Differential effects of single -sex versus coed education on the mathematical reasoning ability, verbal reasoning ability, and self-concept of high school girls

This study explored the differential effects of single-sex versus coed education on the cognitive and affective development of young women in senior year of high school. The basic research question was: What are the differential effects of single-sex versus coed education on the development of mathematical reasoning ability, verbal reasoning ability, or self-concept of high school girls?^ This study was composed of two parts. In the first part, the SAT verbal and mathematical ability scores were recorded for those subjects in the two schools from which the sample populations were drawn. The second part of the study required the application of the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale to subjects in each of the two sample populations. The sample schools were deliberately selected to minimize between group differences in the populations. One was an all girls school, the other coeducational.^ The research design employed in this study was the causal-comparative method, used to explore causal relationships between variables that already exist. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the data produced by this research, no significant difference was found to exist between the mean scores of the senior girls in the single-sex school and the coed school on the SAT 1 verbal reasoning section. Nor was any significant difference found to exist between the mean scores of the senior girls in the single-sex school and the coed school on the SAT 1 mathematical reasoning section. Finally, no significant difference between the mean total scores of the senior girls in the single-sex school and the coed school on the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale was found to exist.^ Contrary to what many other studies have found in the past about single-sex schools and their advantages for girls, this study found no support for such advantages in the cognitive areas of verbal and mathematical reasoning as measured by the SAT or in the affective area of self-concept as measured by the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale. ^

Examining moderators of the hindsight bias in the context of civil legal decision -making: Counterfactuals, causal proximity, and self -referencing

The current research sought to clarify the diverging relationships between counterfactual thinking and hindsight bias observed in the literature thus far. In a non-legal context, Roese and Olson (1996) found a positive relationship between counterfactuals and hindsight bias, such that counterfactual mutations that undid the outcome also increased participants’ ratings of the outcome’s a priori likelihood. Further, they determined that this relationship is mediated by causal attributions about the counterfactually mutated antecedent event. Conversely, in the context of a civil lawsuit, Robbennolt and Sobus (1997) found that the relationship between counterfactual thinking and hindsight bias is negative. The current research sought to resolve the conflicting findings in the literature within a legal context. ^ In Experiment One, the manipulation of the normality of the defendant’s target behavior, designed to manipulate participants’ counterfactual thoughts about said behavior, did moderate the hindsight effect of outcome knowledge on mock jurors’ judgments of the foreseeability of that outcome as well as their negligence verdicts. Although I predicted that counterfactual thinking would increase, or exacerbate, the hindsight bias, as found by Roese and Olson (1996), my results provided some support for Robbenolt and Sobus’s (1997) finding that counterfactual thinking decreases the hindsight bias. Behavior normality did not moderate the hindsight effect of outcome knowledge in Experiment Two, nor did causal proximity in Experiment Three. ^ Additionally, my hypothesis that self-referencing may be an effective hindsight debiasing technique received little support across the three experiments. Although both the self-referencing instructions and self-report measure consistently decreased mock jurors’ likelihood of finding the defendant negligent, and self-referencing instructions decreased their foreseeability ratings in studies two and three, the self-referencing manipulation did not interact with outcome knowledge to moderate a hindsight bias effect on either foreseeability or negligence judgments. The consistent pattern of results across the three experiments, however, suggests that self-referencing may be an effective technique in reducing the likelihood of negligence verdicts.^

Examining Moderators of the Hindsight Bias in the Context of Civil Legal Decision-Making: Counterfactuals, Causal Proximity, and Self-Referencing

The current research sought to clarify the diverging relationships between counterfactual thinking and hindsight bias observed in the literature thus far. In a non-legal context, Roese and Olson (1996) found a positive relationship between counterfactuals and hindsight bias, such that counterfactual mutations that undid the outcome also increased participants’ ratings of the outcome’s a priori likelihood. Further, they determined that this relationship is mediated by causal attributions about the counterfactually mutated antecedent event. Conversely, in the context of a civil lawsuit, Robbennolt and Sobus (1997) found that the relationship between counterfactual thinking and hindsight bias is negative. The current research sought to resolve the conflicting findings in the literature within a legal context. In Experiment One, the manipulation of the normality of the defendant’s target behavior, designed to manipulate participants’ counterfactual thoughts about said behavior, did moderate the hindsight effect of outcome knowledge on mock jurors’ judgments of the foreseeability of that outcome as well as their negligence verdicts. Although I predicted that counterfactual thinking would increase, or exacerbate, the hindsight bias, as found by Roese and Olson (1996), my results provided some support for Robbenolt and Sobus’s (1997) finding that counterfactual thinking decreases the hindsight bias. Behavior normality did not moderate the hindsight effect of outcome knowledge in Experiment Two, nor did causal proximity in Experiment Three. Additionally, my hypothesis that self-referencing may be an effective hindsight debiasing technique received little support across the three experiments. Although both the self-referencing instructions and self-report measure consistently decreased mock jurors’ likelihood of finding the defendant negligent, and self-referencing instructions decreased their foreseeability ratings in studies two and three, the self-referencing manipulation did not interact with outcome knowledge to moderate a hindsight bias effect on either foreseeability or negligence judgments. The consistent pattern of results across the three experiments, however, suggests that self-referencing may be an effective technique in reducing the likelihood of negligence verdicts.

