Social Acceptance of Children with Intellectual Disabilities in an Integrated School Setting in Zambia: a pilot study

The social acceptance of a group of Zambian primary school children with intellectual disabilities by two groups of nondisabled children was examined. One group were in direct contact with the children with disabilities over a period of six months while the other was not. Nondisabled boys who had been in contact with children with disabilities had more positive attitudes than boys who had no direct contact, while no exposure effects were observed amongst girls. Gender differences amongst nondisabled children who had contact with peers with disabilities were not significant. Amongst the nondisabled children who had no contact with children with disabilities, girls had more positive attitudes than boys. The findings are preliminary, but offer directions for further research and have some implications for integrating children with disabilities into mainstream schools.     

Teaching Plan‐Do‐Study‐Act (PDSA) in a Supply Chain Context: A Paper Football In‐Class Activity

We develop a single‐class period learning game for the Plan‐Do‐Study‐Act (PDSA) improvement cycle. The experiential activity walks teams through the PDSA problem‐solving process as they create paper American footballs and improve their performance using each step of the cycle. The game is one of the first to focus on PDSA. Key benefits include increased student attention, engagement, and learning. Empirical tests show that participant pre‐ and post‐test scores regarding their understanding of each phase of PDSA improved 21.2% after completing the game. Additionally, the treatment group performed 16.6% higher than the control group. In participant perception questions, 85% of participants felt the game was more effective than lecture or reading, 93% felt the game was fun, 95% felt the game improved their understanding of PDSA, and 98% felt the game was engaging.     

Alternative conceptions in animal classification: A cross-age study

Employing a cross-age design, this study examined students' alternative conceptions in animal classification at the elementary, secondary, and college levels. Based on a previous study that made use of clinical interviews and a classification task, subjects (N = 468) were administered a multiple-choice/free-response instrument that probed understanding of the concept animal, the vertebrate/invertebrate distinction, and the principal vertebrate classes. Results suggest that students subscribe to a highly restricted view of animals; applying the label almost exclusively to vertebrates, especially to common mammals. When asked to distinguish between vertebrate and invertebrate animals and to classify several species into vertebrate groups, a wide range of alternative conceptions emerged. Cross-age comparisons indicate that many of these alternative views remain intact throughout the school years, while others yield more readily to formal instruction and/or nonschool experiences. Considered within the context of a neoconstructivist view of learning, several suggestions are offered for teaching concepts in animal classification.     

An evaluation of secondary school studies as predictors of performance for accounting majors

This study examines the impact that secondary school studies have on university accounting courses. Multiple regression analysis has been used to determine the significance of various academic factors. Secondary school accounting and mathematics were found to have far greater effectiveness in predicting results in the initial university accounting course than did other variables, but this benefit diminished in the second year and vanished in the third year of the accounting programme.     

Individual Differences in Infant Visual Attention: Recognition of Degraded Visual Forms by Four-Month-Olds

In 5 experiments, 4-month-old infants were tested for their ability to recognize degraded visual targets as a function of individual differences in fixation duration. Targets were degraded by removing 10% of the total contour either from vertices (vertex-absent) or from midsegments (vertex-present). Both qualitative and quantitative differences were found in long and short lookers' ability to recognize the degraded forms. Short-looking infants were able to recognize degraded forms in both vertex-absent and vertex-present conditions, but the vertex-absent discrimination was more difficult. Long-looking infants required longer familiarization times before showing evidence of recognition in the vertex-present condition, and were unable to recognize targets in which contour was removed at vertices. The findings are discussed within the framework of the persistence of early visual processing strategies, and reliance of long-looking infants on particular local elements in visual analysis.     

Genetic and environmental components of adolescent adjustment and parental behavior: a multivariate analysis

Adolescent adjustment measures may be related to each other and to the social environment in various ways. Are these relationships similar in genetic and environmental sources of covariation, or different? A multivariate behavior-genetic analysis was made of 6 adjustment and 3 treatment composites from the study Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development, using 674 same-sex adolescent sibling pairs aged 9-11. Cholesky decompositions of the total covariance matrix yielded additive and nonadditive genetic, and shared and nonshared environmental matrices. Factor analyses led to 3 factors for all but shared environment. The first 2 factors resembled Neuroticism and Extraversion factors typically found for personality; the third factor, parental monitoring and control, appeared to have different associations in different matrices.     

The Thinking Curriculum

Over the past 20 years there has been growing interest in the idea of teaching thinking. This paper reviews the development of the idea worldwide, the supporting arguments and scepticism, the underlying constructivist psychological theories and the variety of methods and programmes used. A main distinction in approach is between those who advocate specific programmes, often based on skills analysis, and those who favour the infusion of thinking throughout the conventional subjects of the school or college curriculum. The balance of opinion supports the ‘thinking curriculum'; but this raises issues of domain‐specific knowledge and transfer. Recent work recognises the importance of social and affective, as well as cognitive, aspects in teaching thinking.