Big school,small school: Impact of the high school environment

An investigation of the relationship between high school priorities and self-concept was undertaken. Upper and underclassmen from large and small high schools completed questionnaires and the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale. Participation in five activity areas was related to self-concept using a multiple-regression technique. The perceived similarity of each student's priorities with the school's priorities was also correlated with self-concept. The relationships accounting for the greatest proportion of the variance in self-concept scores were found among small-school upperclassmen. The results were interpreted as support for Barker's argument that small school students feel a greater obligation to participate in school activities.     

Predictive validity of teacher ratings of creativity over 2 years

Fifty white, suburban middle-class children were tested in the fourth grade with six divergent thinking tests developed from Guilford's SOI model and in the sixth grade with the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, Verbal Form A. In the fourth grade, these students' classroom teachers completed for each of them the Scale for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students. With IQ and reading and math achievement controlled via partial correlations, Guilford-like and Torrance measures were significantly correlated over 2 years but only teachers' rating of students as “sensitive to beauty and the aesthetic characteristics of things” was significantly related over 2 years to creativity measures. This characteristic appeared to be most crucial in the prediction of creativity for boys.     

Effects of strategy training on Progressive Matrices performance

Two qualitatively different information-processing algorithms for solution of Raven's Progressive Matrices items have been identified. Whereas the Gestalt algorithm involves spatial operations upon the test stimuli, the Analytic algorithm employs logical operations upon features abstracted from the displays. In this study, training groups were established varying both in the Strength (Weak or Strong) and Type (Gestalt or Analytic) of training at three grade levels. Two sets of post-test measures were given. Ambiguous items were constructed such that more than one correct answer was possible, some being the result of the Gestalt algorithm and others of the Analytic algorithm. Subjects' performances on the Ambiguous items indicated that strong Analytic training had been particularly effective and was specific to Analytic answer options. The second post-test measure was Set I of the Advanced Progressive Matrices. Performance on these Test items indicated that the effects of strategy training had been maintained, and were due to the facilitation of Analytic item performance by Analytic training. The effects of Strength and Type of training were consistent across Grades. These results support Hunt's analysis of Raven's Progressive Matrices items, and demonstrate that strategy training based upon a precise information processing task analysis can be effective in improving Progressive Matrices performance. The implications of these results for intellectual assessment are discussed.     

Effects of students' race,physical attractiveness,and dialect on teachers' evaluations

The study was designed to assess the effects of a student's race, dialect, and physical attractiveness on teachers' evaluations. The students were of two races, black and white; three physical attractivenss levels, high, middle, and low; and they spoke one of two dialects, Black English or Standard English. Sixty-eight, white, elementary school teachers listened to each student's response and rated the student in terms of personality, quality of response, and current and future academic abilities. Analysis of the results showed that all main effects and interactions were significant. Generally, black students, Black English-speaking students, and low attractive students were rated lower. The results also revealed that teachers' ratings in the different areas were highly consistent with one another. Discussion centered around the results' implications for determining the cause(s) of black children's failure in school. The results provide some support for attributing these children's academic failures to their race and dialect rather than to their actual performance.     

Regular and special education teachers' Marking Attitudes and behavior

The Minnesota Marking Attitude Scale was administered to 33 regular education and 20 special education teachers. Results showed that regular educators believed that marks have a positive influence on students while special educators believed marks have neither a positive nor a negative influence (p < .005). Special educators believed to a greater extent than did regular educators that marks should be manipulated in order to influence student behavior (p < .05) and that different standards should be used to evaluate different students (p < .001). Teachers also marked students' written short answers to two typical school questions. No significant differences were found between the marks assigned by the two groups of teachers to either set of answers. Assigned marks, attitude scores, and years of teaching experience were not significantly correlated with each other. Results are discussed in terms of implications for mainstreaming.     

The role of stimulus salience in young children's ability to discriminate two-dimensional rotations: Reflections on a paradigm

Children's ability to discriminate reflections and rotations of visual stimuli was examined within the confines of a mental rotation task. It was hypothesized that success would be affected by both characteristics of the stimulus and by the subtlety of the discrimination required. Forty 3- to 4-year-old children were directed to mentally rotate a stimulus a given number of degrees and to discriminate the appearance of the rotated stimulus from among a set of alternatives. Four stimuli differing in the number of visual orientation cues were utilized across 24 trials. A significant effect was found for number of orientation cues, and data indicated the difficulty children experienced detecting reflections, a task which bears close resemblance to the yes/no option in prototypic rotation studies. Children were only successful with a limited range of stimuli when discrimination of a reflected foil was not required. Results are discussed in light of discrepant findings about children's kinetic imagery ability and the advisability of using this particular paradigm with young Children.     

A social learning explanation for age-related changes in children's conceptual behavior

A social learning explanation for children's conceptual development is proposed. Recent training research on conservation is discussed, and it is concluded that it fails to support three key assumptions underlying Piaget's theory (a) Children are able to learn to conserve without being “in transition,” (b) nonconservation experiences are successful in promoting developmentally immature cognitive functioning, and (c) there is evidence of inconsistencies in children's cognitive functioning across tasks assessing the same cognitive stage. Two aspects of children's conservation responding are explained according to a social learning position: decalages and the shift from perceptual cues to quantitative cues. This explanation involves consideration of cognitive factors such as prior rule learning as well as impinging social experience.     

Individual differences in young children's recall and clustering of pictures

Children's incidental recall of pictures was examined in two related experiments. Extrapolating from adult research, it was predicted that categorizing pictures with respect to their semantic properties would yield greater recall than categorizing them according to their physical properties. In Experiment 1, second-grade children were exposed to 16 line drawings cross-classified to represent four taxonomic categories and four shape categories, with four instances per category. Control subjects simply looked at pictures. Semantic subjects identified each picture's semantic category, and Physical subjects identified each physical category. In Experiment 2, first graders freely sorted the pictures and were classified as Semantic or Physical sorters based on their predominant bases for sorting. Following exposure (Experiment 1) or sorting (Experiment 2), all subjects were asked to recall the picture names. Results of both experiments show that semantic classification yields greater recall than physical classification. Experiment 2 also shows that semantic sorting yields greater semantic clustering in recall and that sorting by physical category yields greater physical clustering. It was suggested that children's preferences for a mode of processing (Experiment 2) may constitute an individual difference dimension with fairly clear-cut instructional implications.     

Differences in teachers' perceptions of personal control of positive versus negative student learning outcomes

Past research on teachers' causal attributions has shown there to be little relation between perceptions of responsibility for positive versus negative student learning outcomes. In this study, Weiner's model for causal attributions was employed to explore these perceived attributional differences. Data were gathered from 184 teachers from two metropolitan school districts. Statistically significant differences between attributions for positive versus negative outcomes were identified along the dimensions of both internality/externality and stability of cause. Relations to overall efficacy, teaching experience, grade level taught, and teacher gender were also explored; however, only grade level differences were found to be statistically significant.     

Phonological awareness and reading acquisition

Recent research has suggested the importance of oral language ability in learning to read. It was proposed that the young child's awareness of the phonology of his language would greatly influence early reading success. The results revealed a strong relationship between the first grader's reading performance and two measures of his phonological awareness, invented spelling and phoneme segmentation abilities. Development of phonological awareness was not related to the child's sex, intelligence, socioeconomic status, or chronological age within a 12-month span. A third measure of phonological awareness, auditory analysis skills, was found to have less predictive value. The results suggest that an understanding of phonological relationships above and beyond that required for ordinary speaking and listening enables the beginning reader of English to make contact with his alphabetic writing system at the phonemic level. Instruction at the appropriate age level should facilitate this understanding.     

The effects of effort feedback and performance patterns on children's attributions and task persistence

This study examines the effects of performance patterns (ascending versus random) and attributional information regarding the causes of that performance (effort feedback versus no feedback) on attributions and task persistence. Subjects were 40 fourth and fifth graders with dispositional tendencies not to perceive effort as a cause of their school-related performance. Results indicated that performance patterns did not systematically influence either children's attributions or persistence. As predicted, children given effort feedback exhibited greater levels of task persistence than those given no feedback; unexpectedly, however, this effect was not mediated by children's attributions.     

Comparative functions of preschool learning style and IQ in predicting future academic performance

Early assessment programs frequently rely on intelligence tests for making predictions regarding children's future school performance. Unfortunately, IQ scores provide little information to those who must develop educational interventions tailored to the unique ways in which children respond to learning situations. Alternatively, measures of children's learning style focus on distinct patterns of learning-related behavior manifested in classroom settings. Each dimension of learning style is composed of observable skills that are potentially teachable or alterable through available instructional procedures. In order to examine the relative contributions of learning style dimensions, IQ, and their interactions to the prediction of subsequent performance, 100 kindergarten children were evaluated by teachers using the Study of Children's Learning Styles scale and were administered the Kuhlmann-Anderson Intelligence Test. Fifteen months later the children's first-grade achievement was determined through standardized tests and teacher-assigned grades in reading, language, and mathematics. Relationships between the predictor and criterion variables were studied through patterns of bivariate correlations, canonical variate loadings, and standardized regression weights. Although IQ was found the better predictor, learning styles accounted for appreciable and statistically significant proportions of the variability in later achievement. The learning style dimensions functioned differentially across areas of achievement to enhance overall prediction either by complementing or interacting with the predictions afforded by IQ. The results are examined in the light of earlier research on learning-related behavior.     

