Linkages between approaches to learning,perceived stress and expected and actual academic outcomes among first-semester psychology students

Previous research indicates that higher educational students’ perceptions of stress are in part related to the teaching and learning context, and influence academic outcomes. This study intends to deepen our understanding of these processes by examining the linkages between approaches to learning, perceived stress and expected and actual academic outcomes within a specific educational setting. First-semester psychology students (N = 191) completed a questionnaire, including short versions of ASSIST and PSS, and estimated their course grade before a written examination. Later, actual grades were added. The results suggest that surface approach to learning is positively associated with high levels of perceived stress, and reflected in lower levels of expected grades. The relationships between deep and strategic approaches to learning and perceived stress seem to be more ambivalent, despite positive associations with expected grades. Coping and motivational aspects of the concepts of surface and strategic approaches to learning seem to be crucial to understanding the linkages between the examined factors. Also, the significance of a strategic approach in relation to actual academic outcomes is highlighted.     

Reflective Functioning,Limit Setting,and Emotional Availability in Mother–Child Dyads

Objective. There is a need for better understanding the relation between parents’ mentalizing about their child and their actual behavior toward the child. Specifically, it is important to understand the significance of mentalization about discrete parental challenges in comparison with mentalization about the relationship in general in relation to their interaction with the child. This study aimed to examine parental mentalization and observed emotional availability. Design. Forty mothers were observed in a play situation with their children (aged 3–10 years) to rate the emotional availability in the interaction. Mothers were also interviewed with the parent development interview and about parental limit setting to assess parental reflective functioning. Results. Analyses showed moderate correlations between the reflective functioning scores and the emotional availability dimensions. Approximately 15% of the variance in emotional availability scales could be accounted for by the reflective functioning ratings. Conclusions. The results suggest that parents’ ability to mentalize about limit setting behaviors may affect interactions between the parent and child.     

The effect of extended UTAUT model on EFLs’ adaptation to flipped classroom

Education and Information Technologies - The educational transformation of flipped classroom continues to be the important approach to increasing students’ readiness for flipped learning. To...     

A Study on the Effect of Aesthetic Education on the Development of Aesthetic Judgment of Six-year-old Children

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of aesthetic education on the development of aesthetic judgment of 6 year-old children. The sample of the study comprised 77 children selected randomly from state run primary schools from various socioeconomic levels in Ankara. The experiment group consisted of 22 children, the placebo group of 23 children and the control group of 32 children. The experiment group received an aesthetic education program, the placebo group was offered a placebo education and the control group did not take any education. The Taylor–Helmstadter Pair Comparison Scale of Aesthetic Judgment was used to measure the aesthetic judgments of children. The findings of the study show that there is a significant difference in the aesthetic judgments of male children in the experiment group who received aesthetic education (p < .05). Moreover, it found that the educational and socioeconomic levels of parents did not have any effects on the aesthetic judgments of children (p > .05).     

Parental governmentality: involving ‘immigrant parents’ in Swedish schools

In Sweden, calls for partnership between state institutions and local communities punctuate discussions of a number of areas of public policy. In this article, the discourse of partnership is analyzed in recent developments in Swedish educational policy, and particularly the involvement of ‘immigrant parents’ as partners collaborating with the school. In the article it is argued that, in partnerships between the school and ‘immigrant parents’, the ‘rules of the game’ are most often dictated by one of the partners (i.e. the Swedish school). Here, ‘immigrant parents’ are by various techniques being ‘measured’ and exhorted to adapt to an imagined ‘Swedish normality’, in order to become a ‘responsible’ parent and equal partner.     

Multidimensional analyzing of the microteaching applications in teacher education via videograph

Microteaching is a practice – based teaching method that can be applied at various stages in teacher training programs and it gives the opportunity to engage in self-evaluation and to eliminate or correct inadequacies of both pre-service and in-service teachers. It is believed that this study is important in determining the inadequacies of prospective teachers through microteaching applications, and in determining the steps to be taken to eliminate the inadequacies. Therefore, this study aims to exhibit prospective teachers’ individual, methodological and social performances through two microteaching applications. It is found from this research that prospective teachers’ discipline over the classroom developed, and students’ motivation and their interest in the lesson increased with reinforcement and effective communication in the second microteaching application. This showed that feedback given at the end of the first microteaching application was effective.     

Facilitating Conceptual Change in Students' Understanding of Ecological Concepts

In this study, the effect of conceptual-change-texts-oriented instruction to seventh-grade students' understanding of ecological concepts was investigated. Using information collected through interviews and related literature, the Ecology Concept Test was developed and administered to 58 elementary students in two classes of an elementary school before and after the treatment. The experimental group received conceptual-change-texts-oriented instruction and the control group received traditional instruction. Results of independent t test analysis revealed a statistically significant difference between the gain score means of the students in both groups with respect to ecological concepts in favor of experimental group after the treatment.     

Can virtual environments enhance the learning of historical chronology?

Historical time and chronological sequence are usually conveyed to pupils via the presentation of semantic information on printed worksheets, events being rote-memorised according to date. We explored the use of virtual environments in which successive historical events were depicted as “places” in time–space, encountered sequentially in a fly-through. Testing was via “Which came first, X or Y?” questions and picture-ordering. University undergraduates experiencing the history of an imaginary planet performed better after a VE than after viewing a “washing line” of sequential images, or captions alone, especially for items in intermediate list positions. However, secondary children 11–14 years remembered no more about successive events in feudal England when they were presented virtually compared with either paper picture or 2-D computer graphic conditions. Primary children 7–9 years learned more about historical sequence after studying a series of paper images, compared with either VE or computer graphic conditions, remembering more in early/intermediate list positions. Reasons for the discrepant results are discussed and future possible uses of VEs in the teaching of chronology assessed.     

Chinese Malaysian Adolescents' Social‐Cognitive Reasoning Regarding Filial Piety Dilemmas

This study examined the social‐cognitive reasoning of 52 Chinese Malaysian preadolescents (9–12 years old; M = 11.02, SD = 0.94) and 68 adolescents (13–18 years old; M = 14.76, SD = 1.39) in resolving filial dilemmas within the personal and moral domain. Preadolescents deferred to parental authority, whereas adolescents endorsed filial obligation reasoning to justify compliance in the personal domain. Both appealed to filial obligation, pragmatic, or welfare and safety reasoning to justify compliance but fairness or rights reasoning to justify their noncompliance, for the moral issue. Distinctions between authoritarian and reciprocal filial piety reasoning were revealed. Findings demonstrated complex decision‐making and cognitive reasoning processes among Chinese Malaysian adolescents as they negotiate their filial obligations and autonomy development.