Effects of an adapted physical education training package on special education teacher instruction

This study investigated the impact of an adapted physical education training package on functional motor skill instruction of three special education teachers who instructed secondary students with low‐incidence disabilities. The training package emphasized teachers' use of systematic prompting and specific reinforcement teaching strategies plus adapted physical education consultation. We used a multiple baseline design and collected data on the three teachers' use of systematic prompting and specific reinforcement plans during videotaped teaching trials. We also collected data on how teachers documented their instructional strategies, and we analyzed personal reflections that teachers wrote in the journals. Results indicated that with each of the three teachers, correctly implemented functional motor skill instructional performance improved after they completed the training package.     

Conversation with 2016 American Academy of Religion Excellence in Teaching Award Winner Joanne Maguire Robinson

This conversation between the editors of Teaching Theology and Religion and Joanne Maguire Robinson continues an occasional series of interviews that has previously featured Jonathan Z. Smith, Stephen Prothero, Mary Pierce Brosmer, and Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore. The exchange takes as its point of departure the teaching statement that Professor Robinson produced in support of her candidacy for the American Academy of Religion's Excellence in Teaching Award. Issues addressed include the impact of institutional context on one's teaching, teaching the humanities in universities that are ever more focused on job training, making the transition from a graduate program focused on research to teaching undergraduates who are unlikely to take even a second course in the study of religion, and ways in which women are challenged to navigate multiple responsibilities while striving to make their way in a male‐dominated academy.     

Adult's amae as a tool for adjustment to a new environment

Past research has found that people of East Asian backgrounds avoid seeking help out of relational concerns. Research on amae, however, suggests that Japanese may use amae to simultaneously obtain the needed help and enhance relationships. Study 1 showed that among Japanese entrepreneurs and managers, the propensity toward amae correlated with perceiving fewer costs of help‐seeking, seeking more help at work, greater engagement in new relationships and higher general trust. These associations suggest that the Japanese may be using amae to get the help they need and to build new relationships. Study 2 further showed that first‐year undergraduates who reported engaging in amae soon after entering college showed a significant increase in sense of purpose and satisfaction with college life in their first year. These findings suggest that, unlike dependency or passive love, amae can be highly adaptive for the Japanese.     

Are situation awareness and decision-making in driving totally conscious processes? Results of a hazard prediction task

Detecting danger in the driving environment is an indispensable task to guarantee safety which depends on the driver’s ability to predict upcoming hazards. But does correct prediction lead to an appropriate response? This study advances hazard perception research by investigating the link between successful prediction and response selection. Three groups of drivers (learners, novices and experienced drivers) were recruited, with novice and experienced drivers further split into offender and non-offender groups. Specifically, this works aims to develop an improved Spanish Hazard Prediction Test and to explore the differences in Situation Awareness, (SA: perception, comprehension and prediction) and Decision-Making (DM) among learners, younger inexperienced and experienced drivers and between driving offenders and non-offenders. The contribution of the current work is not only theoretical; the Hazard Prediction Test is also a valid way to test Hazard Perception. The test, as well as being useful as part of the test for a driving license, could also serve a purpose in the renewal of licenses after a ban or as a way of training drivers. A sample of 121 participants watched a series of driving video clips that ended with a sudden occlusion prior to a hazard. They then answered questions to assess their SA (“What is the hazard?” “Where is it located?” “What happens next?”) and DM (“What would you do in this situation?”). This alternative to the Hazard Perception Test demonstrates a satisfactory internal consistency (Alpha = 0.750), with eleven videos achieving discrimination indices above 0.30. Learners performed significantly worse than experienced drivers when required to identify and locate the hazard. Interestingly, drivers were more accurate in answering the DM question than questions regarding SA, suggesting that drivers can choose an appropriate response manoeuvre without a totally conscious knowledge of the exact hazard.     

Reflective team in caring for people living with dementia: a base for care improvement

A reflective team (RT) is a team of professional carers who reflect on a specific caring issue under the direction of an RT leader. The goal for the reflective process is to accomplish care improvement based on research and proven experience, and the first step is to reflect upon the competence that already exists in the context in which RT takes place. This study aims to bring previous unarticulated competence in caring for people living with dementia to the surface after it has been reflected during RT sessions. Ten assistant nurses who work closely with patients who have dementia and attend RT sessions on a regular basis were interviewed about their competence for caring for people living with dementia. Using a phenomenographic analysis, two qualitatively separate categories emerged: general caring skills and dementia-specific caring skills. It was concluded that specific skills in caring for people living with dementia build in caring skills and that tacit knowledge can be explicit and be expressed when it has been reflected in RT.     

Actors in the Classroom: The Dramatic Pedagogy Model of Counselor Education

Role playing is a fundamental component in the training of counselors to use counseling skills. However, role play activities commonly involve counseling students as clients or actors and hence have notable limitations. One training method widely practiced in the medical profession is the use of professional actors as patients. Although there are some examples in the literature of studies that have used actors for counselor training, most address only a specific topic or skill set. In this article, the authors propose the dramatic pedagogy model (DPM) as a comprehensive model for implementing client actors into the education of counselors. The DPM includes a set of pedagogical techniques and a structure for preparing actors and curriculum.     

Visuospatial and verbal memory in mental arithmetic

Working memory allows complex information to be remembered and manipulated over short periods of time. Correlations between working memory and mathematics achievement have been shown across the lifespan. However, only a few studies have examined the potentially distinct contributions of domain-specific visuospatial and verbal working memory resources in mental arithmetic computation. Here we aimed to fill this gap in a series of six experiments pairing addition and subtraction tasks with verbal and visuospatial working memory and interference tasks. In general, we found higher levels of interference between mental arithmetic and visuospatial working memory tasks than between mental arithmetic and verbal working memory tasks. Additionally, we found that interference that matched the working memory domain of the task (e.g., verbal task with verbal interference) lowered working memory performance more than mismatched interference (verbal task with visuospatial interference). Findings suggest that mental arithmetic relies on domain-specific working memory resources.     

Family processes in the midst of urban poverty: What does the trauma literature tell us?

Consistent with a family systems framework, this paper examines the clinical and research literatures to clarify the connection between chronic trauma exposure and family processes with a focus on the social ecology of low-income, urban neighborhoods. Strong empirical evidence demonstrates the impact of chronic trauma on individual family members and, in turn, on multiple family subsystems. Additionally, there is evidence that living under chronically harsh, traumatic circumstances slowly erodes family processes, specifically structure, relations, and coping. However, existing research reflects the problems inherent in sorting out relationships among multiple, often interrelated factors. Future research requires comprehensive theoretical models, such as systemic, transactional, or ecodevelopmental, along with sophisticated research designs, prospective, longitudinal or intervention, and multilevel analytic methods.     

学习障碍儿童社会技能缺失成因假说

研究者一直试图探讨学习障碍与社会技能缺失之间的联系,从而揭示导致学习障碍儿童社会技能缺失的原因。这一研究领域出现了四种假说：因果假说、共存假说、相关假说和同病率假说。