The Impact of Girls' Interscholastic Sport Participation on Academic Orientation

Abstract

This study was designed to assess the influence of athletics and other extracurricular activities on the academic orientation of female high school students. Senior girls were categorized into groups—labeled athlete-only (comprising students who participated only in athletics as an extracurricular activity), service-only (students who participated in service activities only), athlete-service (students participating in both) and neither (students whose extracurricular activities included neither athletics nor service activities). Categorizations were based on listings from their high school yearbooks. Those taking the ACT college entrance exam (N = 487) were compared on composite and English scores to the other groups, and to national and state averages. Analyses of covariance, controlling for SES and extent of activity involvement revealed that the athlete-only group recorded the lowest average scores, but these could not be attributed to the participation category to which they belonged. Rather, socioeconomic level and extent of activity involvement were factors contributing to most of the differences between groups in which higher SES levels and higher levels of involvement were predictive of higher ACT scores. Moreover, none of the groups' scores were significantly different from national or slate averages. These results refute the notion that involvement only in athletics is detrimental to educational achievements for females, and lead to certain recommendations for longitudinal, multi-measure investigations of academic orientations.     

Influence of Social Goal Orientations and Peers on Unsportsmanlike Play

Abstract

The present study was designed to examine the influence of personal (i.e., social goal orientations or definitions of success that include interpersonal relationships) and situational (i.e., peer influence) factors on decisions surrounding unsportsmanlike play. Middle school students (ages 11–15 years) completed a measure to assess task, ego, and social goal orientations. Participants also read scenarios about unsportsmanlike actions and responded to questions tapping the intention to perform those actions. A series of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that in certain peer contexts, social goal orientations influenced unsportsmanlike play responses above and beyond the contribution of task and ego goal orientations. Results varied for boys and girls and provide support for including social goal orientations in achievement motivation research in the physical domain.     

Effects of Weight Reduction on Selected Anthropometric,Physical, and Performance Measures of Wrestlers

Abstract

Eighteen girth, skinfold, cardiovascular, cable tension strength, and response time measurements were obtained in order to assess the effects of weight reduction on a group of college wrestlers. In 10 of the 18 measurements mean differences were found to be significant at the .05 level from the statistical analysis provided by a repeated measures analysis of variance. It was generally concluded that for the ten subjects studied up to 7 percent of body weight may be lost without adversely affecting factors apparently related to wrestling performance —strength, cardiovascular endurance, and response time.     

The efficacy of reciprocal teaching in fostering the reading literacy of students with intellectual disabilities

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of strategy instruction on the reading literacy of students with mild and moderate intellectual disability. Students aged 15–21 with intellectual disability (n=35) participated in 24 sessions of literacy strategy instruction (experimental condition) or remedial literacy‐skill acquisition‐ lessons (control condition). The main objective of strategy instruction was to foster comprehension monitoring. Through shared dialogues, students were trained to generate questions about text, to summarise what was read, to clarify difficult words and to make predictions. The strategies were taught using the reciprocal teaching method developed by Palincsar and Brown. This method involves provision of support adjusted to students’ difficulties and peer teaching of strategies. Control subjects were exposed to direct instruction of basic reading skills that were presented sequentially and practiced solitarily by the students. Opportunities were given to respond to questions and to summarise but no strategy instruction was provided to foster comprehension monitoring. Two different measures of comprehension and a measure of strategy use were administered to test for variation across different methods of instruction. Findings on all measures provide support for the claim that strategy instruction is indeed superior to traditional remedial methods of skill acquisition in fostering reading literacy comprehension. These findings challenge the common perception that literacy is an organic impossibility for people defined as intellectually disabled. Moreover, the results add to recent research in sociocognitive instruction that supports the need to modify prevailing methods of reading curriculum and suggests a reconceptualisation of the comprehension process and its instruction to students with intellectual disabilities.     

Student Authoritarianism and Teacher Authoritarianism as Factors in the Determination of Student Performance and Attitudes

Recent investigations designed to elucidate the teacher behaviors which are facilitative of positive student attitudes and increased student performance have presented inconsistent results. It is hypothesized that the inconsistency between studies may be due to an interaction between teacher characteristics and student characteristics in the determination of the dependent variables involved. To test this hypothesis, teachers and students in a West Coast high school were administered a revised version of the California F-Scale (a measure of authoritarianism). High- and Low-F groups of both teachers and students were selected, and students’ grades and attitudes toward their teachers were observed. It was found that High-F students exposed to Low-F teachers showed particularly low attitudes toward their teachers and particularly low grades. Data for other combinations of student and teacher characteristics were essentially equivalent.     

A cross-cultural perspective of parental influence on female adolescents' achievement beliefs and behaviors in sport and school domains

Little is known about parental socialization processes for youth participants from different cultural backgrounds. The purpose of this study was to examine parental influence on self-perceptions, task values, and achievement behaviors among female adolescents from two cultures using Eccles' expectancy-value theory (Eccles et al., 1983). Twelve Anglo Canadian and nine East Indian female adolescents were interviewed about perceptions of parental influence on expectancy-value constructs for sport and academic domains. Inductive and deductive content analyses were performed to identify lower and higher order themes from interview responses. Similarities and differences in perceived parental influence emerged for girls of both cultural groups and in both domains. Our findings support links among expectancy-value constructs and highlight cultural variations in parental socialization of achievement cognitions and behaviors in multiple domains.     

Partial reinforcement effect: The expectancy of reward on nonreward trials

In order to determine the importance of the development of expectancy of reward prior to partial reward trials; rats were given 20 continuously reinforced trials prior to 20 partially reinforced trials (CRF-PRF) and compared to Ss given only 20 partially reinforced trials (PRF). Control groups received 20 or 40 continuously reinforced trials (CRF-20, CRF-40) to determine the effect of differing numbers of acquisition trials. Results showed that terminal acquisition differences were minimal in the run segment of the alley and that Group CRF-PRF was more resistant to extinction than Group PRF, and both were more resistant to extinction than the CRF-20 and CRF-40 groups, which did not differ from each other. These results were interpreted as supporting the notion that the expectancy of reward on nonreward trials during partial reinforcement acquisition is a determiner of the magnitude of the partial reinforcement extinction effect.     

Self development and self-conscious emotions

In each of 2 studies, the mirror-rouge technique was used to differentiate children into those who showed self-recognition and those who did not. In Study 1, 27 children (aged 9-24 months) were observed in 2 experimental situations thought to differentially elicit fear and embarrassment behaviors. In Study 2, 44 children (aged 22 months) were seen in the situations of Study 1 and 3 additional contexts thought to elicit embarrassment behavior. The results of both studies indicate that embarrassment but not wariness was related to self-recognition.