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.     

The Importance of Thinking Multivariately When Setting Subscale Cutoff Scores

Setting cutoff scores is one of the most common practices when using scales to aid in classification purposes. This process is usually done univariately where each optimal cutoff value is decided sequentially, subscale by subscale. While it is widely known that this process necessarily reduces the probability of “passing” such a test, what is not properly recognized is that such a test loses power to meaningfully discriminate between target groups with each new subscale that is introduced. We quantify and describe this property via an analytical exposition highlighting the counterintuitive geometry implied by marginal threshold-setting in multiple dimensions. Recommendations are presented that encourage applied researchers to think jointly, rather than marginally, when setting cutoff scores to ensure an informative test.     

“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.     

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.     

Employment-related differences between male and female school psychologists

A total of 636 full-time school psychologist practitioners in Pennsylvania were surveyed and asked to complete a demographic data form and to estimate the actual percentage of time they spent in assessment, counseling, consultation, research, clerical tasks, and administrative tasks, and the amount of time they desired to spend in each of these roles. No statistically significant differences were found between male and female school psychologists in actual time spent in various roles or the time desired to be spent in various roles. Male school psychologists were found to work longer contract lengths and to make more money than their female counterparts. When monthly salaries were compared (adjusted for differences in contract length), statistically significant salary differences between male and female school psychologists were found.     

An investigation of WISC-R verbal-performance differences as a function of ethnic status

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised was administered to 187 black, 184 Hispanic, and 184 white children aged 6–11. The Verbal-Performance (V-P) IQ discrepancies were determined for the total group and for each ethnic group. The overall mean of 10.74 was similar to the V-P discrepancy found in the WISC-R standardization sample. The Hispanic group had a significantly greater V-P split than did the black group or the white group. Implications of these results were discussed, focusing on the various cautions of using V-P discrepancies for diagnostic decision making.