Scientific Collaboration with Educators: Practical Insights from an in‐Class Noise‐Reduction Intervention

Moving the field of Mind, Brain, and Education forward requires researchers and educators to reframe the boundaries of their own discipline in order to create knowledge that is both scientifically based, and of practical relevance for education. We believe that this could be done by co‐constructing research projects from the start. We present a case study of a noise‐reduction intervention in elementary classrooms, in which teachers and researchers worked together from the onset of study design. We examine the processes behind: (1) selecting research questions and measures, (2) planning interventions, (3) receiving ethical approval and funding, (4) recruiting schools, and (5) collecting data. At each step, our study provides suggestions for future collaborative efforts, keeping in mind broader theoretical and methodological implications. We believe that our concrete examples and suggestions will be useful for beginning and confirmed researchers, as well as teachers aiming to know more about research projects.     

A Qualitative Analysis of the Portrayal of Young People and Psychosis in Australian News Reports

ABSTRACT

News media plays an influential role in shaping society’s understanding of mental illness and can promote perspectives ranging from those that promote help-seeking behaviour to stigmatised associations with attributes such as danger and violence. Stigma has been found to have significant negative impacts on people with psychosis. No existing studies have explored how young people with psychosis are represented in newspapers. Targeting this gap, this study analysed news articles relating to youth psychosis to determine the types of discourses used. We searched the ProQuest Australia and New Zealand Newsstream database (2011-2016) for Australian newspaper articles related to young people and psychosis. Qualitative analysis was used to identify content and these were arranged into key themes. The recurring themes evident in the 27 articles linked youth psychosis to illicit drug use, violence and professional infighting about treatment options, and thus promoted significantly stigmatised perspectives of youth psychosis. Acknowledgement of these stigmatised discourses is important for encouraging responsible media reporting and for understanding the social messages impacting on treatment and help-seeking by young people. We discuss the conflicted role of journalists in presenting information about mental illness and recommend development of a more solutions-focused approach to reporting in this area.     

An examination of gender and situational interest in multimedia learning environments

Existing research highlights conflicting results attempting to capture gender preferences with respect to unimodal versus multimodal designs in online learning. As online learning continues to expand, more research examining the role of gender in multimedia design holds considerable potential. However, the presence of multimedia in online learning contexts presents a more complex problem when taking into consideration the concept of learner interest. The current study sought to investigate gender differences in situational interest (SI) with respect to three different but related designs of an online, multimedia learning environment for continuing, professional education in emergency medical services. The content in these designs was identical, but applied different combinations of the redundancy and modality multimedia principles. A two-way analysis of variance was used to examine the types of SI by gender and type of multimedia design. While no significant difference or interaction effect was identified between gender and triggered SI, an interaction effect was observed for females and the different multimedia designs. Specifically, females reported a higher maintained SI when animation, narration and text were effectively combined. The findings of this study provide insight into best practices for instructional and media designers developing multimedia learning environments as well as future research implications.     

Developing a student-led school mental health strategy

Although there is increasing interest in promoting mental health and wellbeing within education, to date, the voices of young people appear to have been almost completely overlooked in the development of school-based mental health practices. This is despite increasing focus on young people’s participation; and the fact that young people may be best positioned to understand the pressures of contemporary society. This paper, co-authored by educational psychologists (EPs), school students and the school vice-principal, documents the development of a student-led mental health initiative within a high-achieving girls’ grammar school, led by students aged 12–18. Following EP input, the students devised a whole-school, student-friendly mental health strategy with the support of the EPs and senior school staff. As the project progressed, it became evident that applying even carefully selected adult mental health models to school contexts might not be appropriate; instead the students advocated for young person-friendly, innovative, contemporary and creative ways of communicating information about mental health, which avoided stigma. The students involved were well-placed to identify environmental stressors and to disseminate their strategy. The authors conclude that mental health planning in schools should encourage greater student participation, show caution over applying adult mental health models and promote greater use of technology or visual resources.     

