Children’s Memory: A Primer for Understanding Behavior

This paper provides the opportunity to understand children’s behavior from a memory viewpoint. For the last three decades, cognitive developmentalists have been asking the question, “what develops in children’s memory?” Four answers to this question are presented, complete with explanations, examples, and possible applications where appropriate. The purpose of the paper is to provide early childhood educators and other practitioners who work with children a different lens through which to view children’s behavior. The memory view is compatible with current best practices in early childhood education, and may provide practitioners an additional viewpoint from which to draw when implementing developmentally appropriate practice.     

ERASMUS: THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY'S HIGHER EDUCATION ACTION PROGRAMME IN ITS FIRST YEAR

On 14 May 1987, the Education Ministers of the Twelve reached agreement on the European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students (ERASMUS). With a total of 85 million ECU** ** One ECU is worth approximately $ 0.8131 United States dollars. View all notes earmarked for its initial phase (1 July 1987 to 30 June 1990), the programme will aim at encouraging increased student and staff mobility throughout the European Community by means of the creation of a European University Network, the award of grants to individual students, arrangements for the mutual recognition of qualifications and courses or parts of courses, and a range of additional supporting measures. In the following article, the authors will examine, in some detail, the Actions provided for in the Programme, which was formally adopted by the Council on 15 June 1987.

     

Developing a virtual engineering management community

The paper reviews the lessons of planning and running an Engineering Management practitioner development programme in a partnership between BP and the University of Manchester. This distance-learning programme is for professional engineers in mid-career experienced in the engineering and support activities for delivering safe, compliant and reliable projects and operations worldwide. The programme concentrates on the why and how of leadership and judgement in managing the engineering of large and small projects and operational support. Two intensive residential weeks are combined with a virtual learning environment over one year. Assessed assignments between and after the residential weeks provide opportunities for individual reflective learning for each delegate through applying concepts and the lessons of case studies to their experience, current challenges and expected responsibilities. This successful partnership between a major global company and a university rich in research and teaching required a significant dedication of intellectual and leadership effort by all concerned. The rewards for both parties and most importantly for the engineers themselves are extensive.     

Validity and use of an instrument for assessing classroom psychosocial environment in higher education

A strong tradition in research in primary and secondary schools has involved student and teacher perceptions of psychological characteristics of actual or preferred classroom environment. This paper provides a foundation for the extension of this tradition to the higher education level by describing the development, validation, and use of a new instrument, the College and University Classroom Environment Inventory (CUCEI), suitable for small higher education classes often referred to as seminars. The CUCEI assesses students' or instructors' perceptions of the following seven psychosocial dimensions of actual or preferred classroom environment: personalization, involvement, student cohesiveness, satisfaction, task orientation, innovation, and individualization. Administration of the CUCEI to 372 students in 34 classes and to 20 instructors attested to the internal consistency reliability and discriminant validity of the actual and preferred forms with either the individual or the class mean as the unit of analysis, and supported the ability of the actual form to differentiate between the perceptions of students in different classrooms. A research application of the CUCEI involving associations between student outcomes and classroom environment tentatively suggested that the nature of the classroom environment affects outcomes. Another research application suggested that both students and instructors preferred a more favorable classroom environment than the one actually present, and that instructors viewed classroom environments more positively than did their students in the same classrooms. Desirable future applications of the CUCEI for research purposes and in improving teaching in higher education are considered.The first main aim of this paper is to describe the development and validation of a new instrument to assess perceptions of classroom psychosocial environment in university and college classrooms. The second major purpose is to report the first two research uses of this instrument in, respectively, a study of associations between student outcomes and classroom environment and an investigation of differences between students and instructors in their perceptions of actual and preferred classroom environment. As well, desirable future research directions involving the new instrument are suggested. Before describing the development and use of the new instrument for the higher education level, important background information about analogous work at the primary and secondary school levels is briefly reviewed in an attempt to place the new work into context.     

Mechanisms of the relation between perinatal problems, early childhood illness, and psychopathology in late childhood and adolescence

Data on perinatal and early childhood somatic and psychological risk factors of a random sample of children were gathered in early to middle childhood and employed to examine the long-term risk of emotional and behavioral problems of late childhood and adolescence. 3 issues were addressed: First, can syndromic specificity of such effects be identified on scaled and diagnostic measures of syndromes? Second, are these effects attributable to excess risk of low-income children for both perinatal and later childhood problems? Third, are the intervening mechanisms identifiable as intellectual impairment, vulnerability to poor health, poor maternal caretaking, maternal rejection, or maternal stress associated with marital problems? Findings indicated that elevated risk was present for all syndromes, both at the scale level and at the diagnostic level. None of the examined intervening mechanisms fully accounted for the effects of early risks.