Developing a second, third, and fourth grade environmental unit on water education

Past research into the ability of students to 'bounce back' from everyday academic setback (academic buoyancy) has lacked sensitivity to the contexts in which children demonstrate this behavior. Here we aimed to contextualize past findings by reporting the results of an exploratory investigation that featured: (1) repeated measurement of students' self-reported buoyancy across English, mathematics, science, and physical education; (2) measures of students' psychological appraisal as a test of external validity; (3) a novel national context (England rather than Australia). In total 260 English secondary school students aged 11-16. years completed self-report questionnaires. Students were found to hold relatively consistent views about their ability to bounce back from everyday academic setbacks (e.g., negative feedback, poor results, study stress or pressure) compared to the relatively less consistent views they held regarding the difficulty of the four school subjects as well as corresponding personal competences and effort. These results are discussed in the context of past research, the implications for interventions, and the need for further confirmatory investigations

Exploring the roles of academic, personal, and cultural demands and resources in immigrant students' motivation, engagement, and achievement

Background The present investigation applied the academic and cultural demands-resources (ACD-R) framework to better understand the academic development of immigrant high school students. Aims Analyses sought to test the hypothesized contribution of academic demands (e.g., learning-disrupted teaching) and resources (e.g., autonomy-supportive teaching), personal demands (e.g., fear of failure) and resources (e.g., adaptability), and cultural demands (e.g., discrimination) and resources (e.g., cultural confidence) in predicting motivation (self-efficacy, valuing)—and, in turn, the extent to which motivation predicted academic outcomes in the forms of engagement (persistence, non-attendance) and performance (achievement). Sample Drawing on PISA (2018) data, the sample comprised 4886 immigrant students: 3329 from Australia and 1557 from New Zealand. Method Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was first conducted to ascertain the psychometric properties of the study's measures and then the central analyses employed structural equation modelling (SEM) to test hypothesized paths. Results After demonstrating good CFA fit, SEM revealed that particularly salient (at p < 0.001) demand and resource predictors of motivation were: warmth-supportive teaching (positively), fear of failure (negatively), adaptability (positively), discrimination (negatively), cultural communication skills (positively), and cultural confidence (positively). Also, self-efficacy and valuing significantly predicted persistence (positively) and non-attendance (negatively), while self-efficacy also significantly predicted achievement (positively). Conclusions The hypothesized ACD-R process is a viable means to understand immigrant students’ academic experience and to offer some fruitful direction for supporting their academic development

Academic buoyancy, student's achievement, and the linking role of control: A cross-lagged analysis of high school students

Background Previous research has indicated that although academic buoyancy and student's achievement are associated, the relationship is relatively modest. Aims We sought to determine whether another construct might link academic buoyancy and student's achievement. Based on prior theoretical and empirical work, we examined a sense of control as one possible linking mechanism. Sample The study analysed data from 2,971 students attending 21 Australian high schools. Methods We conducted a cross-lagged panel design as a first means of disentangling the relative salience of academic buoyancy, control, and achievement (Phase 1). Based upon these results, we proceeded with follow-up analyses of an ordered process model linking the constructs over time (Phase 2). Results Findings showed that buoyancy and achievement were associated with control over time, but not with one another (Phase 1). In addition, control appeared to play a role in how buoyancy influenced achievement and that a cyclical process may operate among the three factors over time (Phase 2). Conclusion The findings suggest that control may play an important role in linking past experiences of academic buoyancy and achievement to subsequent academic buoyancy and achievement.The authors would like to thank the Australian Research Council for funding this research

Acoustic aspects of vowel harmony in French

International audienceThis paper examines acoustic aspects of vowel harmony (VH), understood as regressive vowel-to-vowel assimilation, in two regional varieties of French in six speakers' productions of 107 disyllabic word pairs. In each word pair, the word-initial vowel (V1) was phonemically either /e/ or /o/, and the word-final stressed vowel (V2) alternated between /e-E/, /ø-oe/, /o-O/ or /i-a/. Results are consistent with the idea that VH in French entails variations in tongue height along with related displacements of the tongue position along the front-back axis. These effects were independent of both the number of morphemes and lexical frequency. They were more systematic in Northern than in Southern French speakers' speech. Linear mixed-effects models strongly suggest that VH is a gradient effect of the trigger on the harmonizing vowel. Results lend support to usage-based phonological approaches regarding gradient phonetic differences as part of the gestural scores that make up the lexicon and that can be variably grammaticalized in different varieties of the language

