Acceptance of self,acceptance of others,and preferred teaching approach

One hundred and eighty-one teacher training students sat three attitude measuring instruments to investigate the relationships between attitudes to self, attitudes to others and attitudes to educational practices. Clinical studies within the ambit of Rogerian psychotherapy suggest that a relationship between self and other attitudes should be positive. Substantial and statistically significant positive correlations, in the order of p<0.01, emerged consistently in this study between attitudes to self and attitudes to a range of others and to progressive child centred educational practices. Self acceptance level would seem to be an index of attitudes to a wide range of others. This relationship provides a principle of utmost importance for human relationships since the application of psychological processes to enhance the self concept should facilitate as a corollary a decrease in interpersonal tensions and inter group conflict. This relationship is of particular consequence in the teaching context since teaching is a sharing of self with others. The results of the study suggest that those with low self acceptance prefer (p<0.01) to avoid close encounters with pupils and prefer a more traditional formal teaching style.     

The CS− effect in simple conditioning and stimulus selection during development

Changes in affect toward a particular stimulus can take place very rapidly through Pavlovian conditioning, if presentation of the conditioned stimulus (CS+) paired with the unconditioned stimulus (US) is accompanied by presentation of a “CS?,” another value of the same dimension as the CS+ but not paired with a US. This effect has considerable generality. It has been observed in terms of both olfactory and visual CSs, in terms of appetitive as well as aversive conditioning, and for adult as well as infant rats. The CS? effect has seemed especially important for infants, which may be related to the general tendency for infants to exhibit less stimulus selection than older animals. Finally, the CS? effect has enabled the development of a simple test of short-term retention that can quite effectively assess memory for either incidental or target events. These tests so far have indicated a clear ontogenetic decrease in rate of forgetting over short intervals, corresponding to the well-known development-related decrease in forgetting over long intervals (infantile amnesia). The tests also have shown that short-term forgetting of intentional and target events is surprisingly similar, with some indication of more rapid forgetting for the incidental events. Alternative interpretations of the CS? effect and some preliminary tests of these interpretations are discussed.     

Interaction of sample dimension and sample-comparison mapping on pigeons’ performance of delayed conditional discriminations

Coding strategies developed in the acquisition of delayed conditional discriminations can be assessed by independently manipulating sample and comparison memory load. Two stimulus dimensions that can affect memory load were examined: Number of stimuli in the sample and comparison sets (two vs. four) was manipulated between groups in a 2×2 design, and discriminability of sample and comparison stimuli (hues vs. lines) was manipulated between counterbalancing subgroups and within subjects. The results indicated large effects of sample discriminability but not of comparison discriminability, evidence for retrospective coding. There was also a significant effect of number of stimuli in the comparison set (although only with hard-to-discriminate samples) but not of number of stimuli in the sample set, evidence for prospective coding. These findings suggest evidence for retrospective coding with easy-to-discriminate samples, independently of number of stimuli in the comparison set, and evidence for prospective coding with hard-to-discriminate samples.     

The role of signaled periods of nonreinforcement in responding on a random schedule in autoshaping

Little responding develops to a conditioned stimulus (CS) that is placed in a random relation to an unconditioned stimulus (US). However, if the USs not preceded by that CS are themselves signaled by another stimulus, then the CS does come to elicit responding. This result has been attributed (e.g., by Durlach, 1983) to the signal’s blocking of conditioning to background cues that otherwise would prevent conditioning of the CS. However, Goddard and Jenkins (1987) have suggested the alternative that signaling the USs promotes responding due to the adventitious creation of periods of signaled nonreinforcement. Two experiments were conducted to assess this alternative, involving an autoshaping preparation in pigeons. In Experiment 1, little responding to a keylight CS presented in a random relation to a food US occurred, despite the explicit presentation of a discrete noise signaling periods of no food in the intertrial interval (ITI). Experiment 2 was designed to replicate the procedure of Goddard and Jenkins, in which an auditory stimulus extended throughout the ITI of a random schedule, terminating only prior to extra USs and during the CS. Contrary to their findings, little responding developed to the target CS. However, responding did develop when the sound-free period occurred only prior to the extra USs. These results offer little support for the hypothesis that signaled periods of nonreinforcement promote responding on random schedules. However, they are consistent with the view that signaling of ITI USs acts by preventing conditioning of potentially competitive background cues.     

The Effects of Information and Feedback on Teachers’ Classroom Behaviour and Students’ Academic Engaged Time

Research has shown a positive relationship between academic engaged time (AET), academic learning time (ALT) and student achievement. Previous work has reported a relatively non‐intrusive, cost‐effective method for increasing AET in the classroom involving the presentation of research information followed by feedback to teachers of students’ AET in their classes. This study aimed to replicate these findings in a primary school setting and to establish what effects the information plus feedback had on teachers’ instructional behaviours which have been found to correlate with students’ AET and ALT. In addition, we looked at the effects of more precise feedback based on students’ task difficulty measures. The results provided strong support for the utility and efficacy of information plus feedback as a method for increasing student AET and ALT and for enabling teachers to change their instructional behaviours in the direction of published research findings.     

The relationship between achievement and IQ in students with learning disabilities

To investigate the relationship between achievement and IQ in the learning-disabled (LD) population, changes in the IQ scores of LD students from the early elementary grades to the high school grades were studied. The intercorrelations among those IQ scores and a variety of achievement scores were then explored for the purpose of ascertaining causal relationships. The results were interpreted as support for the contention that the underachievement of LD students (in particular, reading underachievement) plays a predominant causal role in the achievement-IQ relationship in this population.     

Children's heart rate reactivity responses to three school tasks

The effects of three routine classroom tasks upon heart rate reactivity were investigated with a sample of 30 typical fifth-grade children. Instructions for a mental arithmetic task, the mental arithmetic task itself, and silent reading were administered under standardized conditions, with a reward being offered for performance on the mental arithmetic task to enhance competition. Heart rate was individually monitored each second during these tasks, and data were collected on mental arithmetic performance and reading ability. Results indicated that some children showed large increases in their heart rates during the three tasks, and that these children should be considered as at-risk in terms of their cardiac health.