An Exploration of the Core Self-Evaluations- Performance Relationship: The Roles of Engagement and Need for Achievement

The present study proposed a moderated mediation model involving the personality variables of core self-evaluations (CSE) and need for achievement (nAch), and the motivational state of engagement as predictors of task performance. CSE was hypothesized to interact with nAch to predict two domains of engagement, such that higher scores in measures of both variables would lead to increased performance in these domains. The narrow domain was represented by a single psychology test, and the broad domain referred to overall academic engagement and performance, as measured by cumulative GPA. CSE was also hypothesized to be directly related to performance in these same domains. Usable surveys were collected from five-hundred ninety-four undergraduate students; test score was available for 95% of the participants, although GPA was only accessible for 27% of the sample. The results suggested that the hypothesized CSE*nAch interaction was not significant; the direct CSE- performance relationship was also not supported by the results. Engagement was only related to performance in the general academic domain; this domain was also the only one in which the CSE-engagement relationship reached statistical significance. Possible explanations for the findings are presented, followed by limitations of the study and implications of the results. Lastly, suggestions are made for future research in this area

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements