A further investigation of the effects of achievement imagery and differential instructions on maze learning performance

One of the personality variables that has been the object of considerable interest in recent years is need achievement. This variable was first defined by Murray as the need for success in competition with some standard of excellence. McClelland and his associates, measuring need for achievement from written responses to TAT-type pictures, have reported Significant and useful relationships between this variable and several behavioral criteria. In order to have a more objective method of measuring need achievement, the Iowa Picture Interpretation Test (IPIY) was developed at the State University of Iowa laboratories. The IPIT obtains scores on four variables: achievement imagery, blandness, hostility, and insecurity. The test originally employed ten TAT with four alternative responses to each card to be ranked in order of preference. In its present form (Form RK) the IPIT has been expanded to include twenty-four TAT cards. Form RK has been shown to have higher internal consistency and stability than the earlier form and to be a better predictor of behavior on a simple additions task. The purpose of the present investigation is to provide a further replication of these two studies, using both Form O and Form RK of the IPIT to constitute the AI groups, and controlling for the general learning ability of the Ss in these groups in an attempt to better understand the differences in results

Understanding the Relation Between Boredom and Achievement in Post-Secondary Students

Pekruns (2006) control-value theory offers a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding the causes and consequences of boredom in a learning context. One important aspect of this model is the relationship between boredom and academic achievement: Boredom and academic achievement are theorized to affect each other causally, with increased boredom leading to poorer academic achievement and poor academic achievement leading to increased boredom. Prior work on this model has conflated trait boredom, state boredom, and judgments of task boringness and has not examined the relationship between boredom and academic achievement using experimental designs. The present dissertation sought to better understand the relationship between boredom and achievement by, for the first time: distinguishing between trait boredom, state boredom, and judgments of task boringness; conducting experiments in the laboratory where extraneous variables could be better controlled; and using experimental manipulation for causal conclusions. Study 1 examined the naturally occurring relationship between state boredom and achievement (performance on a word list recall task) in the laboratory. Study 2 tested whether manipulating state boredom resulted in changes in word list recall, and Study 3 tested whether manipulating perceived word list recall resulted in changes in state boredom. State boredom and performance had a reciprocal relationship only for participants who memorized interesting word lists and only after repeated trials (Study 1); trait boredom predicted performance but state boredom did not (Study 2); and manipulating perceptions of performance had no effect on state boredom but did affect participants judgments of how boring the learning task was (Study 3). Thus, support for control-value theory is strongest when boredom is conceptualized as the boringness of a task or trait boredom rather than state boredom. Interventions to address boredom in the classroom can help target state boredom before it crystallizes into the more damaging forms of course-related and trait boredom. Guidelines for educators are offered. Future research work is proposed, most pressingly the need to replicate the current findings with more complex learning tasks

Starting from scratch: patient-reported outcome questionnaires & their role in an integrative medicine primary care minimum-dataset

Aim This research explored the use of patient questionnaires for evaluating integrative medicine (IM) clinics in the primary care setting. Background Integrative medicine (IM) combines traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine with conventional biomedicine. With more clinics in Australia offering IM, it is important to evaluate outcomes. Methods Mixed methods were used. This included a case study of an IM clinic in Sydney, Australia; interviews with 20 patients and 13 staff at the clinic; and a systematic literature review of patient questionnaires. Results Challenges for meausring IM outcomes limitations with routine clinical data collection, selecting appropriate questionnaires able to measure the wide range of IM outcomes whilst minimizing responder burden, patient recruitment and practitioner support. Electronic questionnaires have many advantages. Alternative formats such as paper are still needed. Not all interviewees were interested in cohort results or research and instead wanted to access their individual patient results. Discussion The results from the studies were synthesised and a set of recommendations are offered. Conclusions Patient questionnaires could be used to establish a minimum dataset for use in research, health service development, and informing and improving individual patient care. A bottom-up approach that adresses stakeholders’ needs for a dataset is essential

The Inspiration of Boredom: An Investigation of the Relationship Between Boredom and Creativity

The present thesis investigated the novel question of whether boredom could inspire creativity through two studies, the first focusing on trait creativity and the second on creative performance. The results reflect boredom and creativity’s complex, potentially null relationship. Study 1 found that trait boredom, controlling for overall personality structure, was not associated with creative personality. Study 2 found that neither state boredom nor the interaction between state and trait boredom was predictive of creative performance. Trait boredom, controlling for overall personality structure, was a positive predictor of curiosity (Study 1), and curiosity in turn was found to be a positive predictor of creative performance (Study 2), suggesting a potential mediated relationship. Future work exploring this possibility is encouraged. Researchers exploring the relationship between boredom and creativity are also urged to assess arousal and regulatory focus. Finally, work exploring multiple, potentially interacting components of creativity–particularly rater characteristics–is proposed

Interview with Annie Popkin

In her August 1993 interview with Ron Chepesiuk, Annie Popkin detailed her activist life, especially in the Radical Sixties. Popkin, who at the time was a Women’s Studies professor, discussed such topics as Women’s Liberation, the Religious Right, the New and Old Left, homophobia, homosexuality, Marxism, the Civil Rights movement, Beatniks, and sexism. She also covered feminism, Gloria Steinem, McCarthyism, the Southern Organizing Committee, male chauvinism, and Betty Friedan. This interview was conducted for inclusion into the Louise Pettus Archives and Special Collections Oral History Program.https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/oralhistoryprogram/1197/thumbnail.jp