Diet Self-efficacy and Physical Self-concept of College Students at Risk for Eating Disorders

Background: Both eating disorders and body image dissatisfaction affect a high proportion of college students. Self-esteem and self-efficacy may be protective factors for eating disorders. The aim of this study was to evaluate diet self-efficacy, the confidence to maintain or lose weight, and its association with physical selfconcept using data from an online survey of health literacy, body image, and eating disorders. Study Population and Methods: This cross-sectional study collected online survey data from college students within the United States. The inclusion criteria allowed for 1612 college students, ages 17-35 years (597 males, 1015 females) belonging to the following racial/ethnic categories: Black (187); White, non-Hispanic (244), Hispanic (1035), and other (146). Specifically, the study aimed to examine (a) whether and to what degree diet self-efficacy and physical self-concept were associated with risk of eating disorders; (b) the interaction of gender by ethnicity on diet self-efficacy, physical self-concept and risk of eating disorders; and, (c) the relationship of diet self-efficacy with physical self-description and body mass index (BMI) in college students. Results:Low diet self-efficacy was associated with a lower score on physical self-concept (B = −0.52 [−0.90, −0.15], P = 0.007). Males had a higher physical self-concept as compared to females (B = 14.0 [8.2, 19.8], P Conclusion: College students in this study who had a poor body image were less confident with diet control. Poorer body image and low diet selfefficacy were associated with higher BMI. These findings suggest lifestyle management interventions may be of value to improve physical self-concept and lower risk of eating disorders for college students.

The Concept of Transparency in International Relations: towards a critical approach

Transparency is an important concept in International Relations. The possibility of realizing transparency in practice operates as a central analytical axis defining distinct positions on core theoretical problems within the field, from the security dilemma to the function of international institutions and beyond. As a political practice the pursuit of transparent governance is a dominant feature of global politics, promoted by a wide range of actors across a vast range of issue areas, from nuclear proliferation to Internet governance to the politics of foreign aid. Yet, despite its importance, precisely what transparency means or how the concept is understood is frequently ill-defined by academics and policy-makers alike. As a result, the epistemological and ontological underpinnings of approaches to transparency in IR often sit in tension with their wider theoretical commitments. This article will examine the three primary understandings of transparency used in IR in order to unpack these commitments. It finds that while transparency is often explicitly conceptualized as a property of information, particularly within rationalist scholarship, this understanding rests upon an unarticulated set of sociological assumptions. This analysis suggests that conceptualizing ‘transparency-as-information’ without a wider sociology of knowledge production is highly problematic, potentially obscuring our ability to recognize transparent practices in global governance. Understanding transparency as dialogue, as a social practice rooted in shared cognitive capacities and epistemic frameworks, provides a firmer analytical ground from which to examine transparency in International Relations.

The body, the device, the sleepwalkers. On the spinozian uses of experience as a critics of the cartesian concept of freedom

In this paper I discuss one of the most significant strategies in Spinoza’s theoretical approach against those that entrave its understanding in a very powerful way. As well as Descartes, Spinoza uses the inmediate or unreflexive experience for developing his conception of free will or the distinction between body and soul, but he does so in order to prove that the experience is useful to demonstrate some purely anti-Cartesian thesis that express the core principles of Spinozism.

The School and the State. Comparative Study of the Althusserian Concept of “Ideological State Apparatus”

The famous althusserian concept “The ideological State apparatus” has the inconvenient of hiding what truly should have to be discussed: The Kind of State of which it is talking about. Mostly, avoids realizing the fact that the architecture of the modern State was thought of, precisely, as antidote against ideological control. The success and failures of this political project become then, very difficult to diagnose.

Democratic Stability through the Concept of Reasonableness in John Rawls

The paper addresses the question of the stability of a democratic state and shows the shortcomings of the political and institutional structure for this purpose. It argues for the need of an additional factor of reasonableness as defined by John Rawls. We reflect on its articulation with rationality, its role regarding laws and the areas where its presence is crucial to the health and maintenance of a democratic political society. The analysis concludes by justifying the instrumental need of such faculty in the political arena as well as vindicating it as a mandatory civic duty.

