Interface Design and Research Process for Studying the Usability of Interactive Home-Entertainment Systems by Young Children

This study evaluated young children's understanding of and ability to use an input device of the type associated with home-entertainment systems (like videogame players, DVD's, and other interactive systems that connect to a television set). These systems have the potential to serve as a powerful platform for delivering interactive educational programming to young children. However, the input controllers for these systems have proven extremely difficult for young children to use, as they typically require use of very small buttons that are close together, and arrow-based keys or joystick-like devices. To examine the potential for enabling young children to use such hardware devices, three adapted software interfaces were implemented. Eighty-four children, ranging in age from 36 to 59 months and from lower to lower-middle socio-economic status, participated in this study, using one of the three software interfaces to make simple on-screen choices. The results demonstrate that it is possible to enable preschool children to use home-entertainment system control devices, by implementing adapted software interfaces which limit the kinds of inputs and choices that are required. In addition, this study describes and documents a process for conducting usability research with young children using home-entertainment interactive media systems.     

Peer Assessments and Psychological Status of School Children

In this study an investigation was carried out to assess the appropriateness of children's peer evaluations in the prediction of psychological vulnerability. A sample of 265 Year 6 primary school children were the subjects. The General Health Questionnaire, the Test of Early Socio‐Emotional Development and the Pupil Evaluation Inventory were the scales used. Analysis indicates that peer ratings of aggression and withdrawal are strongly correlated with measures of psychological vulnerability. However, the teachers’ ratings were more perceptive than the peer evaluations when assessing withdrawn behaviour. The results are discussed in terms of the usefulness of peer evaluations in assessing social and emotional adjustment in children.     

Latent inhibition as a performance deficit resulting from CS—context associations

Treatments that attenuate latent inhibition (LI) were examined using conditioned suppression in rats. In Experiment 1, retarded conditioned responding was produced by nonreinforced exposure to the CS prior to the CS-US pairings used to assess retardation (i.e., conventional LI). In Experiment la, retarded conditioned responding was induced by preexposure to pairings of the CS and a weak US prior to retardation-test pairings of the CS with a strong US (i.e., Hall-Pearce [1979] LI). Both types of LI were attenuated by extensive exposure to the training context (i.e., context extinction) following the CS-US pairings of the retardation test. Experiment 2 examined the specificity of the attenuated LI effect observed in Experiment 1. After preexposure to two different CSs in two different contexts, each CS was paired with a US in its respective preexposure context. One of the two contexts was then extinguished. This attenuated LI to a greater degree for the CS that had been trained in the extinguished context. Experiment 3 differentiated the roles in LI of CS-context associations and context-US associations. Following preexposure to the CS in the training context, LI was reduced by further exposure to the CS outside the training context. This observation was interpreted as implicating the CS-context association as a factor in LI. Thus, the results of these experiments suggest that LI is a performance deficit mediated by unusually strong CS-context associations. Implications for Wagner’s (1981) SOP model and Miller and Matzel’s (1988) comparator hypothesis are discussed.     

Correlates of spelling abilities in children with early speech sound disorders

The correlates of spelling impairment wereexamined in children with histories of earlyspeech sound disorders. The spelling errors of52 children with histories of speech sounddisorders were analyzed to predict theassociation between weaknesses in expressivelanguage skills in early childhood andschool-age spelling abilities. Resultsrevealed that children with preschool speechsound and language problems became poorerspellers at school age than did children withpreschool speech sound disorders only. However, even children with isolated speechsound disorders demonstrated a weakness inspelling skills relative to their reading andlanguage abilities and Weschler Performance IQ.Measures of phonological awareness were highlycorrelated with spelling skills, suggestingthat phonological processing abilities arerelated to the ability to spell phoneticallypredictable words. Analysis of spelling errorsbased on level of phonological awareness skillrevealed that children with preschool speechsound disorders utilize phonetic strategies inspelling phonetically predictable words. Familial aggregation of spelling disorderssuggests a possible genetic component that ismodified by gender.     

Lack of consistent individual differences in rats on tasks that require response inhibition

Hungry rats performed four different tasks which all required responding to be withheld for food reinforcement to be obtained. The tasks were the following: an omission schedule, a go/no-go procedure, a differential reinforcement of low rate schedule, and a choice task in which the subject could respond for a small immediate reward or a large delayed reward. Each rat experienced each task twice. For each task, the rank ordering of the subjects’ performance on the test and retest was highly consistent, indicating the reliability of the task for measuring a particular “ability.” However, there were no consistencies in the performance of individual rats between tasks. This suggests that claims regarding consistent individual differences in brain-lesioned nonhumans across a range of such tasks are not supported in intact subjects.     

Jumping Into the Deep End: Developing Culturally Responsive Urban Teachers Through Community-Immersive Partnerships

Abstract

Preparing special educators for the highest-need schools remains an ongoing challenge in urban districts across the United States. One university’s collaborative community-based immersive partnership model, with emphasis on service learning, has demonstrated promising levels of impact on candidates’ preparation as preservice teachers learning how to celebrate the rich cultural histories of the communities where they are immersed. Both quantitative and qualitative results on the impact of one specific example of this work are provided.     

Making a Change: The Effects of the Leadership Role on School Climate

School is a very important element of society. Students and teachers learn many lessons, academic and otherwise, that influence their personal well-being and academic success. Often, however, school does not provide the positive learning or working environment that is most beneficial for our students and teachers. As a first year principal, Pepper realized that a more positive school climate was the key to confronting many of the challenges in the school where she worked. Through an autoethnographical approach supported by her personal journals, Pepper's experiences are described as she witnessed the negative effects that an authoritarian leadership style had on school climate and, subsequently, the morale and success of students and teachers within the school setting. As she made the change to a transformational leader, she came to realize that this leadership style had a more positive effect on the learning and working environment. Her change in leadership style and guidance, with input from teachers, staff, students, parents, and community members, resulted in the school becoming a more positive, caring place to learn and work for everyone involved. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Friendships and Social Networks in Childhood and Adolescence: Fluidity, Reliability, and Interrelations

Social networks and friendships were tracked over a 3-week period for 132 students enrolled in fourth- and seventh-grade classrooms. Individual interviews were employed to collect data on friendships. Social group membership was determined by the composite social-cognitive map (SCM) procedure and by self-reports. Considerable overlap was found among the methods for establishing relational patterns (i.e., friendships, self-reported groups, composite social-cognitive maps). When loose criteria for stability were employed, high stability was found in friendships ( p = .56–.75) and social group membership ( p = .90) over a 3-week period. But when stringent criteria were employed, only modest social relationship stability was observed in both methods, suggesting that there is much greater fluidity in peer bonds than has been generally recognized. The relationship between friendship and social network measures, the distinctive information yielded by social networks, and gender and age differences in group structure, fluidity, and friendships are discussed.     

An examination of what metaphor construction reveals about the evolution of preservice teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning

Examination of prospective teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning on entry to teacher education programs, and tracking the development of these beliefs in light of academic and field-based experiences, is a critical task for teacher educators. The study examines metaphor construction as a tool to gain access to, and promote the development of, prospective teachers’ beliefs through the incorporation of reflective activities that integrate academic and field-based experiences. Specifically, this research examines how metaphorical representations of preservice elementary teachers’ in the United States and Europe changed and examines the factors influencing the development of beliefs and the modification of metaphors.