Envisioning college success: the role of student identity centrality

This paper examines the recently developed construct of student identity centrality, which describes the importance of being a student to a person’s sense of self. The present study uses multiple college student surveys and institutional data to expand upon initial work in several ways. First, it shows that this construct is measured reliably using a single three-item scale. Second, it employs measurement invariance analyses, which indicate that this scale is valid for examining and comparing different groups of students. Third, it provides evidence for convergent and divergent validity through exploring relationships between student identity centrality and relevant psychological and experiential constructs. Fourth, even when controlling for demographics, prior academic achievement, stereotype threat, and grit, it finds that student identity is positively and significantly associated with college credits earned; grades in science, technology, engineering and mathematics coursework; academic confidence; college sense of belonging; and subjective well-being. Implications for future research, assessment, and higher education practice are discussed.

     

Academic entitlement: its relationship with academic behaviors and attitudes

Social Psychology of Education - The current study examined the relationship of academic entitlement with student attitudes (e.g., locus of control, motivation) and academic behavior. Participants...     

Reading Anxiety: An Early Affective Impediment to Children’s Success in Reading

Learning to read is a critical but often challenging academic task for young children. In the current study, we explore the relation between children’s reading affect-–particularly anxiety-–and reading achievement in the early years of reading acquisition. We hypothesized that reading anxiety would relate to reading achievement across the school year and that boys and girls might show differential patterns in the relation between reading anxiety and achievement due to the common stereotype that boys underperform in reading. A sample of first and second grade students completed measures of reading anxiety, positive reading affect, math achievement, and reading achievement in the fall and spring. Results show that reading anxiety and reading achievement share a bi-directional relation in which fall reading anxiety predicts spring reading achievement and vice versa. Furthermore, the pattern of relation between reading anxiety and achievement differs by gender: boys appear more susceptible to the reciprocal damaging effects of reading anxiety on reading achievement across the school year. Finally, reading achievement shares a stronger relation with reading anxiety than with positive reading affect, perhaps because of the phenomenon in which negative relative to positive experiences have a greater psychological impact.     

“This phone saved my life”: Older persons’ experiences and appraisals of an mHealth intervention aimed at addressing loneliness

This qualitative study aimed to explore older persons’ experiences and appraisals of the utility of an mHealth intervention for reducing their sense of loneliness. Participants (n = 13; 86.42% females; age range 65 to 87 years) received training in the use of a smartphone and a social networking application (WhatsApp). Following the intervention, they completed a focus group discussion. For data triangulation, participants shared their social media postings. Content analysis of the focus group discussion and social media data indicated that the mobile device was used to mitigate perceptions of loneliness and isolation, thus facilitating social network building, enhancing self-efficacy, and improving cognitive flexibility. Mobile phones and a social networking application appear to reduce loneliness experienced by the elderly.     

Transactions in doing design-based research for designing curriculum: a self-study

Design-based research (DBR) is an emerging methodology in teacher education research that researchers claim has strong potential in systematically designing and using instructional strategies and tools to develop, enact, and sustain effective learning environments. Studies have been conducted employing this methodology, but very little research has been made on the process of engaging in DBR for designing curriculum. Through a self-study, I found that using DBR as a model for creating curriculum draws from personal meaning-making, where I tapped on my own education, background, and experiences in literacy instruction to create curriculum. The other dimensions to the DBR process were more intangible and thus harder to negotiate. These included the political aspects, where decision-making was needed regarding course components. Keeping positive relationships with stakeholders was another challenging dimension in order to achieve a collectively meaningful curriculum. Finally, dispositions on literacy instruction also implied tension on the process since dispositions are not necessarily aligned with some DBR principles.     

Exploring the depths of the rainforest: a metaphor for teaching critical reflection

Many social welfare and social work students struggle to demonstrate competence in the complex process of critical reflection through to the stage of transformed thinking and action. Examples of how students learn critical reflection as an interpretive experience are scarce. This paper presents, as a case study, the process one of the authors experienced while critically reflecting on teaching critical reflection. The paper explores how this approach unlocked disturbing insights into how personally held values, views and knowledge influenced her performance relating to teaching critical reflection. Experiencing what she asks of her students raised questions regarding the duty of care that social welfare and social work educators have to ensure their students engage in critical, and transformative, self-discovery in safe and supportive ways. We propose that in the early stages of social welfare and social work degrees, rather than assessing students’ critical reflection of an event, educators examine students’ capacity to learn critical reflection in a different way. Drawing on critical hermeneutics, and a theory of visual thinking, the paper outlines the cognitive map of a process of critical reflection on teaching critical reflection. We present this as a metaphor of walking through a rainforest.     

