The Role of Mindfulness,Self‐Compassion,and Emotion Regulation in Eating Disorder Symptoms Among College Students

Eating disorders often emerge, resurface, or worsen in individuals during college (National Eating Disorders Association, 2013), substantiating the need to identify protective factors. The relationship between mindfulness, self‐compassion, and emotion regulation and disordered eating was examined in a sample of 100 university students. Results of a path analysis indicated significant direct and indirect effects. Clinical implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

A formula for a two‐dice horse race

A formula is derived for a ‘two‐dice horse race’, in which two ordinary dice are thrown repeatedly and each time the sum of the scores determines which horse (numbered 2 to 12) moves forward one space. This paper answers a question posed in a former Teaching Statistics article, and demonstrates the value of simulation.     

The attitude towards nature,and incidence of sexual intimacy among students at a South African University

The authors, of the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, surveyed 60 male university students of mean age 21.37 years and 79 female students of mean age 20.13 years with the goal of gaining insight into their sex behavior and their attitudes toward sexuality. The home language of 83% of the women and 85% of the men was Afrikaans, while the remaining subjects had English as a home language. One student was married, three were engaged to be married, and two lived together with a person of the opposite sex. 51 students were in steady relationships and 82 were single. 82% of the men and 90% of the women choose to have sex with someone of the same race. The study found a relatively low occurrence of sexual intercourse and promiscuity, and a very high percentage of subjects regarded themselves as heterosexual and as morally and religiously conservative. 97% of the men and 99% of the women regarded themselves as being heterosexual, and 3% of men and 1% of women regarded themselves as being bisexual. 6.6% of men and 1.34% of women, however, reported having had sexual contact with someone of the same sex. 37% of the men and 32% of the women reported having ever had sexual intercourse with a person of the opposite sex. These percentages are notably lower than those found by other investigators and the authors believe that a higher proportion of students at the university are actually sexually active than that suggested by this survey's findings. Among those sexually active, 17% of men and 18% of women were involved in sexual relationships with more than one partner. 68% of the sexually active men and women report using condoms often, 14% of men and 8% of women use contraceptives on an irregular basis, and 18% of men and 25% of women never use contraceptives. The birth control pill and condom were the most widely used methods. 85% of men and 86% of women felt that both partners should be responsible for taking precautions against unwanted pregnancy. These findings indicate that the overwhelming majority of subjects in this study are not at high risk for contracting AIDS.     

Predictive assessment of reading

Study 1 retrospectively analyzed neuropsychological and psychoeducational tests given to N=220 first graders, with follow-up assessments in third and eighth grade. Four predictor constructs were derived: (1) Phonemic Awareness, (2) Picture Vocabulary, (3) Rapid Naming, and (4) Single Word Reading. Together, these accounted for 88%, 76%, 69%, and 69% of the variance, respectively, in first, third, and eighth grade Woodcock Johnson Broad Reading and eighth grade Gates-MacGinitie. When Single Word Reading was excluded from the predictors, the remaining predictors still accounted for 71%, 65%, 61%, and 65% of variance in the respective outcomes. Secondary analyses of risk of low outcome showed sensitivities/specificities of 93.0/91.0, and 86.4/84.9, respectively, for predicting which students would be in the bottom 15% and 30% of actual first grade WJBR. Sensitivities/specificities were 84.8/83.3 and 80.2/81.3, respectively, for predicting the bottom 15% and 30% of actual third grade WJBR outcomes; eighth grade outcomes had sensitivities/specificities of 80.0/80.0 and 85.7/83.1, respectively, for the bottom 15% and 30% of actual eighth grade WJBR scores. Study 2 cross-validated the concurrent predictive validities in an N=500 geographically diverse sample of late kindergartners through third graders, whose ethnic and racial composition closely approximated the national early elementary school population. New tests of the same four predictor domains were used, together taking only 15 minutes to administer by teachers; the new Woodcock-Johnson III Broad Reading standard score was the concurrent criterion, whose testers were blind to the predictor results. This cross-validation showed 86% of the variance accounted for, using the same regression weights as used in Study 1. With these weights, sensitivity/specificity values for the 15% and 30% thresholds were, respectively, 91.3/88.0 and 94.1/89.1. These validities and accuracies are stronger than others reported for similar intervals in the literature.     

Science Teachers’ Misconceptions in Science and Engineering Distinctions: Reflections on Modern Research Examples

The aim of this exploratory study was to learn about the misconceptions that may arise for elementary and high school science teachers in their reflections on science and engineering practice. Using readings and videos of real science and engineering work, teachers’ reflections were used to uncover the underpinnings of their understandings. This knowledge ultimately provides information about supporting professional development (PD) for science teachers’ knowledge of engineering. Six science teachers (two elementary and four high school teachers) participated in the study as part of an online PD experience. Cunningham and Carlsen’s (Journal of Science Teacher Education 25:197–210, 2014) relative emphases of science and engineering practices were used to frame the design of PD activities and the analyses of teachers’ views. Analyses suggest misconceptions within the eight practices of science and engineering from the US Next Generation Science Standards in four areas. These are that: (1) the nature of the practices in both science and engineering research is determined by the long-term implications of the research regardless of the nature of the immediate work, (2) engineering and science are hierarchical, (3) creativity is inappropriate, and (4) research outcomes cannot be processes. We discuss the nature of these understandings among participants and the implications for engineering education PD for science teachers.     

