Effects of positive versus negative expressive writing exercises on adolescent academic achievement

A robust body of research has documented how expressive writing about difficult or traumatic experiences can be beneficial across a range of domains. Relatively little research, on the other hand, has documented the impact of expressive writing activities on positive events. In this randomized controlled trial, adolescents (N = 350) beginning ninth grade in three schools serving mostly low-income students of color participated in a 45-min writing workshop. They were prompted to write about either a negative or positive life event, then edit their writing to include themes thought to insulate them from the possible threats to identity that can come with the transition to high school. We find evidence that positive expressive writing activities are more academically beneficial than expressive writing about negative events. Compared with students who wrote about a failure and subsequent resilience, students who detailed how they attained an important success showed a more positive trajectory for absences (β = −.417; p = .008) and detentions (β = −.962; p = .034), and those who wrote about a generally happy life event showed a better trajectory for grade point average (β = .622; p = .043). Exploratory analyses also show that, regardless of condition, including themes of the “self as competent” and “savoring” good experiences was associated with improved academic outcomes. Including themes of “resilience” was not, across conditions, associated with improved outcomes unless students at the same time included “self as competent” themes.     

New Approaches to Teaching Early Confucianism

Teachers are often tempted to present early Confucianism as an abstract ethical philosophy whose wisdom stands outside of time and space. Nevertheless, this kind of rarefied treatment makes it difficult for students to understand. Instead, one should try to make Confucianism more tangible by firmly placing it in its historical and intellectual context. This can be done in the following ways: Use indigenous nomenclature for words like “Confucius” and “Confucianism.” Closely examine the history and character of the Confucian community. Draw attention to the overwhelming importance of ritual in Confucian doctrine. Underline the all-encompassing nature of Confucian religiosity. Show the popular stories and images by which Confucians transmitted their teachings. Although these methods focus on the otherness of early Confucianism and thereby might make it less appealing to modern tastes, they will provide students with a lively and vivid image of the early tradition and its advocates.     

Myth,Memory, and Meaning: Understanding and Treating Adolescents Experiencing Forced Migration

ABSTRACT

Refugee adolescents present a unique challenge to treatment. In their desire to be part of their new country, they often split off the formative years of their development. This includes both the person that they were in the past, their relations with peers and what made them “cool,” along with the officially documented political story that brought them asylum. This can lead them to feel disconnected and disoriented, but also as though their world is in fact built on lies.

They often come to treatment following enactments that make them appear tough, hardened and hard to reach, and which continue in the consulting room. When they are met with an official “trauma” narrative that explains their experience in political and psycho-educational terms they often find the experience alienating. They need to connect the world that they left, the world that live in now, and their own private experiences of love and hate in order to form an integrated identity.

This discussion explores aspects of the refugee narrative of psychoanalysis to help to illuminate the tasks necessary to co-create a meaningful narrative with refugee adolescent patients. It suggests ways to connect to the refugee experience and hear the young patients as they move between the political and the personal, the official and the familial, to understand themselves and return to the developmental task of creating an adult identity.     

The Logic of Deferral: Educational Aims and Intellectual Disability

The educational aims described by educational philosophers rarely embrace the full range of differences in intellectual ability, adaptive behavior, or communication that children exhibit. Because envisioned educational aims have significant consequences for how educational practices, pedagogy, and curricula are conceptualized, the failure to acknowledge and embrace differences in ability leaves open the question of the extent to which students with intellectual disabilities are subject to the same aims as their “typically-developing” peers. In articulating and defending valued aims of education, educational philosophers tacitly or expressly concede that particular aims will be ill suited to many children with intellectual disabilities, and that separate aims will therefore apply to them. This paper evaluates the philosophical reasoning behind this conclusion that some people, by necessity, must be governed by separate educational aims, to be decided separately and secondarily. The author calls this the “deferral stance.” First, the paper outlines concerns about a particular ability-biased social and epistemic context in which theorizing about educational aims takes place. The author then examines assumptions that underpin the logic of deferral, arguing that the logic proves flawed when subjected to conceptual and empirical scrutiny. The paper concludes by outlining an inclusive approach—the affirmative stance—to theorizing about educational aims that resists the logic of exclusion and deferral.     

