Age Differences in Understandings of Disease Causality: AIDS, Colds, and Cancer

The development of concepts of disease causality was explored by asking 9-, 11-, and 13-year-olds and college students about risk factors for AIDS, colds, and cancer. Their knowledge became more accurate and differentiated with age. Although younger children knew a good deal about what causes each of the diseases, they lacked knowledge of what does not cause them, often inferring that risk factors for one disease, especially AIDS, cause other diseases as well. Knowledge of true risk factors for a disease was largely independent of knowledge of non-risk factors, and knowledge of one disease was largely independent of knowledge of another. These findings provide clues as to how disease understandings evolve with age and suggest that health educators must both understand students' current knowledge structures and explicitly teach students to make important differentiations between risk and non-risk factors for a given disease and between distinct diseases.     

Patterns of generalisation after treating sub‐lexical spelling deficits in a child with mixed dysgraphia

This paper presents a treatment study with a developmental dysgraphic girl, KM, and addresses the mechanisms by which orthographic learning of spelling rules might occur. Before treatment, KM's spelling of words and nonwords was impaired. Analyses of spelling errors indicated poor knowledge of sound‐to‐letter correspondences. Treatment focused on two spelling rules and was successful: spelling improved for both regular words and nonwords. Untrained words that included the training rules also improved, but later than nonwords and trained words. This delayed generalisation was explained through feedback mechanisms between orthographic lexicon and graphemic buffer.     

Unpacking the career aspirations of Australian school students: towards an evidence base for university equity initiatives in schools

Demand for higher education in Australia has doubled since 1989, increasing the number of students from diverse social, economic and academic backgrounds. Equity targets have seen a proliferation of programs and interventions aimed at encouraging school students, particularly those from low socio-economic status backgrounds, to participate in higher education. However, little is known about the specific occupational interests of school students upon which targeted strategies might effectively be designed and implemented. This paper examines school students’ aspirations for specific careers that require a university education, in relation to student background and school-related variables. The analysis draws from a study of 6492 students from Years 3 to 12 in 64 New South Wales public schools. We found a complex array of factors relating to interest in different careers. Year level at school, gender and prior achievement were stronger predictors across many careers than factors such as SES, Indigenous status and school location. We argue that rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach to encouraging participation in higher education, outreach activities should be targeted to take account of student diversity and inequalities that foster differing aspirations.     

Mexican-American and Anglo-American Children's Responsiveness to a Theory-Centered AIDS Education Program

Third, fifth, and seventh graders, most of them Mexican-American, were exposed to an empirically based and culturally sensitive AIDS curriculum designed to replace their intuitive theories with a coherent, scientific account of the causal processes that lead from risk behavior to AIDS symptomatology. Compared to students in control classes, experimental students knew more about AIDS risk factors and AIDS generally, displayed more conceptual understanding of the causes of AIDS and flu, and were more willing to interact with people who have AIDS (although not less worried about AIDS) at posttest and typically at follow-up 10–11 months later. The findings point to the potential value of adopting an intuitive theories approach in assessing and modifying children's concepts of health and illness and suggest, contrary to Piagetian formulations, that even relatively young children can, with appropriate instruction, grasp scientific theories of disease.     

Mathematics Achievement of Children in China and the United States

First and fifth graders in Beijing and Chicago were given a battery of mathematics test. Whether tested with problems requiring solely computation or with ones requiring application of knowledge about mathematics, American children's performance was consistently inferior to that of Chinese children. Interviews with American children suggested that they like mathematics, believe they are doing well in mathematics, and do not perceive mathematics as a difficult subject. American children's poor performance appears to be attributable, in part, to low motivation for devoting more attention to mathematics. Low standards held by American parents for academic achievement and lower interest in teaching mathematics by American teachers appear to contribute to American children's poor performance.