Teachers’ Perceptions of Creativity in the Classroom

Teachers’ implicit understandings of creativity may not align with current research-based understanding of creativity and characteristics associated with creative students. Even teachers who say they value creativity may actually find creative characteristics undesirable. Participating teachers (n = 371) rated student characteristics on a scale of very undesirable to very desirable. Participants also completed a brief self-assessment of personal creativity and rank-ordered a set of educational objectives based on what they perceived as most important. Results indicated that teachers found student characteristics associated with creativity less desirable than those characteristics contraindicative to creativity (d = 2.70). No effects were found based on the grade level (d = 0.07) and small effects were found for subjects taught (η² = 0.023). Similarly, no effects were found for the teachers’ level of experience (η² = 0.004) or age (η² = 0.002). Teachers’ level of personal creativity was related (r = .248) to how desirable they rated student characteristics associated with creativity, but the importance with which teachers ranked creative thinking had small effects (η² = 0.04) on how desirable they found characteristics associated with creativity. These results generally confirm previous studies and suggest that teachers’ grade level, subject, experience, and age have no effect on their perception of creative characteristics. However, some evidence suggests that teachers who are more creative find student characteristics associated with creativity more desirable in class.     

Is Life Skill Development a By-Product of Sport Participation? Perceptions of Youth Sport Coaches

The purpose of this study was to understand youth sport coaches’ perceptions of life skill development. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 youth sport coaches across 5 organizations. Analyses revealed 4 themes based on coaches’ perceptions: (a) life skills are a by-product of sport participation, and transfer “just happens”; (b) if intentionally addressed, it's reactive; (c) coaches recognize the value of intentionally teaching life skills; and (d) coaches identify challenges associated with using an explicit approach to teaching life skills. Results provide evidence for the state of the current sport context and highlight areas for coach education related to life skills integration.     

Beginning High School: Christian Students’ Perceptions and Choices

Moving from middle to high school can bring challenges for adolescents in the United States, with self-reports indicating areas that might need attention. Christian ninth grade students gave structured interviews about their perceptions of the transition. Issues like a change in the type (e.g., private to public) or size of school were discussed. Narrative analysis revealed key themes: reasons for a change in the type of school; whether the transition environment was supportive; differing perceptions of middle and high school schedules; and importance of study hall and lunch. Quantitative coding supplemented narratives to elucidate one theme, thereby co-mingling methods of analysis.     

English Language Learners’ Transitional Needs from High School to University: An Exploratory Study

In this study, various measures of educational achievement of English language learners (ELLs) are compared to those of native English speakers (NS) who graduated high school in Calgary and were admitted into first year studies at the University of Calgary (U of C); and the literacy demands of university manifested in the readability levels of first year textbooks are analyzed. Findings suggest ELLs are academically competent, as reflected in the achievement outcomes of provincial high school diploma examinations in mathematics. The vast majority, however, are inadequately prepared for the literacy demands of university and are at immediate academic risk. Suggestions are made for policy, transitional programming, and the provision of services that may support academic achievement at university for this growing profile of learners on campus.     

Students’ Perceptions of School Climate During the Middle School Years: Associations with Trajectories of Psychological and Behavioral Adjustment

A cross-domain latent growth curve model was used to examine the trajectories of change in student perceptions of four critical dimensions of school climate (i.e., teacher support, peer support, student autonomy in the classroom, and clarity and consistency in school rules and regulations) among 1,451 early adolescents from the beginning of sixth through the end of eighth grade; and the effects of such trajectories on the rate of change in psychological and behavioral adjustment. Findings indicated that all of the dimensions of perceived school climate declined over the 3 years of middle school. Furthermore, declines in each of the dimensions of perceived school climate were associated with declines over time in psychological and behavioral adjustment. Moreover, the direction of effects between each dimension of perceived school climate and psychological or behavioral adjustment were often unidirectional rather than bi-directional, underscoring the role of perceived school climate in the psychological and behavioral health of early adolescents. Gender and socioeconomic class differences in these patterns are noted.     

