The self‐concepts and perceived competencies of gifted and non‐gifted students: a meta‐analysis

The current meta‐analysis compares the self‐concepts and perceived competencies of gifted and non‐gifted students. Using meta‐analytic methods to synthesise the results of 40 studies, we found that gifted students scored significantly higher than non‐gifted students on measures of academic and behavioural perceived competence, as well as global self‐concept. Gifted students scored significantly lower than non‐gifted students on measures of appearance and athletic perceived competence. Significant heterogeneity was found in the extent to which gifted and non‐gifted students' scores differed in the academic and global domains. Moderator variables such as participant grade level, method of gifted designation and publication year accounted for systematic differences in these domains. Gifted students' appearance and athletic perceived competencies may benefit from specific intervention, but their beliefs in other areas remain positive.     

Dysregulated Fear,Social Inhibition,and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia: A Replication and Extension

Behavioral inhibition indicates increased risk for development of social anxiety. Recent work has identified a pattern of dysregulated fear (DF), characterized by high fear in low‐threat situations, that provides a more precise marker of developmental risk through early childhood. This study tested a new longitudinal sample of children (n = 124) from ages 24 to 48 months. Replicating prior findings, at 24 months, we identified a pattern of fearful behavior across contexts marked by higher fear to putatively low‐threat situations. DF was associated with higher parental report of social inhibition at 24, 36, and 48 months. Extending prior findings, we observed differences in cardiac physiology during fear‐eliciting situations, suggesting that the neurobiological underpinnings of DF relate to difficulty with regulation.     

The West Wing and Depictions of the American Presidency: Expanding the Domains of Framing in Political Communication

This study uses framing to assess how the office of the President of the United States is depicted on NBC's The West Wing. This work represents a theoretical and empirical domain extension of framing in political communication, an area of study dominated by analyses of news content. Three distinct presidential depictions are analyzed: chief executive, political candidate, and private citizen. This quantitative content analysis of the 2001–2002 The West Wing television season addresses the frequency with which the fictional president performs these three roles and posits several hypotheses concerning the relative presentation of personality characteristics across contexts. All three roles are represented with substantive frequency, with the chief executive role dominating. Principled character traits are evident more often when the fictional President Bartlet is acting as chief executive than as a private citizen. Conversely, Bartlet presents more engaging personality traits when acting as a private citizen than as either chief executive or political candidate. Implications for these finding are outlined and future lines of research are detailed.     

Behavioral Inhibition and Stress Reactivity: The Moderating Role of Attachment Security

The role of the mother-toddler attachment relationship in moderating the relations between behavioral inhibition and changes in salivary cortisol levels in response to novel events was examined in 77 18-month-olds. Behavioral inhibition was determined by observing toddler inhibition of approach to several novel events. Attachment security to mother was assessed using the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Changes in salivary cortisol were used to index activity of the stress-sensitive hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system. In addition, toddler coping behaviors and the behaviors used by mothers to help toddlers manage novel events were examined. Elevations in cortisol were found only for inhibited toddlers in insecure attachment relationships. Mothers in these relationships appeared to interfere with their toddlers' coping efforts. These results are discussed in the context of a coping model of the relations between temperament and stress reactivity.     

Promoting intergenerational learning in higher education: older adult perspectives on course auditing

ABSTRACT

As the population ages, colleges and universities have opportunities to promote intergenerational learning by inviting lifelong learners to engage with students in the classroom. This article outlines an initiative to enroll older adults as auditors and to describe their experiences. Thirty of 40 older adult auditors completed a hard-copy survey administered in 2017 (75% response rate). Results indicate that auditors were motivated to enroll in a college course due to the self-satisfaction of learning, subject of the course, and time of course offering. Over half described completing course assignments and a majority accessed content on Blackboard at least once per week. Older adults reported engaging with students in and out of the classroom and described the benefits of intergenerational engagement as learning about younger adults’ perspectives and the reciprocity of learning and mutual respect between generations. Suggestions for improvement relate to offering more courses for auditing and greater assistance with course technology. Implications for promoting this type of lifelong learning initiative are discussed.     

Acting Like a Mathematician: A Project to Encourage Inquiry Early in the Math Major

Abstract

Inquiry is promoted as a way to engage students so that they learn more deeply; inquiry is also an end in itself, introducing students to the research process and the behaviors of a mathematician. This article reflects on an individual exploratory project used in a sophomore-level number theory course, examining how it supported student inquiry and integrated with departmental efforts to encourage productive mathematical dispositions. Additional attention is given to the choice of topics, focus on process rather than product, and student reflections in supporting the goal of student inquiry.     

Prompted Journal Writing Supports Preservice History Teachers in Drawing on Multiple Knowledge Domains for Designing Learning Tasks

Becoming a history teacher requires the integration of pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and content knowledge. Because the integration of knowledge from different disciplines is a complex task, we investigated prompted learning journals as a method to support teacher students’ knowledge integration. Fifty-two preservice history teachers participated in the experimental study. They read a text about a historical event, a text about teaching history, and a text about cognitive learning processes. Then they wrote a learning journal entry about the three texts. To support the journal writing, the participants in the experimental condition received four integration prompts, whereas the participants in the control condition received no prompts. In the prompted condition, the students engaged more often in integration strategies at the cost of rehearsal and organization strategies. Rehearsal and integration strategies predicted students’ recall of knowledge and their ability to evaluate learning tasks. Integration strategies as elicited in the journals predicted preservice teachers’ performance when designing a learning task for history education. In solving this task, the prompted preservice teachers used the information from the three texts in a more balanced way than the unprompted students who strongly focused on content knowledge. The study illustrates the potentials of learning journals as a method to support knowledge integration in history teacher education.     

From Best Practice to Best Fit: A Framework for Designing and Analyzing Pluralistic Agricultural Advisory Services Worldwide

Abstract

We assess the long-term effectiveness of outreach and education efforts associated with a water quality improvement project in a watershed located in northern Utah, USA. Conducted 15 years after the original project began, our research examines the lasting impacts of different extension activities on landowners’ motivations to participate and their awareness and understanding of the water quality problem. Data were gathered by reviewing annual project reports, interviewing project staff about outreach and education efforts, and conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a majority of the farmers and ranchers who participated in the project. The findings suggest that landowners were motivated to participate in the programme more by practical farm and household considerations and available cost-share opportunities than by particular environmental concerns. Previous relationships between farmers and government programme staff and one-on-one visits with landowners played an important role in their decisions to participate, while demonstration projects and peer-to-peer social diffusion processes played a much smaller role than expected. Although participants had a good grasp of the project goals, they did not have a strong sense of ownership of the water quality problem. These results suggest that education and outreach approaches centred only on the environmental dimensions of conservation projects may be insufficient to motivate changes in conservation behaviour. The results also suggest that conventional outreach strategies often did not have their presumed impact on landowners.     

Children Associate Racial Groups With Wealth: Evidence From South Africa

Group‐based social hierarchies exist in nearly every society, yet little is known about whether children understand that they exist. The present studies investigated whether 3‐ to 10‐year‐old children (N = 84) in South Africa associate higher status racial groups with higher levels of wealth, one indicator of social status. Children matched higher value belongings with White people more often than with multiracial or Black people and with multiracial people more often than with Black people, thus showing sensitivity to the de facto racial hierarchy in their society. There were no age‐related changes in children’s tendency to associate racial groups with wealth differences. The implications of these results are discussed in light of the general tendency for people to legitimize and perpetuate the status quo.