Memories of reward events and expectancies of reward events may work in tandem

A common assumption is that expectancies of reward events in instrumental tasks are established on the basis of Pavlovian conditioning. According to the tandem hypothesis, tested in the four runway investigations reported here employing rats, memories of reward events may serve as the conditioned stimuli eliciting expectancies. In Experiments 1–3, rats were trained under a schedule of partial reward (P), which did not produce increased resistance to extinction, and subsequently shifted to consistent reward (C). According to the tandem hypothesis, the shift to the C schedule should result in increased resistance to extinction if, as hypothesized, under the P schedule the memory of reward, S^R, came to elicit the expectancy of nonreward,_EN. This hypothesis was confirmed under a variety of conditions. It was shown that increased resistance to extinction could not be attributed to the P schedule alone, to the rats receiving two schedules, P and C, to stimuli other than S^R eliciting E_N, or to the rats forgetting reward-produced memories when expecting nonreward (Experiment 4). It was shown that the tandem hypothesis could explain the divergent findings obtained in prior studies employing a shift from P to C as well as in the present study.     

The psychological significance of secondary sexual characteristics in nine- to eleven-year-old girls

82 9-11-year-old girls were seen in order to study the onset of puberty as represented by breast and pubic hair growth. Girls filled out self-report scales, mothers rated their daughters' breast and pubic hair development using schematic representations of the Tanner stages, and height was measured by a nurse practitioner. Breast growth, but not pubic hair growth, was expected to be associated with a positive body image, positive peer relationships, superior adjustment, and the rating of adult roles as important (marriage, children, and careers). These expectations were confirmed for all but the adult role measures. Controlling for pubic hair growth did not alter the findings for breast development. Associations with height also were examined. Height was linked to superior adjustment and career importance. These findings are discussed in terms of possible roles that different pubertal events may play in the self-definitions of young adolescents as well as the meaning of various physical changes to the girl and to others.     

Modular programming of curricula

A large scale modularisation of curricula in higher education based on relatively large modules is discussed. These modules are flexible courses and not the well known small instructional modules within a course. The idea of these so-called programme modules, together with some applications and implications are discussed in the context of the Dutch higher educational system which is quite similar to that in other Western European countries. One implication is a less static concept of what a curriculum is. This may affect students, teachers, curriculum planners and legislators in their thinking about what kind of education a university can offer (in the near future) to its potential clients.     

Improving content area reading comprehension of Spanish speaking English learners in Grades 4 and 5 using web-based text structure instruction

Reading and comprehending content area texts is important for academic and professional success as well as life skills necessary to maintain good health and quality lifestyle. Spanish speaking English language learners have shown poor performance on high-stakes assessments in reading comprehension. The number of Spanish speaking English learners (ELs) in our schools continues to increase at a fast pace, and therefore it is imperative that we address their reading comprehension needs swiftly and effectively. The text structure strategy has shown positive results on comprehension outcomes in many research studies with students at Grades 2, 4, 5, and 7. This study is the first implementation of instruction about the text structure strategy expressly designed to accommodate the linguistic and comprehension needs of Spanish speaking ELs in Grades 4 and 5. Strategy instruction on the web for English learners (SWELL) was designed to deliver instruction about the text structure strategy to Spanish speaker English learners. A randomized controlled study with pre and post-tests was conducted with 14 classrooms at fourth-grade and 17 classrooms at fifth-grade in high poverty schools where over 85% of students were Spanish speaking bilinguals or ELs. Analysis of data using multi-level models show moderate to large-effects favoring the students in the SWELL classrooms over the business as usual control classrooms on important measures such as a standardized reading comprehension test and main idea and cloze tasks. This research has practical implications for the use of web-based tools to provide high-quality and supportive instruction to improve Spanish speaking ELs reading comprehension skills.     

Parents of Traditionally Aged Community College Students: Communications and Choice

Five suburban community colleges in a metropolitan area collaborated on a survey to parents of high school graduates of the class of 2002 who attended the colleges in fall 2002. The study was undertaken to learn more about parents roles in their students selection of community colleges, to give insights and information about this important community college constituency, and to assist community colleges to shape more effective ways to foster positive and supportive opinions among parents of potential students. Parents want the community college to provide students with credits and grade point averages enabling transfer, overestimate their students academic skills as measured by course placement tests, engaged in a number of college-choice activities, and indicate that factors associated with lifestyle and money were major reasons for selecting the community college. Associations between parents social capital and perceptions of their students academic abilities were found for a number of dependent variables examined. The study also revealed important differences in how participating institutions record and calculate key measures such as credits earned and grade point averages.     

The Roles of Parental Support and Family Stress in Adolescent Sleep

The current study examines the association between parental support and adolescent sleep under varying levels of family stress. Participants included 316 adolescents (M_age = 16.40 years, 43% male) and their parents (M_age = 45.67 years, 91% mothers) from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Both adolescents and parents completed questionnaires and adolescents wore wrist actigraphs and completed self‐reports on their sleep for 7 consecutive days. Results indicated that under contexts of family stress, more parental support was linked to longer sleep duration, less sleep variability, and less time spent awake during the night. Findings suggest that under contexts of family stress, cohesive family relationships may provide a sense of stability and security that is necessary for healthful sleep.     

Effects of maze geometry and experience on exploratory behavior in the rat

Rats were exposed twice in a rotated sequence to a series of six mazes, consisting of hexagonal alleys, balanced for different alley length and structural complexity. Locomotor activity increased with alley length and decreased with structural complexity of the mazes. Locomotion became less stereotyped with increased experience, showing an increasing number of turns, less constant velocity, loss of the initial preference for outward leading alleys and weakening of the forward tendency at reentry from side alleys into hexagonal alleys. In contrast to these qualitative changes of locomotion, the amount of activity remained almost unchanged throughout the experiment. The results suggest that these increases in locomotion complexity depend upon complex interactions between experience and stimulus content of the mazes.