The effects of background television on the toy play behavior of very young children

This experiment tests the hypothesis that background, adult television is a disruptive influence on very young children's behavior. Fifty 12-, 24-, and 36-month-olds played with a variety of toys for 1 hr. For half of the hour, a game show played in the background on a monaural TV set. During the other half hour, the TV was off. The children looked at the TV for only a few seconds at a time and less than once per minute. Nevertheless, background TV significantly reduced toy play episode length as well as focused attention during play. Thus, background television disrupts very young children's play behavior even when they pay little overt attention to it. These findings have implications for subsequent cognitive development.     

Investigating Maternal Self-Efficacy and Home Learning Environment of Families Enrolled in Head Start

The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between mothers’ self-efficacy beliefs, their preschool children’s home learning environments, and literacy skills. A sample of 112 mother–child dyads was recruited from Head Start centers in rural and urban communities. The measures included maternal self-efficacy and maternal perceptions of child’s readiness to read as well as the Stipek Home Learning Activities (SHLA) scale, Home-Learning Environment Profile (HLEP), and the Stony Brook Family Reading Survey (SBFRS). Modeling path analysis was performed. Model fit indices indicated that the resulting model was a good fit for the data. Concerning the direct effects of maternal self-efficacy on home learning environment, positive significant effects for the SHLA measure as well as the HLEP were found. However, no direct effect was found with regard to maternal self-efficacy on SBFRS indicating evidence for the domain specificity of efficacy beliefs. Implications of the study include findings that higher maternal self-efficacy is related to creating a more positive home learning environment. Additionally, higher maternal perceptions of child readiness to read mediates the relationships between higher maternal self-efficacy and a more positive home literacy environment. Moreover, these findings highlight the link between home learning environment and children’s receptive vocabulary skills.     

Maternal parenting and children's conscience: early security as moderator

Socialization research is shifting from direct links between parenting and children's outcomes toward models that consider parenting in the context of other factors. This study proposed that the effects of maternal responsive, gentle parenting on child conscience are moderated by the quality of their relationship, specifically, early security. A 2-process model of early conscience development was proposed and confirmed in this longitudinal study. The child's security and trust in the caregiver, assessed at 14 months in the Strange Situation, rendered him or her receptive and eager to accept the caregiver's socialization agenda. That early security then enhanced the effectiveness of parental adaptive parenting style, observed from 14 to 45 months, in terms of promoting conscience at 56 months, which encompassed moral conduct, moral cognition, and moral self.     

Critical action learning – rituals and reflective spaces

This paper is written to outline our ideas on rituals and reflective places and how this thinking has emerged through our writing, facilitation and reflections around critical action learning and critical leadership. We attempt to show the conceptual framework that underpins our vision of Critical Leadership and how out of this work we have begun to develop new action learning techniques which we believe help to make the action learning we teach and practise, more critical. In describing these concepts of criticality we consider the tripartite elements of each of the three concepts we call Critical Leadership. That is ‘knowing, being, doing’; ‘space, place and pace’ and ‘thinking, feeling, willing’. We then go on to demonstrate how these three concepts helped us to shape our new action learning technique entitled ‘The Coliseum’. We believe that this new action learning technique enhances the likelihood of critical action learning taking place by underscoring key elements such as encouraging feedback, initiating deep listening, promoting challenge and, perhaps, in the end, precipitating enlightenment.     

STEM in England: meanings and motivations in the policy arena

STEM, an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, is widely used in science education. There is confusion, however, as to its provenance and meaning which is potentially problematic. This study examines the purpose of STEM practice in education in England and asks if there are differences in perceptions of STEM between science and mathematics educator stakeholders. The study’s contribution to the literature is its unusual focus on those who were responsible for making and enacting national STEM policy. A two-phase qualitative approach was followed comprising an analysis of government documentation together with semi-structured interviews with key contributors to the science and mathematics education discourse. Findings suggest that there is a disconnect between the interpretations of the science and mathematics educators with a danger-advantage dichotomy to participation in STEM being perceived by the mathematics educators. Early aims of the STEM agenda, including increasing diversity, gave way to a focus on numbers of post-16 physics and mathematics students. We conclude that if the term STEM is to continue to be used then there is a need for greater clarity about what it represents in educational terms and a wider debate about its compatibility with the aims of science education for all.     

