Student Teachers' Reflections of a Community Service Learning Experience

The study examined student teachers' reflections on being involved in a social responsibility project in a community setting. Participants were 71 beginning students in two sequential cohorts (cohort 1 = 34, cohort 2 = 37). Data on their community learning experience were gathered using focus group discussion and reflection journals. The data were thematically analyzed. The teacher education students engaged in focus group discussions junior students who joined the project in the 2007–2008 academic year (Cohort 1) and 37 junior students who joined the project in the 2008–2009 academic year (Cohort 2). Three themes were listed for students' reflections: entry into the teaching profession, constraints and barriers, and the school principal as a community leader. Results of the study revealed that student teachers had the opportunity to have their first-hand experience in a context that they had never encountered in the same way before.     

What is the Basis for Self-assessment of Comprehension when Reading Mathematical Expository Texts?

The purpose of this study was to characterize students’ self-assessments when reading mathematical texts, in particular regarding what students use as a basis for evaluations of their own reading comprehension. A total of 91 students read two mathematical texts, and for each text, they performed a self-assessment of their comprehension and completed a test of reading comprehension. Students’ self-assessments were to a lesser degree based on their comprehension of the specific text read but based more on prior experiences. However, the study also produced different results for different types of texts and for different components (or levels) of reading comprehension.     

Aha! experiences leave a mark: facilitated recall of insight solutions

The present study investigates a possible memory advantage for solutions that were reached through insightful problem solving. We hypothesized that insight solutions (with Aha! experience) would be remembered better than noninsight solutions (without Aha! experience). 34 video clips of magic tricks were presented to 50 participants as a novel problem-solving task, asking them to find out how the trick was achieved. Upon discovering the solution, participants had to indicate whether they had experienced insight during the solving process. After a delay of 14 days, a recall of solutions was conducted. Overall, 55 % of previously solved tricks were recalled correctly. Comparing insight and noninsight solutions, 64.4 % of all insight solutions were recalled correctly, whereas only 52.4 % of all noninsight solutions were recalled correctly. We interpret this finding as a facilitating effect of previous insight experiences on the recall of solutions.     

Intentional and Non-Intentional Assessments of Emotion Experiences: Comparisons of Old and New Measures

In two studies, we compared intentional and non-intentional measures of emotional well-being in terms of reliability and validity. In the first study, we expanded on the findings of ?im?ek (2011 ?im?ek, Ö. F. (2011). An Intentional Model of Emotional Well-Being: The Development and Initial Validation of a Measure of Subjective Well-Being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 12, 421–442. [Google Scholar]) by showing that an intentional measure of emotional well-being, namely the Emotional Well-Being Scale, accounted for unique variance in both negative and positive mental health indicators above and beyond the variance accounted for by Larsen and Diener's Scales (1992), which measures all dimensions of affect circumplex. The correlated traits-correlated uniqueness model results showed that the original-intentional version of the Emotional Well-Being Scale explained more variance in the measurement model than the non-intentional version. The second study showed that the results were similar for the intentional vs. non-intentional versions of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedules (Watson, Clark &; Tellegen, 1988 Watson, D., Clark, L. A., &; Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070. [Google Scholar]). The intentional version of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedules accounted for more variance in the criteria than the non-intentional version.     

The Effect of Temporal Distance on Attitudes toward Imprecise Probabilities and Imprecise Outcomes

Many personal, managerial, and societal decisions involve uncertain or ambiguous consequences that will occur in the future. Yet, previous empirical research on ambiguity preferences has focused mainly on decisions with immediate outcomes. To close this gap in the literature, this paper examines ambiguity attitudes toward future prospects, particularly how they may differ from the attitudes toward comparable prospects in the present. On the basis of a recent paradigm, we first distinguish between two types of ambiguity: imprecise probabilities and imprecise outcomes. Then, in accordance with construal level theory, which shows that temporal distance increases the relative importance of outcomes over probabilities in evaluating prospects, we conjecture that temporal distance would moderate attitudes toward imprecise probabilities but amplify attitudes toward imprecise outcomes. Through a series of experiments, we demonstrate that when the prospects are in the future, individuals are less averse toward imprecise probabilities and more seeking toward imprecise outcomes. However, the effect is most prominent for prospects where both the probability and outcome dimensions are concurrently imprecise. The paper ends with a discussion on how dimension salience may have contributed to this result. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exercise interventions and their effects on physical self-perceptions of male university students

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of 12-week exercise interventions on physical self-perceptions of male university students. The study also aimed to investigate the relationships between the changes in physical self-perceptions and the changes in some physiological measures after 12-week exercise programs. Forty-eight male university students aged from 19 to 25 years were enrolled in this study. Participants were randomly and equally assigned to swimming, running, cycling and control conditions. The Physical Self-Perception Profile was administered to all participants before and after 12-week exercise programs. Additionally, strength, maximal oxygen uptake (VO(2max)) and body compositions were assessed before and after interventions. Participants in the exercise groups attended swimming, running or cycling sessions for 40 min per day, 3 days per week with 60-70% of their heart rate reserves, while those in the control group did not attend any regular physical activity. The results of 4 × 2 × 5 MANOVA with the dimensions of physical self-perceptions as within-subject factor revealed that all groups including the control group revealed better physical-self-perceptions from pre- to post-test. Results of 4 × 2 × 3 MANOVA with physiological measures as within-subject factor revealed that VO(2max) values of participants in the swimming group improved more than the other groups. On the other hand, no significant differences were observed in strength scores and body fat levels among groups. Furthermore, no significant associations were obtained between the changes in physical self-perception dimensions and the physiological measures.     

The neural basis of updating: Distinguishing substitution processes from other concurrent processes

Sörqvist, P. & Sætrevik, B. (2010). The neural basis of updating: Distinguishing substitution processes from other concurrent processes. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 357–362. Most previous studies of updating processes have not been able to contrast processes of substituting items in memory with other concurrent processes. In the present investigation, we used a new task called “number updating” and an fMRI protocol to contrast the activation of trials that require item substitution (adding a new item to the working memory representation and suppressing an old item) with trials that involve no substitution (discarding the new item). Trials that require item substitution activated the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the posterior medial frontal cortex and the parietal lobes, areas typically seen activated for working memory tasks in general. Trials that do not require substitution activated the anterior medial frontal cortex. Studies examining executive functions have associated this area with cognitive conflict, and may represent suppression of the substitution processes.     

Professional and non-professional drivers’ stress reactions and risky driving

The aim of the present study was to investigate stress reactions, speeding, number of penalties and accident involvement among different driver groups (taxi drivers, minibus drivers, heavy vehicle drivers, and non-professional drivers). A total number of 234 male drivers participated in the study. The participants were asked to complete the Driver Stress Inventory (DSI) together with a demographic information form. Five dimensions of the DSI were measured; aggression, dislike of driving, hazard monitoring, fatigue proneness, and thrill-seeking. After controlling the effects of age and annual mileage, the results of the ANCOVAs revealed differences between different driver groups in terms of both risky driving behaviours and stress reactions in traffic. Regression analyses indicated that aggression, dislike of driving, and hazard monitoring dimensions of the DSI were related to accident involvement after controlling for the effects of age, annual mileage and driver group. Dislike of driving and thrill-seeking dimensions of the DSI were related to speeding on in-city roads.