Mentoring in-service chemistry teachers: acquirements as mentees

The aim of this study is to identify a group of chemistry teachers’ (mentees) acquirements of mentoring program by analyzing their reflective journals. Four mentees participated in this study and they met with their mentors once a week for eight consecutive weeks. The mentees devised lesson plans as well as activities during the mentoring sessions. After each mentoring session, the mentees were asked to reflect the process and their gains to their journals. The journals were analyzed in two stages; content analysis of the journals and the analysis of the mentees level of reflections. The analysis of the mentees’ journals showed that the mentorship program supported the mentees to improve their pedagogical content knowledge; allow them to utilize various methods, techniques, and materials in their lessons. Besides, the mentees indicated that they performed chemistry courses more effectively with the help of the acquirements from the mentoring sessions. The result of this study showed also that mentors can play key roles in supporting professional developments of teachers. It is suggested that rehearsing lesson plans before going into the classroom would make the mentoring sessions more beneficial.     

Examining Positive Performance Implications of Role Stressors by the Indirect Influence of Positive Affect: A Study of New Business Managers

This article examines whether managers' performance in new businesses improves when they are exposed to role stressors. In a 3‐year longitudinal survey, we drew on the challenge–hindrance framework and Karasek's (1979 ) job demand‐control model to acknowledge direct and interaction effects of role stressors (i.e., role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload) on positive affect. In addition to finding support for such influences, our results support that positive affect facilitates performance, thus suggesting that role stressors can be indirectly positive for performance. This study encourages research to go beyond the traditional stressor–strain perspective, to incorporate positive affect in role‐stress models, and pay more attention to interaction effects between role stressors.     

Women Assimilate Across Gender,Men Don't: The Role of Gender to the Own‐Anchor Effect in Age,Height, and Weight Estimates1

This paper reports 2 studies of the own‐anchor effect (i.e., assimilation in age, height, and weight estimates) in same‐ and cross‐gender age, height, and weight estimates. The own‐anchor effect is believed to be stronger for same‐gender estimates, but the investigation reported here is the first to test this hypothesis with participants and target persons of both genders. Several own‐anchor effects were found in females' same‐ and cross‐gender estimates, whereas males only showed own‐anchor effects in same‐gender estimates. These results lean toward the possibility that women assimilate across gender, whereas men do not. Explanations of these results with reference to Krueger's ( Krueger & Zeiger, 1993 ; Robbins & Krueger, 2005 ) theory of social projection and the consequences for witness reliability are discussed.     

Word fluency performance and strategies in children with cochlear implants: age‐dependent effects?

Löfkvist, U., Almkvist, O., Lyxell, B. & Tallberg, I.‐M. (2012). Word fluency performance and strategies in children with cochlear implants: age‐dependent effects? Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 467–474. Word fluency was examined in 73 Swedish children aged 6–9 years divided into two age groups, 6–7 and 8–9 years; 34 deaf children with cochlear implants (CI) (15 girls/19 boys) and 39 age‐matched children with normal hearing (NH) (20 girls/19 boys). One purpose was to compare the ability to retrieve words in two different word fluency tasks; one phonemically based (FAS letter fluency) and one semantically based (animal fluency). A second purpose was to examine retrieval strategies in the two tasks by conducting an analysis of clustering and switching of word sequences. In general we found that age was an important factor for word fluency ability, in both the CI and the NH groups. It was also demonstrated that children with CI aged 8–9 years retrieved significantly fewer words and used less efficient strategies in the retrieval process, especially on the phonemically based task compared to children with NH of the same ages, whereas children 6–7 years performed similarly in both groups regarding number of retrieved words and use of strategies. The results are discussed with respect to factors such as age differences in performance for children with CI, especially for the phonemically based task.     

