How Movies Can Ease the Fear of Death: The Survival or Death of the Protagonists in Meaningful Movies

Many media entertainment products address the fragility of life by portraying the severe illness or death of the protagonist. According to terror management theory, people need to create meaning in their lives when they are reminded of their own mortality, for instance, by engaging in close relationships with others. Meaningful films may provide recipients with an anxiety buffer that helps them to cope with existential fear. The results of an experimental study (N = 130) demonstrated that participants who had been reminded of their mortality appreciated a meaningful movie more and liked the protagonist better when he survived than when he died. Further, participants who viewed the movie in which the protagonist survived did not activate their self-esteem-based anxiety buffer. The results point toward the potential of entertainment to provide internal anxiety buffers and thereby help in coping with self-threatening situations. The findings are discussed in terms of the connections between meaningful media entertainment, coping mechanisms, and viewers’ terror management.     

Fallstudie: Parallele Realisierung geophysikalischer Basisalgorithmen in Java

Zusammenfassung.   Der Programmiersprache Java wird oft nachgesagt, da? sie zu langsam für ernsthafte Softwareentwicklung sei, besonders im Bereich des wissenschaftlichen Rechnens. Das Ergebnis dieser Fallstudie zeigt jedoch, da? bei parallelen geophysikalischen Anwendungen eine Verlangsamung von weniger als Faktor 4 im Vergleich zu einer ?quivalenten Realisierung in Fortran90 bzw. High Performance Fortran (HPF) erreicht werden kann. Dieses Resultat wurde sowohl auf einer parallelen Maschine mit gemeinsamem Speicher (SGI Origin2000) als auch auf einer Maschine mit verteiltem Speicher (IBM SP/2) erreicht. Der Geschwindigkeitseinbu?e stehen sprachspezifische Vorteile von Java gegenüber Fortran90/HPF gegenüber: Objekt-orientierter Java-Code ist leichter zu warten und wiederzuverwenden als Fortran-Code und darüberhinaus vollst?ndig portabel, sogar zwischen Parallelrechnern mit unterschiedlichen Speicherkonzepten. Ferner ist zu erwarten, da? bessere übersetzertechnologien den Leistungsunterschied zwischen Java und Fortran weiter verkleinern werden. Eingegangen am 24. Dezember 1997 / Angenommen am 2. April 1998     

The complex route to success: complex problem-solving skills in the prediction of university success

Successful completion of a university degree is a complex matter. Based on considerations regarding the demands of acquiring a university degree, the aim of this paper was to investigate the utility of complex problem-solving (CPS) skills in the prediction of objective and subjective university success (SUS). The key finding of this study was that CPS was not only strongly correlated to objective university success but also explained university grade point averages (GPA) of N?=?78 German business students even after intelligence and high-school GPA were controlled for. In addition, priority setting while working on a complex problem explained self-rated SUS. Given this incremental validity over the most established predictors of objective university success and its versatility, we argue that CPS may be a valuable addition to existing predictors in university applicant selection.     

Täuschungshandlungen im Sport

Experimental studies on the head fake in basketball showed that participant’s responses in a pass direction identification task were delayed for incongruent compared to congruent directions of the players gaze and pass (so-called head fake effect). In these studies on the head fake effect, static pictures were presented and responses on the pass direction were given with a simple key press. The present study examines whether an increase in the response complexity affects the head fake effect and whether it can also be transferred to the presentation of dynamic stimuli. In experiment 1, participants were presented with static pictures of a basketball player who passes a ball to the left or to the right. The player’s gaze direction was either oriented in the direction of the intended pass or in the opposite direction (i.?e., a head fake). The participants were asked to respond as quickly as possible to the pass direction and to ignore the gaze direction. Participants gave responses by pressing a key (simple response) or by executing a quasirealistic defense movement (complex response). Response complexity was blocked. In experiment 2, videos replaced the static stimuli. The responses were only given with the complex, full body movement. Results show that the head fake effect is independent of response complexity and that it can also be found when presenting dynamic stimuli.     

Lehrerbildung und Praxiserfahrung im ersten Berufsjahr und ihre Wirkung auf die Unterrichtskompetenzen von Studierenden und jungen Lehrpersonen im Berufseinstieg

This contribution looks at the competency development during teacher training and entry into work. The multi-perspective research design makes it possible to collate data at five stages within this transition process: at the start (t₁), in the middle (t₂) and on completion (t₃) of teacher training for primary school level (year 1–6) student teachers in two education colleges in Switzerland, as well as novice teachers at the start (t₄) and on competition (t₅) of their first year of work. The data covers eleven topic areas. This paper will present findings of data analysis for two of these topic areas for all five stages of measurement: (a) knowledge of lesson planning was captured using case vignettes and (b) teaching practice during the study program and in the first year of work was recorded on video. The same data was collated from the teaching staff involved in the practical training of the student teachers. The statements on the case vignettes were studied using content-analysis. The lesson videos were analyzed using low-inference coding for the visible occurrences during teaching and with a high-inference rating on the quality of the lessons. The results, including those for a comparison of student teachers and novice teachers with practical teacher training staff, give insights into the effectiveness of teacher training and the impact of practical experience in the first year of work on knowledge of how to plan lessons and on the form and quality of teaching. Overall, the new training at both education colleges can be given a pleasingly positive appraisal in terms of professionalization. It is, however, also possible to recognize where and to what extent a need for further developing the standard of professionalization of teaching still exists.     

