Maternal sensitivity and patterns of infant-mother attachment

48 12-month-old infants and their mothers were videotaped in the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Each infant-mother dyad was also filmed for 3 min while the mother completed a questionnaire and the infant was left to explore the room devoid of toys, a situation in which maternal compliance with the request to complete the questionnaire was expected to compete with attentional demands made on her by the infant. Infant-mother attachment was classified as secure, anxious-avoidant, or anxious-resistant on the basis of behavior in the Strange Situation. Assessment of maternal sensitivity during the questionnaire situation included behaviors classified as reflecting appropriate, insufficient, and intrusive responses to infant cues. 3 summary measures of maternal sensitivity, each of which distinguished between mothers of securely and anxiously attached infants in 1-way analysis of variance tests, were entered into a discriminant function analysis. Using the discriminant function coefficients for combining the maternal sensitivity scores, 94% of the infants were correctly classified as securely or anxiously attached on the basis of their mothers' behavior in the questionnaire situation.     

A preliminary description of nonschool-based friendship in young high-risk children

This study explored friendships in a sample of 51 high-risk preschool-aged children. Thirty-eight children were placed in foster care (25 placed with their siblings and 13 separated from their siblings). Thirteen children, receiving preventive services, were living at home with their biological parents and siblings. Chi-square, ANOVA, and paired t-tests were used to test for between-group and within-subject differences in the target children's friendships. The results demonstrated that the majority of the high-risk children had a “best friend.” However, the foster children all had friends who could be described as quasi-siblings. The results suggest that foster care placement and the presence of siblings may influence the nature of a child's interactions with nonrelated peers.     

>OFSTED: inspecting schools and improvement through inspection

Approximately one‐third of all maintained secondary schools in England, and a smaller tranche of nursery, primary and special schools, were inspected under the arrangements set out in Section 9 of the 1992 Education (Schools) Act by the end of 1994. This article reviews some aspects of quality assurance in the national inspection system in England. It looks in particular at the improvement of inspection and at improvement through inspection. Continuous improvement of the inspection system reflects feedback from key stakeholders, as well as work by OFSTED to incorporate new developments. Improvement through inspection, broadly defined, has to cover both what occurs at the individual school level and in the system at large as a result of inspection. We argue that an effective inspection system can provide a powerful incentive for, as well as directly contributing to, school improvement and development     

Toward a procedure for minimizing and detecting false positive diagnoses of learning disability

Assessment procedures that can significantly enhance motivation to perform are needed so that poor performance due to low or avoidance motivation is not misdiagnosed as indicating ability deficits or as symptomatic of learning disabilities (LD). In this connection, research is under way to investigate the degree to which a highly motivating computer game learning task can improve differential diagnoses of LD. Findings from the initial investigation indicate that a large proportion of students diagnosed as LD were able to learn effectively when pursuing such a task. The results illustrate the key role motivation plays in determining the validity of diagnostic assessment and demonstrate the potential value of similar tasks for use in differentiating, from among individuals diagnosed as LD, those who do not have impaired learning processes.     

Reward magnitude and shock variables (continuity and intensity) in shuttlebox-avoidance learning

In Experiment I, eight groups of rats (n = 20) were given shuttlebox-avoidance training. Two levels of shock (.3 and 1.6 mA) were combined factorially with two levels of reward (large and small) under both continuous and discontinuous (.75 sec on and 2.00 sec off) shock. Visual situational cues were absent after a shuttle response for the large-reward condition and present for the small-reward condition. Superior performance was obtained with weak rather than strong shock under both reward conditions and with large rather than small reward only under the weak-shock condition. Continuity of shock had no differential effect on performance. Experiment II allowed the conclusion that the reward effect was attributable to a reinforcement mechanism. The data were taken as support for the effective reinforcement theory, which emphasizes the importance in avoidance learning of fear conditioned to situational cues.     

What do you need to know to teach science in the primary school?

Conclusion Primary teachers will continue to be confronted with topics about which they themselves may not share the understandings of experts in the area. They are surely not alone there. Secondary and tertiary science teachers who have more extensive backgrounds find themselves in the same situation. Increasing the number of areas in which primary teachers share the understandings of scientists would be of value. However the data of this study suggest that it would also be worthwhile to focus attention on the strategies and understandings they may use to increase their familiarity with scientist's understandings of natural phenomena. The Interactive Teaching Approach (Biddulph and Osborne, 1984) offers an appropriate model for such activity.     

Preparedness for flexible delivery among vocational learners

Using the Canfield Learning Styles Inventory (CLSI), the learning preferences of 1 252 vocational education and training (VET) learners were tested. Results indicate that VET learners are characterised by a preference for dependent learning, rather than self‐directed learning; and a preference for learning through observation and direct experience rather than through verbal presentations. These findings are discussed in terms of the preparedness of VET learners for flexible delivery in the workplace.

Kember's (1995) two‐dimensional model of open learning is suggested as a theoretical framework for the development of strategies to increase the preparedness of learners and workplaces for flexible delivery.     

Educational Broadcasting: access and equity

The paper reports a qualitative study undertaken for the New South Wales Department of School Education and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The purpose of the study was to complement existing survey information by (i) closely investigating actual practice in schools in terms of the uses made of educational broadcasts, and (ii) inquiring into the perceptions held by the providers of such broadcasts. To this end teachers and students were interviewed and observations conducted in five case study schools. Policy makers within the Children's and Education Unit of the ABC were interviewed as well. The most significant findings (in educational rather than statistical terms) are to do with variations in access both materially and culturally. Equity considerations were seen to arise from these differences in access.     

Sensitivity to auditory and visual stimuli during early reading development

An investigation was conducted into the visual and auditory temporal processing profiles of two groups of 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children: pre‐alphabetic children, who showed no alphabetic ability (failing to read any non‐words in a test), and those who demonstrated some alphabetic ability. This alphabetic group showed higher scores in reading and spelling attainment than the pre‐alphabetic group. They were also faster than the pre‐alphabetic group in reacting to the onset and offset of auditory and visual stimuli. However, when age was used as a covariate, only reaction times (RTs) to the offsets of visual stimuli were found to be faster in the alphabetic than the pre‐alphabetic group. This suggests that responses to the offset of visual stimuli are becoming more rapid during the same developmental period when alphabetic ability is beginning to be acquired. Within the alphabetic group, after accounting for age, visual and auditory onset RTs were strongly correlated, whereas within the pre‐alphabetic group there were high correlations between visual and auditory offset RTs. It is therefore suggested that a strong association between RTs to visual and auditory onsets may be beneficial during early alphabetic acquisition, when phoneme–grapheme associations are established. Multiple regression analyses showed visual offset RT as the only variable to account for a significant amount of variance in spelling attainment after age was taken into account, which may relate to Frith's (1985) contention that spelling is important in driving early alphabetic ability.