Mathematics anxiety in young children: Concurrent and longitudinal associations with mathematical performance

This study explored mathematics anxiety in a longitudinal sample of 113 children followed from second to third grade. We examined how mathematics anxiety related to different types of mathematical performance concurrently and longitudinally and whether the relations between mathematics anxiety and mathematical performance differed as a function of working memory. Concurrent analyses indicated that mathematics anxiety represents a unique source of individual differences in children’s calculation skills and mathematical applications, but not in children’s geometric reasoning. Furthermore, we found that higher levels of mathematics anxiety in second grade predicted lower gains in children’s mathematical applications between second and third grade, but only for children with higher levels of working memory. Overall, our results indicate that mathematics anxiety is an important construct to consider when examining sources of individual differences in young children’s mathematical performance. Furthermore, our findings suggest that mathematics anxiety may affect how some children use working memory resources to learn mathematical applications.     

Humor in High-Stress Relationships: Understanding Communication in Police Officers' Romantic Relationships

A career in law enforcement is highly stressful given the nontraditional shiftwork, uncertain interactions, and risk of harm. These combined stressors likely spillover into one's romantic relationship and, thus, the study reported here explored one potential communicative coping mechanism—humor. Research exploring humor suggests that humorous communicators are better able to respond to stress, and this study explored if humor appears to benefit relational communication in police officer relationships. Findings begin to support this argument, revealing that romantic partners of police officers with a high humor orientation (HO) report using humor more to cope as well as experiencing less stress (both perceived and physical) and conflict (lower frequency of conflict and less intense/hostile conflict). Path analyses revealed that the use of humor to cope mediated the relationships between self-reported HO and stress, as well as conflict. Implications for humor and romantic relational communication are discussed.     

Empathy and critical thinking: primary students solving local environmental problems through outdoor learning

The present study explores the outcomes of teaching empathy and critical thinking to solve environmental problems. This investigation was done throughout the duration of an environmental education course within a primary school located in central Chile. A community-based research methodology was used to understand the formation of empathy and critical thinking. The findings reveal a significant benefit in using empathy strategies to engage students regarding the thinking processes involved with solving environmental problems. Using these elements as teaching techniques for environmental education courses can be very helpful in reaching the aims of creating a sustainable citizenry.     

Testing Lesniaski's Revised Brief Test

In 2004, Lesniaski revised White's Brief Test methodology for smaller academic libraries that lack sufficient subject specialist librarians to perform the brief tests as originally proposed by White. As a part of regular collection development, Cowles Library implemented Lesniaski's Brief Tests on the print monograph collection. While primarily a review of Lesniaski's methodology, this article also discusses how the Brief Tests were used for improved collection evaluation and maintenance.     

Fine-Tuning the Institutional Repository: Evaluating the Self-Archiving Behavior of Researchers in Music

While self-archiving gains more traction as a means for scholars to make their research freely available, a perception persists that certain disciplines in the humanities lag behind the sciences in this regard. This article investigates the rate of self-archiving by scholars contributing to the top journals in the field of music, a discipline that traditionally falls within the humanities, although research in the field is highly interdisciplinary and draws heavily on multiple scientific fields. The contributors to these journals come from a range of background and interests, and represent colleges and universities from six continents.     

肥胖使中国不堪重负

随着经济发展，人民物质文化生活的提高，一些富贵病如肥胖也如雨后春笋一样，迅速在中国蔓延开来，这已经引起了众多有识之士的担忧.     

Moving the goalposts: Education policy and 25 years of the Black/White achievement gap

Drawing on a secondary analysis of official statistics, this paper examines the changing scale of the inequality of achievement between White students and their Black British peers who identify their family heritage as Black Caribbean. We examine a 25‐year period from the introduction of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), in 1988, to the 20th anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 2013. It is the first time that the Black/White gap has been analysed over such a long period. The paper reviews the changing place of the Black/White gap in education debates and notes that, despite periods when race equality has appeared to be high on the political agenda, it has never held a consistent place at the heart of policy. Our findings shed light on how the Black/White gap is directly affected, often in negative ways, by changes in education policy. Specifically, whenever the key benchmark for achievement has been redefined, it has had the effect of restoring historic levels of race inequity; in essence, policy interventions to ‘raise the bar’ by toughening the benchmark have actively widened gaps and served to maintain Black disadvantage. Throughout the entire 25‐year period, White students were always at least one and a half times more likely to attain the dominant benchmark than their Black peers. Our findings highlight the need for a sustained and explicit focus on race inequity in education policy. To date, the negative impacts of policy changes have been much more certain and predictable than occasional attempts to reduce race inequality.