Social competence: An untapped dimension in evaluating head start's success

From its inception, Head Start has maintained children's social and emotional adjustment as a primary goal of intervention, but researchers have yet to settle on a consensus definition of social competence that can be used in developmental research and program evaluation. To address this gap in our knowledge base, we offer a comprehensive review of the extant research on children's social skills, including their ability to modulate their feelings, their social cognitions, and their behaviors within the context of peer interaction, as measures of social competence. We then examine definitions of social competence in light of assessments of children's performance, as assessed by parents, teachers and peers. Based upon this review, we offer a comprehensive set of concrete policy recommendations for the assessment of social competence as a key indicator of programmatic success, when evaluating early childhood intervention.     

“I believe I will go out of this class actually knowing something”: Cooperative learning activities in physical chemistry

The purposes of this study were to describe the structure of events during cooperative learning activities—Friday discussion sessions—in a graduate-level thermodynamics course and to understand what these activities meant to the students. First, we describe the structure of Friday discussion sessions in our classroom, which were used to focus student attention on conceptual issues rather than algorithmic problem solving. Second, we delineate findings which emerge from the perspective of the students. We found that cooperative learning activities move students away from rote learning strategies and toward more meaningful strategies which allowed them to integrate concepts over the entire semester. In addition, we discovered that the sharing of insights and ideas between students leads to the development of interpersonal skills and communication skills which the students perceive as an important component of the Friday discussion sessions. Implications for further classroom use, low-status versus high-status students, and assessment are discussed. J Res Sci Teach 34: 819–835, 1997.     

The stability of child study team classification over four years

Forty-nine learning disabled (LD), 30 emotionally disturbed(ED), and 44 unclassified (UC) boys originally sampled by Brooks (Note 1) and Jackson (Note 4) when they were 6 to 11 years of age, were relocated in 1979, and their current classification determined. Lambda, an index of predictive association, showed that a 53% improvement in the accuracy of prediction of 1979 classification was obtained when 1975 classification was given. The ED classification was the least stable, with 60% of the children originally classified ED changing their classification over four years, though only 19% of the originally LD and ED children were unclassified four years later.     

Behavioral objectives for psychological consultation in the school as evaluated by teachers and school psychologists

A set of behavioral objectives was developed for the consultant role of the school psychologist, based on Meyers' consultation model. A Likert-type questionnaire was developed to assess the degree to which teachers and school psychologists agreed upon the desirability and the actual accomplishment of these objectives. Based on a sample of 120 teachers and 83 school psychologists, it was found that both groups perceived a difference between the “desired” role and the role that school psychologists actually fulfill. However, there were also significant differences between teachers' and school psychologists' rating of the “actual” role, the school psychologists' rating agreeing more with the consultation model. Examination of individual items showed greater acceptance of objectives relating to Meyers' level of indirect service to the child, and less acceptance of Meyers' levels of direct service to the teacher and service to the school system.     

Initial foot contact and related kinematics affect impact loading rate in running

This study assessed kinematic differences between different foot strike patterns and their relationship with peak vertical instantaneous loading rate (VILR) of the ground reaction force (GRF). Fifty-two runners ran at 3.2 m · s^?1 while we recorded GRF and lower limb kinematics and determined foot strike pattern: Typical or Atypical rearfoot strike (RFS), midfoot strike (MFS) of forefoot strike (FFS). Typical RFS had longer contact times and a lower leg stiffness than Atypical RFS and MFS. Typical RFS showed a dorsiflexed ankle (7.2 ± 3.5°) and positive foot angle (20.4 ± 4.8°) at initial contact while MFS showed a plantar flexed ankle (?10.4 ± 6.3°) and more horizontal foot (1.6 ± 3.1°). Atypical RFS showed a plantar flexed ankle (?3.1 ± 4.4°) and a small foot angle (7.0 ± 5.1°) at initial contact and had the highest VILR. For the RFS (Typical and Atypical RFS), foot angle at initial contact showed the highest correlation with VILR (r = ?0.68). The observed higher VILR in Atypical RFS could be related to both ankle and foot kinematics and global running style that indicate a limited use of known kinematic impact absorbing “strategies” such as initial ankle dorsiflexion in MFS or initial ankle plantar flexion in Typical RFS.