Synthesis and Antimicrobial Activity of 1,2-Benzothiazine Derivatives

A number of 1,2-benzothiazines have been synthesized in a three-step process. Nine chalcones 1–9 bearing methyl, fluoro, chloro and bromo substituents were chlorosulfonated with chlorosulfonic acid to generate the chalcone sulfonyl chlorides 10–18. These were converted to the dibromo compounds 19–27 through reaction with bromine in glacial acetic acid. Compounds 19–27 were reacted with ammonia, methylamine, ethylamine, aniline and benzylamine to generate a library of 45 1,2-benzothiazines 28–72. Compounds 28–72 were evaluated for their antimicrobial activity using broth microdilution techniques against two Gram-positive bacteria (Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus) and two Gram-negative bacteria (Proteus vulgaris and Salmonella typhimurium). The results demonstrated that none of the compounds showed any activity against Gram-negative bacteria P. vulgaris and S. typhimurium; however, compounds 31, 33, 38, 43, 45, 50, 53, 55, 58, 60, 63 and 68 showed activity against Gram-positive bacteria Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcous aureus. The range of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) was 25–600 µg/mL, though some of the MIC and MBC concentrations were high, indicating weak activity. Structure activity relationship studies revealed that the compounds with a hydrogen atom or an ethyl group on the nitrogen of the thiazine ring exerted antibacterial activity against Gram-positive bacteria. The results also showed that the compounds where the benzene ring of the benzoyl moiety contained a methyl group or a chlorine or bromine atom in the para position showed higher antimicrobial activity. Similar influences were identified where either a bromine or chlorine atom was in the meta position

In Defense Of Public Schools: A Toolkit From The Midwest

One of the defining features of public schools is that they operate at the will of the people, with public oversight from elected school boards. In addition to being free and open to all, free from religious affiliation, and promoting civic understanding and participation, much of what makes public schools public happens through the democratic process. We have noticed that many teachers are so overworked and overwhelmed - rightly focused on their own classrooms and their own students’ day to day struggles - that it’s not easy for them to engage and advocate for themselves and their students in the ways they would like, even though their input is sorely needed. We hope to demystify the policy process to help educators influence public conversations about education that too often happen without their participation. We know many educators who want to engage in policy discussions, but need tools to help them do so as part of their already overwhelming schedules. We begin here with a brief overview of the U.S. school privatization movement to provide context for why educator advocacy is so needed. Then, we offer experiences from our state of Nebraska, one of three states with no school privatization policies on the books. Finally, we give educators ideas of how to get involved where they live

The Curious Schools Project: Capturing Nomad Creativity in Teacher Work

The Curious Schools project is a teacher professional learning initiative that aims to provide an insight into – and resource for – creativity in Tasmanian schools. It offers an alternative to conventional models of teacher professional learning by engaging teachers in multi-modal methods of documenting and reflecting on their work as the basis for an online community of practice and public showcase for creativity in education that takes place ‘behind the scenes’. The authors, as coordinators of the project, describe the rationale behind the project and the ways it embraced discourses and practices of curiosity as a means of making visible the creativity of teachers and classrooms. Drawing on the concept of nomadology in the work of Deleuze and Guattari, as well as diverse scholarly perspectives on curiosity, the authors describe how the Curious Schools Project sought to capture the ‘nomad creativity’ of teacher work via a process of documentation and question-seeking that countered complexity-reduction in teacher professional learning and sustained teacher curiosity in their work. Reflecting on an evaluation of its 2013 pilot, the authors suggest that the project’s explicit emphasis on curiosity avoided limiting conceptualisations of creativity in education and will inform future plans to more appropriately document and support the processes of emergence in teacher professional learning. The digital site for the project is available at http://www.utas.edu.au/education/curious-schools

What Is “The Good” Of Arts-Based Peacebuilding? Questions of Value and Evaluation in Current Practice

In a context of growing attention to the benefits of the arts in peacebuilding, this article reports on the findings of a small scoping study that aimed to identify how the arts are perceived and supported by international development agencies. Based on a 2012 analysis of five international aid agencies working in the South East Asia and Pacific region, the study found that arts and creative practices are not, as yet, afforded a significant role in current policy or strategy, although arts activity is recognised as a social development tool by agencies working in partnership with local organisations. Resulting from an analysis of participating agencies’ publicly available documentation, and interviews with staff, arts practitioners and volunteers working in field-based arts projects, this article argues that the value of arts-based interventions in peacebuilding and development is yet to be fully realised. Bringing field experience as well as policy and research backgrounds to the analysis, the authors consider why this might be the case and pose broader questions about the communication, role and influence of evaluation as one factor in this. They argue for a better acknowledgment of the diverse applications and implications of the “use” of the arts within complex social, political, and cultural systems by linking this call with evaluation methodologies that may better reveal the ways in which such projects “raise possibilities” rather than “confirm probabilities.” This article suggests a four-question schema for augmenting the documentation and evaluation of arts-based work to more authentically capture “the good” that may arise from the emergent nature of artmaking itself