The Student Perception of Wellbeing Questionnaire: Preliminary Investigation into its Psychometric Properties

An estimated 20% of all adolescents will experience a depressive disorder by the age of 18, with schools being at the forefront of initiatives to promote resilience and well-being. This study reports on the development of the 24-item Student Perception of Wellbeing Questionnaire (SPWQ), created as a measure of well-being in three areas: exercise, explanatory style, and conflict resolution. The SPWQ was administered to 235 male school students from Years 6–8 and 251 female students from Years 7–9, and a principal components analysis with varimax rotation was performed on the data obtained. A three-factor solution was identified dealing with explanatory style, conflict resolution, and exercise, which explained 31% of the total variance. The scale was found to have strong internal consistency with a Cronbach alpha coefficient of α = 0.80 for the male students and α = 0.84 for the female students.     

Hands-On: Investigating the role of physical manipulatives in spatial training

Studies show that spatial interventions lead to improvements in mathematics. However, outcomes vary based on whether physical manipulatives (embodied action) are used during training. This study compares the effects of embodied and non-embodied spatial interventions on spatial and mathematics outcomes. The study has a randomized, controlled, pre-post, follow-up, training design (N = 182; mean age 8 years; 49% female; 83.5% White). We show that both embodied and non-embodied spatial training approaches improve spatial skills compared to control. However, we conclude that embodied spatial training using physical manipulatives leads to larger, more consistent gains in mathematics and greater depth of spatial processing than non-embodied training. These findings highlight the potential of spatial activities, particularly those that use physical materials, for improving children's mathematics skills.     

A new industry creation and originality: Insight from the funding sources of university patents

Scientific breakthroughs coming from universities can contribute to the emergence of new industries, such as in the case of biotechnology. Obviously, not all research conducted in universities leads to a radical change from existing technological trajectories. Patents and patent dynamics have long been recognized as critical in understanding the emergence of new technologies and industries. Specifically, patent citations provide insight into the originality of a discovery that has received patent protection. Yet while a large body of literature addresses the impact of patent originality on various firm performance measures, we address the question of what conditions drive patent originality in the process of knowledge creation within the university. Using data on patented cancer research, we examine how research context – as reflected by the funding source for each scientist – is associated with patent originality. We find that when university scientists are partly funded by their own university, they have a higher propensity to generate more original patents. By contrast, university scientists funded either by industry or other non-university organizations have a lower propensity to generate more original patents. The significance of our findings in the cancer research setting call for further research on this question in other research fields.     

Indian adult education and the post‐colonial legacy

Under the Raj education concentrated on reproducing a small Anglicized elite capable of administering the country. Adult education was minimal and confined to a few urban centres. After Independence Indian adult education was burdened with the project of modernization as India under Nehru and the nationalist movement desperately tried to industrialize the state according to western and soviet models. Despite the relative success of the first Five Year Plan's literacy programme, levels of funding dropped while bureaucracy and falsification of figures increased. Despite Gandhi, Indian education also suffered from elitist discourses inherited from the British Raj which assumed a ‘trickle‐down’ effect and resulted in the over‐balancing of the system towards higher education. Western experts (with the honourable exception of Frank Laubach) have tended to confirm the bias, but even Laubach's agenda raised suspicion. Only with the coming of the NAEP in 1978 was a serious attempt to redress the balance made. Subsequent radical educationists have once again taken up the banner of ‘Gandhi’ in the cause of educating the very poor and the project of modernization has given way to more needs‐based programmes.