Emotion‐regulation ability,burnout, and job satisfaction among British secondary‐school teachers

The topic of emotion regulation and its relationship with teacher effectiveness is beginning to garner attention by researchers. This study examined the relationship between emotion‐regulation ability (ERA), as assessed by the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), and both job satisfaction and burnout among secondary‐school teachers (N = 123). It also examined the mediating effects of affect and principal support on these outcomes. ERA was associated positively with positive affect, principal support, job satisfaction, and one component of burnout, personal accomplishment. Two path models demonstrated that both positive affect and principal support mediated independently the associations between ERA and both personal accomplishment and job satisfaction. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Memorization strategies in basic school: grade-related differences in reported use and effectiveness

European Journal of Psychology of Education - The study aims to examine students’ awareness and reported use of learning strategies as well as their effectiveness for word recognition using a...     

Die arbeitsrechtliche Stellung von Lehrbeauftragten im Lichte der Entscheidung VwGH 2005/08/0137 vom 25.4.2007

Die im April diesen Jahres ergangene Entscheidung des VwGH zur Einordnung von Lehrbeauftragten an Fachhochschulen aus arbeits-, sozialversicherungs- und einkommensteuerrechtlicher Sicht hat die Diskussion zur Einordnung der Dienstverhältnisse mit Lehrbeauftragten neu entfacht. Im Rahmen des Aufsatzes beleuchten die Autoren den historischen Hintergrund der Einordnung von Lehraufträgen aus steuer- und sozialversicherungsrechtlicher Sicht und legen dar, wie es zur Einordnung der freien Dienstverhältnisse an Fachhochschulen als "echte" Dienstverträge in sozialversicherungsrechtlicher Sicht gekommen ist. Abschließend wird in Hinblick auf die neueste VwGH-Entscheidung kritisch dargelegt, warum Lehrbeauftragte keine "echten" Dienstnehmer aus arbeitsrechtlicher Sicht sein können.     

Developmental trajectories of goal orientations and math skills from grades 7 to 9

European Journal of Psychology of Education - The current study focuses on the developmental trajectories of mastery and performance goal orientations and their relationships with math skills along...     

Differences in teachers’ comments on classroom events as indicators of their professional development

This study aims at identifying indicators of schoolteachers’ professional development by learning teachers’ perceptual and thinking capabilities of classroom events as reflected in their comments. The analysis of comments produced by novice and expert teachers on videotaped lesson activities, based mainly on the grounded theory strategy, revealed that expert teachers are more sensitive towards certain instructional events and to general teaching strategy used by the model teacher than novice teachers. The findings of this study might be useful for promoting student teachers’ professional sensitivity towards relevant features of classroom instruction and atmosphere in pre-service teacher education programs.     

Would dogs copy irrelevant actions from their human caregiver?

Companion dogs learn easily from humans, including human behavior, human communication, and some aspects of the human-made environment. They benefit from having the opportunity to learn from humans and are able to spontaneously synchronize their behavior with that of their caregiver. Here, we tested whether pet dogs would show a special form of observational learning, one that has been considered uniquely human. Indeed, humans show overimitation, the faithful copying of causally irrelevant actions, but great apes do not. Because in humans this peculiar form of imitation is strongly motivated by social factors, such as affiliation or conformity, we hypothesized that domesticated and enculturated dogs are more likely than apes are to copy such actions, especially if shown by their affiliated caregiver. Indeed, half of the dogs replicated a causally irrelevant action that was demonstrated by their caregiver, and about the same number did this whether they saw only this action being demonstrated or being demonstrated before or after a causally relevant, functional action. The demonstration of a causally relevant action, one that is immediately followed by access to food, thus does not inhibit the copying of an action that is spatially separated and functionally opaque. Given that the copying frequency in this study was low overall, these results suggest evidence for overimitation in dogs, which might challenge the human uniqueness of this type of social learning.