Psychometric analysis of a measure of socio-emotional development in adolescents

This is a psychometric analysis of an instrument to assess the socio-emotional development of school students, How I Feel (HIF), developed as a situational judgment test, with scoring based on expert judgments. The HIF test was administered in grades 4–9, 1999–2005. Internal consistency, retest reliability, and year-to-year stability were satisfactory, and the HIF instrument appears sensitive to intervention effects. Sex differences and associations with substance use and other instruments support construct validity. A significant negative trend was found across grades, attenuated in a group receiving socio-emotional training. The HIF test has limited discriminatory power among individuals with high socio-emotional maturity.     

Children with profound retardation and their joint training with parents

ABSTRACT

The development of motor activity in children with profound mental retardation employing a special method based on mother/father dyads with her/his child is described. Both parent and child are jointly trained on the basis of a specific programme of lessons which is combined with a home training programme. The main advantages of the method are: high efficiency of lessons, effective instructions for home training, close emotional contact between parents and children, promotion of parents’ optimism and improvement of children's communication. Within this brief characterisation the content and organisation of joint training lessons are also described.     

Educational Television—Report on a visit to America

On Saturday 2nd July 1966, I left Glasgow by air and reached Boston that evening. Emmanuel College was my place of residence while I followed a course in Educational Research methods which was given by Professor Donald Spearitt and others at the Graduate School of Education of the University of Harvard. I worked mainly in Longfellow Hall and the newly erected Larsen Hall on the Appian Way, Cambridge. Privileged access to libraries, including the famous Widener Library, was granted to me. That semester in Harvard was particularly valuable in providing standards with which to evaulate and appreciate the work I was later to see in many studios and classrooms throughout the USA. I also had the advantage of discussing problems with first-rate educationists who suggested the most useful places to visit and introduced me to key people in the world of Instructional Television.     

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Box? Children and TV Advertising in four Countries

Abstract

To what extent are children influenced by television and, in particular, by advertising? The study discussed in this article was conducted in four countries with, in some cases, surprising results. Parents think that television influences their children, but children too have views on how adults are affected.