No abstract

This study examined whether giving activity feedback to obese, sedentary adults with Type 2 diabetes would improve their adherence to a home-based walking program. 49 subjects were recruited. Ten failed a treadmill cardiovascular test. Another 9 dropped out before the intervention, and 4 dropped out during the intervention. The remaining 26 adults (14 women, 12 men; age M = 48.1 yr., SD = 7.1) received behavioral counseling monthly for 3 mo. regarding exercise. All subjects wore a triaxial accelerometer during these 3 months. Randomly, half of the subjects were blind to the data from the accelerometers, i.e., no feedback, and had counseling based on their self-report diaries. The other half had access to the accelerometer data, got a computerized graph of their physical activity for the period between counseling sessions, and had counseling based on these objective data, i.e., feedback. The feedback group showed an increase in exercise over the 3 mo. The nonfeedback group showed an increase in activity at 1.5 mo. but reverted to their baseline exercise levels at 3 mo. However, analysis of variance showed there was at least an 8% probability that this effect was due to chance, so the hypothesis that feedback would improve exercise adherence could not be supported. Further studies with larger sample sizes and greater control of experimental conditions are needed to determine the utility of objective activity feedback.

The main purpose of this study, on the theoretical framework proposed by Renzulli (1986) and by Van Boxtel and Mo È nks (1992) and Mo È nks, Van Boxtel, Roelefs and Saunders (1986), was to explore pupils' motivation and adaptation to school life in relation to the identi® cation of giftedness. A pool of 1765 primary school pupils were initially tested for Visual-Motor Integration and Creative Thinking. Their teachers nominated 90 of them as gifted, who in turn were assessed in regard to their level of school adaptation and motivation by questionnaires based on Power and Cotterell (1979) and on Entwistle (1968). The comparison groups were ® ve nominated pupils, veri® ed as gifted, seven more nonnominated, but gifted (all 12 identi® ed through psychometric and statistical criteria), and ten non-gifted but nominated pupils. The results indicated that the gifted pupils, depending on whether or not they are identi® ed by their teachers, feel partially motivated and exhibit lower than the expected adaptation at school. The ® ndings are discussed in the light of the current Greek school system.

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Students' real and ideal self-concepts were studied with respect to their acceptance or rejection of the traditional values of Greek education. The relationship between the real and the ideal components of self-concept was also examined. A sample of Athenian students who answered a questionnaire accepted most of the traditional values of education. The students' internalization of such values predicted their moderately satisfied real self-concepts and their extremely developed ideal self-concepts, which symbolized their hopes and ambitions for academic achievement. The factor-analyzed items of self-concept revealed a disparity between the real and the ideal components of the participants' self-concepts.