Enhancing Self-Efficacy and Learning Performance

The effect of a communication designed to enhance the self-efficacy beliefs of introductory psychology students was examined. The author assigned students (N = 123) into above average, average, and below average performance categories. All students were invited to send the author an e-mail to receive a bonus point. Of the students who responded (n = 76), half were sent an e-mail message designed to enhance their efficacy beliefs, while the other half received a neutral note. As predicted, self-efficacy beliefs were significantly related to exam scores and significantly affected by the efficacy-enhancing communication.     

Influence of an Environmental Studies Course on Attitudes of Undergraduates at an Engineering University

Studies suggest that at engineering universities, where the percentage of males and engineering majors is high, pro-environmental attitudes are likely to be weak and may not change. The 15-item New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale was used to measure differences in student attitudes before and after an environmental studies course. Results revealed students held more pro-environmental attitudes about the validity of the ecological crisis, the existence of resource constraints, and the delicacy of nature's balance after the course. Students did not shift their views regarding the domination of humans over the environment or their belief in human ingenuity to overcome resource limits. Engineering majors showed weaker endorsement of the NEP compared to non-engineering majors, but the increase in their endorsement after the course was statistically significant.     

Refugees and evacuees: enhancing historical understanding through Irish historical fiction with Key Stage 2 and early Key Stage 3 pupils

This article explores the use of historical fiction as a means of undertaking a historical enquiry into the experiences of refugees and evacuees with Key Stage 2 and 3 pupils. The authors reflect on the reasons why people have come to Britain before focussing on specific circumstances associated with World War 2. This is undertaken through the use of two historical fiction novels set in Ireland. The choice of an Irish context is intended to challenge Anglo centric notions of the past. The authors also examine differing opinions over the validity of the place of historical fiction in history lessons and make a strong case for its inclusion. Specific teaching and learning approaches, together with teacher and pupil responses are considered. The novels chosen focus on an Irish dimension which also reflects the authors' work with the Ireland in Schools Project.     

Bilingual precocious readers of English

Giftedness develops in varied forms from diverse roots. This phenomenon is illustrated by 12 children from bilingual homes who, before beginning first grade, demonstrated advanced ability to comprehend written English. The home and school experiences of these children and their reading and oral English skills are described. The results demonstrate that some gifted children learn well even when they appear to be weak in relevant skills, and that lack of fluency in oral English should not exclude children from advanced instruction in reading.     

Transitions into Higher Education: Gendered implications for academic self-concept

This paper examines the degree and nature of universities’ interaction with their communities from the perspectives of individual academics. It considers whether academic values and practice tend toward a ‘detached’ or ‘universalist’ perspective in which location is largely redundant and any perceived ‘community’ has a global character, or whether values and practice in fact indicate a significant perhaps substantial degree of community engagement at a local, regional or national level. We explore interaction with the community which takes a broadly ‘civic’ form, and that which is of more specifically economic relevance. This issue is of great importance at a time when higher education has become a more obvious object of political scrutiny, both in terms of its use of public funds and its more general social and economic purpose. Our findings are based on a postal questionnaire administered to a sample of academics, and a series of follow‐up interviews with a smaller sub‐sample of respondents. We conclude that academics exhibit a strong commitment to engagement and interaction with their communities both in principle and practice; that such interaction often takes place at a variety of geographical levels; and that it is often accomplished under less than propitious circumstances.     

Language Codes and Classroom Practice

Abstract

Bernstein has argued, through nearly 30 years of writing about language codes, that there is an ‘opposition’ (or at least a ‘radical discontinuity') between the modes of communication which predominate in schools and those to which many pupils are accustomed. Briefly, he has maintained that schools are ‘predicated upon elaborated codes’. This claim is re‐examined, partly in the light of Paul Atkinson's recent structuralist critique of Bernstein, and mainly by reference to evidence from classroom research which suggests more readily a predominance of restricted (or perhaps quasi‐elaborated) codes. While the processing of ‘decontextualised’ information is undoubtedly a central feature of formal schooling, it is argued that an essential defining feature of elaborated codes as Bernstein himself presents them is that meanings are transmitted in ways which give access to the grounds for accepting them and which are therefore open to being challenged. It remains an unusual classroom in which pupils find opportunities for disturbing a body of received knowledge.

Unlike Bernstein, I do not assume that the classroom is normally ‘predicated upon elaborated codes and their system of social relationships’. Making deliberate reference to his own analysis of open and closed role systems, I would typify meanings in the ‘regulative’ context as being realised largely through imperatives and through positional appeals in a restricted code, and describe pupils as having to ‘step into’ a predetermined set of instructional meanings and ‘leave it relatively undisturbed’. It is surely an unusual classroom in which pupils find frequent opportunities for ‘disturbing or changing’ a body of received knowledge, and so of ‘achieving meaning’ on their own terms.

(Edwards 1981, p. 291)

     

Knowledge of Normal and Pathological Memory Aging in College Students,Social Workers,and Health Care Professionals

The Knowledge of Memory Aging Questionnaire (KMAQ) measures laypersons' knowledge of normal memory changes and pathological memory deficits in adulthood. In Experiment 1, undergraduate and graduate social work students and social work practitioners completed the KMAQ. Social workers and graduate students were more accurate on the pathological than normal memory aging items, but undergraduate students' knowledge did not differ by question type. Experiment 2 was a conceptual replication where the same pattern of outcomes was obtained using a more heterogeneous sample to increase the ecological validity of the findings. Results confirmed that nonmedical and medical staff at an assisted living facility and health care professionals were more accurate on the pathological than normal memory aging items. Community college and university students' accuracy was similar across question type. Implications for research and the design of education programs to increase awareness of normal and pathological memory deficits in late life are considered.