In the present article, we examine the basic and applied aspects of the social psychology of religious worldview defense; that is, how people react in terms of negative affective reactions toward extremely antireligious statements that threaten their religious beliefs and/or may violate their views of how one should communicate about religious issues. An Internet study (N = 1,529) and a laboratory experiment (N = 151) provide evidence for the hypothesis that salience of personal uncertainty concerns may lead people to react with more negative affective reactions toward extremely negative statements about religion, particularly when people are inclined to think of personal uncertainty as an emotionally threatening experience and when they are strongly religious. Implications for the psychology of religion and the social psychology of uncertainty and worldview defense are discussed.

Student retention is an issue of increasing interest to higher education institutions, educators and students. Much of the work in this area focuses on identifying and improving interventions that occur during the presentation of a course. This paper suggests that these represent only one set of factors that can influence student withdrawal, and equally important are design based factors that can aid retention throughout the course. The main research question addressed by the paper is what design-related factors impact on student retention. An analysis of student withdrawal at the UK Open University conducted by the researchers produced a synthesis of seven key factors in the design phase that can influence retention. These factors have been given the ICEBERG acronym: Integrated, Collaborative, Engaging, Balanced, Economical, Reflective and Gradual. Examples of how these factors can be implemented are provided, and conclusions focus on how the model has been embedded in the module production process at the Open University.