How to cope with stress in special needs education? Stress-inducing dysfunctional cognitions of teacher students: the perspective of professionalisation

The goal of the present study is to identify prospective special education teachers (SETs) who may have difficulties in coping with occupational stresses and burdens. International comparative studies show that SETs have a higher level of stress than their colleagues who work in the general school system. Compared with teachers in regular schools, SETs leave their profession at a higher rate. For this reason, the study focuses on so-called dysfunctional cognitions, which might increase stress in strenuous occupational situations and which have long-term harmful effects on health. The construct of dysfunctional cognitions is supposed to be a basis for developing supportive measures for teacher students with low stress tolerance. In the framework of the present study located in the German educational system, teacher students (N = 333) from the special needs areas, including learning disability, mental disability, emotional/social disorders and sensory disabilities (hearing impairment, or speech or language disorders), are taken into account. A hierarchical cluster analysis and a discriminant analysis were used to identify four different clusters: Cluster 1 shows the lowest attitude level of equally all dysfunctional cognitions. Clusters 2 and 3 are characterised by higher degrees, especially of ‘dependency’, ‘internalisation of failure’ and ‘personal standards (perfectionism)’. The fourth profile indicates the highest degree of the dysfunctional cognitions. Lower levels of dysfunctional cognitions (with the exception of perfectionism) occur together with a higher expectation of self-efficacy. No cluster applies for all teacher students of one specific special needs area. Prospective teachers in the area of mental disability are overrepresented in cluster 3, with a high level of internalisation of failure and dependency. Teacher students in the area of emotional/social disorders belong, to a considerable degree, to the ‘risk’ cluster. The profiles are used to develop measures for those teacher students who may experience difficulties in stressful occupational situations. Therefore, these student teachers need to be closely supported through additional intensive training elements and balanced career counselling.     

Effects of variations in orthographic information on Asian and American readers' English text reading

Orthographies vary in the support they provide for word identification based on grapheme-phoneme correspondences. If skills developed in acquisition of first-language (L1) reading transfer to reading English as a foreign language (EFL), the extent to which EFL readers' word identification shows reliance on information other than grapheme-phoneme correspondences could be expected to vary with whether their L1 orthography is a non-Roman alphabet such as Korean hangul or a nonalphabetic (morpho-syllabic) system such as Chinese characters. Another influence could be whether EFL readers have learned to read a morpho-syllabic L1 by means of an alphabetic transliteration. English text reading speeds and oral reading quality ratings of three groups of adult Asian EFL readers attending an American university were compared with those of two groups of American L1 readers: Graduate student peers and eighth-grade students. All EFL groups read more slowly than both groups of L1 readers, and their reading was more impaired when orthographic cues were disrupted by mixed case print or pseudohomophone spellings. Some of these effects were reduced in EFL readers from Hong Kong, who had earlier exposure to English. Contrary to previous findings, no effects could be attributed to type of first orthography or early exposure to alphabetic transliteration of Chinese characters, which differentiated the Taiwanese and Hong Kong groups. As a whole, the results suggest that, at least across the L1 groups studied, differences in EFL word reading are associated less with type of L1 orthography than with history of exposure to English.     

Circadian rhythms of tonic immobility in the rat: Evidence of an endogenous mechanism

Circadian rhythms of tonic immobility were found in male albino rats raised on a 12-h diurnal light cycle and tested at 6-h intervals. Durations of immobility were twice as long at 2000 h as at 1400 h. These differences persisted when rats were exposed to constant darkness for 10 days, but disappeared when rats were maintained in constant light for the same period. Since endogenous circadian rhythms of certain monoamine levels persist in constant darkness yet disappear under constant light, it is suggested that cycles of tonic immobility in rats are also endogenous. When the diurnal pattern of tonic immobility duration is compared to that of various neurohumors, immobility duration appears to parallel melatonin production and to be opposite in phase to the cycle of serotonin levels. Duration of immobility increased over trials, although the number of inductions required to produce immobility decreased. This suggests that instrumental conditioning may modify the immobility response to some extent.     

The influence of stretching and warm‐up exercises on Achilles tendon reflex activity

The aim of this study was to investigate the acute effects of prior exercise (warm‐up and stretching) on the electromyographic and force output of mechanically elicited triceps surae reflexes. Fifty male subjects performed eight reflex experiments under each of three successive conditions in one session: (1) no prior exercise, (2) after static stretching of the passive triceps surae (3 min) and (3) after a 10‐min warm‐up run on a treadmill. Tendon tap reflex force was elicited in the triceps surae of the right leg by means of a standardized reflex hammer and measured in a custom‐built fixture. Electromyographic (EMG) signals were recorded with surface electrodes over the medial head of the gastrocnemius (G) and the soleus (S). Low coefficients of variation within subjects contrasted with high between‐subject variations, indicating highly individual reflex characteristics. After stretching, reductions in the peak force (‐5%; P < 0.05), the force rise rate (‐8%; P < 0.01), the half relaxation rate (‐5%; N.S.), the EMG amplitudes (G, ‐16%; S, ‐17%; P < 0.01) and integrals (G, ‐15%; S, ‐18%; P < 0.01), and an increase in EMG latencies (G, +3%; S, +1%; P < 0.01), were found compared with the values obtained without prior exercise. After running, the peak force reached the values obtained without prior exercise (‐2%; N.S.), the force rise rate and half relaxation rate increased by 8 and 12%, respectively (P < 0.01), and the impulse (force‐time integral; ‐12%), EMG amplitudes (G, ‐20%; S, ‐23%; P < 0.01), integrals (G, ‐18%; S, ‐23%; P < 0.01) and latencies (G, ‐1%; S, ‐2%; P < 0.01) decreased significantly. The changes in the force characteristics observed after the stretching treatment indicate improved muscle compliance that might reduce the risk of injury. On the other hand, the changes after the additional warm‐up run had a more pronounced influence with regard to improved force development and a decreased EMG activity, which can be viewed as a performance‐enhancing effect.     

Motivation as Ethical Self-Formation

Motivation is a concept more frequently found in venues concerned with educational psychology than in ones concerned with educational philosophy. Under the influence of psychology, and its typically dualistic way of making sense of the world, motivation in education has tended to be viewed in dichotomous terms, for example, as intrinsic or extrinsic in character. Such psychology-derived theories of educational motivation operate within a dichotomous ontology, traceable to structuralist notions of agency versus (rather than within) structure, while exemplifying the tendency in psychology that philosopher R. S. Peters identified over half a century ago, of seeking to provide totalizing, comprehensive theories of human behaviour in emulation of the achievements of the natural sciences. This article offers an alternative reading of motivation in terms of Foucauldian ethical self-formation that attempts to recognize motivation as arising from the individuals’ socially situated and constrained agency, and that focuses on how individuals pursue learning as a way of creating a particular desired version of the self. We illustrate this approach through a vignette of Wolfgang, a Hong Kong learner of German as a third language. Although we are certainly not seeking to supplant other approaches to theorizing motivation, we believe that the approach we elaborate here contributes significantly to the repertoire of motivational research in education.