Is science itself the cause of ineffective science teaching?

In her article “A Possible ‘Orality’ for Science?” (Interchange, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 227–244), Rampal argues that science can be made more relevant to students if its language is reformed and replaced by one that contains elements drawn from oral cultures. There is some point to this policy proposal, but it fails to note that the dispassionate and impersonal prose of science has its own function in the on-going practice of science. The real task for the teacher should not be reforming the language of science but rather using oral culture to lead students in the excitement of scientific theories and the joys of scientific research, bringing them in the end to a mastery of the prose style that the scientific community has found serves well its goal of increasing our knowledge of laws of nature.     

A Feedback Procedure for Teacher Trainees Working with Parent Tutors of Reading

Abstract In this pilot study, four third‐year teacher trainees were trained to give feedback to parents who were tutoring their own children in reading using the Pause Prompt and Praise procedures. The trainees learnt to teach the procedures to the parents and then to give feedback by prompting parents to remember and explain their own tutoring behaviours. Baseline measures showed that when trainees were asked to help parents in any way they could to implement the procedures, they used very intrusive forms of prompts. Following training trainees used much less intrusive forms of prompts, giving parents more opportunity to remember and explain their own tutoring behaviours. It was argued that less intrusive forms of prompting when giving feedback may have been of more assistance to parents in learning the procedures than more intrusive forms of prompting, since parents may have learned to become more independent of trainee support. This, in turn, may have contributed to the substantial gains in children's reading levels which occurred.     

A Loyalty Tax? National Measures of Academic Salary Compression

This paper presents measures of faculty salary compression for 1993 and 1999 based on national, rather than institutional-level, data. Using a recently developed technique and two national faculty surveys, actual junior to senior salary ratios are derived as well as predicted salary ratios that represent what the salary ratios would be if junior and senior faculty were similarly compensated for their productive traits. The analysis, which considers three alternative definitions of junior faculty and stratifies results by institutional type, produces an overall finding of no salary compression. A limited number of disciplines, including business and economics, however, do exhibit signs of salary compression.     

Topicalization and the Processing of Expository Prose by Children: mediating effects of cognitive styles and content familiarity

This study assessed the effects of text topicalization conditions (initial position, final position, or no topic sentence) on the comprehension of main ideas and specific passage information for middle school readers. Also of interest were interactions of topic familiarity and readers’ cognitive styles (degree of field independence) with text topicalization. One hundred and seven subjects were randomly assigned to one of the three topicalization conditions and read three familiar and three less‐familiar multipleparagraph expository texts. Main idea comprehension was assessed with both a sentencesummary (generation) and best‐title (recognition) task. Comprehension of specific passage information was evaluated with multiple‐choice items. Text topicalization effects were observed for main idea comprehension (with initial position best, followed by final position), while topic familiarity resulted in higher comprehension scores for specific passage information. Moreover, a cognitive style‐text topicalization interaction was found on the best‐title task; in this case, relatively field dependent readers were assisted by a final topic sentence placement. Implications are drawn for future research concerning the complex interplay of texts, tasks and readers in prose‐processing.     

The Louisville Twin Study: developmental synchronies in behavior

The Louisville Twin Study includes nearly 500 pairs of twins and their siblings who have participated in a longitudinal study of mental development, beginning in infancy and extending to adolescence. The results show that individual differences beginning in infancy and extending to adolescence. The results show that individual differences in intelligence progressively stabilized by school age, and each child followed a distinctive pattern of spurts and lags in mental development. Monozygotic twins became increasingly concordant over ages and matched each other closely for developmental trends. By contrast, dizygotic twins regressed to an intermediate level of concordance, comparable with that found for siblings and parent-offspring sets. A comprehensive home assessment was performed to identify the home/family variables that contributed to mental development. The overall results pointed to a strong developmental thrust in the growth of intelligence, which was principally guided by an intrinsic genetic ground plan. Qualitative features of home and family did, however, add significantly to prediction of offspring IQ. The results are interpreted in the context of Waddington's developmental model, and some recent advances in neurobiology and genetics are surveyed for their implications for developmental behavior genetics.     

Impact of a statewide home visiting program to prevent child abuse

OBJECTIVES: To assess the impact of a voluntary, paraprofessional home visiting program in preventing child maltreatment and reducing the multiple, malleable psychosocial risks for maltreatment for which families had been targeted. METHODS: This collaborative, experimental study focused on 6 Healthy Families Alaska (HFAK) programs; 325 families were enrolled in 2000-2001, randomized to intervention and control groups, and interviewed to measure baseline attributes. Follow-up data were collected when children were 2 years old (85% follow-up rate). Outcomes included maltreatment reports, measures of potential maltreatment and parental risks, for example, poor mental health, substance use, and partner violence. HFAK records were reviewed to measure home visiting services. Home visitors were surveyed to measure perceived effectiveness and training adequacy. RESULTS: Parental risks were common at baseline, and one-sixth of families had a substantiated child protective services report in the child's first 2 years of life. There was no overall program effect on maltreatment reports, and most measures of potential maltreatment. Home visited mothers reported using mild forms of physical discipline less often than control mothers. The groups were similar in their use of more severe forms of physical discipline. There was no program impact on parental risks. There was no impact on outcomes for families with a 'high dose' of home visiting. Home visitors often failed to address parental risks and seldom linked families with community resources. Contradictions in the model compromised effectiveness. CONCLUSIONS: The program did not prevent child maltreatment, nor reduce the parental risks that had made families eligible for service. Research is needed to develop and test strategies to improve the effectiveness of home visiting.     

Attachment,Communication, and Relationship Functioning Among College Student Veterans and Nonveterans

This study examined attachment processes of college student veterans and nonveterans and further examined how veteran status and attachment style directly and indirectly predict relationship functioning. Results indicated that student veterans were more often dismissing in their attachment style but less often preoccupied than nonveteran students. Veteran status moderated the association between attachment style and dyadic consensus. The contributions of attachment and communication processes to overall relationship adjustment differed for student veterans and nonveterans.