Teachers’ role and attitudes concerning ADHD medication: A qualitative analysis

The increased use of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) medication by children has led to growing concerns. In a previous study, we found that many of the teachers that were interviewed about ADHD spontaneously associated ADHD with medication. The present study is a qualitative reanalysis of what precisely these 30 primary school teachers had spontaneously said about medication in our previous semi‐structured interviews on ADHD. Almost all respondents had experience with pupils taking ADHD medication. The majority of spontaneously mentions medication as the treatment of ADHD. Attitudes towards ADHD medication use by pupils are mainly ambivalent, but more positive than negative effects of medication are reported. However, what teachers say about ADHD medication is often not based on sound information; their attitudes tend to be formed by personal experiences rather than founded on professional and scientific sources. We conclude from our analysis that it will be in the interest of reducing the number of children on ADHD medication that teachers have good access to verified and up‐to‐date information on ADHD and medication so that they are better supported in making evidence‐based pedagogical judgments.     

Investigating populations via penguins and their poo!

We describe an activity that introduces students to population modelling, enables them to use estimates obtained from a sample to infer back to the population, and understands how the findings are translatable via penguins and their poo!     

Statistical investigation measuring intelligence and creativity

The use of statistical investigations as a teaching strategy have been shown to both motivate and engage students. The implementation of a statistical investigation to measure intelligence is described, covering core statistical principles and key elements of research design.     

The Role of Statistical Learning in Word Reading and Spelling Development: More Questions Than Answers

ABSTRACT

This special issue bundles a set of eight empirical studies and one review article that explore the role of statistical learning (SL) mechanisms (both domain-specific and domain-general) in supporting word reading and spelling development, and vice versa. In this introduction to the special issue, we worked to summarize the extent to which studies support our hypotheses relating SL to reading and spelling development while pointing out inconsistencies across studies that require us to refine and rethink our hypotheses.     

The effect of deservingness in invidious situations on the intensity of schadenfreude: a developmental study / El efecto del merecimiento sobre la intensidad de schadenfreude en situaciones de envidia: un estudio evolutivo

Objectives: envy is a negative social emotion that stems from a social comparison. This study explores the effect of deservingness on the intensity of schadenfreude (pleasure in another’s misfortune) in situations of invidious comparison. Method: the participants, 181 children between the ages of three and 10, were asked to describe what an envious character felt when the character (s/he) envied had lost an (deserved or undeserved) advantage. They were also asked to explain their answers. Results: the findings showed that schadenfreude was more intense when the lost advantage was undeserved than deserved only in young children. The difference between conditions decreased with age. The children’s explanations of schadenfreude were based on the damage to the envied person, whereas the responses of pity were justified by the misfortune and equitable ending (no one wins) of the story. Conclusions: the discussion addresses some of the possible factors, such as the acquisition of display rules, deservingness and perception of equality, that contribute to children’s understanding of emotions such as envy and schadenfreude.     

How gender is constructed and experienced in the social world of the nursery school

This case study attempts to capture the way gender is constructed and experienced in the social world of the nursery school. It presents findings from a staff survey, structured and unstructured observations of one male’s and one female’s professional practice and one-to-one interviews with children aged three to four years. Despite practitioners’ reported intentions to challenge traditional notions of gender, construction of traditional gender distinctions was not problematised by staff and was upheld by comments of children. Children appeared to construct themselves in terms of gender stereotypes and were offered only limited alternative gender positions by the male and female practitioners.     

Bridging Research and Practice: How Sales Training Can Contribute to New Product Launch Success

This study demonstrates how academicians and practitioners can work together on an important topic that matters to organizational performance: the pivotal role played by salespeople during new product launches. In particular, the authors present three potential interventions that training and sales managers may use to sell a new product to salespeople. The results legitimatize the critical contribution of sales training to new product sales performance and highlight the value of the partnership between training professionals and sales managers.     

Gender differences in motivation and strategy use in science: Are girls rote learners?

This study explored Ridley and Novak's (1983) hypothesis that gender differences in science achievement are due to differences in rote and meaningful learning modes. To test this hypothesis, we examined gender differences in fifth- and sixth-grade students' (N = 213) self-reports of confidence, motivation goals (task mastery, ego, and work avoidance), and learning strategies (active and superficial) in whole-class and small-group science lessons. Overall, the results revealed few gender differences. Compared with girls, boys reported greater confidence in their science abilities. Average-achieving girls reported greater use of meaningful learning strategies than did their male counterparts, whereas low-ability boys reported a stronger mastery orientation than did low-ability girls. The results further showed that students report greater confidence and mastery motivation in small-group than whole-class lessons. In contrast, students reported greater work avoidance in whole-class than small-group lessons. In general, the findings provide little support for Ridley and Novak's hypothesis that girls tend to engage in rote-level learning in science classes. Differences in self-reports of motivation and strategy-use patterns were more strongly related to the student's ability level and to the structure of learning activities (small group vs. whole class) than to gender. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Diana S. Greenwald: Painting by numbers—data-driven histories of nineteenth-century art,Princeton University Press, 2021

Journal of Cultural Economics -     

Evening electronic device use and sleep patterns in athletes

The present study aimed to investigate pre-sleep behaviours (including evening electronic device use) and sleep quantity in well-trained athletes. Seventy well-trained athletes (44 females, 26 males) aged 21 ± 4 y from a range of team and individual sports were asked to complete an online sleep diary for 7 days. The sleep diary included questions about pre-sleep behaviours (e.g. napping, caffeine intake), electronic device use in the 2 h prior to bedtime (e.g. type of device and duration of use) and sleep (e.g. time in bed, sleep onset latency). On average, athletes spent 8:20 ± 1:21 h in bed each night. Associations between age, time in bed and sleepiness suggested that younger athletes spent more time in bed (B = -0.05, p = 0.001) but felt sleepier (r = -0.32, p < 0.01) than older athletes. On average, athletes mostly used electronic devices for 0–30 min prior to sleep. The use of multiple devices in the evening was associated with more perceived difficulty in falling asleep (B = 0.22, p = 0.03), but no associations existed with other sleep variables. In summary, younger athletes may require later start times or improved sleep quality to resolve excessive sleepiness.