Use of Contextual Information and Prediction by Struggling Adult Readers: Evidence From Reading Times and Event-Related Potentials

We employed self-paced reading and event-related potential measures to investigate how adults of varying literacy levels use sentence context information when reading. Community-dwelling participants read strongly and weakly constraining sentences that ended with expected or unexpected target words. Skilled readers showed N400s that were graded by the cloze probability of the targets, with larger N400s for more unexpected words. Moreover, it took these participants longer to read unexpected targets in strongly than weakly constraining sentences, suggesting a processing cost for revising predictions. Among less skilled readers, a reliable N400 difference was found between expected and unexpected targets only for the strongly constraining sentences. They also took longer when targets were unexpected, regardless of the context. These findings suggest that lower literacy readers could only immediately take advantage of strongly constraining context information to facilitate word processing and that they do not make as much use of predictive processing during comprehension.     

Children’s Cortisol and the Quality of Teacher–Child Relationships in Child Care

Teacher–child relationships were examined as predictors of cortisol change in preschool children. Saliva for assays was collected from one hundred and ninety‐one 4‐year‐olds (101 boys) in the mornings and afternoons on 2 days at child care, and before and after a series of challenging tasks and a teacher–child interaction session outside the classroom. Parents reported on children’s temperament, teachers and children reported on teacher–child relationship quality, and observers rated group‐level teacher insensitivity. Teacher‐reported relationship conflict predicted cortisol increases during teacher–child interaction and teacher‐reported overdependence predicted cortisol increases from morning to afternoon, even after controlling for individual teacher, child, and classroom characteristics. The findings extend earlier work by suggesting that cortisol change across the child‐care day is influenced by teacher–child relationship characteristics.     

Beyond teaching practice: Exploring individual determinants of student performance on a research skills module

The purpose of this study was to identify the extent to which intrinsic student factors such as cognitive learning style, learning strategies, motivation and statistics anxiety, as well as certain demographic factors, predict performance on a research design and analysis course (RDAIIA) in the Department of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, with a view to developing future interventions for improving student performance. Using a sample of eighty students, it was established that the factors most predictive of RDA performance were secondary school performance (p < 0.0001) and age (p = 0.0106). Excluding demographic factors, self-efficacy (p < 0.0001), help-seeking (p = 0.0531) and a reflective learning style (p = 0.0071) were also found to be predictive. Performance also differed between students who had completed Mathematics on the higher grade in secondary school and those who had completed standard grade (p = 0.016). These findings present both possible directions and substantial challenges for future performance-intervention strategies.     

Exploring the development of competence in Lean management through action learning groups: a study of the introduction of Lean to a facilities management function

The introduction of a Lean approach to management requires the development of understanding and capability. This in turn requires a structured training intervention and other supporting activities. This paper explores, through a case study, the way in which action learning groups (ALGs) supported the development of Lean capabilities in the facilities management (FM) function of a large organisation. This case study indicates that Lean can be applied in a FM context and that ALGs are effective in supporting such a development in capability. Some environmental factors are identified as having an impact on the likelihood of success in using ALGs: leadership engagement, perceived level of empowerment, organisational readiness, level of resource committed and individual readiness to be involved.     

Mixing mediums,mixing selves: arts-based contemplative approaches to border crossings

In this paper, in collaboration with a friend, who is an artist and a licensed counselor, I use a mixed-medium art project to enact Gloria Anzaldúa’s theorizations of nepantlera. I do so by making visible how I operate from the liminal space that Anzaldúa terms nepantla, as a transnational woman of color in US higher education. Using Anzaldúa’s framework of autohistoria-teoría, I integrate fragmented storytelling, art-making, and theorization, exposing the wounds that accompany my movement through personal and professional spaces in academia. Critical to this exploration are a sense of isolation and exile, unsettling understandings of home and belongingness, and the deep excavation of wounds that maintain and proliferate divisions between self and other. Such divisions offer sites of interrogation into our complicity with our oppression through denying power that comes from within, waging war on ourselves, and venerating oppressive externalized power structures.     

Analyzing Postcrisis Challenges and Strategies Associated With School Shootings: An Application of Discourse of Renewal Theory

In recent years, the need to understand and identify effective data-driven strategies for the communication challenges faced by schools associated with school shootings has become paramount. The current study reports findings from 10 face-to-face interviews conducted with school crisis team members at the P–12 level who experienced school shooting events. The findings, which extend discourse of renewal theory, identify six primary communication-related challenges that districts face postcrisis and offer effective strategies for overcoming these challenges.     

Changes in the Youth Labour Market, 1974‐1981

The paper uses time series data constructed from the annual General Household Survey to examine the impact of increasing qualifications, rising unemployment and growing government intervention on the labour market experiences of young people in Great Britain from 1974 to 1981. The data show that for those not continuing in full‐time education the rise in qualifications has been at the lower levels only. For young males growing unemployment after 1979 was associated with a loss of jobs at all skill levels, but the proportion in skilled manual jobs fell steadily throughout the period. For females growing unemployment was associated in the early part of the period with a loss of skilled white collar jobs and in the later part with a loss of less skilled jobs. The decline in the proportion in skilled jobs was particularly marked for the unqualified. While falling unemployment in 1978/79 brought more skilled jobs for 16‐year‐olds, including the unqualified, older teenagers gained only a rise in the proportion in less skilled jobs. Since 1979 the qualifications of young people in skilled manual occupations have risen faster than in other occupation groups. Some implications of these trends are discussed.     

Negotiating Peer Mentoring Roles in Undergraduate Research Lab Settings

Undergraduate research is viewed as an important catalyst for educational engagement and persistence, with an emphasis on the faculty mentoring relationship. Despite the common practice of having multi-tiered lab teams composed of newer undergraduates and more seasoned undergraduates serving as peer mentors, less is understood about the experience of peer mentors. Using the framework of legitimate peripheral participation, this study examined how peer mentors negotiated their roles in the lab. Nested case studies based on interviews with peer mentors, faculty members, and newer students illustrated how peer mentors establish credibility through prior lab experience and faculty-framed authority. Delegating supervision was an important component that helped newer students to accept the authority of the peer mentor. Implications for program development and future research involving peer mentoring are discussed.     

Safety,celebration, and risk: educator responses to LGBTQ professional development

Research has explored multicultural teacher education from multiple, sometimes divergent perspectives; yet, these studies agree that what passes for multicultural education fails to address issues of educational inequity. This paper is part of a larger evaluation study of Reduction of Stigma in Schools (RSIS) – a professional development program aiming to empower educators to create affirming environments for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning (LGBTQ) youth. Interview data indicate that though workshops utilized a critical approach, what teachers embraced was a call to understand and “protect” LGBTQ students through the “safety” discourse – a form of understanding and valuing the “cultural other” – and investment in one time “visibility” or “celebration” events as symbols of improved school climate. Further, educators framed LGBTQ issues as “risk” issues rather than as equity issues, which continue to mark LGBTQ students as “victims” or “problems” in need of saving or solving. We posit that responses to RSIS content reflect educators’ understanding of their obligation to “diversity” as presented during their teacher preparation programs and that workshop content which resonated with them was that which they could easily fit into these familiar frameworks.