Study orchestration and learning outcome: evidence of association over time among disadvantaged students

This study explores, for the first time, the study orchestrations of (mostly Black) engineering students who enter an academic support programme in their first year at university at an educational disadvantage by virtue of their exposure to an inferior, racially determined school education.The empirical manifestation, and the stability over time, of their study orchestrations is described, and the association between their study orchestrations and learning outcome is investigated.It is concluded that the manifestation of individual study orchestrations of these particular educationally disadvantaged engineering students, as well as the association between their study orchestrations and their learning outcomes, is essentially similar to that of other students; academic success is associated with theoretically desirable study orchestrations - particularly when these are manifested early on in the programme since they remain essentially stable over time. Where changes do occur over time they are generally of a theoretically desirable nature and, to a lesser extent, where theoretically undesirable changes occur they appear to be associated with a decline in academic achievement.The implications of these conclusions for academic support programmes and for future research are discussed in so far as they impinge on admissions procedures, the identification of potentially at risk students early on in the academic year and explicit provisions of intervention mechanisms to assist such students.     

A Theoretical and Empirical Exploration of Intrinsic Problems in Designing Inquiry Activities

A central concern in science education is promoting inquiry activities, and a significant amount of research in science education has addressed what inhibits this goal. However, this research has tended to be focused on implementation issues. Levels of implementation are correlated with extrinsic barriers such as time, resources and teacher knowledge, but the internal structure of inquiry remains unexamined. However, are there also some ways in which inquiry based instruction is intrinsically difficult? That is, given perfect conditions for implementation, is devising inquiry activities a non-trivial matter, and are there patterns to the difficulties in doing so? The aim of this paper is to provide both a theoretical and empirical basis for the intrinsic problems associated with the construction of inquiry activities. We present a theoretical framework that connects contemporary studies of science to the classroom context. We then examine a case study of teacher education students designing inquiry-based instruction to demonstrate empirical evidence of intrinsic problems. Our ultimate goal is to improve our ability as teacher educators to guide science teachers in fulfilling this central task of their work.     

A third use of sociology of scientific knowledge: a lens for studying teacher practice

Over the last two decades, science educators and science education researchers have grown increasingly interested in utilising insights from the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) to inform their work and research. To date, researchers in science education have focused on two applications: results of sociological studies of science have been used to define new areas of content, generally referred to as Nature of Science (NOS). This has included research into students’ understanding of the NOS, teachers’ understanding of the NOS, and inclusion (or exclusion) of NOS themes in curricula. A second vein of inquiry has been investigations that consider the classroom as a microcosm of scientific discourse and inquiry. Such research has included investigations of student‐to‐student and student‐to‐teacher interactions. In this paper, we present a third application for educational research – the investigation of teacher knowledge and practice as sociological phenomena. In addition to supporting scholarly research, we believe it can be a useful tool for illuminating the complexities of teaching that needs to be taken into account by policy makers and practitioners. In this paper, we provide a thematic review of concepts from the sociology of scientific knowledge, and their application to a case of teacher work.     

Building Teacher‐Researcher Collaboration: dilemmas and strategies

School‐based and university‐based research collaborations are becoming more common because they provide rich sources of data. Classrooms are complex systems and having the multiple perspectives of researchers from different contexts provides a broader and more dynamic view. However, collaborative research also brings with it some ethical issues researchers who have worked alone may not have experienced before. This paper examines problems of collaborative research and conditions for successful research that arose from discussions among university‐based researchers. The problem areas that emerged ranged across a variety of epistemological and institutional Issues. These fell within seven large categories: (a) definitions of collaborative research, (b) roles of teachers and researchers, (c) time constraints, (d) expectations of employers, (e) whose voice gets heard, (f) openness and trust, and (g) political and institutional constraints. As with any dilemma, there are no clear solutions to the problems listed above. Explicitly considering the following conditions in response to the problems has, however, led to more satisfying and productive collaborative research relationships and products: (a) recognising that relationships take time, (b) recognising the role of disagreement, (c) discussing all aspects of the research project from the beginning, (d) acknowledging the organic nature of research projects, (e) striving to achieve parity in research relationships, and (f) reaching agreements about reporting the research.     

Large-scale randomized controlled trial with 4th graders using intelligent tutoring of the structure strategy to improve nonfiction reading comprehension

Reading comprehension is a challenge for K-12 learners and adults. Nonfiction texts, such as expository texts that inform and explain, are particularly challenging and vital for students?? understanding because of their frequent use in formal schooling (e.g., textbooks) as well as everyday life (e.g., newspapers, magazines, and medical information). The structure strategy is explicit instruction about how to strategically use knowledge about text structures for encoding and retrieval of information from nonfiction and has consistently shown significant improvements in reading comprehension. We present the delivery of the structure strategy using a web-based intelligent tutoring system (ITSS) that has the potential to offer consistent modeling, practice tasks, assessment, and feedback to the learner. Finally, we report on statistically significant findings from a large scale randomized controlled efficacy trial with rural and suburban 4th-grade students using ITSS.