Controlling for Prior Attainment Reduces the Positive Influence that Single-Gender Classroom Initiatives Exert on High School Students’ Scholastic Achievements

Research points to the positive impact that gender-segregated schooling and classroom initiatives exert on academic attainment. An evaluation of these studies which reveal positive effects highlights, however, that students are typically selectively assigned to single- or mixed-gender instructional settings, presenting a methodological confound. The current study controls for students’ prior attainment to appraise the efficacy of a single-gender classroom initiative implemented in a co-educational high school in the United Kingdom. Secondary data analysis (using archived data) was performed on 266 middle-ability, 11–12 year-old students’ standardized test scores in Languages (English, foreign language), STEM-related (Mathematics, Science, Information and Communication Technology), and Non-STEM subjects (art, music, drama). Ninety-eight students (54, 55% female) were taught in single-gender and 168 (69, 41% female) in mixed-gender classrooms. Students undertook identical tests irrespective of classroom type, which were graded in accordance with U.K national curriculum guidelines. Controlling for students’ prior attainment, findings indicate that students do not appear to benefit from being taught in single-gender relative to mixed-gender classrooms in Language and STEM-related subjects. Young women benefitted from being taught in mixed-gender relative to single-gender classes for Non-STEM subjects. However, when prior ability is not controlled for, the intervention appears to be effective for all school subjects, highlighting the confounding influence of selective admissions. These findings suggest that gender-segregated classroom initiatives may not bolster students’ grades. It is argued that studies that do not control for selection effects may tell us little about the effectiveness of such interventions on scholastic achievement.     

Prospective Primary Teachers’ Perceptions About Their Ability to Use and Teach Thinking Skills

Cognitive acceleration programs have been successful in promoting reasoning skills in school students and in changing the pedagogy of the teachers implementing them. For this reason, this study explored if using such approach with a different population—prospective primary teachers—produced changes in relation to their perceptions about their ability to use and teach thinking. The results suggest that, from the participants’ points of view, the course helped them to improve not only their ability to think but also their awareness about their own thinking. However, a single cognitive acceleration in mathematics education (CAME) course was not sufficient to improve their confidence about teaching thinking.     

The Effect of Parents’ Literacy Skills and Children’s Preliteracy Skills on the Risk of Dyslexia

The combination of investigating child and family characteristics sheds light on the constellation of risk factors that can ultimately lead to dyslexia. This family-risk study examines plausible preschool risk factors and their specificity. Participants (N?=?196, 42 % girls) included familial risk (FR) children with and without dyslexia in Grade 3 and controls. First, we found impairments in phonological awareness, rapid naming, and letter knowledge in FR kindergartners with later dyslexia, and mild phonological-awareness deficits in FR kindergartners without subsequent dyslexia. These skills were better predictors of reading than arithmetic, except for rapid naming. Second, the literacy environment at home was comparable among groups. Third, having a dyslexic parent and literacy abilities of the non-dyslexic parent related to offspring risk of dyslexia. Parental literacy abilities might be viewed as indicators of offspring’s liability for literacy difficulties, since parents provide offspring with genetic and environmental endowment. We propose an intergenerational multiple deficit model in which both parents confer cognitive risks.     

Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ Phenomenological Approach to Life Sciences and the Question of Vitalism

The philosophy of Hedwig Conrad-Martius represents a very important intersection point between phenomenological research and the natural sciences in the twentieth century. She tried to open a common pattern from the ontology of the physical being up to anthropology, passing from the biological sciences. An intersection point that, for the particular features of her thought, is rather a perspective point from which to observe, in an interesting and original way, both natural sciences and phenomenology. The 1923 essay entitled Real Ontology (Conrad-Martius 1923) is the starting point for her reflections about science, but it is also the point that marks a separation from Husserl (for a detailed discussion, see: Ales Bello 2003, pp. 184–195), even if not from phenomenology. A fundamental question is faced: “why something instead of nothing?” or: “what is the reality?,” shifting the focus from essence to existence. Whichever the answer, a deeply realistic position must be assumed, based on the assumption of a clear distinction between the subject and the world, and the possibility of knowledge, intended as adaequatio of the subject’s intellectus to the external reality.     