The concept of transport capacity and its use in different geomorphic process domains

The notion of sediment-transport capacity has been engrained in geomorphological and related literature for over 50 years, although its earliest roots date back explicitly to Gilbert in fluvial geomorphology in the 1870s and implicitly to eighteenth to nineteenth century developments in engineering. Despite cross fertilization between different process domains, there seem to have been independent inventions of the idea in aeolian geomorphology by Bagnold in the 1930s and in hillslope studies by Ellison in the 1940s. Here we review the invention and development of the idea of transport capacity in the fluvial, aeolian, coastal, hillslope, débris flow, and glacial process domains. As these various developments have occurred, different definitions have been used, which makes it both a difficult concept to test, and one that may lead to poor communications between those working in different domains of geomorphology. We argue that the original relation between the power of a flow and its ability to transport sediment can be challenged for three reasons. First, as sediment becomes entrained in a flow, the nature of the flow changes and so it is unreasonable to link the capacity of the water or wind only to the ability of the fluid to move sediment. Secondly, environmental sediment transport is complicated, and the range of processes involved in most movements means that simple relationships are unlikely to hold, not least because the movement of sediment often changes the substrate, which in turn affects the flow conditions. Thirdly, the inherently stochastic nature of sediment transport means that any capacity relationships do not scale either in time or in space. Consequently, new theories of sediment transport are needed to improve understanding and prediction and to guide measurement and management of all geomorphic systems.

Hierarchical concept of optimization based path planning for autonomous driving

Otto-von Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Fakultät für Maschinenbau, Dissertation, 2016

Chinese Men and "Leftover Women" : How do Chinese Men Position Themselves in Relation to the Concept of Labelling Women as "Leftover"?

In recent years there has been a resurgence of gender inequality in China. Today, women are pressured to get married by the state and their social surroundings, as they told if they remain unmarried and have the "three highs"; high age, education and salary, they will become leftovers on the marriage market. Previous research on the concept of labelling women as "leftover" has 4 shown that labelling women as "leftover" can have several different negative impacts. In this thesis, both the theory of masculine hegemony and the theory of symbolic interaction have been used. The concept creates a hegemonic masculinity as it is a normative practice that promotes the subordination of women. However, as the concept is based on the notion that all Chinese men, or at least those of relevant social standing, would find the "three highs" undesirable, it is relevant to see how Chinese men in fact do position themselves in relation to the hegemonic masculinity on an individual level. In symbolic interaction, the concept of gender is created through social construction when people attach special meanings to the sex of a person, a process which is called "doing gender". Therefore symbolic interaction is used to see what special meaning Chinese men attach to women having the "three highs" and masculine hegemony to put their answers into a larger context. If it could be shown that Chinese men do not comply with the hegemonic masculinity, Chinese women would not have to feel obliged to adjust to the hegemonic masculinity and thereby making it easier for them to pursue higher education, high paying jobs and marrying at a later age. However, as this thesis is a qualitative study, and therefore a limited number of data subjects, the generalizability of the result should not be exaggerated. The interviews that were conducted for this thesis showed that the data subjects were familiar with the concept and that they considered it to be natural for there to be women China labelled as "leftover". Nevertheless, in relation to their own marital choices, the data subjects did not attach the negative meaning as set out by the hegemonic masculinity, a result which to some extent was confirmed by the data subjects’ experiences and other control questions. The result is interesting, and enforces Connell and MesserSchmidt’s theory, that even though a hegemonic masculinity is normative, not everyone has to comply with it. As the cornerstone of the concept is that Chinese men find women with the "three highs" undesirable, the result of the study shows that there is a need for the concept to be further examined and questioned.

Art-Map: concept of moving curatorial project and its practical realization in Aveiro

In this dissertation, I present the results of a project which aim was to find out and try an effective model of independent curatorial project executable in small and medium cities in Portugal. The concept of Moving Curatorial Project ARTMAP is a result of theoretical research and reflection about municipal exhibition spaces and possibility of presentation of the contemporary art in these spaces. To test if this curatorial project is realizable and if there are conditions to continue it, a first trial was implemented in Aveiro. A curated international exhibition, entitled “A Poética do Visual" occupied two municipal and two private gallery spaces and brought together 111 artists from 25 different countries. The art event was carried out in collaboration with the Municipality of Aveiro and the University of Aveiro, and involved several private cultural spaces in the city. This first experience showed that there are all conditions for the presentation of contemporary art in small and medium size locations in Portugal, and for this project to be replicated in other regions of the country.