Cheating: The illusory edge

This experiment studied the relationships among cheating, overall test performance, and the relatedness of materials available and unavailable to the cheater. Subjects learned a free-recall list and were then tested for recall either when cheating was impossible or when half of the list had been left “carelessly” exposed. For half of the cheat subjects the exposed and the unexposed words belonged to different categories, while for the remaining halves the items belonged to the same categories. Recall was scored for both exposed and unexposed words. The results indicate that significant cheating did occur, that cheating did not improve overall performance, and that while cheating elevated the numbers of recorded exposed words it depressed recall of stored unexposed items (for both related and unrelated sets). This associated cost effect is discussed in connection with category retrieval, output interference, attention, and arousal.     

Four components of Rotter's internal-external scale and cheating behavior

This paper studied correlations between classroom cheating and the four subscales of Rotter's I-E scale identified by Collins. One-hundred-thirty college undergraduates completed the Rotter scale converted to 46 Likert items and a 30-item multiple-choice, introductory psychology examination under crowded classroom conditions. Cheating, as indexed by answer overlap with adjacent neighbors as compared to answer overlap with distant subjects, correlated significantly with the difficult-easy subscale but not with the other subscales, and not with the overall I-E scale. Results are taken as justification for the Collins' subscales and are discussed in terms of the multidimensional aspects of the overall I-E dimension.     

The consequences of child abuse for the formation of relationships with peers

The peer interaction of 26 physically abused children was observed and compared to the peer interaction of normal children (n = 26), neglected children (n = 4) and children referred to a child guidance clinic (n = 21). The children were either enrolled in a day-care intervention program and observed in well-established peer groups or not enrolled in peer-based intervention and observed in newly formed peer groups. The hypothesis that abused children who were enrolled in day-care intervention programs would be more competent in peer interaction than abused children who were observed in newly formed groups and not enrolled in peer-based intervention programs was supported. The peer interaction of abused children in well-established groups was similar to that of normal children and more skillful than that of abused and clinic children in newly formed groups. Normal children engaged in similar peer interaction in newly formed and well-established groups. The results are discussed in terms of the social support network provided by the day-care intervention and missing in the family environment of abused children.     

Duration of response to teacher questions and statements

To examine the effectiveness of teacher questions in stimulating student participation, 26 high school discussion classes were tape-recorded and the duration of utterances timed by stopwatch. Analyses of variance performed on class mean duration of student response revealed three findings. (1) No significant difference was observed between response to questions and response to declarative statements. (2) By question type, opinion questions received significantly longer responses than factual ones, and closed longer than open; no differences were observed for six other ways of classifying questions. (3) Response to questions appeared unrelated to selected characteristics of classroom, teacher, and student. The findings offer little support to current emphases in theory and practice on the use of questions in discussion classes. The study may be situated within a body of recent research that has failed to validate traditional claims for the efficacy of teacher questions.     

Effects of two types of letter rehearsal on word memory in skilled and less skilled beginning readers

Skilled and less skilled beginning readers were taught to read and define 10 printed pseudowords. Then they rehearsed the spellings of the words in one of two ways. Experimental subjects performed activities to retain spellings in memory as orthographic images. Control subjects rehearsed the letters similarly but with the correct spellings in view. Post-tests revealed that experimentals remembered spellings better than controls. This indicates that the activity of committing letters to memory is better for learning spellings than copying letters which is what most spelling programs have learners do. Experimental subjects' superior knowledge of spellings, however, did not enable them to read the words faster or more accurately than controls, possibly because of overlearning. Comparison of good and poor readers' word-learning behavior revealed greater deficiencies in phonological than in semantic processes. Correlational analysis indicated that background skills are much more powerful than specific learning experiences in accounting for individual differences in reading and spelling performances.     

Mnemonics for phonics

Two experiments were run in which the effect of pictures as mnemonics for learning letter-sound pairs was investigated with prereading children. In both experiments the mnemonics had a substantial positive effect during training, but this effect disappeared on a transfer test with the mnemonics removed.     

