Valence bias in metacontrol of decision making in adolescents and young adults

The development of metacontrol of decision making and its susceptibility to framing effects were investigated in a sample of 201 adolescents and adults in Germany (12–25 years, 111 female, ethnicity not recorded). In a task that dissociates model-free and model-based decision making, outcome magnitude and outcome valence were manipulated. Both adolescents and adults showed metacontrol and metacontrol tended to increase across adolescence. Furthermore, model-based decision making was more pronounced for loss compared to gain frames but there was no evidence that this framing effect differed with age. Thus, the strategic adaptation of decision making continues to develop into young adulthood and for both adolescents and adults, losses increase the motivation to invest cognitive resources into an effortful decision-making strategy.     

Domain-Generality and Domain-Specificity in Personal Epistemology Research: Philosophical and Empirical Reflections in the Development of a Theoretical Framework

This review synthesizes and critically examines 19 empirical studies that have addressed the domain-specificity/domain-generality issue in personal epistemology. We present an overview of traditional and more contemporary epistemological stances from philosophical perspectives to offer another basis from which to examine this issue. Explicit examples of academic domains are described and epistemological comparisons are made based on our synthesized definition. Given the epistemological similarities and differences across domains that we identified from empirical and philosophical considerations, we propose that beliefs are both domain general and domain specific. Accordingly, we present a theoretical framework of personal epistemology that incorporates both positions and hypothesize how the belief systems might interact in terms of the development of personal epistemology and relations to various facets of cognition, motivation, and achievement. The article ends with a discussion of educational implications.

Elterliche Bildungsaspiration und Migrationshintergrund als Prädiktoren für Schulformwechsel in der Sekundarstufe I: Ergebnisse einer Längsschnittstudie

The present study investigates the extent to which changing school forms in secondary school is dependent not only on a student’s school grades, but also on the migration status and educational aspirations of their parents. Based on a cohort (N?=?4219) of school students from one school year in Luxemburg, we were able to show that throughout the lower secondary school, the grade average played a decisive role in the move to a different school form. Furthermore, students with a migration background were shown to have similar chances as students from Luxemburg of moving upwards to a higher school form, yet were less likely to move downwards. However, this phenomenon could essentially be explained by the fact that students with a migration background are not as highly represented in the higher school forms as are students from Luxemburg. Independent of migration status and school grades, parental educational aspirations played a decisive role change between school forms. High educational aspirations facilitated the move to a higher school form, while low educational aspirations correlated with moving to a lower school form.     

Parent involvement in early intervention: what role does setting play?

This study compared levels of parent involvement in early intervention services for children under three which were delivered in community settings (children’s homes and child care programs) and specialized settings (early intervention centers and provider offices) in the USA. Respondents reported the highest levels of parental involvement in the home. However, level of involvement in the home was not significantly higher than the provider’s office for parent attendance, quality and content of parent-provider communication, and effective instruction; level of provider communication and instruction to parents was not significantly higher in the home than in the early intervention center. Early intervention services in the child care setting were associated with the lowest levels of parent involvement. With the exception of child care, these results suggest that specialized and natural settings are associated with similar levels of parent involvement.     

God–Mother–Baby: What Children Think They Know

This study tested one hundred and nine 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children on a knowledge‐ignorance task about knowledge in humans (mother, baby) and God. In their responses, participants not reliably grasping that seeing leads to knowing in humans (pre‐representational) were significantly influenced by own knowledge and marginally by question format. Moreover, knowledge was attributed significantly more often to mother than baby and explained by agent‐based characteristics. Of participants mastering the task for humans (representational), God was largely conceived as ignorant “man in the sky” by younger and increasingly as “supernatural agent in the sky” by older children. Evidence for egocentrism and for anthropomorphizing God lends support to an anthropomorphism hypothesis. First‐time evidence for an agent‐based conception of others' knowledge in pre‐representational children is presented.     

Where do we start? A proposed post-disaster intervention framework for children and young people

The impact of disasters on the mental health, well-being and social inclusion of children and young people is well established. However, there is very limited evidence about effective community-based interventions to support positive outcomes. In this paper, we review the empirical and theoretical evidence and propose a conceptual framework to guide longer term community-based interventions, modified from an already developed multidimensional framework for refugee integration. We demonstrate its relevance, with some adjustments, through alignment with the disaster literature, particularly as it relates to children and young people. We also pilot the framework by applying it to an analysis of the services and initiatives delivered to support children and young people following the 2009 Victorian bushfires in Australia. The results suggested a concentration of funding on individually oriented, mental health programmes targeting secondary school-aged students. This may indicate under-resourcing of initiatives for younger children. There also appeared to be very limited inclusion of programmes aiming to re-establish a sense of safety and stability. Despite recognition of the important role of schools in supporting children and young people post-disaster, the analysis of initiatives indicated there was limited external funding support for school-based programmes. There were promising indications of programmes providing opportunities for children and young people to develop citizenship in the post-disaster recovery context, and scope for this to be extended to preparedness and response roles.     

Rethinking the pattern of external policy referencing: media discourses over the ‘Asian Tigers’’ PISA success in Australia,Germany and South Korea

The article compares how the success of the ‘Asian Tiger’ countries in PISA, especially PISA 2009, was depicted in the media discussion in Australia, Germany and South Korea. It argues that even in the times of today's ‘globalised education policy field’, local factors are important in determining whether or not a country becomes a reference society for educational reform. The article aims to uncover some of these factors, identifying the globally disseminated stereotypes about Asian education, economic relations and the sense of ‘crisis’ induced through the relative position and change of position in PISA league tables in the countries in question.     

Questionable Research Practices in Experimental Communication Research: A Systematic Analysis From 1980 to 2013

Questionable research practices (QRPs) pose a major threat to any scientific discipline. This article analyzes QRPs with a content analysis of more than three decades of published experimental research in four flagship communication journals: Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and Media Psychology. Findings reveal indications of small and insufficiently justified sample sizes, a lack of reported effect sizes, an indiscriminate removal of cases and items, an increasing inflation of p-values directly below p < .05, and a rising share of verified (as opposed to falsified) hypotheses. Implications for authors, reviewers, and editors are discussed.