Race as a Factor in Persuasion

This study analyzed College Characteristics Index data for 207 students enrolled in a college of business administration to determine institutional press. The obtained scores were compared with Stern’s normative sample. Mean scores for College of Business Administration (CBA) and Arts (A) and Sciences (S) samples were analyzed in terms of the t ratio to determine the degree of press. No significant variance appeared for the groups in Work-Play, Group Life, and Academic Organization. In Non-Vocational Climate and Student Dignity significant differences appeared favoring the A and S sample. Mean scores for all other factors favored the CBA students. Press related to courses showed no threat. Factors related to Social Life interest the students only to a minor degree.     

Emotional arousal of beginning physics teachers during extended experimental investigations

Teachers often have difficulty implementing inquiry‐based activities, leading to the arousal of negative emotions. In this multicase study of beginning physics teachers in Australia, we were interested in the extent to which their expectations were realized and how their classroom experiences while implementing extended experimental investigations (EEIs) produced emotional states that mediated their teaching practices. Against rhetoric of fear expressed by their senior colleagues, three of the four teachers were surprised by the positive outcomes from their supervision of EEIs for the first time. Two of these teachers experienced high intensity positive emotions in response to their students' success. When student actions/outcomes did not meet their teachers' expectations, frustration, anger, and disappointment were experienced by the teachers, as predicted by a sociological theory of human emotions (Turner, J. H. (2007). Human emotions: A sociological theory. London, England: Routledge). Over the course of the EEI projects, the teachers' practices changed along with their emotional states and their students' achievements. We account for similarities and differences in the teachers' emotional experiences in terms of context, prior experience, and expectations. The findings from this study provide insights into effective supervision practices that can be used to inform new and experienced teachers alike. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 50:137–161, 2013     

DEN HERBARTSKE PEDAGOGIKKS INNFLYTELSE I NORGE

Gill, P. E. 1976. The Relationship Between Mental Ability and Eight Background Variables. Scand. J. educ. Res. 20, 135‐145. Multiple regression is seen as a search technique when applied to IQ. test data. The results from such a search are stochastic rather than deterministic. Because of this it is imperative that comprehensive samples be studied. The sample in this study (n = 3,695) was representative of the population of Irish 6‐ to 12‐year‐olds. The results are surprising in that the total variance explained by predictors such as SES, sex, family size, position in family, absenteeism and urbanity is never more than 8 %. Differences in how predictors behave with IQ and Vocabulary are noted. SES, family size and urbanity are the most significant predictors. When Vocabulary is the criterion, sex differences (in favour of girls) emerge consistently. It is contended that pupils of low intelligence go absent more often than their peers. The total variance explained was increased when homoscedasticity was reduced by stabilizing criterion variance (by reducing age span).     

Predicting Achievement Goals in Two Different Academic Contexts: A longitudinal study

The relative contribution is examined of epistemological beliefs and implicit theories of intelligence to students' adoption of mastery, performance‐approach and performance‐avoidance goals in two different academic contexts, business administration and teacher education, in the short as well as the long term. The results showed that epistemological beliefs about the speed of knowledge acquisition predicted achievement goals. Students who believed that learning occurs quickly or not at all were less likely to adopt mastery goals and more likely to adopt performance‐avoidance goals. In addition, students who believed in stable and given knowledge were less likely to adopt mastery goals. Differences in predictive patterns across the two contexts concerned the prediction of performance‐approach goals and gender differences in goal adoption. Epistemological beliefs played a more important role in goal adoption than implicit theories of intelligence.     

Book Reading in Leisure Time: Long‐Term changes in young peoples' book reading habits

In this study, the merit of using deliberative democratic evaluations is studied in light of ten questions asked by House and Howe, which defined the approach and raise issues of interests, representation, and choice of stakeholders, power balances and procedures for controlling them, participation, reflection and deliberation. Suggestions by Clark and Moss for using a mosaic approach were followed. This indicates, when listening to children, many fragments integrate into a whole picture. The emphasis here was on listening to children's views and defining values and evaluation criteria so that they reflect our definition of childhood and quality of childcare. Children had other priorities than parents and staff in some instances, for example regarding length of stay and autonomy. Greene's issues of power, core matters, and biases were utilized for reflection on issues.     

Interests in School Subjects and Vocational Preference 1

Sjöberg, L. & Drottz, B.‐M. 1983. Interests in School Subject and Vocational Preference. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 27, 165‐182. A group of Swedish high school students rated their interests in school subject areas. Interests were related to perceived effort, ability as regards grades and vocational preferences as well as to perceived job market prospects in the vocations. It was found that interests could be well accounted for by the logical appeal of the subject areas and, to some extent, by their practical value. Interests were related to perceived ability and to perceived effort in structural model analyses applied to intercorrelations. Vocational preferences were only weakly related to interests in subject areas, though most students stated that their choices were based on ‘interest’. Preferences among vocations were correlated especially with individual job market prospects.

     

The Intercultural Dimension in EFL‐Teaching: A Study of Conceptions Among Finland‐Swedish Comprehensive School Teachers

The overall aim of this study is to deepen our knowledge about the attitudes of teachers at the upper level of the Finland‐Swedish comprehensive school towards the treatment of culture in English foreign language (EFL) teaching. More specifically, the questions are how teachers interpret the concept “culture” in English foreign language teaching, how the cultural objectives are specified and what teachers do to attain these objectives. The study strives to reveal whether or not language teaching today can be described as intercultural in the sense that culture is taught with the aim of promoting intercultural understanding, tolerance and empathy. The empirical data consists of verbatim transcribed interviews with 13 Finland‐Swedish teachers of English at grades 7–9. The findings are presented according to three orientations. Within the cognitive orientation, “culture” is perceived as factual knowledge and the teaching of culture is defined in terms of the transmission of facts. The action‐related orientation sees “culture” as skills of a social and socio‐linguistic nature and the teaching aims at preparing students for future intercultural encounters. Within the affective orientation, “culture” is seen as a bi‐directional perspective. Students are encouraged to look at their own familiar culture from another perspective and learn to empathise with and show respect for otherness in general, not just concerning representatives of English‐speaking countries.