Internet Learning in the United States: Where It is and Where It is Going

The author briefly describes the activity of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in support of asynchronous learning networks (ALNs) in universities, an activity that goes back to 1992. These networks can provide the essentials of the traditional learning experience electronically, delivering the same ultimate result at roughly the same cost as traditional classroom delivery. However, asynchronous learning networks can assemble a diversity of students and teaching staffs and offer a flexibility of delivery and of outreach that permit a vast extension of educational possibilities.     

College courses and changes in dogmatism

To observe the impact of an experimental human relations course and to compare changes occurring in students in this course with changes in students having other University experiences, most University of Minnesota entering freshmen were asked to complete the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale before the beginning of the school year in 1970, and selected groups were retested at the end of the first quarter. Mean dogmatism scores for all groups, including the experimental group, declined. In terms of dogmatism, the results did not suggest that the experimental course had a unique effect on students. Students selecting varying college experiences differed extensively at both times of testing and retesting.The author expresses his appreciation to James Rounds, who assumed much responsibility for the collection and analysis of the data.     

Safe Schools/Healthy Students initiative: Pinellas County,Florida

The Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) Initiative in Pinellas County, FL, emerged as a part of a broader local effort to implement creative educational and mental health programs to support children and families. This initiative focused on capacity building, prevention, and intervention efforts and comprehensive evaluation to address the barriers to learning and enhance healthy development. This article describes Pinellas County's plan, and highlights the instrumental roles played by school psychologists, which included grant writing, program and resource coordination, clinical services, program evaluation, staff training, parent advocacy, and steering committee membership. Promising outcomes and generalization of these findings to other communities is also discussed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 489–501, 2003.     

Reliability and sources of control of preference for signaled shock

Five experiments investigated the reliability of, and a possible explanation for, the preference for signaled shock (PSS) phenomenon, in which animals show a preference for signaled over unsignaled, unmodifiable shock. Experiment 1 demonstrated the generality of our previous PSS shuttlebox data. In an attempt to explain some of the studies in which a failure to obtain a PSS has been reported, Experiments 2 and 3 found that under certain conditions the PSS effect could be overridden by an innate preference for dark; however, the series of experiments in toto speaks clearly for the robustness of the phenomenon. Consistent with the recently proposed “crossover consequence hypothesis,” Experiments also revealed that shuttling behavior during manifestations of PSS is not randomly distributed in time. However, Experiments 4 and 5 found that PSS could not generally be attributed to an interaction between the acquired aversiveness of the signal and the spatially asymmetrical probability of shuttling being punished, as proposed by this hypothesis.