Decision‐making collaboration scale: Tests of validity

A trait Decision‐Making Collaboration Scale was discussed and examined for reliability and validity. The scale represents on‐going scale development to measure decision‐making tendencies. The premise is that individuals are generally willing or not willing to participate collaboratively in decision‐making communication interpersonally. The 13‐item measure is described. Support for validity was addressed by investigating the relationships between the decision‐making construct with argumentativeness, verbal aggression, interpersonal communication competence, and willingness to communicate. Willingness to participate in collaborative decision making was moderately related to argumentativeness, competence, and willingness to communicate in a positive manner, while slightly related to verbal aggression in a negative manner. Some construct validity was offered by asking participants to report their decision‐making tendencies and comparing these reports to their friends’ ratings of them. No significant differences were found. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Enrollment Management with Academic Portfolio Strategies:

This paper presnts a data based marketing model of effective enrollment management based on the relationships between changes in the macro environment, changes in target market student preferences, changes in college marketing mix, and changes in enrollment. An enrollment pay off matrix illustrates how institutions have been able to offset, enhance, or neutralize the potential enrollment effects of changes in the job market for college graduates through appropriate changes in academic portfolio strategies focused on curriculum mix and admissions selectivity.     

In Defense of the Argumentativeness and Verbal Aggressiveness Scales

The Argumentativeness (ARG) Scale and Verbal Aggressiveness Scale have been used in hundreds of studies over the past quarter century. As expected, psychometric research has examined their validity. Although this article focuses on recent criticisms by Kotowski, Levine, Baker, and Bolt, some major points refute earlier criticisms. This article argues that (a) a large body of research demonstrates validity of the scales, (b) dimensionality of the scales is quite unequivocal, (c) argumentative presumption favors using the original scales (unless and until newer scales demonstrate statistically significant greater criterion variance), (d) critics of the ARG Scale's predictive validity have failed to include 4 situational components of argumentativeness theory in their testing, (e) both scales are designed and supposed to measure extensive sets of relevant behaviors over time, not individual behaviors observed once, and (f) statistical inference cannot confirm nulls, so critics' claims of "no correlation" between scale scores and observable behaviors are not scientific.     

Television director communication as perceived by production personnel

This study explored perceptions of television production crew members regarding production situations and communication behavior of a television director. Results suggest that calm communication behavior is related positively to perceived appropriateness of the director's communication, to social and task attractiveness, and to production crew outcome satisfaction. In support of attribution theory, agitated communication behavior produced more favorable evaluations in a threatening as compared to routine situation. These evaluations, however, were less favorable than the effects of a calm manner, regardless of the production situation.     

An Initiative to Broaden Diversity in Undergraduate Biomathematics Training

At North Carolina A&T State University (NCATSU), there was a critical need to better coordinate genuine research and classroom experiences for undergraduates early in their academic career. We describe the development and implementation of a faculty alliance across academic departments to increase biomathematics research opportunities for underrepresented minorities. Our faculty alliance is called the Integrative Biomathematical Learning and Empowerment Network for Diversity (iBLEND). The fundamental purpose of the iBLEND alliance was to inspire underrepresented minorities to pursue research careers by increasing the visibility of research conducted at the interface of mathematics and biology at NCATSU. Because of the many positive impacts, iBLEND gained significant buy-in from administration, faculty, and students by 1) working from the ground up with administration to promote campus-wide biomathematics research and training, 2) fostering associations between research and regular undergraduate academic courses, 3) creating and disseminating biomathematics teaching and learning modules, and 4) enhancing learning community support at the interface of mathematics and biology. Currently, iBLEND is viewed as a productive site for graduate schools to recruit underrepresented minority students having specific competencies related to mathematical biology.     

Teaching physics: Students’ attitudes towards different learning activities

The decline in the popularity of physics over the period of secondary schooling and its consequent low uptake at A‐level and beyond continues to cause concern on educational and economic grounds. The aim of this study is to explore whether physics might be made more attractive to students by employing an extended range of classroom and laboratory activities to teach it. Specifically, the study scores the popularity of a range of activities, students’ perceptions about how often these activities are used to teach physics, and whether students consider them educationally useful. Students appear to think in terms of written activities, passive activities, social activities and constructive activities. Written activities are relatively unpopular and seen as educationally less effective, but students perceived them as used frequently. Social activities such as group work are more popular. The most popular activities are constructive activities, such as doing experiments; these are seen as educationally useful, but are perceived as being used less often than other activities. While there are legitimate limitations on the types of activities that can be used, these findings add to our appreciation of which teaching activities students like and value.     

Children's Group Nous: Understanding and Applying Peer Exclusion Within and Between Groups

In Study 1, 167 English children aged 6–8 or 9–11 evaluated peer English or French soccer fans that were loyal or partially disloyal. In Study 2, 149 children aged 5–11 made judgments about generic inclusion norms between and within competitive groups. In both studies, children's understanding of intergroup inclusion/exclusion norms (group nous) was predicted by theory of social mind (a social perspective taking measure) but not multiple classification skill. In Study 2, the number of groups children belonged to (an index of peer group experience) also predicted group nous. Supporting the developmental subjective group dynamics model ( D. Abrams, A. Rutland, & L. Cameron, 2003 ), children's experience and perspective taking help them make sense of inter- and intragroup inclusion and exclusion.