Creating a common terminology for play behavior to increase cross-disciplinary research

Historically, play behavior has been difficult to define. This likely stems from the number of different species, types of play, and context under which it occurs. In 2016, the Chicago Zoological Society – Brookfield Zoo hosted the Psychonomic Society leading edge workshop on the evolutionary and psychological significance of play. Sixteen experts attended from the diverse fields of African ethnology, animal behavior, animal science, animal welfare, cognitive psychology, cognitive zoology, comparative psychology, cultural anthropology, developmental psychology, educational psychology, ethology, neuroscience, primatology, and zoology. Approximately half of the participants studied human play and the other half studied non-human play. Before the workshop, participants were asked to send in either their personal definition of play or the one that they cite in peer-reviewed literature. Definitions were then reviewed to determine characteristics of play inclusive of all disciplines. The goal of the current study was not to do a literature review on play behavior, but to come up with a list of characteristics across all forms of play that could be used as a common terminology moving forward. Hopefully the results of this workshop and the current article will help to increase cross-disciplinary research in the field of play.     

Likelihood-Based Confidence Intervals for a Parameter With an Upper or Lower Bound

The precision of estimates in many statistical models can be expressed by a confidence interval (CI). CIs based on standard errors (SEs) are common in practice, but likelihood-based CIs are worth consideration. In comparison to SEs, likelihood-based CIs are typically more difficult to estimate, but are more robust to model (re)parameterization. In latent variable models, some parameters might take on values outside of their interpretable range. Therefore, it is desirable to place a bound to keep the parameter interpretable. For likelihood-based CI, a correction is needed when a parameter is bounded. The correction is known (Wu & Neale, 2012), but is difficult to implement in practice. A novel automatic implementation that is simple for an applied researcher to use is introduced. A simulation study demonstrates the accuracy of the correction using a latent growth curve model and the method is illustrated with a multilevel confirmatory factor analysis.     

Developmental Attainment of Infants and Young Children with Down Syndrome

INFANTS and young children with Down syndrome who were living at home and attending exemplary early intervention programs were assessed by trained examiners in the five domains of the Battelle Developmental Inventory. Data was compared to the 50th percentile attainment and found that infants and young children with Down syndrome are more similar to other children in Personal Social and Adaptive Domains and less similar in Communication and Cognitive Domains. These differences begin to show more dramatically as the child reaches the age of 36 months. The older the child the greater the measured differences. Documenting and understanding this uneven developmental path is significant in program planning.     

Transforming the school workforce: perspectives on school reform in England

This paper describes the experience of change management observed as part of an evaluation of the Transforming School Workforce Pathfinder Project commissioned by the UK Government for the English education system. The 32 Pilot Schools made interventions in organisational practice in ways that required them to think differently about work. Changes in the number, type and deployment of the school workforce combined with thinking about the nature of work have challenged existing practices. In particular, a focus on change management teams drawn from the whole school workforce, supported by an external school workforce advisor, has required schools to examine the nature of decision-making and participation. We intend to draw on evidence from eight case study schools and through this examine the implications for how change is understood and practiced. We critically engage with the government’s preference for a particular model of change to bring about organisational improvement, and we reveal a pluralistic and dynamic field both within practice and theorising.

The Impact of Library Media Specialists on Students and How It Is Valued by Administrators and Teachers: Findings from the Latest Studies in Colorado and Idaho

School library media specialists wear many hats within their school libraries, classrooms, and districts. Whether these roles are formally acknowledged or not, library media specialists (LMSs) are functioning as co-teachers, curriculum designers, website managers, technology troubleshooters, administrators, and in-service staff development providers. In an era of decreased funding and increased budget-trimming, however, positions for qualified LMS librarians are especially vulnerable. This article presents the result of a multistate survey of administrators and teachers perceptions with regards to their impact on the school’s learning process.     

Using a Behavior Change Model to Document the Impact of Visits to Disney's Animal Kingdom: A Study Investigating Intended Conservation Action

Abstract Over the last 10 to 15 years, zoos and aquariums have set out to influence visitors' conservation‐related knowledge, attitudes, affect, and behavior. In 2000, the Institute for Learning Innovation collaborated with Disney's Animal Kingdom (DAK) on a comprehensive baseline study conducted to assess the outcomes of a DAK experience on visitors in four areas: knowledge, attitudes, affect, and behavior. This article describes one aspect of the comprehensive study: an investigation of the long‐term (two‐to‐three‐month) impact of a visit to Conservation Station at Disney's Animal Kingdom on visitors' intended conservation action. The study used a behavior change model from the health arena: the Prochaska Model of Behavioral Change. The model proved helpful but had some drawbacks, suggesting the need to develop a more sensitive change model. The implications of this study could assist institutions in thinking about what audiences or messages to emphasize in order to influence behavior.     

Infants make quantity discriminations for substances

Infants can track small groups of solid objects, and infants can respond when these quantities change. But earlier work is equivocal about whether infants can track continuous substances, such as piles of sand. Experiment 1 (N = 88) used a habituation paradigm to show infants can register changes in the size of piles of sand that they see poured from a container when there is a 1-to-4 ratio. Experiment 2 (N = 82) tested whether infants could discriminate a 1-to-2 ratio. The results demonstrate that females could discriminate the difference but males could not. These findings constitute the youngest evidence of successful quantity discriminations for a noncohesive substance and begin to characterize the nature of the representation for noncohesive entities.