Implicit sequence learning in young people with Tourette syndrome with and without co-occurring attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Impaired habit-learning has been proposed to underlie the tic symptoms of Tourette syndrome (TS). However, accounts differ in terms of how habit-learning is altered in TS, with some authors proposing habit formation is impaired due to a deficient ‘chunking’ mechanism, and others proposing habit-learning is overactive and tics reflect hyperlearned behaviours. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) frequently co-occurs with TS and is known to affect cognitive function in young people with co-occurring TS and ADHD (TS + ADHD). It is unclear, however, how co-occurring ADHD symptoms affect habit-learning in TS. In this study, we investigated whether young people with TS would show deficient or hyperactive habit-learning, and assessed the effects of co-occurring ADHD symptoms on habit-learning in TS. Participants aged 9–17 years with TS (n = 18), TS + ADHD (n = 17), ADHD (n = 13), and typical development (n = 20) completed a motor sequence learning task to assess habit-learning. We used a 2 (TS-yes, TS-no) × 2 (ADHD-yes, ADHD-no) factorial analysis to test the effects of TS, ADHD, and their interaction on accuracy and reaction time indices of sequence learning. TS was associated with intact sequence learning, but a tendency for difficulty transitioning from sequenced to non-sequenced performance was suggestive of hyper-learning. ADHD was associated with significantly poorer accuracy during acquisition of the sequence, indicative of impaired habit-learning. There were no interactions between the TS and ADHD factors, indicating young people with TS + ADHD showed both TS- and ADHD-related atypicalities in habit-learning.     

The Management of Disclosure in Children’s Accounts of Domestic Violence: Practices of Telling and Not Telling

Children and young people who experience domestic violence are often represented as passive witnesses, too vulnerable to tell the stories of their own lives. This article reports on findings from a 2 year European research project (Understanding Agency and Resistance Strategies, UNARS) with children and young people in Greece, Italy, Spain and the UK, who had experienced domestic violence. It explores children and young people’s understandings of their own capacity to reflect on and disclose their experiences Extracts from individual interviews with 107 children and young people (age 8–18) were analysed. Three themes are presented, that illustrate children and young people’s strategies for managing disclosure: (1) “Being silenced or choosing silence?”, explores children and young people’s practices of self-silencing; (2) “Managing disclosures: Finding ways to tell” outlines how children and young people value self-expression, and the strategies they use to disclose safely; and in (3) “Speaking with many voices” considers how children and young people’s accounts of their experiences are constituted relationally, and are often polyvocal. The article concludes that children and young people can be articulate, strategic and reflexive communicators, and that good support for families struggling with domestic violence must enable space for children and young people’s voice to be heard. This is possible only in an integrated framework able to encompass multiple layers and perspectives, rather than privileging the adult point of view. Practitioners who work with families affected by domestic violence need to recognize that children and young people are able to reflect on and speak about their experiences. This requires that attention is paid to the complexity of children and young people’s communication practices, and the relational context of those communications.     

Moral transgression during the Vietnam War: a path analysis of the psychological impact of veterans’ involvement in wartime atrocities

Background and Objectives: Involvement in wartime combat often conveys a number of deleterious outcomes, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, hostility, aggression, and suicidal ideation. Less studied is the effect of engagement in wartime atrocities, including witnessing and perpetrating abusive violence.

Design and Methods: This study employed path analysis to examine the direct effects of involvement in wartime atrocities on hostility, aggression, depression, and suicidal ideation independent of combat exposure, as well as the indirect effects via guilt and PTSD symptom severity among 603 help-seeking male Vietnam War veterans.

Results: Involvement in wartime atrocities was predictive of increased guilt, PTSD severity, hostility, aggression, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation after controlling for overall combat exposure. Combat-related guilt played a minor role in mediating the effect of atrocity involvement on depression and suicidal ideation. PTSD severity had a larger mediational effect. However, it still accounted for less than half of the total effect of involvement in wartime atrocities on hostility, aggression, and suicidal ideation.

Conclusions: These findings highlight the heightened risk conveyed by involvement in wartime atrocities and suggest that the psychological sequelae experienced following atrocity involvement may extend well beyond guilt and PTSD.