Listening to grandmothers

In this column, three proud grandmothers share their unique stories and eloquently describe the transforming experience of becoming a grandmother and the joy associated with witnessing their daughters giving birth.     

Temporal discrimination of alternate days in rats

The objective was to determine whether rats could learn to time a 48-h interval. Rats (n = 6) were continuously housed in operant chambers in constant darkness. The feeding cycle consisted of unlimited access to food for 6 h, followed by 42 h without access to food (i.e., meals were available on alternate days, contingent on breaking a photobeam in the food trough). Head entries into the trough increased as a function of time prior to the meal; this increase was higher, relative to the increase that occurred at the same time of day on alternate (i.e., nonfood) days. These data suggest that rats discriminated alternate days. Next, two meals were omitted to dissociate mechanisms of a self-sustained endogenous rhythm, interval timing, and alternation. Response rate increased periodically every 24 h, which suggests that the rats anticipated alternate days by discriminating the status of the previous day as a meal or a nonmeal day.     

Family environments, adrenarche, and sexual maturation: a longitudinal test of a life history model

Life history theorists have proposed that humans have evolved to be sensitive to specific features of early childhood environments and that exposure to different environments biases children toward development of different reproductive strategies, including differential pubertal timing. The current research provides a longitudinal test of this theory. Assessments of family environments, based on interviews with mothers and fathers, were conducted in preschool, and children were then followed prospectively through middle childhood. Adrenal hormones were assayed in a selected subsample of 120 children (73 girls) at age 7, and parent and child reports of secondary sexual characteristics were collected in the full female sample of 180 girls at age 11. Higher quality parental investment (from both mothers and fathers) and less father-reported Marital Conflict/Depression forecast later adrenarche. Older age at menarche in mothers, higher socioeconomic status, greater mother-based Parental Supportiveness, and lower third-grade body mass index each uniquely and significantly predicted later sexual development in daughters. Consistent with a life history perspective, quality of parental investment emerged as a central feature of the proximal family environment in relation to pubertal timing.     

Learning to improve: using writing to increase critical thinking performance in general education biology

Increasingly, national stakeholders express concern that U.S. college graduates cannot adequately solve problems and think critically. As a set of cognitive abilities, critical thinking skills provide students with tangible academic, personal, and professional benefits that may ultimately address these concerns. As an instructional method, writing has long been perceived as a way to improve critical thinking. In the current study, the researchers compared critical thinking performance of students who experienced a laboratory writing treatment with those who experienced traditional quiz-based laboratory in a general education biology course. The effects of writing were determined within the context of multiple covariables. Results indicated that the writing group significantly improved critical thinking skills whereas the nonwriting group did not. Specifically, analysis and inference skills increased significantly in the writing group but not the nonwriting group. Writing students also showed greater gains in evaluation skills; however, these were not significant. In addition to writing, prior critical thinking skill and instructor significantly affected critical thinking performance, whereas other covariables such as gender, ethnicity, and age were not significant. With improved critical thinking skill, general education biology students will be better prepared to solve problems as engaged and productive citizens.     

Formative evaluation of a collaborative community-based child abuse prevention project

OBJECTIVE: Together for Kids is a child abuse prevention project that serves children and families in two neighboring communities in a mid-sized Canadian city. The project, a collaborative endeavor of various agencies in the health, social services, and law enforcement sectors, focuses on preventing child abuse and neglect through family support and programming. This article presents the results of a formative evaluation of the project focusing on client and team member views on project implementation. METHOD: The evaluation strategy was primarily qualitative. In-person interviews following a semi-structured format were conducted with 17 clients and 10 team members by an external evaluator. In addition a review of all client records was conducted. RESULTS: The community-based approach, the multidisciplinary composition of the team, the ability to seek services when needed, the immediacy of the response time and the availability of support during stressful times were all aspects of the project that clients found beneficial. The most beneficial aspect of the project, however, was the informal support received from team members who were accepting, non-threatening, and non-judgmental. Team members found the collaborative approach made access to services easier for clients, particularly for those who were more socially isolated. CONCLUSIONS: Multidisciplinary, community-based models of service delivery contribute to a more effective and compassionate response to vulnerable families. Attention to the variables identified as important aspects of the project from the clients' perspective in this evaluation may assist others in developing similar programs.     

