Equipping the Equippers: The Pedagogical and Programmatic Implications of The Christians' Callings in the World Project

When five theological schools realized (a) their graduates affirmed vocation as central to their theology and practice, yet (b) the parishioners of their graduates nevertheless did not feel called, they knew they had to do something. For six years, faculty teams from these schools conducted a variety of experiments in pedagogy, curriculum reform, and program development in order to train their graduates to equip all of God's people to claim and live their vocational identity in the world. This article introduces the identified challenge and necessary theological and pedagogical shift and then describes five of those experiments in greater detail.     

Tracing children's vocabulary development from preschool through the school‐age years: an 8‐year longitudinal study

In this 8‐year longitudinal study, we traced the vocabulary growth of Chinese children, explored potential precursors of vocabulary knowledge, and investigated how vocabulary growth predicted future reading skills. Two hundred and sixty‐four (264) native Chinese children from Beijing were measured on a variety of reading and language tasks over 8 years. Between the ages of 4 to 10 years, they were administered tasks of vocabulary and related cognitive skills. At age 11, comprehensive reading skills, including character recognition, reading fluency, and reading comprehension were examined. Individual differences in vocabulary developmental profiles were estimated using the intercept‐slope cluster method. Vocabulary development was then examined in relation to later reading outcomes. Three subgroups of lexical growth were classified, namely high‐high (with a large initial vocabulary size and a fast growth rate), low‐high (with a small initial vocabulary size and a fast growth rate) and low‐low (with a small initial vocabulary size and a slow growth rate) groups. Low‐high and low‐low groups were distinguishable mostly through phonological skills, morphological skills and other reading‐related cognitive skills. Childhood vocabulary development (using intercept and slope) explained subsequent reading skills. Findings suggest that language‐related and reading‐related cognitive skills differ among groups with different developmental trajectories of vocabulary, and the initial size and growth rate of vocabulary may be two predictors for later reading development.     

Customer's perceived value of waiting time for service events

The authors address the effects of money gain and loss on individually perceived value as predicted by prospect theory in a time gain‐and‐loss context. Three experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 results support the prospect theory concept of value function. According to Experiment 2 results, the amount of money involved exerted different impacts on individual perceptions—specifically, study participants preferred gaining $1 on one occasion to gaining 50 cents over two occasions and preferred losing $1 one time to losing 50 cents twice. Further, the combined results indicate that the study participants held different perceptions of the value of “short time” versus “little money”—that is, they preferred saving an extra 2 minutes on one occasion to saving 1 minute on two occasions and preferred waiting an extra 1 minute two times to waiting an extra 2 minutes one time. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of affective and cognitive elaborations from Facebook posts on consumer attitude formation

This research investigates the effects of affect and cognition in consumers' information processing of branded content on Facebook pages. A model was suggested to delve into the elaboration process leading to consumer attitude formation. A 2 (purchase‐decision involvement: low versus high) × 2 (product categories: hedonic versus utilitarian) × 2 (sources of Facebook posts: brand posts versus consumer posts) between‐subjects experiment was conducted online. The validated model demonstrates the main effects that affective elaboration significantly supersedes cognitive elaboration in forming attitudes toward the posts and attitudes toward the brand. Post hoc analyses show further evidence of the interaction effects that affective elaboration is the dominant influencer when consumers process brand‐related information in Facebook posts across situations. Theoretical implications for future research and managerial suggestions for social media marketing are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is a Finite Life Such a Bad Idea? Transhumanism and Theological Anthropology

Creaturely life is finite life. Transhumanism suggests that human life will be better and even fulfilled in a new way, if humans can overcome some of the finite conditions now given. I argue that there are theological, ethical, and biological points to be taken into consideration that may challenge the transhuman vision of a good life. The finite conditions of human life are what makes human life human, and these conditions are also part of why the deeper meaning of human life is realized in love for others, and not in the quest for making one's own life go on (almost) endlessly. In addition to looking at some material from popular culture and the philosopher Hans Jonas, the article also draws on recent discussions on transhumanism present in contemporary theology.     

Grooming and cultural socialization: A mixed method study of caregiving practices in Burma (Myanmar) and the United States

Grooming behaviours are thought to be a crucial aspect of parenting and integral to the sociality of non‐human mammals, but there have been few empirical studies on how grooming might be relevant to parenting and socialization processes in humans. Study 1 is a quantitative cross‐cultural comparison of grooming practices in two cultural settings: an urban centre in Burma (Myanmar) and an urban centre in the United States. The study uses naturalistic video data of 57 families to analyse grooming behaviours directed at children. A broad range of ages was sampled in each culture to examine the developmental trajectory of grooming behaviours. Results indicate that significant cultural differences exist between Burma and the United States, with Burmese children being groomed by their caregivers more often than U.S. children. Results also indicate that cultural differences in grooming practices begin early and remain constant across age. An unexpected finding was that Burmese families were more variable in their behaviour than U.S. families. Study 2 attempts to explain this variability by using ethnography to describe how sociodemographic changes in Burma are leading to changes in parental values and socialization practices in the schools, but how embodied primary care in the homes appear resistant to change.