Teens and Technology

Abstract

The article describes the study undertaken of how to help disadvantaged teenagers by the Johann Jacobs Foundation of Switzerland and the Russell Sage Foundation of New York. It presents its conclusions, and the follow up of these during the European NetDays Awareness Week in October 1997.     

Differentiating Reinforcement Priorities of Junior High School Students

Two hundred seventh grade Ss were administered a paired comparison scale for the purpose of predicting reinforcer effectiveness of fifteen stimuli. These stimuli were selected from three categories of reinforcement: 1.) verbal and social, 2.) tangible and manipulatable, and 3.) knowledge of progress. Results of the study indicated that the paired comparison scale of determining reinforcing preferences was moderately reliable. On the validation task, Ss performed equally well for the most and least preferred reinforcers. This finding suggests that a S, when selecting from several reinforcers, cannot choose the stimulus which would be most effective in increasing his performance.     

Statistical Techniques Employed in AERJ and JCP Articles from 1988 to 1997: A Methodological Review

The authors of the present methodological review investigated the patterns of statistical usage and reporting practices in 756 articles published in the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ) and in the Journal of Counseling Psychology (JCP) over a 10-year period. First, some findings from other similar reviews are summarized. Second, the authors present a framework for characterizing selected research practices that emphasizes, in part, elements of the recent report of the American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force on Statistical Inference (Wilkinson & APA Task Force on Statistical Inference, 1999). Third, characterizations of 10 years of analytic practices in 2 journals are presented and evaluated within that framework. The article concludes with a discussion of the changes that may be necessary to improve the statistical state of affairs in behavioral research.     

Environmental Numbness in the Classroom

Following research on deleterious effects of surroundings on the behavior of users of other institutions, a naturalistic study of classroom-student interaction was conducted. Instructor-experimenters observed and recorded the behavior of university students in a laboratory which had been slightly altered to maximize difficulty of movement in the room. The amount and frequency of student alteration of the inhospitable furnishings was compared with person-furnishing distances in a non-institutional, personalized setting. The results indicated a strong tendency for students to accept without alteration a rather uncomfortable classroom arrangement. A brief discussion of possible implications for student attitudes toward school follows, one of these being that a specific inhospitality may lead to a diffuse negative feeling and may affect communicative behavior.     

Implicit Association Tests of Attitudes Toward Persons With Disabilities

The authors assessed 3 of the currently available implicit association tests designed to measure attitudes toward persons with disabilities. The Revised Multiple Disability Implicit Association Test, the Implicit Association Test for Attitudes Toward Athletes With Disabilities, and the Disability Attitude Implicit Association Test were related to each other, demonstrating some consistency in measurement. They were mostly unrelated, however, to more traditional, explicit measures of attitudes toward persons with disabilities. In addition, although the implicit association tests were not related to socially desirable responding, the most psychometrically sound explicit measure (The Interaction With Disabled Persons Scale) was related to socially desirable responding.     

The Development of Productive Thinking Skills in Fifth-Grade Children

A controlled experiment was conducted in forty-four fifth-grade classrooms to investigate the extent to which creativity and problem-solving skills of children could be nurtured through a series of self-instructional programmed lessons. Also studied was the relationship of such skills to (1) learner characteristics (IQ and sex) and (2) classroom “environment” as it may have facilitated creative thinking. Significant differences were found favoring the experimental group (which received the programmed lessons). Improvement in productive thinking skills was found for both boys and girls of both higher and lower IQ. Greater gains were found in classrooms providing relatively little support and encouragement for productive thinking. Also the performance of girls on the productive thinking measures exceeded that of boys and there was a strong positive relationship to IQ.     

Nonresponse in Survey Research as a Function of Psychological Characteristics and Time of Response

The increasing use of simulation and other role playing activities as teaching devices prompted this study. It was designed to evaluate changes in cognitive learning and attitudes that could be attributed to participation in a simulation unit. Two junior college political science classes (N = 67) were used for the study. Treatment was randomly assigned. The simulation group participated in a 4-hour unit; the control group received instruction in a “lecture-question-answer” manner.

There was no statistically significant difference in cognitive learning between students in the simulation group and students taught by the “lecture-question-answer” method. Within the limitations of the study design, the analyses showed that simulation produced desirable attitudes and resulted in polarization of feelings toward government.