Learning environment of a distance and partly-distance postgraduate coursework programs

Learning Environments Research - To provide ongoing learning for busy professionals, universities are increasingly offering postgraduate opportunities by distance and online. This research examined...     

Adolescent bully-victims: Social health and the transition to secondary school

This study aimed to investigate the causal pathways and factors associated with being involved in bullying behaviour as a bully-victim using longitudinal data from students aged 11–14 years over the transition time from primary to secondary school. Examination of bully-victim pathways suggest a critical time to intervene is prior to transition from the end of primary school to the beginning of secondary school to prevent and reduce the harm from bullying. Negative outcome expectancies from bullying perpetration were a significant predictor of being a bully-victim at the end of the first year of secondary school. The findings show an association between peer support, connectedness to school, pro-victim attitudes, outcome expectancies and level of bullying involvement. Implications for intervention programs are discussed.     

A crisis of confidence: women coaches' responses to their engagement in resistance

This study centres upon the accounts of master women coaches based in the UK, exploring how they have individually experienced such acts of resistance as reaching the top of such a male dominated profession. By going beyond previous positivist feminist approaches to this focus of inquiry, I employ a feminist cultural studies framework to understand how the social construction of what it means to be a woman impacts women coaches' individual sense of self and confidence to lead. The discussions are based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with six senior national women coaches of team sports in the UK. The data highlight the success of masculine hegemony of coaching through documenting women's reluctance to advance their coaching career through a lack of self-belief and motivation as a consequence of their culturally and historically marginal position. The findings illustrate a pressing need for a revision of the dominant values inherent in professional sport in order to engage and retain potential women leaders.     

Critiquing Inequality in Society and on Campus: Peers and Faculty Facilitate Civic and Academic Outcomes of College Students

Research in Higher Education - Guided by Critical Consciousness Theory and the Multicontextual Model for Diverse Learning Environments, this research explored whether a critical reflection of...     

Books and Publishing

Thomas Whiteside, THE BLOCKBUSTER COMPLEX: CONGLOMERATES, SHOW BUSINESS, AND BOOK PUBLISHING (MiddletOwn, Conn., 1981---$12.95)

John Dizer, Jr., TOM SWIFT & COMPANY: "BOY'S BOOKS" BY STRATEMEYER AND OTHERS (McFarland & Co. Inc., Box 611, Jefferson, N.C. 28640---$17.95)

Roy Harley Lewis, THE BOOK BROWSER'S GUIDE TO SECONDHAND AND ANTIQUARIAN BOOKSHOPS (North Pomfret, Vt.: David & Charles, 1982---$23.50)

Linda S. Hubbard, ed. BOOK PUBLISHERS DIRECTORY (Detroit; Gale Research, 1981---$160)     

Effects of exposure duration on part-whole perception in children.

Drawings of familiar objects arranged to suggest more general wholes (e.g., a beast made of pieces of fruit) were presented to 128 children aged 3-12 years, using 4 exposure durations. The ability to see both parts and wholes together improved with age, confirming earlier studies. In addition, the results suggest that limiting viewing time affects the ability to see both parts and wholes together (in a sequential, nonintegrated fashion) more in young children than in older children. The results further suggest that for younger children duration does not affect the ability to see parts and wholes in a hierarchical relationship. These results are interpreted as suggesting that at least 2 different processes mediate part-whole perception in children.     

Disentangling Mathematics Target and Access Skills: Implications for Accommodation Assignment Practices

Appropriate assignment of accommodations is predicated on a clear distinction between target skills and access skills. In this study, we examine the agreement between test developer/researchers’ and educators’ classification of target and access skills as a possible explanatory mechanism for assigning accommodations. Findings indicate that participants with expertise in mathematics education had the highest agreement when classifying target skills, as evidenced by a higher overall sensitivity value and the greatest number of items with the highest sensitivity value. Conversely, special education faculty members had the highest overall agreement when classifying access skills, as evidenced by a higher overall specificity value. Mathematicians, however, had the highest sensitivity values for the greatest number of items. Implications for accommodation assignment practices are discussed.     

Measuring the potential for child maltreatment: the reliability and validity of the Adult Adolescent Parenting Inventory--2

OBJECTIVE: The field of child protection needs reliable and valid methods of assessing the potential for child abuse and neglect. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Adult Adolescent Parenting Inventory--2 (AAPI-2), Form B, using a sample of 309 low-income, rural families in a southern state. METHOD: The AAPI-2 is a 40-item survey designed to assess the parenting and child rearing attitudes of adult and adolescent parent and pre-parent populations. Each of the five AAPI-2 scales was (a) examined using factor analysis in order to determine the unidimensionality of the scale, (b) evaluated based on estimates of the scales reliability in order to determine the consistency with which the construct was measured, and (c) when possible, examined to determine if it is related to other constructs in meaningful and expected ways. RESULTS: While the factor structure reported by the developer was not fully confirmed in this sample, there is some evidence that the instrument is measuring at least two of the constructs it purports to measure and that the total score may be useful. Correlations with other instruments measuring parenting behavior and child behavior were significant, and in the expected direction, offering some support for the validity of the AAPI-2. CONCLUSIONS: While the AAPI-2 appears to measure attitudes related to harsh or neglectful parenting, caution should be used in the interpretation of the individual AAPI-2 scales.     

Head Start and Unintended Injury: The Use of the Family Map Interview to Document Risk

Much is known about how to provide safe environments for preschool children (3–5 years-of-age); however, many preschool children still experience preventable injuries—particularly children living in poverty. This study examined the use of an assessment tool used to identify children at risk for unintended injury in two large, federally funded Head Start programs during home visits. Families of preschool children in two multi-center Head Start programs (N = 499 and N = 228) were screened by teachers for risks related to safety in their home and parenting environment during mandatory Head Start home visits in the fall and spring. The safety screening tool was part of an established, broader interview assessment called the Family Map, which was designed to help Head Start programs meet mandatory performance standards related to the identification of risk and strengths in the family. Study results indicated that a large number of preschool children from low-income backgrounds were at risk for a variety of risks related to unintentional injury. Further, in some areas Head Start families increased their safety related parenting behaviors by the second assessment with different areas noted in the two programs. This study demonstrated that, beyond the use of the tool to identify families in need of intervention services, it can be used by childcare providers to effectively monitor family need and for program self-assessment.