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Our study tested whether learning is shaped by fundamental cognitive and motivational forces in the academic domain of writing. We examined whether strategic writing behavior and motivation (attitudes toward writing and self-efficacy) made a statistically significant and unique contribution to the prediction of writing quality and number of words written, after controlling for variance due to other components and gender. Overall, 227 fourth-grade students (120 girls, 107 boys) wrote a personal narrative story and completed instruments examining their strategic writing behavior and motivation. Strategic writing behavior and motivational measures accounted for statistically significant and unique variance in predicting writing quality. This was also the case for the motivation variables when number of words was the writing performance measure. These findings provided support for the model of domain learning as applied to writing. Both cognitive and motivational variables made separate and unique contributions to predicting the writing performance of young, developing writers.

Considerable evidence suggests that dialogical interaction in the classroom promotes students' scientific knowledge building and reasoning. Hence, scientific argumentation is recognized as a central component of the Next Generation Science Standards. A focus on argumentation, however, requires teachers to adopt instructional practices that facilitate this type of discourse. Therefore, the study reported here examined the impact of a practice-based professional development (PD) program on the scientific discourse practices of teachers and their students. Two cohorts of elementary school teachers attended different versions of the PD: 1 cohort attended the full program (institute, practicum, and follow-up sessions), whereas the other took part in the institute and follow-up days but did not take part in the practicum. We found that all teachers and their students, regardless of the cohort, made statistically significant improvements in their science discourse practices after attending the PD. An unexpected finding was that teachers who attended the full PD (with practicum) did not outperform the teachers who did not attend the practicum. However, students of teachers who did attend the practicum made improvements that approached statistical significance compared to students of teachers who did not attend the practicum. Thus, we report research that provides evidence of an effective model of practice-based PD that helps teachers to address the goals of the Next Generation Science Standards and equips them with instructional practices that promote student learning in science.

This article reports an investigation of a professional development program to enhance elementary teachers' ability to engage their students in argument from evidence in science. Using a quasi-experimental approach, three versions were compared: Version A—a 1-week summer institute with a 2-week summer practicum experience and 8 follow-up days (four per year), Version B without the practicum experience, and Version C—a revision of Version A in Year 3. All teachers were videoed twice each year, and the videos were rated using an instrument to measure the quality of discourse. All versions led to a significant improvement in teachers' facilitation of classroom discourse. Neither the practicum nor the revised program had an additional effect. Implications for the field are discussed.

This study tested whether writing skills, knowledge, motivation, and strategic behaviors (within the context of robust writing instruction) each made a statistically unique contribution to predicting fifth-grade students’ (123 girls, 104 boys) composition quality and length on a persuasive writing task involving source material, after variance due to other predictors and control variables (reading comprehension, gender, class, and school effects) were controlled. With one exception, writing skills, knowledge, motivation, and strategic behaviors each accounted for statistically unique variance in predicting compositional quality. The exception involved writing knowledge, which did notmake a unique contribution in the fall but did in the spring, when a topic knowledge measure was added. In addition, writing motivation, and strategic behaviors accounted for unique variance in composition length in the fall, and writing knowledge did so in the spring.

Responsibility for academic outcomes is an important factor to consider within the study of student motivation, yet measures for the construct remain elusive and inconsistent. The present study uses a new measure developed by Lauermann and Karabenick to assess students' sense of responsibility for their academic outcomes. This study examined the relationship between perceived academic control, implicit theory of intelligence, and student responsibility. Results were based on a sample of 152 undergraduate students. A significant relationship between perceived academic control and student responsibility was established. Results also indicated a significant association between implicit theory of intelligence and student responsibility; however, contrary to hypotheses, implicit theory did not mediate the relationship between perceived academic control and student responsibility.

