“They Were There for People Who Needed Them”: Student Attitudes Toward the Use of Trigger Warnings in Victimology Classrooms

Over the last five years, vigorous debate has been waged about the purpose, use, and impact of trigger warnings in courses offered at institutions of higher education. This debate has been largely uninformed by research findings. This study fills this gap using quantitative and qualitative data collected via surveys in a large undergraduate victimology course to explore student attitudes toward trigger warnings. Findings revealed considerable, but nuanced support for trigger warning use in victimology courses. Support does not appear to differ between crime victims and non-victims; support is higher among females than males. These findings underscore that universal decisions mandating or advocating for or against the use of trigger warnings are premature. Further study is needed with a diverse range of samples to gain a fuller picture of student attitudes about trigger warnings as well as to assess any impact of trigger warnings use on student behavior and learning.     

Skirting the Sketch: An Analysis of Sketch Inhibition within Contemporary Design Higher Education

Sketch inhibition is regularly alluded to by educators within design higher education and one with increasingly marked effects on industry. Over the past thirty years, students have been observed to engage less with the manual processes of design development process in favour of other activities perceived as more attractive, to the detriment of their development as effective designers. This article offers an evaluation of literature which supports the importance of sketching to the design process across a variety of disciplines, its anatomy and functions and demonstrates its role in cognitive support, as a language, a means of reflection, communication and storage of information and the micro‐processes it embodies. Initial findings regarding the symptoms of sketch inhibition are presented: from avoidance of studio sessions and minimal design development, to an overreliance on digital tools. It considers causes, ranging from lacking skill‐sets, psycho‐social, to technological, and although further investigation is recommended to establish depth and enable development of an appropriate pedagogical framework for its management within HE, various methods are offered at this stage for use by educators: these include fine art exercises, a rigorous pursuit of quantity and even paper type.     

Validation of self-report measures of physical activity: a case study using the New Zealand Physical Activity Questionnaire

Accurate measurement of physical activity is fundamentally important in epidemiological research of physical activity behavior A widely used telephone-based physical activity questionnaire was compared with other methods of administration and objective measures (pedometers and accelerometers) among 80 adults (43 women). The telephone questionnaire was comparable to both the self-administered form and international telephone-administered equivalent. Although moderate correlation coefficients with objective measures supported the use of the questionnaire, wide prediction intervals generated using Bland Altman methods highlighted large discrepancies between the measures, particularly in the moderate intensity category. These findings illustrate the limitations of correlation coefficients in validation studies and the inaccuracy of self-report questionnaires in measuring physical activity.     

Examiner scoring of ambiguous WISC-R responses

Fabricated test protocols were used to study how effectively examiners agree in scoring ambiguous WISC-R responses. Clinical and school psychologists (N = 62) and graduate students (N = 48) scored WISC-R Similarities, Comprehension, and Vocabulary responses obtained in a group administration procedure. From over 15,000 responses obtained, only unusual, atypical, or ambiguous responses were selected; 726 responses were scored, with 11 groups of 10 raters each scoring 66 responses. Considerable scoring disagreement occurred. Unanimous agreement (within each group of 10 raters) was found on only 13% of the responses, while 80% of the raters agreed on 44% of the responses. Rates of scoring agreement were not related to level of rater experience, but were related to specific subtests. Higher rates of agreement were found on the Similarities and Comprehension subtests than on the Vocabulary subtest for both experienced and inexperienced raters. The results suggest that even with the improved WISC-R manual, scoring remains a difficult and challenging task.     

Effects of achievement standards,choice, sex,and educational level on mathematical performance

The study assessed the effects of achievement standards, and choice of such standards, on mathematics performance in conditions where no tangible rewards were presented for reaching such standards. Elementary, junior high, and high school students performed a multiplication task in conditions where they chose standards, had standards imposed by an experimenter, or had no standards. Results demonstrated that high school students worked more multiplication problems when they chose standards than when identical standards were imposed by an experimenter or when no standards were present. Moreover, male students who chose standards worked more problems than did male students who had no standards; this effect was not found for female students.