Jeanette A. Lawrence

The relationship of gender, sex role, and law-and-order attitudes to nuclear opinions

Australian students attitudes to nuclear weapons were considered in relation to sex-role identification and political orientations. By including a measure of sex-role orientation, we hoped to clarify earlier confusion surrounding gender as a predictor of nuclear views. Our hypothesis was that men and women with feminine sex-role orientations would display the strongest antinuclear feelings. Also, we predicted that an authoritarian political stance advocating strict law-and-order on the domestic front would predict support for nuclear weapons in international defense. The subjects were 46 male and 62 female first-year university students. The measure of nuclear attitudes was a 23-item inventory (NARQ) which had previously been extensively refined and validated for Australian populations (Jennings & Lawrence, 1986). The BSRI (Bem, 1974) measured sex-role orientation. An Australian law-and-order scale was also developed for this research. Latent trait models for rating data were applied to NARQ and law-and-order scales. The results revealed sex differences on approximately one-third of the nuclear opinion items, with men expressing stronger support for nuclear weapons in every case. Authoritarian law-and-order attitudes likewise predicted support for nuclear weapons in both men and women. A stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that BSRI masculinity and law-and order made separate, statistically significant, contributions to overall variation in nuclear views. These results were considered in relation both to previous research and to practical implications for political behavior.

The Significance and Function of Students’ Goals1

In this chapter, we discuss the significance of goals as one traditional source of human actions and report analyses of university students’ goals-directed study. As a domain of interest, students’ academic work is complex enough to encompass the dynamic conditions under which goals are generated and developed and constrained enough to allow us to specify some of the internal and external factors influencing students’ goal-directed activities

University Students' Representations of Study

Five women university students representations of their learning were analysed and related to their on-going adaptations to course demands. Representations involved their goals, working plans and perceptions of difficulties. Qualitative data from students accounts of their study in three interviews over five weeks were tabulated schematically in relation to Dunckers concepts of productive heuristics. Representations and performances were different for three high and two low achievers. Higher achievers had course-appropriate emphases of integrating and organising content for themselves, and applying it to teaching practice. Lower achievers persisted with self-oriented problems and inappropriate strategies. A case is made for the usefulness of qualitative and micro-analytic analyses of students perceptions and activities for explaining the adaptations behind individual differences in study performance.

Distance University Students' Processing of Mathematics Exercises.

This study reports the development and use of a taxonomy for describing the way distance students plant their work and use course materials to complete mathematics exercises. A taxonomy of 12 component procedures of cognitive operations was developed from a set of propositions about problem-solving. Two undergraduate students of mathematics and one graduate thought aloud as they completed an exercise using standard course materials under distance study conditions. The verbal protocols of the students problem-solving processes and use of course materials were described and compared using the taxonomy.The two undergraduates centred on single aspects of the problem. They used examples rather than conceptual information presented in the written materials. The graduate made greater use of theories and definitions, but like the undergraduates, neglected the expository material. No student planned the work.The data are discussed in terms of the usefulness of a taxonomic description of thinking-aloud data for course designers and mathematics teachers.