Conceptions of students as partners

Engaging students as partners (SaP) in teaching and learning is an emerging yet contested topic in higher education. This study interviewed 16 students and staff working in partnership across 11 Australian universities to understand how they conceptualised SaP and the opportunities they believed SaP afforded their universities. Thematic analysis revealed three overlapping conceptions of partnership: SaP as counter-narrative, SaP as values-based practice, and SaP as cultural change. The findings are first interpreted through the lens of liminality and an ethic of care. This is followed by a discussion of inclusivity of involvement, resistance, and reinforcement of neoliberal agendas despite good intentions. Finally, implications for cautious enactment of both practice and research are offered.     

Developmental Relations Among Behavioral Inhibition,Anxiety, and Attention Biases to Threat and Positive Information

This study examined relations between behavioral inhibition (BI) assessed in toddlerhood (n = 268) and attention biases (AB) to threat and positive faces and maternal‐reported anxiety assessed when children were 5‐ and 7‐year‐old. Results revealed that BI predicted anxiety at age 7 in children with AB toward threat, away from positive, or with no bias, at age 7; BI did not predict anxiety for children displaying AB away from threat or toward positive. Five‐year AB did not moderate the link between BI and 7‐year anxiety. No direct association between AB and BI or anxiety was detected; moreover, children did not show stable AB across development. These findings extend our understanding of the developmental links among BI, AB, and anxiety.     

Principals and vice-principals: exploring the history of leading and managing public schools in Ontario,Canada

ABSTRACT

For teachers seeking formal school leadership roles the key choices have been either the vice- principalship or the principalship. In Ontario, Canada, however, the principalship has traditionally been considered the premier leadership goal with the vice-principalship regarded as merely a necessary transitional step toward achieving the principalship. In this article, we consider the enactments of principals and vice-principals plus the common and unique work typically demanded of each position by examining how both roles came to fruition from a historical context. How principals and vice-principals’ work came to be what it currently is in Canada’s most populace province is a reflection of the prevailing economic, social, political, historical, and educational contexts and particular interests being advanced. Both engage in complex, purposeful work that requires excellent interpersonal strengths, strategic thinking, an inclusive leadership disposition and values, organisational change capacities, and the ability to make evidence-based decisions. As well, both are expected to work in complementary ways to advance students’ academic and social learning, yet despite the need for leadership synergies, principals often ‘lead’ while vice-principals are left to ‘manage’. While the principal’s role is expansive and more clearly defined, the role of the vice-principal has broadened over decades. We will investigate the history for preparing and developing vice principals in this context to learn about why they continue to be reactive, situationally contingent, and dependent on task delegation from the principal. Such role-based differences can contribute to high job satisfaction and role clarity for principals, but disappointment for vice-principals who wish to exercise greater leadership.     

Training rats to discriminate between the odors of individual conspecifics

To determine the influence of genetic and microbiological factors in producing individually unique urine odors, we used a go/no-go operant task to assess the ability of eight male Long-Evans rats to discriminate between urine odors from the following pairs of male rats: (1) two outbred Long-Evans rats, (2) individual conventionally housed rats differing genetically only at the major histocompatibility complex (PVG vs. PVG.R1), (3) individual PVG versus PVG.R1 rats born by cesarean section and raised in germfree conditions, and (4) conventionally housed, genetically identical individuals of the PVG or PVG.R1 strains. Discriminable differences were present between the urine odors used in all four tasks. Analysis of the errors to a criterion of 85% correct discrimination responses revealed different learning patterns in each task. When bacteria were not present in genetically different rats (Task 3) and when bacteria were present but there were no genetic differences between rats (Task 4), the discrimination was the most difficult. The easiest discrimination involved the presence of bacteria and a genetic difference at the major histocompatibility complex (Task 2). These results indicate that, although bacteria are not necessary for the production of discriminable odor differences, they do influence the discriminability of the urine odors of rats.