Increasing acceptability of alternative behavioral interventions through education

The extent to which information provided within the context of regular coursework affects acceptability ratings by prospective teachers of four common behavioral interventions (DRI, home-based reinforcement, ignoring, and time-out) was investigated. General learning principles as well as information about the specific interventions were covered in an educational psychology class (experimental group, n = 34), while control subjects (n = 39) did not receive these lectures. Prelecture acceptability ratings showed no differences between experimental subjects and controls, while postlecture ratings indicated significant increases in acceptability of all interventions except DRI for the experimental group. No increases were evidenced for control subjects. Implications for trainers and consultants are discussed.     

Wechsler short forms: A brief status report

Numerous attempts to develop short forms of Wechsler scales of measurement have been proposed in the psychological literature over the last three decades. In this paper, the three major strategies for development of short forms are described, and an overview of the available validity data is presented. Cautions for the clinical use of short forms and related recommendations for future validity research are offered. It is concluded that while Wechsler short forms may be useful as research instruments, their clinical applications are extremely limited at this time.     

Self-concept,school self-image,satisfaction, and involvement in an alternative high school

Alternative education emphasizes students' psychological development and academic achievement. The present paper reports a case study of the psychological correlates of students' adjustment to a small urban free school. It was expected that: (a) students would have high general self-concept, school selfimage, satisfaction, and involvement; (b) self-concept would discriminate between those high and low in school adjustment: and (c) there would be a positive relationship between school self-image, satisfaction, and involvement. Forty male and thirty female students voluntarily answered the New Morning Student Questionnaire (1972) and the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (Fitts, 1965). Results showed that students were psychologically well adjusted; they had a somewhat higher self-concept than the norm for high school students; self-concept was a good predictor of school self-image and satisfaction; and there was a positive relationship between school self-image, satisfaction, and involvement.     

Prisons before Modernity: Incarceration in the Medieval Indo-Mediterranean

Over the course of the sixth/twelfth century, a new literary genre entered the Eastern Islamic world: the Persian prison poem (?absiyyāt). Far from being an isolated event, the prison poem was forged when punishment came to be reconfigured as incarceration. This development was reflected in literary texts extending across South Asia, Azerbaijan, and continental Europe. Locating the institution of the prison outside European modernity, this study traces the material grounds for this new literary form and situates this archive globally. Concomitantly with studying the medieval literature of incarceration, it evaluates the Indo-Mediterranean as a discursive rubric for the study of pre-modern literary cultures.     

Correcting Biased Cohen’s Kappa in NVivo

This study demonstrates that NVivo, a popular research tool for content analysis, produces biased Cohen’s kappa as it calculates the reliability statistic at the character level, which is unsuitable for most content-analytic studies adopting a higher unit of analysis (e.g., sentence, paragraph). Based on empirical data and a statistical simulation, this study proposes a method of bias correction applicable to situations where two independent raters conduct binary coding.     

Relationship of the AAHPER Youth Fitness Test to Total Dynamic Strength

Abstract

One hundred high school girls (N = 20 per group) were initially given 10 trials on the Bachman ladder-climb task; each group was given a different length of lay-off (10 min., or 1 day, or 1 week, or 4 weeks, or 13 weeks) before being retested with another 10 trials. Correlations between individual differences across the lay-off decreased as the length of the lay-off period increased (from r = .89 to r = .69). Correlations between adjacent trials remained relatively constant at r =.90 as practice progressed. As remoteness increased, the relation decreased regularly, from r =.92 to r =.68. Individuals became increasingly different from each other as a result of motor learning; intraindividual variance did not change appreciably.