The primary objective of this study was to develop the Perceived Control of the Attribution Process Scale (PCAPS), a measure of metacognitive beliefs of causality, or a perceived control of the attribution process. The PCAPS included two subscales: perceived control of attributions (PCA), and awareness of the motivational consequences of attributions (AMC). Study 1 (a pilot study) generated scale items, explored suitable measurement formats, and provided initial evidence for the validity of an event-specific version of the scale. Study 2 achieved several outcomes; Study 2a provided strong evidence for the validity and reliability of the PCA and AMC subscales, and showed that they represent separate constructs. Study 2b demonstrated the predictive validity of the scale and provided support for the perceived control of the attribution process model. This study revealed that those who adopt these beliefs are significantly more likely to experience autonomy and well-being. Study 2c revealed that these constructs are influenced by context, yet they lead to adaptive outcomes regardless of this contextual-specificity. These findings suggest that there are individual differences in metacognitive beliefs of causality and that these differences have measurable motivational implications.

Write-up for the Biological Response Study: Pilot Study – Part I Understanding Engineering Students Stress and Emotions during an Introductory Engineering course. Although recent research in engineering education has focused on student enjoyment ofcoursework and its influence on student retention, very little research has engaged theoreticalframeworks which identify the specific role that student beliefs and emotions play in courseengagement. Additionally educational research focusing on student beliefs, motivations, andemotions have only recently tied these beliefs to biological responses. We will presentfindings regarding students’ beliefs, emotions, and biological responses to stress during oneengineering ethics course. We suspect that students’ beliefs about the value of a course for their future as engineershas an impact on students’ academic emotions. We also propose that these beliefs andemotions will be jointly reflected in the bio-manifestations of students’ salivary profiles,represented by saliva cortisol (e.g., Gordis, Granger, Susman, & Trickett, 2006). Cortisol is ahormone released when humans experience stress or discomfort; recent research hasdemonstrated that cortisol levels in human saliva are good predictors of a biological responseto stress and discomfort. Few studies, however, have explored the associations betweencortisol levels and positive academic achievement emotions, specifically enjoyment. We hypothesized that student’s class-related positive emotions would negativelycorrelated with students’ cortisol levels; we also hypothesized that students’ endogenous PIwould positively predict their positive emotions, and would negatively predict their cortisollevels.Participants Our participants were recruited in an engineering ethics course at a public university inthe Southwest of the US. 31 consented to participate in our study. The sample wasrepresentative of the ASU Engineering program population (e.g., Stump, Husman, Corby,2014).ProceduresProcedures regarding saliva collection specifically followed best practices guidelinesprovided by the Institution of Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research (IISBR). Twovalidated self-report measures of achievement emotions and perceptions of the value of acourse for future goals were used.Results of Multiple Regression Models Results showed that post-class enjoyment was predicted by endogenous perceptions ofWrite-up for the Biological Response Study: Pilot Study – Part Iinstrumentality, above and beyond pre-class cortisol levels (adjusted R2 = .36, R2 = .33, p< .001; see Table 2 for coefficients), explaining approximately 40% of the variance inpost-class enjoyment. Post-class cortisol was significantly predicted by pre-class enjoyment(adjusted R2 = .103, B = -.022, SE = .011, ZB = -.367, p < .05).Discussion This study explored engineering students’ cognitive, emotional, and biological responsesto an ethics course. Specifically, we found that class-related positive emotions negativelycorrelated with students’ cortisol levels, indicating that the more reported enjoyment a studentexperienced in class, the lower their cortisol levels. In addition, students’ value of the classfor achieving future goals predicted students’ positive emotions, suggesting studentsperception of a class as valuable for achieving a future goal can predict the positive emotionsthey experience in class. This examination provides methodological possibilities forunderstanding students’ responses to instruction using both bio-markers and self-report. Alsothe study provides evidence of the effect of beliefs on emotions, the effect of emotions onbiological responses.

