Phonological processing and emergent literacy in younger and older preschool children

Phonological awareness, phonological memory, and phonological access to lexical storage play important roles in acquiring literacy. We examined the convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of these phonological processing abilities (PPA) in 389 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the validity of each PPA as separate from general cognitive ability and separate from each other. Multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM) with mean structure demonstrated that older preschoolers have better developed latent PPA than younger preschoolers but that the structure of PPA is equivalent. RAN was found uniquely associated with letter knowledge and text discrimination in younger preschoolers, and PA was found uniquely associated with word reading skills in older preschoolers. Finally, general cognitive ability was only indirectly associated with emergent literacy via PPA. These results highlight the importance of PPA in the early literacy development of English-speaking preschool children.     

Resistance partial factor and reliability of cast ball-and-socket support joint

Considering the uncertainty of material performance, geometric characteristic and analysis method, the analysis of statistical parameters of the resistance of cast ball-and-socket support joints and the reliability analysis are carried out by JC method (improved first-order second-moment method) based on the relevant experimental data. Results show that the resistance partial factor of the joint increases with the increase of the reliability index. The resistance partial factors are suggested corresponding to the reliability index under different load combinations. Moreover, the suggested resistance partial factor is adopted in reliability design, and it is found that the reliability index of the joint is larger than the target reliability index. The optimal load combination is the one in which live load plays an important control role. Finally, based on the suggested resistance partial factors, the reliability analysis of cast ball-and-socket support joints of a project is conducted.     

I am not unskilled and unaware: deaf and hearing learners’ self-assessments of linguistic and nonlinguistic skills

The unskilled and unaware effect refers to the finding that individuals who are less knowledgeable or less skilled in a domain are relatively less able to evaluate their level of skill or effectively utilise feedback relative to individuals who are more skilled. Studies finding deaf students less accurate than hearing students in estimating their English vocabulary knowledge and in judging how much they are learning from material presented via sign language have attributed those results to the unskilled and unaware effect, citing the lack of language fluencies frequently demonstrated among deaf learners. The present study addressed the issue more directly by comparing both deaf and hearing individuals who were more and less skilled in four domains, three linguistic and one nonlinguistic. Results indicated that even individuals who are unskilled in a nonlinguistic domain can evaluate their performance when they are aware of what skilled performance would look like, and that unskilled and unaware effects can be influenced by individuals’ desires to be skilled.     

Differences required for significance between Wechsler verbal and performance IQs and WIAT subtests and composites: The predicted-achievement method

This paper provides tables of critical values for determining statistically significant discrepancies between Wechsler Verbal/Performance IQ and WIAT subtest and composite scores based on a predicted-achievement method. It is recommended that these tables be used when a statistically significant and diagnostically meaningful Verbal IQ-Performance IQ discrepancy exists rendering either of these IQs a better estimate of a student's ability than the Full Scale IQ. Issues regarding the use of discrepancy formulas in the assessment and diagnosis of learning disabilities are discussed, and basic considerations for using the critical values tables are provided.     

Conflict style and cultural understanding among teachers in the western United States: Exploring relationships

Competent teachers are competent communicators who are able to build and sustain interpersonal relationships across culture and across conflict. The following study was designed to validate and extend prior research [Mahon, J. A. (2003). Intercultural sensitivity development of practicing teachers. Dissertation Abstracts International, 64(7), 2353A (UMI No. 3097199); Mahon, J. A. (2006). Under the invisibility cloak? Teacher understanding of cultural difference. Intercultural Education, 17(4), 391–407] that showed a majority of teachers had ethnocentric levels of intercultural sensitivity (ICS) as measured by the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) [Intercultural Communication Institute (ICI). (1999a). The intercultural development inventory. Portland, Oregon: Intercultural Communication Institute]. Qualitative data also suggested teachers with less sophisticated understandings of culture avoided intercultural conflict situations. The following research drew upon a sample of 88 teachers in the United States to examine possible relationships between ICS as measured by the IDI, and conflict style as measured by the Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Inventory (TKI) [Consulting Psychologies Press (CPP). (2002). Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologies Press]. Results indicated the majority of teachers have ethnocentric understandings of culture, and preferred the Compromising conflict style, followed very closely by Avoiding and Accommodating. Further analyses revealed that degree of cooperativeness predicted levels of the dependent variable of ICS. Certain demographic variables shown to be important in prior ICS research were found to predict levels of the dependent variables.     

Boundary-Work in the Health Research Field: Biomedical and Clinician Scientists’ Perceptions of Social Science Research

Funding agencies in Canada are attempting to break down the organizational boundaries between disciplines to promote interdisciplinary research and foster the integration of the social sciences into the health research field. This paper explores the extent to which biomedical and clinician scientists’ perceptions of social science research operate as a cultural boundary to the inclusion of social scientists into this field. Results indicated that cultural boundaries may impede social scientists’ entry into the health research field through three modalities: (1) biomedical and clinician scientists’ unfavourable and ambivalent posture towards social science research; (2) their opposition to a resource increase for the social sciences; and (3) clinician scientists procedural assessment criteria for social science. The paper also discusses the merits and limitations of Tom Gieryn’s concept of boundary-work for studying social dynamics within the field of science.

Rethinking Polanyi’s Concept of Tacit Knowledge: From Personal Knowing to Imagined Institutions

Half a century after Michael Polanyi conceptualised ‘the tacit component’ in personal knowing, management studies has reinvented ‘tacit knowledge’—albeit in ways that squander the advantages of Polanyi’s insights and ignore his faith in ‘spiritual reality’. While tacit knowing challenged the absurdities of sheer objectivity, expressed in a ‘perfect language’, it fused rational knowing, based on personal experience, with mystical speculation about an un-experienced ‘external reality’. Faith alone saved Polanyi’s model from solipsism. But Ernst von Glasersfeld’s radical constructivism provides scope to rethink personal tacit knowing with regard to ‘other people’ and the intersubjectively viable construction of ‘experiential reality’. By separating tacit knowing from Polanyi’s metaphysical realism and drawing on Benedict Anderson’s concept of ‘imagined communities’, it is possible to conceptualise ‘imagined institutions’ as the tacit dimension of power that shapes human interaction. Whereas Douglass North claimed institutions could be reduced to rules, imagined institutions are known in ways we cannot tell.     

Broadway productions and the value of a Tony Award

This article investigates the effect of a Tony nomination or win on the demand facing a Broadway production using a panel of weekly revenues for Broadway productions from 1996 to 2007. Our results indicate that the effect of a nomination or win is positive in the week of the announcement and gradually increases in successive weeks, presumably due to publicity and word-of-mouth. Winners experience an increase in demand as late as 1 year later when awards are publicized for the following season. Moreover, nominees that do not win the award are penalized heavily in the weeks following the Award announcements. We find that winning a Tony Award increases a production’s revenues by 12% in the week immediately following the Awards.

Revealed word-of-mouth demand and adaptive supply: survival of motion pictures at the Australian box office

This study considers a frailty duration approach to modelling the life-length of a sample of 360 films that went into wide release at the Australian box office from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2005. The analysis extends previous research by considering a range of film-specific covariates relating to distribution, production, consumer signals, and weekly performance. In particular, it is shown that film success (defined in a duration context) responds to previewing, advertising, critical reviews, and US box office—but not to production budget, star power or opening-week screens. The study also reveals that it is appropriate to account for unobservable heterogeneity between films in the choice of empirical methodology.