Quality of Australian childcare and children's social skills

This study investigated the relationships and interactions between childcare quality (Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale – Revised edition [ECERS‐R]/Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale – Extension [ECERS‐E]) and children's social skills (SSRS) in different sociodemographic areas within one Australian city. Multiple regression analysis revealed that some subscales of ECERS‐R and ECERS‐E (language–reasoning, programme structure, space and furnishings, parents and staff, literacy, mathematics, science and environment) predicted the level of children's social skills and the frequency of problem behaviour, with positive and negative effects. Interestingly, although total scores for ECERS‐R and ECERS‐E were not significant predictors of social skills scores, interaction between total ECERS‐R and ECERS‐E scores was a significant predictor. With some qualifications the study provides evidence that both the childcare centre's neighbourhood and the quality of childcare provision are related to children's social skills. The interaction between social/emotional and academic aspects of quality suggests that we need to consider synergistic dimensions in quality in order to optimally enhance social skills in children.     

Can a public scholarship program successfully reduce school drop-outs in a time of economic crisis? Evidence from Indonesia

This paper evaluates the role played by Indonesia's Social Safety Net Scholarships Program in reducing school drop-out rates during the Asian financial crisis. The expectation was that many families would find it difficult to keep their children in school and drop-out rates would be high. The scholarships are found to have been effective in reducing drop-outs at the level of schooling at which students were historically most at the risk of dropping out—lower secondary school. At this level drop-outs were reduced by about 3.0% points (or 38%) and costs were recovered. Given its success, the program can be viewed as a model to be followed by other countries that find themselves in a similar situation of crisis. How well the program adhered to its documented targeting design and how effective this design was in reaching the poor is also examined.     

大学生活的一个重要方面

完全有可能把我们大学的生活组织得使学生和教师都参加在其中,使师生之间产生完全自然的日常交流;只有通过这样的组织,才能使大学这种严格的培养人的地方真正充满朝气,才能使他们成为共同生活的团体,年轻人在其中会充分认识到脑力劳动是多么的有趣味,多么充满活力,多么重要,并且与一切现代成就有着多么紧密地联     

Reducing Pseudoscientific and Paranormal Beliefs in University Students Through a Course in Science and Critical Thinking

This study measured the relationship between student’s religion, gender, and propensity for fantasy thinking with the change in belief for paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects following a science and critical thinking course that directly confronted these subjects. Student pre-course endorsement of religious, paranormal, and pseudoscientific beliefs ranged from 21 to 53%, with religion having the highest endorsement rate. Pre-course belief in paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects was correlated with high scores in some fantasy thinking scales and showed a gender and a religion effect with females having an 11.1% higher belief across all paranormal and pseudoscience subcategories. Students’ religion, and frequency of religious service attendance, was also important with agnostic or atheist students having lower beliefs in paranormal and pseudoscience subjects compared to religious students. Students with either low religious service attendance or very high attendance had lower paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs. Following the critical thinking course, overall beliefs in paranormal and pseudoscientific subcategories lowered 6.8–28.9%, except for superstition, which did not significantly change. Change in belief had both a gender and religion effect with greater reductions among religious students and females.     

Human-aligned artificial intelligence is a multiobjective problem

As the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) systems improve, it becomes important to constrain their actions to ensure their behaviour remains beneficial to humanity. A variety of ethical, legal and safety-based frameworks have been proposed as a basis for designing these constraints. Despite their variations, these frameworks share the common characteristic that decision-making must consider multiple potentially conflicting factors. We demonstrate that these alignment frameworks can be represented as utility functions, but that the widely used Maximum Expected Utility (MEU) paradigm provides insufficient support for such multiobjective decision-making. We show that a Multiobjective Maximum Expected Utility paradigm based on the combination of vector utilities and non-linear action–selection can overcome many of the issues which limit MEU’s effectiveness in implementing aligned AI. We examine existing approaches to multiobjective AI, and identify how these can contribute to the development of human-aligned intelligent agents.     

