Research Ethics Education in the STEM Disciplines: The Promises and Challenges of a Gaming Approach

While education in ethics and the responsible conduct of research (RCR) is widely acknowledged as an essential component of graduate education, particularly in the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and math), little consensus exists on how best to accomplish this goal. Recent years have witnessed a turn toward the use of games in this context. Drawing from two NSF-funded grants (one completed and one on-going), this paper takes a critical look at the use of games in ethics and RCR education. It does so by: (a) setting the development of research and engineering ethics games in wider historical and theoretical contexts, which highlights their promise to solve important pedagogical problems; (b) reporting on some initial results from our own efforts to develop a game; and (c) reflecting on the challenges that arise in using games for ethics education. In our discussion of the challenges, we draw out lessons to improve this nascent approach to ethics education in the STEM disciplines.     

Trauma exposure and life satisfaction among at-risk black South African adolescents

This study aimed to construct a model to explain trauma exposure and life satisfaction among black South African school learners. A random sample of 366 black adolescents selected from ten South African schools participated (females = 63.2%; rural = 24.2%; mean age = 13.9 years). The school learners were surveyed on trauma exposure, resources, coping and resilience, and life satisfaction. A structural equation modelling analysis indicated that interpersonal, intrapersonal and affective strengths, coping skills, family involvement, and school functioning were associated with increased resilience, which in turn predicted life satisfaction. Interventions aimed at increasing resilience in contexts characterised by high levels of trauma exposure should prioritise helping adolescents access both internal and external resources, such as coping skills and family involvement respectively.     

Group Peer Disagreement

A popular view in mainstream social epistemology maintains that, in the face of a revealed peer disagreement over p, neither party should remain just as confident vis‐a‐vis p as she initially was. This ‘conciliatory’ insight has been defended with regard to individual epistemic peers. However, to the extent that (non‐summativist) groups are candidates for group knowledge and beliefs, we should expect groups (no less than individuals) to be in the market for disagreements. The aim here will be to carve out and explore an extension of the conciliatory insight from individual peer disagreement to group peer disagreement; in doing so, I'll raise and address three key problems that face any plausible defence of such a constraint.     

A Republican Housewife: Marie‐Jeanne Phlipon Roland on Women's Political Role

In this paper I look at the philosophical (and sometimes personal) struggles of one eighteenth‐century woman writer to reconcile a desire and obvious capacity to participate in the creation of republican ideals and their applications on the one hand, and on the other a deeply held belief that women's role in a republic is confined to the domestic realm. I argue that Marie‐Jeanne Phlipon Roland's philosophical writings—three unpublished essays, published and unpublished letters, as well as parts of her memoirs—suggest that even though she adopted a Rousseau‐style rural republicanism that relies on complementarity of men and women's virtues, she somehow succeeds in proposing a less sexist picture of the republican family, one that makes it possible for men and women to take an equal part in family business and politics.     

Test of visuospatial construction: Validity evidence in extremely low birth weight and late preterm children at early school age

The Test of Visuospatial Construction (TVSC), a measure of visuoconstruction that does not rely on upper extremity motor response or written production, was administered to extremely low birth weight (ELBW), late preterm (LPT), and term participants at preschool (n = 355) and kindergarten (n = 265) ages. TVSC showed statistically significant weak-to-moderate positive correlations (age 3: r = .118–.303; age 6: r = .138–.348) with Developmental VMI, Differential Ability Scales-II Copying, Matrices, and Pattern Construction subtests, Baron-Hopkins Board Test, and the Purdue Pegboard. One-way ANOVA indicated ELBW performed worse than Term (p = .044) on visuospatial construction at age 3 with a small-to-medium effect size (d = ?0.43). No other statistically significant differences were found at age 3 on the TVSC (ELBW/LPT: p = .608, d = ?0.17; LPT/Term: p = .116, d = ?0.31). At age 6, ELBW participants performed worse than LPT participants (p = .027) and Term participants (p = .012); LPT participants did not differ from Term participants. Small effect sizes at age 3 (ELBW < LPT, d = ?0.17; ELBW < Term, d = ?0.43) were notably larger at age 6 (ELBW < LPT, d = ?0.42; ELBW < Term, d = ?0.53). Important practical differences showing LPT participants performed below Term participants (d = ?0.31) at age 3 were no longer evident at age 6 (d = ?0.097). These findings provide preliminary evidence of TVSC validity supporting its use to detect neuropsychological impairment and to recommend appropriate interventions in young preterm children.