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Based on hypothesized reciprocal relations between psychological risk and academic buoyancy (dealing with ‘everyday’ academic setback in the ordinary course of school life), the present study used cross-lagged structural equation models to examine the relative salience of (1) prior academic buoyancy in predicting subsequent psychological risk and (2) prior psychological risk in predicting subsequent academic buoyancy. Academic buoyancy and psychological risk (academic anxiety, failure avoidance, uncertain control, emotional instability, neuroticism) measures were administered to 2971 students (11–19 years) from 21 Australian high schools at two time waves across a one-year interval. Analyses confirmed a reciprocal effects model in which psychological risk impacts academic buoyancy and academic buoyancy impacts psychological risk. The findings hold applied and conceptual implications for practitioners and researchers seeking to help students deal more effectively with adversity in school life

Eccentric and Isometric Shoulder Rotation Strength and Range of Motion: Normative Values for Adolescent Competitive Tennis Players

[EN] The aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate isometric internal rotation (IR), external rotation (ER), abduction (ABD), and eccentric external rotation (eccER) shoulder strength and rotational range of motion (ROM) in adolescent male and female competitive tennis players. Additional aims of the study were to provide a tennis-specific normative database based on a large sample of players to deepen the knowledge regarding shoulder strength and ROM for adolescent competitive tennis players, and to discuss differences based on sex, age, and level of play. Shoulder strength and ROM was assessed in 301 adolescent competitive tennis players, 176 boys and 125 girls with a mean age of 14.6 and 14.4 years, respectively. Outcome variables of interest were isometric IR and ER strength, ABD strength, eccER shoulder strength, intermuscular strength ratios ER/IR and eccER/IR, IR ROM, ER ROM, and total range of motion (TROM). A General Linear Model two-way ANOVA was used to analyze differences in sex, age, and level of play. The findings of this study demonstrated age, side, and sex differences in the shoulder isometric strength, the eccER strength and ROM in adolescent competitive tennis players. Furthermore, when strength was expressed as ratios ER/IR and eccER/IR both sexes showed a lower ratio for eccER/IR in national players (0.95 ± 0.22 and 0.95 ± 0.23) compared to regional players (1.01 ± 0.32 and 1.07 ± 0.29) for male and female players, respectively. In conclusion, this paper presents a tennis-specific normative database for shoulder rotation strength and ROM in adolescent male and female competitive players. The key points in this evaluation are strength values normalized to body mass, intermuscular ratios, and TROM.SIThis study was funded by the Swedish Naprapathic AssociationThe authors thank the Swedish Tennis Association, and they also want to express their gratitude to all regional and national players who participated in the SMASH study. A special thank you to Cecilia Palmqvist for coordinating the team. Clara Onell for back-office support. Thank you also to Filip Allerkrans, Kristin Haugland, Gustav Knutas, Jonathan Kull, Linnea Lindberg, Daniel Sjödin, Emilie Kristine Slatleim, and David Tveit for assistance in data collection

Academically buoyant students are less anxious about and perform better in high-stakes examinations.

BACKGROUND: Prior research has shown that test anxiety is negatively related to academic buoyancy, but it is not known whether test anxiety is an antecedent or outcome of academic buoyancy. Furthermore, it is not known whether academic buoyancy is related to performance on high-stakes examinations. AIMS: To test a model specifying reciprocal relations between test anxiety and academic buoyancy and to establish whether academic buoyancy is related to examination performance. SAMPLE: A total of 705 students in their final year of secondary education (Year 11). METHODS: Self-report data for test anxiety and academic buoyancy were measured in two waves in Year 11. Examination performance was taken from the mean English, mathematics, and science scores from the high-stakes General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations taken at the end of Year 11. RESULTS: Measurement invariance was demonstrated for test anxiety and academic buoyancy across both waves of measurement. The worry component of test anxiety, but not the tension component, showed reciprocal relations with academic buoyancy. Worry predicted lower mean GCSE score and academic buoyancy predicted a higher mean GCSE score. Tension did not predict mean GCSE score. CONCLUSION: Academic buoyancy protects against the appraisal of examinations as threatening by influencing self-regulative processes and enables better examination performance. Worry, but not tension, shows a negative feedback loop to academic buoyancy

Distributions of epistasis in microbes fit predictions from a fitness landscape model.

How do the fitness effects of several mutations combine? Despite its simplicity, this question is central to the understanding of multilocus evolution. Epistasis (the interaction between alleles at different loci), especially epistasis for fitness traits such as reproduction and survival, influences evolutionary predictions "almost whenever multilocus genetics matters". Yet very few models have sought to predict epistasis, and none has been empirically tested. Here we show that the distribution of epistasis can be predicted from the distribution of single mutation effects, based on a simple fitness landscape model. We show that this prediction closely matches the empirical measures of epistasis that have been obtained for Escherichia coli and the RNA virus vesicular stomatitis virus. Our results suggest that a simple fitness landscape model may be sufficient to quantitatively capture the complex nature of gene interactions. This model may offer a simple and widely applicable alternative to complex metabolic network models, in particular for making evolutionary predictions