Unorthodox thoughts on the nature and mission of contemporary educational psychology

Two commonly held assumptions are questioned—that mental states and processes are to be studied in isolation, and that individuals' psychology can be studied out of social and cultural context. The view presented here is that of an educational psychology focusing on the study and design of complex and contextualized composites, making it analogous to architecture and aerospace science, fields that deal with composites and whose units of analysis reflect rather than reduce the complexity of the phenomena they study and design. Design and study of learning environments are argued to serve as the apex of the field's scholarly activities. Guttman's Small Space Analysis is offered as a useful tool for such activities.     

教育管理中的人性假设:特征、反思与转型

人性假设是教育管理思想发展的基本理论之源。教育管理中的人性假设具有以预成性人性观为逻辑基础,以生成性人性观为演绎前提,以人性自由为终极目的的基本特征。教育管理思想的演进与人们对人性认识的深化相伴而生,在西方教育管理发展史上,先后出现了"经济人""社会人""自我实现人"和"复杂人"等人性假设。经由哲学反思可以发现,它们都存在强调片面人性,忽视整体人性;重视预成人性,轻视人性生成;偏重人性"管理",忽略人性"教育"等认识弊端。实现教育管理思想的当代变迁,应首先完成教育管理人性观念从还原论到整体论,从预成论到生成论,从本体论到实践论的范式转型。     

财务会计逻辑体系探讨

财务会计逻辑体系建设是财务会计服务社会经济发展的基础性工作,财务会计理论体系建设过程中需要对起逻辑起点的内涵进行全面深入的分析,财务会计逻辑框架是若干个财务会计基本概念构成的一个体系,各个财务会计概念之间相互协调相互促进,最终形成财务会计逻辑体系;财务会计逻辑体系建设需要与会计假设、会计环境、市场经济、国家宏观调控政策为出发点。     

Ratings of Professional Journals by Teachers of Management

Teachers are encouraged to critically evaluate their philosophy of teaching and to help students recognize and examine their implicit ideas about education as well. This critical evaluation entails examining assumptions about teaching and learning, investigating the implications that follow from those assumptions, and considering alternative ideas about teaching and learning that might better fit educational objectives and practices. A four-step process is suggested that may help facilitate this form of critical analysis, attenuate any clashes of teaching philosophies that might take place between teachers and students, and reduce the unwanted compromises that often ensue.     

Theories of communication,human nature,and the world: Associations and implications

Although much scholarly attention has been devoted to conceptualizing communication, few attempts have been made to examine the practical consequences of individuals’ beliefs about communication. This paper reports the results of an initial investigation into the relationships among personal theories of communication (or message design logics), privately held philosophies of human nature, and personal assumptions about the world. Results demonstrated significant differences in participants’ philosophies of human nature and assumptions about the world as a function of message design logic. Implications and directions for future research are addressed.     

A review of the mx computer program for structural equation modeling

Mx. Michael C. Neale, Virginia Institute for Psych and Behavioral Genetics, Box 980126, Richmond, VA 23298. Freeware, ftp: neale@gems.vcu.edu; http: \\www.griffin.vcu.edu\mx. Mx is available for IBM, Mac, UNIX, and VMS platforms.     

Comparison of Approaches to Constructing Confidence Intervals for Mediating Effects Using Structural Equation Models

Regression mixture models, which have only recently begun to be used in applied research, are a new approach for finding differential effects. This approach comes at the cost of the assumption that error terms are normally distributed within classes. This study uses Monte Carlo simulations to explore the effects of relatively minor violations of this assumption. The use of an ordered polytomous outcome is then examined as an alternative that makes somewhat weaker assumptions, and finally both approaches are demonstrated with an applied example looking at differences in the effects of family management on the highly skewed outcome of drug use. Results show that violating the assumption of normal errors results in systematic bias in both latent class enumeration and parameter estimates. Additional classes that reflect violations of distributional assumptions are found. Under some conditions it is possible to come to conclusions that are consistent with the effects in the population, but when errors are skewed in both classes the results typically no longer reflect even the pattern of effects in the population. The polytomous regression model performs better under all scenarios examined and comes to reasonable results with the highly skewed outcome in the applied example. We recommend that careful evaluation of model sensitivity to distributional assumptions be the norm when conducting regression mixture models.     

Theories,Concepts, and Techniques: Too Much of a Number of Good Things?

The field of information technology in education is nearly 30 years old. There have been many impressive achievements during that time. However, the field seems to have developed a number of theories, concepts, and activities that are often taken for granted and are regarded as sacrosanct. A case is made for the notion that theories should be practical and that it is possible to have too much of a good thing.     

Rethinking our underlying assumptions about what we do and why we do it: academic development as a case

In this paper, academic developers from universities in three countries explore underlying assumptions about what we as developers do and why we do it in relation to evaluating development programs. Through addressing three questions, key ideas emerge that highlight what is often overlooked in day-to-day practice: the fact that academic development has a ‘signature pedagogy’ defined by the ‘learning paradigm’; the potential role of different stakeholders in setting criteria for evaluation; and the inclusion of non-traditional academic development literatures (e.g., adult education, educational change, organizational development) to avoid perpetuating established practices. Our intent is to intellectually challenge ourselves and others to move beyond sharing program and evaluation activities to explore ideas and literature not often considered in our day-to-day work. While the context is academic development, we believe the questions and the answers that emerged are of value to all involved in staff and professional development.