Predicting army cadets’ performance: The role of character strengths, GPA and GMA

The purpose of this study was to examine how well a set of 12 character strengths (Leadership, Integrity, Open-Mindedness, Bravery, Teamwork, Persistence, Social Intelligence, Love of Learning, Fairness, Self-Regulation, Perspective and Creativity) will predict academic performance (AP) and military performance (MP), compared to high school grade point average (GPA) and general mental ability (GMA). The study sample comprised 123 army cadets of two cohorts from the three-year bachelor's degree programme at the Norwegian Military Academy (NMA). GPA predicted AP (r = 0.32, p ≤ 0.05), but not MP (r = 0.14, n.s.), while GMA correlated significantly with neither AP nor MP. All 12 character strengths correlated significantly with MP (rs ranging from 0.27 to 0.65), and all except for Fairness correlated significantly with AP (rs ranging from 0.18 to 0.58). An average score of the 12 character strengths showed incremental validity beyond GMA and GPA in predicting both AP and MP. Our results suggest that character strengths should be considered when selecting and training army cadets.

Women are the Better Halves: Gender-based Variations in Virtues and Character Strengths

Several feminists have been arguing on the superiority of women over men. This debate, instead of being biological, revolves around the gender roles and moral characteristics of humans, based on which women have been regarded better than men. The current study supported this claim by involving 620 participants, including men and women. Character Strengths Rating Form (Ruch et al., 2014) was used to obtain data. Women projected significantly higher levels on a variety of character strengths as compared to men. The results revealed that women had significantly higher levels of wisdom, justice, curiosity, love of learning, social intelligence, leadership and appreciation of beauty and excellence. The overall picture confirmed women to be more virtuous than men.

Rick Jones: Finding the High School Spirit

Installing a love of learning in students and teachers alike.

An interview with Michael Barresi

Michael Barresi is Professor of Biological Sciences at Smith College, Northampton, MA, USA, where he uses the zebrafish to understand central nervous system development. Michael is also Program Director of the ‘Student Scientists’ outreach project and has made significant contributions to teaching developmental biology, including being co-author and illustrator of the textbook Developmental Biology, producing developmental documentaries and starting the Online Developmental Teaching Forums. He was awarded the 2021 Viktor Hamburger Outstanding Educator Prize from the Society of Developmental Biology (SDB). We caught up with Michael over Teams to hear more about his career and love of learning.

Character Strengths and Intelligence

Research on the associations between cognitive and noncognitive personality traits has widely neglected positively valued traits such as character strengths. The present study aimed to bridge this gap by studying the associations between character strengths and intelligence using different operationalizations of intelligence and character strengths (i.e., using self- and informant-reports) in children, adolescents, and adults. The results, based on four samples (N = 193/286/330/321), suggested that character strengths exist independently of cognitive ability, with the exception of love of learning, which showed a small but robust positive relationships with intelligence across all samples. Nonetheless, we argue for further research on the relationships and interactions between character strengths and cognitive ability when examining their relationships with external criteria.

Exploring academic and character strengths in students with sex chromosome aneuploidies

Children with sex chromosome aneuploidies (SCAs) are often characterized in the literature by limitations and pathologies related to the genetic diagnosis. This study aimed to broaden the SCA phenotype by describing parent reported character and academic strengths. Parents of children with SCAs ages 3-21 (N=377) responded to an electronic survey asking them to describe their child’s strengths in academic settings. Responses were coded for strengths-based content and analyzed using a mixed-methods content analysis approach. We identified overarching qualitative themes of Social Strengths and Assets for Learning. Quantitative results showed a pattern of overlapping strengths among the trisomy SCAs (perseverance and love of learning), with some significant differences between children with supernumerary X chromosomes (strengths in kindness) and those with an additional Y chromosome (strengths in curiosity, humor, and teamwork). Suggestions for future strengths-based research and educational practices to address academic, developmental, and psychosocial risks are explored.

What is it About our Story: Does Ergodicity help us Understand Equity from a Neurodiverse Perspective?

This article explores the dynamics of equity and ergodicity in a psychological lab context including navigating consent (commitments) and transparency (debriefs). The article explores how evolutionary determinants are translated into competitive gameplay in human social interactions and how cooperative gameplay based on cultural stories counteracts harms associated with competition. Other themes that are explored is a love of learning at the center of cooperative storytelling. An Indigenous form of perspective-taking called etuaptmumk or "two-eyed seeing," developed by First Nations Mi'kmaw Elder Albert Marshall, is used as an example of ergodic intervention as a balance to cognitive biases. How are concepts of dignity and respect, as support for equity in needs, and a recognition of community member competencies and contributions, work to nurture a neurodiverse writing community where individuals can openly navigate consent, transparency, consensus, and inclusion? What are both the theoretical and practical implications of using multimodal expression such as writing on a neurodiverse community?

Educating the Christian Prince for Learning and Peace

This paper reconstructs the education of Emperor Rudolf II and his brother Ernst in Spain. It emphasizes the essentially political character of humanist educational literature, which was intended to cultivate a learned political elite whose decisions would be guided by good morals and unbiased reason. In order to achieve their educational goals, humanists promoted a scientific approach to the rearing and schooling of children, from observation of their essentially non-adult nature to adaptation to their potentials, their character, and their age. The recognition that children could not be forced to be virtuous and needed to be given incentives to pursue study was coupled, however, with a certain degree of anthropological pessimism about their corruptibility and the habitual nature of virtues. This explains why the stress on free will and mild methods was always coupled with an emphasis on discipline and indoctrination. The education of Rudolf and Ernst, which was intended to foster moderation, self-control, diligence, and a love of learning, is a rare example of humanist ideals put into practice. It confirms both the special importance of the ideas of Erasmus for Northern humanism and the strong relationship between Latin learning, moral education, and governing.

A Novel Multimodal Approach for Studying the Dynamics of Curiosity in Small Group Learning

Curiosity is a vital metacognitive skill in educational contexts, leading to creativity, and a love of learning. And while many school systems increasingly undercut curiosity by teaching to the test, teachers are increasingly interested in how to evoke curiosity in their students to prepare them for a world in which lifelong learning and reskilling will be more and more important. One aspect of curiosity that has received little attention, however, is the role of peers in eliciting curiosity. We present what we believe to be the first theoretical framework that articulates an integrated socio-cognitive account of curiosity that ties observable behaviors in peers to underlying curiosity states. We make a bipartite distinction between individual and interpersonal functions that contribute to curiosity, and multimodal behaviors that fulfill these functions. We validate the proposed framework by leveraging a longitudinal latent variable modeling approach. Findings confirm a positive predictive relationship between the latent variables of individual and interpersonal functions and curiosity, with the interpersonal functions exercising a comparatively stronger influence. Prominent behavioral realizations of these functions are also discovered in a data-driven manner. We instantiate the proposed theoretical framework in a set of strategies and tactics that can be incorporated into learning technologies to indicate, evoke, and scaffold curiosity. This work is a step towards designing learning technologies that can recognize and evoke moment-by-moment curiosity during learning in social contexts and towards a more complete multimodal learning analytics. The underlying rationale is applicable more generally for developing computer support for other metacognitive and socio-emotional skills.