First Date Sexual Expectations: The Effects of Who Asked,Who Paid,Date Location,and Gender

This investigation examined the effects of who asked, who paid, date location, and gender on first date sexual expectations and related attitudes. Participants from a large southwestern university in the United States reported that men hold higher first date sexual expectations than women, particularly when men asked and paid for the date and the date occurred at an apartment versus the movies or restaurant. When women asked and paid for the date and the date occurred at her apartment, men hold higher rape myth acceptance beliefs than when the man asked and paid for the date or when either sex asked for the date and the partners “went dutch” on expenses. Additional sexual- and gender-related findings, discussion, and implications follow.     

Profit (f)or the Public Good?

From the Sunday Pictorial's 1952 ‘Evil Men’ series, the first postwar exposé on homosexuality to appear in the British popular press, to the 1964 achievement by its stable mate the Daily Mirror of record circulation figures, both papers commodified and sensationalized homosexuality for consumption by mass newspaper audiences. Sensationalism was combined with homosexuality as a deliberate strategy to succeed in Britain's highly competitive postwar circulation wars and also to promote particular personal and political agendas of key directors. But historians have tended to focus on the vitriol of sensationalism, emphasizing its homophobic content, without fully interrogating the tactic itself. This paper looks at the origins of sensationalism as a strategy at Mirror Group newspapers, asserting that sensational treatments of homosexuality concretely illuminate the multiple interactions between subjective beliefs and the seemingly objective profit motive. At the Daily Mirror and Sunday Pictorial, homosexuals held a negative moral, political, and social value, but critically, they also held a high commercial value.     

Persisters and nonpersisters: Identifying the characteristics of who stays and who leaves from adult literacy interventions

Adult literacy programs are characterized by high attrition rates. Rigorous exploration of student persistence in adult reading classes is lacking. This study was an attempt to understand the profiles of adults who completed reading classes compared to a group of adults who made it to the midpoint and a group of adults who did not make it to the midpoint. Students were offered 100 h of instruction. Of the 395 students who attended the first day of class, only 198 completed the program. Results indicated that English language status, age, some reading related skills, class assignment, avoidance of reading, previous adult education experience, and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) benefit receipt variables significantly predicted persistence. The significance of some of these predictors varied based on analyzing midpoint completion or full completion. To further explore the characteristics of the sample, the most representative participants were selected from the group that did not make it to midpoint and from the group that completed the program. Results indicated that the most representative members of these two groups differed in English language status, gender, age, some reading related skills, and information access.     

HEIGHTENED TEST ANXIETY AMONG YOUNG CHILDREN: ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ANXIOUS RESPONSES TO HIGH‐STAKES TESTING

This study explored differences in test anxiety on high‐stakes standardized achievement testing and low‐stakes testing among elementary school children. This is the first study to directly examine differences in young students’ reported test anxiety between No Child Left Behind (NCLB) achievement testing and classroom testing. Three hundred thirty‐five students in Grades 3 through 5 participated in the study. Students completed assessments of test anxiety following NCLB testing and typical classroom testing. Students reported significantly more overall test anxiety in relation to high‐stakes testing versus classroom testing on two measures of test anxiety, effect sizes r = ?.21 and r = ?.10. Students also reported significantly more cognitive (r = ?.20) and physiological (r = ?.24) symptoms of test anxiety in relation to high‐stakes testing. This study adds to the test anxiety literature by demonstrating that students experience heightened anxiety in response to NCLB testing.     

Parameters of Adherence to a Yearlong Daily Report Card Intervention for Students With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Given that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a chronic disorder, which is likely to require sustained treatment, investigations of the adherence to long-term treatments are clearly needed. The current project is the first analysis examining the parameters of adherence to a daily report card (DRC) intervention over the course of an academic school year. To gain a greater understanding of the complexities inherent in long-term treatment implementation, parameters of adherence with respect to specific, setting-related criteria (i.e., month of the school year, day of the week, and consultant contact) were examined. Participants were 33 children enrolled in first through sixth grade. All participants were diagnosed with ADHD (85% were diagnosed with comorbid oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder), received special education services, and were assigned to an intervention condition wherein behavioral consultants worked with the teacher and parent to construct and implement a DRC intervention. Overall, results provide preliminary support for the utility of the DRC as a sustainable intervention for the duration of an entire school year. Although rates of adherence were relatively stable, a fine-grained examination indicated variability in adherence across days of the week and around behavioral consultation meetings. These results contribute to the research literature supporting the utility of continued behavioral support to enhance treatment adherence.     

Beyond Performance: A Motivational Experiences Model of Stereotype Threat

The contributing role of stereotype threat (ST) to learning and performance decrements for stigmatized students in highly evaluative situations has been vastly documented and is now widely known by educators and policy makers. However, recent research illustrates that underrepresented and stigmatized students’ academic and career motivations are influenced by ST more broadly, particularly through influences on achievement orientations, sense of belonging, and intrinsic motivation. Such a focus moves conceptualizations of ST effects in education beyond the influence on a student’s performance, skill level, and feelings of self-efficacy per se to experiencing greater belonging uncertainty and lower interest in stereotyped tasks and domains. These negative experiences are associated with important outcomes such as decreased persistence and domain identification, even among students who are high in achievement motivation. In this vein, we present and review support for the Motivational Experience Model of ST, a self-regulatory model framework for integrating research on ST, achievement goals, sense of belonging, and intrinsic motivation to make predictions for how stigmatized students’ motivational experiences are maintained or disrupted, particularly over long periods of time.     

Keeping Users at the Center: Developing a Multimedia Interface for Informed Consent

Viewing “informing” as a process to protect patients and support autonomy, we undertook a user-centered design process to develop online support for informed consent in pediatric Phase I research trials. Challenges included (a) delivering accurate information to people unfamiliar with medical terminology; (b) delivering this information humanely under time constraints and heightened emotions; (c) allowing users control over the information, while ensuring availability of legally required information. We addressed these challenges through analyses of audience, task, and information design.     

Stakes Matter: Student Motivation and the Validity of Student Assessments for Teacher Evaluation

In 2011, Indiana lawmakers established a system to evaluate teachers using existing standardized assessments as an indicator of student learning. In this study we examined one component of Indiana's evaluation system to determine whether student knowledge of the test's consequences is predictive of test performance. Using an experimental design, we found that the type of consequences associated with an administered reading assessment were associated with achievement differences. In particular, comparisons among group means show that when students were told that either their grades or their teacher's employment status were at stake, achievement was statistically significantly higher than when students were told that there were low proximal consequences associated with the test. Given the current policy climate in the United States of using student assessments for policy formation, teacher evaluations, and state and national rankings, our findings point to the need to clearly inform students about the consequences associated with their performance.     

The Influence of Hydration on Anaerobic Performance

This review examines the influence of dehydration on muscular strength and endurance and on single and repeated anaerobic sprint bouts. Describing hydration effects on anaerobic performance is difficult because various exercise modes are dominated by anaerobic energy pathways, but still contain inherent physiological differences. The critical level of water deficit (～ 3–4%; mode dependent) affecting anaerobic performance is larger than the deficit (～ 2%) impairing endurance performance. A critical performance-duration component (> 30 s) may also exist. Moderate dehydration (> 3% body weight; precise threshold depends on work/recovery ratio) impairs repeated anaerobic bouts, which place an increased demand on aerobic metabolism. Interactions between dehydration level, dehydration mode, testing mode, performance duration, and work/recovery ratio during repeated bouts make the dehydration thresh-old influencing anaerobic performance mode dependent.