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"Mindsets (or implicit theories) are people's lay beliefs about the nature of human attributes, such as intelligence or personality". Individuals with a fixed mindset believe that intelligence is an unchangeable trait, whereas those with a growth mindset think of it as a malleable quality that can be increased and developed. This study explored the relationships among growth mindset, wellbeing, and performance in a sample of 1,240 students from a multi-campus private university located in 18 states across Mexico. Our results indicated that individuals who scored high in growth (vs. fixed) mindset showed increased levels of wellbeing and also performed better in school. Furthermore, we found that wellbeing mediated the relationship between growth mindset and performance and that the effect of growth mindset on grades was higher among younger students. These findings have interesting implications for psychology and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translation instruction is very important in specialized English teaching activities. The effectiveness of current specialized English translation instruction (SETI) in mainland China, however, is unclear because university students have become less interested in, and less confident when doing, English translation. This study investigated the effects of online cooperative translation on EFL students’ levels of interest and self-efficacy with respect to specialized English translation through a questionnaire, focus group interview, interaction data analysis, and pre-test and post-test on 48 second-year college students in China majoring in educational technology. The results showed that online cooperative translations could significantly increase student interest and self-efficacy in specialized English translation. In cooperative translation, student engagement was significantly and linearly correlated with their interest and self-efficacy in translation. We conclude with recommendations on reforming current SETI practices in mainland China's universities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent research on negation has demonstrated that while readers are aware that this text construction is difficult, they seem to be able to do little to improve their comprehension. The present research evaluated whether a change in typeface could improve comprehension and metacomprehension of negation. Results indicated that while readers were aware that placing a word in bold typeface should attract their attention to that item, and therefore improve their comprehension, comprehension did not improve differentially for negation presented in bold. Additionally, readers' awareness of the necessity of attention to the bold component was not specific to negative sentences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After more than 100 years of interest and study, knowledge transfer remains among the most challenging, contentious, and important issues for both psychology and education. In this article, we review and discuss many of the more important ideas and findings from the existing research and attempt to bridge this body of work with the exciting new research directions suggested by the following articles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this article is to identify factors that statistically explain the variation and the measures on the level of motivation of a sample of mathematics students in a university. Specifically, this analysis will identify groups of similar items and reduce the number of variables used in a study. This article explains the use of exploratory factor analysis in extracting factors of personal belief and motivational factors among students in learning mathematics. The adaptation of these factors can be used for assessing academic performance in relation to motivation level. By identifying these factors, the mathematics educators or researchers will be able to find ways to improve the condition of the factors and also to further investigate the factors based on confirmatory approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unfolding of individual interests is reconstructed as part of a person's everyday experience in dealing with multiple goals. This is exemplified by referring to how adolescents cope with developmental tasks while striving for their ideal selves. Exploratory interaction with objects of potential interest is regarded as a central element that provides information on the criteria for interestingness and enables selective choices. When exploring an object of potential interest, persons have to take into account other goals that may or may not be conflicting. The basic idea is to foster interest development while minimizing goal conflicts and the resulting problems of diminished experience in the interesting activity or diminished performance in noninteresting but important activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-stakes testing has driven the way that educators deliver instruction. Historically, standardized testing has been in existence since the 1800s, but the impact of accountability was not recognized until the late 1970s. Science educators are trying to balance the requirements of state assessments with creative and meaningful curricula. Inquiry-based science instruction has led the way in assisting students in the process of discovering knowledge for themselves instead of simply being asked to recall information. Inquiry learning promotes creativity by increasing motivation, wonderment, and curiosity. The author proposes that inquiry is the key to enhancing creativity, while still meeting the demands of standardized testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how new university students in three different fields of study—arts, law and veterinary medicine—explain their own disciplinary choices (n = 536). Despite the differences between the study fields, the new students' answers often included the word “interest”. Because interest is linked to high-quality learning, the students seem