Metacognition in the classroom: The association between students’ exam predictions and their desired grades

Students are overconfident when making grade predictions, and worse, the lowest-performing students are generally the most overconfident. Because metacognitive accuracy is associated with academic performance, multiple studies have attempted to improve metacognitive accuracy with mixed results. However, these studies may be of limited use because we do not understand the types of information university students use to make performance predictions. The current studies examined the possibility that university students’ predictions are associated with their desires—the grade they want to receive. Studies 1–4 demonstrated that students’ desired grades were strongly associated with their grade predictions across different courses, universities, and measurement strategies. Study 4 also showed that, if warned about the previous results, students could reduce their reliance on their desired grades and improve the accuracy of their predictions relative to control. Together, results demonstrated that students’ exam predictions are associated with their desired grades.     

(Inadvertently) Instructing Missionaries in (Public University) World Religions Courses: Examining a Pedagogical Dilemma,its Dimensions,and a Course Section Solution

In this article, I explore an ethical and pedagogical dilemma that I encounter each semester in my world religions courses: namely, that a great number of students enroll in the courses as part of their missionary training programs, and come to class understanding successful learning to mean gathering enough information about the world's religious “traditions” so as to effectively seduce people out of them. How should we teach world religions – in public university religious studies courses – with this student constituency? What are/ought to be our student learning goals? What can and should we expect to accomplish? How can we maximize student learning, while also maintaining our disciplinary integrity? In response to these questions, I propose a world religions course module, the goal of which is for students to examine – as objects of inquiry – the lenses through which they understand religion(s). With a recognition of their own lenses, I argue, missionary students become more aware of the biases and presumptions about others that they bring to the table, and they learn to see the ways in which these presumptions inform what they see and know about others, and also what they do not so easily see.     

A Neo-Kantian foundation of Corporate Social Responsibility

‘Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is conceptualized in many ways. We argue that one cannot be indifferent about the issue of its conceptualization. In terms of methodology, our position is that any conceptual discussion must embed CSR in political theory. With regard to substance, we link up with the discussion on whether CSR must be defined on the basis of a tripartite or a quadripartite division of business responsibilities. We share A.B. Carroll’s intuition that a quadripartite division is called for as a basis to define CSR. However, defending the quadripartite division of business responsibilities requires that the distinctions between economic, legal, ethical and discretionary business responsibilities be made intelligible. Carroll’s account is defective in this respect. We argue that contemporary Neo-Kantian political ethics is able to make sense of these distinctions, because of its specific interpretation of liberalism. Interestingly, from a conventional liberal perspective this interpretation of liberalism is atypical, as it extends public morality beyond the domain of the law.

Meta-motivational dominance and sensation-seeking effects on motor performance and perceptions of challenge and pressure

AimsThe current study aimed at delineating the effects of meta-motivational dominance and sensation seeking on performing challenging and boring tasks under pressure-filled conditions. Apter's (Apter, M. J. (2001). An introduction to reversal theory. In M. J. Apter (Ed.), Motivational styles in everyday life: A guide to reversal theory (pp. 3–35). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association) reversal theory and Zuckerman's (Zuckerman, M. (1979). Sensation seeking: Beyond the optimum level of arousal. Hillsdale: Erlbaum) sensation-seeking (SS) theory were used to postulate that high SS and paratelic individuals would perform better on challenging tasks in pressure-filled situations than low SS and telic individuals. They have also been hypothesized to differ on perceived pressure, challenge perception, and determination.Study's designSeventy-three young adults were divided into two distinct groups, telic and sensation avoiders vs. paratelic and sensation seekers, based on two distinct questionnaires. The participants performed boring and challenging tasks under pressure-filled and normal conditions in a counter-balanced order. Each performance consisted of 3-blocked trials of 10 min each. Number of completions and errors were recorded.ResultsPressure had little to no effect on performance regardless of participants' meta-motivational dominance. Under pressure, perceived challenge was higher than under normal condition, and participants, as expected, felt more challenged when performing the apparatus task than when performing the vowel-circling task. Paratelics completed more vowel-circling and apparatus completions than did telic participants, but not to the desired level of significance.ConclusionsIt seems likely that paratelic individuals tried harder than telic individuals when put into a unique, measurable, and uncertain situation. It is likely that paratelics needing varied, novel, and challenging sensations along with playful and enjoyment felt more inclined to participate in both tasks with vigor and enthusiasm to fulfill their needs. It is suggested that it may be the intrinsic form of motivation, which paratelics possess, that allow for better performances.     

