Sources of Stress for Primary School Head Teachers in New Zealand

A stratified sample of 40 primary school head teachers in the North Island of New Zealand completed a 63 item check-list on sources of stress. The most highly rated items referred to stress arising from management of time, administrative tasks and interpersonal relationships. A principal components analysis identified four factors, labelled: staff, work-load/administration, role conflict, and meetings. Comparison between groups suggested that experiences of stress were related to the school's catchment area, to the adequacy of its buildings and to the head's teacher's responsibilities.     

Teacher Education Objectives: A Survey of Student Views

This article is a summary of the Survey of Teacher Education Objectives: The Views of Diploma in Education Students published as a monograph in 1982. A report of the previous study was published in 1981 and a summary of the report appeared in Vol. 4 No. 1 of this Journal.     

IRSS Psychology Theory: Telling Experiences Among Underrepresented IS Doctorates

With the changing demographics of the American workforce, the National Science Foundation, along with the U.S. Department of Commerce, has highlighted the shortage of minorities in information technology (IT) careers ( http://www.ta.doc.gov/Reports/itsw/itsw.pdf ). Using data from a 6‐year period and the psychology Involvement‐Regimen‐Self Management‐Social (IRSS) network theory as defined by Boice (1992) , we discuss lessons learned from mentoring a group of Information Systems doctoral students who are members of a pipeline that can potentially increase the number of underrepresented faculty in business schools and who made conscious decisions to renounce the IT corporate domain. While our lessons speak to the need for more diversity awareness, we conclude that effective mentoring for underrepresented groups can and should include faculty of color (though limited in numbers) as well as majority faculty who are receptive to the needs and cultural differences of these student groups. Lastly, we draw on the work of Ethnic America to provide additional insight into our findings that are not offered by IRSS network theory.     

The development of relational thinking: a study of Measure Up first-grade students’ thinking and their symbolic understandings

Educational Studies in Mathematics - This study is focused on the relational thinking of first-grade students following their first 3 months of instruction from the Measure Up (MU)...     

An individualised curriculum to teach numeracy skills to children with autism: programme description and pilot data

Teaching mathematics to children with autism is an area with limited research evidence. In this study we developed a teaching manual based on Maths Recovery, a numeracy programme designed for typically developing children. Six children with autism participated in the study and received daily numeracy teaching over a 20‐week period. Our aims were to explore whether Maths Recovery can be used as a numeracy curriculum for children with autism and to evaluate the progress the children make after a period of intensive teaching. Using a pre‐test post‐test design we found that the adapted Maths Recovery numeracy curriculum was successfully incorporated within each child's individualised teaching programme, and that all six children improved their mathematical ability over the course of the intervention. Our data show promising results and support the rationale for larger evaluation studies.     

Applying IRSS Theory: The Clark Atlanta University Exemplar

The percentage of underrepresented minorities (African‐American, Hispanic, Native Americans) that have obtained graduate level degrees within computing disciplines (computer science, computer information systems, computer engineering, and information technology) is dismal at best. Despite the fact that academia, the computing workforce, professional associations, and scientific societies have identified procedures, models, and best practices in an attempt to increase the number of individuals within these underrepresented communities, the number of minorities receiving MS and PhDs in these fields have only increased marginally. In this article, we discuss how Boice's four‐part IRSS model (i.e., Involvement, Regimen, Self‐Management, and Social Networks) combined with effective mentoring models as introduced in Payton et al., is a promising framework for addressing the longstanding issue of underrepresented minorities in management education, which tends to mirror findings in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. The focus of this article is to illustrate the application of these theories at the undergraduate level by discussing two precollege/early college/scholarship programs implemented at Clark Atlanta University (CAU). These CAU programs provide the field with an exemplar which can serve as a foundational example for institutions seeking to foster, retain and graduate underrepresented minorities in higher education management disciplines, in general, and offer lessons learned from historically black colleges and universities, in particular. Using a “360‐degree mentoring” model to supplement the IRSS framework, our study concludes with implications for future research regarding how academic institutions can create, foster and sustain programs for effective recruitment, retention, and training of underrepresented minorities.     

Power to Do…What? Department Heads’ Decision Autonomy and Strategic Priorities

Using questionnaire data from the 2010 Survey of Academic Chairs, the study focuses on decision autonomy, a component of the power wielded by science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) department chairs in U.S. research extensive universities. A “power index” is developed to measure chairs’ decision autonomy, specifically their control of resources employed in negotiations with faculty job candidates. The study asks: What determines the degree of decision autonomy power possessed by department heads; and, what are the strategic implications of department heads’ degree of this particular aspect of power? Results of an ordered logistic regression model show that having more power is associated with being hired from outside the current university, being male, and with department size. The power index is employed to predict departmental strategic priorities. Results show that the power index is positively associated with a strategic priority for research. The results show a negative relationship between degree of chair decision autonomy and a priority to increase faculty lines. A student-focused strategy is not predicted by the power index but is related to the size, with larger departments placing less emphasis on numbers or quality of students.     

Childhood abuse and neglect in body dysmorphic disorder

OBJECTIVE: No published studies have examined childhood abuse and neglect in body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). This study examined the prevalence and clinical correlates of abuse and neglect in individuals with this disorder. METHODS: Seventy-five subjects (69.3% female, mean age=35.4+/-12.0) with DSM-IV BDD completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and were interviewed with other reliable and valid measures. RESULTS: Of these subjects, 78.7% reported a history of childhood maltreatment: emotional neglect (68.0%), emotional abuse (56.0%), physical abuse (34.7%), physical neglect (33.3%), and sexual abuse (28.0%). Forty percent of subjects reported severe maltreatment. Among females (n=52), severity of reported abuse and neglect were .32-.57 standard deviation units higher than norms for a health maintenance organization (HMO) sample of women. Severity of sexual abuse was the only type of maltreatment significantly associated with current BDD severity (r=.23, p=.047). However, severity of sexual abuse did not predict current BDD severity in a simultaneous multiple regression analysis with age and current treatment status. There were other significant associations with childhood maltreatment: history of attempted suicide was related to emotional (p=.004), physical (p=.014), and sexual abuse (p=.038). Childhood emotional abuse was associated with a lifetime substance use disorder (r=.26, p=.02), and physical abuse was negatively associated with a lifetime mood disorder (r=-.37, p=.001). CONCLUSIONS: A high proportion of individuals with BDD reported childhood abuse and neglect. Certain types of abuse and neglect appear modestly associated with BDD symptom severity and with gender, suicidality, and certain disorders.