Den här studien utforskar sju lärares inställningar och reflektioner angående skrivande för hand och skrivande på dator i undervisningen via kvalitativa intervjuer, med fokus på kontexten av inlärning och textskapande. Med utgångspunkt i lärarnas övertygelser, och teorin teacher beliefs undersöker studien hur lärarna anser att skrivundervisningen bör se ut och vad lärarna har för inställningar och praxis angående skrivundervisningen. Forskningen tar avstamp ur ett sociokulturellt-, kognitivt- och neurodidaktiskt perspektiv vid undersökningen och tydliggör därigenom lärarnas inställningar i förhållande till de båda skrivsätten. Via intervjuer av sju olika mellanstadielärare som undervisar i svenskämnet utreder studien deras inställning till skrivsätten samt hur de anser att de implementerar skrivsätten i deras egen skrivundervisning.  Resultatet avslöjar en nyanserad förståelse av rollerna vilka båda skrivsätten har gällande elevers akademiska och personliga utveckling. Lärare betonar kognitiva aspekter rörande minne och inlärning och vilka fördelar skrivande för hand bidrar med tack vare elevernas användning av finmotorik när de formar bokstäver och meningar. De lyfter även effektiviteten och tillgängligheten till lärverktyg vid skrivande på dator och hur dessa gagnar elevernas textskapande samt läs- och skrivkunnighet i omfattande mån. Studiens resultat understryker vikten av att noggrant överväga valet av skrivsätt samt beakta sammanhang och pedagogiska mål vid integrering av skrivsätten i undervisningen. Genom att erkänna båda skrivsättens varierade fördelar och användningsområden kan lärare anpassa sin undervisning utefter elevernas individuella behov för att främja literacy och lärande.

Poverty has a consequential impact on student achievement. The No Child Left Behind Act and more recently the Every Student Succeeds Act put pressure on educators to close the achievement gap that exists for economically disadvantaged students. While this gap remains, high-poverty, high-achieving schools do exist. The purpose of this study was to discern the impact of practitioner-designed professional development (PD) on teacher beliefs about students from poverty. This study focused on the creation and implementation of PD designed to help teachers explore their beliefs, and investigated whether these beliefs changed after teachers received PD addressing teaching students from poverty. This PD was based on research from multiple studies on educators' perspectives and effective teaching strategies for poor students. The study was conducted using action research, with a mixed-methods approach, incorporating the quantitative analysis of surveys and the qualitative analysis of professional learning experiences and interviews. Findings from the study indicate that practitioner-designed PD can impact teachers' beliefs and lead to changes in their instructional practices. This research could provide guidance for school administrators and higher education leaders who seek to develop and implement PD that addresses teaching students in poverty. / Doctor of Education / Poverty has a consequential impact on student achievement. The No Child Left Behind Act and more recently the Every Student Succeeds Act required educators to close the achievement gap that exists for students from poverty. While this gap remains, high-poverty, high-achieving schools do exist. The purpose of this study was to discern the impact of practitioner-designed professional development (PD) on teacher beliefs about students from poverty. The study focused on the creation and implementation of PD designed to help teachers explore their beliefs, and investigated whether these beliefs changed after teachers received PD addressing teaching students from poverty. Findings from the study indicate that practitioner-designed PD can impact teachers' beliefs and lead to changes in their instructional practices. This research could provide guidance for school administrators and higher education leaders who seek to develop and implement PD that addresses teaching students in poverty.

Previous research shows that consuming violent media can lead to increased aggression in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Several other factors also contribute to such behaviors but have not been thoroughly studied including implicit beliefs about aggression in relation to media content. This two-part study consists of (1) an exploratory iterated principal-factor method to create an implicit belief measure about consuming violent media in conjunction with correlational analyses and (2) between subjects hierarchical linear regression models to determine what effects implicit beliefs have on subsequent aggression after participants view either a violent of nonviolent video, while controlling for violent media consumption and trait aggression, and accounting for desensitization. The first study successfully indicates which characteristics could be sued to define the implicit belief measure. The second study indicates that implicit beliefs about consuming violent media can affect aggressive outcomes moderated through desensitization and biological sex. The present study supports the assertion that implicit beliefs can affect aggressive outcomes but contradicts originally hypotheses.

