Effects of Combined Strategy Instruction and Attribution Retraining in Mathematics Achievement of Form One Students in A Secondary School

Students form beliefs of success and failure towards learning and these have implications on coping with their learning problems. In the process of learning, it is important for them to identify the causes of failure and success in order to achieve higher performance and acquire learning strategies to master their learning. This study examined the effects of combined strategy instruction and attribution retraining (SI + AR) on students' causal attributions, learning strategies and achievement. Causal attributions in this study were based on three dimensions, that is, whether the results were due to the subjects themselves (internal) or others (external), whether the causes were changing in nature (unstable) or unchanging over time and place (stable) and whether the subjects can control (controllable) or cannot control (uncontrollable) the causes concerned. A total of 133 Form One students were randomly chosen from one specific school. They formed four randomised cluster sampling classes. Subjects underwent the testing for eight days and the treatment for twenty days. The Nonequivalent Control Group Design consisting of three experimental groups and one control group was used. The experimental treatments were the SI + AR, the strategy instruction only (SI Only) and the attribution retraining only (AR Only). The control group had no treatment. All tests were administered before and after the treatment

Loneliness Across the Life Span

Most people have experienced loneliness and have been able to overcome it to reconnect with other people. In the current review, we provide a life-span perspective on one component of the evolutionary theory of loneliness—a component we refer to as the reaffiliation motive (RAM). The RAM represents the motivation to reconnect with others that is triggered by perceived social isolation. Loneliness is often a transient experience because the RAM leads to reconnection, but sometimes this motivation can fail, leading to prolonged loneliness. We review evidence of how aspects of the RAM change across development and how these aspects can fail for different reasons across the life span. We conclude with a discussion of age-appropriate interventions that may help to alleviate prolonged lonelines

Change-point detection of peak tibial acceleration in overground running retraining

A method is presented for detecting changes in the axial peak tibial acceleration while adapting to self-discovered lower-impact running. Ten runners with high peak tibial acceleration were equipped with a wearable auditory biofeedback system. They ran on an athletic track without and with real-time auditory biofeedback at the instructed speed of 3.2 m·s−1. Because inter-subject variation may underline the importance of individualized retraining, a change-point analysis was used for each subject. The tuned change-point application detected major and subtle changes in the time series. No changes were found in the no-biofeedback condition. In the biofeedback condition, a first change in the axial peak tibial acceleration occurred on average after 309 running gait cycles (3′40″). The major change was a mean reduction of 2.45 g which occurred after 699 running gait cycles (8′04″) in this group. The time needed to achieve the major reduction varied considerably between subjects. Because of the individualized approach to gait retraining and its relatively quick response due to a strong sensorimotor coupling, we want to highlight the potential of a stand-alone biofeedback system that provides real-time, continuous, and auditory feedback in response to the axial peak tibial acceleration for lower-impact running

Age and employment: a picture of the East Midlands

This report draws together information from a range of existing sources to assist stakeholders in the East Midlands to consider the Later Life agenda when developing strategy and policy

Attribution-based motivation treatment efficacy in an online learning environment for students who differ in cognitive elaboration

Attribution-based motivation treatments can boost performance in competitive achievement settings (Perry and Hamm 2017), yet their efficacy relative to mediating processes and affect-based treatments remains largely unexamined. In a two-semester, pre-post, randomized treatment study (n = 806), attributional retraining (AR) and stress-reduction (SR) treatments were administered in an online learning environment to first-year college students who differed in cognitive elaboration (low, high). Low elaborators who received AR outperformed their SR peers by nearly a letter grade on a class test assessed 5 months post-treatment. Path analysis revealed this AR-performance linkage was mediated by causal attributions, perceived control, and positive and negative achievement emotions in a hypothesized causal sequence. Results advance the literature by showing AR (vs. SR) improved performance indirectly via cognitive and affective process variables specified by Weiner’s (1985a, 2012) attribution theory of motivation and emotion