Publication and patent behavior of academic researchers: Conflicting, reinforcing or merely co-existing?

Increasing entrepreneurial activity within academia has raised concerns that the number of publications added to the scientific commons might be reduced or that academic research would be directed exclusively towards the application-oriented needs of industry. In the case of academic inventions, the potential conflict between public- and private-oriented considerations seems most salient. In this contribution, we examine whether the publication behavior of academic inventors (at K.U. Leuven) differs from their colleagues (non-inventors) working within similar fields of research. Our analysis reveals that inventors publish significantly more. Moreover, no empirical evidence was found for the ‘skewing problem’. These findings not only suggest the co-existence of both activities; they may actually reinforce each other.     

Preschoolers' use of morphosyntactic cues to identify generic sentences: indefinite singular noun phrases, tense, and aspect

Generic sentences (e.g., "Birds lay eggs") convey generalizations about entire categories and may thus be an important source of knowledge for children. However, these sentences cannot be identified by a simple rule, requiring instead the integration of multiple cues. The present studies focused on 3- to 5-year-olds' (N = 91) use of morphosyntactic cues--in particular, on whether children can (a) interpret indefinite singular noun phrases (e.g., "a strawberry") as generic and (b) use a verb's tense and aspect (e.g., "A bat sleeps/slept/is sleeping upside down") to determine whether its subject noun phrase is generic. Children demonstrated sensitivity to both cues. Thus, solving the in-principle problem of identifying generics may not be beyond the reach of young children's comprehension skills.     

Parents' involvement in adolescents' schooling: a multidimensional conceptualisation and mediational model

This study examined the impact of parental involvement on adolescents' academic achievement in Korean families. The major strengths of the current research are the study of multiple dimensions of parental involvement, the longitudinal design and the consideration of mediating variables. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the direct and indirect effects of parental involvement on students' academic achievement using data from a nationally representative sample of middle school students from the Korea Youth Panel Survey. Results indicated: (1) parental involvement dimensions positively influenced achievement through its effects on student self‐concept and locus of control; and (2) parents' increased participation in involvement practices (monitoring, educational expectation and affection) increases students' self‐concept and locus of control.     

Implicit attitudes toward children may be unrelated to child abuse risk

Objective

To explore whether adults possess implicit attitudes toward children and whether those attitudes are especially negative among respondents who are high in child physical abuse (CPA) risk.

Methods

The present study used an implicit evaluative priming procedure. In this procedure, participants were instructed to make decisions about the evaluative implications of target words. These words were preceded by photographs of child faces or adult faces displaying positive, neutral, or negative expressions. Reaction times for the evaluative decisions were used as an index of the extent to which photos invoked negative or positive evaluative reactions.

Results

Results from 2 studies, the first conducted on a student sample (N = 90) and the second on a parent sample (N = 95), demonstrated that evaluative congruence between the facial expressions displayed in photographs and the target words facilitated responses. Furthermore, the results suggested that regardless of CPA risk, child faces, relative to adult faces, facilitated responses to negative target words, suggesting an out-group bias. This implicit out-group bias was not moderated by respondents’ CPA risk status.

Conclusions

Faces of children, relative to faces of adults, appear to activate negative information structures that facilitate evaluative decisions of negative stimuli, suggesting an out-group bias. Given that out-group biases typically lead to less favorable treatment of out-group members, additional research is needed to examine the pervasiveness of negative evaluative biases towards children and the potential implications of such biases on children's lives. Further, research examining whether high CPA risk parents and low CPA risk parents differ in how they manage initial negative evaluative reactions is needed.     

Developing teaching self-efficacy in research institutions: A study of award-winning professors

The purpose of this study was to assess the sources of award-wining research professors’ (six women; six men) teaching self-efficacy through the framework of Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory. Semi-structured interviews revealed that mastery experiences and social persuasions were particularly influential sources of self-efficacy and that these sources tended to be closely related. Professors reported that their self-efficacy had generally stabilized within their first few years of assuming a tenure-track position. Participants framed negative events in adaptive ways that had little cost to their teaching self-efficacy.     

How to foster student�Cstudent learning of science? The student, the teacher and the subject matter

In this response to Konstantinos Alexakos, Jayson K. Jones, and Victor H. Rodriguez’s study, I discuss ways attending to student membership in groups can both inform research on equity and diversity in science education and improve the teaching of science to all students. My comments are organized into three sections: how underrepresented students’ experiences in science classrooms are shaped by their peers; how science teachers can help students listen to and learn from one another; and how the subject matter can invite or discourage student participation in science. More specifically, I underscore the need for teachers and students to listen to one another to promote student learning of science. I also highlight the importance of science education researchers and science teachers viewing students both as individuals and as members of multiple groups; women of color, for example, should be understood as similar to and different from each other, from European American women and from ethnic minorities in general.     

Surgeons as medical school educators: an untapped resource

Despite extensive experience teaching residents, surgeons are an untapped resource for educating medical students. We hypothesized that by involving surgeons as teachers earlier in the medical school curriculum, medical students' interest in surgery will increase and their opinions of surgeons will improve. Five programs designed to involve surgeons as educators in the medical school curriculum were implemented. The first program, started in 2008, introduced surgical faculty into the first-year medical student anatomy dissection laboratories. Other programs initiated in 2008 included: Surgical Clinical Correlates in Anatomy, which involved faculty teaching through cadaver surgery; Clinical Pathologic Conferences in Anatomy, a surgeon-led conference based on clinical cases; and a women's faculty-student mentorship program. Table Rounds, a surgeon-led anatomy review that used clinical scenarios to quiz students was begun in 2009. All five programs were successfully integrated into the medical school curriculum. While student opinion of surgeons as educators improved, there were no significant changes in student interest in surgery as a career nor change in performance on written examinations over the Anatomy content covered by the surgeons. Surgical faculty and trainees can be integrated into the medical school curriculum. Involving surgeons as educators earlier in the medical school curriculum may have longer term effects than could be observed in this study. At a minimum, the experience improved student opinion of surgeons as educators.     

Demand articulation in emerging technologies: Intermediary user organisations as co-producers?

User involvement is assumed to be beneficial to innovation processes. Intermediary user organisations contribute to articulating societal demands for innovations. However, the learning processes inside these organisations are still not understood well. Therefore, this paper empirically investigates intermediaries using an event history approach. It yields characteristic learning mechanisms, e.g. concerning the management of expectations or actively building a case. If intermediaries overcome challenges regarding positioning, representation and the level of proactivity, they can play a precarious role in demand articulation in the context of new technologies.     

Masculinity, moral atmosphere, and moral functioning of high school football players

In order to identify factors associated with on-field moral functioning among student athletes within the unique context of football, we examined masculine gender role conflict, moral atmosphere, and athletic identity. Using structural equation modeling to assess survey data from 204 high school football players, results demonstrated that moral atmosphere (i.e., the influence of coaches and teammates) was significantly associated with participants' process of on-field moral functioning across the levels of judgment, intention, and behavior. Neither masculine gender role conflict nor athletic identity significantly predicted moral functioning, but the results indicated that participants' identification with the athlete role significantly predicted conflict with socialized gender roles. Results suggest that in the aggressive and violent sport of football, coaches can have a direct influence on players' moral functioning process. Coaches can also have an indirect effect by influencing all the players so that a culture of ethical play can be cultivated among teammates and spread from the top down.