A Feedback Procedure for Teacher Trainees Working with Parent Tutors of Reading

Abstract In this pilot study, four third‐year teacher trainees were trained to give feedback to parents who were tutoring their own children in reading using the Pause Prompt and Praise procedures. The trainees learnt to teach the procedures to the parents and then to give feedback by prompting parents to remember and explain their own tutoring behaviours. Baseline measures showed that when trainees were asked to help parents in any way they could to implement the procedures, they used very intrusive forms of prompts. Following training trainees used much less intrusive forms of prompts, giving parents more opportunity to remember and explain their own tutoring behaviours. It was argued that less intrusive forms of prompting when giving feedback may have been of more assistance to parents in learning the procedures than more intrusive forms of prompting, since parents may have learned to become more independent of trainee support. This, in turn, may have contributed to the substantial gains in children's reading levels which occurred.     

Language proficiency and lateral position in the classroom

This paper not only makes a contribution to the mosaic of scientific knowledge of the brain and nervous system, but suggests implications of practical value. Observant, experienced teachers know empirically that some youngsters learn best, and perhaps only, when seated front-center, right before the teacher’s desk. Such children need to have the eye contact, or to be in quick arm’s reach, or to have distractions screened out. Drs. Bakker and Van Rijnsoever give evidence here that, for many children, taking in and remembering the message is dependent on their physical placement to catch most effectively the stream of sound. This is important to consider in the popular open classroom. Although many children can adapt readily to less-than-perfect physical learning conditions, for some we must “re-invent the wall,” not to climb, but to provide a place to call “home.” The theoretical re-inforcement presented in this paper proves that such boundaries can also provide source and direction for sound as part of some children’s currently needed sensory security and enhance the efficiency of their auditory intake. Editor     

The Louisville Twin Study: developmental synchronies in behavior

The Louisville Twin Study includes nearly 500 pairs of twins and their siblings who have participated in a longitudinal study of mental development, beginning in infancy and extending to adolescence. The results show that individual differences beginning in infancy and extending to adolescence. The results show that individual differences in intelligence progressively stabilized by school age, and each child followed a distinctive pattern of spurts and lags in mental development. Monozygotic twins became increasingly concordant over ages and matched each other closely for developmental trends. By contrast, dizygotic twins regressed to an intermediate level of concordance, comparable with that found for siblings and parent-offspring sets. A comprehensive home assessment was performed to identify the home/family variables that contributed to mental development. The overall results pointed to a strong developmental thrust in the growth of intelligence, which was principally guided by an intrinsic genetic ground plan. Qualitative features of home and family did, however, add significantly to prediction of offspring IQ. The results are interpreted in the context of Waddington's developmental model, and some recent advances in neurobiology and genetics are surveyed for their implications for developmental behavior genetics.     

Attachment,Communication, and Relationship Functioning Among College Student Veterans and Nonveterans

This study examined attachment processes of college student veterans and nonveterans and further examined how veteran status and attachment style directly and indirectly predict relationship functioning. Results indicated that student veterans were more often dismissing in their attachment style but less often preoccupied than nonveteran students. Veteran status moderated the association between attachment style and dyadic consensus. The contributions of attachment and communication processes to overall relationship adjustment differed for student veterans and nonveterans.     

Concurrent and predictive validity of the LET-II for average children

Memory tests, such as the Learning Efficiency Test-II (LET-II), have frequently been used to describe the memory characteristics of special populations such as persons with learning disabilities, brain damage, or Alzheimer's disease. Yet, few research studies have examined the memory characteristics of normally functioning children and compared these characteristics to their performance on ability tests or real-life achievement criteria. This study investigates the predictive and concurrent validities of the LET-II for performance on the Kuhlmann-Anderson Tests (K-A), class grades, and actual grade level functioning in reading and mathematics for third and fourth grade children of average intelligence. The LET-II memory factor scores correlated significantly with the K-A scores, class grades and actual grade level functioning in reading. The relevance of these findings for norm-referenced psychological tests, and in particular memory tests, in real-life settings is examined. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Supporting Human Performance Across Disciplines: A Converging of Roles and Tools

Performance support is close to the center of a host of related fields and specialties, including human performance technology, electronic performance support systems, technical communications, and instructional design. Because of their common interest in performance support, and common external influences such as cognitive psychology and digital technologies, roles and tools within these fields are beginning to converge, resulting in unprecedented overlap. In times of rapid change, related fields have an opportunity to learn from one another, borrowing useful elements and incorporating them into their own practices. The purpose of this paper is to explore the similarities, differences, and emerging trends among some of these fields and to gain insights into how their evolution affects performance support. Across these fields, we find a continuing tension between designed messages and tools allowing users more flexibility and control. The best performance-support systems include both of these components as well as a strong human support component. We also observe a trend toward greater reliance on users and user communities in defining and controlling support systems.     

Factorial Invariance of the Abbreviated Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale among Senior Women in the Nurses’ Health Study Cohort

The purpose of this study was to examine the factorial invariance of the Abbreviated Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS-A) across subgroups based on demographic, health-related, behavioral, and environmental characteristics among Nurses’ Health Study participants (N = 2,919; age M = 73.0, SD = 6.9 years) living in California, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. A series of multigroup confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to evaluate increasingly restrictive hypotheses of factorial invariance. Factorial invariance was supported across age, walking limitations, and neighborhood walking. Only partial scalar invariance was supported across state residence and neighborhood population density. This evidence provides support for using the NEWS-A with older women of different ages, who have different degrees of walking limitations, and who engage in different amounts of neighborhood walking. Partial scalar invariance suggests that researchers should be cautious when using the NEWS-A to compare older adults living in different states and neighborhoods with different levels of population density.     

The effectiveness of a 17-week lifestyle intervention on health behaviors among airline pilots during COVID-19

PurposeThe aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a 17-week, 3-component lifestyle intervention for enhancing health behaviors during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.MethodsA parallel-group (intervention and control) study was conducted amongst 79 airline pilots over a 17-week period during the COVID-19 pandemic. The intervention group (n = 38) received a personalized sleep, dietary, and physical activity (PA) program. The control group (n = 41) received no intervention. Outcome measures for sleep, fruit and vegetable intake, PA, and subjective health were measured though an online survey before and after the 17-week period. The changes in outcome measures were used to determine the efficacy of the intervention.ResultsSignificant main effects for time × group were found for International Physical Activity Questionnaire-walk (p = 0.02) and for all other outcome measures (p < 0.01). The intervention group significantly improved in sleep duration (p < 0.01; d = 1.35), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score (p < 0.01; d = 1.14), moderate-to-vigorous PA (p < 0.01; d = 1.44), fruit and vegetable intake (p < 0.01; d = 2.09), Short Form 12v2 physical score (p < 0.01; d = 1.52), and Short Form 12v2 mental score (p < 0.01; d = 2.09). The control group showed significant negative change for sleep duration, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score, and Short Form 12v2 mental score (p < 0.01).ConclusionResults provide preliminary evidence that a 3-component healthy sleep, eating, and PA intervention elicit improvements in health behaviors and perceived subjective health in pilots and may improve quality of life during an unprecedented global pandemic.