Investigating Suspense as a Predictor of Enjoyment in Sports Video Games

This study investigated suspense as a predictor of sports video game enjoyment by including the variable as a key part of a working model that also included presence, fanship, disposition, skill, and outcome. Results of a path analysis indicate a complex network of relationships impacting enjoyment. Suspense strongly impacted presence, which was an important determinant of enjoyment, while skill and outcome also explained a large portion of variance in enjoyment. The study highlights the complexity of the enjoyment experience as it relates to video games, and provides direction for future work on a theoretical model of video game enjoyment.     

Experiencing and Managing Uncertainty about Climate Change

This paper joins uncertainty management and problematic integration literatures to better understand how people experience and manage uncertainty about climate change. Interviews with 235 stakeholders from private, public, and non-profit organizations in the state of Washington indicate an interesting disparity of certainty and the role of climate-related information. A majority of participants (n=137) were certain that energy use and climate change are related, and far fewer (n=13) were certain that they are not related. Our interpretive analysis indicates notable differences regarding the way people experience and management uncertainty.     

Higher Level Thinking,Writing, and Democracy Among Community College Students

In my work on the college's Committee on Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies, I found that much of the written work done in our community college was based on lower level cognition, requiring none of the assessment or exploration that is emblematic of critical thought in a democracy. Most of the assignments asked students simply to recite information without any demand for assessments, values, or analysis of the material. Most seemed rooted in inculcation rather than creative thought. In the workshops I conducted with colleagues, I endeavored to stress the importance of transcending the simple cookie-cutter essay, urging faculty that critical thinking and even the strength of our democracy depend on our students’ ability to use information to construct new ideas and propose provocative and original theories.     

An Investigation of the Relationship between Implicit Personal Theories of Communication and Community Behavior

A waning sense of community has been well documented and widely accepted as among the most significant problems of our time. Both social capital (trust in others and civic participation) and interpersonal acts of assistance (or helping) are considered to be common indicators of community. The question of whether certain personally held beliefs about communication correspond to differences in individuals' community behavior is a timely and important one. This study investigated whether individuals' levels of social capital and prosocial behavior differed as a function of message design logic. Results indicated that individuals employing the rhetorical message design logic reported significantly greater levels of social capital and prosocial behavior than did those employing expressive or conventional message design logics. The implications of this difference for communication scholarship and community health are discussed.     

Training needs and online learning preferences of early childhood professionals

Providing early childhood professionals with professional development opportunities to enhance their skills and knowledge can improve quality of care. For professional development to be valued by the early childhood workforce, it is essential to offer meaningful content that accommodates the needs of the learner. With an increasing demand for quality professional development, as well as the expansion of online learning opportunities, this qualitative study explores the opinions of 14 North Carolina early childhood professionals regarding their professional development training needs and online learning preferences. Training content needs, experiences with online learning, and recommendations for training development are discussed. This study has implications for professional development creators and trainers for advancing the education and growth of the early childhood workforce.     

Hurricane Sandy Exposure Alters the Development of Neural Reactivity to Negative Stimuli in Children

This study examined whether exposure to Hurricane Sandy‐related stressors altered children's brain response to emotional information. An average of 8 months (M_age = 9.19) before and 9 months after (M_age = 10.95) Hurricane Sandy, 77 children experiencing high (n = 37) and low (n = 40) levels of hurricane‐related stress exposure completed a task in which the late positive potential, a neural index of emotional reactivity, was measured in response to pleasant and unpleasant, compared to neutral, images. From pre‐ to post‐Hurricane Sandy, children with high stress exposure failed to show the same decrease in emotional reactivity to unpleasant versus neutral stimuli as those with low stress exposure. Results provide compelling evidence that exposure to natural disaster‐related stressors alters neural emotional reactivity to negatively valenced information.     

It's a knuckleball: a critical case study of a collaborative between a university and the ‘real world’ of school leadership

This is a look at the political games within games that are enmeshed in a high-profile, heavily funded, politically charged collaborative focused on preparing new school leaders between a large prestigious university and a circle of school leaders and policymakers. This case specifically considers how power and money corrupt the original vision and mission of a collaborative, in terms of its consideration of school and its purpose in society.