Forum on seminary teaching and formation online

This Forum explores what the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) has been learning about formation in online contexts through the Educational Models and Practices project. Deborah Gin's opening essay briefly enumerates operating assumptions, several widespread misconceptions, and emerging recommended practices. G. Brooke Lester proposes a definition of formation as transformation towards community, which is grounded in constructivist learning theory. He then reflects on the possibilities for this kind of community through online learning environments. Barbara Blodgett's contribution draws on “transactional distance theory” to analyze how a variety of pedagogical techniques (both online and face to face) can work to either exacerbate or minimize the distance between learners, which is an important contributor to formation and community. The Forum originated as panel presentations at the November 2017 Society of Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion conferences.     

The pleasures of uncertainty: prolonging positive moods in ways people do not anticipate

The authors hypothesized that uncertainty following a positive event prolongs the pleasure it causes and that people are generally unaware of this effect of uncertainty. In 3 experimental settings, people experienced a positive event (e.g., received an unexpected gift of a dollar coin attached to an index card) under conditions of certainty or uncertainty (e.g., it was easy or difficult to make sense of the text on the card). As predicted, people's positive moods lasted longer in the uncertain conditions. The results were consistent with a pleasure paradox, whereby the cognitive processes used to make sense of positive events reduce the pleasure people obtain from them. Forecasters seemed unaware of this paradox; they overwhelmingly preferred to be in the certain conditions and tended to predict that they would be in better moods in these conditions.     

WARRANTED ASSERTIBILITY AND THE NORMS OF ASSERTORIC PRACTICE: WHY TRUTH AND WARRANTED ASSERTIBILITY ARE NOT COINCIDENT NORMS

Crispin Wright has argued that truth and warranted assertibility are coincident but non‐co‐extensive norms of assertoric practice and that this fact inflates deflationary theories of truth. Wright's inflationary argument has generated much discussion in the literature. By contrast, relatively little has been said about the coincidence claim that is the focus of this paper. Wright's argument for the claim that truth and warranted assertibility are coincident norms is first presented. It is then suggested that the argument trades on an ambiguity in ‘justified’ and ‘warrantedly assertible’. Finally, it is argued that, once the ambiguity is removed, there is reason to reject the claim that truth and epistemic warrant are coincident norms of assertoric practice. One important result is that no epistemic theory of truth can satisfy what Wright takes to be a key platitude about assertion.     

Challenges to Integrity in University Administration: Bad Faith and Loyal Agency

This paper addresses a small but important subset of the challenges to ethical behaviour that face senior university administrators in their daily work, namely, errors in moral judgment which arise from over-identification and loyalty to the institution. The domain and precipitating factors are not unique to universities but may be more intensely experienced due to two features of the traditional public and private not-for-profit university that are unique. These features include the historical nature and purpose of a university and the role of the university professor in the production and dissemination of knowledge.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Senior University Administrators Course, held in Banff, Alberta, June 15, 2004.     

The Decision to Test in Women Receiving Genetic Counseling for BRCA1 and BRCA2 Mutations

Functions of genetic counseling include provision of risk information and provision of support in an effort to assist with decision making. This study examines (1) the relationship among intentions to test, self-reported provision of blood sample, and receipt of test results; (2) the impact of genetic counseling on distress specific to gene status, perceived risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer in the context having BRCA1/2 mutations (mutations predisposing to increased risk of breast-ovarian cancer), and perceived risk factors for breast cancer; and (3) the clinical profile of those receiving/not receiving results. Intentions to test for BRCA1/2 mutations, self-reported provision of blood sample immediately after counseling, and receipt of test results were statistically different but highly correlated, and intentions to test increased from pre- to postcounseling. A repeated measures ANOVA found distress specific to gene status and perceived risk factors decreased from pre- to postcounseling. Further, two clinical profiles of consultands emerged: (1) those receiving results with change in intentions to test having lower levels of distress and (2) those not receiving results and those receiving results with no change in intentions to test with higher levels of distress. Our findings are consistent with the function of genetic counseling-to provide information and support to those with familial cancer, as well as to assist in decision making. The provision of support is important as distress specific to gene status may impede flexible decision making about genetic testing.     

Gender differences in anger and fear as a function of situational context

Gender differences in the reported intensity of anger and fear toward hypothetical males and females were explored in three age groups (6–12 year olds, 14–16 year olds, and adults over 30) located in two different geographic areas. The samples were primarily Caucasian and included a wide range of socioeconomic groups. Subjects reported on the intensity of feelings elicited by characters in an emotion story task in which three aspects of situational context were varied: the gender of the story characters eliciting the feeling (all situations), the stereotypic gender-typed or cross-gender behavior of the eliciting character (four situations), and the affective quality of the situations (four situations). Across all three age groups, situations that were frightening, anger-provoking, or that depicted stereotypic male-negative behavior elicited the most consistent subject gender and character gender differences in reported fear and anger. Relative to males, females of all ages reported more fear in frightening, anger-producing, and male-negative stereotypic situations. Males were reported to be more frightening and anger-producing than were females in those same situations. The data also suggested that with development, females reported less intense fear of females, while males reported less intense fear of males.This research was supported by a Gender Roles grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. We appreciate their support. We would also like to thank the public school systems of Milton, Norwood, and Watertown, Massachusetts, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Finally, we would like to thank Lance Davidow, John Houlihan, and Theodore Cross for statistical consultation and/or computer programming, as well as all the parents, children, and adolescents who participated in the study.     

Parenting Behavior and Cognitions in a Community Sample of Mothers with and without Symptoms of Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Although attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults has recently emerged as an important area of research, little attention has been given to the family functioning of women with ADHD, particularly in their role as mothers. We examined parenting self-esteem, locus of control, and disciplinary styles in a community sample of mothers with varying levels of ADHD symptoms. Women with high levels of ADHD symptoms reported more occupational and psychiatric problems than women with lower levels of ADHD symptoms. They also reported lower parenting self-esteem, a more external parenting locus of control, and less effective disciplinary styles. The findings suggest that women with ADHD symptoms may face a number of difficulties within the parenting domain.     

Academic Socialization Among Latino Families: Exploring the Compensatory Role of Cultural Processes

This study examines the relation of parent educational expectations, cultural socialization, and familism with academic adjustment among 150 Latino parent–adolescent dyads (81% Mexican origin; 79% were mothers). Adolescents (53% girls) responded to measures of school engagement, educational utility, parental educational expectations, cultural socialization, and familism. Results suggest that, after accounting for parents’ reported educational attainment, adolescents’ perceptions of academic and cultural socialization messages and their own endorsement of familism were uniquely related to school engagement; only parental educational expectations were uniquely related to beliefs about the utility of education. Cultural and academic socialization may thus complement each other.     

Children's memory for complex autobiographical events: Does spacing of repeated instances matter?

Often, when children testify in court they do so as victims of a repeated offence and must report details of an instance of the offence. One factor that may influence children's ability to succeed in this task concerns the temporal distance between presentations of the repeated event. Indeed, there is a substantial amount of literature on the “spacing effect” that suggests this may be the case. In the current research, we examined the effect of temporal spacing on memory reports for complex autobiographical events. Children participated in one or four play sessions presented at different intervals. Later, children were suggestively questioned, and then participated in a memory test. Superior recall of distributed events (a spacing effect) was found when the delay to test was 1?day (Experiment 1) but there was little evidence for a spacing effect when the delay was 1 week (Experiment 2). Implications for understanding children's recall of repeated autobiographical events are discussed.