Exploring primary school teachers' motivation for music:an investigation into the impact of personal and social problems

Music in the primary school has long been a subject of debate. Advocates from the fields of research and policy-making have frequently stressed its importance, campaigning for time and resources within the packed primary curriculum. However, for individual teachers, music continues to create divisions: whilst some educators are extremely passionate about ensuring regular, inclusive delivery of the subject, there are others who find it anxiety-inducing and question the ability of generalist practitioners to even attempt to engage with it. Investigating the perceptions and beliefs of current teachers, who are actually involved in the day-to-day delivery of music becomes vital, in order to add their often-ignored perspectives to the debates surrounding music’s place in primary education. This thesis explores the issues surrounding primary school teachers’ responses to music, through the lens of motivational theories, in particular self-efficacy theories and value judgements. In particular, I examine how teachers’ engagement with the subject stems from a complex interaction of both personal and social factors, considering the relative and inter-dependent impact of these. Through the use of an exploratory pilot survey and extensive narrative interviews, an eight-point model of motivation is proposed. The complex nature of these eight dimensions, which span both personal-cognitive elements and socially-situated elements, suggests that it may well be possible for schools to impact positively on the ostensibly personal motivation of teachers; an in-depth investigation of one case-study school demonstrated this could occur even when the practitioners themselves may have had negative experiences with music in the past. Through engagement with this institution, I make explicit the circumstances through which this was made possible, highlighting their whole school approach which encouraged dialogue, reflection, autonomy and collaboration. In this way, the theoretical understanding of teachers’ motivation for music can be linked to the potential to improve real-life practice

Relations between gender stereotyping and foreign language attainment:The mediating role of language learners’ anxiety and self‐efficacy

BackgroundGender stereotyping of academic domains has long been a major issue in education. However, previous research has mainly focused on male-dominated fields and women’s disadvantage in such fields. Little attention has been paid to the fields of study, such as foreign language learning, which are typically stereotyped as female domains.AimsThis study aimed to investigate whether relations between (1) learners’ gender stereotypes about English as a foreign language (EFL) learning and language attainment and (2) learner perceptions of teacher stereotypes of EFL learning and language attainment were mediated by anxiety and self-efficacy.SampleData were collected from 701 university students (Mage = 19.7 years, 49.4% male) learning EFL in three Turkish universities.MethodData were collected over three waves. Multi-group structural equation modelling approach was used to analyse the data.ResultsResults showed the relations between learners’ gender stereotypes about EFL learning, and language attainment were mediated by self-efficacy. Self-efficacy also mediated the relationship between learner perceptions of teacher stereotypes of EFL learning and language attainment, but only for women. Language anxiety was not a mediator between gender stereotypes and attainment in either model tested.ConclusionsFindings show that gender stereotypes about EFL learning might affect learners’ language attainment by altering their self-efficacy. Helping learners to maximise their self-efficacy will therefore be beneficial for their language attainment

Tropopause and hygropause variability over the equatorial Indian Ocean during February and March 1999.

Measurements of temperature, water vapor, total water, ozone, and cloud properties were made above the western equatorial Indian Ocean in February and March 1999. The cold-point tropopause was at a mean pressure-altitude of 17 km, equivalent to a potential temperature of 380 K, and had a mean temperature of 190 K. Total water mixing ratios at the hygropause varied between 1.4 and 4.1 ppmv. The mean saturation water vapor mixing ratio at the cold point was 3.0 ppmv. This does not accurately represent the mean of the measured total water mixing ratios because the air was unsaturated at the cold point for about 40% of the measurements. As well as unsaturation at the cold point, saturation was observed above the cold point on almost 30% of the profiles. In such profiles the air was saturated with respect to water ice but was free of clouds (i.e., backscatter ratio <2) at potential temperatures more than 5 K above the tropopause and hygropause. Individual profiles show a great deal of variability in the potential temperatures of the cold point and hygropause. We attribute this to short timescale and space-scale perturbations superimposed on the seasonal cycle. There is neither a clear and consistent “setting” of the tropopause and hygropause to the same altitude by dehydration processes nor a clear and consistent separation of tropopause and hygropause by the Brewer-Dobson circulation. Similarly, neither the tropopause nor the hygropause provides a location where conditions consistently approach those implied by a simple “tropopause freeze drying” or “stratospheric fountain” hypothesis

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Confronting the challenge: The impact of whole school primary music on generalist teachers motivation and engagement

The motivation of teachers represents an emergent area of research within psychology, where the complex and fluid nature of practitioner engagement is increasingly recognised. Underpinned by psycho-social theories, this article explores the potential of socially-situated structures and processes to develop and maintain generalist teachers’ personal involvement with music. Data is utilised from a broad, qualitative project, which involved seven case study schools in the UK, although the story of one institution is prioritised; this represents a positive example in which the school’s leadership models, support structures and socio-interactional environment contributed to increased motivation of generalist practitioners. In this school, the fact that individual teachers were able to subvert their previous negative perceptions to become fully involved with music indicates the potential for personal engagement to be enhanced through social means. This paper provides an in-depth, theoretical analysis of the processes which enabled this to occur

Effect of Antiplatelet Therapy on Survival and Organ Support–Free Days in Critically Ill Patients With COVID-19

International audienc