Do Gender Differences in Perceived Prototypical Computer Scientists and Engineers Contribute to Gender Gaps in Computer Science and Engineering?

Women are vastly underrepresented in the fields of computer science and engineering (CS&E). We examined whether women might view the intellectual characteristics of prototypical individuals in CS&E in more stereotype-consistent ways than men might and, consequently, show less interest in CS&E. We asked 269 U.S. college students (187, 69.5% women) to describe the prototypical computer scientist (Study 1) or engineer (Study 2) through open-ended descriptions as well as through a set of trait ratings. Participants also rated themselves on the same set of traits and rated their similarity to the prototype. Finally, participants in both studies were asked to describe their likelihood of pursuing future college courses and careers in computer science (Study 1) or engineering (Study 2). Across both studies, we found that women offered more stereotype-consistent ratings than did men of the intellectual characteristics of prototypes in CS (Study 1) and engineering (Study 2). Women also perceived themselves as less similar to the prototype than men did. Further, the observed gender differences in prototype perceptions mediated the tendency for women to report lower interest in CS&E fields relative to men. Our work highlights the importance of prototype perceptions for understanding the gender gap in CS&E and suggests avenues for interventions that may increase women’s representation in these vital fields

Could dental school teaching clinics provide better care than regular private practices?

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149321/1/jicd12329.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149321/2/jicd12329_am.pd

Confidence and competence with mathematical procedures

Confidence assessment (CA), in which students state alongside each of their answers a confidence level expressing how certain they are, has been employed successfully within higher education. However, it has not been widely explored with school pupils. This study examined how school mathematics pupils (N = 345) in five different secondary schools in England responded to the use of a CA instrument designed to incentivise the eliciting of truthful confidence ratings in the topic of directed (positive and negative) numbers. Pupils readily understood the negative marking aspect of the CA process and their facility correlated with their mean confidence with r = .546, N = 336, p < .001, indicating that pupils were generally well calibrated. Pupils’ comments indicated that the vast majority were positive about the CA approach, despite its dramatic differences from more usual assessment practices in UK schools. Some pupils felt that CA promoted deeper thinking, increased their confidence and had a potential role to play in classroom formative assessment

Road Trauma in Teenage Male Youth with Childhood Disruptive Behavior Disorders: A Population Based Analysis

Donald Redelmeier and colleagues conducted a population-based case-control study of 16-19-year-old males hospitalized for road trauma or appendicitis and showed that disruptive behavior disorders explained a significant amount of road trauma in this group

Better the devil you know:Threat effects and attachment to the European Union

The EU is facing unprecedented challenges and significant threats to its economic and political security. Austerity, the Eurozone crisis, rising immigration and heightened fear of terrorism all present serious challenges to the process of integration. How does this context of insecurity impact on what the EU means to its citizens? Will the public become increasingly Eurosceptic or will they discover a hitherto unrecognised attachment to the EU as the prospect of its collapse becomes real? Psychological research has demonstrated that individual exposure to threat decreases cognitive capacity, inducing a tendency towards rigidity or conservatism - a tendency to cling to the ‘devil you know’. So what might this mean for the European integration process? Using experimental techniques drawn from political psychology, the authors find a dual threat effect. The EU symbol has a negative (anti-EU) effect on EU-related attitudes when presented in neutral context. This is consonant with conceptualisations of the EU as a threat to national cultural and political norms. In contrast, however, visual priming of participants with EU symbols has a positive (pro-EU) effect on related attitudes when these are presented in a context that implies a subtle but imminent threat to the benefits of EU membership

Development of Organic Collectors for the Flotation of Uranium Minerals

A series of organic reagents for the collection and flotation of several secondary uranium minerals has been developed, this being the mono-alkyl nitrogen substitutions of the dithiocarbamate grouping with a chain length of at least eight carbon atoms. In flotation tests, using the potassium salt of n-decyl dithiocarbamate as collector, high recoveries of autunite have been obtained from mixtures of finely-ground synthetic autunite and silica sand. Certain base-metal salts added as conditioning agents have increased the collecting properties and selectivity of the dithiocarbamates in the flotation of both autunite and carnotite. In single batch and locked tests, using lead as the base metal ion, recoveries of over 95 percent of the uranium have been obtained, with ratios of concentration as high as 13:1. Preliminary tests on natural ores show encouraging results; the problems of liberation and conditioning must be solved for each ore. (auth

Construction de la longueur et de sa mesure. Une étude exploratoire auprès d'enfants de première primaire

This chapter discusses a number of the contemporary approaches in motor learning that can be used by practitioners to help design and implement skill practice sessions for developmental level athletes. It highlights the intention to create an athlete-centred learning environment that not only promotes the acquisition of individualised coordination patterns, but also highly adaptable athletes who are capable of achieving success in the demanding environment of elite level sport. The application of the constraints-led approach in coaching typically involves the manipulation of one or more categories of constraints in an attempt to encourage the natural emergence of a desired movement behaviour. The concept of 'functional variability' suggests that the variability that typically occurs during the execution of a skill may often play an important role in helping to facilitate adaptability. Clearly, the role of the sports practitioner is pivotal in creating suitable practice activities to enhance motor learning