ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF STUDENTS IN FOSTER CARE: IMPEDED OR IMPROVED?

Foster care's impact on academic development was investigated for 392 students reentering foster care. Psychoeducational evaluation was performed at initial and return placements. Average achievement increased .22 points between placements. Students reentering care did not show differences in achievement or IQ compared to control students with a single placement. Although average achievement showed a small increase between placements, some students showed large changes. Declining achievement was directly related to above‐average initial achievement ( p < .001), and indirectly related to not being in special education ( p < .001) and nonminority race ( p < .02). Results provide evidence that overall academic development appears neither enhanced nor hindered by foster care placement, but specific groups may be at risk for poor gains. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 41: 527–535, 2004.     

The development of the abused child through adolescence and approaches to intensive treatment in a psychiatric hospital

Rejection, deprivation, physical pain, and an unpredictable environment are the primary determinants in the maladjustment of the abused child from infancy through adolescence.It is our conclusion that the majority of adolescents with character and personality disorders, particularly as manifested in the BORDERLINE SYNDROME, will have been subjected repeatedly and consistently to a parenting style incorporating these four determinants.The authors are involved in providing long term In-patient treatment to 40 severely emotionally disturbed adolescents. The vast majority of these youngsters are referred for uncontrollable acting out. Approximately ninety percent of these adolescents under treatment were abused and neglected as children.One of the forty adolescents under treatment will be considered. We believe her case history is typical of the abused child in adolescence.     

Problem-solving skills of high school chemistry students

What strategies do high school students use when solving chemistry problems? The purpose for conducting this study was to determine the general problem-solving skills that students use in solving problems involving moles, stoichiometry, the gas laws, and molarity. The strategies were examined for success in problem solving for 266 students of varying proportional reasoning ability, using interviews incorporating the think-aloud technique. Data were coded using a scheme based on Polya's heuristics. Results indicated that successful students and those with high proportional reasoning ability tended to use algorithmic reasoning strategies more frequently than nonsuccessful and low proportional reasoning students. However, the majority of all students solved the chemistry problems using only algorithmic methods, and did not understand the chemical concepts on which the problems were based.     

The effects of cognitive development and age on elementary students' science achievement for structured inductive and semi-deductive inquiry strategies

This study explored Morine and Morine's (Discovery: A challenge to teachers. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973) assumptions regarding age and cognitive development of learners successfully utilizing two types of inquiry, specifically structured inductive and semi-deductive. Two groups of elementary school students from grades one, three and five were individually assessed on six conservation tasks and a multiplicative classification task. The two groups were instructed on two different science topics utilizing different inquiry strategies. Achievement data from topic specific tests were analyzed by an ANOVA technique. The results indicated that age made a significant difference on achievement for both inquiry strategies. The significant contributions were due to the differences between grade one and grades three and five. The differences between grade three and grade five were not significant. The effect of cognitive development was more noticeable in the less structured semi-deductive strategy in which four conservation tasks and the multiplicative classification tasks were significant.     

God's Word, Religious Rules, and Their Relation to Christian and Jewish Children's Concepts of Morality

2 studies were conducted of children's concepts of moral and nonmoral religious rules. In Study 1, 64 Amish-Mennonite children (ages 10, 12, 14, 16) were asked to evaluate 4 moral and 7 nonmoral religious rules as to rule alterability, generalizability, and whether the status of the acts was contingent on the word of God. As a second aspect of Study 1, 64 Dutch Reform Calvinist children were asked to determine whether God's commands could make a harmful act morally right. Study 2 replicated the basic design of Study 1 with 64 Conservative and 32 Orthodox Jewish children. Findings were that subjects differentiated between moral and nonmoral religious issues. Moral rules and some nonmoral rules were seen as nonalterable by religious authorities. The status of moral (but not nonmoral) acts was generalized to members outside the religion and was not viewed as contingent on the existence of statements from God. Judgments regarding moral issues were justified in terms of justice and human welfare considerations; nonmoral issues were evaluated in terms of their normative status. Some denominational and age effects were found. Findings supported the proposition that social knowledge is constructed within conceptual systems that represent fundamental categories of social experience.     

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN THE COMPUTER AGE

The author has presented a rapid overview of the uses of the new information technologies in various aspects of library management and utilization in the United States of America. As early as the 1950's, as concerned librarians had come to realise that manual methods would no longer suffice to cope with the demands being made on libraries, they turned increasingly to automation. Libraries were innovators with regard to the development of large databases and the users of innovations with regard to the development of communications technologies. The latter, the new information and communications technologies (NICT's), are playing increasingly important roles with regard to the operation of libraries in the areas of acquisitions, cataloguing, circulation, reference, administration, inter‐library links including shared cataloguing, resource sharing, and inter‐library loan (now thought of as document delivery). The introduction of these same technologies has required that changes be made in the way librarians are trained, that older practising librarians have their training upgraded, and that library clients be trained in techniques of computer use and information retrieval. For the future, the uses made of the NICT's are bound to expand, leading to increased electronic publishing and distribution and to greater integration of indexes and catalogues. University libraries will increasingly become parts of campus‐wide communications and information networks.     

音乐改善鸡情绪

Clues to how some music can send chills down yourspine are being sought in the moods of chickens. Austrian and U.S.researchers have found that inyoung domestic chicks,the effects of music can be seenin behavioral changes.The experiment reveals:not so muchchicks’musical appreciadon,but hints(暗示,提示)at how the“language of emotions”might have evolved hand-in-handwith emotions.     

The ADHD spectrum and everyday life: experience sampling of adolescent moods, activities, smoking, and drinking

Using an experience sampling methodology, the everyday lives of 153 adolescents with low, middle, or high levels of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) characteristics as assessed by either parent or teen were examined. Twice each hour, across two 4-day recording intervals, participants in a longitudinal study of stress and health risks logged their behaviors, moods, and social contexts. Those with high, in contrast to low, ADHD symptom levels recorded more negative and fewer positive moods, lower alertness, more entertaining activities relative to achievement-oriented pursuits, more time with friends and less time with family, and more tobacco and alcohol use. Fewer associations emerged with parent-defined than with teen-defined subgroups, although the differences in alertness, peer and family contexts, entertainment versus achievement activities, and substance use were consistent across sources. Even at subclinical levels, ADHD characteristics were associated with behavioral patterns and contexts that may promote peer deviancy training, unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, and vulnerability to nicotine dependence.     

Multiple mentor model: A conceptual framework

Conclusion This article focused on developing a conceptual framework for the mentoring process. The model is based on the premise that mentoring is not a single event in the life of a worker but rather several events with different levels of mentoring. Each level of mentoring requires a different type of mentor with different types of skills and knowledge, similar to Len Nadler's HRD training model. Therefore, people may need special training to assume the different mentor levels (i.e., Training, Education, and Development Mentors), and workers may need to be trained to recognize that such experiences and people exist to help in their career progression. Counselors can be in the forefront as far as accepting and advocating the use of the Multiple Mentor Model for this training