The Hugh Sinclair Unit of Human Nutrition – 20 years of research 1995–2015

The Hugh Sinclair Unit of Human Nutrition (HSUHN) at the University of Reading was founded in October 1995 with the appointment of Christine Williams OBE as the first Hugh Sinclair Chair in Human Nutrition. This was made possible by the competitively won funds from the estate and legacy of the late Professor Hugh Macdonald Sinclair (1910–1990). The vision for the newly established HSUHN was to ‘strengthen the evidence base for dietary recommendations for prevention of degenerative chronic diseases’. This has remained the research focus of the HSUHN under the leadership of Professors Christine Williams (1995–2005), Ian Rowland (2006–2013) and Julie Lovegrove (2014-present). Our mission is to improve population health and evaluate mechanisms of action for the effects of dietary components on health, which reflects Hugh Sinclair’s life ambition within nutritional science. Over the past 20 years, the HSUHN has developed an international reputation within the nutrition science community, and in recognition of the 20th anniversary, this paper highlights Hugh Sinclair’s contributions to the field of nutrition and key research achievements by members of the Unit.

Breaking the double-edged sword of effort/trying hard: developmental equilibrium and Longitudinal relations among effort, achievement, and academic self-concept

Ever since the classic research of Nicholls (1976) and others, effort has been recognized as a double-edged sword: whilst it might enhance achievement, it undermines academic self-concept (ASC). However, there has not been a thorough evaluation of the longitudinal reciprocal effects of effort, ASC and achievement,in the context of modern self-concept theory and statistical methodology. Nor have there been developmental equilibrium tests of whether these effects are consistent across the potentially volatile early-to-middle adolescence. Hence, focusing on mathematics, we evaluate reciprocal effects models over the first four years of secondary school, relating effort, achievement (test scores and school grades), ASC, and ASCxEffort interactions for a representative sample of 3,421 German students (Mn age = 11.75 years at Wave 1). ASC, effort and achievement were positively correlated at each wave, and there was a clear pattern of positive reciprocal positive effects among ASC, test scores and school grades—each contributing to the other, after controlling for the prior effects of all others. There was an asymmetrical pattern of effects for effort that is consistent with the double-edged sword premise: prior school grades had positive effects on subsequent effort, but prior effort had non-significant or negative effects on subsequent grades and ASC. However, on the basis of a synergistic application of new theory and methodology, we predicted and found a significant ASC-by-effort interaction, such that prior effort had more positive effects on subsequent ASC and school grades when prior ASC was high—thus providing a key to breaking the double-edged sword.