Generality of US preexposure effects: Transfer from food to shock or shock to food with and without the same response requirements

A series of four experiments, employing mice, investigated the generality of the learned helplessness phenomenon. The first two experiments used preexposure to aversive stimuli (shock), while the other two used preexposure to appetitive stimuli (food). In all of the studies, subjects were preexposed to contingent, noncontingent, or no stimuli (except for Experiment 2) in a Skinner box. During the test, animals preexposed to shock were tested with food, and those preexposed to food were tested with shock. The test was conducted in a similar situation, a Skinner box (Experiments 1, 3), or a different situation—a runway (Experiments 2, 4). Performance decrements were evident when subjects that were preexposed to a noncontingent stimulus were compared with subjects preexposed to contingent stimuli. The differences between the contingent and the noncontingent groups were significant, as were the differences between the contingent and the nonpreexposed groups (except for Experiment 1). The effects cut across the different types of stimuli, situations, and response requirements of the preexposure and test phases.     

Increasing the effectiveness of learning how to teach in preservice education

Interchange - In the context of re-examining teaching practice as an integral part of teacher education, two hypotheses were tested by a year-long experiment in preservice education of elementary...     

High school preparation for college biology in Israel

The study reports the results of a questionnaire on the opinions of biology, medical and agricultural students regarding the nature of the contribution of high school biology to their study of biology in the university. It was found that most students value the contribution of high school biology to their learning, understanding and retention of new material. Students who specialized in high school biology and who studied an inquiry-oriented program in high school had definite advantages over the others. High school experiences were found to influence achievement in college biology to the extent to which the university courses were based upon prior knowledge.