The effects of different types of text and individual differences on view complexity about genetically modified organisms

ABSTRACT

View change about socio-scientific issues has been well studied in the literature, but the change in the complexity of those views has not. In the current study, the change in the complexity of views about a specific scientific topic (i.e. genetically modified organisms; GMOs) and use of evidence in explaining those views was examined in relation to individual factors and type of text (informational, persuasive, or narrative). Undergraduate students completed measures of their prior views about GMOs their epistemic beliefs about the nature of science, and activities related to food consumption. Participants then read either an informational, persuasive, or narrative passage about GMOs and again answered a question related to their views about GMOs. Participants who read the persuasive passage decreased in the complexity of their views, while those who read the narrative and expository passage increased in the complexity of their views. Additionally, while cultural activities related to the complexity of individuals’ views during the pretest, these significant differences were not evident at posttest after the text intervention. These findings can be used to help scientists and teachers better understand how to communicate information critical to understanding complex science and environmental issues to the public and their students.     

Changes in primary boys' and girls' attitudes to school and science during a two-year science in-service programme

A pupils' attitude test was developed to monitor change over the two years of a primary science in-service programme. It explores pupils' views about school in general so that changes in science attitudes can be contextualized within the whole school experience; feelings towards science experiments; and perceptions of real-world science. The test was piloted with schools outside the in-service programme. Approximately 2000 pupils were tested in January 1999, September 1999 or January 2000. A random sample of children were retested in June 1999 and compared with a ‘control’ school. All the children in the project were tested again in July 2000. The results indicate a generally positive attitude towards coming to school, with particular preferences for work with computers and working together. As the pupils get older, their enthusiasm for science falls as they find it less difficult or demanding. This relationship appears to be broken by teacher in-service to some extent. Girls in particular also showed a greater enthusiasm for independent investigative science after the programme.     

Caring Teachers and Symbolic Violence: Engaging the Productive Struggle in Practice and Research

Symbolic violence may not be a desirable theory to apply to public schooling—its structuralist limitations render it deterministic, lacking in human agency, and unpalatable to researchers and educators who see schools as viable and productive sites of social transformation. Perhaps for these reasons, it seems little has been written about symbolic violence in schools, and what has been written tends to focus primarily on the symbolic, institutionalized violence imparted by schools and teachers upon students. In this article, I offer a shift in these perspectives. I present symbolic violence as a productive analytical tool in identifying modes of resistance to specific damaging effects of schooling institutions. I also illustrate how symbolic violence victimizes one particularly caring teacher, rendering her compliant in her own victimization, without voice to accurately name her struggles, and—because of her ethic of care—complicit in reproducing damaging institutionalizing practices. Using ethnographic data, I explore symbolic violence via one teacher's reflective, critical narratives. I draw upon the tenets of dialogicality in language to help make more visible the often intangible elements of symbolic violence. And at various points in the article, I discuss the implications of engaging an analytic that ultimately runs counter to my own epistemology, turning to Maxine Greene for insight in the struggle.     

Assessment of Mathematical Concepts of Five-Year-Old Children

An instrument, the Schwartz Early Mathematics Inventory (SEMI), was devised to assess, by means of group administration, the mathematical achievement of children ages 3 through 5. The data presented concern only the first stages of the process and deal only with 215 kindergartners. A reliability of . 94 was obtained on the eighty-one items administered on 64 pages. The mean for items correct 43. 2. The proportion of correct responses for various items ranged from . 85 to . 12. The children had satisfactorily acquired the physical and emotional attributes necessary for completing the inventory, namely, holding a pencil or crayon, turning pages, recording responses in designated areas, and maintaining satisfactory attention for the 12 to 28 minutes required for administering each of the three portions of the SEMI.     

Banning Queer Blood: Rhetorics of Citizenship,Contagion, and Resistance,by Jeffrey A. Bennett

The Voice in Speech. By Clara Kathleen Rogers. Boston: Published by the Author, 1915. Cloth, pp. 123. $1.25.

Correct Pronunciation. By Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D. New York: Charles E. Merrill Co., 1912. Pp. 173.

The Technic of the Speaking Voice. By John R. Scott. Published by the Author, Columbia, Mo.: Cloth, pp. 534.

