Empowering or disempowering the international Ph.D. student? Constructions of the dependent and independent learner

There is in higher education a powerful discourse of ‘independent learning’. While there may be pedagogical rationales to support the desirability of increased independence at the tertiary stage, it may also serve other institutional agendas, such as functioning as a way for academic staff to ‘manage’ the frustrations experienced as teachers as a result of pressures to prioritise research. However, the individualisation of learning constituted by this discourse under‐emphasises the collaborative nature of learning. Academic success and failure are neither the property of the individual students nor of the instruction they receive, but lie rather in the relationships between students and the practices in which they and their teachers engage during the course of their ongoing interactions. The learning experiences of international doctoral students are used here to illustrate ways in which discourses of dependence and independence can operate to disempower students.     

Preparing early childhood preservice teachers for science teaching: aligning across a teacher preparation program

In early childhood education and early childhood teacher preparation, science is often a challenging academic content area. However, young children are primed for science learning, and early science learning is important for later science achievement. The current study presents an embedded case study of one early childhood teacher preparation program that undertook a process of infusing and aligning science teaching preparation across a curriculum preparing preservice teachers to work with children ranging in age from birth through third grade. Major themes fell into the three categories—motivation for change; the process of improving and aligning across a program; and science attitudes, beliefs, and experiences in the midst of change. Implications are discussed in terms of improving preparation for teaching early science and aligning across courses in early childhood teacher preparation.     

But I want to fly too!: Girls and superhero play in the infant classroom

This article describes a study which was conducted in an inner-city school in the north of England, in a base which contained 57 children aged 6 and 7 years old. The purpose of the study was to explore the potential role of popular culture in the literacy curriculum. During the project, a socio-dramatic role-play area which was related to a popular superhero icon was set up in the classroom. Children's play in the area was recorded using a variety of methods, including field notes, video recording and photographs. Some of the previous research on superhero play has focused on the attraction the discourse has for boys or suggested that girls take on a non-female persona in such a play. The findings from this study suggest that superhero play is strongly attractive to girls, who explore agency and autonomy through such play and actively position themselves as females within a heroic discourse.     

A preliminary evaluation of the associations among functional performance tasks and quality of life in obese and healthy weight youth

The associations among lower extremity functional performance and quality of life in obese youth are unknown. The aims of this study were to compare lower extremity strength, lower extremity functional performance, and health related quality of life between obese and healthy-weight youth and evaluate the relationships between lower extremity performance and health related quality of life in obese youth. Twenty obese and 20 age and sex matched healthy-weight youth were recruited. Peak torque of the major lower extremity muscles were measured. Functional performance was measured with single leg hop and single leg balance tests. The Paediatric Quality of Life questionnaire's physical and psychosocial health subscales were used. Paired t-tests and multiple regression analyses were performed. Obese youth demonstrated decreased peak torque in all muscles measured (P < 0.05), poorer functional performance (P < 0.05), and worse physical health related quality of life (P < 0.05) compared to healthy-weight youth. Lower extremity functional performance was associated with aspects of quality of life in the obese group (P = 0.002), but not in the healthy-weight group (P < 0.05). These results may assist in encouraging best practices in the promotion of exercise, physical activity, and quality of life in obese youth.     

Using Scopus to Study Researchers’ Citing Behavior for Local Collection Decisions: A Focus on Psychology

In recent years, the University of Houston has engaged in a campus-wide effort to raise the university to Tier-One status. The initiative has led to a significant increase in faculty's research output in the field of psychology. This dynamic change inspired the Psychology Librarian and Collection Coordinator to embark on a citation analysis to investigate two questions: how has faculty been using information for their research and how does the library's collection meet the research needs of faculty? In addition to reporting these findings, the article also describes how to use features in Scopus to simplify the data collection process.