to have a good starting point for their studies. On the other hand, the students use the concept of interest in several contexts, which may reflect diverse usage of the construct as well as different levels of interest development. On the basis of student expressions, five subcategories specifying the level of interest were identified. The study shows that it is possible to identify aspects of individual interest from the rather short written explanations of disciplinary choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to traditional theories of identity development, exploration of one's potentials and commitment to a coherent set of values, goals, and behaviors are important to healthy identity development. In this article, I examine how the Self-determination Theory framework provides an understanding of motivational processes that influence these identity concepts of exploration and commitment. Specifically, I review evidence that suggests that the concept of basic psychological needs frames the development of identity through processes of intrinsic motivation and internalization and that need support for these processes by important relationship partners may facilitate outcomes, including academic interest, engagement, and achievement, as well as overall well-being. Finally, I provide a glimpse of potential future directions of research, particularly emphasizing the role of need support when identity is in flux (e.g., reactivated exploration either by self-directed or environmentally prompted events) or when challenged by macrolevel social pressures, such as high-stakes testing in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An inductive model is proposed that suggests that support for the development and deepening of interest can be aided by knowledge of identity development. The model suggests that instructional practice would be usefully informed were educators (e.g., teachers, parents, museum curators, counselors) to have information about both the phase of a learner's interest and age-related expectations about their identity development, when working to promote learning of particular disciplinary content. Research describing phases in the development of interest and the age-related challenges and expectations specific to self-representation is reviewed, followed by evidence from the literature that provides preliminary support for the model. Research directions needed to challenge and refine the model follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Melioration is borrowing and using an idea from another field not closely associated with your field of expertise. Using the borrowed concept to address a challenge in your field potentially provides new avenues of action and insight. I borrow the concept of boundary objects from science fields and use it to examine assignments in the college classroom. Through analysis of student-teacher discussion, I become aware that content, not assignment, is the boundary object of interest. Avenues of action and insight opened through that analysis are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author studied the pedagogy of Socrates looking for teaching techniques that help maintain students' interest in an ongoing discussion. Socrates' use of such strategies as asking probing questions, expanding the discussion into its relationship to other ideas, assuming the role of the devil's advocate, and spending time on group maintenance can be extremely helpful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Setting events are typically seen as antecedent contextual variables that influence behaviour. They are thought to act independently of Skinner's three-term contingency, which consists of a discriminative stimulus, response, and reinforcing consequence. There has been increasing interest in setting events in education from both a theoretical and applied perspective. This paper examines a range of conceptualisations of setting events and appraises the extent to which they can be viewed as a discrete class of phenomena. Variation in the terminology used to describe setting events and lack of clarity in consideration of explanatory mechanisms tends to hinder analysis. Nevertheless, a number of plausible explanations exist to account for setting events associated with both conditioned and unconditioned reinforcers. While the conceptual underpinnings of setting events remain unclear in part, they do serve the function of drawing our attention to a wide range of antecedent variables that may influence behaviour. Resolution of issues related to consistency of terminology and clarification of our conceptual understanding of setting events may provide further guidance in their practical application to behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two studies tested whether the possession of a mental story-bank (a set of thematically related narratives) affected the processing of a related narrative. Three competing predictions were proposed: a story-bank may lead to reduced attention, increased attention, or selective attention to a new, related story. The results of Study 1 (N = 125 undergraduates) suggested that a prior story-bank led to more efficient processing of a target narrative (as indicated by recall data), favoring a selective attention interpretation. Study 2 (N = 114 undergraduates) showed that individuals who possessed a relevant story-bank were more persuaded by a related target narrative, also consistent with the selective attention interpretation. Story-banks thus appeared to facilitate, rather than hinder, processing of new narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the case of the Flemish policy on educational quality and based on a series of case studies, the author argues that the impact of central policy measures on educational practices in schools is never simply straightforward. Policy measures are always interpreted by and translated to the particular context of a school. In these processes of interpretation the teachers' and principal's agenda of professional interests plays a crucial