Katarina Krkovic

Teacher Evaluation of Student Ability: What Roles Do Teacher Gender, Student Gender, and Their Interaction Play?.

Background: Recent decades have been marked by an extensive movement to analyze bias in people’s thinking, especially in gender-related issues. Studies have addressed the question of gender bias in classrooms on different levels—the use of gender in books, learning opportunities determined by students’ gender, or teachers’ gender preferences. Purpose: In this study, we aim to answer the question of whether and under which circumstances the interaction between teacher gender and student gender positively or negatively influences teachers’ evaluations of students’ performance, while controlling for objective measures of students’ performance. For instance, it could be possible that a teacher with the same gender as a student evaluates the student as better than opposite-gender students, independent of their objective performance. Sample: The sample consisted of n > 1,500 Finnish 6th grade students (Mage= 12.67) and their respective class teachers. Design and methods: Students completed several academic skills tests, including a mathematical thinking test, reading comprehension test, and scientific reasoning test. Furthermore, teachers provided their evaluation of each student, evaluating students’ performance in different school subjects and answering questions regarding their probability of academic success. To test whether the teacher-student gender interaction had an effect on the criterion variable, i.e. teachers’ evaluation of the students’ performance, multilevel analyses accounting for between- and within-class effects were applied. Thereby, the effect of students’ objective performance on teachers’ evaluation of the students and main effects of gender were controlled for as covariates. Results: The main results indicated that the interaction between student and teacher gender did not influence teachers’ evaluation of the students. However, regardless of their gender, teachers tended to evaluate girls as better than boys in first language performance (i.e. Finnish language) and potential for success in school. Teacher gender did not influence the evaluation. Conclusions: The results of the study suggest that the interaction between teacher and student gender is unlikely to be a source of possible bias in the evaluations of students in the Finnish educational system.

Emotion regulation as a moderator of the interplay between self-reported and physiological stress and paranoia

Experience sampling method (ESM) studies have found an association between daily stress and paranoid symptoms, but it is uncertain whether these findings generalize to physiological indicators of stress. Moreover, the temporality of the association and its moderating factors require further research. Here, we investigate whether physiological and self-rated daily stress predict subsequent paranoid symptoms and analyze the role of emotion regulation as a putative moderator. We applied ESM during 24 h to repeatedly assess heart rate, self-rated stress, and subclinical paranoia in a sample of 67 psychosis-prone individuals as measured with Community Assessment for Psychotic Experiences (CAPE). Adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation was assessed at baseline with the Emotion Regulation Skills Questionnaire (ERSQ-ES) and the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ). Linear mixed models were used to analyze the data. Heart rate (b = 0.004, p < 0.05) and self-rated stress (b = 0.238, p < 0.001) predicted subsequent paranoia. The reverse effect, paranoia as a predictor of subsequent heart rate (b = 0.230, p = 0.615) or self-rated stress (b = -0.009, p = 0.751) was non-significant. Maladaptive emotion regulation was a significant predictor of paranoia (b = 0.740, p < 0.01) and moderated the path from self-rated stress to paranoia (b = 0.188, p < 0.05) but not the path from heart rate to paranoia (b = 0.005, p = 0.09). Our findings suggest a one-way temporal link between daily stress and paranoia and highlight the importance of emotion regulation as a vulnerability factor relevant to this process.

Shifts in the Assessment of Problem Solving

In recent decades, the types of problems encountered in daily life have changed considerably. In particular, the technology-based society of today increasingly requires people to deal with dynamically changing, intransparent, and complex problems that cannot be solved only by applying factual knowledge. Moreover, in education and at work, such complex problems often need to be addressed collaboratively. Problem solving skills belong to the skills needed to successfully master such problems and are therefore considered to be crucial in the twenty-first century, but we can differentiate between problem solving on an individual level and collaborative problem solving. In the first part of this chapter, we provide insight into individual complex problem solving (CPS) research, with a special focus on its assessment. Specifically, we elaborate on different computer-based approaches to the measurement of CPS and their benefits and limitations. On the basis of the results of various empirical studies, we describe to which extent the CPS assessment has an added value in explaining the scholastic achievement and offer insights into a particular development of the assessment of this skill in large-scale educational contexts. Specifically, we elaborate on the assessment of CPS in the most influential large-scale project worldwide – the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) – and illustrate the process by describing example tasks. Further, we elaborate on how research on CPS has expanded towards the conceptually related skill of collaborative problem solving (ColPS) and discuss specific challenges in its assessment. With respect to the recent inclusion of ColPS in large-scale assessments, we present the assessment approach of another large-scale worldwide project – The Assessment and Teaching of Twenty-first Century Skills (ATC21S) – and describe how ColPS was assessed in the PISA 2015 cycle. Finally, we outline the importance of problem solving concepts in general and CPS specifically for future research, and discuss open research questions in this field.

