Adolescents' motivation to select an academic science-related career: the role of school factors,individual interest,and science self-concept

Many researchers consider a lacking interest in science and the students' belief that science is too demanding as major reasons why young people do not strive for science-related careers. In this article, we first delineated a theoretical framework to investigate the importance of interest, self-concept, and school factors regarding students' career preferences. Then, we tested the expected effects on a sample of German 9th-grade students (N = 7,813). We focused on two school factors: the amount of (additional) science activities and the real-life applications in science classes. The multi-level analysis showed that school factors were highly relevant for the students' interest in science and science self-concept. In turn, interest in science and science self-concept affect the students' interest in science-related careers. We conclude that focusing on the link between individual and school characteristics is important for the understanding of students' interest in science-related careers.     

How elementary school students' motivation is connected to self-regulation

Empirical research reveals that students face difficulties engaging in learning and achieving their goals in a variety of learning contexts. To study effectively, students need to regulate their learning process. In spite of increased understanding of cognitive aspects of self-regulation, motivational aspects of regulation have not yet been thoroughly probed. This study investigates how motivation is connected to self-regulated learning when elementary school students (N = 32) study science in real classroom contexts using gStudy software. This was done by: (1) identifying students' situated motivation during the learning process, (2) analyzing how the students with different motivational approaches activated cognitive self-regulation in authentic learning situations across multiple learning episodes, and (3) complementing the understanding with the students' individual accounts of their motivation regulation during the learning process. The results show that there are qualitative differences in the self-regulation tactics used by the high- and low-motivation students as they study. Motivation is linked closely to active self-regulation.     

Comparability of educational achievement and learning attitudes across nations

We estimated the invariance of educational achievement (EA) and learning attitudes (LA) measures across nations. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to estimate the invariance of educational achievement and learning attitudes across 55 nations (Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA] 2006 data, N?=?354,203). The constructs had the same meaning (factor loadings) but different scales (intercepts). Our conclusion is that comparisons of the relationships between educational achievement and learning attitudes across countries need to take into consideration two sources of variability: individual differences of students and group differences of educational systems. The lack of scalar invariance in EA and LA measures means that the relationships between EA and LA may have a different meaning at the level of nations and at the student level within countries. In other words, as PISA measures are not invariant in scalar sense, the comparisons across countries with nationally aggregated scores are not justified.     

Assessing students’ experiences of teaching–learning environments and approaches to learning: Validation of a questionnaire in different countries and varying contexts

The study examined the use of the modified Experiences of Teaching and Learning Questionnaire (ETLQ) in the Finnish context by focusing on its factor structures and comparing them with those for British data. A total of 2,509 Finnish and 2,710 British students completed the questionnaire. The comparison of the factor structures were conducted using exploratory structural equation modelling (ESEM) and a transformation analysis. Although the differences between the factor structures prevented a combined analysis, the structures were highly similar in the two contexts. The ETLQ appears to be a sufficiently robust and reliable instrument for use across countries and, in addition, at either the level of the degree subject or the single course module.     

Learning biology and mathematics outdoors: effects and attitudes in a Swedish high school context

This research suggests that learning biology in an outdoor environment has a positive cognitive and affective impact on 13–15-year-old, Swedish high school pupils. Eighty-five pupils in four classes participated in a quasi-experimental design. Half the pupils, taking a biology course in ecology or diversity of life, had several lessons outdoors and the other half were taught indoors. All of the classes, but one, also had mathematics lessons outdoors once a week. Twenty-one pupils were interviewed five months after the course and all were positive towards the new learning environment they had experienced outdoors in biology and/or mathematics. They also valued the higher degree of interaction among the pupils. Other findings from the interviews were that the pupils from the outdoor classes showed a higher degree of long-term knowledge retention. They remembered both activities and contents better than the pupils in the indoor classes. An essay-type question assessing their biological understanding qualitatively according to the Structure of Observed Learning Outcome taxonomy revealed no differences between the groups. The results are discussed in the light of neurocognitive models of long-term memory.     

Russian and East European Materials at the Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry

This article provides an overview of the Russian and East European holdings at the Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry in Miami, Florida. Materials held at the archive include rare and unique modernist books, samizdat and émigré publications, mail art, conceptual art, and recent artists’ books, mainly in Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Polish, Serbian, and Hungarian.     

The Use of Social Media for Artist Marketing: Music Industry Perspectives and Consumer Motivations

This research addresses the question of why consumers use social media especially in relation to music consumption and how music industry companies could improve their social media efforts by matching company strategies with consumer motives. Four case studies and four focus groups with 28 participants were conducted. As a result, this study found five motives for social media participation: (1) access to content, (2) sense of affinity, (3) participation, (4) interaction, and (5) social identity, in decreasing order of effect. For managers this study set out a detailed social media strategy that corresponds with components of consumer motives for participation at decreasing levels of effect.     

Trait anxiety,experience, and the public speaking state responses of Finnish university students

This study focuses on the public speaking state responses among 47 Finnish subjects. Cognitive, behavioral, and physiological components of stale‐responses were investigated in relation to speakers’ trait communication anxiety and amount of previous experience speaking in public. Trait communication anxiety was found to correlate significantly with the cognitive aspect of state response, whereas amount of previous experience was found to be reflected in subjects’ heart rates. Characteristics of the Finnish speech culture and educational system are discussed when interpreting the results.     

Tradition,tension, and transformation: a structuration analysis of a game warden service in transition

Independence and competence define the traditional characteristics of a game warden. External pressure to transform the game warden service into a more culturally and ethnically diverse state law enforcement agency, however, creates tensions surrounding these characteristics in the organization's structurationally defined agency and reflexivity of law enforcement; duality of structure in office memos and citation counts; social integration and institutional reproduction of law enforcement training, use of decoys, and search and seizure procedures; and time-space distanciation of working a 40-hour week or having complete responsibility for a territory. The present study examined how these tensions interact with the traditional assumptions of independence and competence to transform the meaning of these characteristics, and of the game warden service itself.     

Editorial

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