Students Aggress Against Professors in Reaction to Receiving Poor Grades: An Effect Moderated by Student Narcissism and Self‐Esteem

Laboratory evidence about whether students’ evaluations of teaching (SETs) are valid is lacking. Results from three (3) independent studies strongly confirm that "professors" who were generous with their grades were rewarded for their favor with higher SETs, while professors who were frugal were punished with lower SETs (Study 1, d = 1.51; Study 2, d = 1.59; Study 3, partial η² = .26). This result was found even when the feedback was manipulated to be more or less insulting (Study 3). Consistent with laboratory findings on direct aggression, results also indicated that, when participants were given a poorer feedback, higher self‐esteem (Study 1 and Study 2) and higher narcissism (Study 1) were associated with them giving lower (more aggressive) evaluations of the "professor." Moreover, consistent with findings on self‐serving biases, participants higher in self‐esteem who were in the positive grade/feedback condition exhibited a self‐enhancing bias by giving their "professor" higher evaluations (Study 1 and Study 2). The aforementioned relationships were not moderated by the professor's sex or rank (teaching assistant vs.professor). Results provide evidence that (1) students do aggress against professors through poor teaching evaluations, (2) threatened egotism among individuals with high self‐esteem is associated with more aggression, especially when coupled with high narcissism, and (3) self‐enhancing biases are robust among those with high self‐esteem. Aggr. Behav. 39:71‐84, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Method of Knowledge and the Challenges of the Planetary Society: Edgar Morin's Pedagogical Proposal

Edgar Morin is one of the most important contemporary European philosophers. His name has recently also become well known on the American continent, especially in South America, where his works have given rise to several interesting cultural initiatives. The analysis of his pedagogical proposal can be a stimulating adventure for educators and teachers alike. Morin's proposal to link methodologically what is disjoined suggests re-establishing the connection between thought and action, in order to re-establish on rational and critical bases the ethical principles of solidarity and responsibility and enable us to face the challenges of our times.     

Re-Examination of Classroom Rules

Abstract

This article provides a contemplative, research-based discussion of classroom management by examining classroom rules. The introduction contains a discussion establishing the importance of effective classroom management strategies. The article also provides a consideration of the literature to gain a better understanding of ineffective and effective rules.     

Focusing on Educational Outcomes

National education goals, content standards, and national tests are the hot topics of the day in educational reform. Special services personnel eventually will be faced with these issues, and can either be part of the discussion from the beginning, or wait and have to deal with someone else's decisions. In this article, we highlight some recent national and state educational reform activities and their probable implications for students with disabilities. We explain in brief the impetus behind the thrust toward an outcomesbased approach to education, and summarize the response of the National Center on Educational Outcomes for Students with Disabilities to this push. Possible ways in which special service providers can act to influence the focus on outcomes are described.     

The Experimental Delimitation of Neural Structures Essential for Learning: The Attempt to Condition Striped Muscle Responses with Faradization of the Sigmoid Gyri

In looking at motivation as a multifactored trait rather than as a singular trait, a larger portion of the variance in academic achievement is explained. Sixty college students were administered five motivation instruments, each having two components. When the total instruments were used, they explained 23% of the variance, but when they were broken into their component parts, they explained 36%; thus, a schema for approaching motivation as a multifactor trait is presented.     

Meta-Analysis of Pragmatic and Theoretical Research: A Critique

Meta-analysis refers to a set of statistical procedures used to summarize and integrate many empirical studies that focus on one issue. This numerical method of integrating research findings is said to be superior to the narrative type of reviews because it is more objective, reliable, and rigorous. Moreover, the meta-analytic approach is supposedly capable of resolving research controversies, strengthening empirical hypotheses, and discovering new relationships among variables. In this study, these claims are examined and found to be wanting. Some objections to the use of meta-analysis as a means of substantiating theoretical assertions are raised with reference to the rationale of experimentation and to how knowledge evolves. It is concluded that it is inappropriate to apply meta-analysis to integrate theoretical research.     

Adolescents' future education-related personal goals,concerns, and internal motivation during the “Towards Working Life” group intervention

For adolescents, the transition from comprehensive school to post-comprehensive education is one of the most important in this life phase. Future education-related personal goals, concerns, and related internal motivation are assumed to play key roles in a successful transition. The “Towards Working Life” group method was developed, among other objectives, to enhance internal motivation towards education-related goals, and to increase the number of personal goals and concerns related to future education. A total of 1034 ninth graders from comprehensive school were randomized into 25 intervention groups and control groups. A week-long group intervention, which took place at school, showed that the intervention increased the number of future education-related personal goals and that this effect was also related to an increase in similar concerns. Moreover, the intervention increased adolescents' internal motivation towards education-related goals.     

Be careful what you wish for but also why you wish for it – Goal-striving reasons and subjective well-being

Individuals’ subjective well-being (SWB) when attaining their goals is moderated by the characteristics of their goals. Two significant moderators are whether goals are approach or avoidance oriented and their content. Within the goal-setting literature, these characteristics have been applied to goals as such, focussing on what it is people try to achieve. However, they can equally be applied to analyse why individuals pursue their goals. By applying the dimensions of approach and avoidance orientation as well as goal content to the analysis of goal-striving reasons, a framework has been developed encompassing the following four goal-striving reasons: goals pursuit because of pleasure, for altruistic reasons, out of necessity and for self-esteem reasons. The empirical findings (N?=?174) show that goal-striving reasons are significantly associated with affective SWB. Therefore goal-striving reasons provide an additional level of analysis, when analysing the relation between goals and affective SWB.     

Moral elevation and compassionate goals predict posttraumatic growth in the context of a college shooting

Abstract

After a mass shooting, community members may experience not only distress, but also feeling uplifted or morally elevated by others’ prosocial responses to the trauma. Those experiencing elevation may be more likely to strive to support others (compassionate goals) and to endorse posttraumatic growth (PTG). However, the role of elevation in PTG, and the relative contribution of compassionate goals (both from and toward others), remains unknown. Students, faculty, and staff (N = 385) completed measures four months after a campus shooting, and a subset repeated measures at eight months (n = 82). As expected, compassionate goals toward others incrementally predicted higher PTG beyond perceptions of compassionate goals from others. Also, elevation concurrently and prospectively predicted higher PTG. Lastly, elevation mediated effects of others’ compassionate goals on PTG, as hypothesized (95% CI = 2.59 to 5.43). These findings have implications for understanding the social and emotional processes that facilitate PTG.     

Safeguarding the earth system as a priority for sustainable development and global ethics: the need for an earth system SDG

While the list of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations’ Open Working Group (OWG) comprises a catalog of highly important post-2015 development priorities, one of the key issue that has not received the attention it deserves is the need to safeguard the Earth's life-support system. Over the course of the past decades, we have concentrated much more on socioeconomic development rather than on environmental sustainability while putting a number of the Earth's systems at risk, and with it poverty eradication and sustainable development. There is thus a need to put the spotlight on global environmental change and to take account of the insights from the latest Earth system science and its implications for the future of global development and global ethics. The ongoing debate on the post-2015 SDGs offers an important occasion for this endeavor. Going beyond the current proposal of the Open Working Group and building on the planetary boundaries or guard rails framework, the SDGs should contain the goal to safeguard Earth's life-support system.