Differential effects of norm-referenced and self-referenced feedback on performance expectancies,attributions, and motivation

When feedback is provided to students in a norm-referenced manner that compares the individual's performance to that of others, people who perform poorly tend to attribute their failures to lack of ability, expect to perform poorly in the future, and demonstrate decreased motivation on subsequent tasks. The present study examined the hypothesis that the deleterious effects of failure might be attenuated when failure is expressed in self-referenced terms—relative to the individual's known level of ability as assessed by other measures. In this study, subjects received feedback indicating that they did well or poorly on an anagram test, and this feedback was described as either norm-referenced (comparing the individual's performance to that of others) or as self-referenced (comparing performance to other measures of the individual's ability). As predicted, compared to norm-referenced failure, self referenced feedback resulted in higher expectancies regarding future performance and increased attributions to effort. Contrary to expectations, attributions to ability were not affected. The implications of the results for the structure of academic feedback are discussed.     

Parents of abused children in Greece: Psychiatric and psychological characteristics: Results of a pilot study

The psychological and psychiatric characteristics of the parents of 15 abused children were studied by means of clinical psychiatric evaluation and psychological tests (MMPI, Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire, Navran's Dependency Scale, Rosenweig's Picture Frustration Test, WAIS). It was found that almost all the parents were suffering from some type of personality disorder ranging from mild to severe with some features of anxiety and reactive depression. Three of the parents (two mothers and one father) were psychotic. The psychological assessment further demonstrated that most of the parents had low IQ scores, were immature, impulsive with strong dependency needs, low tolerance to frustration and high hostility scores. Most of the parents were coming from the lower socioeconomic groups, had poor education, were deprived in their childhood and their own families were broken and chaotic. The findings and the significance of the study are presented in the light of the absence of previous research in this field in Greece.     

Factors related to third grade achievement: Self-perception,classroom composition,sex, and race

The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between self-perception and academic achievement among third grade black and white disadvantaged school children. Race, sex, IQ, self-perception, and student's perceptions of their teacher's perceptions were examined as sources of variance in academic achievement. Data from one-hundred-sixteen students were analyzed by means of stepwise multiple regression. Results suggest that self-perceptions account for more variance in academic achievement for students who are of the same sex and race as the teacher than for those who are not. Self-perceptions of black students in all black classrooms account for more variance in respect to achievement than do self-perceptions of black students in integrated classrooms.     

The effects of physical structure and semantic organization on the recall of prose

The effects of a prose passage's physical structure and semantic organization upon free recall performance was investigated. Passages, describing characteristics of fictitious countries, contained either five or nine paragraphs on attributes of the countries. Results showed that Mandler's in J. L. Cowan (Ed.), Studies in thought and language. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970] organizational limits could apply to prose as well as word lists and could be used to explain previous discrepant results in semantic organization research. Results showed differences in the distribution of materials interacting with type of semantic organization to produce differences in recall. Different learning strategies imposed by the passage's semantic organization were also found.     

Children's play: Piaget's views reconsidered

Piaget's theoretical contributions to the study of children's play are described. The Piagetian notions of play as representing pure assimilation and as serving a consolidative function are examined. Contemporary research in which these and other Piagetian premises have been studied empirically is reviewed.     

Developmental factors influencing exceptional status at age six years

A multivariate analysis of exceptional states in 384 children aged 6 years is presented. Predictors were six items of information in the domain of child development, four items were in the domain of social factors, and three items were maternal traits. Criteria were six of nine exceptional states on which there were enough cases for multivariate analysis. The AID-4 interaction regression method was the technique of analysis applied to data gathered by prospective longitudinal study. No consistent sets of predictors were found for the criteria. However, Coddington's Life Changes scores were frequently observed as prime sources of variance. Social class scores were also important influences on criteria of exceptionality.     

A WISC-III short form for learning-disabled students

Data gathered from 664 students referred for special education evaluations were used to create a WISC-R short form. This short form was then used during the 3-year reevaluations of 35 learning-disabled students. Short form deviation quotients were compared to each student's original WISC-R Full Scale IQ. All short form deviation quotients fell within the students' Full Scale IQ range. Thus no student was misclassified by the use of the short form. With the release of the WISC-III, a similar method was used to create a WISC-III short form for use during reevaluations of learning-disabled children. This article discusses the composition of the WISC-III short form and suggests guidelines for its appropriate use.     

Help seeking in elementary classrooms: An observational study

This study was undertaken to explore how elementary school children employ help seeking as a means of problem solving in the classroom. In-depth naturalistic observations were made of high-, average-, and low-ability students in reading and math classes at the first-, third-, and fifth-grade levels. Overall, children's rates of help seeking were higher in math than in reading. Boys and girls did not differ overall in the amount of help sought. Boys and girls did differ, however, in the type of help they requested. Children of different ability levels were found to vary not only in rate of help seeking and type of help requested, but also in the type of responses elicited from their helper choices. Implications of these findings for children's achievement, learning, and social adjustment in the classroom are discussed.