Students' self-perception of reading ability,enjoyment of reading and reading achievement

Using data from New Zealand's National Education Monitoring Project, a light sampling, low stakes performance based national school assessment program, reading self-efficacy, reading enjoyment, and reading achievement were examined in samples of 8 and 12 year old children. Sample sizes were n = 480 for each group. While reading achievement increased substantially in going from age 8 to age 12, reading enjoyment and reading self-efficacy declined. Girls outperformed boys in reading achievement and showed higher levels of reading enjoyment; differences in self-efficacy by gender were minimal. Results are discussed in terms of previous research and implications for instructional practice.     

Contextual Factors Related to Math Anxiety in Second-Grade Children

As the United States falls farther behind other countries in standardized math assessments, the author seeks to understand why U.S. students perform so poorly. One of the possible explanations to U.S. students’ poor math performance may be math anxiety. However, math anxiety in elementary school children is a neglected area in the research. The author aimed to close the gap in knowledge about math anxiety in children by examining contextual factors related to math anxiety in second-grade children. The author used the theory of triadic reciprocity as the theoretical model in this study in which children (n = 91) and their parents (n = 81) completed a series of self-report measures on math anxiety, math self-concept, reading self-concept, math self-efficacy, and aspects of the home math environment. Results indicated that the strongest predictor of math anxiety in second-grade children was their level of math self-concept. The addition of environmental factors did not significantly increase the amount of variance explained in math anxiety.     

Contributions of local and central sensations to the perception of exertion during cycling: effects of work rate and cadence

There is evidence to suggest that perception of exertion during exercise is based on both local and central sensations. The aim of the present experiment was to determine the relative contributions of different sensations to overall perceived exertion during cycling. Eighteen trained cyclists pedalled on a cycle ergometer for 4 min at each of three work rates (100, 150 and 200 W) and cadences (50, 70 and 90 rev x min(-1)). At the end of each bout, they used Borg's category-ratio (CR-10) scale to rate their overall perceived exertion, leg muscle pain, knee pain, breathlessness and heart beat intensity. The results indicated that cadence only influenced local sensations (muscle pain and knee pain), which were significantly higher at slower pedalling rates. Neither overall perceived exertion nor central sensations (breathlessness and heart beat intensity) were significantly affected by cadence. In contrast, increases in work rate were associated with higher ratings for all sensations. Further analyses revealed that variations in these overall ratings of perceived exertion as a function of work rate were accounted for by variations in ratings of muscle pain and breathlessness. The general implication is that perceived exertion during cycling derives from a combination of muscle and respiratory sensations.     

Factors Influencing American Indian and Alaska Native Postsecondary Persistence: AI/AN Millennium Falcon Persistence Model

The purpose of this review of literature is to identify variables (Hart 1998), relevant to AI/AN postsecondary persistence, and to examine the relationship between findings and postsecondary persistence theories at 2 and 4-year institutions. An exhaustive review with selective citation was used to locate relevant documents. Due to the limited amount of articles found for this review, I included both qualitative and quantitative articles. The factors were organized into four emerging themes including; family support, institutional support, tribal community support and academic performance. Due to the lack of research conducted using measures important to AI/AN persistence, the understanding of factors influencing AI/AN student postsecondary persistence is still somewhat limited.     

批评的历史维度

本文针对20世纪文学批评领域出现的热衷于自我证明并拒绝历史语境的倾向，通过剖析文体学批评、道德批评、神话批评、精神分析批评和结构主义批评等五种批评方法，说明没有一种阐释模式是完全自足的，它们所谓的自主性来自阐释过程中的任意限定和设界。如果将其中的任何一种方法延伸，即使完全用它自身的术语，也会再次进入批评的历史维度。     

The Rise of Computing Research in East Africa: The Relationship Between Funding,Capacity and Research Community in a Nascent Field

The emergence of vibrant research communities of computer scientists in Kenya and Uganda has occurred in the context of neoliberal privatization, commercialization, and transnational capital flows from donors and corporations. We explore how this funding environment configures research culture and research practices, which are conceptualized as two main components of a research community. Data come from a three-year longitudinal study utilizing interview, ethnographic and survey data collected in Nairobi and Kampala. We document how administrators shape research culture by building academic programs and training growing numbers of PhDs, and analyze how this is linked to complicated interactions between political economy, the epistemic nature of computer science and sociocultural factors like entrepreneurial leadership of key actors and distinctive cultures of innovation. In a donor-driven funding environment, research practice involves scientists constructing their own localized research priorities by adopting distinctive professional identities and creatively structuring projects. The neoliberal political economic context thus clearly influenced research communities, but did not debilitate computing research capacity nor leave researchers without any agency to carry out research programs. The cases illustrate how sites of knowledge production in Africa can gain some measure of research autonomy, some degree of global competency in a central arena of scientific and technological activity, and some expression of their regional cultural priorities and aspirations. Furthermore, the cases suggest that social analysts must balance structure with culture, place and agency in their approaches to understanding how funding and political economy shape scientific knowledge.     

Preparing engineers for the challenges of community engagement

Despite calls to address global challenges through community engagement, engineers are not formally prepared to engage with communities. Little research has been done on means to address this ‘engagement gap’ in engineering education. We examine the efficacy of an intensive, two-day Community Engagement Workshop for engineers, designed to help engineers better look beyond technology, listen to and learn from people, and empower communities. We assessed the efficacy of the workshop in a non-experimental pre–post design using a questionnaire and a concept map. Questionnaire results indicate participants came away better able to ask questions more broadly inclusive of non-technological dimensions of engineering projects. Concept map results indicate participants have a greater understanding of ways social factors shape complex material systems after completing the programme. Based on the workshop’s strengths and weaknesses, we discuss the potential of expanding and supplementing the programme to help engineers account for social aspects central to engineered systems.     

Academic Motivation and Psychological Needs as Predictors of Suicidal Risk

This study examined academic motivation and basic psychological needs as predictors of suicidal risk (namely, depressive symptoms and suicidal behaviors) in a sample of 348 college students. Results from regression analyses indicated that academic motivation was a significant predictor of suicidal risk. The inclusion of basic psychological needs significantly augmented the prediction model. The authors discuss implications for considering academic motivation and basic psychological needs in college counseling on the basis of the results.     

Understanding our link to the Great Apes—the 2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Sciences awarded to Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall is the recipient of the 2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Sciences for her long-term scientific studies of chimpanzee behavior. Not only were her studies the first of their kind, her meticulous behavioral recordings led to major changes in our understanding of the social links that exist between ourselves and our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. In discussing the importance of Dr. Goodall's work, Stephen Jay Gould (the late Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University) said ... “Science gains enormous power in replications of observations, but Homo sapiens is a single species and we can never know, by studying ourselves alone, whether important aspects of our behaviors and mental capacities reflect an ancestral evolutionary heritage (transmogrified through our uniquely evolved intelligence and its social correlates), or new features evolved or socially acquired only by our lineage. Chimpanzees are the best natural experiment we will ever have for exploring this central question, for chimps are our closest genealogical cousins and therefore hold more of our common evolutionary heritage than any other species can. Chimpanzees are not so much the shadow of man as our mirror, only slightly blurred by the mists of time”.