Word Reading Fluency: Role of Genome‐Wide Single‐Nucleotide Polymorphisms in Developmental Stability and Correlations With Print Exposure

The genetic effects on individual differences in reading development were examined using genome‐wide complex trait analysis (GCTA) in a twin sample. In unrelated individuals (one twin per pair, n = 2,942), the GCTA‐based heritability of reading fluency was ~20%–29% at ages 7 and 12. GCTA bivariate results showed that the phenotypic stability of reading fluency from 7 to 12 years (r = 0.69) is largely driven by genetic stability (genetic r = 0.69). Genetic effects on print exposure at age 12 were moderate (~26%) and correlated with those influencing reading fluency at 12 (genetic r = 0.89), indicative of a gene–environment correlation. These findings were largely consistent with quantitative genetic twin analyses that used both twins in each pair (n = 1,066–1,409).     

A contribution to the history of assessment: how a conversation simulator redeems Socratic method

Assessment in education is a recent phenomenon. Although there were counterparts in former epochs, the term assessment only began to be spoken about in education after the Second World War; and, since that time, views, strategies and concerns over assessment have proliferated according to an uncomfortable dynamic. We fear that, increasingly, education is assessment-led rather than learning-led and ‘counter to what is desired’ in an ugly judgemental spirit whose moral underpinnings deserve scrutiny. In this article, we seek to historicise assessment and the anxieties of credentialising students. Through this longer history, we present a philosophy of assessment which underlies the development of a new method in assessment-as-learning. We hope that our development of a conversation simulator helps restore the innocence of education as learning-led, while still delivering on the incumbencies of assessment.     

Impact of childhood maltreatment on physical health-related quality of life in U.S. active duty military personnel and combat veterans

Previous studies have found an association between childhood maltreatment (CM) and health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and to a lesser extent have considered whether psychiatric symptoms may explain the relationship. This study aimed to further our understanding of the link between CM and HRQoL by testing whether posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depressive symptoms mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and physical HRQoL. Mediation models were examined in a sample of male Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) active duty and combat veterans (n = 249). PTSD and depressive symptoms mediated the relationship between CM and overall physical HRQoL, as well as participation in daily activities due to physical health, bodily pain, and social functioning. Mediation of the relationship between childhood maltreatment and physical and social functioning by depression and PTSD symptoms may lend support to neurobiological hypotheses that childhood maltreatment sensitizes the nervous system and after repeated trauma may lead to the development of psychiatric symptoms, which have a major impact on morbidity and mortality.     

Independent Study in History

Increasingly, instructional pedagogies in learning contexts from classrooms to boardrooms are couched within experiential learning paradigms. The field trip is a teaching pedagogy that draws on experiential learning. The author aims to demonstrate how a field trip to Sea Islands, South Carolina, presents an opportunity for undergraduate anthropology students to experience a learning continuum from course readings and films to a firsthand experience. The effectiveness of the field trip as an instructional pedagogy is assessed. Best practices for incorporating field trips into instruction are presented.     

Cultural and gender influences on age identification

Age identification plays a significant role in young adults’ mass, interpersonal, intergenerational, and intercultural communication. This research examines cultural and gender influences on young people's age identity by measuring the social age identity of male and female young adult members of five cultures varying in individualism/collectivism (Laos, Thailand, Spain, Australia, and the U.S.A.). We found cultural influences on age identity to be both unexpected in nature and modest in effect. American and Laotian respondents had similar and nominally higher levels of age identity than Australian, Thai, and Spanish respondents, with all having a markedly different age identities than those of Japanese respondents as reported by other researchers. No direct effect for gender on age identity emerged, though American females were more age identified than all other respondents. Across cultures, the social identity scale was found to be a reasonably adequate measure of age identity.     

Chain Versus Independent Television Station Ownership: Toward an Investment Model of Commitment to Local News Quality

Using empirical measures, a pilot test of an investment model of commitment to television news quality yielded statistically significant results supporting four hypothesized relationships between types of broadcast station ownership. The findings indicate that the news department operated by a small media group produced more local news, more locally produced video, more use of on-air reporters, and fewer news promotions than the larger chain-based broadcast groups investigated, suggesting a deeper commitment to local news quality. The results support the policy position that stricter ownership limits would enhance the quality of local television news.     

On mythic criticism

Recently, a number of critics have applied a mythic perspective to a wide variety of works. While the value of mythic criticism cannot be questioned, the method also may be stretched to include discourse that lacks either the function or the form of traditional myth. Reliance on a narrow formal/functional definition of myth can help critics avoid this problem.     

Knowledge-Sharing through Radio and Newsletters as a Catalyst to Grassroot Participation and Management for Rural Water-related Environmental Problems in Ebo Itumbonuso,in Local Government Areas,Akwa Ibom State,Nigeria

Knowledge comes from experience and experience from trials, successes, failures, reading, lectures, and information generally. It is clear that never at any time did humanity witness such a tremendous flow of information as now. The concept behind this study was to relay information about healthy living and environmental sustainability to the rural poor in Ebo Itumbonuso who have no idea of the detrimental consequences of washing clothes within the same stream from which they fetch their drinking water, or the diseases passed on by soaking and washing food stuffs into this same stream. To them, it must seem that the gods are angry and have visited them with strange illnesses. To us, typhoid fever, hepatitis, cholera, malaria, and dysentery, to mention but a few, are actually the price to pay for allowing vectors (disease-causing organisms) to thrive in the stream, a plight exacerbated by not boiling and filtering the water before drinking. We set to dismantle this veil of ignorance through a guided programme of knowledge-sharing, building, and self-awareness using radios, televisions, illustrative drams, newsletters, and folk tales.