Shyness and Trajectories of Functional Network Connectivity Over Early Adolescence

High shyness during early adolescence is associated with impaired peer relationships and risk for psychiatric disorders. Little is known, however, about the relation between shyness and trajectories of brain development over early adolescence. The current study longitudinally examined trajectories of resting‐state functional connectivity (rs‐fc) within four brain networks in 147 adolescents. Subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging at three different time points, at average ages 10.5 (range = 7.8–13.0), 11.7 (range = 9.3–14.1), and 12.9 years (range = 10.1–15.2). Multilevel linear modeling indicated that high shyness was associated with a less steep negative slope of default mode network (DMN) rs‐fc over early adolescence relative to low shyness. Less steep decreases in DMN rs‐fc may relate to increased self‐focus in adolescents with high shyness.     

Tipping the balance back towards emancipation: exploring the positions of Flemish community sport practitioners towards social control

Abstract

Current debates highlight the dualistic nature of community sport, which is shaped by both emancipating logics and controlling logics. Critical scholars have warned against the current prioritization of controlling logics over emancipating ones, as this might lead to instrumental approaches in which the vulnerability of young people is managed rather than tackled. However, little research has been conducted on the way in which practitioners perceive and act upon the dominance of social control as a value within community sport. In this article, we report on the findings of a qualitative study into three community sport initiatives in Flanders, Belgium. The data indicate there are small emancipatory moments within the daily practice of community sport. Based on these results, we propose a reconfiguration of the concept of emancipation from being a solid, utopian ideal towards being a search for moments where the dominant logics of social control are momentarily disrupted.     

Student Expectations of Tertiary Institutions: A case study of the Fiji National University (FNU)

Education is a human right and Fiji’s tertiary education board recently declared that all tertiary institutions in Fiji must abide by the framework in order to meet student–customers’ needs. The Fiji National University’s (FNU’s) destiny to be Fiji’s leading higher education provider could be a reality if students and staff’s expectations are considered in all decision-making processes and at all levels of management. Preliminary research was conducted on a newly proclaimed government university: the FNU. The results revealed negative quality gaps whereupon there is a high intensity of student dissatisfaction with the services provided by the FNU. FNU as a community of social and education providers needs an atmosphere to provide social and educational development at all levels to meet the social and education needs of every staff and student in order to protect the basic human rights of its staff and students, and to qualify as an education provider that is internationally acceptable.     

Effect of a Mindful Breathing Intervention on Community College Students’ Writing Apprehension and Writing Performance

Mindful breathing has been linked to changes in physiology, but we took the practice further by examining whether a mindfulness breathing intervention, a three-minute breathing exercise marked by focused attention on the sensations of breath, affected writing anxiety, and writing performance measures. In addition, we examined mindful breathing as an intervention for community college students—some of the most at risk and underprepared students in higher education in the United States. We compared Daly Miller Writing Apprehension surveys and narrative writing samples from 277 students enrolled in a freshman composition course at a southeastern community college, half of the class sections were randomly assigned to practice a mindful-breathing technique at the beginning of class sessions. Students in the class sections that practiced mindful-breathing group experienced a statistically significant decrease in writing apprehension and mechanical error scores from pre- to post-test when compared to students in the comparison class sections.     

Can Providing Rubrics for Writing Tasks Improve Developing Writers' Calibration Accuracy?

Rubric-referenced calibration and the interaction between writing achievement and calibration, a measure of the relationship between one's performance and the accuracy of one's judgments, were investigated. Undergraduate students (N = 596) were assigned to one of three calibration conditions: (a) global, (b) global and general criteria, or (c) global and detailed criteria. Students in all three conditions provided global predictions and postdictions of essay exam scores. Although calibration judgments by condition did not affect calibration accuracy overall, statistically significant main effects were found between calibration accuracy by criteria and prior achievement. High achievers made more-accurate predictions and postdictions by criteria than low achievers. Regardless of achievement level, those students in the detailed rubric condition had higher postdictive accuracy for the organization criteria than did students in the general rubric condition.     

Consensual social dominance orientation and its correlates within the hierarchical structure of American society

The concepts of “false consciousness”, “the political formula”, and “ideological hegemony” have been around for some time, but have not been measurable. We present an operational definition of these related ideas, which we call “consensual” ideology. We measure consensual ideology with respect to social dominance orientation (SDO), which is defined as a general positive orientation towards group dominance. We define consensual SDO as that portion of SDO that is shared across social groups, such as different ethnic groups. We also test social dominance theory's ideological asymmetry hypothesis using Euro- and African-American university students. This hypothesis states that the relationship between support for group inequality and social ideologies and policies supportive of hierarchical group relations will be significantly more positive within high-status groups than within low-status groups. Consistent with theoretical expectations, even though, by operational definition, Blacks and Whites have the same mean level of consensual social dominance orientation, there was consistent evidence for the type of asymmetry assumed. The theoretical implications are discussed.     

A Classroom Study on the Relationship Between Student Achievement and Retrieval-Enhanced Learning

Retrieval practice has been shown to produce powerful learning gains in laboratory experiments but has seldom been explored in classrooms as a means of enhancing students’ learning of their course-relevant material. Furthermore, research is lacking concerning the role of individual differences in learning from retrieval. The current study explored the effects of retrieval in a large undergraduate introductory biology course as a function of individual differences in student achievement. Students completed in-class exercises that required them to retrieve course information (e.g., recalling definitions for terms and labeling diagrams) followed by feedback or to simply copy the information without retrieving it. A later quiz over the information showed that high-performing students benefited more from retrieving than copying, whereas middle- and low-performing students benefited more from copying than retrieving. When asked to predict their quiz scores following the in-class exercises, high-performers demonstrated better overall metacognitive calibration compared to middle- or low-performers. These results highlight the importance of individual differences in learning from retrieval and encourage future research using course-relevant material to consider the role of student achievement in classroom-based interventions.     

Bringing Dinosaur Science to the Junior Girl Scouts Through a College Service-Learning Project

Undergraduate students in an introductory-level geoscience course successfully designed and conducted a science badge day for the Junior Girl Scouts. With national concerns that girls turn away from science at a young age, a service-learning project was incorporated into a college course with the end result providing a group of girls a positive and fun science-learning experience. A number of science and technology badges exist for the Girl Scouts, yet not many of these badges have been completed because of a lack of confidence the troop leaders have in teaching science and a paucity of scheduled science events for the leaders to take their girls. Junior Girl Scout troops were invited to the Pennsylvania State University Delaware County campus to complete a series of hands-on dinosaur science activities that allowed them to earn the Science in Everyday Life badge. At the conclusion of the badge event, the girls reported a greater interest in science, a desire to learn more science, and a desire to complete additional science-related Girl Scout badges.     

Graphic organizers or graphic overviews? Presentation order effects with computer-based text

It has long been assumed that graphic organizers (GOs) should be presented to students following text as an organizer, rather than preceding text as an overview. Robinson et al. (Educational Technology Research & Development, 51(4), 25?C41, 2003) challenged this assumption by finding support for GOs as an overview. The present study further examined this issue by having 111 undergraduates view three GOs before (overview) or after (organizer) reading or listening to a narration of a 3,400-word text, followed by measures of retention and transfer. Students who received GOs as organizers transferred knowledge better than those who received GOs as overviews. Whether GOs should also be used as overviews, as prescribed by Robinson et al., is unclear and in need of further investigation.