The effects of childhood abuse on symptom complexity in a clinical sample: Mediating effects of emotion regulation difficulties

The purpose of the present study was to first examine whether childhood abuse predicts symptom complexity, as indicated by the number of clinically elevated scales on the MMPI-2 in an adult clinical sample. Secondly, we investigated whether emotion regulation difficulties mediated the relationship between childhood abuse and symptom complexity. A total of 162 adult outpatients not presenting with psychotic symptoms completed the Korean Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (K-CTQ), Life Events Checklist (LEC), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and Korean Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2). Partial correlation analysis results indicated that after controlling for the presence of adulthood trauma, childhood abuse was associated with more symptom complexity, or more clinically elevated scales on the MMPI-2. Furthermore, structural equation modeling results showed that emotion regulation difficulties partially mediated the relationship between childhood abuse and symptom complexity. These findings indicate that individuals who had experienced childhood abuse evidence simultaneous presentation of diverse clinical symptoms.     

Exploring Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Understanding of the Essential Features of Inquiry-Based Science Teaching Using Evidence-Based Reflection

This study explored preservice elementary teachers' and their mentors' understanding of the essential features of inquiry-based teaching through the use of evidence-based reflection. The web-based video analysis tool (VAT) system was used to support preservice teachers' and mentors' evidence-based reflection during field experiences. Major data sources included VAT reflections and individual interviews. Data analysis indicated that the preservice teachers had been involved in various activities designed to support their understanding of inquiry features in a science methods class; they did not implement all of the features in their actual teaching. Both preservice teachers and mentors had difficulty connecting appropriate inquiry features to each teaching episode, which indicates their lack of understanding of inquiry. Both the preservice teachers and mentors had different levels of understanding for each feature. That is, they tended to understand certain features better than others. They interpreted each feature of inquiry-based science teaching too broadly. They also either had a teacher-centered view or tended to focus on issues unrelated to science teaching.     

The determinants of demand for private tutoring in South Korea

This study investigated the determinants of the demand for private tutoring (PT) in South Korea, especially focusing on the effectiveness of governmental regulations regarding the operating hours of cram schools in decreasing expenditure on PT. Survey data from 3,605 parents of 12th grade students were collected from 45 proportionally stratified high schools and analyzed using Tobit and censored least absolute deviation models. Results showed that among student and family background characteristics, students’ achievement level, household income, and parents’ educational level were positively associated with a higher consumption of PT. At the school level, students attending schools with higher student–teacher ratios were expected to spend more on PT. Urban schools under the high school equalization policy (HSEP) showed larger expenditure on PT than non-HSEP schools. Despite the public perception of the ineffectiveness of government policy on PT, this study finds that the local governmental regulation of PT positively contributes to decreasing the demand for PT.     

Correlates of monotonic response patterns in online ratings of a university course

This study examines the prevalence, contexts, and demographic correlates of monotonic response patterns (MRPs) in online student evaluations. Results of two-level hierarchical generalized linear models show evidence of careless monotonic responses to a survey administered to students enrolled in a university-level foreign language course in the Republic of Korea. All else being equal, freshmen and students in classes with fewer survey participants were more likely to choose monotonic response patterns in course evaluations. Possible factors at work in generating MRPs are identified and discussed. The severity of the MRP problem in online ratings underscores the importance for administrators to consider possible validity threats in student evaluations before using them as tools to inform instructional and administrative decisions. It is also important to design course evaluation surveys in such a way as to minimize careless responses and to identify means to induce more thoughtful responses from college students.     

