The effects of group size on kindergarten children's listening comprehension performance

The present study assessed the effect of small, medium, and large group size on kindergarten children's listening comprehension. Approximately 120 children were divided by sex and randomly assigned to one of four groups which varied from one another only in size. To determine the children's entry listening comprehension skill level, subtests of four reading tests were administered to all children. Those children participating in one adult to one child instruction, one adult to seven or eight children instruction, and one adult to fifteen children instruction interacted daily for ten sessions with an instructor who posed specific comprehension questions, read a carefully selected piece of children's literature, then restated the comprehension questions to assess the children's understanding of the story. All responses were recorded on a pictorial answer sheet. Those children in the control group received no instruction. The children's exit level listening comprehension skills were reassessed by administering the same preinstruction subtests to all children immediately following the ten sessions. Group size was found to affect significantly the children's performance, with one to one instruction resulting in the greatest gains.     

Secure Base Provision: A New Approach to Examining Links Between Maternal Caregiving and Infant Attachment

This observational study addressed a critical gap in the understanding of the precursors of infant attachment by examining whether a new conceptualization of maternal caregiving behavior, secure base provision (SBP), explained variance in attachment above and beyond variance explained by sensitivity. Participants included 83 low-socioeconomic status (SES), 4.5-month-old infants (56% male) and their mothers. Infant–mother dyads completed laboratory tasks at 4.5 months and three 30-min home visits between 7 and 9 months, then returned to the laboratory at 12 months for an attachment assessment. Maternal sensitivity did not significantly predict infant attachment security. SBP significantly predicted infant attachment, over and above sensitivity, with an effect size eight times larger than that of sensitivity in meta-analytic findings for low-SES families.     

When it comes round to marking assignments: how to impress and how to ‘distress’ lecturers …

What do lecturers look for when marking essays? What impresses them and what frustrates them? In this paper, we present the results of a survey which asked lecturers to address these questions. Thirty‐two lecturers responded to an email survey in which they listed the problems they found most frustrating when marking essays and the factors which most impressed them. This resulted in 206 comments related to sources of frustration and 139 comments listing factors which impress them. The comments were then coded into themes and ranked in order of importance by 16 lecturers from the original sample. The results highlight a range of issues that may be useful for lecturers when discussing assignments, and instructive for students when writing their assignments.     

MPACT and citation impact: Two sides of the same scholarly coin?

This article provides the first comparison of citation counts and mentoring impact (MPACT) indicators — indicators that serve to quantify the process of doctoral mentoring. Using a dataset of 120 library and information science (LIS) faculty members in North America, this article examines the correlation between MPACT indicators and citation counts. Results suggest that MPACT indicators measure something distinct from citation counts. The article discusses these distinctions, with emphasis on differences between faculty ranks. It considers possible explanations for weak correlations between citations and mentoring at the full professor rank as well as implications for faculty activity analysis and broader institutional evolution.     

Different mysteries,different lore: An examination of inherited referencing behaviors in academic mentoring

Library and information science (LIS) dissertations cite a wide variety of literature, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the field. A review of 76 LIS dissertations was undertaken to determine whether the disciplinary background of the dissertation adviser influences the citing behaviors of the dissertation author. Of the 76 dissertations, 38 were advised by individuals with a disciplinary background in LIS and 38 were advised by individuals with a disciplinary background outside of LIS. The Library of Congress subclass for each citation was determined according the venue of publication. The most cited authors overall and by each group were determined, as well as the percentage of citations to LIS literature over time. LIS-advised dissertations were found to have cited a wide variety of literature. The percentage of citations in LIS-advised dissertations to LIS literature has declined from a peak of 59% to 21%. Citations to the most-cited authors in each group were largely exclusive to the LIS-advised dissertations, and nonLIS-advised dissertations generally do not appear to cite the same bodies of academic literature.     

Collecting Sex Materials for Libraries

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes data gathered over a year-long survey of library employees' opinions of sexually related materials in library collections. Surveys generally examine patron attitudes rather than the attitudes of library employees, whose attitudes and beliefs can have a strong effect on the collection. The researchers discovered themes in the data, such as varying definitions and differences between pornography and erotica, legality issues and misconceptions, differing perceptions of censorship dependent on library type, and a possible lack of acceptance of non-heteronormative material. The survey and analysis serve as a contribution to the ongoing discussion of appropriateness of sexually related materials in libraries.     

IDENTIFYING PSYCHOSOCIAL DYSFUNCTION IN SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN: THE PEDIATRIC SYMPTOM CHECKLIST AS A SELF-REPORT MEASURE

The Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC) is a brief, well-validated parent-report questionnaire designed to detect psychosocial dysfunction in school-age children during pediatric primary care visits. This study assessed the utility of the PSC when completed by children (PSC-Y) ages 9-14 in a public school when parents are not available (n = 173). The PSC-Y identified 20% of children as having psychosocial problems, a rate similar to other low-income samples. When compared with teacher ratings of attention and behavior problems, the PSC-Y showed a sensitivity of 94% and a specificity of 88%. The PSC-Y correlated significantly with teacher and parent measures of child dysfunction, and with child-reported symptoms of depression and anxiety. Three quarters of the children identified by the PSC-Y were not identified by parents on the PSC. These children had impairment on all other measures, but fewer than one in five had received mental health services, suggesting the PSC-Y identified children with unmet mental health needs. The PSC-Y has the potential to be a rapid, easily administered tool for large-scale mental health screening in schools.     

Cross‐informant agreement of children's social‐emotional skills: An investigation of ratings by teachers,parents, and students from a nationally representative sample

This study examines the agreement across informant pairs of teachers, parents, and students regarding the students’ social‐emotional learning (SEL) competencies. Two student subsamples representative of the social skills improvement system (SSIS) SEL edition rating forms national standardization sample were examined: first, 168 students (3rd to 12th grades) with ratings by three informants (a teacher, a parent, and the student him/herself) and a second group of 164 students who had ratings by two raters in a similar role—two parents or two teachers. To assess interrater agreements, two methods were employed: calculation of q correlations among pairs of raters and effect size indices to capture the extant rater pairs differed in their assessments of social‐emotional skills. The empirical results indicated that pairs of different types of informants exhibited greater than chance levels of agreement as indexed by significant interrater correlations; teacher–parent informants showed higher correlations than teacher–student or parent–student pairs across all SEL competency domains assessed, and pairs of similar informants exhibited significantly higher correlations than pairs of dissimilar informants. Study limitations are identified and future research needs outlined.