Identity formation in educational settings: A contextualized view of theory and research in practice

In this concluding article of the special issue entitled “Identity Formation in Educational Settings”, we explicate the notion of identity as an integrative concept, discuss its growing popularity in the social sciences, and point to its special significance to education in contemporary society. Following an Eriksonian psychosocial approach and sociocultural emphasis, we look at the process of identity formation as a product of interrelatedness between the context and the individual person, and underscore the interaction between developmental and learning processes. We draw examples from the studies in this collection to highlight these conceptual relationships, as well as to contribute insights from the different research questions and modes of inquiry into the practice of co-construction of identity and knowledge in a variety of school contexts. We conclude with a call for the promotion of practice, research and theory in the emerging domain of identity formation in educational settings.     

International Programs in Schools: Considerations of Form and Function

(Intergenerational Programs in Schools: Considerations of Form and Function) – In recent years there has been a groundswell of intergenerational program activity occurring on an international scale. At an unprecedented level, new initiatives are emerging which aim to bring young people and older adults together in various settings – to interact, stimulate, educate, support, and provide care for one another. The focus of this paper is on intergenerational programs implemented in schools. Discussion centers primarily on how such initiatives enhance and reinforce the educational curriculum, contribute to student learning and personal growth, enrich the lives of senior adult participants, and have a positive impact on the surrounding communities. The paper concludes with a review of some key issues that need to be taken into account when developing and evaluating intergenerational programs.     

Adiposity,physical activity and neuromuscular performance in children

We investigated the associations of body fat percentage (BF%), objectively assessed moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and different types of physical activity assessed by a questionnaire with neuromuscular performance. The participants were 404 children aged 6–8 years. BF% was assessed using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry and physical activity by combined heart rate and movement sensing and a questionnaire. The results of 50-m shuttle run, 15-m sprint run, hand grip strength, standing long jump, sit-up, modified flamingo balance, box-and-block and sit-and-reach tests were used as measures of neuromuscular performance. Children who had a combination of higher BF% and lower levels of physical activity had the poorest performance in 50-m shuttle run, 15-m sprint run and standing long jump tests. Higher BF% was associated with slower 50-m shuttle run and 15-m sprint times, shorter distance jumped in standing long jump test, fewer sit-ups, more errors in balance test and less cubes moved in box-and-block test. Higher levels of physical activity and particularly MVPA assessed objectively by combined accelerometer and heart rate monitor were related to shorter 50-m shuttle run and 15-m sprint times. In conclusion, higher BF% and lower levels of physical activity and particularly the combination of these two factors were associated with worse neuromuscular performance.     

A Library Perspective: Data Wranglers in LibraryLand: Finding Opportunities in the Changing Policy Landscape

T. Scott Plutchak, director of Digital Data Curation Strategies, gave a talk about managing data, managing expectations, and opportunities to manage your institution in the move to make research data accessible. An historic view of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the funder’s mandates, and other policy formations set the stage for the discussion of the role of the library in this institutional challenge. In his new role at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Plutchak operates at The Edge of Chaos, with “data wranglers”— concerned parties from a variety of disciplines who all have an interest in data management and who come together to share ideas and move closer to an innovative solution.     

Academic goal orientations,multiple goal profiles,and friendship intimacy among early adolescents

This study investigated the relations between early adolescents’ academic motivational orientations and an aspect of quality of friendship: intimacy. Two-hundred and three Jewish-Israeli seventh grade students responded to surveys asking them about their academic achievement goals and about characteristics of their friendships. Variable-centered regression analyses suggested that mastery goals were positively associated with mutual sharing of difficulties, trust, and adaptive social problem-solving between friends, whereas performance-approach goals were negatively associated with intimacy friendship. Moreover, both performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals were associated with mistrust, inconsideration, and tension between friends. A person-centered analysis, employing cluster analysis, suggested that profiles with a higher level of mastery goals relative to both types of performance goals were associated with less mistrust among friends in comparison with profiles with a higher level of performance goals relative to mastery goals. The findings point to the connection between academic motivation and social relationships in school.     

The play of education: Volunteer teachers in Experimental University Classes

This paper describes an Experimental academic program at Kent State University in which a volunteer, nonprofessional mode of teaching seems to have produced positive results. The phenomenon of volunteerism is puzzling, but the data collected from this Experimental program suggest that people like to teach and do it well when they are part of a divergent system of openness and continued growth. In any case, this program's idealistic objectives of self-directed learning and a strong sense of community have been implemented by using volunteers.     

Measuring the impact of a new faculty program using institutional data

This paper presents a quasi-experimental evaluation of a required, teaching-focused, new faculty program at a large research university. The study makes use of institutional data, including student evaluations of teaching and faculty participation in educational development activities, which are available on many campuses yet rarely used in program evaluation. Results show positive impacts. Faculty found the program valuable and reported increases in their preparation for a range of teaching tasks. In comparison to earlier cohorts, program participants received stronger student evaluations on two global items, and demonstrated significantly more connections with the teaching center in their early careers.     

Bayesian Model Averaging Over Directed Acyclic Graphs With Implications for the Predictive Performance of Structural Equation Models

This article examines Bayesian model averaging as a means of addressing predictive performance in Bayesian structural equation models. The current approach to addressing the problem of model uncertainty lies in the method of Bayesian model averaging. We expand the work of Madigan and his colleagues by considering a structural equation model as a special case of a directed acyclic graph. We then provide an algorithm that searches the model space for submodels and obtains a weighted average of the submodels using posterior model probabilities as weights. Our simulation study provides a frequentist evaluation of our Bayesian model averaging approach and indicates that when the true model is known, Bayesian model averaging does not yield necessarily better predictive performance compared to nonaveraged models. However, our case study using data from an international large-scale assessment reveals that the model-averaged submodels provide better posterior predictive performance compared to the initially specified model.