Can You Be a PESCaterian Among the Fort Worth Stockyards?

Yes you can, but you don’t have to eat only fish! All you have to do is follow the progress of the Protocol for Exchanging Serial Content (PESC) Working Group. The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) charged this group with delivering a recommended practice that will improve the interactions among libraries, archives, indexing services, content aggregators, publishers, and content creators, all needing to exchange serial data and work with digital files of serials. It will help them process a wide range of files that may be text based, image based, text with images, or some other combination, coded in a variety of file formats such as XML, EPUB, HTML, PDF, or ONIX. Laurie Kaplan discussed the PESC Working Group’s approach to this challenge.     

Cheating Around the World: A Cross-national Analysis of Principal Reported Cheating

An increasing problem of great concern for academic institutions around the world is the pervasiveness of academic cheating among students. However, there is a dearth of prior research on cheating in cross-national contexts. The present study examines the relationships between structural measures of strain and principals’ reports of problematic cheating in schools across 35 nations, derived from the 2007 Trends in International Math and Science Studies survey. The study employs multilevel logistic regression analysis to evaluate whether indicators of economic disadvantage, educational achievement, and educational inequalities influence the level of problematic cheating reported by school principals cross-nationally. Additionally, we identify which socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of nation-states are most related to perceptions of problematic academic cheating as reported by school principals. The findings indicate that schools with resource shortages, greater levels of economic disadvantage, and those with larger national average grade sizes experience higher levels of problematic cheating.     

Effortful Control Predicts Adolescent Antisocial‐Aggressive Behaviors and Depressive Symptoms: Co‐Occurrence and Moderation by Impulsivity

Effortful control is associated with fewer aggressive‐antisocial behaviors (AAB) and depressive symptoms (DEP), but impulsivity may moderate these relations. However, few researchers have considered the effects of AAB‐DEP co‐occurrence. A multi‐informant, multimethod approach assessed 5‐ to 10‐year‐olds’ effortful control and impulsivity and, 5–6 years later, their AAB and DEP (N = 474). Participants were non‐Hispanic Caucasian (59.2%) or Hispanic (27.9%) from a Southwestern U.S. metropolitan area. Low effortful control predicted pure AAB. Low effortful control and low impulsivity predicted pure DEP and co‐occurring AAB‐DEP. An effortful Control × Impulsivity × Age interaction predicted pure AAB and co‐occurring AAB‐DEP. For older adolescents, lower effortful control predicted more symptoms only at average and high impulsivity. Results highlight multiple pathways to pure DEP versus pure AAB or co‐occurring AAB‐DEP.     

Effects of emotional intelligence and supportive text messages on academic outcomes in first-year undergraduates

An increase in the number of students entering higher education has intensified the need for targeted strategies to support a wider range of student requirements. Current research suggests that emotional intelligence (EI) may be associated with academic success, progression and retention in university students but the use of EI screening as a prospective measure of success requires further investigation. This study evaluates the utility of prospective EI screening to predict progression rates, mean grades, attendance and online engagement in a sample of first-year undergraduate students enrolled on the same degree programme (N = 358). A supportive text messaging intervention was employed during potentially stressful periods of the academic year with a subsection of participants (n = 60) who demonstrated low total EI scores relative to the cohort. Results showed no effects of EI classification on progression rates, mean grades, attendance or online engagement (all p > 0.418). Alternatively, the text messaging intervention was associated with significant improvements compared with a matched control group for progression rates (p = 0.027), mean grades (p = 0.026) and attendance (p = 0.007). The frequency of access to the virtual learning environment also tended to be higher in the intervention group compared with the control group (p = 0.059). In conclusion, this study did not identify any benefits of EI screening as a prospective indicator of student success but provides encouraging indications that a text messaging support intervention could help to improve progression rates, mean grades, attendance and online engagement in first-year undergraduate students. Further research is warranted to develop these proof-of-concept findings.