More than 50% or Less than 70% Chance: Pragmatic Implications of Single‐Bound Probability Estimates

Probability estimates can be given as ranges or uncertainty intervals, where often only one of the interval bounds (lower or upper) is specified. For instance, a climate forecast can describe La Niña as having “more than 70% chance” or “less than 90% chance” of occurring. In three experiments, we studied how research participants perceived climate‐related forecasts expressed with lower‐bound (“over X% chance”) or upper‐bound (“under Y% chance”) probability statements. Results indicate that such single‐bound statements give pragmatic information in addition to the numeric probabilities they convey. First, the studies show that these statements are directional, leading the listeners' attention in opposite directions. “Over” statements guide attention towards the possible occurrence of the event and are explained by reasons for why it might happen, while “under” statements direct attention to its possible non‐occurrence and are more often explained by reasons for why the target event might not appear, corresponding to positive (it is possible) versus negative (it is uncertain) verbal probabilities. Second, boundaries were found to reveal the forecaster's beliefs and could be perceived as indicative of an increasing or a decreasing trend. Single‐bound probability estimates are therefore not neutral communications of probability level but might “leak” information about the speaker's expectations and about past and future developments of the forecast. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Beyond the Schools of Psychology 2: A Digital Analysis of Psychological Review, 1904–1923

In order to better understand the broader trends and points of contention in early American psychology, it is conventional to organize the relevant material in terms of “schools” of psychology—structuralism, functionalism, etc. Although not without value, this scheme marginalizes many otherwise significant figures, and tends to exclude a large number of secondary, but interesting, individuals. In an effort to address these problems, we grouped all the articles that appeared in the second and third decades of Psychological Review into five‐year blocks, and then cluster analyzed each block by the articles’ verbal similarity to each other. This resulted in a number of significant intellectual “genres” of psychology that are ignored by the usual “schools” taxonomy. It also made “visible” a number of figures who are typically downplayed or ignored in conventional histories of the discipline, and it provide us with an intellectual context in which to understand their contributions.     

The development of the “participant observation” method in sociology: Origin myth and history

Common understandings about the ancestry of “participant observation” as now defined are historically misleading. In the prewar texts taken as ancestors, access to meanings was not associated with participation per se, and where participation was used data might be quantified and were not distinguished from data from other sources; the term “participant observation” was not widely current, and only gradually developed its present meanings. Methods are defined in relation to the perceived alternatives, and it was only in the 1940s that the current set of alternatives emerged. To understand earlier writers' conceptions, their work must be related to its context.     

The Reflective Scribe: Encouraging Critical Self-Reflection and Professional Development in Pre-Health Education

Much has been said about the formative process that occurs via the “hidden curriculum” of medical education during which many students experience a disconnect between the professional values espoused within the formal curriculum and the implicit values communicated through interactions with peers and mentors. Less attention, however, has been paid to the formation of the future medical self that takes place during students’ premedical years, a time in which many undergraduate students seek out immersive clinical experiences —such as medical scribing— before applying to medical school. Despite the fact that medical scribes undoubtedly are affected by their clinical experiences, scribes are rarely offered opportunities to reflect on them. The authors contend that the developmental processes of medical scribes, especially those who intend on pursuing a career in the health professions, ought to be supported. This can be achieved, at least in part, through engaging in well-designed reflective sessions with other scribes. Encouraging students to reflect on their experiences can help them make sense of troubling events and give voice to the inconsistencies and value conflicts within medical practice that are so often ignored. The authors describe the development of their new Reflective Scribe program and offer suggestions for future directions.     

Question Design Affects Students' Sense-Making on Mathematics Word Problems

Mathematics word problems provide students with an opportunity to apply what they are learning in their mathematics classes to the world around them. However, students often neglect their knowledge of the world and provide nonsensical responses (e.g., they may answer that a school needs 12.5 buses for a field trip). This study examined if the question design of word problems affects students' mindset in ways that affect subsequent sense-making. The hypothesis was that rewriting standard word problems to introduce inherent uncertainty about the result would be beneficial to student performance and sense-making because it requires students to reason explicitly about the context described in the problem. Middle school students (N = 229) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In the standard textbook condition, students solved a set of six word problems taken from current textbooks. In the modified yes/no condition, students solved the same six problems rewritten so the solution helped answer a “yes” or “no” question. In the disfluency control condition, students solved the standard problems each rewritten in a variety of fonts to make them look unusual. After solving the six problems in their assigned condition, all students solved the same three “problematic” problems designed to assess sense-making. Contrary to predictions, results showed that students in the modified yes/no condition solved the fewest problems correctly in their assigned condition problem set. However, consistent with predictions, they subsequently demonstrated more sense-making on the three problematic problems. Results suggest that standard textbook word problems may be able to be rewritten in ways that mitigate a “senseless” mindset.     

