Integration or Separation? Addressing Religious and Spiritual Issues in Multicultural Counseling: A National Survey of College Counselors

Given contemporary ethical concerns, the authors conducted a national survey of 216 college counselors’ perceptions of integrating religious and spiritual issues in multicultural counseling and counselor education. Using cluster analysis, the authors identified 4 patterns of commitments to multiculturalism and religiosity. Respondents demonstrated ethical bracketing in that they considered religious and spiritual issues favorably within the framework of multicultural counseling, irrespective of their commitments to those topics. Counselors can openly address spiritual and religious diversity.     

The Twelve Cranial Nerves of Christmas: Mnemonics,Rhyme, and Anatomy – Seeing the Lighter Side

Anatomy, has in history, been linked to helpful ways to remember structures, branches of nerves, structures passing through foramina, etc. Scalp is even a mnemonic in itself (S kin, C onnective tissue, A poneurosis, L oose areolar tissue, P ericranium). There has been concern by some educators that using mnemonics or rhymes promotes a surface approach to learning and is unhelpful in establishing long-term and meaningful deep learning. This article argues that mnemonics and rhyme can be used, in the appropriate way, at the right time, by students as an important learning strategy. That strategy can help lay a foundation of knowledge to be developed and later built upon, or simply recall information more easily. Mnemonics, like all information that is to be recalled, is consolidated by rehearsal. In examining the neuroanatomy of learning theories, it is therefore possible to suggest that when students begin to learn an area of anatomy, such as the cranial nerves, using a mnemonic or rhyme, it can help students remember the names and facilitate the engagement of the working memory processes assisting the student to build a construct for subsequent deeper layers of knowledge. Modern approaches to anatomy education involve a myriad of learning opportunities, but educators must assess the value of each one before recommending them to students. It appears that using mnemonics and rhyme is as valid today as it has been for centuries.     

Enhancement and constraint: student-mothers’ experiences of higher vocational education,emotion and time

Student-mothers who study vocationally related higher education programmes are a relatively under-researched group. Specifically, there is a paucity of research into the emotions that these learners experience. This article discusses a qualitative investigation that examined the emotional narratives that a group of vocational student-mothers offered. They were studying for a foundation degree for teaching assistants at a university in the North of England. The student-mothers were largely found to have experienced positive emotions. However, familial and workplace guilt had also been encountered. These emotions emanated from notions about how family and workplace time should be used. Student-mothers managed this cognitive dissonance by stressing the reciprocal relationships that existed between their studies, family lives and school work. However, for many of these learners familial and workplace guilt was a strong and continuing emotion.     

Classroom management: Approaches of regular education teachers and learning disability resource teachers

The approaches to classroom management of classroom teachers and learning disability resource teachers were examined. Significant differences in overall approach to classroom management were indicated, with classroom teachers displaying a more sensitizing (punitive) approach to classroom management. Classroom teachers pursuing graduate training in learning disabilities, as compared to elementary education or reading, displayed a significantly less sensitizing approach to classroom management.     

A comparison of self-focus versus attentional explanations of choking

This study examined attentional processes underlying skilled motor performance in threatening situations. Twenty-four trained participants performed a simulated rally driving task under conditions designed either to direct the focus of attention toward the explicit monitoring of driving or a distracting secondary task. Performance (lap time) was compared with a "driving only" control condition. Each condition was completed under nonevaluative and evaluative instructional sets designed to manipulate anxiety. Mental effort was indexed by self-report and dual-task performance measures. The results showed little change in performance in the high-threat explicit monitoring task condition, compared with either the low-threat or the high-threat distraction conditions. Mental effort increased, however, in all high- as opposed to low-threat conditions. Performance effectiveness was therefore maintained under threat although this was at the expense of reduced processing efficiency. The results provide stronger support for the predictions of processing efficiency theory than self-focus theories of choking.     

Effects of a motivational climate inntervention for coaches on young athletes' sport performance anxiety

The mastery approach to coaching is a cognitive-behavioral intervention designed to promote a mastery-involving motivational climate, shown in previous research to be related to lower anxiety in athletes. We tested the effects of this intervention on motivational climate and on changes in male and female athletes'cognitive and somatic performance anxiety over the course of a basketball season. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses revealed that the athletes in the intervention condition perceived their coaches as being more mastery-involving on the Motivational Climate Scale for Youth Sports when compared to athletes in an untreated control condition. Relative to athletes who played for untrained coaches, those who played for the trained coaches exhibited decreases on all subscales of the Sport Anxiety Scale-2 and on total anxiety score from preseason to late season. Control group athletes reported increases in anxiety over the season. The intervention had equally positive effects on boys and girls teams.     

Curriculum bias and reading achievement test performance

The overlap of words specifically taught in reading textbooks with the contents of standardized reading achievement tests may be a source of bias that is frequently overlooked in psychoeducational assessments. This study compares the standardized achievement test performance of 62 second graders receiving instruction in two different reading curricula (Open Court and Houghton-Mifflin) to determine whether either curriculum generates different quantitative estimates of reading achievement. Reading subtest scores derived from the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement-Brief Form (K-TEA), the Wide Range Achievement Test-Revised (WRAT-R), and the Reading Recognition and Reading Comprehension subtests from the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) were examined. Grade level equivalents and scaled scores from the California Achievement Test (CAT) were also examined. Three Curriculum × Test repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted using grade level scores (2×7), standard scores (2×4), and CAT scaled scores (2 × 5) as dependent measures. A significant Curriculum × Test interaction was identified, suggesting differences among tests in estimates of reading ability as a function of the reading program.     

Displaying Dinosaurs at The Natural History Museum,London

Dinosaur reconstructions have been exhibited in public for over a hundred years. During that time, scientific and public understanding of these extinct animals has changed considerably. Changes in perception have influenced and been influenced by the three-dimensional reconstructions mounted in museums and galleries, and these in turn have been influenced by the availability and use of mounting materials and techniques. The dinosaur exhibition in The Natural History Museum (NHM) in London contains examples of original, altered, and new dinosaur reconstructions that are described here—two, Gallimimus and Massospondylus, in detail. The final form of any reconstructed dinosaur is often influenced by factors beyond the control of the conservation, preparation, and mounting workers involved.