Part 2: Goals,Mindset, and Self-Regulation

This installment of our continuing column on the connections between educational psychology and student library work explores the important roles of goal setting, mindset, and self-regulation. We describe how reference librarians may support students’ goal selection and help students develop positive attitudes toward library research. Librarians’ efforts to help students successfully complete library-related assignments can be enhanced by understanding the mechanisms of self-regulation.     

Part 3: College Student Development

Young adults in college grow cognitively, socially, and emotionally. Educational psychologists have described students’ growth with models that include advancing stages in ways of knowing, aka epistemic beliefs. The typical progression of epistemic beliefs begins with dualism and progresses to multiplicity, then to relativism, and finally to commitment in relativism. Freshmen almost all have a dualist or multiplist way of knowing and do not progress to relativism without guidance and instruction. This normal evolution in ways of knowing has important implications for teaching information literacy within the Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL’s) Framework.     

Explaining parental coviewing: The role of social facilitation and arousal

This study explores the relationship between parental coviewing and children’s psychophysiological responses to television exposure within a framework of social facilitation. A total of 88 children aged 6–13 years and one of each of their parents participated in a 2 (presence or absence of the parent)?×?2 (exciting or non-exciting TV content) between-subjects experiment. Results indicated that the presence of a coviewing parent was associated with an increase in children’s arousal (higher skin conductance levels) and cognitive resource allocation (lower heart rate), especially for younger children who came from homes where parental coviewing was a relatively frequent activity. These findings suggest that the mere presence of a coviewing parent is sufficient to alter children’s processing of television messages.     

Noise avoidance in the C57BL/6J mouse

Noise was evaluated as an aversive stimulus in the C57BL/6J mouse, using a simple escape/avoidance procedure in which mice could terminate noise by entering and remaining in a designatedsafe area (corner or side) of a square apparatus. Exposed to pulsed noise of 87.5–90 dB, mice spent 45%–50% of total corner time in the safe corner or approximately 80% of total time in the safe side. Acquisition was significantly faster with moderate intensities of pulsed noise (87.5–90 dB) than it was with high-intensity pulsed noise (100 dB). In comparisons of continuous as opposed to pulsed noise, acquisition was significantly faster with continuous (87.5-dB) noise than it was with pulsed noise, and continuous noise was shown in a choice procedure to be more aversive. Continuous noise caused significant, though not severe, suppression of activity, but pulsed noise caused virtually none. Thus, pulsed noise is a mildly aversive stimuhis for C57BL/6J mice and may have promise for the study of stress-induced behaviors in freely moving animals, but continuous noise is clearly more effective for rapid short-term conditioning.     

Exploring clinician adoption of a novel evidence request feature in an electronic medical record system

Objective: The research evaluated strategies for facilitating physician adoption of an evidence-based medicine literature request feature recently integrated into an existing electronic medical record (EMR) system.Methods: This prospective study explored use of the service by 137 primary care physicians by using service usage statistics and focus group and survey components. The frequency of physicians'' requests for literature via the EMR during a 10-month period was examined to explore the impact of several enhanced communication strategies launched mid-way through the observation period. A focus group and a 25-item survey explored physicians'' experiences with the service.Results: There was no detectable difference in the proportion of physicians utilizing the service after implementation of the customized communication strategies (11% in each time period, P=1.0, McNemar''s test). Forty-eight physicians (35%) responded to the survey. Respondents who had used the service (n=19) indicated that information provided through the service was highly relevant to clinical practice (mean rating 4.6, scale 1 “not relevant”–5 “highly relevant”), and most (n=15) reported sharing the information with colleagues.Conclusion: The enhanced communication strategies, though well received, did not significantly affect use of the service. However, physicians noted the relevance and utility of librarian-summarized evidence from the literature, highlighting the potential benefits of providing expert librarian services in clinical workflow.

Highlights

• The communication strategies implemented during the study did not induce a noticeable increase in questions from physicians through the electronic medical record system.
• Surveyed physicians were generally satisfied with the evidence-based medicine literature request service and noted several resulting changes in clinical practice associated with librarian-provided evidence.
• Survey respondents viewed the monthly “evidence alert” newsletter, one of the communication strategies, as particularly effective, and it has become an integrated facet of the service.

Implications

• Librarians may contribute significantly to effective patient care by providing evidence to support the clinical decision-making process.
• The study''s findings emphasize the complexity of facilitating the adoption of services providing evidence for clinical practice.

     

One Click,Many Meanings: Interpreting Paralinguistic Digital Affordances in Social Media

In this study we conceptualize cues in social media that require a single click (e.g., Likes, Favorites) as paralinguistic digital affordances (PDAs). Why do people use PDAs and how do they interpret them when they are the recipient? Through focus groups (N = 25) and interviews (N = 26) we address these research questions within a uses and gratifications framework. Using adaptive structuration theory as a lens for analysis, we examine both faithful and ironic uses of PDAs, finding they contribute more than phatic communication and may indicate just as much about the relationship between sender and receiver as they do content.     

Longitudinal Study of Reading Disability and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Implications for Education

ABSTRACT— The majority of children who receive special education services meet criteria for reading disability (RD) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but additional research is needed to understand the long-term academic outcome of children in these groups. Individuals with RD only ( N = 71), ADHD only ( N = 66), both RD and ADHD ( N = 51), or neither disorder ( N = 118) were identified through the ongoing Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center twin study and retested 5 years later. Results of the follow-up testing indicated that, in addition to ongoing reading difficulties, individuals with RD exhibited higher rates of academic difficulties, depression, and adolescent-onset conduct disorder. Initial ADHD status was associated with academic and social difficulties and elevated rates of nearly all comorbid disorders 5 years later. The group with comorbid RD and ADHD had more stable reading deficits than the group with RD without ADHD and exhibited greater impairment than groups with either disorder alone on outcome measures of academic functioning and social difficulties. These results suggest that individuals with both RD and ADHD are at increased risk for negative outcomes as adolescents and young adults and that when RD and ADHD co-occur, interventions should be provided for both disorders.     

Competitive comparison in music: influences upon self-efficacy beliefs by gender

This study profiles gender differences in instrumental performance self-efficacy perceptions of high school students (N?=?87) over the course of a three-day orchestra festival in which students competed against one another for rank-based seating and then rehearsed and performed as a group. Reported self-beliefs rose significantly for the sample over the course of the festival. Self-efficacy beliefs of females were significantly lower than those of males before the seating audition and first rehearsal, but were no longer different by the midpoint of the festival. Survey free-response data were coded according to Bandura's (1997 Bandura, A. 1997. Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W. H. Freeman. [Google Scholar]) four sources of self-efficacy. A 52% drop in the frequency of student comments regarding competitive comparison appeared at the same point in which female self-efficacy beliefs were no longer different from those of males. Results support past research to suggest that males and females may respond differently to rank-based competition versus social support.