Writing Ability and Gender as Moderators of the Relationship Between Instrumental Motivation and Academic Self-Efficacy

Studies have shown that students with high academic self-efficacy are more likely to perform better in the classroom and other environments. In addition to presumably directly influencing achievement, students’ self-efficacy beliefs can indirectly influence their achievement through affecting their willingness to learn and their approach towards challenges (Mahyuddin et al., 2006; Zimmerman, 1995). The purpose of this descriptive correlational study was to test the moderating effect of home literacy resources, student writing ability, and gender on the relationship between instrumental motivation and English self-efficacy, controlling for the reading interests and habits of high school students. This study utilized secondary data from a sample of about 11,000 students who participated in the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002. Reading habits and self-efficacy beliefs were measured using questionnaires given to students in their sophomore year in high school. Using Hayes’s PROCESS tool, the results of the moderation analysis showed that (i) differences in self-efficacy between students of different writing levels decrease as instrumental motivation increases, (ii) the amount of home literacy resources did not significantly moderate the relationship between instrumental motivation and self-efficacy, and (iii) as instrumental motivation increases, the difference in self-efficacy between males and females increases, with females having higher mean values than males across the whole range of the predictor variable

A Relationship Built to Impact Instruction: Developing and Sustaining Productive Partnerships Between Mathematics Specialists and Principals

How does the mathematics specialist provide a profound and lasting impact on instruction? We believe that a productive partnership between the principal and specialist, which we will call the principal-specialist relationship, is at the crux of the matter. When the principal-specialist relationship is built upon a foundation of a shared vision, clear roles, communication, and trust, both the teachers and students in the school benefit. We will explore the impact of the principal-specialist relationship on teacher success during the era of distance learning as necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to explore how these ideas come alive in the field, we gathered survey responses and conducted personal interviews with mathematics specialists in a variety of roles. This article examines ways in which the principal-specialist relationship supports successful mathematics instruction beginning with a review of contemporary literature. In the form of short vignettes throughout the paper, we illustrate the roles of the mathematics specialist and how those roles were adapted for online learning environments. Our findings revealed that a unifying vision for mathematics instruction is essential for attaining maximum impact on student achievement

Use of Binary Cumulative Sums and Moving Averages in Nosocomial Infection Cluster Detection1

Clusters of nosocomial infection often occur undetected, at substantial cost to the medical system and individual patients. We evaluated binary cumulative sum (CUSUM) and moving average (MA) control charts for automated detection of nosocomial clusters. We selected two outbreaks with genotyped strains and used resistance as inputs to the control charts. We identified design parameters for the CUSUM and MA (window size, k, α, β, p0, p1) that detected both outbreaks, then calculated an associated positive predictive value (PPV) and time until detection (TUD) for sensitive charts. For CUSUM, optimal performance (high PPV, low TUD, fully sensitive) was for 0.1 <α ≤0.25 and 0.2 <β <0.25, with p0 = 0.05, with a mean TUD of 20 (range 8–43) isolates. Mean PPV was 96.5% (relaxed criteria) to 82.6% (strict criteria). MAs had a mean PPV of 88.5% (relaxed criteria) to 46.1% (strict criteria). CUSUM and MA may be useful techniques for automated surveillance of resistant infections

*WINNER* Toxic Attitudes: Martineau's "Criticism on Women" and the Rhetoric of Shame

Martineau’s view that patriarchal society limited women’s status coincides with Wollstonecraft’s observation of how female minds were dulled in a society that prohibited them education. Martineau also saw that women choose an obedient place over education. Contemporary studies of shame, like Merleau-Ponty’s, which observe shame causes a woman to “lose ... [a] sense of reality” (165), explore shaming of women-- still a powerful tool in discrediting women. Both Martineau and Wollstonecraft demonstrated intrinsically in their works that society needed to be analyzed and perfected before women could achieve rights. Both expressed their vision of a better future for women, and the more liberated position of women today is undeniably due to them. Paradoxically, both writers underscore Kristeva’s conclusion that shame can “preserve what existed in the archaism of pre-objectal relationship” and allow women to embrace their power as a real human being (15) by subverting patriarchal power structures

Teacher perceptions of using chess as a heuristic pedagogical method: Teacher perceptions of using chess

The purpose of this study was to investigate the experiences and perceptions of teachers who used chess during instruction for an entire academic year in several school districts in a southern U.S. state. Data for the study were obtained via an electronic survey administered to a sample of 62 teachers in Spring 2018. Results of the study showed that the teachers were enthusiastic about using chess during instruction, and they were largely positive regarding the perceived benefits of chess among their students. Keywords: Chess playing; teacher perceptions; chess benefits &nbsp