High School Biology/Life Science Teachers’ Presentation of Genetic Counseling and Health Care Career Options in Their Classrooms

Studies show teachers play an influential role in the career decision-making process of students and early knowledge of genetic counseling (GC) increases the likelihood students will consider this career option. This quantitative study is the first to explore the presentation of GC and other health care career options by high school (HS) biology/life science (B/LS) teachers in their classrooms. Our findings indicate most B/LS teachers present GC as a career option to HS students, agree it complements classroom activities, and perceive students as interested in learning about the profession. However, teachers note many barriers to spending class time presenting GC careers. Consequently, a substantial number of teachers spent a minimal amount of time presenting health care careers in general. We discuss ways genetic counselors can enhance career resources, reduce barriers, and foster student interest in pursuing a career in GC by developing partnerships with HS B/LS teachers.     

Confucius’ Complaints and the Analects’ Account of the Good Life

The Analects appears to offer two bodies of testimony regarding the felt, experiential qualities of leading a life of virtue. In its ostensible record of Confucius’ more abstract and reflective claims, the text appears to suggest that virtue has considerable power to afford joy and insulate from sorrow. In the text’s inclusion of Confucius’ less studied and apparently more spontaneous remarks, however, he appears sometimes to complain of the life he leads, to feel its sorrows, and to possess some despair. Where we attend to both of these elements of the text, a tension emerges. In this essay, I consider how Confucius’ complaints appear to complicate any clean conclusion that Confucius wins a good life, particularly where we attend to important pre-theoretical sensibilities regarding what a “good life” ought to include and how it ought to feel for the one who leads it.     

Miracles in Sport: Finding the ‘Ears to Hear’ and the ‘Eyes to See’

Paralympic Games (PG), involving people with disabilities (PWD), are a manifestation of excellence in sport. They show that athletics performed by PWD counts as genuine sport. They also support a wider meaning of the term ‘health,’ understood not just like a utopian state of perfection, but like the ability to realize oneself in the projects and activities of one’s own choosing. Notwithstanding these virtues, PG—in their current form—may paradoxycally reinforce social prejudice against PWD. This is due to the fact that PG and Olympic Games (OG) are now two distinct events. In this article, I argue that PG should be integrated in the OG, just like women’s and ‘minor’ sports, because the separation of PG and OG indicates a morally arbitrary separation between people with and without disabilities. I also propose to remove the word ‘Para-lympic’ because it stigmatizes the sport performed by PWD as an appendix of ‘normal’ sport. Athletes with disabilities deserve special attention because they have special needs; but they also deserve an arena where their excellence is offered to the public, and this arena should not be different from that of normal-bodied athletes.     

Confronting Math Stereotypes in the Classroom: Its Effect on Female College Students’ Sexism and Perceptions of Confronters

Women often face sexism and stereotypes about their academic ability, and this makes it important to examine the effects of confronting sexism in the college classroom. The current research consisted of 2 studies of how witnessing a confrontation of a sexist stereotype in the classroom affects female students’ perceptions of the confronters and self-reported sexism. The samples consisted of female students from a public college in the Northeastern U.S. who provided their perceptions of teachers described in vignettes as either confronting or not confronting a student’s stereotype of women as unskilled at math. In Study 1 (N?=?48) perceptions of the teacher were more positive when confronting the stereotype, and students’ self-reported sexism was reduced when the teacher confronted rather than ignored the stereotype. Study 2 (N?=?56) compared the effects of a teacher versus a student confrontation of the same stereotype. Participants perceived the teacher and student more positively when they confronted rather than ignored the stereotype. However, the source of the confrontation yielded no differences in sexism. These results suggest that students want their teachers to respond to bias in the classroom and that teachers should respond to sexist incidents in order to reduce the level of sexism among their students.     

Adolescents’ Text Message Communication and Growth in Antisocial Behavior Across the First Year of High School

This study examined whether adolescents communicate about antisocial topics and behaviors via text messaging and how adolescents’ antisocial text message communication relates to growth in rule-breaking and aggression as reported by youth, parents, and teachers. Participants (n?=?172; 82 girls) received BlackBerry devices configured to capture all text messages sent and received. Four days of text messages during the 9th grade year were coded for discussion of antisocial activities. The majority of participants engaged in at least some antisocial text message communication. Text messaging about antisocial activities significantly predicted increases in parent, teacher, and self-reports of adolescents’ rule-breaking behavior, as well as teacher and self-reports of adolescents’ aggressive behavior. Text message communication may provide instrumental information about how to engage in antisocial behavior and reinforce these behaviors as normative within the peer group.     

