Effortful Control, Surgency, and reading skills in middle childhood

We examined the associations between components of temperament and children’s word and pseudo-word reading skills, in a school-age sample using a within-family internal-replication design. We estimated the statistical prediction of word and pseudo-word reading in separate regression equations that included the main effects of, and two-way interaction between, Surgency and Effortful Control. Children with better Effortful Control scores showed better reading skills. Surgency was unrelated to reading skills, but moderated the effect of Effortful Control. The positive association between reading skills and Effortful Control was present only for children who were low in Surgency. Thus, reading achievement in school-age children is optimized by strong Effortful Control, but these processes may be disrupted for those children who are high in Surgency.     

The relationship between teachers’ emotional intelligence and classroom discipline management

One of the fundamental problems of educational systems in many countries is related to classroom discipline. This reflects one of the worst problems faced by teachers. Classroom discipline management strategies play an effective role in creating positive teacher‐student relationships. One of the factors that influence behavior management in a classroom is emotional intelligence. Therefore, this study analyzing how teachers emotional intelligence influences the management of discipline in a classroom and the relationship between gender, academic formation, and service time of teachers with their emotional intelligence. Its sample comprises 559 basic and secondary school teachers. An Emotional Competence Questionnaire, a Scale of Teacher Efficacy in Classroom Management, and a personal and professional data inquiry have been used as instruments. Results show that teachers who have more capacity to deal with emotion demonstrate a greater management of discipline in the classroom. Most of the relationships in the model are statistically significant.     

Task-related variation in communication of mothers and their sons with learning disability

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether mother-child communication patterns vary as a function of the type of the task. Groups of learning disabled (LD=30) and normally achieving boys (NLD=30) were videotaped interacting with their mothers in two different tasks. The children were matched for age (8 to 11 year-olds) and for parent’s SES. The results indicated that the teaching task differentiated the groups more than did the story task. Academic character of the teaching task increased mothers’ task involvement in both groups. Mothers of the LD group showed, however, significantly more dominance and expressed less emotionality while teaching their child. Mothers’ interaction partly followed from their children’s behaviour on this task. The children with LD did not cooperate with their mothers and were not emotionally involved in the teaching task as highly as were the normally achieving children. Corresponding features of interaction were not found for the LD group in the story task. Consistency of children’s communication across the tasks was significant in the LD group. The normally achieving boys were more responsive to changes in task conditions showing different behavior as a function of task.     

Organization of Concepts Relevant to Emotions and their Regulation During Test Taking

The purpose of this study was to assess aspects of college students' organization of concepts related to emotions and their regulation during test taking. The authors also evaluated whether students who report having problems with test anxiety hold a different conceptual organization about test taking compared with students who do not report having such problems. Concepts relevant to emotions and their regulation during test taking were sampled from the emotion and emotional regulation literature. Participants rated how similar these concepts were during test taking. These ratings were then submitted to multidimensional scaling analyses (MDS). The resulting arrangement of concepts provides insight into the underlying organizational conceptions held by low, moderate, and high test-anxious participants. Students' organizational schemes surrounded 2 dimensions: (a) task-focus and (b) pleasantness. High test-anxious participants had differing conceptual organizations about test taking than moderate and low test-anxious participants with regard to pleasantness. In addition, the high test-anxious participants saw task-focused processes such as reading directions during test taking as more highly related to unpleasant emotions like anxiety than moderate and low test-anxious participants.     

Mnemonic-strategy reduction of prose-learning interference

One hundred and sixty college students read three fictitious biographical passages according to either imagery-mnemonic or no-strategy control instructions. In one mnemonic condition, subjects formed separate images involving each biographical name and its associated facts: in another mnemonic condition, the biographical name and its associated facts were integrated within a single composite image. Relative to an interference-control condition, integrated mnemonic subjects recalled more factual information, whereas separate mnemonic subjects did not. In addition, the recall of integrated mnemonic subjects was statistically no different from that of a noninterference control condition, whereas the recall of separate mnemonic subjects was lower. Both theoretical and educational implications of the results are discussed. The first author’s contribution to this work was supported by an Organized Research Grant from the Graduate School of Illinois State University. The second author’s contribution was supported by the National Institute of Education under Grant No. NIE-G-81-0009 to the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and was facilitated by a Romnes Faculty Fellowship from the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.     

Naturally Acquired Mentoring Relationships and Young Adult Outcomes Among Adolescents with Learning Disabilities

We evaluated whether having a naturally acquired mentor during adolescence was associated with improved adult outcomes among youth with learning disabilities (YLD). Mentored youth were more likely to have graduated from high school, reported a higher level of self‐esteem, and reported a higher overall number of positive outcomes than nonmentored youth. Mentorship by teachers/guidance counselors was associated with larger differences in high school graduation rates and self‐esteem compared to nonmentored youth whereas mentorship by nonteachers was associated with smaller changes in self‐esteem and no differences in high school completion rates. Future research should include more in‐depth, objective assessments of youths’ learning disabilities, consideration of interactions with concurrent risk factors, and efforts to clarify optimal strategies for mentoring support of YLD.     

Bilateral arm power imbalance in swim bench exercise to exhaustion

We examined the supposition that swimmers may exhibit an imbalance in bilateral arm power output during simulated swimming exercise. Ten competitive front crawl swimmers (5 males, 5 females; age 20.5+/-2.3 years; height 1.74+/-0.09 m; body mass 72.0+/-16.7 kg; 400 m freestyle swim time 278+/-20.5 s; mean +/- s) performed four incremental (10 W x min(-1)) swim ramp tests on a computer-interfaced biokinetic swim bench ergometer. External power output from each arm was measured continuously to exhaustion. The results showed that, throughout the course of the simulated swim, external power output clearly favoured the left arm (F1,9 = 12.5, P= 0.006). This was especially evident in the final 30 s to exhaustion, when 54.0+/-3.87% of external power output was derived from the left arm versus 46.0+/-3.87% from the right arm. The disparity in external power output was further highlighted when the participants were grouped into unilateral and bilateral breathers. Unilateral breathers (n = 5) produced 57.1+/-2.62% of external power output from the left armversus 42.9+/-2.62% from the right arm (P= 0.001). Bilateral breathers (n = 5) exhibited a more balanced external power output of 51.0+/-1.82% from the left arm and 49.0+/-1.82% from the right arm (P = 0.177). Evidence of power imbalance in the simulated swimming stroke may have important implications for optimizing swim performance. The observed power imbalance may be reduced when a bilateral breathing technique is adopted.