Differences in anticipatory anxiety and adaptation rate as a function of affect management strategy

This study applies Eysenck's (1967) and Buck's (1984) psychophysiological theories of anxiety development to explain individual differences in anticipatory anxiety and rate of adaptation during public speaking. Sensitivity to anxiety creating stimuli predispose individuals to either an internalizing or externalizing affect management strategy. Because social conditioning and neurological processes combine to create anxiety, internalizing individuals are more responsive to punishment and are more likely to appraise an anxiety‐provoking situation as threatening than are externalizers. However, their overall conditionability permits internalizers to adapt to speaking situations more rapidly than their externalizing counterparts who are less susceptible to negative reinforcement. The findings are reviewed in light of various phobia reducing treatment strategies, such as flooding, systematic desensitization, and cognitive appraisal therapy.     

Beyond the Library's Walls: Using Library 2.0 Tools to Reach Out to All Users

ABSTRACT

The Library 2.0 movement emerged as a response to the technologies and concepts in the Web 2.0 movement and has been taking the library world by storm. Web 2.0 takes the stagnant Web 1.0 and makes it more user-driven, collaborative, participatory, and personalized. Library 2.0 takes the tools of Web 2.0 and moves them into a library setting with libraries that are user-centered, networking faculty, students, and librarians to create a vital and evolving organization designed to meet the needs of the current information culture. Library 2.0 is especially relevant to institutions providing services to off-campus students. Many students taking courses remotely have full-time jobs and busy lives beyond their coursework. Providing those students with a customizable, personalized, and collaborative library assists in their success as a student. Using Web 2.0 technologies and other social networking tools in the library setting brings the library to our users, making them more relevant in today's information society.     

Spatialised metaphors of practice: how teacher educators engage with professional standards for teachers

Pre-service teacher educators, both nationally and internationally, must negotiate a plethora of expectations including using Professional Standards to enhance teacher quality. In Australia, the recent Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) report highlighted weak application of Standards in Initial Teacher Education (ITE). However, recent reports suggest that many education stakeholders feel positive about the implementation of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APSTs). This study responds to these differing viewpoints by exploring how teacher educators in a large metropolitan university in Australia account for the use of Standards in their work. Discourse analysis techniques in conjunction with socio-spatial theory make visible particular metaphors of practice as teacher educators negotiate the real-and-imagined spaces of regulated teacher education programmes. The findings highlight the importance of investigating the utility of Standards in the lived experiences of teacher educators, as they are responsible for preparing quality, classroom ready graduates.     

Predictors of mothers' use of spanking with their infants

OBJECTIVES: This study describes mothers who report spanking their infants in the first 13 months of life. METHODS: Two hundred forty-six (246) mothers were interviewed in the Mother-Baby Unit of a large university-affiliated hospital in a large southeastern city of the United States. Ninety-three percent (93%) of those mothers were reinterviewed in their homes when infants were 6-13 months of age. RESULTS: Younger mothers, those who endorsed fewer alternatives to corporal punishment, and those who experienced their infants as "difficult" were significantly more likely to spank their infants. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest the importance of more anticipatory guidance from physicians, nurses, social workers, and other professionals about discipline in the first few months of life, particularly given the risks associated with spanking infants and popular support for corporal punishment.     

Dog Mathematics: Exploring Base-4

Using a dog's paw as a basis for numerical representation, sixth grade students explored how to count and regroup using the dog's four digital pads. Teachers can connect these base-4 explorations to the conceptual meaning of place value and regrouping using base-10.