role. Taking up the micropolitical perspective on schools as a descriptive and analytical theoretical lens, the author argues that these interests reflect different types of working conditions that are considered valuable or necessary by the teachers and principal to do a good job. If these conditions are absent, threatened or lost, people will engage in micropolitical actions in order to establish, safeguard or restore the desirable working conditions. Five different categories of professional interests were identified in the analysis of the case study data. Describing these categories, the author shows how the macropolitical agenda gets caught up in the micropolitics of the local schools during the policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The English Skills for Life strategy symbolises the prominent place that adult basic skills have claimed in education and training policy in England since the beginning of this century. The strategy aims to improve the skills of a large number of learners over a ten year period (2001-2010). This paper explores what we can learn about the impact of the strategy from an analysis of available statistical data. The paper presents trends in participation and achievement over the first four years of the strategy, which indicate a pattern of diminishing returns to numbers participating over time, and which may well reflect the growing difficulties the policy will face of engaging 'hard to reach' learners. Alongside this analysis, the paper raises a number of issues concerning the limitations of available statistical data in providing answers to questions such as the progress made by learners and their subsequent progression, both within and beyond adult basic skills provision. The paper goes on to argue that the strong emphasis on a numerical target related to qualification outcomes may serve to focus both practitioners' and policy makers' attention on this aspect alone. This, it is argued, may serve the interests of international benchmarking of skills levels in the population, but may do rather less in helping to improve learners' lives and capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on and extending existing research, this article proposes a 4-phase model of interest development. The model describes 4 phases in the development and deepening of learner interest: triggered situational interest, maintained situational interest, emerging (less-developed) individual interest, and well-developed individual interest. Affective as well as cognitive factors are considered. Educational implications of the proposed model are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Quality of Working in Groups Instrument (QWIGI) was used in this research to measure students’ fluctuating psychological need states as well as their situational interest online. Based on previous research with the QWIGI, it was predicted that the variance in university sophomores’ situational interest in each of the five different topics of an introductory course in education could be explained in terms of the students’ situational interest in previously studied topic‐related material (both within‐topic transfer and across‐topic transfer) and their perception of the learning conditions. An introductory course on education was taken by 95 sophomores; the course was given by five different teachers, covering five different topics. The course lasted 14 weeks and was set up according to the principles of social constructivism. Students’ situational interest as well as their satisfaction with the learning conditions in terms of competence level, autonomy granted, and social relatedness was registered on nine occasions during the course. Results indicate that high situational interest generated in the previously recorded learning episode counteracts a decline in situational interest, both within and across the topic boundary. Satisfaction with the learning conditions in terms of the three psychological need states also contributed to the variance explained, particularly satisfaction with the level of competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memory for the initial and final positions of moving targets was examined. When targets appeared adjacent to the boundary of a larger enclosing window, memory for initial position exhibited a Fröhlich effect (i.e., a displacement forward), and when distance of initial position from the boundary increased, memory for initial position exhibited a smaller Fröhlich effect or an onset repulsion effect (i.e., a displacement backward). When targets vanished adjacent to the boundary of a larger enclosing window, memory for final position was displaced backward, and when distance of final position from the boundary increased, memory for final position did not exhibit significant displacement. These patterns differed from previously reported displacements of initial and final positions of targets presented on a blank background. Possible influences of attention and extrapolation of trajectory on whether memory for initial position exhibits a Fröhlich effect or an onset repulsion effect and on backward displacement in memory for final position are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the concept of resistance, contrasting modernist and postmodernist positions in terms of what resistance is, its relationship to power and agency, how it is identified, where it comes from in the lives of young people, and what it achieves. Foremost attention is given to subcultural and Foucauldian positions, to argue that while resistance remains a relevant and useful concept, there are significant underlying differences between such positions on it, differences that fundamentally affect how the concept is deployed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the relations of the Divided Attention Questionnaire (DAQ) developed by Tun and Wingfield (1995) to age, and to measures of divided attention performance. With increased age activities assumed to require divided attention were rated as more difficult, were perceived as becoming more difficult