support in data science literacy is outpacing available resources at college campuses. The academic library is uniquely positioned to provide training and guidance in a number of areas relevant to data science. The University of Arizona Libraries has built a successful data science support program, focusing on computational literacy, geographic information systems, and reproducible science. Success of the program has largely been due to the strength of library personnel and strategic partnerships with units outside of the library. Academic libraries can support campus data science needs through professional development of current staff and recruitment of new personnel with expertise in data-intensive domains.     

Effect of Internet Literacy in Understanding Older Adults’ Social Capital and Expected Internet Support

This article investigates whether knowledge of Internet usage among older adults is related to social capital as well as their expectations to obtain social support online. A U.S. national survey of adults aged 60 and older (n = 1,101) found that Internet literacy is significantly associated with their expected Internet support and bridging and bonding social capital even after controlling for age, Internet use, and other factors.     

The effects of summary production and encoding condition on children��s metacognitive monitoring

Two studies were conducted to investigate whether context variations were suitable to improve metacognitive judgments in children in a complex, everyday memory task. In the first phase of each experiment, participants were shown a short event (video) and gave judgments-of-learning (JOLs), that is, rated their certainty that they would later be able to recall specific details correctly. In the second phase of the experiments, participants took part in a memory interview about the memory event and gave confidence judgments (CJs), that is, rated their certainty that the provided answers to the memory questions were correct. Study 1 specifically investigated the potential positive influence of giving a verbal summary before the JOL-interview on metacognitive monitoring, whereas Study 2 had a closer look on the effect of intentional versus non-intentional encoding on JOL and CJ accuracy. Results revealed no significant influence of giving a summary and hardly any effect of encoding condition on metamemory monitoring although children from age 6 on showed adequate monitoring performance. JOL accuracy appears to be a complex process, which is even more difficult to influence in children than in adults.     

Gender-specific effects of artificially induced gender beliefs in mental rotation

Men outperform women in the Mental Rotation Test (MRT) by about one standard deviation. The present study replicated a gender belief account [Moè, A., & Pazzaglia, F. (2006). Following the instructions! Effects of gender beliefs in mental rotation. Learning and Individual Differences, 16, 369–377.] for (part of) this effect. A sample of 300 adults, whose gender beliefs about mental rotation were manipulated experimentally (instructions given: men are better, women are better, or no gender differences exist) had to complete the MRT. Artificially induced gender beliefs affected performance and guessing behavior differently in relation to gender. Women's performance followed the gender belief induction but their guessing behavior remained unaffected. Men's performance, however, remained unaffected but their guessing behavior followed the gender belief induction. These findings suggest that gender beliefs affect men and women differently, and they also suggest that a gender belief account cannot (fully) explain gender differences in mental rotation performance.     

Effects of interactive teacher-generated drawings on students’ understanding of plate tectonics

Instructional Science - We investigate an interactive teacher-generated drawing strategy in which the teacher constructs a drawing with the help of the students. The students contribute their ideas...     

Communication,Communication, Communication! Growth through Laboratory Instructing

This study examined gains undergraduate students made in their communication and collaboration skills when they served as peer teachers, i.e., laboratory instructors (LIs), for a General Psychology laboratory. Self-ratings of communication and collaboration skills were completed before and after teaching the laboratory. When compared to before the teaching experience, the students rated their skills significantly higher in written expression, oral expression, and participation skills. They also rated themselves significantly higher in written comprehension and expression skills than did a comparison group of non-LIs. Results from interviews also revealed beliefs that their communication and collaboration skills had substantially increased.     

Building a future without gender violence: rural teachers and youth in rural KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa,leading community dialogue

This article advances the idea that rural youth and teachers are the key in leading community dialogue towards addressing gender-based violence (GBV) in their community through their film making. The youth voices on the realities of GBV in their school and community, in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, captured through the process of participatory video, are used to engage a group of their teachers in thinking about addressing GBV in the school and community. The teachers' engagement with the five participatory videos on GBV – through participatory analysis and participatory archiving – provided an opportunity to deepen their understanding of GBV by also interrogating their own stance and led them to direct the production of a composite video suitable for use in leading community dialogue on a future without violence.     

Does war contribute to family violence against children? Findings from a two-generational multi-informant study in Northern Uganda

After 20 years of civil war in Northern Uganda, the continuity of violence within the family constitutes a major challenge to children's healthy development in the post-conflict era. Previous exposure to trauma and ongoing psychopathology in guardians potentially contribute to parental perpetration against children and dysfunctional interactions in the child's family ecology that increase children's risk of maltreatment. In order to investigate distal and proximal risk factors of child victimization, we first aimed to identify factors leading to more self-reported perpetration in guardians. Second, we examined factors in the child's family environment that promote child-reported experiences of maltreatment. Using a two-generational design we interviewed 368 children, 365 female guardians, and 304 male guardians from seven war-affected rural communities in Northern Uganda on the basis of standardized questionnaires. We found that the strongest predictors of self-reported aggressive parenting behaviors toward the child were guardians’ own experiences of childhood maltreatment, followed by female guardians’ victimization experiences in their intimate relationship and male guardians’ posttrautmatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and alcohol-related problems. Regarding children's self-report of victimization in the family, proximal factors including violence between adults in the household and male guardians’ PTSD symptom severity level predicted higher levels of maltreatment. Distal variables such as female guardians’ history of childhood victimization and female guardians’ exposure to traumatic war events also increased children's report of maltreatment. The current findings suggest that in the context of organized violence, an intergenerational cycle of violence persists that is exacerbated by female guardians’ re-victimization experiences and male guardians’ psychopathological symptoms.     

Adolescents’ cheating and delinquent behavior from a justice-psychological perspective: the role of teacher justice

The more people believe in a just world (BJW) in which they get what they deserve, the more they are motivated to preserve a just world by ones’ just behavior. Consequently, we expected school students with a strong BJW to show less deviant behavior as cheating or delinquency. The mediating role of teacher justice was also examined. Questionnaire data were obtained from a total of N?=?382 German and Indian high school students. Regression analyses revealed that the stronger students’ BJW was, the less cheating and delinquent behavior they reported. Moreover, the more the students believed in a just world, the more they evaluated their teachers’ behavior toward them personally to be just, and the experience of teacher justice fully mediated the relation between BJW and cheating and delinquency, respectively. This pattern of results was in line with our hypotheses and consistent across different cultural contexts. It persisted when neuroticism and sex were controlled. The adaptive functions of BJW and implications for future school research are discussed.