Self-protection profiles of worth and academic goals in university students

European Journal of Psychology of Education - This work analyzes the possible existence of self-protection profiles based on a combination of self-handicapping (behavioral and claimed) strategies...     

Using Resources of Nature in the Counselling Room: Qualitative Research into Ecotherapy Practice

Ecotherapy uses the resources of the natural environment to assist clients with a variety of symptoms, and has been found to be effective with anxiety, depression, stress and attention difficulties. While ecotherapy is often practiced outside of the consulting room, it can also be incorporated into more traditional indoor counselling settings. This qualitative research explored the practices of counsellors who implement ecotherapy as a treatment modality in their consulting rooms. Thirty participants (22 females and 8 males) from six countries completed an open-ended questionnaire. Of those 30 participants eleven (8 females and 3 males) were also interviewed. Data were analysed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Common practices reported by participants included: assigning nature-based homework exercises, facilitating an experiential connection to nature, nature guided mindfulness/meditation, and the sophisticated use of nature metaphors. This research provides insight into how nature-based techniques can be incorporated into conventional indoor counselling settings.     

Teaching for Scientific Literacy? An Examination of Instructional Practices in Secondary Schools in Barbados

This study examined the extent to which the instructional practices of science teachers in Barbados are congruent with best practices for teaching for scientific literacy. Additionally, through observation of practice, it sought to determine the teachers’ demonstrated role in the classroom, their demonstration of learning through discourse, learning goals and the nature of classroom activities. Five hundred nineteen students from 12 of the 23 secondary schools on the island and 15 teachers across 8 schools participated in the study. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire, an observational schedule and field notes. It was found that while problem-solving and questioning were mainly used in the classroom, the use of experiments was among the least popular teaching strategies. Additionally, results showed that teachers’ display of the knowledge of the characteristics of scientific literacy was unsatisfactory. Generally, the findings indicate a gap between teaching for scientific literacy as expressed in the literature and current instructional practices in secondary science classrooms in Barbados.     

Writing week-journals to improve the writing quality of fourth-graders’ compositions

Students’ writing problems are a global educational concern and is in need of particular attention. This study aims to examine the impact of providing extra writing opportunities (i.e., writing journals) on the quality of writing compositions. A longitudinal cluster-randomized controlled design using a multilevel modeling analysis with 182 fourth grade students was conducted. We examined whether students’ writing quality differed when writing journals on a weekly basis for 12 weeks, compared with a control group. Three covariates were analyzed, namely: (i) the students’ attitudes towards writing; (ii) their self-efficacy in writing; (iii) and their use of self-regulation (SRL) strategies while writing. Findings have shown that students who wrote week-journals significantly improved the writing quality of their compositions and reported a higher use of SRL strategies in writing. Nevertheless, self-efficacy and attitude towards writing were found to not be related to the quality of the compositions. Moreover, data indicated that the writing quality of compositions improved along with the writing quality of the week-journals. Findings suggest the use of week-journals in class to promote writing.     

2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the year 2016 was awarded to three illustrious chemists, Professors Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir Fraser Stoddart, and Ben Feringa. Pioneering works of these chemists on designing molecules, chemically synthesizing them, and extracting a work out of such designed molecules open-up a new area of chemistry in a paradigm shifting manner. Beginning with controlling the molecular motions, particularly involving interlocked macrocycles in late 1980s, the advancement progressed to envelop energy storage and retrieval, and varieties of examples around the concept. Molecular motion alone can also be a rich source for such a work output has also been established. These developments possess the required momentum to uncover a new area of chemistry, wherein energy input-output can be used beneficially to conduct a useful work, in a close analogy to machines such as an electric motor.     

Unearthing the Banach–Tarski paradox

Greeks used the method of cutting a geometric region into pieces and recombining them cleverly to obtain areas of figures like parallelograms. In such problems, the boundary is ignored. However, in our discussion, we will take every point of space into consideration. The human endeavour to compute lengths, areas, and volumes of irregular complicated shapes and solids created the subject of ‘measure theory’. The paradox of the title can be informally described as follows. Consider the earth including the inside stuff. It is possible to decompose this solid sphere into finitely many pieces and apply three-dimensional rotations to these pieces such that the transformed pieces can be put together to form two solid earths! The whole magic lies in the word ‘pieces’. The pieces turn out to be so strange that they cannot be ‘measured’.     

Single Mothers’ Experiences of Support at Their Young Children’s School: An Interpretative Phenomenological Approach

This phenomenological study explored six single mothers’ experiences of support at their young children’s school. Themes resulting from interpretative phenomenological analysis suggest the single mothers experienced tangible (e.g., school resources, school-wide events, structural flexibility, teachers’ formal communication) and intangible (e.g., caring relationships with school faculty and staff, experiencing teachers as parenting partners, perceiving acceptance from the school environment) forms of support from their children’s school. Furthermore, results suggest these single mothers experienced intangible supports more prominently than tangible forms of support. The support needs of these single mothers at their young children’s school were also explored including the mothers’ desire for stronger relationships with other parents and families at the school.     

Teacher Perceptions of School Consultant Social Influence Strategies: Replication and Expansion

The goals were to (a) replicate the findings of previous research with regard to the Consultee/Teacher Version of the Interpersonal Power Inventory (IPI), and (b) advance the literature by examining IPI scores about a current consultation relationship. Sample 1 included 99 elementary school teachers (44.4% Hispanic) who completed the IPI. Results replicated Erchul et al. Sample 2 (N = 37; 45.9% Hispanic) represented a subset of Sample 1 who participated in a consultation project and completed the IPI about influence in their current consultation relationship. The results advance the literature by offering evidence for convergent and predictive validity of the IPI soft power bases. Teachers who reported being influenced by soft power strategies experienced greater change in their behaviors and their students’ behaviors than those who reported being not influenced by such strategies. Implications for research and practice in school consultation are discussed.     

A Conceptual Framework for Emergent Digital Literacy

As we progress in the 21st century, children learn to become proficient readers and writers of both digital and non-digital texts. Knowledge, skills, and understandings of literacy emerge through sociocultural interactions with non-digital tools (e.g., paper-printed books) and digital tools (e.g., touch screen tablets). However, debate is ongoing over the role that digital experiences play in emergent literacy development. Researchers have voiced the need to conceptualise a common framework for literacy development that considers the emergence of digital literacy skills alongside conventional literacy skills and how these skills might interact during development. This is particularly important in light of the increasing use of digital texts used by young children, such as E-books and digital games. Therefore, this paper proposes a framework that might guide research and practice by examining the relationships between emergent literacy skills, emergent digital literacy skills, and proficiency in reading and writing.     

Social Justice: A Case-Study Examining the Influence of Primary Headteachers in Two Manchester Schools

Presently, there are a growing number of students in the primary schools in northwest England who are living in broken communities, exacerbated by the most recent global recession. Through social justice theory, this paper examines the influence of head teachers as they look to balance administrative and pedagogical experiences in the schools. Using a qualitative methodology, including observation, in-depth interviews, and field notes this case study focused on head teachers, teachers, and parents from two primary schools in the northwest of England. Specifically, this study investigates the influence of the headteachers while identifying a social justice pedagogical epistemology and strategies being used by teachers and schools who work with students from communities typically identified as living in low socio-economic areas. Foundational to this research is the belief that headteachers, families and teachers need to make concerted, intentional efforts to engage in and acquire appropriate knowledge for building effective, communicative relationship in order to benefit student achievement. A social justice perspective therefore should provide an unequivocal commitment to acting in just ways related to concepts of fairness and equity.