Navigating Middle Grades: Role of Social Contexts in Middle Grade School Climate

During early adolescence, most public school students undergo school transitions, and many students experience declines in academic performance and social-emotional well-being. Theories and empirical research have highlighted the importance of supportive school environments in promoting positive youth development during this period of transition. Despite this, little is known about the proximal social and developmental contexts of the range of middle grade public schools US students attend. Using a cross-sectional dataset from the eighth grade wave of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Cohort 1998–1999, the current study examines the middle grade school social context from the perspectives of administrators and teachers in public schools with typical grade configurations (k–8 schools, middle schools, and junior high schools) and how it relates to students’ perceptions of school climate. We find that administrators and teachers in k–8 schools perceive a more positive school social context, controlling for school structural and demographic characteristics. This school social context, in turn, is associated with students’ perceptions of their schools’ social and academic climate. Implications for educational policy and practice are discussed.     

Fostering Creativity Through Educational Video Game Development Projects: A Study of Contextual and Task Characteristics

The increasing demand for creative individuals in the labor market requires well-prepared professionals, capable of enhancing competitiveness through new ideas and innovative actions. Educational programs should, therefore, rely on approaches and learning environments that foster creativity. In this study, video game development projects were used as an approach to foster creativity in educational contexts. Conceptual frameworks focused on contextual creativity enablers indicate that specific environment and task characteristics can facilitate the development and expression of creativity. This study explored the extent to which students perceived that educational game development projects mimicking real-world dynamics recreated contextual conditions appropriate to foster creativity, and whether they associated these conditions with their self-perceived creativity improvement. Questionnaires were administered to 38 students enrolled in 2 educational game development programs. Findings suggest that video game development creates a remarkable setting to promote and facilitate the expression and development of students' creativity, due to characteristics of the task and of the work environment generated by this activity.     

fNIRS在自闭症脑功能研究中的应用与展望

社会交往能力是人类生存的基本技能。社交能力的缺失会导致严重的行为障碍和精神疾病,如自闭症。由于自闭症儿童的特殊性,绝大多数的自闭症脑成像研究多集中在年龄较大的高功能自闭症儿童在静息态或简单的任务态下的脑激活模式或功能连接状态。自闭症的核心症状—社会交往障碍和语言交流障碍却较少有研究触及。近年来,近红外光学脑功能成像技术的发展为我们在真实的交流和互动中研究自闭症儿童的神经病理机制提供了新的工具和机遇。     

The impact of accountability on teachers’ assessments of student performance: a social cognitive analysis

Research on teachers’ judgments of student performance has demonstrated that educational assessments may be biased or may more correctly take the achievements of students into account depending on teachers’ motivations while making the judgment. Building on research on social judgment formation the present investigation examined whether the accountability of teachers has an influence on judgment formation. We predicted that unaccountable teachers would activate social categories and use them for the assessment, whereas accountable teachers’ attention would be directed to individual attributes of students. Using secondary school teachers as participants, three studies investigating teachers’ assessments, inferences and memory for students’ attributes supported these hypotheses. Thus, accountability appears to be a moderator of social information processing and judgment formation in the domain of educational assessments.     

Development,Acceptability, and Effectiveness of an Acceptance-Based Behavioral Stress/Anxiety Management Workshop for University Students

College is a critical time in which individuals experience transition and stress, and may experience subthreshold or clinical symptoms of anxiety and depression. In addition, educational contexts offer a unique opportunity to serve the needs of a diverse group of students who may experience additional stressors related to experiences with discrimination; acculturative stress; financial strain; and balancing family, work, and school demands. Therefore, college appears to be an ideal time for students to learn about evidence-based skills to use in response to anxiety and depression.However, there are multiple barriers that may make it less likely that evidence-based skills and services are available to or utilized by students, including lack of funding and services available on campus, as well as concerns about mental health stigma. This study examines the preliminary acceptability and effectiveness of an acceptance-based behavioral stress/anxiety management workshop for university students on a diverse urban campus. Results indicate that participants found the workshop to be acceptable and helpful. Mixed-effect regression models examining symptom and impairment measures at preworkshop, 1-week follow-up, and 4-week follow-up showed a significant effect for time on anxious arousal, general anxiety symptoms, and social anxiety, but no significant effect for time on impairment. Implications and future directions for mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches in educational contexts are discussed.     

Teacher commitment: a comparative study of Malaysian ethnic groups in three types of primary schools

Commitment is a complex attitude that is potentially influenced by the nature of the groups and is contingent on the context in which an individual functions. Thus, different sociocultural environments will prescribe different imperatives for individuals’ or groups’ attitudes toward their work, particularly teachers’ commitment in a multi-ethnic educational setting. However, previous teacher commitment studies have predominantly been applied to single-sample studies in a multiracial Malaysian context. Therefore, this study attempts to compare the teacher commitment levels and the four dimensions of teacher commitment across Malay, Chinese and Indian teachers who are the dominant ethnicities in three different types of Malaysian primary schools. Questionnaires were administered to 1,154 primary school teachers in Penang, and the obtained data were analysed using AMOS 20.0 and SPSS 20.0. The findings revealed nonsignificant differences for commitment to school, commitment to students, commitment to teaching and commitment to profession for any pair of ethnic groups. Limitations and suggestions for future studies are discussed.     

