Psychometric reevaluation of the scientific attitude inventory‐revised (SAI‐II)

The central purposes of this study were to review the development and evolution of the Scientific Attitude Inventory (SAI) and then reevaluate the psychometric properties of the revised form of the SAI, the Scientific Attitude Inventory II (SAI‐II). The SAI‐II was administered to a convenience sample of 543 middle and high school students from five teachers in four schools in four school districts in San Antonio, Texas, at the beginning of the 2004–2005 school year. Confirmatory factor analysis on the full data set failed to support the existence of a 12‐factor structure (as proposed by the scale developers) or a one‐factor structure. The data were then randomly divided into exploratory [exploratory factor analysis (EFA)] validation and confirmatory [confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)] cross‐validation sets. Exploratory and confirmatory models yielded a three‐factor solution that did not fit the data well [χ² (321) = 646, p < .001; RMSEA = .061 (.90 CI = .054–.068); and CFI = .81]. The three factors were labeled “Science is About Understanding and Explaining” (13 items), “Science is Rigid” (6 items), and “I Want to Be a Scientist” (8 items). The α‐coefficients for these three factors ranged from 0.59 to 0.85. Whether these identified subscales are valid will require independent investigation. In this sample, and consistent with prior publications, the SAI‐II in its current form did not have satisfactory psychometric properties and cannot be recommended for further use. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 600–616, 2008     

远程办公--足不出户,轻松工作

some Americans start their workday fifteen minutes after they wake up.Some even stay in their nightclothes.These people are among a growing number who work from home at least one day a month.Some even do this every day.This way of working is called telecommuting or teleworking.Telecommuters do not always work from home.They might go to an office,but still it is away from their main place of employment.     

A Study of the Educational Provision for Head-injured Children

Anne Jones (of the Froebel Institute College, Roehampton Institute of Higher Education) and David Johnson (Head of the Department of Neuropsychology, Astley Ainslie Hospital, Edinburgh) consider some of the problems experienced by children with head-injury on their return to school. Although education is an integral part of rehabilitation, the organisation of services and the provision of accurate information, training and communication between different agencies were all found to be inadequate. Given the high incidence of head-injury, urgent attention to these problems is essential.     

Factors predictive of black students' communication with the administration and students at a predominantly white university

Black students' interaction with a predominantly white university's administration, faculty, and students appears to be a central issue in current study of black student success in college. This study examined personality and situational factors predictive of black students' communication with such a university's administration, faculty, and students. The development of an instrument describing environmental and social concerns of black students demonstrated reasonable predictive validity of communication with the administration and white students. Feelings about the social environment and tendencies of communication anxiety were among the strongest predictors of black students' communication.