Using guided reading to teach internet inquiry skills: a case study of one elementary school teacher’s experience

Employees in the twenty-first century must be equipped to effectively process information from print and online sources; yet, many students struggle with online research and comprehension skills, making them ill-prepared in college and careers. Utilizing a qualitative exploratory case study design, this study describes how a fourth-grade teacher developed her students’ online research and comprehension skills in small groups using the guided reading framework to frame her instruction. Key findings suggest that the teacher adapted many components of the guided reading framework to develop students’ online inquiry skills. Both the teacher and students experienced role changes and challenges related to the experience, yet students demonstrated high rates of engagement and collaboration. This paper provides a situated example of how a teacher adapted an existing instructional context in her classroom and implications for adapting other popular instructional context, frameworks, and models for supporting teachers in developing students’ digital literacy skills.     

Personality factors associated with psychological distress in testicular cancer survivors

The aim of this study was to investigate symptoms of anxiety and depression in testicular cancer survivors (TCSs) and to identify personality traits associated with psychological distress in these patients by means of the MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1943). A total of 50 TCSs and 50 age-adjusted healthy men participated in the study, and we used the following self-report instruments: Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (Montgomery & Asberg, 1979), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (Hamilton, 1959, 1969), Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 1970, 2005), and the MMPI. TCSs displayed higher rates on all psychopathology scales studied compared to controls, but the majority of the patients' scores were within the "normal range," indicating rather mild psychological distress. TCSs' MMPI profiles showed higher rates on Scales 1, 3, 6, and 9 compared to controls; and within the TCSs sample, symptoms of depression were most closely associated with Scales 3 and 5. Similarly, anxiety symptoms were mainly associated with Scale 3. These findings indicate that TCSs present mild symptoms of psychological distress, mainly anxiety and depressive symptoms, suggesting that careful assessment and consultation in TC patients is essential to help them deal with distress after treatment and to minimize possible risk factors.     

Freitas on Disease in Nanomedicine: Implications for Ethics

This paper critically examines the volitional normative model of disease and its underlying nanotechnologic vision of medicine both defended by Robert Freitas. Having provided an account of this vision, we explicate the highlight of the model, which is a concept of disease based on individual values and preferences. The model’s normative positions are then critiqued based on our argument that the epistemic basis of Freitas’s vision of nanotechnologic medicine and, by extension, of his volitional normative model of disease is scientifically flawed. An ethical and social critique of the model is then conducted on the basis of the model’s implicit ethical underpinnings. We argue that Freitas fails to justify the normativity of his model by not addressing the ethical issues that permeate it, one of which is the question of responsibility regarding the development of medical nanotechnology and the practice of new forms of medicine such as the one he envisions. We conclude that, due to its radically individualistic position, the model implies an unjustified view of nanoethics and relegates this field of ethics to the periphery of discussions of nanomedicine.     

Dreaming up the patient in supervision: from the concrete to the symbolic*

This paper discusses the importance of parallel processes within the therapeutic and the supervisory context of therapy with an eight-year-old boy diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. During the first months of the therapy, through powerful projective identification, the therapist found herself in the ‘clothes’ of the ‘dead mother’. She was unable to think and feel in the sessions. Deadness could not be symbolised – it was enacted in the sessions. The therapeutic encounter had to start elsewhere: the supervisor’s reverie brought to life the patient’s material in the context of the supervision, allowing thinking to occur, first within the supervisory relationship and only then in the therapeutic relationship. In the context of supervision, the encounter of two mentally alive people could contain anxieties, metabolise them and open the way to mental connections. This encounter facilitated the development of creative thinking of both the therapist and the young patient in the consulting room, which allowed the child to become the subject of his existence and to evolve.     

Antecedents of young adults' materialistic values

Given the adverse effects of materialism on consumer well‐being, the present study integrates various theoretical frameworks within the life course paradigm to assess the effects of earlier‐in‐life experiences on young Greek adults' materialistic values. Findings from a sample of 285 young adults suggest that disruptive family incidents in early life affect the development of materialistic values, while peers have no discernible influence. Disruptive family settings appear to impair socio‐economic status and self‐esteem, but young Greek adults with impaired self‐esteem are not more materialistic. A family communication environment that places emphasis on autonomy and individual achievement appears to promote the importance of materialism, while a family communication setting that encourages compliance instead of self‐direction appears to deter the development of such orientations. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personality Factors Associated With Psychological Distress in Testicular Cancer Survivors

The aim of this study was to investigate symptoms of anxiety and depression in testicular cancer survivors (TCSs) and to identify personality traits associated with psychological distress in these patients by means of the MMPI (Hathaway &; McKinley, 1943 Hathaway, S. R. and McKinley, J. C. 1943. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.  [Google Scholar]). A total of 50 TCSs and 50 age-adjusted healthy men participated in the study, and we used the following self-report instruments: Montgomery–Asberg Depression Rating Scale (Montgomery &; Asberg, 1979 Montgomery, S. and Åsberg, M. 1979. A new depression scale designed to be sensitive to change. British Journal of Psychiatry, 134: 382–389. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (Hamilton, 1959 Hamilton, M. 1959. The assessment of anxiety states by rating. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 32: 50–55. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 1969 Hamilton, M. 1969. Diagnosis and rating of anxiety. British Journal of Psychiatry, 3: 76–79.  [Google Scholar]), Spielberger's State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 1970 Spielberger, C. D. 1970. “Anxiety as an emotional state”. In Anxiety: Current trends in theory and research, Edited by: Spielberger, C. New York: Academic.  [Google Scholar], 2005 Spielberger, C. D. 2005. State–Trait Anxiety Inventory for adults, Redwood City, CA: Mind Garden.  [Google Scholar]), and the MMPI. TCSs displayed higher rates on all psychopathology scales studied compared to controls, but the majority of the patients' scores were within the “normal range,” indicating rather mild psychological distress. TCSs' MMPI profiles showed higher rates on Scales 1, 3, 6, and 9 compared to controls; and within the TCSs sample, symptoms of depression were most closely associated with Scales 3 and 5. Similarly, anxiety symptoms were mainly associated with Scale 3. These findings indicate that TCSs present mild symptoms of psychological distress, mainly anxiety and depressive symptoms, suggesting that careful assessment and consultation in TC patients is essential to help them deal with distress after treatment and to minimize possible risk factors.     

Is Wittgenstein's Resort to Ordinary Language an Appeal to Empirical facts?

There are two widely held views in the literature as regards Wittgenstein's philosophy. One says that Wittgenstein in his later work appeals to ordinary language in his effort to show how the philosophical problems can be dissolved, and the other says that his investigation is a grammatical one. This paper undertakes to examine what is meant by a grammatical investigation, especially in view of the fact that this investigation relies on empirical facts that have to do with linguistic usage. The examination is carried out by concentrating on what Wittgenstein has to say on the issue of knowledge – in particular, how the way we use the word contributes to the dismissal of Moore's answer to the challenge of scepticism. The conclusion is that Wittgenstein's resort to ordinary language is not typically empirical. The examples of ordinary usage that he cites may be contingent, but they could not have been different given the language games they are part of. The correct use of words Wittgenstein appeals to is not fixed by some kind of essence, but neither is it decided by a majority rule. It gets entrenched in a complex nexus of practices. Wittgenstein's reference to "use" instead of 'usage"and to "linguistic facts" instead of "sociological facts" lends support more to a logical than to an empirical investigation.