Social contexts: transcending their power and their fragility

For more than four decades, my colleagues and I have examined how social contexts and individuals influence each other. To provide a perspective on this work, I describe some lessons we have learned: situational influence exemplifies both the power and fragility of social contexts; common aspects of settings underlie their power, for better and for worse; individuals' health and well-being is affected by powerful forces in eight domains; and intervention programs are powerful settings that encompass risks as well as rewards. I then note some unresolved questions, such as how to balance the risks and rewards of powerful environments, how to better understand the interplay between individuals and the social contexts they select and create, how to learn from the fact that many people overcome the power of traumatic social contexts, and how to apply our knowledge to balance the risks and rewards of individual and community contexts.     

Creative Justice? The Relationship between Prospective Teachers' Prior Schooling Experiences and Perceived Importance of Promoting Student Creativity

Prospective teachers (N = 117) enrolled in an introductory educational psychology course completed questions measuring their perceptions of past schooling experiences, current views regarding the importance of promoting student creativity, and their perceived ability to promote creativity. Statistically significant differences were found between the low importance and high importance groups. Prospective teachers who viewed promoting creativity of students as highly important were significantly less likely to indicate that they enjoyed school. In addition, prospective teachers in the high importance group indicated significantly lower levels of experiencing belongingness (relatedness) and significantly lower self‐judgments of their past ability to be successful in school (competence). Judgments regarding the choices afforded in school (autonomy) were mixed, but favored prospective teachers who placed less importance on promoting student creativity. Finally, prospective teachers who viewed promoting student creativity as highly important were significantly more likely to indicate that they had the ability to promote student creativity. A creative‐justice hypothesis was derived from these results. This hypothesis posits that individuals committed to promoting creativity are driven by their own past experiences with creativity diminishing environments. These individuals then seek out opportunities to transform the experiences of new inhabitants in similar environments.     

初中生人际交往能力、学业成绩及其发展背景系统间的关系

摘 要 采用问卷法调查586名初中生,探讨其人际交往能力、学业水平及发展背景系统的互动关系模式。研究发现初二学生的人际交往能力表现最为突出,女生更善于处理人际问题。高人际交往能力学生的学业成绩明显优于低人际交往能力学生。良好的父母教养方式能有效促进学生的人际交往能力,该能力有助于积极师生关系和同伴关系的发展。人际交往能力受家庭教养背景系统的直接影响,并作用于学校人际背景系统,两大系统以直接或间接的方式影响学业成绩。     

Uncertainty regulation across cultures: An exploration of individual differences in Chinese and Canadian children in the classroom

This research investigates whether individual differences in uncertainty orientation affect classroom behavior for Chinese and Canadian children. Uncertainty orientation distinguishes between uncertainty-oriented individuals, or those who attempt to attain clarity by finding out for themselves, and certainty-oriented individuals, or those who attempt to maintain clarity by adhering to predictable environments. Although uncertainty orientation is considered an informational variable, uncertainty-oriented children in both countries had higher self-ratings, ratings by other students and ratings by their teachers than certainty-oriented children on a variety of social and achievement behaviours. These results suggest that encouraging a discovery learning style of uncertainty regulation in “UO-centric” cultures may be beneficial.     

中德中学教师创造力内隐观跨文化研究

采用形容词核查表对465位中德两国中学教师关于创造性学生核心特征的内隐观特点进行考察,探讨其是否具有领域特殊性。得到以下结论:中德教师创造力内隐观既存在所有社会人共享的普遍核心特征,也存在自身领域的独特性。中国教师更倾向于将集体主义、幽默感、符合道德成分的“合作性”看作是创造性学生的特征,而德国教师更倾向于将艺术性、个人主义看作是创造性学生的特征。     

Linking Teacher Instruction and Student Achievement in Mathematics: The Role of Teacher Language

Although high-quality early educational environments are thought to be related to the growth of children’s skills in mathematics, relatively little is known about specific aspects of classroom instruction that may promote these abilities. Data from a longitudinal investigation were used to investigate associations between teachers’ language while teaching mathematics and their students’ growth in mathematical skill during the 2nd grade. Specifically, the extent to which mathematics lessons included cognitive-processing language (CPL)—instruction that is rich in references to cognitive processes, metacognition, and requests for remembering—was related to changes in students’ math achievement. Demonstrating the role of the language of instruction, the findings indicated that children whose 2nd-grade teachers included greater amounts of CPL during instruction evidenced greater growth in math fluency and calculation than did their peers whose teachers employed lower levels of CPL.     

