The 2 x 2 model of perfectionism posits that the 4 within-person combinations of self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism (i.e., pure SOP, mixed perfectionism, pure SPP, and nonperfectionism) can be distinctively associated with psychological adjustment. This study examined whether the relationship between the 4 subtypes of…

The evolution of science is seldom about solitary individuals busy at work in labs making discoveries. This is especially true of the Earth sciences, where time-intensive fieldwork is usually required. Single scientists are rarely capable of amassing the requisite data sets to form grand, unifying theories. This is the case with the new airburst…

Learning progressions, or representations of how student ideas develop in a domain, hold promise as tools to support teachers' formative assessment practices. The ideas represented in a learning progression might help teachers to identify and make inferences about evidence collected of student thinking, necessary precursors to modifying…

Despite the theorized centrality of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching, we have little evidence of the relationship between PCK and students' learning and know relatively little about how to help teachers to develop PCK. This study is a preliminary attempt to address these gaps in our knowledge of PCK through exploration of two…

The American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC) recently adopted a five-year strategic plan, "Opening Doors through Mathematics" (www.amatyc.org/documents/strategicplans.htm) that describes five priorities. The second of these priorities highlights the need for research on student learning. In this article, the authors propose…

We present novel evidence showing that new self-relevant visual associations can affect performance in simple shape recognition tasks. Participants associated labels for themselves, other people, or neutral terms with geometric shapes and then immediately judged whether subsequent label-shape pairings were matched. Across 4 experiments there was a…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) report difficulty integrating simultaneously presented visual and auditory stimuli (Iarocci & McDonald, 2006), albeit showing enhanced perceptual processing of unisensory stimuli, as well as an enhanced role of perception in higher-order cognitive tasks (Enhanced Perceptual Functioning (EPF) model;…

Until recently, the challenges inherent in measuring comprehension have impeded our ability to predict the course of language acquisition. The present research reports on a longitudinal assessment of the convergent and predictive validity of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories: Words and Gestures (CDI: WG; Fenson et al.,…

Background: In the last few decades, conceptions about teaching and learning in physical education have evolved from a teacher-centred approach to a more student-centred approach where learners are encouraged to develop problem-solving skills, critical thinking and autonomy of thought. A popular model advocating this approach in physical…

Undergraduates commonly harbor alternate conceptions about evolutionary biology; these alternate conceptions often persist, even after intensive instruction, and may influence acceptance of evolution. We interviewed undergraduates to explore their alternate conceptions about macroevolutionary patterns and designed a 2-h lesson plan to present…

Is the power relationship between public school teachers and principals a win-win situation or a zero-sum game? By applying hierarchical linear modeling to the 1999-2000 nationally representative Schools and Staffing Survey data, we found that both the win-win and zero-sum-game theories had empirical evidence. The decision-making areas…

Morningside Academy is a third-level scientifically driven service organization (Johnston, 1996) consisting of a laboratory school and outreach to schools and agencies throughout the United States and Canada through its partnership with Morningside Teachers' Academy. The approach blends together a number of empirically validated practices to…

In this paper, we investigate the effects of competition on the performance of Italian secondary schools as measured by maths achievement scores (PISA 2006 dataset). Competition is measured by an indicator of "perceived" competition (generated from an answer provided by the schools' principals). The methodology employed is a propensity…

How do children's life course transitions affect the well-being of their parents? Using a large panel survey among parents with longitudinal information on 2 randomly chosen children, the authors analyzed the effects of children's union formation, parenthood, and union dissolution on changes in depressive symptoms of parents. Negative effects were…

Background: HealthWise South Africa: Life Skills for Adolescents (HW) is an evidence-based substance use and sexual risk prevention program that emphasizes the positive use of leisure time. Since 2000, this program has evolved from pilot testing through an efficacy trial involving over 7,000 youth in the Cape Town area. Beginning in 2011, through…