Development and validation of scales to measure environmental responsibility,character development,and attitudes toward school

This investigation examines the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) procedures to develop and validate scales to measure environmental responsibility, character development and leadership, and attitudes toward school for environmental education programs servicing middle school children. The scales represent outcomes commonly of interest to environmental education programs and also to after‐school and positive youth development activities. First, we developed the scales using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and then we used multi‐group longitudinal CFA to cross‐validate the model with data collected before participation in the environmental education program, immediately after the program, and three months later. The results support a three‐factor model, producing three scales that appear to be valid and reliable.     

The conundrums of formal and informal meritocracy: dealing with gender segregation in the academy

Higher Education - Despite the academy’s commitment to the idea of meritocratic and fair principles in recruitments, promotions, student admissions and progress, gender segregation and gender...     

Writing fluency and quality in kindergarten and first grade: the role of attention,reading, transcription,and oral language

In the present study, we examined the influence of kindergarten component skills on writing outcomes, both concurrently and longitudinally to first grade. Using data from 265 students, we investigated a model of writing development including attention regulation along with students’ reading, spelling, handwriting fluency, and oral language component skills. Results from structural equation modeling demonstrated that a model including attention was better fitting than a model with only language and literacy factors. Attention, a higher-order literacy factor related to reading and spelling proficiency, and automaticity in letter-writing were uniquely and positively related to compositional fluency in kindergarten. Attention and higher-order literacy factor were predictive of both composition quality and fluency in first grade, while oral language showed unique relations with first grade writing quality. Implications for writing development and instruction are discussed.     

Variability in Parenting Self-Efficacy Across Prudential Adolescent Behaviors

Objective. Extant research examining the predictors and outcomes of parenting self-efficacy has predominantly focused on families with young children. Adolescence is a time of increased autonomy during which parents may be uncertain about their abilities to influence their adolescents’ risk-taking behavior. Design. Parents’ (N = 145 mothers and 53 fathers) confidence in their parenting abilities across prudential adolescent behaviors was investigated, including alcohol consumption, cyber activities, eating behaviors, and problem peer associations. Additionally, we explored how adolescents’ (N = 161, M_age = 14.4 years, 60% female) reports of their engagement in those behaviors were associated with parents’ perceptions of their ability to impact their adolescents’ behavior (i.e., self-efficacy). Results. Mixed-model analysis of variance revealed that mothers and fathers felt most efficacious in reducing their adolescents’ engagement in problematic cyber activities and least efficacious regarding alcohol consumption. Bivariate correlations indicated multiple negative associations between adolescents’ engagement in prudential behaviors and both mothers’ and fathers’ behavior-specific parenting self-efficacy. Conclusions. Results suggest that parents with adolescents have varying levels of confidence in their ability to parent different types of prudential adolescent behaviors. Additionally, for multiple behavior categories, mothers’ and fathers’ behavior-specific parenting self-efficacy was negatively associated with adolescent engagement in corresponding behaviors, such that increased adolescent engagement was related to lower levels of behavior-specific parenting self-efficacy.     

煤粉炉烟气中汞浓度测试和分布

参照美国标准实验方法(ASTM)中关于汞的OHM等速取样和化学分析法,结合汞的SCEM在线测量技术,利用一多功能流动实验室,对一满负荷运行的100 MW煤粉锅炉尾部烟气系统进行了单质汞、氧化态汞和颗粒态汞的现场测试和分析.得到了空气预热器、静电除尘器前后烟气中气态、固态和烟气中总汞的浓度及其分布.结果表明烟气中气态总汞的浓度随温度的降低发生着氧化态汞向颗粒汞的转化.在ESP之后的清洁烟气中,OHM和SCEM方法的测试结果吻合较好;在含颗粒浓度较高的烟气中,2种方法存在较大的偏差,原因在于OHM取样过滤器中形成一定厚度的飞灰.该飞灰颗粒对烟气中气态汞有吸附作用并形成颗粒汞.     

CS preexposure: Latent inhibition and Pavlovian conditioning of heart rate and eyeblink responses as a function of sex and CS intensity in rabbits

Male and female rabbits received Pavlovian conditioning in which a 1, 216-Hz tone served as the CS and a 3-mA paraorbital electric shock train served as the US. Eyeblink (EB) and heart rate (HR) CRs were assessed. Half of the animals received prior exposure to the CS, while half were restrained in the chamber for a similar length of time but did not receive prior CS exposure. Different groups of each sex received three different CS intensities including 60, 75, and 90 dB (SPL) during both preexposure and conditioning. The results revealed that latent inhibition of the EB CR occurred only at the intermediate CS intensity, as indicated by a significant impairment of EB conditioning in this group. However, the magnitude of the decelerative HR CR was attenuated by prior CS exposure at all three CS intensities. Females showed faster EB conditioning than males, but latent inhibition occurred in both sexes. These results suggest that somatomotor and autonomic systems are affected differently by prior CS exposure.     

Helping and hindering learning

In order to identify factors which help or hinder learning, student evaluations of a course were analysed. The responses were classified in relation to learning in the areas of content, personal development and behavioural change. The major factors which emerged were expectations, learning style and personality. It is suggested that learning is strongly influenced by the interaction between these student characteristics and the parallel features of courses and teachers.     

Children's Memory of an Occurrence of a Repeated Event: Effects of Age, Repetition, and Retention Interval across Three Question Types

Children's memory of the final occurrence of a repeated event was examined whereby each occurrence had the same underlying structure but included unpredictable variations in the specific instantiations of items across the series. The event was administered by the children's teachers at the kindergarten or school. The effects of repetition (single vs. repeated event), age (4–5 vs. 6–8-year-olds), retention interval (1 week vs. 6 weeks), and the frequency of specific instantiations of items were examined across 3 question types. Repetition increased the number of items recalled on a level that was common to all occurrences in response to general probes and reduced the likelihood that children would report details that did not occur in the event. However, repetition also reduced the number of correct responses about which instantiation was included in the occurrence and decreased the consistency of responses across repeated questioning. Most errors were intrusions of details from other occurrences; usually references to instantiations of items that had occurred frequently throughout the series. The younger children showed a poorer ability to discriminate between the occurrences than the older children, but age differences were less evident at the longer retention interval. The results are discussed in relation to current theories of memory and children's eyewitness testimony.     

The relationship between child sexual abuse and academic achievement in a sample of adolescent psychiatric inpatients

OBJECTIVES: To examine the relationship between sexual abuse and academic achievement in an adolescent inpatient psychiatric population. Individual factors expected to influence this relationship were measured to explore the way they each interacted with sexual abuse and its relationship to academic achievement. METHOD: Eighty-one adolescent psychiatric inpatients participated in the study (aged 12--18 years: M=16.0). Participants were administered tests of academic achievement (dependent variable) and intelligence, and completed a number of self-report measures of their experience of different types of maltreatment, their perception of the parenting they received, socio-economic status, substance abuse, and psychopathology. RESULTS: Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that intelligence was the main predictor of academic achievement (uniquely explaining 26% of the variance). A number of interaction effects were also significant indicating that intelligence, substance abuse, internalizing behavior problems, externalizing behavior problems all influenced the relationship between sexual abuse and academic achievement. DISCUSSION: Examining the impact of sexual abuse is complex because it is typically an experience embedded in a range of other risk factors, such as poverty, family dysfunction, and other types of maltreatment. This study demonstrated coexistence between sexual abuse and a number of other variables, including other maltreatment types and parental overprotection, underscoring the requirement for complex models of research that more accurately reflect the experience of abused children.