Instructional Feedback II: How Do Instructor Immediacy Cues and Facework Tactics Interact to Predict Student Motivation and Fairness Perceptions?

During feedback interventions (FIs), instructors may feel torn between directing students’ learning or maintaining productive rapport with them. Existing research suggests how instructional communication can achieve both outcomes. This study examined how students’ motivation to learn and perceptions of fairness were enhanced or eroded via particular instructional behaviors. Actual face-threat mitigation (FTM) tactics and teacher nonverbal immediacy (TNI) cues were manipulated in differing combinations to manage an FI situation, with varying effects on the outcome variables. Multivariate analysis detected main effects and a significant interaction effect between FTM and TNI regarding students’ motivation to learn, but main effects only for their perceptions of interactional fairness. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed in light of self-determination, facework, approach-avoidance, and feedback intervention theories.     

Woodward Paths: Motorizing Space

This essay takes up the call for a rhetoric of distributed space by proposing a folksonomic rhetoric. Folksonomies, systems in which users may name any object, space, idea, or image any name they want, offer technical communicators new possibilities for how they work in network environments. As a way to explore the possibility of a folksonomic rhetoric, this essay examines 1 specific space, Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, as if it were a folksonomic space.     

Differences in trunk and upper extremity kinematics and segmental velocities during the offside forehand polo swing between male and female athletes

ABSTRACT

Although polo is a well-known equestrian sport, it is fundamentally misunderstood. The purpose of this study was to examine trunk and upper extremity kinematics and segmental velocities during the offside forehand polo swing between male and female athletes. Ten female and 17 male professional polo athletes volunteered. An electromagnetic tracking system collected kinematic data at 100 Hz while participants performed three offside forehand polo swings from a stationary wooden horse. One-way ANOVAs revealed statistically significant differences (p<0.05) in all kinematic variables and segmental velocities. Specifically, males exhibited a greater mean difference (MD=23°) of trunk flexion at take away (TA) and top of backswing (TOB)(MD=29°) trunk lateral flexion at ball contact (BC)(MD=23°), trunk rotation at TA(MD=97°) and TOB(MD=118°), shoulder abduction at TOB(MD=64°), and shoulder elevation at TOB(MD=13°) and BC(MD=40°). Females displayed greater trunk rotation at BC(MD=91°), shoulder elevation at TA(MD=19°), and elbow flexion at TA(MD=90°). Additionally, females generated greater segmental velocities early in the swing, while the males generated velocity later. The movement patterns observed amongst the males suggest energy is being transferred more efficiently along the kinetic chain, thus more efficient swing mechanics, but further investigation into the role of the trunk and lumbopelvic-hip complex in reference to the polo swing is warranted.     

Assessing attitude towards religion: the Astley–Francis Scale of Attitude towards Theistic Faith

This study builds on the research tradition modelled by the Francis Scale of Attitude towards Christianity, the Katz–Francis Scale of Attitude towards Judaism, the Sahin–Francis Scale of Attitude towards Islam and the Santosh–Francis Scale of Attitude towards Hinduism to propose a generic instrument concerned with attitudes towards theistic faith. The scale properties of this new instrument, established among a sample of 284 (200 female and 84 male) 16–18-year-old students, commend it for use in future research.     

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION AND OPENNESS: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION AMONG UNDERGRADUATES

A sample of 334 undergraduates completed the Francis Scale of Attitude Toward Christianity and the Astley-Francis Open Worldview Scale, together with the short form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The data provide no support for the view that a positive attitude toward Christianity inhibits openness to other worldviews, although both attitude toward Christianity and the adoption of an open worldview are significantly related to individual differences in personality.     

春天的承诺

冬天过去了,但我们还清楚地记得,当刺骨的寒风吹来,我们不由地缩起脖子,裹紧大衣。冬,似乎是寒意,是肃杀,是销声匿迹……然而,即使在最寒冷的日子里,也别忘了倾听生命的迹象,它来自自然,来自生活,来自内心希望的涌动。下面我们就一起来欣赏一篇在冬日里写下的《春天的承诺》。     

Teachers' perceptions of students' excuses for academic difficulties

Ninety-seven teachers described situations in which their students experienced academic difficulties and gave reasons (excuses) to explain their difficulties. Teachers indicated whether or not they believed the reasons students gave, what they thought the “real” reasons for the students' difficulties were, and how they reacted and behaved toward the students. Analysis of teachers' reports indicated that students were most likely to attribute their academic difficulties to external, uncontrollable factors, whereas teachers tended to believe that the “real” reasons for students' difficulties were internal and controllable. Teachers reported that they would react in a positive manner toward the students whether or not they believed the reasons the students gave to explain their difficulties. Implications of these findings for student motivation are discussed.     

A Contextual-Functional Meta-Framework for Counselling Supervision

In this paper, an approach to clinical supervision, entitled the Contextual-Functional Meta-Framework (CFM), is developed and articulated, based on a consideration of current literature and the author??s extensive practice experience. First, the context for the development of the CFM, and its formative influences, are examined, followed by a review of its six main components: the administrative context in which supervision takes place; the culture infused supervisory working alliance; nine supervisory functions; the supervisor??s and supervisee??s theory of change; the service delivery system; and the phase of counsellor development. Finally, future avenues for the model??s ongoing development and evaluation are discussed. As a meta-framework for the development of one??s personal approach to supervision, rather than a model of supervision, the CFM provides a transtheoretical heuristic for clinical supervisors to develop their personal approach the supervision.     

Fostering innovation through collaborative action research on the creation of shared instructional products by university science instructors

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to profile four university science instructors who utilized action research as a means of learning how to develop and integrate a novel curriculum innovation – engineering design – in their science courses. Data included curriculum maps, lesson plans, notes from group meetings, and instructor reflections. Data analysis included document review and content analysis. Findings from this study suggest that action research effectively enabled the instructors to 1) establish shared ownership of the project goal – to improve preservice teachers’ learning of science through engineering design; 2) continuously test, revise, and recalibrate their shared instructional products; and 3) leverage multiple sources of innovation. Knowledge generated and used by the instructors represented different kinds of knowledge and distributed expertise resulting in products that were more useful and of higher quality than products created by individuals working alone. Consequently, this resulted in increased use of the products and increased instructor commitment to improve them over time. By simultaneously engaging in research and consequently taking specific action to inform their practice, science instructors in this study successfully created shared instructional products that both guided and enhanced their classroom teaching.