Yes / The way we perceive and portray dementia has implications for how we act towards people with dementia and how we address the issue of dementia within society. As a multi-disciplinary working group, established within the framework of the European Dementia Ethics Network of Alzheimer Europe, we aimed to describe the different ways that people with dementia are perceived and portrayed within society and to consider the moral implications of this. In the current paper, we address perceptions of dementia as reflected in explanatory models of its cause and nature, descriptions of characteristics of people with dementia, the use of language, media portrayals and the views of people living with dementia. Academics and professionals could use this exploration to reflect on their behaviour and their use of language regarding people with dementia / The taskforce’s work arises from the 2013 Work Plan of Alzheimer Europe, which received funding from the European Union in the framework of the Health Programme.

Yes / The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 100% blood should be from voluntary non-remunerated donors (VNRD) yet the majority of blood donations (75%) in Barbados are family/replacement donations. Increasing VNRD is paramount to achieving a safe, reliable blood supply and understanding the population is a strategy suggested by the WHO to inform donor recruitment and education. To obtain information to devise strategies for a voluntary donor mobilization campaign in Barbados. Methods: Participants in Barbados (n=429) completed a self-administered questionnaire in 2014. The questionnaire comprised 31 questions including demographics (age, sex, highest educational attainment) and blood donation-related knowledge, attitudes and practices. Analysis of variance, t-test and linear regression were used to analyse data. Results: Fifty-three per cent (n=219) of participants had previously donated blood; only 23.9% of these had donated within the past two years and almost half were family/replacement donors only. Knowledge deficits included blood donation requirements, deferral factors and maximum yearly donations. Most participants (79%) were willing to donate with more information. Participants with higher educational attainment and previous donors had higher total knowledge and attitude scores (p<0.01). Single, female, and younger participants were less likely to donate blood (p<0.05). Conclusion: Barbados can likely increase voluntary blood donation rates by addressing knowledge deficits through education campaigns and increasing awareness of the need for donation.

The purpose of this study was to better understand associations between acculturation, parental beliefs, mother-child emotion talk, and emotion understanding in Latino preschool-aged children. Research on Latino families may prove to be important given the little research that has focused on emotion understanding strictly in Latino cultures. Forty Latino mother-child dyads were observed throughout a series of naturalistic observations. Mothers self-reported their acculturation and their beliefs about the value and danger of children's emotions, children's emotional development processes, and their role in guiding their children's emotions. Mother-child emotion talk and framing was measured during a 15 minute story-telling task using a Lego house and through a wordless picture book. Children's emotion understanding was measured using two standard tasks. Results showed that mothers' acculturation was related to their beliefs about the danger of emotions, their role in guiding their child's emotions, and their child's readiness to learn about emotions. Mothers' acculturation was also related to children's emotion understanding. Mothers' beliefs about guiding children's emotions were related to mothers' labeling of emotions and to children's emotion understanding. This study confirms and expands several previous findings relating to emotion socialization of children. Overall, results highlight the importance of acculturation for parents' beliefs about emotions and children's emotion understanding. / Master of Science

Diabetes mellitus affects 7.8% of the American population. National health statistic data and other research shows that racial/ethnic disparities exist in terms of prevalence and treatment outcomes. The present study investigated the role of patient health beliefs (i.e., locus of control, self-efficacy) and the doctor-patient relationship (e.g., satisfaction and collaboration with health care provider), as relative predictors of diabetic control (i.e., HbA1c levels) and overall satisfaction with diabetes care, in older adult participants with diabetes. Demographic, psychosocial, and diabetes-related data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) 2003 Diabetes Study were analyzed to compare treatment outcomes among non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic individuals with various types of diabetes. Non-Hispanic White individuals exhibited better diabetic control than their minority counterparts (F(2, 592) = 7.60, p < .001); however, no significant group differences were noted in terms of psychosocial factors. Diabetic control was best predicted by time since diagnosis (&#946; = -.21, p < .001), satisfaction with diabetes self-care (&#946; = .19, p < .001) and age (&#946; = .12, p < .01). In addition, satisfaction with provider care was best predicted by perceived collaboration with provider (&#946; = .44, p < .001), satisfaction with diabetes self-care (&#946; = .22, p < .001) and diabetes self-efficacy (&#946; = .08, p < .05). Recommendations for future research were discussed.

