A progress report on the development of an instrument to measure communication apprehension in employment interviews

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument designed to measure communication apprehension in employment interviews. The Personal Report of Communication Apprehension in Employment Interviews (PRCAEI) consists of 5 items. Factor analysis revealed that all 5 items loaded on a single factor with a reliability of 89. The instrument showed reasonable overlap and divergence from the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension. As expected, the PRCAEI was inversely correlated with willingness to communicate and self‐perceived communication competence; Those with relatively high PRCAEI scores also reported entertaining more negative thoughts in imagined interviews than those with relatively low PRCAEI scores. Implications of these findings are discussed at the conclusion of this report.     

The comparative efficacy of two approaches to teaching sixth graders opinion essay writing

Children in sixth grade randomly assigned to a teacher-made writing procedure anchored in the self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) model and training procedures were predicted to surpass children assigned to the comparison condition on dependent measures of writing clarity, organization, and cogency. The prediction was generally substantiated. The results suggest that the rate of change among individual children in the SRSD condition was faster than among children in the comparison condition on measures of clarity and organization. On the measure of cogency, findings showed that the rate of change among individuals in the SRSD condition compared to the comparison condition approached but did not reach statistical significance. Variance in growth parameters on the measure of writing clarity was statistically significant; however on the measure of organization, there was no substantive variation in individual growth parameters. Social validity data from all the children and teachers indicated the training was well received. The results are taken to support the efficacy of the SRSD model and training procedures.     

Computational What? Relating Computational Thinking to Teaching

Computational thinking is one of the skills critical for successfully solving problems posed in a technology driven and complex society. The limited opportunities in school settings to help students develop computational thinking skills underscores the need for helping teachers integrate it in their practices. Besides developing the knowledge of technology, content, and pedagogy, teachers need to recognize the relevance of computational thinking to their teaching, a factor influencing their future practice with it. Drawing from the literature on problem-solving and TPACK framework, this paper discusses strategies, including content-specific examples, problem-solving nature of computational thinking, and the methods of teaching problem-solving for enabling teachers to make the connections between computational thinking and their practices.     

A Brief Commentary on the Hegelian-Marxist Origins of Gramsci's 'Philosophy of Praxis'

The specific nuances of what Gramsci names 'the new dialectic' are explored in this paper. The dialectic was Marx's specific 'mode of thought' or 'method of logic' as it has been variously called, by which he analyzed the world and man's relationship to that world. As well as constituting a theory of knowledge (epistemology), what arises out of the dialectic is also an ontology or portrait of humankind that is based on the complete historicization of humanity; its 'absolute "historicism"' or 'the absolute secularisation and earthliness of thought', as Gramsci worded it ( Gramsci, 1971 , p. 465). Embracing a fully secular and historical view of humanity, it provides a vantage point that allows the multiple and complex effects of our own conceptual heritage to be interrogated in relation to our developing 'nature' or 'being'.
The argument presented in this paper is that the legacy of both Hegel and Marx is manifest in the depth of Gramsci's comprehension of what he termed the 'educative-formative' problem of hegemony. It is precisely the legacy of this Hegelian-Marxist radical philosophical critique that is signified in his continuing commitment to the 'philosophy of praxis' and the historical-dialectical principles that underpin this worldview.     

Constructions of mathematicians in popular culture and learners’ narratives: a study of mathematical and non‐mathematical subjectivities

In this paper, based on a project funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council considering how people position themselves in relation to popular representations of mathematics and mathematicians, we explore constructions of mathematicians in popular culture and the ways learners make meanings from these. Drawing on an analysis of popular cultural texts, we argue that popular discourses overwhelmingly construct mathematicians as white, heterosexual, middle‐class men, yet also construct them as ‘other’ through systems of binary oppositions between those doing and those not doing mathematics. Turning to the analysis of a corpus of 27 focus groups with school and university students in England and Wales, we explore how such images are deployed by learners. We argue that while learners’ views of mathematicians parallel in key ways popular discourses, they are not passively absorbing these as they are simultaneously aware of the clichéd nature of popular cultural images.     

The development of a mentoring program for university undergraduate women

The Women's Center at a university in the United States implemented a mentoring program based on feminist and networking models to improve the educational climate for female undergraduate students. Due to a lack of literature detailing how to develop such a program, an interdisciplinary team of researchers collaborated with the Women's Center to address program development and implementation, including how to institutionalize the program, effective recruitment and retention strategies, how to facilitate formation of mentor relationships and strategies for maintaining those relationships, appropriate interventions and monitoring, and how to ensure that the program met mentees' needs. Among the findings are that success depends on a full‐time and dedicated coordinator, appropriate matching of mentors and mentees, and emphasis during training on continuing communication between mentors and mentees to reassess mentee needs.