Minority status,sex, and school psychological services

The sex and minority status of 355 students referred for psychological services from a random sample of schools in an urban school system were examined in relation to the frequency of referral, type of problem, and the nature of subsequent psychological services. A significantly higher percentage of both minority students and males were referred for psychological services; males were referred approximately twice as often as females. When referral problems were categorized as either academic or behavior problems, there were no differences between majority and minority students nor between males and females on percentage referred for each type of problem. Parent contacts were made significantly more often for majority students and for females, and recommendations to parents of majority students were more varied than those made to parents of minority students. Special Education resource services were recommended significantly more often for minority students. Possible reasons and implications of these findings are discussed.     

Making the Connection Between Formal Human Resource Diversity Practices and Organizational Effectiveness: Behind Management Fashion

ABSTRACT : Formal human resource diversity programs have experienced rapid growth; yet research on how these initiatives influence organizational effectiveness remains insufficient. This research explores formal diversity programs' influence on organizational effectiveness using universalistic and contingency frameworks. Our findings show that universally, diversity practices strongly and negatively relate to turnover. Organizations with innovative strategies coupled with formal diversity practices had improved productivity and market performance supporting contingency notions. Future research should employ both the universalistic and contingency theories in combination for a more in-depth understanding of construct relationships.     

Academic hardiness as a mediator for the relationship between school belonging and academic stress

Academic stress is a commonly reported affective state by high school students that can be accompanied by unwanted and unhelpful short- and long-term implications including a low sense of school belonging. Understanding how academic stress may be alleviated or managed by students is an essential consideration for all schools concerned with student well-being. This study aimed to examine the relationship between academic stress and sense of school belonging, as well as the mediation effect of academic hardiness. Four hundred and five high school students from six schools in Tehran (Iran) were recruited in the study. Data analyses with Structural Equation Modeling revealed that a sense of belonging to school (β = −.38, p < .01) and academic hardiness (β = −.40, p < .01) were significant predictors of academic stress. Bootstrapping analysis showed that academic hardiness acted as a mediator between a sense of belonging to school and academic stress. The findings elucidate the underlying mechanism in how low school belonging may lead to academic stress in high school students. Creating a culture of school belonging and teaching and supporting skills related to academic hardiness should be key considerations for all schools seeking to reduce academic stress experienced by their students.     

Relationships between children's birthdates and classification as handicapped: Do they exist?

For years researchers have debated the effect of school entrance age on student achievement and adjustment, and some researchers have attributed many school learning problems to students entering school too early. This study investigated the relationship between students' month of birth and learning disabilities, emotional disturbance, and speech and language delays in 1,951 identified students with these disabilities. Analysis did not find that the late-birthdate children were identified as having disabilities more often, as was suggested in earlier studies. The implications of this finding for school entry practices are presented.     

Validation of Stanford-Binet intelligence scale: Fourth edition abbreviated batteries with college students

This study investigated the relationship between the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale: Fourth Edition (SB:IV) abbreviated batteries and the complete battery among a group of college students to determine the suitability of SB:IV short forms in educational planning and counseling contexts when an ability estimate is needed. A sample of 38 college students was administered the full battery SB:1V, and scores for four abbreviated batteries were extracted from the complete battery according to instructions in the test manual. The four abbreviated batteries were SF2 (Vocabulary and Pattern Analysis), SF4 (SF2 plus Bead Memory and Quantitative), SF6a (SF4 plus Memory for Sentences and Comprehension), and SF6b (SF4 plus Memory for Digits and Comprehension). Analyses revealed that all short-form SASs were significantly lower than the Composite SAS derived from the complete battery. Correlations between the complete and short forms were all highly significant. Approximately one third of the sample showed discrepancies of at least three standard errors of measurement between the short-form and complete-battery Composite SAS. These findings suggest a lack of comparability between short-form and complete-battery SASs on the SB:IV. Further implications for the validity of these abbreviated batteries and future areas of research are discussed.     

Assessment of learning gains associated with independent exam analysis in introductory biology

This study evaluates the impact of an independent postmidterm question analysis exercise on the ability of students to answer subsequent exam questions on the same topics. It was conducted in three sections (～400 students/section) of introductory biology. Graded midterms were returned electronically, and each student was assigned a subset of questions answered incorrectly by more than 40% of the class to analyze as homework. The majority of questions were at Bloom's application/analysis level; this exercise therefore emphasized learning at these higher levels of cognition. Students in each section answered final exam questions matched by topic to all homework questions, providing a within-class control group for each question. The percentage of students who correctly answered the matched final exam question was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in the Topic Analysis versus Control Analysis group for seven of 19 questions. We identified two factors that influenced activity effectiveness: 1) similarity in topic emphasis of the midterm-final exam question pair and 2) quality of the completed analysis homework. Our data suggest that this easy-to-implement exercise will be useful in large-enrollment classes to help students develop self-regulated learning skills. Additional strategies to help introductory students gain a broader understanding of topic areas are discussed.