Parenting Styles, Adolescents' Attributions, and Educational Outcomes in Nine Heterogeneous High Schools

This article examined the contemporaneous and predictive relations between parenting styles, adolescents' attributions, and 4 educational outcomes. Data were collected from adolescents attending 6 high schools in California and 3 high schools in Wisconsin during the 1987–1988 and 1988–1989 school years. The results of path analyses partially confirmed the central hypotheses. Adolescents who perceived their parents as being nonauthoritative were more likely than their peers to attribute achievement outcomes to external causes or to low ability. Furthermore, the higher the proportion of dysfunctional attributions made for academic successes and failures, the lower the levels of classroom engagement and homework 1 year later. Although adolescents' attributional style provided a bridge between parenting style and 2 educational outcomes, it did not fully explain the impact of parenting on those outcomes. Additional analyses within gender and ethnic subgroups reinforced the overall pattern of findings observed within the entire sample.     

The role of social comparison in students’ perceptions of ability: An enriched view of academic motivation in middle school students

This study addressed notions derived from a model by [Tesser et al., 1984] of self-concept and how it is influenced by social relationships. We were interested in whether the self-evaluation maintenance model (SEM) would allow us to investigate more directly the value component in expectancy–value models of achievement motivation. Using distinctions often made about different motivational orientations, we discovered a three-way interaction between level of mastery orientation (high or low), relevance of math (high or low), and target of rating (self or 7th grade friend) on students’ perception of ability in math. Thus, the SEM model was supported but only for students reporting a low mastery orientation. For them, those who reported math as highly relevant estimated their own ability as significantly higher than their friend’s, whereas those reporting math as less relevant showed no difference in estimates of ability between self or friend. For high mastery oriented students, no differences were found.     

Teachers' perceptions of problem behavior in general and special education

The study investigated the behavioral ratings of regular classroom and special education teachers and sought to examine the degree to which these educators agreed or disagreed in their perceptions of the problem behavior and adaptive functioning of a group of 31 adolescents who had recently been identified as seriously emotionally disturbed. Results are discussed in relation to the literature on teacher tolerance of problem behavior and the effects of classroom setting upon teacher judgments.     

Konfigurierungskonzepte für DB-basierte technische Entwurfsanwendungen

Zusammenfassung  . Schwerpunkte einer Datenbank-Unterstützung von technischen Entwurfsanwendungen sind eine geeignete Ablaufkontrolle sowie ein geeignetes Datenmodell. Letzteres mu? Versionen komplexer Objekte verwalten k?nnen. Um aus der Gesamtmenge der in einer Datenbank enthaltenen Versionen konsistente Einheiten (Mengen ‚kompatibler’ Versionen) hervorheben zu k?nnen, werden geeignete Konfigurierungskonzepte ben?tigt. Dieses Papier gibt eine Klassifikation verschiedener DB-bezogener Konfigurierungsans?tze, bewertet diese und begründet damit die Wahl, die im Rahmen des Objekt- und Versionsdatenmodells OVM hinsichtlich des zu unterstützenden Konfigurierungskonzeptes getroffen wurde. Wir werden argumentieren, da? insbesondere die Flexibilit?t, die das gew?hlte Konzept sowohl hinsichtlich der Definition von Konfigurationstypen als auch hinsichtlich des Anlegens von Konfigurationen bietet, zu einer besseren Unterstützung von technischen Entwurfsanwendungen als in bestehenden objekt-orientierten Systemen führt. Eingegangen am 14. Oktober 1996/Angenommen am 27. Oktober 1997     

Having students create short video clips to help transition from naïve conceptions about mechanics to true Newtonian physics

Most students enter their first university physics course with a system of beliefs and intuitions which are often inconsistent with the Newtonian frame of reference. This article presents an experiment of collaborative learning aiming at helping first-year students in an engineering programme to transition from their naïve intuition about dynamics to the Newtonian way of thinking. In a first activity, students were asked to critically analyse the contents of two video clips from the point of view of Newtonian mechanics. In a second activity, students had to design and realise their own video clip to illustrate a given aspect of Newtonian mechanics. The preparation of the scenario for the second activity required looking up and assimilating scientific knowledge. The efficiency of the activity was assessed on an enhanced version of the statistical analysis method proposed by Hestenes and Halloun, which relies on a pre-test and a post-test to measure individual learning.     

Physical education for health and wellbeing: a discourse analysis of Scottish physical education curricular documentation

This paper provides an analysis of the discourses associated with physical education in Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence. We implement a poststructural perspective in order to identify the discourses that underpin the physical education sections of the Curriculum for Excellence ‘health and well-being’ documentation. Discourses related to physical activity and health are particularly prominent, along with a related concern with motor skill development. Our focus lies with the ways in which these discourses are likely to be taken up and deployed within Scottish educational establishments. The paper thus explores the ways in which these discourses might ‘work’ to produce specific effects on practitioners and pupils. This involves speculating about how practitioners and students might engage in specific practices relative to these discourses. We conclude that the discourses identified lend themselves to interpretation and negotiation in multiple ways in the context of Scottish physical education, with specific consequences for the experiences and subjectivities of practitioners and children.     

Mindfulness as a Prerequisite to Effective Leadership; Exploring the Constructs that Foster Productive Use of Feedback for Professional Learning

This paper proposes a model that integrates mindfulness, ego, and mindset as filters of the information available for professional learning. The paper explores connections between mindset, ego, and mindfulness that promote or inhibit an educator’s ability to use feedback for learning. A leader’s commitment to creating spaces for meaningful use of all types of feedback promotes a school climate that encourages risk taking in learning. Mindfulness, the cultivation of the ability to pay attention to the present moment non-judgmentally, is a prerequisite skill to the effective delivery and use of feedback to promote professional learning. The development of mindfulness requires practice of a method and the continual application of mindfulness to remain open to learning from feedback.