Stability of Intelligence from Preschool to Adolescence: The Influence of Social and Family Risk Factors

Intelligence scores of children in a longitudinal study were assessed at 4 and 13 years and related to social and family risk factors. A multiple environmental risk score was calculated for each child by counting the number of high-risk conditions from 10 risk factors: mother's behavior, mother's developmental beliefs, mother's anxiety, mother's mental health, mother's educational attainment, family social support, family size, major stressful life events, occupation of head of household, and disadvantaged minority status. Multiple risk scores explained one-third to one-half of IQ variance at 4 and 13 years. The stability between 4- and 13-year environmental risk scores ( r = .77) was not less than the stability between 4- and 13-year IQ scores ( r = .72). Effects remained after SES and race, or maternal IQ, were partialled; multiple risk was important in longitudinal prediction, even after prior measurement of child IQ was accounted for; the pattern of risk was less important than the total amount of risk present in the child's context.     

Keeping excitement in teaching

It is imperative for those of us who teach to find ways to stay renewed and refreshed over the long term. There are at least five ways through which most of us can find new energy and excitement in our teaching. One is to focus more genuinely on our students and learn more about them as persons and as colleagues- and to listen more carefully to what they say. Another is to inform them of the important objectives of a course and allow students to assume more of the responsibility for learning. A third tip is to use a greater variety of teaching methods, particularly ones that get students more actively involved in learning. Two additional ways to add excitement to teaching are to teach new courses and to plan periodic activities away from teaching. As John Gardner has recently stated so eloquently, it is our faith in human possibilities that is the generative element in such activities as leading, teaching, and guiding students.His office offers a wide range of instructional and professional services for faculty and academic administrators in the University's thirteen schools and colleges.     

Conditioning of the nictitating membrane response of the rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) as a function of length and degree of variation of intertrial interval

The study involved three experiments. The first, a parametric investigation of nictitating membrane conditioning with eight constant intertrial intervals (ITIs) between 5 and 120 sec, orthogonal to interstimulus intervals (ISIs) of 250 and 750 msec plus three temporal conditioning control groups, revealed that performance improved rapidly with increasing ITI but stabilized at relatively low ITI values. At 750-msec ISI, a decrement in performance was found at 60-sec ITI. Experiment II, using constant ITIs of 45–75 sec in 5-sec steps, at 750-msec ISI confirmed the trend toward a performance decrement around 60 sec, although the trend was weak and highly variable. Experiment III evaluated the differences in performance between constant and variable ITI, using three ITI values and three conditions of variation at each value. Findings were discussed in terms of differences in conditioning resulting from both length and degree of variation of ITI and some subtle effects which may emerge only when constant ITIs are used.     

Relationship of changes in student motivation to student evaluations of instruction

Research has demonstrated that student evaluations of instruction are influenced by variables extraneous to the instructional procedures being evaluated. One of the most important of these is the student's motivation to take the course. The Instructional Development and Effectiveness Assessment (IDEA) system controls this variable by comparing a course evaluation to a norm group of courses having students with similar motivation. The present study examined the possibility that the IDEA procedure of having students rate their precourse motivation at theend of a course might be unacceptable, because the rating would be influenced by experiences within the course itself. The data indicated that postcourse ratings of precourse motivation do deviate somewhat from actual precourse ratings, but the deviation is not of an order of magnitude which would seriously distort the interpretation of the ratings.     

Sex and Social Class Inequalities in Education: a re‐examination

Fifteen years ago attention was drawn to the neglect of sex differences in the sociology of education, and to ways in which social class differences in attainment could not ignore these sex differences. The original propositions concerning these differences are re‐examined and expanded in a neo‐Weberian analysis of the work‐marriage, class‐status, education complex, and considered in relation to the available empirical evidence. The alternative feminist‐Marxist approaches are found to be incompatible with the evidence of sex and social class differences in non‐capitalist societies.     

Organisational Change in Secondary Schools: an action approach

A longitudinal study of a sample of secondary schools has shown that over a period of ten years there have been changes in grouping practices, an expansion of examination opportunities, and a tightening of the control of school work. The prefectorial system has a reduced importance and has been deritualised, as has the school assembly. There is less sex differentiation of pupils’ school work and behaviour. These changes are explained using an action approach derived principally from Weber, concerned with the social construction of school organisation, whch is briefly compared to other possible explanations.