over time, and were per- formed less frequently. However, no significant relations were found between DAQ ratings and performance on divided attention tasks administered in the laboratory. This suggests that the DAQ may not be a valid measure of divided attention ability as that construct is measured with laboratory tasks. Possible explanations for the lack of relations between the DAQ ratings and measures of divided attention performance are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to changing demographics, all social workers will have experience working with older clients and their families within professional roles. Unfortunately, social work education continues to lag in preparing students to be effective in practice with aging clients. Several strategies are presented with the goal of increasing student interest in the field of aging. At the program level, initiatives include using experiential learning, infusing aging content into required courses, and enhancing faculty capacity in aging. In addition, social work programs can build collaborations within the university setting and practice community. Overall, the goal is to present aging as an exciting and rewarding field of practice, and ensure that all students have the knowledge and skills to be effective in practice with older clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isen (1984) and Berkowitz (1987) noted the strong link between positive moods and positive thinking. Isen proposed that the well-established relation between positive moods and increased helping or compliance is attributable to the mediating effects of positive thinking. In the current study, the effect of interest- a type of positive thinking- on compliance was examined. Because of the strong link between positive moods and positive thinking, it was expected that inducing interest would increase compliance. College students sitting alone in a university library were approached and asked to complete an interesting task, an uninteresting task, or were not asked to do an initial task. All students were then asked to answer questions from a sociology survey. Students in the interesting task condition were willing to answer more questions than students in the other two conditions, in which compliance rates were equal. A second experiment was conducted to determine whether the task used in Experiment1 increased compliance because itincreased interestor because itinduced guilt or lowered self-esteem (the task was a perceptual trick that most students got wrong even though it appeared very easy). Results showed that the interesting task created not only more interest, but also more guilt than the uninteresting task. Both interest and guilt contributed independently to compliance. Together, the two experiments showed that interest, like positive affect, can increase compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on termination as one of the stages of consultation which receives minimal attention in consultation. She believes that the mentioned topic rightfully deserves careful thought and acknowledgement. Moreover, she comments that now is the appropriate time to think about the past as well as the future.

The article presents a response by Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes to a comment by Daphne Loads on their work entitled "Knowing me, Knowing you: The Rise of Therapeutic Professionalism in the Education of Adults." They stress that their article does not mention education as an emotionally and cognitively transforming experience. Their argument is about the generalization of that vulnerability within the contemporary cultural climate.

The author comments on the article entitled "Knowing me, Knowing you: The Rise of Therapeutic Professionalism in the Education of Adults," by Kathryn Ecclestone, Dennis Hayes and Frank Furedi. She argues that the interest in the emotions and in vulnerability, as claimed by the authors, is having a negative impact on education. She also emphasizes the important distinction between vulnerability and victimhood.

Introduces a series of articles on learning and education published in the 1993/1994 issue of 'The Journal of The Learning Sciences.' Lack of interest in students about learning; Need to restructure learning activities in ways that allow students to pursue the things that interest them most; Definition of goal-based scenario; Examples of goal-based scenario; Strength of goal-based scenario.

The article explores whether student subjects' implicit leadership theories are generalizable to professional subjects. Considerable attention has been focused recently in the literatwe of social and organizational psychology on the issue of the generalizability of research from the laboratory to the field. Whereas some researchers argue that it is appropriate to use student samples, others maintain that results differ from those of field samples. The present study explored whether student subjects' implicit leadership theories are generalizable to professional subjects. An individual's implicit leadership theory refers to beliefs held about how leaders behave in general and what is expected of them. These beliefs have been shown to bias or distort an individual's perception and description of leaders' actual behavior. In this study, student and professional subjects' implicit theories about requirements for effective leadership were examined within the attribution framework by analyzing their internal and external requirements.

The article offers a productive method of teaching while waiting for latecomers in class. At the beginning of most classes, an object related to the course is passed around, asking students for their impressions as to what the object might be or how it might be used. In the end, it is found that the students enjoy the session that unexpected tardiness effectively ceased. Some even claimed that they were motivated to come to class in order to see what object would passed around. The teaching method should be adaptable to other subject areas with a little thought and preparation.