Social preference choices in late elementary school: Within and across group nominations

This study examined the social preference nominations (i.e., “liked most” and “liked least”) in relation to peer group and classroom social dynamics in a sample of 622 fifth graders from 11 schools in a southeastern state. Liked most and liked least nominations were given to a small concentration of students within classrooms. The top five nominees for liked most and liked least tended to be in peer groups and associated with at least one classmate who shared their position as a top nominee. The majority of liked most nominations in a classroom were made toward members inside the nominator's group, whereas the majority of liked least nominations were made toward peers outside one's group. Students in the same peer group were more likely to nominate the same peers as liked most than were students who did not affiliate together. In contrast, the concordance for liked least nominations was moderate at both the peer‐group and classroom level. Implications for school‐based social interventions are discussed. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Web Resources that Address Psychiatric Disorders in Pregnancy

Psychiatric disorders occur at every life stage, including pregnancy. This resource column highlights several Web resources that may be useful to childbirth educators and other health care providers who may care for pregnant woman experiencing one of these conditions.     

Let’s Talk About Men: Some Suggestions on How We Can Include Men in Conversations About Gender Roles in Librarianship

Nine years ago, I did not imagine listing gender issues as one of my core research interests. Now I cannot imagine my research revolving around anything else. The way I study gender though, has taken a rather startling turn away from women to focus (sometimes uncomfortably) on men. What follows is an argument about why studying men and masculinities can make us better librarians. I argue that studying men broadly is important, and librarians should explore methods and strategies for studying a specific type of men: well-educated, white men with established careers in libraries. While my narrative is highly personal, it is based on 9 years of research and reflection about how librarians discuss gender and professional identity.     

Perceptions of Cyberbullying: An Assessment of Perceived Severity among College Students

Cyberbullying research has typically been focused on specific areas, such as victimization, offender characteristics and typologies, and psychological effects for victims; however, perceived severity of cyberbullying has been studied less extensively. Using data on college students, the present study expands the current knowledge on perceived severity of cyberbullying by examining the way in which age, gender, race, type of high school attended before college, prior online victimization, and previous cyberbullying engagement influenced college students’ perceived severity of cyberbullying. Overall, the results indicate that college students considered cyberbullying to be a serious societal problem. Older individuals, females, those who attended public schools, and individuals who experienced cyberbullying victimization were found to be more likely to view cyberbullying as a serious problem than their counterparts. In addition, findings from this study revealed that even though college students perceive cyberbullying as a serious problem, the majority of those who have witnessed cyberbullying incidents would not report it to the police. Based on the findings, policy implications and practices to prevent future cyberbullying victimization are discussed.     

Preparing Biology Graduate Teaching Assistants for Their Roles as Instructors: An Assessment of Institutional Approaches

The inconsistency of professional development (PD) in teaching for graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) is a widespread problem in higher education. Although GTAs serve an important role in retention of undergraduate science majors and in promotion of scientific literacy in nonmajors, they often lack preparation and ongoing support for teaching. Given the recent national focus on instructional quality in introductory courses, our goal was to use an online survey to identify current practices of teaching PD for biology GTAs and compare these results with the last national survey on this topic. In responses from 71 participant institutions, 96% reported some mandatory teaching preparation for biology GTAs; however, 52% of these programs required 10 or fewer hours per year. Respondents wanted to change their programs to include more pedagogical information and teaching observations with feedback to their GTAs. Programmatic self-ratings of satisfaction with GTA PD were positively correlated with the number of topics discussed during PD. Although more schools are requiring GTA PD for teaching compared with the last national survey, the lack of program breadth at many schools warrants a national conversation with regard to recent calls for improving undergraduate instruction.     

School psychologists and suicide risk assessment: Role perception and competency

As the second leading cause of death for adolescents, suicide is a major concern for school personnel. School psychologists' training in mental health makes them well-positioned to lead in suicide prevention efforts; however, studies have shown a lack of preparedness in crisis intervention and, more specifically, suicide risk assessment. This study surveyed practicing school psychologists (N = 92) to explore their perception of both their role and competency in suicide risk assessment. Suicide risk assessment was defined as a broad term pertaining to any measures taken in suicide prevention, intervention, or postvention. The majority of school psychologists reported having a primary role at the tertiary level (i.e., intervening with a student identified as needing help). Participants indicated lacking adequate graduate preparation; however, most participants were confident in their knowledge of suicide and suicide risk assessment and were comfortable identifying and intervening with a student who is suicidal. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.     

Economists are Grading Students Away from the Subject

Using a unique data set, collected from over 1000 A-level students, we obtain evidence of student interest and achievement in their chosen A-level subjects. Ten major A-level subjects are considered with particular attention focused on economics, a subject that has experienced a marked decline in popularity (by over 50%) in the 1990s. A key finding is that students of economics under-perform in economics relative to both their other chosen A-levels and their GCSE performance. This finding is outstanding amongst the major A-levels. We conclude that students may be discouraged from the study of A-level economics by relatively severe grading at the mid-point of A-level study. Some positive action by the profession may be needed to stem fears of further decline in student take-up in the new AS-level environment where students may choose to discontinue some of their subjects at the end of one year of study.     

学生发展理论在学生事务管理中的应用——美国学生发展理论简介

美国大学对学生发展理论的研究有着近百年的历史。美国学生发展理论包括个体与环境、社会心理、认知和价值观和整合型理论四个基本类型。这些理论分别从社会学、心理学、生态学等角度来解释学生成长和发展规律,理论研究的重点逐步从着眼于学生发展的某一特定方面转移到学生的总体发展上。近二三十年来,由于学生群体的不断变化,美国对女性学生、同性恋学生以及其他弱势群体学生的研究逐步增加。学生发展理论深刻影响了美国的学生管理实践,为学生宿舍管理、学务咨询、心理咨询等重要的学生事务管理领域提供了理论指导。