The influence of social identity on self-worth,commitment, and effort in school-based youth sport

???The current study examined the influence of social identity for individual perceptions of self-worth, commitment, and effort in school-based youth athletes. Using a prospective research design, 303 athletes (M_age = 14.89, SD = 1.77; 133 female) from 27 sport teams completed questionnaires at 2 time points (T1 – demographics, social identity; T2 – self-worth, commitment, effort) during an athletic season. Multilevel analyses indicated that at the individual level, the social identity dimension of in-group ties (IGT) predicted commitment (b = 0.12, P = .006) and perceived effort (b = 0.14, P = .008), whereas in-group affect (IGA) predicted commitment (b = 0.25, P = .001) and self-worth (b = 2.62, P = .006). At the team level, means for IGT predicted commitment (b = 0.31, P < .001) and self-worth (b = 4.76, P = .024). Overall, social identity accounted for variance at both levels, ranging from 4% (self-worth) to 15% (commitment). Identifying with a group to a greater extent was found to predict athlete perceptions of self-worth, commitment, and effort. More specifically, at the individual level, IGT predicted commitment and effort, and IGA predicted commitment and self-worth. At the team level, IGT predicted commitment and self-worth.     

Sustainability behaviors among college students: an application of the VBN theory

While Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory has been widely applied to various populations, it has seldom been tested on college students. This study extends VBN theory to examine what socio-psychological factors influence sustainability behaviors among university students. Undergraduate students are an interesting and novel population, as they are still forming their values and beliefs, and therefore may be more open to engage in sustainability efforts. This study assessed five sustainability behaviors: (a) support for political candidates who say they will strengthen environmental policies, (b) recycling, (c) electricity use, (d) food selection, and (e) transportation choices. Findings support the notion that one’s values matter in environmental decision-making, but that different values are associated with different behaviors. Those who adhere to biospheric and altruistic values were more likely to engage in a range of sustainability behaviors whereas those who adhere to egoistic values were less likely to engage in most behaviors. Those who adhere to traditional or openness to change values showed mixed results. We discuss the theoretical application, practical recommendations for behavior change campaigns, and offer suggestions for future research.     

Exploratory Analysis of a Blended-learning Course Redesign for Developmental Writers

This quasiexperimental investigation describes the relative effects of a technology-driven course redesign on retention and achievement in a developmental writing program at a large, urban community college in the southwest United States. The new program focused on student learning and included online as well as face-to-face components that allowed students to complete the program in half the usual time in most cases. On average, students enrolled in the new program had lower placement test scores compared to students in the old program, but the gap was closed in the subsequent test and English course. Details of the redesign and challenges to conducting educational research and data analysis in community colleges are provided for other 2-year colleges considering course redesigns intended to impact student success.     

On using wearable tri-axial accelerometers to examine the striking phase kinematics of expert specialist drag flickers on-field

Analysing player kinematics during a match using “gold-standard” 3D video-based motion analysis techniques is a difficult prospect indeed. The development of small, wireless, wearable sensors offers the potential to reduce the challenges of measuring kinematics during match-play without hindering performance. The present study examined the viability of using wireless tri-axial accelerometers to examine whether key performance measures of drag flicks executed by expert specialist drag-flickers are predicted by the kinematics of the striking phase. Linear mixed models were used to examine whether the speed and accuracy of players’ drag flicks were predicted by the duration of stick-ball contact, and the kinematics of the lead lower limb at stick-ball contact and ball release. Results revealed that stick and lead lower limb kinematics significantly predicted shot accuracy but not shot speed. Shorter drag-time predicted more accurate flicks (p = 0.03) as did a more vertical leg at stick-ball contact (p = 0.016) and a more horizontal thigh at ball release (p = 0.001). This may indicate that there are more ways to produce fast drag flicks than accurate ones. This study illustrates that wireless tri-axial accelerometers can be used on-field to measure the effects of kinematics on key performance measures.