The effects of cognitive behavior therapy delivered by students in a psychologist training program: an effectiveness study

Relatively little is known about the efficacy of clinically inexperienced student therapists carrying out cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) under supervision during a professional, psychologist training program. The current study evaluated this by collecting pre- and posttreatment data on 591 consecutive patients receiving treatment at the Psychotherapy Clinic of the Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden, over an 8-year period. The patients had mainly anxiety disorders or depression with a mean duration of 15 years, and received individual CBT for a mean of 18 sessions. They improved significantly on both general measures (Beck Anxiety Inventory [BAI], Beck Depression Inventory [BDI], and Quality of Life Inventory [QOLI]) and disorder-specific self-report scales. The proportions of recovered patients on the BAI (63%) and the BDI (60%) were higher than those of a comparison effectiveness study. On the specific self-report scales the current sample improved as much as the samples in extant efficacy trials. We conclude that clinically inexperienced student therapists who receive supervision from experienced supervisors can achieve treatment effects that are on a par with those of experienced licensed psychotherapists.     

Physical activity interventions in the school setting: A systematic review

Objectives

To review the effectiveness of school-based interventions with a physical activity component by measuring changes in psychological determinants, physical activity, and health outcomes.

Design

Systematic Review.

Method

We conducted a literature search of school-based controlled studies that involved a physical activity intervention targeting school students. Study design, methodological quality, and effectiveness of interventions on three target levels, ‘health and fitness’ (BMI and motor performance), ‘physical activity’, and ‘psychological determinants’ (knowledge of physical activity effects, self-concept, and attitudes towards physical activity), were analysed. Furthermore, we examined the influence of specific factors (e.g., age and gender) and mediator effects.

Results

The literature search identified 129 studies. The majority of the studies examining motor performance, physical activity, and knowledge of physical activity achieved significant results (69.7%, 56.8% and 87.5%, respectively). Significant effects on self-concept and attitudes were also found but to a smaller extent (in 30% and 43.8% of the studies, respectively). Only a few studies examining BMI (2.7%), physical activity (6.8%), and attitudes towards physical activity (12.5%) revealed negative effects, with better results observed for the control group. Intervention effects were influenced by the students’ age, intervention type, and frequency of the interventions. Self-efficacy was found to mediate the relationship between the program and the students’ physical activity.

Conclusions

Numerous school-based physical activity interventions achieved positive effects on three target levels. Further research is needed to clarify the mediator effects of psychological variables on physical activity and health and to increase our knowledge about the mechanisms that underlie behavioural change.     

Wie kann man in der Sozialtherapie Therapieerfolg feststellen oder messen?

The tradition of social therapeutic evaluation research in Germany is as old as the institution of social therapy itself. Social therapeutic facilities constitute the royal road to correctional treatment in the German prison system providing an integrated approach for offender treatment by means of psychotherapy (mainly cognitive-behavioral), vocational and job training, social work and leisure time therapy embedded in a therapeutic community. It was generally expected that evaluation research would prove the effectiveness of this method and generate results for the advancement of offender treatment. However, research results have yielded only moderate findings concerning the effects of social therapeutic interventions. This article considers how the outcome of social therapy and offender treatment is measured. Fundamental methodological challenges that evaluation research has to face are identified. In addition, a short overview of recent results from a longitudinal evaluation study is presented to substantiate the dilemmas and solutions of evaluation research in this field. It is discussed why it is so difficult to provide evidence for effectiveness of correctional treatment and concluded that this can by no means lead to a renunciation of the correctional treatment approach.     

Cyber victimization and adolescent self‐esteem: The role of communication with parents

Internet use has increased rapidly in recent years, and has inevitably led to some negative outcomes, notably cyber bullying and cyber victimization. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of cyber victimization and parent–adolescent communication on self‐esteem, and the moderating role of parent–adolescent communication in the relationship between cyber victimization and self‐esteem among Turkish adolescents. The participants were 337 adolescents with a mean age of 16.37, (SD = 0.89). The results of hierarchical regression analysis reveal that self‐esteem was predicted negatively by cyber victimization, but positively by mother–adolescent communication. Results also indicate the moderating roles of parent–adolescent communication in the links between cyber victimization and self‐esteem. The findings indicate a need to consider the parent–adolescent relationship while working with victimized youth, and the implications for research and practice are discussed.