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) presents with fever, inflammation and pathology of multiple organs in individuals under 21 years of age in the weeks following severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Although an autoimmune pathogenesis has been proposed, the genes, pathways and cell types causal to this new disease remain unknown. Here we perform RNA sequencing of blood from patients with MIS-C and controls to find disease-associated genes clustered in a co-expression module annotated to CD56 dim CD57 + natural killer (NK) cells and exhausted CD8 + T cells. A similar transcriptome signature is replicated in an independent cohort of Kawasaki disease (KD), the related condition after which MIS-C was initially named. Probing a probabilistic causal network previously constructed from over 1,000 blood transcriptomes both validates the structure of this module and reveals nine key regulators, including TBX21, a central coordinator of exhausted CD8 + T cell differentiation. Together, this unbiased, transcriptome-wide survey implicates downregulation of NK cells and cytotoxic T cell exhaustion in the pathogenesis of MIS-C. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) onsets in COVID-19 patients with manifestations similar to Kawasaki disease (KD). Here the author probe the peripheral blood transcriptome of MIS-C patients to find signatures related to natural killer (NK) cell activation and CD8+ T cell exhaustion that are shared with KD patients.

We demonstrate the use of tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) on polymeric microstructures fabricated by two-photon polymerization direct laser writing (TPP-DLW). Compared to the signal intensity obtained in confocal Raman microscopy, a linear enhancement of almost two times is measured when using TERS. Because the probing volume is much smaller in TERS than in confocal Raman microscopy, the effective signal enhancement is estimated to be ca. 104. We obtain chemical maps of TPP microstructures using TERS with relatively short acquisition times and with high spatial resolution as defined by the metallic tip apex radius of curvature. We take advantage of this high resolution to study the homogeneity of the polymer network in TPP microstructures printed in an acrylic-based resin. We find that the polymer degree of conversion varies by about 30% within a distance of only 100 nm. The combination of high resolution topographical and chemical data delivered by TERS provides an effective analytical tool for studying TPP-DLW materials in a non-destructive way.

Meiotic drivers capitalize on vulnerabilities in eukaryotic meiosis and gametogenesis to gain greater-than-equal transmission to the next generation. In most plants and animals, asymmetric female meiosis is such an arena for selfishness; centromeric variants can bias their chromosomes segregation to the one egg cell with potentially profound effects on individual fitness, population dynamics, and genome structure. However, the mechanisms and consequences of selfish centromere evolution remain obscure, due to both the complexity of centromeric DNA and to a paucity of model systems. Here, we build on representative chromosome-scale assemblies of yellow monkeyflowers (M. guttatus species complex) to compare the structure, gene content, and sequence of three functionally distinct haplotypes at Meiotic Drive Locus on Chromosome 11 (MDL11), whose driving Dallele was previously shown to be centromere-containing, costly, and maintained as a balanced polymorphism in wild populations. Relative to both moderately-resistant M. guttatus nondrivers (D-; IM767) and weak (d)M. nasutus, D minimally evolved via two rearrangements (including a hemicentric inversion creating dual arrays of M. guttatus centromeric satellite Cent728separated by > 200 trapped genes), massive expansions of a novel MDL11-specific subfamily of satellite repeats (Cent728D) that increase D chromosome length by >50%, and the accumulation of >40 extra D-only genes (EDG) from diverse genomic sources in a hemizygous pericentromeric region. Under a strictly centromeric model of selfishness, the recent expansion of Cent728D is a primary candidate for generating centromere drive, either by directly altering the binding of centromeric histone CenH3 or by shifting kinetochore size or position as an epigenetic byproduct of chromosome size. However, elevated divergence in genic presence-absence variants (both in the EDG and elsewhere) and gene sequence across MDL11 strata points to strong candidates for both collusion with the D centromere and for interspecific (D-vs. d) variation in resistance. Overall, our findings support the sequential buildup of this model centromeric driver over time, reveal intriguing parallels with adaptive and gamete-killing supergenes, and provide a strong platform for further dissection of the molecular genetic basis of its dramatic deviations from Mendelian rules.