Exploring the link between experienced teachers’ learning outcomes and individual and professional learning community characteristics

The continuous professional development of teachers is crucial in our current knowledge-based society, yet empirical research on experienced teachers’ learning outcomes is scarce. In this study, we examine perceived changes in classroom practices and in competence as outcomes. By making these outcomes measurable, we can relate them to several individual teacher characteristics and professional learning community characteristics. A questionnaire was administered to 490 experienced teachers from 48 Flemish (Belgian) primary schools. Multilevel analyses show that of the professional learning community characteristics, only reflective dialogue is significant for perceived changes in practices. As for individual characteristics, self-efficacy relates positively to both perceived changes in practices and in competence. The relationship between teaching experience and both learning outcomes, however, is negative.     

Physical discipline and children's adjustment: cultural normativeness as a moderator

Interviews were conducted with 336 mother-child dyads (children's ages ranged from 6 to 17 years; mothers' ages ranged from 20 to 59 years) in China, India, Italy, Kenya, the Philippines, and Thailand to examine whether normativeness of physical discipline moderates the link between mothers' use of physical discipline and children's adjustment. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that physical discipline was less strongly associated with adverse child outcomes in conditions of greater perceived normativeness, but physical discipline was also associated with more adverse outcomes regardless of its perceived normativeness. Countries with the lowest use of physical discipline showed the strongest association between mothers' use and children's behavior problems, but in all countries higher use of physical discipline was associated with more aggression and anxiety.     

What Can Clients Tell Us about Seeking Counselling and Their Experience of It?

Research on counselling is often unknown to or ignored by counsellors. Research that explores counselling from the client’s perspective is even less familiar to most counsellors, perhaps because there is far less of it compared to the quantity of research investigating the process from the counsellor’s point of view. Nevertheless, research presenting the client’s perspective can be a useful guide to both counsellors and their clients. With this aim in mind, this article summarises some of the research that has been conducted from the client’s point of view and suggests implications for counselling practice.     

Why do students consider dropping out of doctoral degrees? Institutional and personal factors

Despite the increasing popularity of doctoral education, many students do not complete their studies, and very little information is available about them. Understanding why some students consider that they do not want to, or cannot, continue with their studies is essential to reduce dropout rates and to improve the overall quality of doctoral programmes. This study focuses on the motives students give for considering dropping out of their doctoral degree. Participants were 724 social sciences doctoral students from 56 Spanish universities, who responded to a questionnaire containing doctoral degree conditions questions and an open-ended question on motives for dropping out. Results showed that a third of the sample, mainly the youngest, female and part time students, stated that they had intended to drop out. The most frequent motives for considering dropping out were difficulties in achieving a balance between work, personal life and doctoral studies and problems with socialization. Overall, results offer a complex picture that has implications for the design of doctoral programmes, such as the conditions and demands of part-time doctoral studies or the implementation of educational proposals that facilitate students’ academic and personal integration into the scientific community in order to prevent the development of a culture of institutional neglect.     

Students’ Perceptions of Mental Health Counseling in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Counseling services in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have focused on counseling in the elementary and secondary schools. To date, the idea of the private practitioner of mental health counseling has been virtually nonexistent. However, education officials at the University of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been exploring the option of following the international trends of preparing students for mental health counseling services, with special emphasis in marriage and family. A counselor education degree would allow individuals to operate private practices to address various concerns that impact individuals within the society at large. No instruments that measure perceptions of counseling from an international perspective were found for the purposes of this study. Therefore, it was necessary for the authors to devise and test a new tool. Surveys were completed by a sample of 141 undergraduate students regarding their perceptions of the importance of counseling in UAE society and the role of the counselor in society and other general questions regarding perceptions of counseling. With this initial effort, psychometric properties of the ‘Perceptions about Counseling Survey’ appeared promising. Results revealed that students had a favorable view toward the role of the counselor in UAE society. Results further revealed that students perceived the counseling profession as favorable. Given that the participants were predominately female, the results were analyzed from the social and cultural perspective of women in Arab society and the social psychological theory of ‘attitude’ is considered as a contextual backdrop.     