研究生对导师负面评价的恐惧与师徒文化内隐观的关系

本研究旨在探索“怕导师”现象的文化原因,从师徒关系内隐观分析“怕导师”的影响因素。采用问卷调查和启动实验的研究方法,结果表明：（1）“怕导师”现象是存在的,即研究生害怕来自导师的负面评价。相比女性导师,研究生更害怕男性导师;导师的职称会影响研究生的害怕程度,当导师是教授时,研究生更为害怕。（2）研究生的师徒关系内隐观与其负面评价恐惧有关,越具有“学从师教”观念的人越害怕来自导师的负面评价。（3）“学从师教”文化观的启动会影响研究生对导师负面评价的恐惧程度。     

Disruption,dialogue, and swerve: Reflective structured dialogue in religious studies classrooms

This article focuses on Reflective Structured Dialogue as a set of practices developed in the context of conflict resolution that are well suited to handling quotidian uneasiness and extraordinary moments of disruption in religious studies classrooms. After introducing Reflective Structured Dialogue's history, goals, and general practices, the authors consider its uses in classroom settings. They argue that a classroom in which teachers understand themselves as facilitators, and in which students are experienced in structured dialogue practices – including being comfortable in a state of intellectual “wobble” – is one more apt to be able to engage with, and more likely to benefit from, disruptive events.     

Vocational Choices in College

Our society presses unreasonably on students to “know” what they want to do vocationally. The pressure is unreasonable, especially when applied to high school seniors and college freshmen, because most of them have not yet learned enough about themselves or about occupations to be able to make a first, satisfying choice. And especially they have not learned enough about the nature of their limitations in college-level work. As a result, many students commit themselves to vocational choices prematurely and then perceive the experience as a “failure.” Students should be encouraged to consider any early decision as tentative, a choice to be tested, confirmed, or disconfirmed. They should be relieved of pressure to “know” what they want to do, and helped to see their task as one of confirming or discovering what they want to do by way of a process of exploration, experimentation, and personal development that may go on through their lifetime.     

Promoting Freedom,Responsibility, and Learning in the Classroom: The Learning Covenant a Decade Later

Abstract. This essay discusses an approach to teaching religious studies in a general education or core curriculum that I have experimented with for the last decade, which I call the “Learning Covenant.” The Learning Covenant brings together various pedagogical theories, including transformational, experiential, contract, and cooperative learning, in an attempt to address diverse learning styles, multiple intelligences, and student learning assessment. It has advantages over more traditional teacher‐directed approaches to teaching, including meeting student resistance to “required” courses head‐on by inviting them to identify learning needs regardless of chosen vocation and meeting them in the context of a religious studies course, recognizing the multiple ways in which students learn and providing a variety of opportunities for students to express their learning, and allowing students opportunity to take increased responsibility for their own learning. The essay will focus on the Learning Covenant's development, components, strengths, and drawbacks.     

Caring for students: Pedagogy and professionalism in an age of anxiety

University teachers are strongly motivated by the care they feel for their students. Yet today, many are frustrated. On the one hand, it is becoming harder to teach well, as more diverse student populations, new media, and new educational priorities challenge conventional pedagogical postures and styles. On the other hand, teachers are wary of calls for greater pedagogical professionalism in an increasingly managed and de-motivating professional environment. This essay examines two movements in the United States that attempt to sustain teachers' motivation by rethinking what caring for students requires them to do. The first, a call for a “scholarship of teaching and learning,” directs the professor's attention outward, towards inquiry into their students' learning; the second directs attention inwards, encouraging exploration of “the inner landscape of a teacher's life.” While both movements oppose a narrow view of pedagogy as simply technique, they address the challenge of caring for students in different ways and point to resolutions that appear to have different potential to alter the teaching environment itself. These tensions around teaching inscribe in higher education wider debates about the value of the professions, the nature of expert practice, and how to recover and ensure professionals' capacity for care.     