The relationship between perception of locus of control and academic achievement: Review and some educational implications

In an attempt to explain the evidence which indicates that internal perception of control is postively related to academic achievement, this paper suggests that mediating motivational and cognitive reactions, which differentiate internals from externals, may account for this relationship. Furthermore, on the basis of data which suggest that the perception of locus of control is a changeable disposition, this paper calls for structuring environments that will induce and maintain realistic internal perception of locus of control.     

Relationships among cooperation-competition and locus of control in social and academic situations among children in traditional and open classrooms

The relationships among cooperation-competition, perceptions of locus of control in social situations, and perceptions of locus of control in intellectual-academic situations was compared among 89 fourth- and fifth-grade students in traditional and open classrooms. Children from the open education setting displayed substantially more cooperative behavior on Madsen's marble-pull game than children from the traditional school. They also made significant gains in cooperative behavior from the first to the second trial, while the difference between trials was not significant for the traditional students. Traditional students displayed significantly higher internality for locus of control in academic settings, while perceptions of locus of control in social settings did not differ for the two groups. Academic and social locus of control judgments were significantly correlated for the open education students, but not for the students from traditional classrooms.     

Automatic conceptual encoding of printed verbal material: Assessment of population differences

The release from proactive interference task was used to investigate categorical encoding of animal and clothing items with fourth grade low-socioeconomic status black and middle-socioeconomic status white children. The print mode of verbal presentation and an ordered recall requirement were used in order to provide hospitable conditions for the detection of population differences. The results indicated parity in buildup and release from proactive interference for the two populations. The results of this study, consistent with previous estimates of release from proactive interference for these groups (e.g., D. W. Kee & L. Helfend, Journal of Educational Psychology, 1977, 69, 344–348; S. Y. Nakayama & D. W. Kee, Journal of Educational Psychology, 1980, 72, 386–393), indicate that low-socioeconomic status black and middle-socioeconomic white children do not differ in automatic conceptual encoding. Conceptual encoding differences, however, have been detected between these populations when the free recall method has been used. Thus, discussion of the present results includes a consideration of factors which may be responsible for population differences in free recall performance and preliminary evidence on this issue is provided.     

Use of clustering techniques in deriving psychoeducational profiles

This study explores whether a synthesis of clinical and statistical data taken from the psychoeducational reports completed on a group of 42, 9- to 11-year-old boys referred to a Child Psychiatric Outpatient Department for school-learning problems, would yield discrete clinical categories or clusters of children. An amalgamated hierarchical clustering technique which formed clusters by subjects based on a measure of euclidean distance was used. Forty-two reports were evaluated by licensed educational psychologists in five input areas: Developmental History, School History, Cognitive Functioning, Sensorimotor/Perceptual Functioning, and Academic Achievement. One of three educational placement recommendations was identified for each subject: No Educational Placement Intervention Necessary, Special Tutoring or Remediation, and Special Class Placement. Using clinical characteristic ratings given by the evaluators on each variable, a similarity-dissimilarity matrix was formed which classified subjects into four discrete clusters based on their clinical profiles. A χ² test determined that there was a significant association (p < .01) between cluster membership and educational placement recommendations.     

An analysis of assignment completion and accuracy across time under fixed, variable, and extended token exchange periods in a classroom token economy

This research investigated the effects of employing fixed, variable, and extended token exchange periods for backups on the completion and quality of daily assignments of a total fifth- and sixth-grade class. The results indicated a higher percentage of assignments was completed when the number of days between point exchanges was variable, and that performance was maintained when the number of school days between point exchanges was gradually increased. The overall accuracy on assignments was high, but varying, and did not appear to be under the systematic control of the experimental procedures. Data for all pupils indicated that there were individual differences as to the effects of the various token (point) exchange procedures. Pupils with inconsistent assignment completion during Fixed Exchange Conditions (Fixed Period (FP-I, -II, -III) increased their assignment completion during the Variable Token Exchange Procedures (Variable Period (VP)-I, -II, -III). Thus, the variable sequencing of the number of days should be an important consideration in any effort to maintain the positive effects of token-reinforcement systems within classroom settings.     

Changing academic task persistence through a self-instructional attribution training program

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether a self-instructional method of attribution training could effectively alter both academic task persistence and effort attributions for success and failure. Ninety children with low-effort attributions were identified and randomly assigned to three groups. The two experimental groups (experiential and formal presentation) were given training with two slightly different self-instructional procedure and compared to a control group receiving no such training. The results revealed that both experimental groups receiving the self-instructional attribution training evidenced significant differences from the control group in both academic task persistence and effort attribution.     

