GENDER DIFFERENCES IN ACHIEVEMENT IN A LARGE,NATIONALLY REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

The purpose of this study was to investigate developmental gender differences in academic achievement areas, with the primary focus on writing, using the child and adolescent portion (ages 6–21 years) of the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement—Second Edition, Brief Form, norming sample (N = 1,574). Path analytic models with gender, parent education, age, age², and gender‐by‐age moderation as predictors of reading, writing, and math were used to test for gender differences and for the influence of development on these differences. A small but consistent advantage was identified for females in reading. No gender differences were detected in math. The most important results of the present study pertain to a gender gap in writing in favor of females that increased as a function of age. Male students are at greater risk for writing failure than are females.     

SCHOOL ANXIETY INVENTORY: RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY EVIDENCE IN A SAMPLE OF SLOVENIAN ADOLESCENTS

The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the School Anxiety Inventory (SAI) using a sample of 646 Slovenian adolescents (48% boys), ranging in age from 12 to 19 years. Single confirmatory factor analyses replicated the correlated four‐factor structure of scores on the SAI for anxiety‐provoking school situations (Anxiety about School Failure and Punishment, Anxiety about Aggression, Anxiety about Social Evaluation, and Anxiety about Academic Evaluation), and the three‐factor structure of the anxiety response systems (Physiological Anxiety, Cognitive Anxiety, and Behavioral Anxiety). Equality of factor structures was compared using multigroup confirmatory factor analyses. Measurement invariance for the four‐ and three‐factor models was obtained across gender and school‐level samples. The scores of the instrument showed high internal reliability and adequate test–retest reliability. The concurrent validity of the SAI scores was also examined through its relationship with the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SASA) scores and the Questionnaire about Interpersonal Difficulties for Adolescents (QIDA) scores. Correlations of the SAI scores with scores on the SASA and the QIDA were of low to moderate effect sizes.     

论虚拟社区中的青少年行为与心理

虚拟社区是一个供人们围绕某种兴趣或需求集中进行交流的地方。它通过网络，以在线的方式让参与该社区的会员彼此之间进行交流、沟通和分享信息。虚拟社区使人们的社会互动超越时空的限制，会员之间获得较大的自由空间，容易导致部分青少年的行为偏差和心理障碍。因此，应教会青少年处理好多元化的人际关系，帮助他们明确生活目标，搞好学习规划。教师和家长对青少年上网也要加强引导，做好适度的规范与约束。各级组织也要加强网络设施的管理，全力为青少年提供健康、完善的上网环境。     

TEACHING,TECHNOLOGY, AND SUPPORT IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM: A GUIDE FOR NEW COMMUNITY COLLEGE TEACHERS

Beginning community college faculties have many responsibilities associated with teaching. Technology can alter and enhance some of the traditional expectations for teaching and learning. New professionals will benefit by becoming familiar with existing and new technology and by recognizing the college mechanisms and support systems available to them including mentors, faculty, and staff.     

FACTORS AFFECTING THE ATTITUDES OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADMINISTRATORS TOWARD MANAGEMENT BY OBJECTIVES

This study was designed to assess and determine how operation under a management by objectives system (MBO) has affected administrative units and individual administrators in public two‐year community colleges. Results from the study showed that respondent attitudes toward the management by objectives system were favorable. The variables identified which serve as significant predictors of administrator attitudes toward the MBO program were: (a) effective as a means for planning and organizing work for which an administrator is accountable, (b) effective as a means for evaluating work performance, (c) effective in improving satisfaction with being more a part of decisions, (d) effective in improving the attitudes of the superior toward the MBO program as perceived by subordinates. Negative reactions toward the MBO system were perceived to be generated by increased paperwork and difficulty in setting educational objectives.     

INTERPERSONAL BEHAVIOR AND THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE DEPARTMENT CHAIRPERSON

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between department/division chairpersons' interpersonal behavior and their perceived leadership effectiveness. The Departmental Evaluation of Chairperson Activities for Development (DECAD) system was used to determine the department chairpersons' administrative effectiveness. Element B, developed by Will Schutz, was used to assess the chairpersons' interpersonal behavioral characteristics. The participants were department/division chairpersons and full-time faculty members from 15 of the 17 public and private community colleges in a southern state. Survey packets were mailed to faculty members and department/ division chairpersons in the humanities and social sciences divisions. Sixty-seven percent of the faculty responded and 93% of the chairpersons responded. Statistical analyses revealed significant differences in the dependent variables of received inclusion, perceived inclusion, and wanted inclusion interpersonal behaviors between the ineffective and effective chairs. These findings suggest that effective department chairpersons possess a need to maintain and establish interaction with others. Also, effective chairpersons were perceived to be, and want to be, included by others.     

SOCIAL SUPPORT AND BEHAVIORAL AND AFFECTIVE SCHOOL ENGAGEMENT: THE EFFECTS OF PEERS,PARENTS, AND TEACHERS

School engagement has long been seen as an important component of school completion, and research shows that social support in the home and school promotes engagement. However, many researchers have argued that it is not a unitary construct but rather a multifaceted phenomenon, and the role of peer social support has not been as well studied as support from parents and teachers. Our study examines the association of social support from parents, teachers, and peers with two forms of engagement: affective and behavioral. Data came from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Results indicate that although parent support was associated with higher levels of behavioral engagement, peer support was associated with higher levels of affective engagement.     

UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT AND CLIMATE IN A COMMUNITY COLLEGE

This study examined the relationship between community college organizational climate and the conflict communication styles of individuals and job groups within the college. More specifically, this study investigated the relationships of employee perceptions concerning organizational communications, collaboration, formal influence, structure, focus on students, and work design/technology to their self-identified affinities for seeking solutions, control, or avoidance in conflict situations with their immediate supervisors. Effective leadership strategies are explored based on these relationships.     

EVALUATING TEACHING AND ASSESSING TEACHERS IN UNIVERSITIES

The evaluation of teaching and the assessment of teachers are similar activities with very different aims. Both are feasible, once we abandon the idea that they have to be based on explicit criteria of good teaching. This point is argued both on the basis of experience with established practice in higher education and through a comparison with similar practices in other professions. The latter leads to the construction of a model which uses students, peers, self and superiors in a way that allows an active role to the person assessed. Finally, attention is drawn to the need for an educational development unit to provide training, help and counselling as an adjunct to assessment.     

PARENTAL ATTITUDES AND TYPE A BEHAVIOUR PATTERNS IN HIGH AND LOW CREATIVE ADOLESCENTS

Research presented in this article deals with the specific category of human behaviour known as type “A” behaviour pattern (ABP). The authors studied the interaction between creative abilities, educational influences (including parental attitudes) and type A behaviour. In order to estimate the level of creative abilities in 249 teenagers, the Test for Creative Thinking – Drawing Production was administered. The data indicated the existence of significant differences between ABP profiles of high and low creative individuals. Parental attitudes were important mediating variables in this relationship.     

MEMORY TRAINING IN THE COMMUNITY: EVALUATIONS BY PARTICIPANTS AND EFFECTS ON METAMEMORY

This study examined 129 participants in seven types of memory training programs in Belgium. It was found that more than half of the subjects participated because they felt their memory was deteriorating or because they were afraid of memory deterioration. After completion of the program, subjects rated the training as being somewhat too short, as useful for their daily lives, as very pleasant, and as being of adequate difficulty. Almost all subjects indicated they would like to take part in a follow‐up training program. Forty‐one percent of the subjects indicated increased memory awareness as the main effect; other effects often cited included the discovery that subjects were not the only ones with complaints, increased knowledge of memory functioning, and the possibility for self‐development. However, no pre‐to‐posttraining effect could be found on scales of the Memory Functioning Questionnaire, except for a small (but significant) increase in self‐reported frequency of forgetting.     

THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS

This paper reports an investigation into the method described by Hertzig et al. (1968), for measuring the response style of pre‐school children performing cognitive tasks (the Stanford‐Binet Intelligence Test Form L). The inter‐observer reliability of the major variables proposed as parameters of ‘cognitive style’ is examined, as well as their stability over time, and their association with level of test performance.

It was not found possible to record behaviour in adequate detail using the original method of a handwritten protocol so a modified procedure was adopted in which observers classified responses directly by their type and recorded them in code. Using this method, reliability was found to be high. Moreover, over a period of four to six weeks there was substantial consistency in the style of behaviour shown by these children when dealing with test demands.

Since there were ethnic differences in the small sample of children studied (N=32), it was also of interest to discover whether children of immigrant and English‐born parents would show differences in behaviour comparable to the differences between Puerto Rican and middle‐class American children reported by Hertzig et al. Some behavioural differences were found, but these appeared to be wholly a function of differing test performance.

     

EGO IDENTITY AND SPIRITUAL IDENTITY IN RELIGIOUSLY OBSERVANT ADOLESCENTS IN ISRAEL

This study examined the relationship between spiritual identity and ego identity among religiously observant adolescents in Israel. Seventy-eight religious tenth graders studying in yeshivot (boys) and ulpanot (girls) ^{1 1} Yeshivot and ulpanot are high schools for boys and girls, respectively, offering an intensive religious curriculum combined with general, secular studies. were tested. The Ego Identity Scale for Adolescents and a Questionnaire of Religious Beliefs were administered to them. Throughout the entire sample, there was a significant and positive correlation between belief and general ego identity and between belief and the identity dimensions: solidity and continuity, meaningfulness versus alienation, genuineness and truthfulness, and physical identity. Among the girls, there was a significant and positive relationship between belief, general ego identity, and the dimensions: social recognition, commitment, and purposefulness, meaningfulness versus alienation, solidity and continuity, and genuineness and truthfulness. Among the boys, there was a significant and positive relationship between belief and the meaningfulness versus alienation and genuineness and truthfulness dimensions of the ego identity.     

狂野之美--草原青铜器动物纹饰的艺术魅力

北方草原青铜器动物纹饰艺术以其独有的艺术魅力为世人瞩目。然而在以往的研究中,它大多作为考古或文化研究的关联部分出现。在艺术研究上,往往用“写实”或“现产主义”这些概念替代真正的艺术分析。笔者认为,如果从文化的根本性出发,探察草原动物纹饰的艺术形式所呈现的意蕴,便会发现其中“狂野”的意味极为浓厚。所谓的写实或现实主义最后体现在了由这一内在逻辑引发的艺术形式的追踪之中。     

PEER AND STUDENT-FACULTY RELATIONS IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES

This study investigated differences in peer and student?faculty relationships of male and female community college students. Men reported more frequent participation in college activities, whereas women reported more frequent involvement in less formal activities such as studying with other students. Women had less difficulty than men meeting and making friends. For both men and women, little student?faculty interaction outside the classroom was reported.