Motivational processes underlying gender gaps in school engagement and achievement

Boys lag behind girls in school across many western industrialised countries. On average, boys tend to be less engaged and perform worse than girls in secondary school. Yet efforts to close the gender gap may not be successful until we gain a precise understanding of the mechanisms contributing to the gender gap. This thesis presents three studies (N = 1,668) to unpack the motivational processes underlying the gender gap in school engagement and achievement, including gender differences in academic motivation (Study 1), gender differences in social motivation (Study 2), and a conflict between gender roles and school commitment (Study 3). Study 1 examines gendered patterns of academic beliefs and goals as well as the impact of these motivational patterns on student achievement. Latent profile analyses revealed four mindset-related motivational profiles: growth mindset-high mastery goals, growth mindset-high multiple goals, fixed mindset-high performance goals, and fixed mindset-low all goals. Compared to girls, boys were more often found in the two fixed mindset profiles. Membership in these profiles, in turn, predicted poorer achievement. Study 2 extends beyond a sole focus on academic motivation by investigating the joint role of academic and social motivation in explaining gender differences in school engagement. Compared to girls, boys endorsed more academic goals concerned with avoiding unfavourable judgement of ability and more social goals concerned with appearing cool in front of their peers. Furthermore, boys’ higher levels of academic self-handicapping were primarily explained by their greater concerns about peer status. Study 3 then moves beyond a binary perspective of gender to identify which boys and which girls are falling behind in school. Latent profile analyses identified seven subgroups of adolescent boys and girls, each displaying a unique pattern of gender role conformity. Young people who conformed to gendered ideals of appearance and behaviour showed the least adaptive patterns of motivation, engagement, and achievement. In contrast, those who rejected rigid constructions of gender had the most adaptive patterns of motivation, engagement, and achievement. Taken together, findings from these three studies provide concrete suggestions in terms of what factors to target as well as who to target in educational interventions to close the gender gap in school

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS AND COVID-19: A NARRATIVE REVIEW

Since December 2019, the havoc caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has increased exponentially in a short period of time. As the COVID-19 pandemic is raging around the world, scientists are trying to reveal its mysteriousness. Although COVID-19 is predominantly a respiratory disease, the most common symptoms are fever, dry cough, and fatigue, but extrapulmonary manifestations are increasingly recognized. Recent studies have shown that there is a strong genetic correlation between one or more psychiatric disorders and the occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Historical epidemiological perspectives and recent neurobiological evidence link infection and psychosis. What is the relationship between COVID-19 and psychiatric disorders? In this article, we will review the correlation between COVID-19 and psychoses, the possible reasons, and the possible pathophysiological mechanisms. The purpose of this review is to provide a reference for clinicians to make correct judgment and treatment when facing patients with COVID-19 and/or psychiatric disorders

Students’ growth mindset : Relation to teacher beliefs, teaching practices, and school climate

To effectively cultivate students' growth mindset, it is important to identify contextual factors that may communicate mindset messages to students. The present study examined the association of students' growth mindset with various dimensions of teacher beliefs (mindset, self-efficacy), teaching practices (guided inquiry, group work, task differentiation, in-class ability grouping, mastery and normative evaluations), and school climate (holistic development, in-school ability grouping). Participants were 2200 ten-year-old students, 358 teachers, and 65 principals from Finnish elementary schools that participated in the OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills. Multilevel analyses show that students endorsed more of a growth mindset in classrooms where teachers used guided inquiry and in schools that emphasized students' social-emotional development. In contrast, students endorsed more of a fixed mindset when teachers assigned different tasks to different students based on ability. Implications for how to combine teaching practices to support students’ growth mindset are discussed.Peer reviewe

H₂ model reduction for diffusively coupled second-order networks by convex-optimization

This paper provides an $H_2$ optimal scheme for reducing diffusively coupled second-order systems evolving over undirected networks. The aim is to find a reduced-order model that not only approximates the input-output mapping of the original system but also preserves crucial structures, such as the second-order form, asymptotically stability, and diffusive couplings. To this end, an $H_2$ optimal approach based on a convex relaxation is implemented to reduce the dimension, yielding a lower order asymptotically stable approximation of the original second-order network system. Then, a novel graph reconstruction approach is employed to convert the obtained model to a reduced system that is interpretable as an undirected diffusively coupled network. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated via a large-scale networked mass-spring-damper system

The triangle of education—learning, teaching and assessment: Insights from the Psychology of Education Section Annual Conference

The Psychology of Education Section 2017 Annual Conference was held in Edinburgh between 27-28 October. It offered an impressive programme including two keynotes given by Professor Christine Merrell from Durham University and Professor Lisa Woolfson from University of Strathclyde and the Vernon-Wall lecture was presented by Professor Jo-Anne Baird from Oxford University. With the two postgraduate workshops that took place on 26 October, this three-day conference comprised of one symposium, two workshops, 30 oral paper sessions and 10 posters. Overall, the conference offered something to everyone interested in learning, teaching and assessment in education which was the theme of the conference

Primal Dual Alternating Proximal Gradient Algorithms for Nonsmooth Nonconvex Minimax Problems with Coupled Linear Constraints

Nonconvex minimax problems have attracted wide attention in machine learning, signal processing and many other fields in recent years. In this paper, we propose a primal dual alternating proximal gradient (PDAPG) algorithm and a primal dual proximal gradient (PDPG-L) algorithm for solving nonsmooth nonconvex-strongly concave and nonconvex-linear minimax problems with coupled linear constraints, respectively. The corresponding iteration complexity of the two algorithms are proved to be $\mathcal{O}\left( \varepsilon ^{-2} \right)$ and $\mathcal{O}\left( \varepsilon ^{-3} \right)$ to reach an $\varepsilon$-stationary point, respectively. To our knowledge, they are the first two algorithms with iteration complexity guarantee for solving the two classes of minimax problems