In studies on auditory speech perception, participants are often asked to perform active tasks, e.g. decide whether the perceived sound is a speech sound or not. However, information about the stimulus, inherent in such tasks, may induce expectations that cause altered activations not only in the auditory cortex, but also in frontal areas such as…

This commentary article is to be published alongside: Hernik, M., & Southgate, V. (2012). What do infants know about agents' goals? The authors see this issue consisting of two closely related questions. First, what is an agent to infants? Second, how do infants attribute goals to agents? Hernik and Southgage (H&S) focused on the second question.…

This paper draws upon several decades of literacy research in schools in high-poverty environments to explore what matters in young people's education. In dialogue with themes from Kevin Marjoribanks' work, such as student aspirations, family environments and teacher expectations, key insights are summarised. Referring to longitudinal…

Teachers are one of the most important factors in successful inclusion of students with a learning disability in mainstream classrooms. Attitudes towards inclusion of certain students in classrooms have been mixed, and many attitudes are often developed during the pre-service training and early teaching years. This study investigated the attitudes…

The role of linguists employed in Aboriginal community language centres requires three considerations to be addressed by the language centres themselves, by the linguists and by the organisations that prepare them: what is required of the linguist by language centres; to what extent does the linguist's own skills, interests and ideology match what…

For years, points out David L. Kirp, critics have lambasted public schools as fossilized bureaucracies run by paper-pushers and filled with time-serving teachers preoccupied with their job security, not the lives of their students. Yet, as this article describes, running an exemplary school system does not demand heroes or heroics, just hard and…

Objective: This study explored associations between positive alcohol expectancies, and demographics, as well as academic status and binge drinking among underage college students. Participants: A sample of 1,553 underage college students at 3 public universities and 1 college in the Southeast who completed the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey in the…

For poor families, the possession of assets--savings accounts, homes, and the like--has the potential not only to relieve some of the stress of living in poverty but also to make a better future seem like a real possibility. If children in families that own certain assets fare better than children in families without them, then helping poor…

The aim of this study was to examine the informational cues that male and female students perceive to be influential when developing initial impressions and expectancies of a lecturer. University students ("n" = 752) rated the extent to which 30 informational cues influence their initial perceptions of a lecturer. Following exploratory…

As the elderly population increases, encouraging older adults to participate in lifelong learning has become a priority for many countries. Properly structured lifelong learning programs have consistently yielded numerous benefits to older adults; therefore, careful attention and effort should be exerted to ensure its effectiveness by involving…

The Swedish preschool curriculum emphasises preschool teachers' task to stimulate children's interest in science and technology. Technology education, however, has not always had a given place in Swedish early childhood education, and this has been associated with female preschool teachers' fear of technology. This qualitative study explores how…

The purpose of this study was to propose and test a model of the effects of cultural factors on Hispanic protégés' expectations for and experiences with their mentors. Specifically, the proposed model posits that cultural orientation predicts the mentorship functions protégés desire, and the positive impact of these mentorship functions depends on…

The current study examines the experiences of faculty in a research learning community developed to support new faculty in increasing scholarly productivity. A phenomenological, qualitative inquiry was used to portray the lived experiences of faculty within a learning community. Several themes were found including: accountability, belonging,…

Much has been written about academic developers as change agents but not in an interprofessional education (IPE) context. IPE involves teaching students in different health professions how to work effectively in teams across professional boundaries to improve the quality of patient care. Extensive evidence reveals that implementing sustainable IPE…

Bullying is a significant concern in schools, and both bullies and victims are at risk for negative outcomes. In this study, 239 sixth-grade teachers completed questionnaires about their perceptions of four components of school climate: high-risk student behaviors, school-wide barriers to learning, principal support, and cooperation among…