This study investigated the attitudes and beliefs of four civic and United States government teachers on democratic education practices. The first part of the study investigated the methods and approaches these teachers use to foster the knowledge, skills, and dispositions essential to a democracy’s survival by understanding how they construct their own meaning concerning elements of democratic education. Through interviews, instructional observations, and document analysis, an evaluation of the role and impact of teacher beliefs and attitudes on democratic education practices gleaned insight into how these teachers construct, interpret, and share their understanding as a condition of building civic capacity within their students. Findings showed their beliefs and attitudes did matter in how they approached their instruction and use of democratic education practices. Despite expressing positive views regarding their inclusion into their instruction, teacher discomfort and lack of confidence in engaging students in this form of instruction determined whether or not they utilized these practices. Preventions and recommendations were made for ways in which teacher discomfort and lack of confidence may be addressed to overcome the lack of use of democratic education practices in instruction, as well as a framework for approaching the teaching of K-12 civics.

This qualitative study aimed to examine the challenges surrounding the non-exit of first grade students from mathematics intervention programs, particularly focusing on Atlantic Elementary School within the Gulf County Public School District. Against the backdrop of declining mathematics proficiency, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, this study investigates the effectiveness of mathematics intervention and its alignment with best practices in mathematics instruction. While mathematics intervention aims to support students needing additional support with mathematical concepts, there exists a notable gap in understanding why many primary students do not transition successfully from mathematics intervention on grade level prior to advancing to the subsequent grade level. The research questions driving this study center on comparing the tasks and instructional approaches during mathematics intervention against established best practices and examining the impact of teachers' beliefs on mathematics intervention instruction. The data for this study was collected through surveys, observations, semi-structured interviews, and abstracts with three first grade teachers. The finding revealed instances where tasks lacked complexity and failed to promote mathematical conceptual understanding among students, indicating a misalignment with the Mathematics Teaching Practices. In contrast, some instruction during mathematics intervention demonstrated effective use of tasks that encouraged reasoning and problem-solving, aligning closely with the Mathematics Teaching Practices. Also, teachers who held positive beliefs about the effectiveness of interventions were more likely to implement tasks aligned with best practices and provide meaningful mathematics instruction. Conversely, teachers who expressed uncertainty about interventions tended to adopt less effective instructional approaches. The analysis highlighted the importance of aligning Tier 2 interventions with Mathematics Teaching Practices in mathematics iii instruction and recognizing the role of teacher beliefs in shaping instructional practices. These findings should encourage stakeholders in mathematics education to utilize this insight as a catalyst to implement necessary changes in mathematics education.

Parents’ perceptions of how their children learn most effectively are crucial drivers in shaping both how they interact with their children and the broader educational landscape in which their children are raised. Recent shifts in educational policy reflect an increasing acceptance of playful learning principles, but methodological gaps have made it challenging to determine which principles drive parents’ attitudes, and how widely shared these perceptions may be across the globe. In the present set of studies, we surveyed parents in the United States and China – countries with purportedly very different cultural attitudes toward education – to assess parent’s perceptions of the connection between common childhood activities and playful learning. Study 1, in the United States, and Study 3, in China, used a between-subjects design to examine parents’ perceptions of 37 common childhood activities across play and learning conditions. Study 2, in the United States, and 4, in China, used a within-subjects design to dig deeper into parents’ perceptions of the overlap between play and learning in these same activities and how this overlap was associated with the characteristics of playful learning (Zosh et al., 2018). We found similarities between both cultures in their categorization of childhood activities as playful and learning. Furthermore, parents in both the United States and China positively associated most characteristics of playful learning with activities that they categorized as both play and learning and that joyful was associated with play, either alone or in conjunction with learning, while joyful was not associated with learning alone. / Psychology