Conceptual process as a function of age and enforced attention in learning-disabled children: Evidence for deficient rule learning

Adapting a modified reception paradigm, three bidimensional rules (conjunctive, disjunctive, conditional) and two instructional conditions (enforced attention vs standard rule learning) are used to test the assumption that deficient rule learning rather than inattention is responsible for poor learning with learning-disabled children. Main findings indicate learning-disabled children are deficient on binary conceptual rule tasks for three age groups (6 to 7, 8 to 9, 12 to 13) compared to normal children matched on sex and IQ regardless of experimental instructions. For both groups, learning is retarded by rule complexity while rate of learning diminishes with increasing age. Data reflect a truth-table logic at all ages for both groups, although there is evidence that disabled children perseverate with a rule-learning hypothesis characteristic of younger nondisabled children. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that rule learning is deficient in children with learning disabilities.     

High school student satisfaction and perceptions of the school environment

The satisfaction of high school students was studied using an adaptation of reinforcement theory. An instrument entitled Students and Their Schools was developed to assess the perceived availability and value of 35 different academic and interpersonal dimensions of the high school environment and student satisfaction with these areas. This was distributed to 411 students in two city and three suburban public high schools. Availability of resources alone is more highly related to satisfaction than their value. Small but consistent differences were found between male and female students, with suburban females reporting lower levels of availability and satisfaction but higher value ratings than other students. City students have higher levels of satisfaction, but lower levels of value, than suburban students. Most of the differences concerned academic aspects of school and interactions with administrators and faculty. If students perceive a high availability of rewarding aspects of their school environment, they report higher levels of satisfaction with school. Thus, an adaptation of reinforcement theory can be used as an empirical measure of student satisfaction with school.     

Predicting academic achievement of Greek secondary school Students from family background and California Psychological Inventory scores

Family background data and California Psychological Inventory (CPI) protocols were obtained from 1643 Greek students (825 males, 818 females), from 19 schools in upper, above average, below average, and lower socioeconomic districts of the City of Athens. Students were enrolled in Grades 8 and 9 (gymnasio) or 10 through 12 (likio). Background variables, individual CPI scales, and a combination of six CPI scales developed earlier to forecast high school academic achievement in the United States were related to the scholastic performance of the Greek students. For all 1643 students, the optimum linear combination of three family background variables correlated .29 with grades, whereas the previously defined CPI equation had a correlation of .38. Similar results were observed in subsamples defined by sex and school level. It was concluded that the CPI measures showed sufficient validity in this cross-cultural application to warrant further research at higher educational levels, and in special subgroups such as the intellectually gifted or mathematically precocious.     

Effects of televised modeling and active participation on rule-governed question production among native American preschool children

Preschool native-American children were randomly assigned to observation of TV modeling only, observation of TV modeling plus active participation, and control conditions to determine if providing an opportunity to perform behaviors displayed by televised models is more effective than observational learning alone in inducing preschool children's rule-governed production of causal questions. Performance of both experimental groups was significantly superior to controls at posttesting, but only the TV plus active participation group surpassed controls at retention testing. The TV modeling plus participation group asked significantly more causal questions than the TV modeling only group on posttest and retention trials. Implications are discussed for social learning theory and research for instructional programming for minority group children who are faced with the requirements of two cultures.     

Performance of good and poor readers at two grade levels on an Auditory Cognitive Style Task

Sixty-four good and poor readers at first and third grades were administered a task measuring cognitive style in the auditory modality. They were also administered the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) to obtain a measure of IQ. Poor readers committed significantly more errors and exhibited shorter response latencies on the Auditory Cognitive Style Task than did good readers. More importantly, poor readers demonstrated inefficient strategies for successful performance. It was suggested that good reading skills, as well as successful performance on the auditory task, require a certain degree of planfulness and self-monitoring activity on the part of the child which was apparently absent in the poor reader. Furthermore, it was proposed that the cognitive style variable, conceptual tempo, may be better viewed within the framework of the concept of metacognition.