Personality,moral purpose,and the leadership of an education for sustainable development

This paper describes how two primary head teachers, nationally recognised as role models for the development of an education for sustainable development (ESD) in their schools, manage the implementation of this area. In doing so, it shows how they adopt two very different approaches to ESD and to their job generally, and suggests that whilst there are some commonalities between them, educational leadership needs to be seen as driven by a moral purpose, engaging and re-engaging with each situation, entering into a dialectic with others’ visions, leading to the re-conceptualisation of problems in different ways. This not only suggests a continued tension between such uniqueness and standardised approaches to headship, but raises questions about current policy imperatives for developing models of sustainable leadership.     

Instructional product development: Two approaches to training

Summary For several reasons there has been a marked increase in the activities associated with the systematic development of instructional products. A prime factor impeding the advancement of the field is the shortage of adequately trained personnel. Two quite different schemes for training instructional product developers were described with the hope that comparable training programs might be instituted elsewhere to prepare the much needed product development specialist.     

The relationship between peer victimization and post‐traumatic stress symptomatology in a rural sample

Peer victimization (PV) has been associated with a number of negative psychological sequelae. Few studies, however, have examined the relationship between PV and the symptomatology of post‐traumatic stress disorder, and no studies to date have examined this relationship in a rural sample. Adapted versions of the SEQ‐SR and the TSCC were used to assess the relationship between PV and post‐traumatic stress symptomatology in a sample of 244 rural youths (ages 10–14) in two school districts in a south‐central area of the United States. In addition to a positive relationship between PV and post‐traumatic stress symptomatology, the results indicated relatively high rates of adult presence and peer bystanding during PV experiences. Limitations and implications for practice are discussed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Evaluation of an intervention to help students avoid unintentional plagiarism by improving their authorial identity

Students with poorly developed authorial identity may be at risk of unintentional plagiarism. An instructional intervention designed specifically to improve authorial identity was delivered to 364 psychology students at three post‐1992 universities in London, UK, and evaluated with before‐and‐after measures of beliefs and attitudes about academic authorship, using the Student Authorship Questionnaire. Changes in questionnaire scores showed that the intervention led to significantly increased confidence in writing, understanding of authorship, knowledge to avoid plagiarism, and top‐down approaches to writing, and significantly decreased bottom‐up and pragmatic approaches to writing. For understanding of authorship, knowledge to avoid plagiarism and pragmatic approaches to writing, significant intervention by year of study interaction effects showed that the greatest improvements were among year one undergraduates. Direct evaluative feedback showed that 86% of students believed the intervention helped them avoid plagiarism and 66% believed it helped them write better assignments. Post‐intervention focus groups revealed changed student understandings about authorial identity and academic writing. The results show that interventions can help students avoid unintentional plagiarism by adopting more authorial roles in their academic writing. Further research could explore other influences on authorial identity, and examine the impact of authorial identity interventions on other outcome indicators.     

Rehabilitation and Non-Rehabilitation Counselor Candidates: Comparison of Interview Behavior and Personality Techniques

This study investigated the hypothesis that conventional role stereotypes of rehabilitation and non-rehabilitation counselors attract counselor candidates who differ in preferred modes of counseling interview behavior and in personality characteristics. Twenty-four rehabilitation counselor candidates and 21 non-rehabilitation counselor candidates enrolled in a beginning counseling course held interviews with a standard client. Candidates' responses were classified employing a content analysis scale. All subjects had taken the 16 PF at the beginning of the course. Results found rehabilitation counselor candidates used informative, questioning, diagnosing, and probing responses more frequently and feeling responses less frequently than did non-rehabilitation candidates. Non-rehabilitation candidates appeared less practical, conservative, and group adherent on the 16 PF than rehabilitation candidates.