Linking family hardship to children's lives

The impact of drastic income loss on children is mediated by a number of family adaptations, including the shift toward more labor-intensive households and altered relationships. Using newly developed codes on parenting behavior during the Great Depression, this study investigates the role of parental behavior (rejecting, nonsupportive) in linking economic hardship to children's lives in the Oakland Growth Study. The results extend beyond those reported in Children of the Great Depression by showing that economic hardship adversely influenced the psychosocial well-being of girls, but not boys, by increasing the rejecting behavior of fathers. The parenting behavior of mothers did not vary significantly by income loss. In addition, the rejecting influence of hard-pressed fathers was more pronounced in relation to less attractive daughters, as judged by physical features. Attractive daughters were not likely to be maltreated by their fathers, no matter how severe the economic pressure. These outcomes on family mediation and conditional effects underscore the importance of viewing economic decline in relation to both the child's characteristics and parenting behavior. An understanding of the effects of economic decline in children's lives requires knowledge of parent and child behavior within the family and life course.     

SOCIAL AND PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF GIFTED STUDENTS

This study aimed at investigating the relationship between intellectual, social, personal and personality variables of academically gifted secondary school students. A total of 297 tenth grade boys and girls were identified on the basis of three main criteria: 1. Academic achievement with special emphasis on Arabic language, science and math scores; 2. Behavioural traits; 3. General mental ability and general adjustment. Data related to socioeconomic status and personal characteristics were also collected. Results of the analysis of variance showed that there were significant differences between gifted and nongifted groups in general mental ability, achievement, general adjustment, behavioural traits, personal and social variables, in favour of the former.     

Parents do matter: trajectories of change in externalizing and internalizing problems in early adolescence

This study examined the relative influence of three parenting behaviors (support, behavioral control, and psychological control) and deviant peers on trajectories of externalizing and internalizing problems in early adolescence. A white, working-to-middle-class sample of adolescents and their mothers and fathers in two-earner families participated in a 32-year longitudinal study (N = 109 families). The study began when the adolescents were in sixth grade (M age = 11.5 years). Analyses showed that parents' firm behavioral control seemed to halt the upward trajectory in externalizing problems among adolescents with deviant peers. Initial levels of internalizing problems were higher among adolescents with parents who reported lower levels of behavioral control and among adolescents with deviant peers. This study suggests that parenting exerts an important influence in adolescents' lives and may do so even in the face of potentially negative peer influence.     

Research note: Some corrections and suggestions for working with the national faculty survey databases

Our ability to understand the faculty work environment has been greatly enhanced by the availability of largescale national surveys of the professoriate since the 1950s. This technical note identifies ways to improve data comparability among the national faculty surveys. It begins by identifying the national surveys and some of their attributes. The study then estimates faculty sizes and calculates weights for faculty in selected disciplines and institution types. The weights are designed specifically for four surveys conducted in 1969, 1975, 1980, and 1988.     

The relation between nonclassroom contact with faculty and students' perceptions of instructional quality

This study assessed the relationship between the frequency of college students' informal nonclassroom contact with faculty for each of six purposes and their generalized perceptions of instructional quality. Two factorially derived components of instructional quality (based on a 14-item instrument) were used as the dependent variables in two regressions on the six types of contact. The frequency of contacts for discussing intellectual or course-related matters and for discussing a campus issue or problem made statistically significant and unique contributions in predicting students' perceptions of instructor concern and ability.An earler version of this paper was presented to the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, Boston, April 1980.     

Effects of signaled reward in instrumental conditioning: Enhanced learning on DRL and DRH schedules of reinforcement

The effects of signaled reward were examined using DRL and DRH schedules of reinforcement. In each case, one group of rats received a brief cue between the reinforced response and the reward, and a second group received brief cues at random times. With the DRL schedule (Experiment 1), signaled reward decreased response rate, increased response efficiency (number of responses per reinforcer), and increased resistence to satiation relative to the control group. With the DRH schedule (Experiment 2), signaled reward increased response rate, efficiency, and resistance to satiation. These results refute an overshadowing explanation of the effects of signaled reward and suggest that food-correlated cues enhance learning of the reinforcement contingencies.     

Measurement Invariance Testing with Many Groups: A Comparison of Five Approaches

With the increasing use of international survey data especially in cross-cultural and multinational studies, establishing measurement invariance (MI) across a large number of groups in a study is essential. Testing MI over many groups is methodologically challenging, however. We identified 5 methods for MI testing across many groups (multiple group confirmatory factor analysis, multilevel confirmatory factor analysis, multilevel factor mixture modeling, Bayesian approximate MI testing, and alignment optimization) and explicated the similarities and differences of these approaches in terms of their conceptual models and statistical procedures. A Monte Carlo study was conducted to investigate the efficacy of the 5 methods in detecting measurement noninvariance across many groups using various fit criteria. Generally, the 5 methods showed reasonable performance in identifying the level of invariance if an appropriate fit criterion was used (e.g., Bayesian information criteron with multilevel factor mixture modeling). Finally, general guidelines in selecting an appropriate method are provided.     

Conceptualising Gender Differences in Educational Research: the case of the Netherlands

This article analyses educational research on gender inequality carried out in the Netherlands between 1982 and 1991. It can be regarded as a case study on the conceptualisation of the problem of gender inequality in education. In the Netherlands two types of research can be identified: policy‐orientated research, which was largely concerned with primary and secondary education, and action research which developed from within and focused on adult education. In the beginning most researchers in both types of research were aware of the problems related to the concept of ‘disadvantage’. Later on, policy‐orientated research on gender and education has increasingly approached education primarily as a means of preparing for a promising position on the labour market. The concept of disadvantage, which at first appeared to have been superceded, has been frequently applied in the analysis of gender in education. Action research, however, focused on the learning processes of women considering feminine qualities to be positive and valuable. We discuss the criticism from women's studies of the research carried out. Finally, the central concepts of the Dutch research are related to the classifications used in England.