A Lesson From Minerva

In 1783 the Montgolfier brothers successfully experimented with lighter-thanair balloon flight. But their remarkable invention eventually turned out to be less useful than expected. Their guiding vision—that one could sail the heavens much like sailing the seas—was wrongheaded. Much like the story of early balloon flight, the telling of any story, such as ours, depends upon having a sensible vision before the facts become intelligible, much less useful. As an illustrative example, it is often argued that the experience of sport is essentially one of leisure and is not of the work world. This vision is challenged by analyzing the possibility that sport is indeed good work. If this is so, then promoting the text or our sport's story as part of the so-called progressive culture of evermore comfort and convenience is a story without much lift. An alternate vision for our field is to cultivate the story that the experience of sport is essentially work, hence inconvenient and difficult, but productive and therefore morally uplifting and personally dignifying.     

Detecting Faking Good and Faking Bad With the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory—3 in a College Student Sample

Claims that the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory‐3 (SASSI‐3; F.G. Miller & L.E. Lazowski, 1999) defeats defensiveness have not been independently verified. This study investigates the SASSI‐3's ability to discriminate faking (faking good, problem denial; faking good, claiming extreme virtue; faking bad) from standard answering. Although the results suggest that the Defensiveness scale detects faking, the Subtle Attributes scale was manipulated. These results call into question the SASSI‐3's utility in detecting substance dependence among college students.     

Tightening Curricular Connections: CQI and Effective Curriculum Planning

Over the past decade, continuous quality improvement (CQI) has emerged as a strategy for documenting and systematically building academic program quality. This study used a nationally representative sample of engineering faculty members and students to examine the influence of faculty members’ CQI activities on the relationships between student and institutional characteristics, student experiences in- and out-of-class, and student learning outcomes. A cluster analysis validated the use of four CQI-related variables to differentiate engineering programs into high- and low-CQI groups. In a multiple group path analysis, the models for the high and low groups differed significantly, supporting the hypothesis that CQI indirectly influences the relationships between student and institutional characteristics, student experiences, and student learning outcomes. Further, the path results suggested a number of modifications to the analytical and conceptual frameworks used in the study.     

How prior knowledge affects word identification and comprehension

While prior knowledge of a passage topic is known to facilitate comprehension, little is known about how it affects word identification. We examined oral reading errors in good and poor readers when reading a passage where they either had prior knowledge of the passage topic or did not. Children who had prior knowledge of the topic were matched on decoding skill to children who did not know the topic so that the groups differed only on knowledge of the passage topic. Prior knowledge of the passage topic was found to significantly increase fluency and reduce reading errors, especially errors based on graphic information, in poor readers. Two possible mechanisms of how prior knowledge might operate to facilitate word identification were evaluated using the pattern of error types, as was the relationship of errors to comprehension. Implications of knowledge effects for assessment and educational policy are discussed.     

A Qualitative Inquiry of the Counseling Dissertation Process

The authors in this consensual qualitative research study explored the dissertation experiences of 42 graduates (27 counselor educators, 13 counselors, 2 administrators) from 4 midwestern states. Identified domains included impact of environment, competing influences, personality traits, chair influence, committee function, and barriers to completion. An emergent theory reflected the interconnectedness of the dissertation process across internal, relational, and professional factors. Implications related to motivation, personal traits, and identification of barriers in the dissertation process are provided.     

Teacher and observer ratings of young African American children's social and emotional competence

Children's social and emotional competence abilities have been linked to successful social interactions and academic performance. This study examined the teacher and observer ratings of social and emotional competence for 89 young (3‐ to 5‐year‐old), African American children from economically stressed urban environments. There was a specific interest in understanding the convergence and divergence of the raters on these competence behaviors within the classroom. This study also examined the association among children's competence abilities and their overall functioning at school. There were significant associations between teacher and observer reports of children's competence. Children who were observed to be socially and emotionally competent were rated by their teachers as functioning well in school. However, there were differences among teacher and observer reports in terms of the specific behaviors that represented social and emotional competence. These findings provide support for the use of multi‐method, multi‐informant measures to assess competence among African American children. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Collecting History Imprints from Russia in the Age of the New Official Historiographic Agenda

The selection and acquisition of contemporary research-quality Russian and Soviet history imprints from Russia is presenting increasingly formidable challenges for institutions with mandates to collect and preserve this category of material. This situation promises to worsen, as, increasingly, the administration of the Russian Federation appears to be preparing to enforce an official historiographic agenda. The agenda, inferred over the past several years by many professional observers and interpreters of the Russian administration’s words and deeds, is to promote a view of the country’s twentieth-century history which reactivates World War II-era nationalist narratives, justifies a centralized authoritarian model of government, and cultivates a sense of estrangement from the West. Anticipating that high-level historical scholarship on particular aspects of Russian history might become an endangered genre in the Russian publishing arena—and that such publications might become increasingly difficult to identify and acquire—collectors should begin strategizing for a potentially challenging marketplace.     

IX Social Power and the Limitations of Church Education

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this column is to keep religious educators abreast of the relevant significant research in the general field of psychology. Its implications for methods and materials in religious education are clear. Religious educators may well take advantage of every new finding in scientific research.

Each abstract or group is preceded by an ?evaluation and interpretative comment which aims to guide the reader in understanding the research reported.

All of these abstracts are from PSYCHOLOGICAL ABSTRACTS, and are used by permission of that periodical. The abstract number is Volume 30, Number 2, April 1956.     

Genetic and environmental influences on writing and their relations to language and reading

Identical and fraternal twins (N?=?540, age 8 to 18 years) were tested on three different measures of writing (Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement—Writing Samples and Writing Fluency; Handwriting Copy from the Group Diagnostic Reading and Aptitude Achievement Tests), three different language skills (phonological awareness, rapid naming, and vocabulary), and three different reading skills (word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension). Substantial genetic influence was found on two of the writing measures, writing samples and handwriting copy, and all of the language and reading measures. Shared environment influences were generally not significant, except for Vocabulary. Non-shared environment estimates, including measurement error, were significant for all variables. Genetic influences among the writing measures were significantly correlated (highest between the speeded measures writing fluency and handwriting copy), but there were also significant independent genetic influences between copy and samples and between fluency and samples. Genetic influences on writing were significantly correlated with genetic influences on all of the language and reading skills, but significant independent genetic influences were also found for copy and samples, whose genetic correlations were significantly less than 1.0 with the reading and language skills. The genetic correlations varied significantly in strength depending on the overlap between the writing, language, and reading task demands. We discuss implications of our results for education, limitations of the study, and new directions for research on writing and its relations to language and reading.