Beyond stigma: Understanding the “inclined abstainers” in military behavioral health-care utilization

ABSTRACT

Low treatment utilization in Soldiers with combat-related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an ongoing issue. The critical concern is to better understand factors which prohibit a Soldier with PTSD who wants help from seeking treatment (an “inclined abstainer”). A total of 537 Active Duty Soldiers on a US Army post completed a brief survey comprising psychometrically validated measures of stigma, behavioral health treatment beliefs, resilience, PTSD symptoms, and treatment intentions. Health-care records were prospectively tracked for 12 months to determine the relation between survey answers and treatment utilization. Sixty-three percent of those who acknowledged having a mental health-related problem did not seek help within a one-year period. Greater severity of PTSD symptoms was associated with an increased likelihood of behavioral health engagement. Soldiers that were classified as “inclined abstainers” were also more likely to endorse negative beliefs about psychotherapy and report higher levels of resilience as compared to “inclined actors.” These results suggest that a treatment model of PTSD emphasizing self-efficacy and self-reliance, while addressing negative beliefs about psychotherapy, may help promote engagement of behavioral health services among Active Duty Soldiers.     

No Postmaterialists in Foxholes: Postmaterialist Values,Nationalism, and National Threat in the People's Republic of China

In this article, I present findings from a survey experiment in which Chinese university students exposed to a treatment designed to increase feelings of national threat were—based on their responses to the four‐item postmaterialism values‐priority battery—significantly more likely to be classified as “pure materialists.” These findings are presented in support of the proposition that perception of a hostile international environment may tend to exaggerate citizens' authoritarian and nationalistic sentiments at the expense of more democratically favorable value orientations. Media and political figures in the West who rail against the evils of China's authoritarian leadership might believe that they are championing and encouraging democratic aspirations among the Chinese people, but might instead be inciting impulses and attitudes that are far less “democracy‐friendly.”     

How the “Northern Irish” National Identity Is Understood and Used by Young People and Politicians

The conventional understanding of the nation within social psychology is as a category of people or “imagined community.” However, work within the discursive tradition shows that citizens tend to discuss nationhood in a variety of modes, including the use of nonhuman categories such as references to the physical landscape of the country. This article aims to give a more comprehensive overview of how young people understand the Northern Irish identity, a new and potentially inclusive national category in a divided society, and how politicians articulate it in rhetoric. In Study 1, students (N = 286) discussed this identity in 44 peer‐led focus groups. Thematic analysis of their discussions shows four distinct ways in which it is constructed: as a distinctive people, as an identity claim, as a “hot” political project, and as a “cold” or banal indicator of place. In Study 2, Members of the Legislative Assembly at Stormont (N = 49) responded to open‐ended questions about the Northern Irish identity. Each of the parties used different conceptualizations for rhetorical effect. These results give a deeper understanding of the multifaceted nature of national identity and its ability to promote political agendas.     

“I am NN”: A Reconstruction of Anscombe's “The First Person”

This paper develops a way of understanding G. E. M. Anscombe's essay “The First Person” at the heart of which are the following two ideas: first, that the point of her essay is to show that it is not possible for anyone to understand what they express with “I” as an Art des Gegebenseins—a way of thinking of an object that constitutes identifying knowledge of which object is being thought of; and second, that the argument through which her essay seeks to show this is itself first personal in character. Understanding Anscombe's essay in this light has the merit of showing much of what it says to be correct. But it sets us the task of saying what it is that we understand ourselves to express with “I” if not an Art des Gegebenseins, and in particular what it is that we understand ourselves to express with sentences with “I” as subject that might seem to express identity judgments, such as “I am NN”, and “I am this body”.     

Positive Evaluations Expressed Through Original Stories: An Intervention to Promote Resilience in Japan1

This study aimed to design a program incorporating a narrative perspective that promotes resilience. A program was implemented that conveys an appreciation for the internal qualities of a familiar other person through the creation of a story about them. The experiment was conducted with 36 pairs of women; each pair had a “giver” and a “recipient.” The giver created a story that praised the “good points” of the recipient. There were significant increases in recipients' scores on measures of resilience, self-esteem, and sense of acceptance of the giver. Additionally, the use of a story can help expand the interpretative ability of receiving and expressing praise.