Quality of llife of Qatar university students with disability and its relation to their academic adjustment and performance

This study aimed at assessing the quality of life of Qatar University students with disability and its relation to their academic adjustment and performance. Seventy (70) students, 31 males, and 39 females participated in the study during the spring of 2017. Participants with sensory (visual or hearing impairments) numbered 25, with physical impairment 32, and with learning disability 13 were assessed on six aspects of Quality of life, including, health, social and family, education, emotional life, mental health, and time management skills. Participants also reported their GPA and completed the academic adjustment assessment tool. Results showed medium to high levels of quality of life among students. Results showed that males� level of quality of life was higher than that of females on health, emotions, and mental health. The type of disability did not affect their level of quality of life. Further, significant relationships were found between quality of life aspects and academic adjustment. Furthermore, the quality of life and academic adjustment predicted academic performance. Results were discussed using the contextual and cultural factors affecting students� quality of life and their academic adjustment. 2019, International Journal of Special Education. All rights reserved

International note: Prediction of mathematics work ethic and performance from behavioral, normative, and control beliefs among Qatari adolescents

Over half-a-million adolescents take part in each cycle of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Yet often, researchers and policy makers across the globe tend to focus their attention primarily on the academic trajectories of adolescents hailing from highly successful education systems. Hence, a vast majority of the adolescent population who regionally and globally constitute the ‘long tail of underachievement’ often remain unnoticed and underrepresented in the growing literature on adolescents' academic trajectories. The present study, therefore, explored the relations of dispositions toward mathematics, subjective norms in mathematics, and perceived control of success in mathematics to mathematics work ethic as well as mathematics performance; and the mediational role of mathematics work ethic in the association between dispositional, normative, and control beliefs and mathematics performance among adolescents in one of the lowest performing education systems, Qatar. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses revealed that Qatari adolescents' dispositional, normative, and control beliefs about mathematics were significantly associated with their mathematics work ethic and mathematics performance, and mathematics work ethic significantly mediated the relationship between dispositional, normative, and control beliefs about mathematics and mathematics performance. However, multi-group SEM analyses indicated that these relationships were not invariant across the gender and the SES groups

The development of children's preferences for equality and equity across 13 individualistic and collectivist cultures

A concern for fairness is a fundamental and universal element of morality. To examine the extent to which cultural norms are integrated into fairness cognitions and influence social preferences regarding equality and equity, a large sample of children (N 2,163) aged 4-11 were tested in 13 diverse countries. Children participated in three versions of a third-party, contextualized distributive justice game between two hypothetical recipients differing in terms of wealth, merit, and empathy. Social decision-making in these games revealed universal age-related shifts from equality-based to equity-based distribution motivations across cultures. However, differences in levels of individualism and collectivism between the 13 countries predicted the age and extent to which children favor equity in each condition. Children from the most individualistic cultures endorsed equitable distributions to a greater degree than children from more collectivist cultures when recipients differed in regards to wealth and merit. However, in an empathy context where recipients differed in injury, children from the most collectivist cultures exhibited greater preferences to distribute resource equitably compared to children from more individualistic cultures. Children from the more individualistic cultures also favored equitable distributions at an earlier age than children from more collectivist cultures overall. These results demonstrate aspects of both cross-cultural similarity and divergence in the development of fairness preferences.This study was supported by a grant from the John TempletonScopu