Maternal Responsiveness to Infants in Three Societies: The United States, France, and Japan

This study examines and compares prominent characteristics of maternal responsiveness to infant activity during home-based naturalistic interactions of mother-infant dyads in New York City, Paris, and Tokyo. Both culture-general and culture-specific patterns of responsiveness emerged. For example, in all 3 locales infants behaved similarly, mothers also behaved similarly with respect to a hierarchy of response types, and mothers and infants manifest both specificity and mutual appropriateness in their interactions: Mothers responded to infants' exploration of the environment with encouragement to the environment, to infants' vocalizing nondistress with imitation, and to infants' vocalizing distress with nurturance. Differences in maternal responsiveness among cultures occurred to infant looking rather than to infant vocalizing and in mothers' emphasizing dyadic versus extradyadic loci of interaction. Universals of maternal responsiveness, potential sources of cultural variation, and implications of similarities and differences in responsiveness for child development in different cultural contexts are discussed.     

Evaluation of machine-aided indexing†

The Defense Documentation Center (DDC), a field activity of the Defense Supply Agency, implemented an automated indexing procedure in October 1973. This Machine-Aided Indexing (MAI) System [1] had been under development since 1969. The following is a report of several comparisons designed to measure the retrieval effectiveness of MAI and manual indexing procedures under normal operational conditions.Several definitions are required in order to clarify the MAI process as it pertains to these investigations. The MAI routines scan unedited text in the form of titles and abstracts. The output of these routines is called Candidate Index Terms. These word strings are matched by computer against an internal file of manually screened and cross-referenced terms called a Natural Language Data Base (NLDB). The NLDB differs from a standard thesaurus in that there is no related term category. Word strings which match the NLDB are accepted as valid MAI output. The mismatches are manually screened for suitability. Those accepted are added to the NLDB. If now, the original set of Candidate Index Terms is matched against the updated NLDB, the matched output is unedited MAI. If both the unedited matches and mismatches are further structured in accession order and sent to technical analysts for review, the output of that process is called edited MAI.The tests were designed to (a) compare unedited MAI with manual indexing, holding the indexing language and the retrieval technique constant; (b) compare edited MAI with unedited MAI, holding both the indexing and the retrieval technique constant; and (c) compare two different retrieval techniques, called simple and complex, while holding the indexing constant.     

Three reflections on assessing safety training needs: A case study

Needs assessment plays an important role in training and human performance improvement efforts, but the literature contains little research on this topic. This study extended previous research on the Performance Analysis for Training (PAT) model of needs assessment by examining its implementation to determine environmental and occupational health and safety training needs in a government agency. Using case study methodology and the lens of responsive evaluation, this study resulted in three perspectives about the actual needs assessment implementation. The three professionals' distinct areas of expertise (evaluation, health and safety, human resource development) informed the case in unique ways. The results can be used to improve the PAT model and also to give human resource development and performance improvement professionals insights about nuances of needs assessment practice.     

Teacher supervision and evaluation challenges: Canadian perspectives on overall instructional leadership

This inquiry focuses on the overall instructional leadership approaches used by exemplary principals in three high performing Canadian provinces to overcome three persistent obstacles to effective teacher supervision and evaluation: (a) the management challenge, (b) the complexity challenge, and (c) the learning challenge. Analysis of data collected from interviews, focus groups, observations, field notes, documents, artifacts, and reflective research journals yielded the following four assertions: (a) Shared, distributed, and collective approaches to overall instructional leadership deepen and widen impact. (b) Effective supervision and evaluation are part of a career-long continuum of practice that fosters teacher growth while ensuring quality teaching. (c) There are multiple learning pathways to effective overall instructional leadership. (d) Policy contexts that place teacher supervision and evaluation practice within a broader conception of overall instructional leadership are beneficial.     

Proportional Reasoning among 7th Grade Students with Different Curricular Experiences

Contextual problems involving rational numbers and proportional reasoning were presented to seventh grade students with different curricular experiences. There is strong evidence that students in reform curricula, who are encouraged to construct their own conceptual and procedural knowledge of proportionality through collaborative problem solving activities, perform better than students with more traditional, teacher-directed instructional experiences. Seventh grade students, especially those who study the new curricula, are capable of developing their own repertoire of sense-making tools to help them to produce creative solutions and explanations. This is demonstrated through analysis of solution strategies applied by students to a variety of rate problems.     

Preadolescent Friendship and Peer Rejection as Predictors of Adult Adjustment

Although peer-rejected children appear to be at risk for later difficulties, the contribution of preadolescent friendship to adaptive adjustment lacks an empirical foundation. In this 12 year follow-up investigation, 30 young adults who had a stable, reciprocal best friend in fifth grade and 30 who had been chumless completed measures of adjustment in multiple domains. Friendship and peer rejection were found to have unique implications for adaptive development. Lower levels of preadolescent peer rejection uniquely predicted overall life status adjustment, whereas friended preadolescents had higher levels of general self-worth in adulthood even after controlling for perceived competence in preadolescence. In contrast, peer rejection and the absence of friendship were both associated with psychopathological symptoms in adulthood, although neither was uniquely predictive of symptomatology.     

Access to Educational and Instructional Computer Technologies for Post‐secondary Students with Disabilities: lessons from three empirical studies

Access issues based on three Canadian empirical studies of the use of computer and information technologies by college and university students with physical, sensory, and learning disabilities are presented. Data were obtained between fall 1997 and spring 1999 from: (1) focus groups with students with disabilities (n = 12); (2) structured interviews with students with disabilities (a = 37) and with post‐secondary personnel responsible for providing services to them (n = 30); (3) questionnaires completed by post‐secondary students with disabilities (n= 725). Findings indicate that the overwhelming majority of students with disabilities use computers and the Internet, but that 41 % of them need some type of adaptation to use computers effectively. Key findings emphasize advantages of computer technologies and delineate barriers to full access. Types of computer, information and adaptive technologies used by students with different disabilities are presented and emerging trends are highlighted. The goal is (1) to sensitize educational and instructional technologists, professors and planners involved in the implementation of educational media into post‐secondary education curricula and (2) to demonstrate that designing for accessibility from the outset creates a more equitable learning environment that provides opportunities for all students     

Brief Counseling for Problematic Drinking: A University Counseling Center's Model

This article describes the design of a brief counseling model for students presenting with alcohol use concerns at one state university counseling center.     

Educating Students for a Lifetime of Physical Activity: Enhancing Mindfulness,Motivation, and Meaning

For many years, pedagogical scholars and physical education (PE) teachers have worked to enhance effective teaching and learning environments. Yet for some children, youth, and young adults, many of the benefits associated with a physically active lifestyle remain elusive. Enhancing programming and performance to meet physical activity goals may require moving programs beyond “effective.” It will require teachers and program leaders to focus programmatic attention on strategies to actually increase students’ out-of-class physical activity behavior. Transformative PE provides physical activity content within a nurturing and motivating environment that can change students’ lives. It focuses on PE students’ role in cognitive decision making, self-motivation, and their search for personal meaning that can add connection and relevance to physical activities. In this SHAPE America – Society of Health and Physical Educators Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport Lecture, I have synthesized the research on these topics to emphasize useful findings applicable to teachers’ everyday planning and teaching. Using sport, physical activity, dance, and adventure activities as the means to an end for personal and social growth, we can meet our commitment to effective standards-based education while preparing students for a lifetime of physical activity.