A study of the “environments” of Japanese universities

A limitation of most past studies of university environments is that they have been restricted to institutions in the United States. Accordingly, as a first step in providing a broader context for such studies, this study applied two approaches to the measurement of environments to 124 Japanese universities: factor analysis of statistical data and classification of faculties according to Holland's personality typology. Both procedures yielded a reasonably clear and meaningful pattern of results that was generally similar to the pattern of results in the United States, but with differences that appear related to the organization of higher education in Japan. More generally, the results tend to support the conclusions that size, wealth, and technical emphasis are key dimensions for describing universities, and that an organization can be measured through a census of its personality types.     

A 30-Year Scoping Review of the Physical Education Teacher Satisfaction Literature

While stress has always been present in the teaching profession, recent trends such as standardized testing and school and teacher accountability may be making teachers’ work more stressful. Teacher satisfaction research has emerged as a popular lens through which to understand how teachers experience their work. This scoping review sought to summarize the literature related to physical education teacher satisfaction published between 1987 and 2016. A total of 20 articles that reported research from 11 different countries were identified for inclusion. Thematic analysis of the study results led to the construction of four themes: (a) levels of physical education teacher satisfaction vary by level and context; (b) demographic variables do not reliably predict satisfaction; (c) intrinsic and psychosocial variables influence job satisfaction; and (d) the workplace and interpersonal relationships influence job satisfaction. Results are discussed and recommendations provided, particularly related to a theoretical basis for future research and methodological diversity.     

Sex and personality differences in French and German performance in British secondary school pupils

An experiment was performed to investigate the relationship between sex, personality and learning style and French and German performance in secondary school pupils. 432 13–14 year old children (216 boys and 216 girls) whose mother tongue was English were given the Junior Eysenck Personality Inventory and Raven's Standard Matrices. Half of the subjects were then given three performance tests (comprehension, essay and prose translation), and the rest received three parallel German tests. The main findings were that, although pupils studied each language for the same time, German was easier than French, girls did better than boys, and that language performance increased with extraversion. The results were discussed in terms of their practical implications.     

愚蠢的罪犯,可悲的结局!

这六个故事中的笨蛋终于明白了犯罪是没有好结果的被紧紧卡住德克萨斯州,登顿市通道的另一头没有亮光。当警察赶到一处     

骏马之选(英文)

作为《纽约时报》最畅销小说之一,《骏马之选》这部纪实文学(nonfiction)讲述了一匹受伤的赛马Lay Me Down如何帮助主人公恢复对生活的信心的感人故事。因为营养不良而虚脱(Weak from malnutntion)的Lay Me Down忍受着种种身体上的痛苦,但仍保持着一颗开朗宽容(open and generous)的心,就这样她来到苏珊身边(then fate brought her into Susan’s paddock),教会她如何拥抱生命的快乐(embrace the joys of life)。下面这一段描写苏珊在看到Lay Me Down之前,回忆了自己小时候养过的一匹小马,表达了无限的思念之情。     

Embedding Education for Sustainable Development in higher education: A case study examining common challenges and opportunities for undergraduate programmes

This paper explores the perceptions of academics and students towards embedding Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into undergraduate degree programmes in the School for Earth, Ocean and Environmental Science (SEOES) at the University of Plymouth. The main purpose of the research was to identify current ESD related teaching and learning in a science-based undergraduate programme and the opportunities for, and barriers to, further extensions of ESD. The results indicate that there is general support for the embedding of ESD in the curriculum, but there is considerable uncertainty expressed by lecturers concerning how this can best be done. There is a general concern that additional embedding into the degree programme might lead to reductions in the amount of core subject matter being taught. The programme and ESD agendas are to an extent seen by lecturers as conflicting. ESD is viewed mainly in terms of curriculum content as opposed to the pedagogy employed.     

Initial Validation of the Teacher/Coach Role Conflict Scale

The study of teacher/coach role conflict has a long history in the physical education literature. However, only a few studies have measured the construct using psychometric instrumentation. Ryan (2008) created one such instrument, but the survey was not validated prior to use. As such, the purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the factorial, convergent, and divergent validity of Ryan’s (2008) Teacher/Coach Role Conflict Scale. Participants included 194 teacher/coaches who taught a variety of academic subjects. Preliminary analyses indicated that there were no differences among participants with reference to gender, teaching affiliation, school context, or school level. Results from confirmatory factor analysis indicated that, after the specification of a correlated error, the hypothesized model was a good fit for the data, χ²(33) = 88.92, p < .001; CFI = .97; NNFI = .96; SRMR = .05; RMSEA = .09. Correlational analyses indicated that the instrument correlated positively with other measures of role stress and negatively with personal accomplishment, which supports convergent and divergent validity, respectively. Implications of the research as well as directions for future studies are discussed.     

Psycho-Education with Asylum Seekers and Survivors of Torture

This article examines psycho-educational programmes for asylum-seekers and tortured refugees at the Danish Red Cross Asylum Department and Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture victims respectively. The psycho-education programme is based on a cognitive theoretical framework. However, it is argued that the processes observed during the programmes and the changes in the participants’ lives may be conjointly understood within theoretical frameworks of narrative therapy, social constructionism, and community psychology, emphasizing professionals’ and participants’ co-construction of alternative stories and action possibilities, and the importance of the context and social network outside the intervention context.

Sign language Web pages

The WORLD WIDE WEB has changed the way people interact. It has also become an important equalizer of information access for many social sectors. However, for many people, including some sign language users, Web accessing can be difficult. For some, it not only presents another barrier to overcome but has left them without cultural equality. The present article describes a system that allows sign language-only Web pages to be created and linked through a video-based technique called sign-linking. In two studies, 14 Deaf participants examined two iterations of signlinked Web pages to gauge the usability and learnability of a signing Web page interface. The first study indicated that signing Web pages were usable by sign language users but that some interface features required improvement. The second study showed increased usability for those features; users consequently couldnavigate sign language information with ease and pleasure.