The Structure of an Effective Public Speech. By Harry B. Bradbury. Greenfield, Mass.: T. Morey &; Son, 1915. Pp. 85, cloth, 60 cents.     

PARENT ATTACHMENT AND EARLY ADOLESCENTS’ LIFE SATISFACTION: THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF HOPE

Research using an attachment theory framework has provided evidence that parent attachment is one of the crucial determinants of psychological adjustment in adolescents, including global life satisfaction (LS). This study investigated the interrelationships among parent attachment, hope, and LS during early adolescence, including the mediation effect of hope in the relationship between parent attachment and LS. A sample of 565 middle‐school students in Grades 6 through 8 participated. Results showed statistically significant relationships among all three variables, and hope partially mediated the relationship between parent attachment and LS. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Tourists of History: Memory,Kitsch, and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero,by Marita Sturken

Cultural and Scientific Speech Education Today. Compiled and Edited By W. Aethur Cable. Expression Company, Boston 1930, pp. 206; $2.00.

Contemporary Speeches. Compiled by James M. O'Neill and Floyd K. Riley. New York: The Century Company, 1930; pp. xviii, 558.

Modern Literature for Oral Interpretation (Revised Edition). By Gertrude E. Johnson. New York: The Century Company, 1930; pp. 638; $2.50.

Influencing Behavior Through Speech. By Howard Hubert Higgins. Boston: The Expression Company, 1930: pp. ix, 346; $2.50.

Strategy in Handling People. By Ewing T. “Webb and J. B. Morgan. Boulton, Pierce and Company, 232 East Erie Street, Chicago, 1930; pp. 260; $3.00.

Ralph Dennis

The Story of the Drama (Beginnings to Commonwealth). By Joseph Richard Taylor. Boston: The Expression Company, 1930; pp. xxv, 555.

Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic. By Charles Sears Baldwin. New York: Macmillan, 1928, pp. xi, 321, $2.50.

Greek Rhetoric and Literary Criticism. By W. Rhys Roberts. New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1928, pp. 164.

Acting, Its Theory and Practice. By Lane Crauford. New York: Richard R. Smith, Inc., 1930: pp. xiii, 248; $3.00.

The American Public Mind. By Peter Odegard. New York: Columbia University Press, 1930; pp. 308. Teachers are always being told that “here is a book that must

David Lloyd George. By J. Hugh Edwards, M. P. New York: Sears and Co., 1929, 2 vols.

Evangelized America. By Grover C. Loud. New York: Lincoln McVeagh, 1928.

The Stammering Century. By Gilbert Seldes. New York: John Day Co., 1928.

Conversation. By Andre Maurois ; translated by Yvonne Dufour. New York: E. P. Dutton &; Company, 1930; 82 pp.     

Kairos as Indeterminate Risk Management: The Pharmaceutical Industry's Response to Bioterrorism

The pharmaceutical industry's response to the threat of bioterrorism following 9-11 invoked the rhetorical notion of kairos as an urgent and ongoing opportunity not only to protect the nation but also to improve the industry's reputation and fortify its political power. Yet the notion of kairos as seizing an advantage—grounded in modernist assumptions about agency and control—is also complicated by the case history of big pharma's response, which left the industry vulnerable to heightened and additional risks. This case history suggests that kairos can be less about seizing an advantage than about indeterminately responding to shifting, unbounded, uncertain, unpredictable, and uncontrollable risks shaped by the processes of globalization.     

Instructional Strategies to Promote Incremental Beliefs in Youth Sport

Implicit beliefs about the nature of human abilities have significant motivational, behavioral, and affective consequences. The purpose of this article was to review the application of implicit beliefs to the youth sport context and to provide theoretically derived and evidence-based instructional strategies to promote adaptive implicit beliefs about human abilities within this context. A narrative overview of theory and a review of research pertaining to implicit beliefs in education, sport, and physical activity are undertaken. Theoretically derived and evidence-based instructional strategies are outlined, and specific coaching behaviors are suggested. Six instructional strategies to promote adaptive implicit beliefs in these contexts are suggested: focusing on effort and persistence, facilitating challenge, promoting the value of failure, defining success as effort, the promotion of learning, and providing high expectations. It is concluded that instructional strategies may be used to facilitate positive motivational, behavioral, and affective outcomes for young people within a sport context.