Nobility,women and historical narratives of the crusades and the latin east

Historical narratives of the crusades and Latin settlement in the Levant, like other medieval literature, provide slim details about women. In medieval society Latin literary education was dominated by a predominantly male and ecclesiastical hierarchy, which reflected the views of a patriarchal social system and marginalised the public role of women. Crusade narratives in particular have been criticised for their negative attitude towards women, mirroring a lack of ecclesiastical enthusiasm at their involvement in the crusade movement. Histories about crusading and events in the Latin East were often written for, and in some cases by, the lay nobility who took part in crusades and settled in the holy land. These texts were sometimes used as propaganda to encourage nobles to take the cross, and much of the imagery within them had didactic elements. In the case of women, they provided models for behaviour according to social and marital status. A consistently negative portrayal of women was doubtless impossible due to the number of important noblewomen who took the cross, and their value in cementing political alliances between western Europe and the Latin East through marriage. This article contends that it is the complex links between crusade narratives and the nobility, in terms of participation and patronage, audience, subject matter and values – crusade as a “noble” pursuit – which helps to explain the discrepancy between established ecclesiastical views and the portrayal of women in historical narratives about crusading and settlement in the East. In order to establish this idea effectively, several main themes must be addressed, including the role of crusade texts within the context of contemporary noble culture, and crusade narratives as source material for noble values concerning women. To begin, however, it is necessary to provide some background on attitudes towards women and crusade, as well as the concept of nobility and the noblewoman's place in medieval society.     

Patterns and predictors of father-infant engagement across race/ethnic groups

This study examines whether levels of father engagement (e.g., verbal stimulation, caregiving, and physical play) vary by race/ethnicity using a model that controls for fathers' human capital, mental health, and family relationships. It also tests whether the models work similarly across race/ethnic groups. Its sample of N=5,089 infants and their families is drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Birth Cohort (ECLS-B). We found that, after including controls, African American and Latino fathers had higher levels of engagement in caregiving and physical play activities than White fathers. There were no differences in verbal stimulation activities across race/ethnicity. Fathers' education (college level) predicted more verbally stimulating activities whereas fathers' report of couple conflict predicted less caregiving and physical play. Although levels of engagement differed across the groups, the overall models did not differ by race/ethnicity, except for physical play. African American mothers who reported high levels of depressive symptoms had partners who engaged in more physical play than White mothers with high levels of depressive symptoms.     

The shortsighted brain: neuroeconomics and the governance of choice in time

The young field of neuroeconomics converges around behavioral deviations from the model of the human being as Homo economicus, a rational actor who calculates his choices to maximize his individual satisfaction. In a historical moment characterized by economic, health, and environmental crises, policymakers have become increasingly concerned about a particular deviation for which neuroeconomics offers a biological explanation: Why do humans value the present at the expense of the future? There is contentious debate within the field over how to model this tendency at the neural level. Should the brain be conceptualized as a unified decision-making apparatus, or as the site of conflict between an impetuous limbic system at perpetual odds with its deliberate and provident overseer in the prefrontal cortex? Scientific debates over choice-making in the brain, we argue, are also debates over how to define the constraints on human reason with which regulative strategies must contend. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, we explore how the brain and its treatment of the future become the contested terrain for distinct visions of governmental intervention into problems of human choice-making.     

Implementation planning and progress on physical activity goals: the mediating role of life-management strategies

This 4-week prospective study examined whether the use of life-management strategies mediates the relationship between implementation planning and short-term progress on physical activity goals. In particular the strategies of elective selection, compensation, and loss-based selection were disentangled to assess their specific mediating effects. Results from a sample of 131undergraduate students showed that, as a composite, life-management strategies fully mediated the relationship between planning and goal progress. More specifically, decomposing the effects demonstrated that only elective selection and compensation mediated the association between planning and greater progress on a personal physical activity goal. Results are discussed in light of their practical implications and contributions to the personal goal literature.     

Authority and ethics: A case for estrangement in educational research and research education

This article focuses attention on an underexamined issue in the literature on educational research ethics: how ethical authority is established in educational research. We address this from a perspective that disrupts naturalised approaches to ethics, arguing that rather than seeking ‘rights’ or ‘wrongs’, researchers are always tasked with constructing ethical stances. Attention can then be placed on the array of embodied and objectified resources that might be recruited in establishing these. Through an engagement with published academic accounts of ethical reflection and decision-making, the article explores the ways that educational researchers achieve or sometimes question their ethical security in respect of their research activity. The analysis we present draws out the referential strategies that constitute ethical subjectivity and maps the diversity of anchoring points that might be recruited in this action. We also draw attention to the process of recontextualisation that is inevitable when one activity (or aspect of an activity) regards another, introducing necessary incoherence into ethical practice. The case we present celebrates rather than seeking to conceal or repair such disruption.