Book reviews

International Review of Education -     

Laboratory psychomotor skill development using physical and mental practice strategies

Some conclusions This study has demonstrated the feasibility of improving the laboratory performance of freshman chemistry students through planned skill practice activities. However, no differences were found among the specific practice strategies which were employed. Mental practice of laboratory techniques represents the most efficient strategy in terms of the necessary laboratory resources. Although mental practice alone was not expected to be as effective as physical practice, this study’s findings proved to be an exception to the implications of earlier reported literature. However, if one accepts the argument that prior experience with the appropriate apparatus during the pretest experiment and/or high school courses was significant, then this study is consistent with the implications of the proposed model. Thus mental practice, to be fully effective, should be associated with prior experience of the task. Evaluation of such findings should relate to the degree of improvement which was found relative to the investment of student time and laboratory resources in the practice activities. A more detailed discussion of the study is provided elsewhere (Beasley, 1978).     

Humanizing paediatric care

This paper deals with the development of a paediatric team approach to the care of children in the 70 bed paediatric unit in the Royal Hobart Hospital in Tasmania, Australia, and describes the measures used to help children and their parents adapt to life in hospital with a limited budget. The staff includes paediatricians and pediatric surgeon, resident staff, nurses, teachers, social worker, physiotherapist and pharmacist. There are no visiting hours but the wards are open to parents and relatives at any time. Parents are encouraged to stay in hospital and their accommodation is either in flats at the end of wards or in single or double bed wards using foldup beds. Each young child has a personal details form completed and placed on the end of the cot allowing a nurse to discover likes, dislikes, methods of feeding and sleeping, etc. Parents are asked to complete questionnaires at the time of the child's discharge, asking for their assessment of the standards of care their child received. Playleaders are rostered for evenings and weekends and they work with, and direct Red Cross volunteer ladies. Two full-time teachers cooperate with the child's school in maintaining the child's educational progress. Volunteer visitors entertain children whose relatives are unable to visit or stay in hospital. The methods used to raise the standards of paediatric nursing are also described. Community groups, particularly kindergarten and primary school children, are encouraged to visit the paediatric unit and each group is usually given a brief health education talk by a member of staff.     

Texture response patterns associated with sexual trauma of childhood and adult onset: developmental and recovered memory implications

OBJECTIVE: Reduce texture sensitivity on the Rorschach is proposed as a sequela of early sexual abuse that is unlikely to be contaminated by situational variables. If this conceptualization has merit, texture attributes offer a roadmap for studying vying claims in the recovered memory debate. To explore this possibility, we examined the extent to which intense preoccupation with sexual trauma of childhood and of adult onset was related to reduced texture productivity. METHOD: Texture productivity was measured in 4 groups comprised of 108 patients using the Rorschach. Twenty-seven patients with recovered memory were compared with 27 patients with continuous memory of childhood sexual trauma, 27 post trauma stress patients with sexual trauma of adult onset, and 27 non-abused patients. RESULTS: The study replicated previous findings of reduced texture productivity among patients who always remembered sexual trauma of childhood-onset. The same texture deficiency pattern was observed among patients who recovered memory of childhood sexual abuse. This pattern was not observed in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) patients intensely preoccupied with sexual trauma of adult onset despite the fact that they mimicked the recovered memory group in respect to enduring preoccupation with distressing thoughts of sexual abuse. CONCLUSION: The findings indicate that intrusive memories of sexual trauma do not shape patients' response to textural cues on the Rorschach. Variations in texture productivity are primarily moderated by age of trauma onset. Dismissal of claims of recovered memories on the basis of intense sexual preoccupation is not warranted.     

(Re) thinking Emotions in Visual Education Activities: Students' Experiences

This article focuses on the emotions of 13 and 14 year‐old students related to visual art education activities. Our aim is to understand the interference of the students' emotions with the processes of the creation and reception of their own pictures, as well as their characteristics in an art education context. The article adopts a Vygotskian theoretical perspective about emotion and aesthetic education that refers to the biopsychological nature of emotion and its cultural determination. The need to transform emotions in art activities is stressed and the teenagers' pictures are interpreted as a means of communication. The data collection was based on questionnaires and interviews with seventh and eighth grade secondary school students. It is concluded that students' emotions are not only present in the creative process and in its result, but also that they could have a significant positive or negative impact on students' motivation and achievement behaviour in art education classes. In this context, the students' pictures, acting as stimuli, may evoke their emotions.     

Measuring Parent Receptivity Towards the Classroom Environment Using a Rasch Measurement Model

This study investigated parent-reported receptivity towards the classroom environment and classroom outcomes. Classroom environment was based on a five-aspect model: (1) provision of information from the child; (2) beliefs about the school; (3) provision of information from teachers; (4) teachers' commitment to working with parents; and (5) confidence in communicating with teachers. Classroom outcomes were based on two aspects: (1) educational values (importance of schooling, involved with learning; seeing a future through learning, desire to learn, and importance of learning); and (2) learning outcomes (achieving, and views of child's engagement in school work). For each aspect, items were written in an ordered-by-difficulty pattern so that, for example, Item 2 involved Item 1 and ‘more’, making it conceptually ‘harder’ to agree with Item 2 than with Item 1. There were four Likert response categories (SDA, DA, A, and SA). Using the extended logistic model of Rasch, an interval-level, unidimensional scale was created with item difficulties for classroom environment aspects and classroom outcomes calibrated on the same scale as the receptivity measures. The sample consisted of 518 parents of students from three secondary schools in Western Australia. The item sample was 30. The proportion of observed variance considered true was 0.94. The items for each aspect were found to be ordered from ‘easy’ to ‘hard’ in line with the hypothesised model of receptivity and the data fitted the measurement model well. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.