IQ GAINS AND THE BINET DECREMENTS

Thorndike compiled Stanford-Binet data which made it appear that children aged 6 and under have made greater IQ gains than older children and that this pattern dominated the whole period from 1932 to 1971–72. Therefore, he sought causal factors likely to affect preschoolers more than others, for example, TV in general and educational TV in particular. A wide array of data show that the atypical gains of young children are either an artifact of sampling error or totally antedate 1947, ruling out TV as an age-specific factor. This data also suggest that Americans have gained about 12 IQ points from 1932 to 1972 with verbal gains being a point lower and performance gains a point higher.     

Conceptual Development and Relativism: reply to Siegel

I defend that the development of children may include foundational change, such that stages can be reconstructed representing different views of (the relevant aspect of) reality and involving different forms of judgement in that domain. This implies fundamental stage-relativism. Claims that such stages are better than their forerunners can be justified, if at all, only on stage-bound criteria. This does not preclude the possibility of justibing them, however, except to persons in lower stages. The development produces the possibility of its justijcation. Education cannot, therefore, be conceived as commuunication between equals. Reality is different for children, not simply defective or wrong.     

LEMS OF ANALYST AND OBSERVER AGREEMENT IN NATURALISTIC NARRATIVE DATA

The use of naturalistic narrative data is increasing but without increasing methodological rigor. Assumptions underlying such methods prohibit an investigator from interrupting the natural habitat by use of such standard laboratory procedures as equal observation intervals for all subjects, equal behavior units, or other artificial equalization of the behavioral data stream. Data analytic techniques commonly used in standard laboratory research present problems in the analysis of naturalistic data of this type inasmuch as most assume equal observation intervals, equal unit intervals, or some other fundamental character of equality. These problems are particularly acute with respect to estimates of analyst and observer agreement. This paper addresses these problems and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of several possible solutions.     

Counselor Interpersonal Power Base Preference: An Examination of Counselor and Client Variables

Forty counseling students were assessed on their power base (i.e., expert, referent, and legitimate) preferences, which were found to vary as a function of client problem, but not experience level.