School-based model for preventing teenage pregnancy

Social workers in the schools can take positive and immediate action to address teenage pregnancy through the use of interventive models that help teenagers avoid the risk of unwanted pregnancy. The present article describes and empirically supports 1 such school-based model. The author 1st delineates the major problems associated with teenage pregnancy and then relates the preventive model to prior research and details its implementation in school settings. A discussion of reslults from the model's field evaluation is followed with implications for school social workers. The model reported here is directed to all adolescents rather than focusing on a "high-risk" population. The risk of pregnancy is assumed to be a normal part of adolescent development. Grounded in an intterpersonal conceptualization of teenage pregnancy and in related empirical research, the school-based model helps young men and women acquire the requisite skills for preventing unwanted pregnancy. The program requires school social workers to meet with 12-18 teenage students of both sexes and to provide them with basic information on human sexuality, reproduction and contraception. These topics are covered by lectures, demostrations, discussion and audiovisual presentations. Through instruction, feedback and reinforcement, student learn how to talk about sensitive topics, stand up for their rights and be convincing and effective when carrying out decisions. Homework assignments are designed to develop the students'skills in interactions with dating partners, parents and friends. The clinical applicability and effectiveness of this prevention training model is documented through a study conducted in an urban high school. 36 informed and consenting sophomores of both sexes were randomly assigned either to an interventive group or to a non-treatment control group. Compared to the latter, the former had more accurate knowledge of human reproduction and contraception after the intervention. Buttressing these and other positive results, the students' enthusiastic feedback left little doubt that they enjoyed the group process and were interested in the training. Moreover, analyses of follow-up data on coital activity, the use of contraceptives, and family planning decisions revealed that the training had produced striking effects. Decision making tests, behavioral performance tests, follow-up questionnaires and videotaping of behavior during stressful interpersonal situations were among the evaluation techniques used.     

Failing our Children? The comprehension of younger viewers

Educationalists are failing to help children acquire the skills needed to understand television, despite its importance in our society and schools. The present study examines whether a successful course of television literacy could be developed to cover the entire school age range, based on a common approach. Results indicate that the course was successful at all levels, and suggest that further research might identify factors which influence television comprehension.     

Mathematics achievement,language and cognitive development: Classroom practices in Papua New Guinea

A case study was conducted of mathematics instruction at five sites in Papua New Guinea. Trial instructional materials were developed, teachers received inservice training and implementation was carefully monitored for a six-week period. English and mathematics achievement instruments and eight measures of cognitive development were administered to a sample of 201 students in grades two, four and six. Mathematics and language achievement varied significantly among the five sites. Students at all grade levels exhibited poor application of problem solving skills while showing computation, measurement and mathematical language abilities superior to results previously reported. English reading and measures of conservation and classification competence were highly correlated with mathematics achievement. Correlations between memory measures and mathematics achievement decreased from grade two to grade six while correlations between measures of language and cognitive development and mathematics achievement tended to increase. The results indicated that the non-consumable student textbooks ameliorated to some extent the problems associated with non-native language instruction for the students involved in the study. It was concluded that locally developed textbooks with an appropriate language load would enhance mathematics learning, particularly in remote-rural areas where current teaching conditions and lack of materials interact with poor English skills to create an imbalance in achievement.     

What really influences minority attendance? Sequential analyses of the high school and beyond sophomore cohort

While the factors that influence college minority student attendance have been the subject of recent study, there remain unresolved questions about how different factors influence college attendance decisions of applicants from historically disadvantaged backgrounds. In particular, there is ambiguity about whether blacks are more or less likely to attend than whites and what factors might improve their attendance rates. This study uses two sets of logistic regressions to identify the factors that can promote minority attendance: a set that examines attendance by all high school seniors in the high school class of 1982 and a set that examines attendance by college applicants in this class. Consistent with prior research on student access, three factors are identified that can potentially improve college attendance by minority students: (1) improved academic preparation in elementary and high school; (2) increased aspirations for higher levels of educational attainment; (3) increased levels of financial aid. Public interventions that would improve any of these factors for minority high school students are likely to improve minority participation rates.     

Effects of identical context on visual pattern recognition by pigeons

The effects of identical context on pattern recognition by pigeons for outline drawings of faces were investigated by training pigeons to identify (Experiment 1) and categorize (Experiment 2) these stimuli according to the orientation of the mouth—an upright U shape representing a smiling mouth or an inverted U shape representing a sad mouth. These target stimuli were presented alone (Pair 1), with three dots in a triangular orientation to represent a nose and eyes (Pair 2), and with the face pattern surrounded by an oval (Pair 3). In Experiment 1, the pigeons trained with Pair 1 were most accurate, those trained with Pair 2 were less so, and those trained with Pair 3 failed to acquire the discrimination within eighty 100-trial sessions. The same ordering was found in Experiment 2 for pigeons trained on the three pairs simultaneously. The authors suggest that a contrasting finding in humans, the face superiority effect, might be due to a gain in discriminability resulting from recognition of the pattern as a face. An exemplar model of information processing that excludes linguistic coding accounts for the present results.