PRESERVICE TEACHERS’ THOUGHTS AND FEARS ABOUT DISCIPLINING CHILDREN

The purposes of this study were threefold: (1) to determine if fears and concerns about guiding children's behavior and misbehavior is a generalized feeling, or more related to specific circumstances and scenarios; (2) to determine which situations may give students the greatest and least amounts of anxiety; and (3) to explore the relationship between students’ beliefs about the causes of children's misbehavior and their anxiety about specific discipline situations.

After completing a questionnaire, preservice teachers in this study rated children's challenges to their authority as the most difficult. Discipline situations involving conflicts between children (e.g., refusing to share, not joining in activities) were rated as the least difficult to handle. Most of the preservice teachers believed children misbehaved because of a lack of social skills and developmental sophistication rather than because of bad parenting, inherent personality characteristics, or too many adult restrictions. Preservice teachers rated the difficulty of the discipline issues similarly regardless of their beliefs concerning the causes of misbehavior. Implications of this study are discussed.     

Reading to Children and Listening to Children Read: Mother–Child Interactions as a Function of Principal Reader

Research Findings: Although storybook reading has received considerable research attention, listening to children read has been the source of much less inquiry. In this study, 40 mother–child dyads were videotaped during adult-to-child and child-to-adult reading. Relations between book-related themes (e.g., types of talk), maternal evaluative feedback (e.g., praise, criticism), maternal miscue feedback (e.g., graphophonemic clues, terminal feedback), and child engagement (e.g., laughter, questions) were analyzed. The results suggest that the development of literacy appreciation and literacy skill can occur during the same storybook-reading session. Specifically, when mothers read to their children, communication about the illustrations was associated with increased child engagement, yet a positive correlation was also observed between text-related productions and child engagement. When children read to their mothers, text-related productions were featured more prominently. After children made reading errors (miscues), graphophonemic and terminal feedback were the 2 most frequent responses by mothers. In addition, graphophonemic cues were positively associated with child engagement. Practice or Policy: In sum, the results demonstrate that adult-to-child and child-to-adult reading serve the goals of both literacy acquisition training and literacy appreciation; furthermore, orienting children toward the text during either session did not hamper child engagement.     

An International Orientation on Institutional Strategies and Governmental Policies for the Use of ICT in Higher Education

This article provides an international comparative overview of institutional strategies, collaboration patterns and governmental policies related to the use of ICT in higher education. It has been produced as part of an international comparative study on the use of ICT in higher education. A study commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and published as: “The Use of Information and Communication Technology in Higher Education: An International Orientation on Trends and Issues”, B. Collis and M. van der Wende (Eds). University of Twente, CHEPS, 1999. It covers the following range of countries: Belgium, Finland, the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States of America. Additionally some main initiatives at the European level have been taken into account. On the basis of this international comparison, the following main conclusions were drawn. Due in part to the fact that in many cases institutional strategies for ICT are still lacking, interesting experimentation does not generally lead to successful dissemination and adoption on a wider scale. In many cases, the push for a substantial use of ICT in distance learning programs has come from new educati onal markets, life-long learning and international education in particular. The response of higher education to these markets is leading in many countries to a convergence of distance and traditional (on-campus) education. Inter-institutional and inter-sectoral collaboration between universities and companies are characteristics of many successful ICT initiatives, although they do not generally continue into sustainable implementation in the individual institutions. Governments facilitate the use of ICT through the establishment of infrastructure, networks and inter-institutional and public–private partnerships, and try to create the right regulatory environment. Further deregulation will enable institutions to respond to new market demands and will inspire the necessary organizational change in higher education institutions.     

IDMI analysis of regional low-carbon development based on system dynamic simulation

During the decision-making process, especially in multi-disciplinary complex cases, assessment technique is needed to assist policy-makers in making the right decision. Many of such assessment techniques have been developed for policy-makers, but the inevitable subjectivity of policy-makers often becomes the main obstacle in making the right or proper policy. Interlink decision-making index （IDMI） is a newly proposed assessment method with the advantages of being simple to use and having less human interference over other methods, as it does not require a weighting process of each selection criterion. This paper implements IDMI to assist with decision-making in national or regional low-carbon development, using China as a case study. The Chinese government has annotmced its carbon emission reduction target along with other development targets by 2020. Many policy settings can be chosen in order to achieve those targets. The problem is how to determine the best setting and the means by which decision-makers can avoid subjectivity and extremes. A number of policy setting options are generated carefully by a system dynamic model under different policy scenarios. The IDMI demonstrates a perfect way to assist in selecting the ＂best＂ among all the options that can achieve the goals within the acceptable range.     

Social support and digital inequality: Does Internet use magnify or mitigate traditional inequities in support availability?

This study tested competing predictions about the implications of Internet use for traditional inequities in social support availability. Using survey data collected as part of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, inequities in social support availability stemming from demographic and network-related factors were examined among non-users, Internet users, and Internet users who also participated in a social network site (SNS). The results offered evidence consistent with the social compensation perspective. Traditional inequities in support availability related to age, race, and total network size persisted among respondents who did not use the Internet, but were less evident or absent among Internet users and/or Internet users who participated in an SNS. Using the Internet to connect with others appeared to be an important mechanism through which inequality in support availability was mitigated.     

Performance strategies of US Olympians in practice and competition

Until recently, no self‐report instruments have examined psychological skills use in both practice and competition. In light of the significant role of practice in sport performance outcomes, a need exists to measure these skills in both domains. This study was designed to investigate differences in performance strategies of US Olympians in both practice and competition. The Test of Performance Strategies was administered to 176 US participants in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Summer Games. Discriminant function analyses demonstrated significant differences between medalists and nonmedalists in both the competition and practice performance strategies. Furthermore, significant gender and age differences were identified for competition strategies only. The 16 subscales of the TOPS, with two exceptions, create an internally stable instrument with moderate predictive ability relative to quality of sport performance, gender, and age in this elite sample of athletes.