Paranoid Delusions as an Adaptive Response to Social Evaluative Stress

Learning mechanisms may serve as a framework for understanding the formation of paranoia. Specifically, if paranoid thoughts after social stressors produce a short-term benefit for coping (e.g., downregulating arousal), the encountered negative reinforcement could lead to their excessive application and subsequently to long-term maladaptive convictions. The Trier Social Stress Test was utilized in healthy participants to examine this putative benefit. Participants rated paranoia at baseline and after the stressor. Subjective stress levels, negative affect, heart rate, and heart rate variability were assessed in the following rest phase (N = 59). Semipartial correlations showed that participants who responded with larger increases in paranoia were characterized by a lower heart rate in the subsequent rest phase. No associations were found with heart rate variability or psychological measures. Thus, paranoid thinking in healthy individuals could be an adaptive means for reestablishing some aspects of physiological homeostasis after a social stressor but further research is needed.

An experience sampling study on the nature of the interaction between traumatic experiences, negative affect in everyday life, and threat beliefs

Research suggests that trauma is associated with the development of psychotic experiences, such as paranoia, via affective processes. However, the empirical evidence on the exact mechanism is limited and it is unclear which aspects of trauma are relevant. Here we tested whether self-reported frequency of trauma, recurring trauma, age, and type of trauma are predictive of later threat beliefs in daily life and which role affective processes (self-reported negative affect and autonomic arousal) play in this association. We tested two often postulated mechanisms: mediation, with affective processes in everyday life explaining the association between trauma and threat beliefs; and moderation, with trauma strengthening the association between affective processes and threat beliefs in everyday life. Trauma was assessed at baseline with the Trauma-History-Questionnaire in 67 individuals with attenuated symptoms of psychosis. We then applied the experience-sampling-method during 24 h to assess negative affect, heart rate and threat beliefs. Multilevel analysis showed that negative affect (p < 0.001) and heart rate (p < 0.05) were predictive of subsequent threat beliefs. There was no significant mediation effect from any trauma characteristic to threat beliefs via negative affect and heart rate. Trauma frequency (p < 0.001), age at first trauma (p < 0.001), as well as the presence of physical trauma (p < 0.001) moderated the path from negative affect to subsequent threat beliefs. Our findings indicate that more frequent trauma, trauma at young age and physical trauma strengthen the association from negative affect to threat beliefs and could be relevant to determining the extent of vulnerability to psychosis.

Emotion regulation as a predictor of the endocrine, autonomic, affective, and symptomatic stress response and recovery

Stress is associated with the development of mental disorders such as depression and psychosis. The ability to regulate emotions is likely to influence how individuals respond to and recover from acute stress, and may thus be relevant to symptom development. To test this, we investigated whether self-reported emotion regulation predicts the endocrine, autonomic, affective, and symptomatic response to and recovery from a stressor. Social-evaluative stress was induced by the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) in N = 67 healthy individuals (53.7% female, Mage = 29.9). Self-reported habitual emotion regulation skills were assessed at baseline. We measured salivary cortisol, heart rate, negative affect, state depression and state paranoia at three time points: pre-TSST, post-TSST, and after a 10 min recovery phase. Repeated-measures ANOVA showed all indicators to significantly increase in response to the stressor (p < .001) and decrease during the recovery phase (p < .001), except for salivary cortisol, which showed a linear increase (p < .001). The habitual use of maladaptive emotion regulation (e.g., rumination, catastrophizing) significantly predicted an increased affective and reduced cortisol response. Adaptive emotion regulation (e.g., acceptance, reappraisal) was not predictive of the stress response for any of the indicators. Neither type of emotion regulation predicted response during the stress recovery phase. Individuals who habitually resort to maladaptive emotion regulation strategies show a stronger affective and a blunted endocrine stress response, which may make them vulnerable to mental health problems. However, further research is needed to identify the full scope of skills required for effective stress-regulation before this knowledge can be used to develop effective prevention programs.

Development of the Demotivating Beliefs Inventory and Test of the Cognitive Triad of Amotivation

Recent cognitive models of negative symptoms in psychosis posit that amotivation relevant beliefs are reflected in the cognitive triad of negative beliefs concerning the self, others and the future. The aim of this study was to test the proposed three-factor structure of putative ‘demotivating beliefs’ and to ascertain the strength of their association with self-reported amotivation. We combined existing scales assessing ‘demotivating beliefs’ to the Demotivating Beliefs Inventory. This scale was used for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses as well as latent regression analyses with amotivation in two independent community (n1 = 98; n2 = 347) and one clinical sample (n = 36). We found a three-factor structure with satisfying model fit (‘selfdefeating beliefs’, ‘social indifference beliefs’ and ‘low-expectancy-of-pleasure beliefs’). Each factor showed moderate associations with amotivation (β-coefficients from 0.34 to 0.43; R2 = .30). Our results support the validity of the cognitive triad and its benefit as a framework to analyze demotivating beliefs.