Counseling Latina/o Students From an Ecological Perspective: Working With Peter

This case study describes the experiences of a Mexican American college student addressing difficulties with academic motivation and social adjustment to college. The authors present a counseling intervention that is ecologically focused and designed to help the student develop critical consciousness regarding ethnic and social class identity.     

Plasma proteinase inhibitory activity in ectopic and molar pregnancy

Antitryptic, antichymotryptic and alpha 2- macroglobulin activities were measured in sera of normal nonpregnant and normal pregnant women and women with tubal ectopic pregnancy and molar pregnancies in the first 5 to 7 weeks of pregnancy calculated from the last menstrual period. While alpha 2-macroglobulin decreased in early normal pregnancy compared to nonpregnant state (p<0.001), in ectopic and molar pregnancies there was an increase in alpha 2- macroglobulin activity (p < 0.001), as compared to nonpregnant and normal pregnant women. Antitryptic activity did not increase in normal and ectopic pregnancy, however was increased in molar pregnancy (p < 0.01). Antichymotryptic activities did not show a change either in normal pregnancy or in cases of ectopic and molar pregnancy. Drop in alpha 2- macroglobulin activity to near normal levels in ectopic, 6 weeks post surgery, correlated well with the decrease in β-hCG. However, in molar pregnancy, alpha 2- macroglobulin remained elevated even when the β-hCG levels in serum returned to zero 10 weeks after surgery. The studies suggest a major role for circulating proteinase inhibitors especially alpha 2-macroglobulin in regulating proteinase activity in normal, ectopic and molar pregnancy.     

Teachers’ agency: Do their values make a difference?

This research explored antecedents and outcomes of teachers’ agency. Study 1 (n = 767) tested whether teachers’ values relate to an agentic capacity. Study 2 (n = 430) tested the relations between teachers’ values, their agentic capacity and their agentic behaviours. The findings show that attributing importance to promoting the self and being open to new experiences, whilst maintaining self-independence, is positively related to agentic capacity. Further, agentic capacity mediates the relations between values and agentic behaviour. These findings start to explain the broad motivations for teachers’ agency and its translation into behaviour.     

Differential Associations of Distinct Forms of Childhood Adversity With Neurobehavioral Measures of Reward Processing: A Developmental Pathway to Depression

Childhood adversity is associated with altered reward processing, but little is known about whether this varies across distinct types of adversity. In a sample of 94 children (6–19 years), we investigated whether experiences of material deprivation, emotional deprivation, and trauma have differential associations with reward-related behavior and white matter microstructure in tracts involved in reward processing. Material deprivation (food insecurity), but not emotional deprivation or trauma, was associated with poor reward performance. Adversity-related influences on the integrity of white matter microstructure in frontostriatal tracts varied across childhood adversity types, and reductions in frontostriatal white matter integrity mediated the association of food insecurity with depressive symptoms. These findings document distinct behavioral and neurodevelopmental consequences of specific forms of adversity that have implications for psychopathology risk.     

An adaptive mechanism for Moodle based on automatic detection of learning styles

This paper proposes an automatic approach that detects students’ learning styles in order to provide adaptive courses in Moodle. This approach is based on students’ responses to the ILS and the analysis of their interaction behavior within Moodle by applying a data mining technique. In conjunction to this, an adaptive mechanism that was implemented in Moodle is presented. This adaptive mechanism builds the user model based mainly on the proposed approach for automatic detection of learning styles in order to adapt the presentation and the proposed navigation to students’ different learning styles and educational objectives. An evaluation study was conducted to evaluate the proposed approach for automatic detection of learning styles and the effect of the adaptive mechanism. Two groups of students were formed, namely the experimental and the control. The first had access to a Moodle course that automatically detected their learning styles and exploited the adaptive mechanism, whilst the second had access to the standard version of a Moodle course. The results were promising since they indicated that our proposed approach for automatic detection of learning styles attained adequate precision compared to other works, even though the patterns considered are less complex. Additionally, the results indicated that the adaptive mechanism positively affected students’ motivation and performance.     

The Design Studio as Teaching/Learning Medium — A Process‐Based Approach

This article discusses a design studio teaching experience exploring the design process itself as a methodological tool. We consider the structure of important phases of the process that contain different levels of design thinking: conception, function and practical knowledge as well as the transitions from inception to construction. We show how this approach to the design process allows the possibility of addressing elusive issues that underlie the practice of design.     

Undergraduate Students’ Preferences for Constructed Versus Multiple-Choice Assessment of Learning

Students (N = 161) in seven sections of an undergraduate educational psychology course rated ten performance-assessment options in collegiate courses. They rated in-class essay exams as their most preferred assessment and multiple-choice exams (in-class and out-of-class) as their least preferred. Also, student ratings of multiple papers and a term paper did not differ significantly from the rating for in-class essay exams. Overall, students preferred constructed forms of assessment over more objective assessment. With minor exceptions, student ratings of assessment preferences were generally consistent across gender and academic levels. In the main, student ratings of assessment options did not significantly correlate with exam performance in the course.     

Introducing Secondary Education Students to Algorithms and Programming

In Greece, the development of the teaching of Information Technology (IT) in schools has been greatly influenced by the rapid development of technology, making IT literacy a priority for all individuals. Consequently, the teaching of algorithms and programming, with the ulterior motive of teaching modeling as well as problem solving, has been greatly limited in Secondary Education. However, we strongly believe that algorithms and programming constitute an important intellectual tool and should be included in basic education. In any case, both the research literature findings, as well as, our own experience confirm the fact that novice programmers come up against many mental obstacles in their attempts to understand the functioning of programs or the construction of algorithms. In order to deal with these difficulties and successfully teach the elementary concepts of algorithms and programming, we have developed didactic scenarios, which are based on specially designed educational software. In conjunction with this, we are attempting to develop a program for the systematic training of those students who will become IT teachers in Secondary or Primary Education. The most significant findings of our research are summarized as follows: (a) The development of educational software and its experimental use in the teaching process allow us to formulate several general rules related to the specific didactic characteristics, which these environments should include. (b) Educational software is effective only when it is incorporated within the framework of the didactic scenarios that the teacher organizes and which are supported by the software. (c) Teachers do not spontaneously use educational software in the context of this rationale. Therefore, specific training is required so that they adopt and use such software in didactic scenarios.     

Speed Versus Accuracy: Implications of Adolescents' Neurocognitive Developments in a Digital Game to Train Executive Functions

Adolescence is a period of rapid cognitive change, including an initial increase in speed of cognitive processing and a more gradual increase in efficiency of cognitive processing. This study examined how neurophysiological changes associated with adolescent development can inform the design of game‐based executive function (EF) training. Two versions of a digital game designed to train the EF subskill of inhibition were given to adolescents (aged 13–17; N = 96): one focusing on speed, the other on accuracy. Consistent with neurocognitive developments, it was hypothesized that younger adolescents would benefit more from the speed version, and older adolescents more from the accuracy version. A significant age by condition interaction was found: Controlling for pretest, younger adolescents had better outcomes in the speed condition, while older adolescents had better outcomes in the accuracy condition. These findings argue for consideration of adolescents' neurocognitive development when designing games for learning and skill improvement.