Background/Context: Children and adolescents worldwide are often exposed to community violence, including homicides, assaults, and gang-related activities. Such exposure can disrupt developmental processes, heightening stress responses that impair self-regulation, emotional stability, and cognitive function. Previous meta-analyses have documented…

Many theories have been proposed to explain the blaming the victim phenomena and to predict who is most likely to engage in this behavior. This study hypothesized that since behavioral blame of a victim is self-protective for an observer, this type of blaming will be evidenced more by those who are personally and situationally similar to the…

Contrasts modeling methods in control theory to the methods of statistical generalizations in empirical studies of human or animal behavior. Presents a computer simulation that predicts behavior based on variables (effort and rewards) determined by the invariable (desired reward). Argues that control theory methods better reflect relationships to…

Describes a teaching activity that improves students' scientific reasoning by focusing attention on the causal, explanatory nature of psychological theories. Students learn and use an argument form called Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE). Includes examples of this technique and student responses to the course. (MJP)

The 7th International Conference on Education Data Mining held on July 4th-7th, 2014, at the Institute of Education, London, UK is the leading international forum for high-quality research that mines large data sets in order to answer educational research questions that shed light on the learning process. These data sets may come from the traces…

This article examines health promotion and disease prevention from the perspective of social cognitive theory. This theory posits a multifaceted causal structure in which self-efficacy beliefs operate together with goals, outcome expectations, and perceived environmental impediments and facilitators in the regulation of human motivation, behavior,…