MEASURING EFFICACY SOURCES: DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF THE SOURCES OF TEACHER EFFICACY QUESTIONNAIRE (STEQ) FOR CHINESE TEACHERS

The aim of the current study is to develop and validate an instrument to measure the four sources of teacher efficacy among Chinese primary school teachers. A 26‐item Sources of Teacher Efficacy Questionnaire (STEQ) was proposed with four subscales: mastery experience, vicarious experience, social persuasion, and physiological arousal. The results supported the hypothesized four‐factor structure of the STEQ. Scores from all the four factors of the STEQ had strong significant correlations with the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES), which showed the criterion‐related validity of the STEQ. Further, scores of all four sources significantly predicted teacher efficacy scores, among which social persuasion was the strongest predictor. This study contributes to the self‐efficacy literature by providing researchers with an instrument for examining the various facets of teacher efficacy. The findings can inform school principals and teacher educators, enabling them to facilitate a school culture and teaching environment that cultivates a greater sense of teacher efficacy and, in turn, better teaching performance.     

Sexual Risk Among African American Women: Psychological Factors and the Mediating Role of Social Skills

Prior research demonstrates a positive association between mental health problems and sexual risk for African American women. Using the social skills deficit hypothesis, we proposed that social skills mediate this relationship. African American women (n = 557, M age = 20.58) completed measures of depression, stress, emotional dysregulation, sexual risk behaviors, and perceptions of their social skills with their primary sexual partner. Social skills mediated the link between the mental health assessments and a composite sexual risk index. Theoretical implications of extending the social skill deficit hypothesis are discussed as well as implications for interventions.     

Retention of environmental habituation in rats as a function of the environment during the retention interval

The time course of female rats’ habituation to familiar test environments was measured with a resident-intruder paradigm. A resident was permitted 0, 2, 5, 10, or 30 min of environmental adaptation prior to introduction of an intruder, and a dominance test was then conducted in which both rats were allowed to compete for drops of water. The degree of dominance which the resident attained was a function of the duration of adaptation, reaching a maximum after 5 min. The retention of this habituation was investigated as a function of the type of retention environment and the duration of the retention interval. Retention intervals of 5 or 25 min in unfamiliar environments produced significant loss of habituation, while the same intervals in familiar environments did not produce habituation loss. The degree of similarity between habituated and retention environments did not appear to be an important variable affecting retention. When the retention interval was extended to 25 h in a familiar retention environment, no environmental habituation was retained.     

A Model for Developing and Testing Custom-Made Laboratory Manuals to Use with Food Chemistry and Food Analysis Courses

ABSTRACT: This project reports on a model for preparing food chemistry and food analysis laboratory manuals that provide a closer link between lecture material and laboratory exercises. Teaching effectiveness was also improved by evaluating the composition and eliminating duplication between these complementary courses. Utilizing the combination of personal experience and the scientific literature, laboratory exercises were developed and modified to fit with the lecture material. Labs were initially performed and critiqued by a graduate student. After making appropriate revisions, undergraduate students tested the labs under the graduate student's supervision and completed a questionnaire about their experiences. Based on the undergraduate feed-back, final revisions were made and custom laboratory manuals were printed. This project demonstrates one effective way for developing custom food science labs to parallel with lecture material.     

Preservice teachers’ attitudes toward Web 2.0 personal learning environments (PLEs): Considering the impact of self-regulation and digital literacy

Education and Information Technologies - Web 2.0 Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) have been proposed as a new method to promote the use of Web 2.0 tools for learner-centered personal learning....     

Are Academics in Kazakhstan Capable of Self-regulation? A Study of Faculty’s Normative Structure in the Midst of Higher Education Decentralization Reforms

Tertiary Education and Management - This paper investigates the state and structure of professional norms in the context of undergraduate teaching in a university in Kazakhstan. The purpose is to...     

Using Log-Linear Smoothing to Improve Small-Sample DIF Estimation

This study examined the extent to which log-linear smoothing could improve the accuracy of differential item functioning (DIF) estimates in small samples of examinees. Examinee responses from a certification test were analyzed using White examinees in the reference group and African American examinees in the focal group. Using a simulation approach, separate DIF estimates for seven small-sample-size conditions were obtained using unsmoothed (U) and smoothed (S) score distributions. These small sample U and S DIF estimates were compared to a criterion (i.e., DIF estimates obtained using the unsmoothed total data) to assess their degree of variability (random error) and accuracy (bias). Results indicate that for most studied items smoothing the raw score distributions reduced random error and bias of the DIF estimates, especially in the small-sample-size conditions. Implications of these results for operational testing programs are discussed.     

The local impact of global climate change: reporting on landscape transformation and threatened identity in the English regional newspaper press

This paper contributes to extant understandings of media representations of climate change by examining the role of the English regional newspaper press in the transformation and dissemination of climate change discourse. Unlike previous accounts, this paper contends that such newspapers shape public understandings of climate change in ways that have yet to be adequately charted. With this in mind, this paper examines the ways in which global climate change is translated into a locally relevant phenomenon. That is, it focuses on its "domestication." Although we acknowledge that there are a number of ways in which this process occurs, specific attention is drawn to stories that highlight the destruction of local landscape features, the transformation of important habitats, and the arrival of "alien" species. The broader significance of such stories is considered in relation to long-standing debates concerning the importance of landscape to notions of national and regional identity.