Measuring stability and change in WISC-R IQS

Webster (1988) assessed WISC-R IQ stability in samples of adolescents identified as EMR and LD. It is argued here that Webster used an inappropriate standard error of measurement in his study. This resulted in magnified estimates of the number of individuals who obtained significantly discrepant IQs from one test admnistration to the next. Webster's analyses therefore exaggerated the degree of test-retest instability inherent in WISC-R IQs.     

Finding Common Ground

Teen Tokyo, a 3,000-square-foot, $1-million long-term exhibition at The Children's Museum, Boston, opened in 1992. It was developed to complement the museum's permanent Japanese House exhibition and to further its commitment to teaching about cultural differences and similarities. Designed primarily, but not exclusively, for youngsters aged 10 to 15 years, it is about growing up in contemporary Japan and the international culture of youth. An international team of developers, designers, and consultants spent five years preparing and funding the exhibition, using formative evaluation throughout. The project also included publication of a 50-page catalogue/curriculum unit.     

Meeting in the Middle: The Role of Mutual Biracial Friends in Cross-Race Friendships

Social network analysis was used to examine the role of having a mutual biracial friend on cross-race friendship nominations among monoracial sixth-grade students (M_age = 10.56 years) in two racially diverse middle schools (n = 385; n = 351). Monoracial youth were most likely to choose same-race peers as friends but more likely to choose biracial than different-race peers as friends, suggesting that racial homophily may operate in an incremental way to influence friendships. Monoracial different-race youth were also more likely to be friends if they had a mutual biracial friend. The findings shed light on the unique role that biracial youth play in diverse friendship networks. Implications for including biracial youth in studies of cross-race friendship are discussed.     

Exploring the relationship between hope and burnout in competitive sport

Abstract

Researchers have postulated that hope may be an important factor associated with burnout. Consistent with hope theory contentions, low-hope individuals may be susceptible to burnout because they are prone to experience goal blockage, frustration, and negative affect, all of which likely increase the risk of burnout. We examined the relationship between hope and athlete burnout among 178 competitive athletes (63 females and 115 males) aged 15–20 years. Hope was significantly and negatively correlated with all three burnout subscales: emotional/physical exhaustion, a reduced sense of accomplishment, and sport devaluation. Moreover, results of a multivariate analysis of variance showed that low-hope athletes scored significantly higher than medium- and high-hope athletes on all three burnout dimensions. Finally, results revealed that agency thinking was a significant predictor of all burnout dimensions. Frustration over unmet goals and a perceived lack of agency, a characteristic of low-hope athletes, might pose a risk factor in athlete burnout, whereas being able to maintain hope appears to be associated with health and well-being.     

Integrating expanded school mental health programs and school‐based health centers

This article provides background on national movements toward expanded school mental health (ESMH) programs and school‐based health centers (SBHCs), and presents advantages and challenges of joining these two systems of child and adolescent health care. Delivering ESMH through SBHCs promotes an interdisciplinary approach, health–mental health care integration, and benefits including enhancing referral bases, improving screening of problems, and enhanced confidentiality and privacy. But this integrated approach also presents challenges including managing referrals and significant needs, handling crises, building a focus on prevention and mental health promotion, handling administrative demands, and coping with limited resources. These challenges, ideas for overcoming them, and future directions for this promising service delivery approach are discussed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 297–308, 2003.     

Investigating the impact of prior knowledge and interest on aquarium visitor learning

Most free‐choice science learning institutions, in particular science centers, zoos, aquariums, and natural history museums, define themselves as educational institutions. However, to what extent, and for which visitors, do these free‐choice learning settings accomplish their educational mission? Answering this question has proven challenging, in large part because of the inherent variability of visitors to such settings. We hypothesize that the challenges of measuring free‐choice science learning might be diminished if it were possible to pool populations during analysis in ways that reduced this variability. Specifically, we propose grouping learners according to their entering understanding and attitudes, using qualitative categories such as minimal, moderate, and extensive. In this article, we use data collected at the National Aquarium in Baltimore to determine whether grouping makes it possible to discern more readily the nature of changes in aquarium visitors' conservation knowledge and attitudes. Although analysis revealed that there were significant changes in both conservation knowledge and attitudes, entry to exit, for all 100 visitors studied, a more detailed analysis revealed that gains were not evenly distributed across all visitors. The results support the hypothesis that the grouping of learners into minimal, moderate, and extensive conservation knowledge and attitude categories enabled a more fine‐grained and accurate understanding of changes in aquarium visitor's conservation learning. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 40: 163–176, 2003     

Forms of Knowledge in Art Education and the Corollary of Authenticity in the Teaching and Assessment of Such Forms of Knowledge

This article explores why art education after modernism needs to engage with and assess two forms of knowledge. It distinguishes procedural knowledge or ‘knowing how’ from declarative knowledge or ‘knowing that’, and argues that current classroom practice and more general thinking in art education in the UK confuses evidence of procedural knowledge with evidence for declarative knowledge. A corollary is that assessment evidence for ‘knowing how’, which is shown or demonstrated, is confused with assessment evidence for ‘knowing that’, which requires spoken or written forms of reporting. This conceptual confusion is currently embedded in the national, flagship examination known as the General Certificate of Secondary Education, taken by students at the age of 16, resulting in that examination requiring evidence of understanding the meaning of art in its socio‐historical context while at the same time denying the necessity of written or spoken work to reveal such knowledge. The article advocates a Wittgensteinian, socio‐cultural solution to the confusions of current practice.     

Doing the right thing: infants' selection of actions to imitate from observed event sequences

Two studies were conducted to investigate how 14- to 16-month-old infants select actions to imitate from the stream of events. In each study, an experimenter demonstrated two actions leading to an interesting effect. Aspects of the first action were manipulated and whether infants performed this action when given the objects was observed. In both studies, infants were more likely to imitate the first action when it was physically necessary to generate the effect, and in Study 2 they were also more likely to imitate the action when it was socially cued. It seems that infants' own knowledge of space and causality as well as their sensitivity to others' social signals both contribute to their tendency to imitate actions.