Testing the Extent of the Gender Trap: College Students’ Perceptions of and Reactions to Intimate Partner Violence

Prior research has explored perceptions of intimate partner violence (IPV), and how these perceptions differ based on gender of the participant, victim, and perpetrator. In the current study, 178 undergraduate students (n?=?88 males; n?=?90 females) attending a university in the Southwestern United States read a hypothetical IPV scenario, experimentally crossed by victim gender and perpetrator gender, and completed measures exploring gender (i.e., participant gender, victim gender, and perpetrator gender) and situational perceptions on participants’ intended responses to an IPV scenario. Results indicated that perceptions of the IPV situation and responses varied by genders of the participant, victim, and perpetrator. Specifically, males were more likely than females to hold the victim responsible for the violence, and ignore the situation; females were more likely than males to encourage the victim to seek professional help and seek help from another person regarding the IPV scenario as presented in the vignette. When the victim was a male, participants viewed the situation as less serious, the victim as more responsible, and were more likely to ignore the situation, than when the victim was female. Overall, results indicated that gender factors (especially participant gender) had a stronger and more consistent influence on responses to the IPV scenario than perceptions of the situation. The findings of the current study are discussed in light of implications for future research to expand an understanding of the role of gender and perceptions influencing anticipated helping behavior for victims of IPV, which will inform intervention.     

Boys Don’t Work? On the Psychological Benefits of Showing Low Effort in High School

Male students show less academic effort and lower academic achievement than do female students. The present study aimed to shed more light on the reasons for why male students show low academic effort despite the finding that this undermines their academic achievement. We explored whether students experience psychological benefits from showing low effort or “effortless” achievement in school and whether these benefits are greater for male than for female students. In two experimental vignette studies with independent samples of German ninth graders (N?=?210) and teachers (N?=?176), we systematically varied student targets’ gender, effort, and achievement and tested for effects on targets’ ascribed intelligence, popularity, likeability, masculinity, femininity, and gender-typicality. The “effortless” achiever was rated as more popular than students showing high effort. Teachers perceived the effortless achiever as the most intelligent target. Academic effort further increased students’ ratings of a low-achieving target’s likeability and students’ and teachers’ ratings of all targets’ femininity as well as decreased students’ ratings of all targets’ masculinity. Students and teachers perceived targets showing low (vs. high) effort as more similar to a typical boy, whereas teachers perceived targets showing high (vs. low) effort as more similar to a typical girl. Results indicate a need to understand the psychological benefits of low academic engagement, especially for male students, and to address the feminine stereotyping of (academic) effort.     

Female Online Sex Workers’ Perceptions of Exit from Sex Work

Although the sex work industry has evolved with the emergence of internet marketing, little research examines sex workers who advertise online (i.e., online sex workers) and how their work experiences may differ from those of other sex workers who have been studied more extensively. This qualitative study addresses this gap by examining female online sex workers’ perceptions of exit from sex work. Data come from semi-structured interviews conducted in Southern California in 2014, with twenty-seven female online sex workers. Participants varied in their perceptions of exit meaning, desirability, and feasibility, and in their intentions to exit from sex work.     

What Matters Most to the Left-Behind Children’s Life Satisfaction and School Engagement: Parent or Grandparent?

This study compared the role of the parent and grandparent in the adjustment of children who had, and who had not, been left behind when their parents moved to urban areas for work, and tested whether self-esteem mediated the association between these family relationships and child adjustment. The sample included 428 middle school students in central China, 204 of whom were left-behind children who were cared for by grandparents and 224 of whom were not left behind. The students responded to five questionnaires measuring parent–child relationships, grandparent–child relationships, self-esteem, life satisfaction and school engagement. Regression analyses showed that self-esteem mediated the association between parent–child and grandparent–child relationships and children’s adjustment, but there were different patterns of association for the non-left-behind children and left-behind children groups. Furthermore, the unique effect of parent–child relationships was higher than that of grandparent–child relationships for the non-left-behind children, but for the left-behind children, grandparent–child relationships played a more important role than grandparent–child relationships in predicting their school engagement, and parent–child relationships played a more important role in predicting their life satisfaction. Parents who are far away and grandparents who are close at hand can shape different psychological and behavioral development outcomes of left-behind children.