The effects of varying the interreinforcement interval on appetitive contextual conditioning

Appetitive contextual conditioning in rats and ringdoves was investigated in six experiments. In Experiment 1, differential contextual training produced greater anticipatory activity in rats in the presence of a context paired with food than it did in rats in the presence of a different context in which food was never presented. Furthermore, the rats showed a preference for the context associated with food when they were given a simultaneous choice test between contexts. In Experiment 2, rats were more active in and preferred a context associated with a variable-time 30-sec (VT30) schedule as opposed to a VT180 schedule. Experiment 3 was a between-subjects replication of the previous experiment. As expected, rats exhibited significantly more anticipatory activity in a context in which food had been presented on a VT30 schedule than they did in a context in which food had been presented on a VT180 schedule. Experiment 4 showed that anticipatory activity was a reflection of context-US associations in ringdoves, and in Experiments 5 and 6, ringdoves also exhibited an inverse relationship between the. amount of anticipatory activity and the length of the interreinforcement interval (IRI). These results reveal a relation between ERI and contextual conditioning opposite from that obtained in studies of aversive conditioning.     

Getting to the heart of it: understanding mentoring relationship quality from the perspective of program supervisors

ABSTRACT

Mentoring relationship quality has frequently been associated with improved effectiveness of mentoring interventions for youth. As youth mentoring research has largely been undertaken in community-based, one-to-one mentoring programs in the United States, there have been recent calls to investigate mentoring relationships in specific contexts. Accordingly, this research examines relationship quality within nine mentor-mentee dyads involved in a New Zealand school-based mentoring program that combines one-to-one and group mentoring. This research identifies key features of and perceived influences on mentoring relationship quality using qualitative interviews with program staff and mentor portfolios. The results indicate that high quality relationships were formed during the program, and were primarily facilitated by mentors who demonstrated attunement, critical self-reflection, self-efficacy, and a holistic view of their mentee. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Peace education and peace education research: Toward a concept of poststructural violence and second-order reflexivity

Peace and conflict studies (PACS) education has grown significantly in the last 30 years, mainly in Higher Education. This article critically analyzes the ways in which this field might be subject to poststructural critique, and posits Bourdieusian second-order reflexivity as a means of responding to these critiques. We propose here that theory-building within PACS education is often limited by the dominance of Galtung and Freire, and that, while the foundational ideas of positive and negative peace, structural and cultural violence, conscientization, reflexivity and critical pedagogy are still relevant today, they nevertheless need to be combined in new ways with each other, and with Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and field, to adequately respond to poststructural critique. Thus, we call here for greater field-based reflexivity in twenty-first century PACS.     

Students’ Perspectives on LGBTQ-Inclusive Curriculum

Implementing curriculum that is inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) people has the potential to create an equitable learning environment. In order to learn more about students’ experiences of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, 26 high school students with diverse racial/ethnic, sexual, and gender identities were recruited from the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) Network in California. Students participated in focus groups conducted by telephone by GSA staff, sharing their experiences of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum in school. Qualitative coding methods, including grounded theory, were used to identify themes and interpret students’ responses. Data revealed that LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum was most often taught in social sciences and humanities courses as stand-alone lessons. LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum rarely met standards of social justice education, though opportunities for critical conversations about systemic oppression regularly emerged. For instance, teachers often failed to intervene in LGBTQ bullying and missed teachable moments conducive to inclusive curriculum. Some students learned positive LGBTQ lessons and highlighted the ways such curriculum reflected their identities and created a supportive school climate. Implications for equitable education are discussed.     

Analysis of the predictive qualities of betting odds and FIFA World Ranking: evidence from the 2006, 2010 and 2014 Football World Cups

ABSTRACT

The present study aims to investigate the ability of a new framework enabling to derive more detailed model-based predictions from ranking systems. These were compared to predictions from the bet market including data from the World Cups 2006, 2010, and 2014. The results revealed that the FIFA World Ranking has essentially improved its predictive qualities compared to the bet market since the mode of calculation was changed in 2006. While both predictors were useful to obtain accurate predictions in general, the world ranking was able to outperform the bet market significantly for the World Cup 2014 and when the data from the World Cups 2010 and 2014 were pooled. Our new framework can be extended in future research to more detailed prediction tasks (i.e., predicting the final scores of a match or the tournament progress of a team).     

Loneliness and physical activity: A systematic review

This article aims to provide an overview of the current state of research on the relationship between loneliness and physical activity (PA). A systematic literature search was conducted to identify all empirical studies assessing this relationship. A total of 37 studies stemming from 36 publications met the inclusion criteria. Study analyses comprised an individual consideration of each study and a systematic summarization of the studies. The majority of eligible studies focused on adolescent or elderly populations. Direct negative associations between PA and loneliness were found in half of the 24 cross-sectional studies. Of the seven identified longitudinal studies, one found a direct negative influence of PA on loneliness. Four longitudinal studies found evidence for a reverse influence, namely of loneliness on PA. Five intervention studies found PA to reduce loneliness. Two of the cross-sectional studies and one of the intervention studies found social support and social competence to moderate or to mediate the relationship between PA and loneliness. The findings indicate that PA can contribute to a decrease in loneliness. However, studies also indicate that any beneficial effect is dependent upon the quality of relationships present during physical activity. Additionally, loneliness itself might reduce the probability of being physically active.     

IRUS-UK: Improving Understanding of the Value and Impact of Institutional Repositories

Institutional repositories (IRs) are important research management tools that can give increased visibility to the institution’s scholarly outputs. Although statistics were previously available through the various repository interfaces, without an agreed standard it was not possible to measure usage across a range of IRs accurately. IRUS-UK is a national aggregation service, containing details of all content downloaded from participating IRs in the United Kingdom. Through collecting raw usage data and processing them into item-level usage statistics IRUS-UK provides comparable and authoritative standards-based data and also acts as an intermediary between UK repositories and other agencies.