Attention‐Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms,Perceived Stress,and Resilience in College Students

This research investigated the relationships among symptoms associated with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), perceived stress, and resilience in college students. In our study of 558 college students (175 men, 383 women), we confirmed the hypothesis that the relationship between ADHD symptoms and perceived stress is mediated by protective factors associated with resilience. The relationships were not significantly moderated by sex. Implications for increasing resilience in college students and lowering perceived stress for college students are discussed.     

STUDENTS' UNDERSTANDING OF ALGEBRAIC NOTATION: 11–15

Research studies have found that the majority of students up to age 15 seem unable to interpret algebraic letters as generalised numbers or even as specific unknowns. Instead, they ignore the letters, replace them with numerical values, or regard them as shorthand names. The principal explanation given in the literature has been a general link to levels of cognitive development. In this paper we present evidence for specific origins of misinterpretation that have been overlooked in the literature, and which may or may not be associated with cognitive level. These origins are: intuitive assumptions and pragmatic reasoning about a new notation, analogies with familiar symbol systems, interference from new learning in mathematics, and the effects of misleading teaching materials. Recognition of these origins of misunderstanding is necessary for improving the teaching of algebra.     

Deaf college students' comprehension of relational language in arithmetic compare problems

In this study of deaf college students' performance solving compare word problems, relational statements were either consistent or inconsistent with the arithmetic operation required for the solutions. The results support the consistency hypothesis Lewis and Mayer (1987) proposed based on research with hearing students. That is, deaf students were more likely to miscomprehend a relational statement and commit a reversal error when the required arithmetic operation was inconsistent with the statement's relational term (e.g., having to add when the relational term was less than). Also, the reversal error effect with inconsistent word problems was magnified when the relational statement was a marked term (e.g., a negative adjective such as less than) rather than an unmarked term (e.g., a positive adjective such as more than). Reading ability levels of deaf students influenced their performance in a number of ways. As predicted, there was a decrease in goal-monitoring errors, multiple errors, and the number of problems left blank as the reading levels of students increased. Contrary to expectations, higher reading skills did not affect the frequency of reversal errors.     

Effects of Mother-Infant Social Interactions on Infants'' Subsequent Contingency Task Performance

20 3-month-old infants participated in a nonsocial contingency task immediately following a social interaction with their mothers. A measure of the time the dyads spent in a state of vocal turn-taking predicted individual differences in the infants' subsequent performance on the contingency task. These results parallel the social transfer effects we reported earlier in which the turn-taking dimension of social structure was experimentally manipulated to assess its effect on a subsequent nonsocial contingency task.     

Comparing deaf and hearing college students' mental arithmetic calculations under two interference conditions

Deaf and hearing college students' mean reaction times (RTs) were compared on a mental calculation task in which they had to verify the accuracy of solutions to addition and multiplication problems. The deaf students were divided into higher and lower readers. Higher deaf readers and hearing students had similar RTs and accuracy on addition problems; their RTs were greater in the voicing interference mode than in the manual tapping interference mode. The lower deaf readers showed no RT differences between the two interference modes and had consistently lower RT performance and score accuracy across the verification tasks. On the verification task for multiplication problems, all participants showed a greater RT effect for manual tapping. The lower deaf readers were significantly less accurate on multiplication problems.     

Changes in unpunished responding during response-contingent punishment

In two experiments, gerbils that were punished for eating exhibited an increase in only the most probable of several ongoing alternative responses (running) during sessions when eating was suppressed. These results support previously suggested punishment and implicit avoidance rules for predicting the effects of response-contingent punishment in multiple-response baseline procedures. Most subjects also exhibited a decline in unpunished digging responses during punishment sessions. Neither this decline in the digging behavior nor the amount of increase in running behavior supported a quantitative constant proportion rule which predicts that each of the unpunished responses will increase to occupy a constant proportion of the time available to it.     

Supporting Transgender College Students: Implications for Clinical Intervention and Campus Prevention

This study examines the experiences of transgender college students in coping with stress in comparison to their cisgender peers. Undergraduate and graduate students from 73 colleges, totaling 26,292 participants, of which 47 identified as transgender completed an online survey. Transgender students reported greater exposure to trauma and higher rates of suicidal experiences, as well as different precipitants to reported stressful periods and sources of support than their cisgender peers. Implications for individual and group counseling as well as outreach and prevention to better support transgender students are explored.