Motivation and the Heart in the Xing Zi Ming Chu

In both content and historical position, the “Xing Zi Ming Chu” is of obvious significance for understanding the development of classical Chinese philosophy, particularly Confucian moral psychology. This article aims to clarify one aspect of the text, namely, its account of human motivation. This account can be divided into two parts. The first describes human motivation primarily in passive terms of response to external forces, as emotions arise from our nature when stimulated by things in the world. The second comes from the role of the heart, which takes a more active role in shaping our responses to the world. This article focuses on the role of the heart. At stake is the status of human agency, in particular, the degree to which the heart, through the formation of a stable intention, allows us to go beyond being simply pulled along by external forces.     

The role of self-efficacy, goal, and affect in dynamic motivational self-regulation

In this paper, we examined the within-person relationship between self-efficacy and performance in an Internet-based stock investment simulation in which participants engaged in a series of stock trading activities trying to achieve performance goals in response to dynamic task environments (performance feedback and stock market movements). Contrary to the results of several previous studies, we found that self-efficacy was positively related to effort and performance, and goal level partially mediated the efficacy–performance relationship. We also found that participants’ affective reactions to performance feedback, measured as positive affect and negative affect, uniquely contributed to their motivation and performance either directly or by indirectly influencing their self-efficacy.     

Relational Services

Recent research projects have looked for social innovations, i.e., people creating solutions outside the mainstream patterns of production and consumption. An analysis of these innovations indicates the emergence of a particular kind of service configuration—defined here as relational services—which requires intensive interpersonal relations to operate. Based on a comparative analysis between standard and relational services, we propose to the Service Design discipline an interpretative framework able to reinforce its ability to deal with the interpersonal relational qualities in services, indicating how these qualities can be understood and favored by design activities, as well as the limits of this design intervention. Martin Buber’s conceptual framework is presented as the main interpretative basis. Buber describes two ways of interacting (“I-Thou” and “I-It”). Relational services are those most favoring “I-Thou” interpersonal encounters.

The unique contributions of motivations to maintain a relationship and motivations toward relational activities to relationship well-being

People experience autonomy when they perceive their behaviour to be volitional rather than driven by external controls. Previous research has studied autonomy in relationships at a general level, focusing on people’s motivations to maintain their romantic relationships, as measured by the Couple Motivation Questionnaire (CMQ; Blais et al., J Personal Soc Psychol 59:1021–1031, 1990). To supplement the CMQ, we developed the Motivations for Relational Activities (MRA) scale, which assesses the extent to which people feel autonomous and controlled in a variety of specific relational activities. The purpose of this study is to examine the unique contributions of general motivations to maintain a relationship (CMQ) and motivations toward specific relational activities (MRA) in the prediction of relationship well-being. Results showed that the MRA and CMQ both independently and significantly contributed to the prediction of relationship well-being (i.e., commitment, intimacy, satisfaction, and vitality within the relationship) and were differentiated by their associations to dimensions of personality and attachment.

Measuring Implicit British Perceptions of German Intentions in 1938–1939

Implicit British perceptions of German leaders during the period September 30, 1938–September 1, 1939 (from the Munich Agreements to the German invasion of Poland) are studied with a "ratio of threat accentuation" measure. This ratio is calculated by comparing the densities of power motive imagery in two kinds of archival material: full texts of major Hitler speeches versus summaries in The Times of London, and British versus German accounts of meetings between British diplomats and major Nazi leaders. In both cases, the British ratio of threat accentuation increases following the unexpected German occupation of Prague and the rest of Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939. These changes in implicit perception are congruent with changes in British explicit perceptions and foreign policy after the German action.     

Information Distortion and Voting Choices: The Origins and Effects of Factual Beliefs in Initiative Elections

To account for voter decision making in initiative elections, we integrate theory and research on public opinion, misinformation, and motivated reasoning. Heuristic and motivated reasoning literatures suggest that voters' preexisting values interact with political sophistication such that politically knowledgeable voters develop systematically distorted empirical beliefs relevant to the initiatives on their ballots. These beliefs, in turn, can predict voting preferences even after controlling for underlying values, regardless of one's political sophistication. These hypotheses were tested using a 2003 voter survey conducted prior to a statewide initiative election that repealed a workplace safety regulation. Results showed that only those voters knowledgeable of key endorsements had initiative-specific beliefs that lined up with their underlying antiregulation values. Also, voters' empirical beliefs had an effect on initiative support even after controlling for prior values, and political sophistication did not moderate this effect.