Peer contagion of aggression and health risk behavior among adolescent males: an experimental investigation of effects on public conduct and private attitudes

Peer contagion of adolescent males' aggressive/health risk behaviors was examined using a computerized "chat room" experimental paradigm. Forty-three 11th-grade White adolescents (16-17 years old) were led to believe that they were interacting with other students (i.e., "e-confederates"), who endorsed aggressive/health risk behaviors and whose ostensible peer status was experimentally manipulated. Adolescents displayed greater public conformity, more internalization of aggressive/health risk attitudes, and a higher frequency of actual exclusionary behavior when the e-confederates were high in peer status than low. Participants' level of social anxiety moderated peer contagion. Nonsocially anxious participants conformed only to high-status peers, whereas socially anxious participants were equally influenced by low- and high-status peers. The role of status-maintenance motivations in aggression and risk behavior, and implications for preventive intervention, are discussed.     

Color vision in the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)

Hue discrimination abilities of giant pandas were tested, controlling for brightness. Subjects were 2 adult giant pandas (1 male and 1 female). A simultaneous discrimination procedure without correction was used. In five tasks, white, black, and five saturations each of green, blue, and red served as positive stimuli that were paired with one or two comparison stimuli consisting of 16 saturations of gray. To demonstrate discrimination, the subjects were required to choose the positive stimulus in 16 of 20 trials (80% correct) for three consecutive sessions. Both subjects reached criterion for green and red. The female subject also reached criterion for blue. The male was not tested for blue. This study is a systematic replication of Bacon and Burghardt’s (1976) color discrimination experiment on black bears. The results suggest that color vision in the giant panda is comparable to that of black bears and other carnivores that are not strictly nocturnal.     

Developing and evaluating an interactive information skills tutorial

OBJECTIVE: To develop and evaluate a web-based interactive information skills tutorial integrated into the curriculum. To determine whether the tutorial was acceptable to students and explore the use of a skills assessment tool in identifying whether the tutorial improved skills. METHODS: The development of a tutorial on OVID medline to teach transferable information skills. A small cohort study to evaluate students' views on the tutorial and its effects on information skills. RESULTS: Thirteen objective assessments were usable. There was a statistically significant improvement in mean final assessment scores, compared with mean pre-training scores, F(2,14) = 11.493, P = 0.001. Eleven (85%) students had improved their overall information skills. The improvement in overall searching skills was enhanced by referral to the tutorial. CONCLUSIONS: The tutorial was successfully developed and integrated into a Masters programme curriculum. In this setting, it appears to reinforce active learning, and was well received by students, who developed core generic searching skills and demonstrated improved information skills in the short and longer term. Students could use the tutorial for revision and study at a time and place of their choosing. Further evaluation is required to assess the impact of using the tutorial with large groups of students, and as a stand-alone teaching medium.     

Relationship between leg stiffness and lower body injuries in professional Australian football

Leg stiffness is a modifiable mechanical property that may be related to soft tissue injury risk. The purpose of this study was to examine mean leg stiffness and bilateral differences in leg stiffness across an entire professional Australian Football League (AFL) season, and determine whether this parameter was related to the incidence of lower body soft tissue injury. The stiffness of the left and right legs of 39 professional AFL players (age 24.4 ± 4.4 years, body mass 87.4 ± 8.1 kg, stature 1.87 ± 0.07 m) was measured using a unilateral hopping test at least once per month throughout the season. Injury data were obtained directly from the head medical officer at the football club. Mean leg stiffness and bilateral differences in leg stiffness were compared between the injured and non-injured players. There was no difference between the season mean leg stiffness values for the injured (219.3 ± 16.1 N x m(-1) x kg(-1)) and non-injured (217.4 ± 14.9 N x m(-1) x kg(-1); P = 0.721) groups. The injured group (7.5 ± 3.0%) recorded a significantly higher season mean bilateral difference in leg stiffness than the non-injured group (5.5 ± 1.3%; P = 0.05). A relatively high bilateral difference in leg stiffness appears to be related to the incidence of soft tissue injury in Australian football players. This information is of particular importance to medical and conditioning staff across a variety of sports.