The relationship between motivation to read and reading comprehension in chilean elementary students

This study examined the role of reading motivation in reading comprehension achievement of 1070 Chilean third, fourth, and fifth-grade students enrolled in public and private schools. Students were assessed in Spanish reading comprehension and were administered the Motivation to Read Profile from Gambrell, Palmer, Codling and Mazzoni (1996), at the beginning and end of the school year. Results showed that motivation to read at the beginning of the school year was significantly associated with gains in reading comprehension skills. When disaggregating motivation into self-concept and value of reading, only self-concept of reading significantly predicted gains in reading comprehension. Moderation analyses showed that students that started the year with lower reading comprehension and higher motivation to read, had significantly better reading comprehension at the end of the school year, than their peers who started with lower reading motivation. The pedagogical implications are discussed.

     

Intergenerational Discussions as a Curriculum Strategy: Modeling Audacious Hope in Action

This article builds upon the idea of audacious hope in action described by Generett and Hicks in “Beyond Reflective Competency: Teaching for Audacious Hope-in-Action.” Outlining the difficulties that teachers experience sustaining hope, the author describes the survival strategies used by African Americans to remain hopeful when there was little evidence to support such a stance. This article proposes that intergenerational conversations with African Americans who are committed to social change can be an effective curriculum strategy for teacher educators seeking to incorporate a hopeful stance into their curriculums. Gretchen Givens Generett is an Associate Professor in the School of Education and Social Sciences at Robert Morris University. Her current research investigates the role of hope in education and the challenges of working for social change in mixed communities.     

Time-course of control by specific stimulus features and relational cues during same-different discrimination training

We trained 7 pigeons to discriminate visual displays of 16same items from displays of 16different items. The specific stimulus features of the items and the relations among the items could serve as discriminative stimuli. Unlike in most studies of same-different discrimination behavior, we gave a small number of probe tests during each session of acquisition to measure the time-course of control by the learning of specific stimulus features and relational cues. Both the specific stimulus features and relational cues exerted reliable stimulus control, with the specific stimulus features exerting more control during the final three fourths of same-different learning. These findings replicate research suggesting that pigeons encode both the specific stimulus features and relational cues, and for the first time document the time-course of control by each kind of cue.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Agrobacterium</Emphasis>-mediated transformation of herbicide resistance in creeping bentgrass and colonial bentgrass

Embryogenic calli were induced from the seeds of creeping bentgrass (Agrostis palustris Huds.) cv. Regent and colonial bentgrass (Agrostis Tenuis Sibth. Fl. Oxen.) cv. Tiger. The embryogenic calli were precultured on fresh medium for 4–7 days and then co-cultivated withAgrobacterium tumefaciens, LBA4404. which contains plasmid vector-pSBGM harboring bar coding region, synthetic green fluorescent protein (sGFP) coding region and matrix attachment region (MAR). After 3 days of co-cultivation, the calli were washed thoroughly and transferred to MS medium containing 2 mg/L of 2, 4-D, 12–15 mg/L phosphinothricin (PPT) and 250 mg/L of cefotaxime. After 2–3 months of selection, the actively growing calli of ‘Regent’ and ‘Tiger’ were transferred to MS medium with 12–15 mg/L PPT and 250 mg/L cefotazime for regeneration. The putative transformants were maintained on MS medium with 3 mg/L PPT for long period but control died within 1 month. After establishing in greenhouse, the transformants also showed strong resistance to 0.4% of herbicide Basta but control plants died within 2 weeks. Under confocal microscope, both young leaves and roots showed significant GFP expression. PCR analysis revealed the presence of a DNA fragment of GFP gene at the expected size (380 bp) in the transformants and its absence in a randomly selected control plant.