Achievement goals and school achievement: The transition to different school tracks in secondary school

During the transition from elementary school to secondary school, in Germany, students are assigned to different school tracks, academic or non-academic, that differ markedly in compositional and institutional characteristics, e.g., the level of cognitive activation and performance standards are higher in academic tracks than in non-academic tracks. Currently, there is a lack of research examining the changes in achievement goals (mastery-approach, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals) and in the association between achievement goals and school achievement during the transition to these different school tracks. There were 1646 students who participated in a large-scale, three-wave longitudinal study from Grade 4 to Grade 6. While results revealed only slight differences between the two school tracks, the three types of achievement goals declined over time. In elementary school mastery-approach goals were positively and performance-approach goals negatively associated with school grades. After the transition to secondary school mastery-approach goals predicted school grades positively, whereas performance-approach goals negatively influenced achievement (academic track). Overall, the results indicate that between-school-tracking plays a minor role for the development of achievement goals and the relation between goals and achievement.     

Hematocrit and flow rate regulate the adhesion of platelets to von Willebrand factor

Primary hemostasis and blood clotting is known to be influenced by the red blood cell volume fraction (hematocrit) in blood. Depressed or elevated levels of red blood cells can lead to vascular perfusion problems ranging from bleeding to thrombus formation. The early stage of hemostasis and thus blood clotting in all vessel sections from the arterial to the venous system involves the adhesion of platelets to von Willebrand factor. Here we present experimental and theoretical results showing that the adhesion probability of platelets to von Willebrand factor is strongly and nonlinearly dependent on hematocrit and flow rate. Interestingly, the actual binding forces are not markedly different, which suggest that the origin of such behavior is in the distribution of platelets. Using hydrodynamic simulations of a simple model, we explicitly show that the higher the hematocrit and the flow rate, the larger the amount of platelets residing close to the wall. Our simulation results, which are in excellent agreement with the experimental observations, explain why such phenomena occur. We believe that the nonhomogeneous red blood cell distribution as well as the shear dependent hydrodynamic interaction is key for the accumulation of platelets on the vessel wall. The work we present here is an important step forward from our earlier work on single molecules and extends into the collective cellular behavior of whole blood. It sheds new light on the correlation between hematocrit and the initial steps in hemostasis and thrombosis, and outlines advances for the treatment of vascular diseases associated with high levels of red blood cells. These results are not only highly relevant for the field of hemostasis and the physics of blood clotting but are also of powerful impact in applied science most obviously in drug delivery and colloidal science.     

Classroom Management jenseits des Schulunterrichts

To enable teaching to take place as a teacher-learner interaction, the participants must mutually coordinate their behaviour. The teaching staff in particular are expected to take responsibility for the results of such coordination processes, i.e. for the sequence of activities which take place from one moment to the next in lessons. But how do they manage to control the actions of the learners and thus create (dis)continuity in the lessons? This question, which is rooted in the tradition of classroom management, is all the more relevant if the learners cannot be assumed to be willing to comply or if compliance cannot be easily demanded—which applies to some extent to teaching events for adults. In this article, the results of a microethnographic video study are presented to show the methods which the participants use at the beginning of adult and vocational education courses to influence the actions of other persons. A case study is used to illustrate how the teacher deals with problems in classroom flow control by the contextually appropriate use of various regulation methods, and thus plays a role in creating the (dis)continuity which shapes the sequence of events in the lessons. This especially underlines the potential of non-verbal forms of expression to herald a change of activities. This approach to research involves a shift in the perspective of adult education professionalism research from the ex-post analysis of professional knowledge to the in-situ observation of professional skills. With the aid of video-based (micro-)ethnographic approaches, the forms which the teaching staff routinely use to deal with specific action requirements are made visible with a high degree of empirical resolution. This extends the application of ethnographic methods. The classroom management discourse from school teaching is brought into a theoretical and empirical dialogue with course and interaction research in adult education. And finally, this creates a basis which enables the appropriateness of educational action variants to be discussed in an empirically meaningful way in the light of normative teaching theories.     

Complex dynamics in academics' developmental processes in teaching

Improving teaching in higher education is a concern for universities worldwide. This study explored academics’ developmental processes in teaching using episodic interviews and teaching portfolios. Eight academics in the context of teaching development reported changes in their teaching and change triggers. Thematic analyses revealed seven areas of change: participants most frequently reported changes in concepts about teaching, their teaching selves and teaching strategies. Triggers of change clustered into eight categories with teaching practices, teaching courses and metacognition reported most frequently. Analysing relations among areas and triggers of change indicated complex dynamics in academics' developmental processes in teaching. This suggests that teaching development should incorporate multiple change triggers to facilitate academics' development in teaching effectively.