Systemizing and the gender gap: examining academic achievement and perseverance in STEM

For years, a popular explanation for women choosing to abandon studies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has been their lack of aptitude. This study challenged that notion by integrating theories of cognitive style, academic emotion, self-efficacy, and motivation to explain students’ academic achievement and perseverance in STEM when transitioning to college. A sample of 1597 high school and junior college students participated. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were first conducted to validate a reduced version of the cognitive style questionnaire. Structural equation modeling revealed that the cognitive style known as systemizing indirectly predicted STEM achievement and persistence by way of intrinsic motivation, learning anxiety, and self-efficacy, providing a new perspective for re-examining the gender gap in STEM.

     

Developing a measure to understand young children’s Internet cognition and cyber-safety awareness: a pilot test

Abstract

Advancements in technology have increased preschool children’s access to the Internet. Very little research has been conducted to identify pre-school-aged children’s understandings of the Internet and ramifications of being ‘online’. Without an understanding of children’s thinking about the Internet, it is difficult to provide age- and pedagogically appropriate cyber-safety education. This study developed and pilot-tested an interview schedule that focuses on the Internet thinking and cyber-safety awareness of Australian children aged 4–5 years. The schedule is informed by sociocultural theory, cyber-safety education research and approaches for researching with young children. The schedule shows potential to elicit children’s understandings of the Internet and cyber-safety awareness. Adjustments are required to allow more contextualised responses from children.     

Technology-based assessment in science: Issues underlying teacher advocacy of testing policy

The theme of this article is that the development of informed teacher advocacy for new advancements in technology-based assessment is an essential requirement if such advancements are to contribute toward the systemic improvement of the quality of school science instruction. The potential for advocacy involvement by teachers is considered a natural reaction toward the increasing tendency for classroom practices to be affected by local, state, or national assessment policy initiatives. In support of such an advocacy process, this article provides an awareness of the principles of good measurement practices in conjunction with the qualitative characteristics of technology-based assessment that together are sufficient to serve as a foundation for teachers whose concerns may motivate them to raise relevant questions regarding assessment policy. Based upon such implied standards of testing practice, the article suggests key evaluative questions for teachers to ask about any forms of science assessment that would have the effect of amplifying the potential value of new technology-based forms of assessment applications to enhance ongoing classroom processes of science teaching.     

Mental health services in schools: A qualitative analysis of challenges to implementation,operation, and sustainability

Schools are increasingly recognized as a critical venue for the provision of comprehensive behavioral and mental health services for students. Unfortunately, difficulties associated with operating programs in schools often prevent evidence‐based practices from being implemented and sustained as intended. In this study, the experiences of school and community providers who were funded through the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative to implement mental health services in a large, urban school district were investigated using a qualitative focus group methodology. Providers identified the major challenges they encountered with implementing, operating, and sustaining their programs as well as the strategies that they used to overcome those challenges. Strategies to enhance support of school‐based mental health programs are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 42: 361–372, 2005.     

Concurrent observations of barpress suppression and freezing: Effects of CS modality and on-line vs. off-line training upon posttrial behavior

In a conditioned suppression study with rats, CS modality (light vs. noise) and type of conditioning (on-line vs. off-line training) were manipulated. All rats were then tested on-line with only half the test trials reinforced. Some results and conclusions were as follows: (1) During initial training, suppression following reinforced noise trials was moderately strong at first but weakened over days; for the light, it was weak from the start. It was suggested that this strong influence of CS modality might complicate interpretations of posttrial suppression as a measure of US effectiveness. (2) During testing, posttrial suppression and freezing were greater following non-reinforced trials than following reinforced trials (US-omission effect), and this effect was stronger for noise than for light. Since noise also produced more freezing than light, this result favors the hypothesis that the US-omission effect is due to persistent CS-elicited freezing that is un-disrupted by a shock US. (3) Although noise produced more freezing, both noise and light produced similar barpress suppression. This result is consistent with the suggestion that noise and light acquire equal associative strength but elicit different defensive behaviors.     

Feeling 10 feet tall: creative inclusion in a community of practice

This paper explores the potential role of creative learning in helping to create positive experiences for socially excluded young people. Noting the increased influence of the market into education and the onus engendered in the ‘Third Way’, which seeks to give socially and economically marginal individuals the opportunity to adapt to changing economic conditions, while neglecting the underlying causes of exclusion, the paper focuses on a group of 14–18 year olds' experience of performance‐based training as part of a government‐funded Creative Partnerships project in Durham/Sunderland. The paper argues that creative learning cannot provide a solution to the ills of educational disadvantage, but that its untapped potential lies in its ability to provide a ‘community of practice’ in which an individual can take personal ownership of his or her own learning experience in a communal context.     

Idealisation and Galileo’s Pendulum Discoveries: Historical, Philosophical and Pedagogical Considerations

Galileos discovery of the properties of pendulum motion depended on his adoption of the novel methodology of idealisation. Galileos laws of pendulum motion could not be accepted until the empiricist methodological constraints placed on science by Aristotle, and by common sense, were overturned. As long as scientific claims were judged by how the world was immediately seen to behave, and as long as mathematics and physics were kept separate, then Galileos pendulum claims could not be substantiated; the evidence was against them. Proof of the laws required not just a new science, but a new way of doing science, a new way of handling evidence, a new methodology of science. This was Galileos method of idealisatioin. It was the foundation of the Galilean–Newtonian Paradigm which characterised the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, and the subsequent centuries of modern science. As the pendulum was central to Galileos and Newtons physics, appreciating the role of idealisation in their work is an instructive way to learn about the nature of science.     

MplusAutomation: An R Package for Facilitating Large-Scale Latent Variable Analyses in Mplus

MplusAutomation is a package for R that facilitates complex latent variable analyses in Mplus involving comparisons among many models and parameters. More specifically, MplusAutomation provides tools to accomplish 3 objectives: to create and manage Mplus syntax for groups of related models; to automate the estimation of many models; and to extract, aggregate, and compare fit statistics, parameter estimates, and ancillary model outputs. We provide an introduction to the package using applied examples including a large-scale simulation study. By reducing the effort required for large-scale studies, a broad goal of MplusAutomation is to support methodological developments in structural equation modeling using Mplus.