The Influence of Motivational Regulation Strategies on Online Students’ Behavioral,Emotional, and Cognitive Engagement

Providing effective motivational support is a critical determinant of a successful online distance learning experience for students in higher education. In this study, we examined how students’ academic level and use of 8 motivational regulation strategies influence 3 types of student engagement: behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, and cognitive engagement. A total of 95 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in online courses in 4-year universities in the United States participated in this study. A series of hierarchical regression analyses of undergraduate and graduate online students (N = 95) showed that behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, and cognitive engagement are predicted by different motivational regulation strategies after controlling for the academic level. Additionally, students’ academic level was found to be a predictor of cognitive engagement but not a predictor of behavioral engagement or emotional engagement. The results suggest that online course instructors, tutors, and designers should provide students with differentiated motivational scaffolding based on their motivational profile in order to promote different aspects of learning engagement.     

Effects of graphic organizers in online discussions: comparison between instructor-provided and student-generated

The current experimental study examined the effects of graphic organizers in a collaborative learning context where students constructed knowledge during online discussions. As the results could vary depending on how students interacted with the graphic organizers, this study compared two different approaches: instructor-provided versus student-generated graphic organizers. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of receiving or generating graphic organizers on students’ engagement in online discussions. Thirty-six graduate students enrolled in an online graduate course participated in the study. While analyzing an instructional design case, students were asked to discuss design issues in a randomly assigned group. There were three conditions: control condition without graphic organizers, instructor-provided, and student-generated graphic organizers. Major findings revealed that both generating and receiving graphic organizers facilitated students’ higher levels of cognitive engagement, and encouraged students to consider alternative views during the discussions. Without the graphic organizer, students tended to simply summarize previous messages or raise new issues rather than elaborating on previous topics. There was a significant finding regarding the ways of interacting graphic organizers. Students discussed more topics when they were given instructor’s graphic organizers rather than when they were asked to generate them.     

Focusing on the Whole Student: An Evaluation of Massachusetts's Wraparound Zone Initiative

We used a comparative interrupted time series design to examine the impact of the Massachusetts' Wraparound Zone Initiative on student achievement, attendance, retention, and suspension. This initiative was designed to create coordinated district systems that allow schools to proactively and systematically address students' nonacademic needs. The state education agency awarded grants to seven high-need districts, each of which used the funds to support a select group of schools in implementing strategies that focused on school climate and culture, family engagement, systems to identify and address student needs, and community partnerships. Results from this study showed that students in Wraparound Zone schools performed better on state academic assessments than students in comparison schools, when considering prior achievement trends. Effects were statistically significant in the 3rd year of implementation. The impact on academic achievement was greatest for third- and fourth-grade students, and was particularly strong for English learners. There was no statistically significant overall impact on attendance, retention, or suspension.     

Orthogonal-polynomials-based integral inequality and its applications to systems with additive time-varying delays

Recently, a polynomials-based integral inequality was proposed by extending the Moon’s inequality into a generic formulation. By imposing certain structures on the slack matrices of this integral inequality, this paper proposes an orthogonal-polynomials-based integral inequality which has lower computational burden than the polynomials-based integral inequality while maintaining the same conservatism. Further, this paper provides notes on relations among recent general integral inequalities constructed with arbitrary degree polynomials. In these notes, it is shown that the proposed integral inequality is superior to the Bessel–Legendre (B–L) inequality and the polynomials-based integral inequality in terms of the conservatism and computational burden, respectively. Moreover, the effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by an illustrative example of stability analysis for systems with additive time-varying delays.     

Finite-time multi-switching synchronization behavior for multiple chaotic systems with network transmission mode

By considering network transmission mode, this paper addresses the finite-time multi-switching synchronization problem for two kinds of multiple chaotic systems. For multiple same-order chaotic systems, we construct the general switching rules and analyze the existence of switching cases. The presented schemes guarantee the states of each derive system to be finite-timely synchronized with the desired states of every respond system in the different transmission paths and switching sequences. For multiple different order chaotic systems, we analyze a special multi-switching hybrid synchronization behavior, where part of the states are completely synchronized and the others belong to combination synchronization. Moveover, the easily verifiable criterion is derived for such synchronization. Finally, numerical examples are given to show the effectiveness of the presented theoretical results.