The Effect of Goal-Line Presentation and Goal Selection on First-Grader Subtraction Fluency

Math proficiency is related to math calculation fluency. Explicit timing provides repeated practice for math fluency. It is enhanced through goal setting, graphic feedback, and rewards. Self-selected goals have potential to increase performance for math fluency. This study compared the effect of goal lines, and researcher goals versus self-selected goals. The authors compared three groups: (a) researcher-selected goals only, (b) researcher-selected goals with goal lines, and (c) self-selected goals with goal lines. First-grade students completed subtraction probes and colored in a bar graph with their performance. When participants met or exceeded their goals, participants received rewards twice per week. Results indicated that the researcher-selected goals with goal lines procedures with explicit timing had the greatest effect on subtraction fluency for first-grade students. The researcher-selected goals with goal lines and self-selected goals with goal lines groups outperformed the researcher-selected goals-only group.     

Generalizing the dynamic field theory of the A-not-B error beyond infancy: three-year-olds' delay- and experience-dependent location memory biases

Thelen and colleagues recently proposed a dynamic field theory (DFT) to capture the general processes that give rise to infants' performance in the Piagetian A-not-B task. According to this theory, the same general processes should operate in noncanonical A-not-B-type tasks with children older than 12 months. Three predictions of the DFT were tested by examining 3-year-olds' location memory errors in a task with a homogeneous task space. Children pointed to remembered locations after delays of 0 s to 10 s. The spatial layout of the possible targets and the frequency with which children moved to each target was varied. As predicted by the DFT, children's responses showed a continuous spatial drift during delays toward a longer term memory of previously moved-to locations. Furthermore, these delay-dependent effects were reduced when children moved to an "A" location on successive trials, and were magnified on the first trial to a nearby "B" location. Thus, the DFT generalized to capture the performance of 3-year-old children in a new task. In contrast to predictions of the DFT, however, 3-year-olds' responses were also biased toward the midline of the task space-an effect predicted by the category adjustment (CA) model. These data suggest that young children's spatial memory responses are affected by delay- and experience-dependent processes as well as the geometric structure of the task space. Consequently, two current models of spatial memory-the DFT and the CA model-provide incomplete accounts of children's location memory abilities.     

On Becoming Allies: A Qualitative Study of Lesbian‐, Gay‐, and Bisexual‐Affirmative Counselor Training

The authors present a qualitative analysis of a process by which a research team of counselors‐in‐training confronted their heterosexist biases while investigating heterosexual attitudes toward sexual minorities. Members of the research team discovered that it was essential to reflect on and evaluate their attitudes, assumptions, and biases before they could conduct scientific research about affirmative attitudes toward lesbian, gay male, and bisexual male and female individuals. Self‐reflective narratives written by each research team member were analyzed using consensual qualitative research methodology. Results yielded 10 general categories or themes. Implications for counseling theory, training, and future research are discussed.     

Testing the dynamic field theory: working memory for locations becomes more spatially precise over development

The dynamic field theory predicts that biases toward remembered locations depend on the separation between targets, and the spatial precision of interactions in working memory that become enhanced over development. This was tested by varying the separation between A and B locations in a sandbox. Children searched for an object 6 times at an A location, followed by 3 trials at a B location. Two- and 4-year-olds', but not 6-year-olds', responses were biased toward A when A and B were 9-in. and 6-in. apart. When A and B were separated by 2 in., however, 4- and 6-year-olds' responses were biased toward A. Thus, the separation at which responses were biased toward A decreased across age groups, supporting the predictions of the theory.