Emotion Labeling Among Young Children in Foster Care

Research Findings: Emotion knowledge is a core developmental process that has a documented relation to other aspects of social-emotional functioning, including social competence, emotion regulation, and behavior problems. Children who are maltreated have been found to have compromised emotion knowledge skills as well as higher levels of behavior problems. The current study was designed to add to the small literature on emotion knowledge in children who have been maltreated and are in foster care, with an examination of child and family processes that contributed to their emotion labeling skills. Young children in foster care were administered the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Affect Knowledge Task while their foster mothers completed a background questionnaire during a data collection home visit. Findings revealed that participant children's verbal ability contributed greatly to their capacity to accurately label emotions. Family processes also contributed to this skill above and beyond verbal ability. Practice or Policy: Parenting interventions for foster parents should be designed to address core developmental processes of early childhood, such as emotion knowledge.     

SCIENTISTS’ PARTICIPATION IN TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: THE IMPACT ON FOURTH TO EIGHTH GRADE TEACHERS’ UNDERSTANDING AND IMPLEMENTATION OF INQUIRY SCIENCE

The impact of a professional development experience involving scientists and fourth to eighth grade teachers of science was explored. Teachers attended a summer program at a research facility where they had various experiences such as job shadowing and interviewing scientists. They also participated in authentic inquiry investigations and planned inquiry units for their classrooms. Data on teachers’ understanding and implementation of inquiry were collected through surveys, questionnaires, and classroom observations. Findings show that the teachers’ understanding of inquiry improved and most participants were able to successfully implement inquiry science in their classrooms. Barriers to the implementation of inquiry practices and the impact of specific experiences with the scientists were explored.     

Response Time Differences Between Computers and Tablets

Item response time data were used in investigating the differences in student test-taking behavior between two device conditions: computer and tablet. Analyses were conducted to address the questions of whether or not the device condition had a differential impact on rapid guessing and solution behaviors (with response time effort used as an indicator) as well as on the time that students spent on the test (reading, mathematics, and science) or a given item type (such as drag-and-drop and fill in blank). Further analyses were conducted to examine if the potential impact of device conditions varied by gender and ethnicity groups. Overall there were no significant differences in response time effort related to device, although some differences related to item type and test sequence were noted. Students tended to spend slightly more time when taking the tests and certain types of items on the tablet than on the computer. No interactions of device with gender or ethnicity were observed. Follow-up research on the item time thresholds is discussed.