Pedagogy and Diversity: Enrichment and Support for Social Work Instructors Engaged in Social Justice Education

The primary purpose of faculty development is to create and sustain a culture of teaching excellence. For social work faculty, an important part of teaching excellence involves incorporating core social work values such as social justice and diversity across the curriculum and developing pedagogical skills and strategies to teach these issues effectively. In this article, we present a model of a faculty development seminar that offers a facilitated space for instructors to discuss how issues of diversity, social identity, and oppression influence their teaching, the classroom environment, student interactions, and the overall campus climate.     

An Exercise to Introduce Power

In introductory statistics courses, the concept of power is usually presented in the context of testing hypotheses about the population mean. We instead propose an exercise that uses a binomial probability table to introduce the idea of power in the context of testing a population proportion.     

Effects of a physical education-based coping training on adolescents’ coping skills,stress perceptions and quality of sleep

Background: Although most adolescents successfully manage the transition between childhood and adulthood, the speed and magnitude of these changes may exceed the coping abilities of a significant number of young people. For vocational students, additional responsibilities arise during the vocational school transition and the need to balance academic and job-related requirements. An expanding body of literature suggests that adolescence is a vulnerable period for the development of psychiatric diseases and as such, the need to develop an adequate coping repertoire is receiving increasing attention globally. The growing awareness of long-term consequences of stress has led governments to instill school-based resilience promotion programs. For instance, the new physical education (PE) curriculum of vocational (vocational education and training (VET)) students in Switzerland addresses stress management, because stress-related diseases at the workplace have become commonplace among young professionals.

Purpose: Our aim was to develop, implement and evaluate a PE-based coping training (EPHECT) for VET students. Therefore, we adapted components of extant field-tested coping training programs and tailored them to the unique needs of VET students. To facilitate the standardization of the program, each teacher received a teaching manual. Moreover, drawing upon experiential learning theory, we introduced the contents of the coping training in PE class through practical, movement-based exercises in PE. Students also received a workbook for use at home.

Participants and research design: In this cluster randomized controlled trial, eight classes from a Swiss vocational school participated (N?=?131, M_age?=?16.22?±?1.12, 35% females). Two trained PE teachers implemented the program with students in the intervention group (IG?=?67) for three months, while students in the other four classes maintained regular PE (CG?=?64) to comprise the control group. To evaluate the coping training, all participants completed several self-report psychological questionnaires (assessing stress, coping and sleep) at baseline and follow-up. IG students completed further questions with regard to intervention fidelity at follow-up.

Data analysis: To evaluate possible effects of the coping training on stress, coping and sleep, a 2?×?2 repeated-measures analysis of variance design was executed with time (pre vs. post) and group (IG vs. CG) as within- and between-subject factors.

Findings: Over time, IG students significantly increased their adaptive coping compared to CG students, while stress and sleep remained relatively stable for both. Regularly completing one’s homework reinforced this effect because it was significantly associated with students’ reflection and compliance.

Conclusion: A complete and accurate implementation of a PE-based coping training can make a positive contribution to the development of adaptive coping skills among adolescents attending vocational schools. This PE-based program allows students to experience their responses to stress directly and offers opportunities to experiment with different coping strategies. Adaptive coping skills are vital for successful stress management and the prevention of stress-related disorders across the work domain and in everyday life.     

A Guide for Parent Workshops: Parents as Teachers

Conclusion Parents want to help their young-ster learn and grow and, if offered the means to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills, will assume this responsibility. It is hoped that through the suggestions, source lists, and examples provided here, educators will be stimulated to explore the development of parent workshop programs. This article is based on a series of workshops the author designed and initiated for parents at the Whitney Young Jr. Day Care Center on Staten Island, New York, in the spring of 1977. Edith Barnes is Assistant Professor of Behavioral Sciences at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, 715 Ocean Terrace, Staten Island, New York 10301. She is a member of the New York City Higher Education Task Force for the International Year of the Child and Chairperson of the Staten Island IYC Committee. She is also a member of the HEW Advisory Committee of Staten Island Children's Community Mental Health Center, member of the Center Policy Committee of Staten Island Head Start, and Founder and Past President of the Staten Island Nursery Directors' Organization (SIND).     

EXAMINATION OF ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF STUDENTS’ ASSESSMENT OF THEIR COLLEGE: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HARD AND SOFT SCIENCES

This study examines the relationship between the discriminable components of quality of learning experiences (that is, resources, content, learning flexibility, student‐faculty contact, and involvement) and students’ summative assessment of their college. The relative explanatory powers of three alternative combinatory models — the compensatory (linear‐additive), conjunctive, and disjunctive — are tested for. undergraduate students from hard and soft sciences. The conjunctive model provides the maximal predictability for hard sciences whereas all three models have the same explanatory powers in soft sciences. In addition, the five quality of learning experience components explain a higher portion of the variation of assessment in hard sciences than in soft sciences. Finally, the two dominant predictors of assessment in hard sciences are flexibility and involvement while the best determinants of assessment in soft sciences are flexibility and student‐faculty contact. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

An organizational behavior model of students' evaluation of instruction

The present study develops and tests an organizational behavior model of students' evaluation of instruction outlining the causal relationships among levels of instruction, feedback, goal-setting, student's accomplishment, and student's instructional evaluation.The major findings of this study are: (a) The organizational behavior model is one of the strongest predictors of student's overall instructional evaluation. (b) Student's accomplishment, while controlling for the effects of other independent variables, does not contribute to predicting overall evaluation of instruction. (c) Feedback and goal-setting are the most powerful predictors of overall evaluation of instruction. (d) The means, standard deviations and reliability coefficients of the various variables and the interrelationships among the various variables are similar at two points of time (mid-semester and end-semester). The implications of these findings are discussed and elaborated.     

Children of torture victims: Reactions and coping

The aim of this study was to describe mental reactions and coping strategies among children of torture victims. The study comprised 11 children from 5 exiled families with at least one of the parents having been subjected to torture. Investigation methods applied were qualitative interviews in three different settings and two projective tests. The children were anxious, depressive, and regressive. Moreover, they presented psychosomatic symptoms, sleep disorders, and family and school problems. The children's ways of dealing with their experiences were divided into four main coping strategies: (a) isolation and withdrawal, (b) mental flight, (c) eagerness to acclimatize, and (d) strength of will and fighting. A lack of flexibility in the children's development of coping strategies was mainly explained by the strength of challenges in the families' overall situation before and after escape and exilation. A lack of openness about imprisonment and torture seemed to be an essential way of parental coping. The observation methods chosen all proved to be applicable and informative. Moreover, the qualitative interview showed to be the crucial method.