Social functioning among college students diagnosed with ADHD and the mediating role of emotion regulation

Despite the many studies that have documented the association between symptoms of ADHD and social difficulties in children and adolescents, few have examined this phenomenon in college students. In addition, the underlying factors contributing to such social difficulties are still poorly understood. We hypothesised that college students with symptoms of ADHD, namely inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity, would continue to display social behavioural difficulties, and that emotion regulation would play a mediating role in that relationship. Ninety-nine 17–24-year-old college students filled out three questionnaires to assess Inattentive and Hyperactivity/Impulsivity Symptoms, Social Skills, and Emotion Regulation abilities. Analysis revealed that emotion regulation is a significant mediator between Inattentive Symptoms and Social Skills for female students. There was no significant correlation between ADHD symptoms and Social Skills for males. Female college students report social functioning difficulties associated with their inattentive and hyperactive symptoms, and impaired emotion regulation abilities mediate this relationship for inattentive symptoms only.     

Policy for physical education and school sport in England, 2003–2010: vested interests and dominant discourses

Background: The salience of physical education and school sport (PESS) in England changed dramatically in the 2000s in terms of central government investment and political interests. The government put in place the physical education, school sport and club links strategy and the physical education and sport strategy for young people for a wide-ranging array of social objectives. Although policy research relating to PESS has centred on the sport policy-making process and the role of government or agents, including teachers, has been growing from the 2000s, this paper argues for the need to explore the social construction and constitution of school knowledge underpinned and influenced by particular dominant vested interests and their associated discourses to understand certain pedagogical implications for young people.

Method: Applying the educational policy sociology approach adapted from Basil Bernstein's work on the social construction of pedagogic discourse, the focus of this paper was to identify the main discourses which constructed and constituted policy for PESS from 2003 to 2010 in England. Qualitative content analysis on six policy documents and 467 media articles was conducted.

Findings: This paper identifies five discourses constructing and constituting policy for PESS during the period under study: sport, health, citizenship, lifelong participation and Olympic legacy. These are sources of policy for PESS that were constructed in Bernstein's re-contextualising field. This paper also seeks to show the complexity of policies and strategies for PESS in that they are anchored in a web of significations in terms of complex connections between elements of discourses. It can be argued that as a structure-in-dominance, policies for PESS reinforced competitive sport-based conceptions of physical education and, arguably, created a limited universe of possibilities, of what was thinkable, for and as PESS.

Conclusions: This paper argues that the inclusions and exclusions of discourses from policy for PESS are all politically charged, and will have an impact on the quality of young people's education and their life chances in the future. Furthermore, this paper proposes that we need to explore in further depth the processes of how to maximise the possibilities of realising quality PESS in order for young people to learn citizenship, foster health improvement and facilitate lifelong participation in physical activities.     

Finding and using patterns in linear generalising problems

Linear generalising problems are questions which require students to observe and use a linear pattern of the formf(n)=an+b withb0. This study reports responses of students aged between 9 and 13 to these questions, documenting the mathematical models that they select, the strategies used in implementing them and the explanations they give. Substantial inconsistency of choice of model is observed; students who began a question correctly frequently adopted a simpler but incorrect model for more difficult parts of the question. Students who had undertaken a course in problem solving implicitly used a linear model more frequently and consistently and their explanations more often related the spatial patterns and the number patterns. They seemed to understand the relationship between the data and the generalising rule more completely.     

Adult learners in the workplace: online learning and communities of practice

Seven in‐employment postgraduate Master's level students in an e‐learning unit participated in this research, designed to identify tensions between participation in a community of learning that was part of their studies, and participation in the communities of practice that they were engaged in at their workplaces. It was hypothesised that participation in both these forms of community in their different contexts may enhance each other, or could potentially have a disrupting effect on each. The research employed an interviewing technique. The students' perceptions of the impact of participation in the one form of community on their participation in the other was mixed, with some suggesting that it was enhancing, and others suggesting the contrary, or that there was no impact. The findings indicate that the enhancing effect of participation in communities of learning relevant to a learner's workplace community of practice occur when the learning tasks are designed to enable negotiation of tasks and collaboration with learners who have similar workplace issues.     

Predictors of ability-achievement discrepancies in children referred for psychoeducational evaluation

The present study evaluated a school district's psychoeducational screening program to determine the best predictors of two difference score variables: (a) WISC-R FSIQ – PIAT reading recognition score and (b) WISC-R FSIQ – PIAT math score. The study also investigated the merit of using scores from a group-administered achievement test (CAT) as predictors. Subjects were 61 first through fifth graders initially referred for testing from 1982–1984. Multiple regression analyses indicated: (a) for reading, the SIQ score and the PPVT-R – CAT reading difference score were significant predictors, together accounting for 27% of the variance, and (b) for math, the PPVT-R score accounted for 28% of the variance, with additional variables producing nonsignificant increments. Results suggest that CAT scores may prove useful predictors when combined with screening IQ tests to form difference scores.     

Effects of a support group for siblings of children with special needs

School psychologists may provide support services to siblings of children with special needs as part of a family-focused approach to intervention. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a 6-week support group for siblings. Pre-and posttest assessments of six children who participated in the support group and five who did not indicated that the support group had a significant effect on the participants' perceptions of social support. Parental interview data also indicated some improvements in the group participants' behavior toward their siblings. No significant differences were found between the groups on measures of behavior problems, self-concept, or knowledge about and attitudes toward children with handicaps. These results provide moderate support for the effectiveness of support services for siblings of children with special needs.