学校教育资源对学生数学素养预测效应的跨文化比较

采用国际学生评价项目PISA2006的数据,使用多水平线性模型方法,比较中国香港、日本、芬兰和美国四个国家（地区）的学校教育资源与学生数学素养成绩的关系。结果发现,在控制学生背景变量的情况下,学校教育资源对学生数学素养成绩的影响在四个国家（地区）之间存在一定的文化差异：学校大小、生师比对中国香港学生数学素养成绩有显著的正向预测作用;学校大小、班级大小、学校类型、有硕士研究生学历的教师比例对日本学生数学素养成绩有显著的正向预测作用,用于教学的计算机比例对日本学生数学素养成绩有显著的反向预测作用;学校教育资源对芬兰学生数学素养成绩没有显著的预测作用;学校类型对美国学生数学素养成绩具有显著的反向预测作用。     

Social Orientation of Students in the Israeli State High School System

In this study, we focused on the relationship between schools differing in their ideologies, beliefs, and environments and students' social orientations. Three research instruments, each examining different social orientations, were administered to 331 11th-grade students attending a random sample of national-religious and national-secular high schools in the Israeli state educational system. The results indicated that students in the national-religious sector had a more conservative social orientations profile than national-secular sector students, who tended to have more liberal and optimistic social orientations.     

Simple mechanisms for gathering social information

Social contexts are notoriously complex, yet decisions are nevertheless made by using simple strategies. We argue that the concept of fast and frugal heuristics provides a promising framework for understanding how we gather social information to make decisions in social environments. That is, we assume that under limitations of time, energy, and computational resources people use cognitively based shortcuts that rely on information from social environments to solve different types of real problems. We review three successful applications of heuristics to the social arena. We first introduce some commonly faced social inference problems (e.g., selecting a mate or deciding whether to cooperate with someone) and then discuss how individuals can use simple strategies to solve such problems. For each problem, we consider how social environments are structured, and how we take advantage of this structure when using heuristics to make inferences and decisions.     

Teachers’ attitudes towards students with high- and low-educated parents

Educational inequalities may be derived from differential teacher expectations toward students from different backgrounds. Such expectations may be associated with stereotypical beliefs and attitudes, which guide behavior and judgments. Although ample research is available concerning differential teacher attitudes based on student ethnicity, few studies have considered the effect of the educational level of the parents. The aim of the current study was to investigate teachers’ implicit and explicit attitudes toward students with differentially educated parents. Implicit attitudes were measured using an implicit association task (IAT). The first name of the student was used as a proxy for the educational level of parents, whereby we created separate versions for boys and girls. Participants were randomly divided in two groups, whereby the first group completed the IAT-boys version and the other group the IAT-girls version. Explicit attitudes were measured using a questionnaire. Participants indicated positive implicit attitudes toward students with highly educated parents, independent of the gender of the student. Teachers did not express differential explicit beliefs regarding the learning and social behaviors of students based on the educational level of the parents, and their expectations concerning the motivation and ambitions or educational chances of these students were neutral. The dissociation between implicit and explicit attitudes may be an indication of the social sensitivity of the relationship between students’ social background and educational achievements and opportunities. Especially implicit attitudes may account for differences in teacher behaviors toward different groups of students and in turn their educational opportunities, and could therefore partly account for consistent findings of educational inequalities based on the social status of families.     

Social class and wellbeing among staff and students in higher education settings: Mapping the problem and exploring underlying mechanisms

Within Higher Education (HE), staff and students from lower social class backgrounds often experience poorer wellbeing than their higher social class counterparts. Previous research conducted outside educational contexts has linked social class differences in wellbeing with differences in the extent to which low and high social class individuals feel respected (i.e., status), in control (i.e., autonomy), and connected with others (i.e., inclusion). However, to our knowledge, there has been no research that has investigated these psychosocial needs within HE settings. Furthermore, inclusion, status and autonomy are correlated, yet little is known about how these psychosocial needs contribute to wellbeing simultaneously, and independently, of one another. To fill these gaps, we report the results of two studies; firstly with HE students (Study 1; N = 305), and secondly with HE staff (Study 2; N = 261). Consistently across studies, reports of poor wellbeing were relatively common and more than twice as prevalent amongst lower social class staff and students compared to higher social class staff and students. Inclusion, status and autonomy each made a unique contribution and accounted for the relationship between social class and wellbeing (fully amongst students, and partially amongst staff members). These relationships held across various operationalizations of social class and when examining a range of facets of wellbeing. Social class along with inclusion, status and autonomy explained a substantial 40% of the variance in wellbeing. The present research contributes to the literature exploring how social class intersects with psychosocial needs to impact the wellbeing of staff and students within HE.