Applying Silvia's model of interest to academic text: Is there a third appraisal?

Recent research, treating interest as an emotion, indicates the cognitive appraisals of novelty-complexity and coping potential predict interest. This appraisal-based model of interest has not yet been applied to educational research. The present study evaluated the significance of the model regarding the activity of reading expository, academic-oriented text, and assessed whether a third previously untested appraisal of goal relevance could predict interest as well. Sixty-five undergraduate psychology students, 41 females and 24 males, completed several instruments—assessments of interest and three appraisals across time, experimental texts, and a measure trait curiosity as a control variable. Goal relevance, was shown to predict interest across the sample to a statistically significant degree (Unstandardized β = .567; t = 6.258; p < .001), displaying more predictive power than the combined effects of the original two appraisals. These results and the study's implications are discussed.     

Intimate partner violence among female caregivers of children reported for child maltreatment

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and correlates of intimate partner violence among female caregivers of children reported to child protective services. METHOD: Data were derived from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, a national probability study of children investigated for child abuse and neglect in the United States. Caregivers were interviewed about demographic characteristics, mental health, substance use, and physical violence by a partner. RESULTS: The lifetime and past year prevalence of intimate partner violence was 44.8 and 29.0%, respectively. Caregiver major depression and history of prior reports of child maltreatment were strongly associated with violence against women. CONCLUSIONS: The findings highlight the need for effective screening and identification of intimate partner violence in families in which child maltreatment has occurred.     

The functions of curriculum development

The inadequacies of “top-down” technological strategies of curriculum development, and of local user-based curriculum development, result from a confusion of the ends, starting points, methodologies, and functions of external and user development. The function of external development is to elaborate theoretical conceptions of society, knowledge, teacher, and learner, and to translate these conceptions into coherent curriculum materials, each of which serves as a clear-cut alternative available to teachers. The function of user development is to construct images of particular instructional settings by matching a variety of theoretical conceptions with the exigencies of these settings, and to translate these images into a curriculum-in-classroom use. The harmonious realization of these functions would yield a measure of progressive improvement in school curriculum practices.     

Mother's age and risk for physical abuse.

It is widely believed that young mothers are at greater risk of engaging in physical abuse. However, this relationship is not clearly supported by previous empirical research. This study reexamines the issue using a nationally representative sample of 1,997 mothers. All analyses controlled for family income, race, number of minor children in the home, age of abused child, mother's education, and whether mother was a single parent. Physical abuse was measured with the Conflict Tactics Scales. Using mother's age at time of birth of the abused child, the younger the mother, the greater the rate of child abuse; however, there was not a significant relationship when mother's age was measured at age at time of abuse. Large families and minority group children were also found to be at greater risk of abuse. The paper discusses implications for further research and for prevention of child abuse.     

Too busy to help: Antecedents and outcomes of interactional justice in web-based service encounters

Customer service is an important aspect of virtually all organizations. Thus, many try to find ways to improve it. Web-based live-chat support services are one promising means toward this end. However, such services and their success factors have been rarely studied. This study bridges this gap. It builds on justice and service marketing theories, and examines key factors that drive intentions to continue using web-based live-chat support services and to provide positive word-of-mouth. The results suggest that these outcomes are increased through interactional justice perceptions, which are diminished by the perceived busyness of the service provider. It is also suggested that the latter effect is moderated by the duration of the live-chat session; when the session is long the effect is stronger. Data collected from 86 users of a library web-based live-chat service were analyzed with structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques and support this view. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Mapping Aspect Ratios in the Age of High-Definition Television

Although high-definition television (HDTV) has led to more film and television content being presented in a widescreen aspect ratio, problems with formatting moving images in nontheatrical environments persist. Because of the different venues and delivery systems available for accessing televisual and cinematic content, the variety of high definition and standard definition television channels across cable and satellite providers, as well as the different aspect ratios filmmakers can choose to photograph their works, nontheatrical exhibition of the moving image continues to be a source of contention in the age of high definition. Drawing upon a number of comments from online home media forums, this study concludes that the variant quality of widescreen images for HDTV is not solely grounded on a subculture of home theatre enthusiasts, but rather how networks and studios negotiate new television technologies for the aesthetic preferences of both film and home theatre buffs and the general viewing audience.