Academic Performance and Behavioral Patterns

Identifying the factors that influence academic performance is an essential part of educational research. Previous studies have documented the importance of personality traits, class attendance, and social network structure. Because most of these analyses were based on a single behavioral aspect and/or small sample sizes, there is currently no quantification of the interplay of these factors. Here, we study the academic performance among a cohort of 538 undergraduate students forming a single, densely connected social network. Our work is based on data collected using smartphones, which the students used as their primary phones for two years. The availability of multi-channel data from a single population allows us to directly compare the explanatory power of individual and social characteristics. We find that the most informative indicators of performance are based on social ties and that network indicators result in better model performance than individual characteristics (including both personality and class attendance). We confirm earlier findings that class attendance is the most important predictor among individual characteristics. Finally, our results suggest the presence of strong homophily and/or peer effects among university students

The communicative functions of metaphors between explanation and persuasion

In the literature, the pragmatic dimension of metaphors has been clearly acknowledged. Metaphors are regarded as having different possible uses, and in particular, they are commonly viewed as instruments for pursuing persuasion. However, an analysis of the specific conversational purposes that they can be aimed at achieving in a dialogue and their adequacy thereto is still missing. In this paper, we will address this issue focusing on the distinction between the explanatory and persuasive goal. The difference between explanation and persuasion is often blurred and controversial from a theoretical point of view. Building on the analysis of explanation in different theories and fields of study, we show how it can be conceived as characterized by a cognitive and a pragmatic dimension, where the transference of understanding is used pragmatically for different dialogical goals. This theoretical proposal will be applied to examples drawn from the medical context, to show how a pragmatic approach to explanation can account for the complexity of the cases that can be found in actual dialogical contexts

Emotional intelligence training intervention among trainee teachers: a quasi-experimental study

Background: Emotional intelligence (EI) has often been linked to improvements in professional performance. Indeed, generic competencies related to EI have been included in university curricula. However, learning EI involves significant time and effort on the part of students, and this may hinder the acquisition of specific content for each degree. In this study, an intervention to develop EI in higher education students is described and evaluated. Methods: The intervention consisted of eight group sessions performed in a regular course aiming to increase EI. The sessions included strategies and training on perceiving and understanding one’s own emotions and others’ emotions, identifying and understanding the impact one’s own feelings in adopting decisions, expressing one’s own emotions and the stress experienced, and managing both one’s own emotions and emotions of others. Participants were 192 students studying for a Master of Primary Education degree. A quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design was adopted. The effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated using multi-level analyses. Results: The results showed a significant improvement in the EI of students in the experimental group compared with the control group. Conclusions: This research demonstrates that it is possible to develop EI in higher education students, without hindering the acquisition of specific content competencies and, therefore, without interfering with their academic performance and without overburdening students with work outside the classroom. Trial registration: The experiment has been registered in the Initial Deposit of the Spanish Center for Sociological Research (CIS). 7/6/2015. http://www.cis.es/cis/opencms/ES/index.html.This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Grant number EDU2015-64562-R

Turkey Problems and prospects

SIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Development of the Meanness in Psychopathy – Self Report: Factor Structure, Criterion-Related Validity, and Incremental Validity

Meanness is a multifaceted construct that is central to psychopathy. This study reports the development of the Meanness in Psychopathy-Self Report (MiP-SR) across three waves of MTurk data collection involving approximately 300 participants in each wave. The MiP-SR’s items were written without reference to specific antisocial behaviors, and its 26 trait scales aggregated into three factors. Malice assesses an aggressive, haughty, remorseless misuse of others. Coldness assesses an unempathetic, unemotional detachment from people. Imperviousness assesses a resistance to socially mediated negative emotions. Malice related to nearly all measures of psychopathy, narcissism and antagonism, and reduced honesty and humility. Coldness related to callous-unemotional psychopathy, detachment and restricted affectivity, and avoidant attachment along with reduced empathy. Imperviousness related to boldness and callous-affective psychopathy, reduced vulnerable narcissism and negative affectivity, and positive emotionality along with reduced anxious attachment. Together, the MiP-SR’s factors incrementally predicted most criterion-related variables beyond the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure’s Meanness scale

Disentangling Instrumental and Reactive Aggression in an Improved Competitive Reaction Time Task

Aggression is frequently subtyped into instrumental and reactive forms. Instrumental aggression has proven challenging to measure using laboratory paradigms. Some researchers have attempted to measure instrumental aggression using the first few trials of the Competitive Reaction Time Task (CRTT), a paradigm that is often employed to measure reactive aggression. However, this setup allows little opportunity for the emission of instrumental aggression, and there is a question of whether the aggression emitted in these first few trials constitute instrumental aggression or merely a baseline level of compliance with demand characteristics of the situation. This study made several modifications to the CRTT to better measure both instrumental and reactive aggression within the same paradigm using a sample of 85 undergraduate students at a diverse university. Overall, participants became angrier (consistent with reactive aggression) and shocked their opponent more frequently and more severely when they themselves were getting shocked in the reactive condition than when they did not receive a shock in the instrumental condition. Shock severity varied with experimental condition more than shock frequency suggesting that - even when participants have the option to not shock their opponent - aggression is primarily emitted in terms of greater shock severity. Results also suggest there may be a baseline frequency and severity of shock that participants will deliver based on demand characteristics and the implicit permission to shock inherent in task instructions, suggesting researchers should measure aggression using the change in shock severity