Empathy Is Associated With Dynamic Change in Prefrontal Brain Electrical Activity During Positive Emotion in Children

Empathy is the combined ability to interpret the emotional states of others and experience resultant, related emotions. The relation between prefrontal electroencephalographic asymmetry and emotion in children is well known. The association between positive emotion (assessed via parent report), empathy (measured via observation), and second-by-second brain electrical activity (recorded during a pleasurable task) was investigated using a sample of one hundred twenty-eight 6- to 10-year-old children. Contentment related to increasing left frontopolar activation ( p  < .05). Empathic concern and positive empathy related to increasing right frontopolar activation ( p s < .05). A second form of positive empathy related to increasing left dorsolateral activation ( p  < .05). This suggests that positive affect and (negative and positive) empathy both relate to changes in prefrontal activity during a pleasurable task.     

Changes in children's peer interactions following a natural disaster: How predisaster bullying and victimization rates changed following Hurricane Katrina

Youth exposed to disasters experience stress and adjustment difficulties, which likely influence their interactions with peers. In this study, we examined changes in bullying and peer victimization in two cohorts of children. Youth from an area affected by Hurricane Katrina were assessed pre‐ and postdisaster (n = 96, mean [M] = 10.9 years old, 53% female), and a comparison group from a nearby area was assessed over the same time interval 1 year prior (n = 120, M = 10.2 years old, 52% female). Within the hurricane group, relations between symptoms of post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with bullying and victimization also were examined. Following the hurricane, the hurricane group reported increased relational and overt bullying relative to the nonhurricane group, and PTSD symptoms predicted increased victimization. Thus, school personnel should be vigilant and prepared to respond to increased bullying following disasters and for increased victimization in youth experiencing PTSD symptoms. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Implementation fidelity of MyTeachingPartner literacy and language activities: Association with preschoolers’ language and literacy growth

There is surprisingly little empirical research examining issues of fidelity of implementation within the early childhood education literature. In the MyTeachingPartner project, 154 teachers were provided with materials to implement a supplemental classroom curriculum addressing six aspects of literacy and language development. The present study examines the degree of variability in three aspects of implementation fidelity – dosage, adherence, and quality of delivery – and whether these components of fidelity were associated with children's growth in language and literacy skills across the preschool year. Findings indicate that teachers reported using the curriculum fairly often (dosage) and that they were observed to generally follow curricular lesson plans (adherence). In contrast, the quality of delivery, defined as the use of evidence-based teacher–child interactions for teaching literacy and language, was much lower. Children in classrooms in which activities were observed to last for longer (dosage) and in which teachers exhibited higher quality of delivery of literacy lessons made significantly greater gains in early literacy skills across the preschool year. Also, teachers’ use of higher quality language interactions was associated with gains for children who did not speak English at home. Results have implications for teacher professional development and the supports provided to ensure that curricula are delivered most effectively.     

An Investigation of High-Achieving African-American Students Attending Community Colleges: A Mixed Methods Research Study

While much more research has been conducted about African-American college students in recent decades, there still exists a need for further explorations concerning factors related to student success and retention. For example, articles often explore the experiences of African-American students at four-year institutions and often use deficit frameworks instead of focusing on the experiences of successful students. To add to what is known, this article summarizes the findings of a multi-institutional mixed methods research study that explored the experiences of high-achieving African-American students attending community colleges. Specifically, the researchers explored noncognitive factors that influenced high academic achievement—defined as grade point average (GPA) higher than 3.00, why students considered leaving an institution, and why students decided to remain enrolled. Findings suggested that studying alone promoted a high cumulative GPA and increased the likelihood students never seriously considered leaving their institution. Studying alone, family relationships, hours spent studying with family, engaged and supportive faculty, financial aid, and the strive to succeed also promoted persistence. Relating to sex differences, student organizational involvement appeared to be more important for male persistence than female persistence at a significant level. The article closes with implications for future research and practice.     

Causal attribution and emotion in the days following competition

Abstract

We examined the extent to which attributions are consistent in the days following competition and how attributions made immediately after competition may influence the temporal patterning of emotions experienced in response to competition. A sample of 60 adult female golfers completed measures of performance satisfaction, causal attribution, and emotion immediately after competition, 5 h after competition, and 2 days after competition. Repeated-measures multivariate analysis of covariance indicated that attributions did not change over this period. Emotions showed a significant decrease in intensity over the 5-h post-competition period. Regression analyses indicated that changes in anger and dejection were more likely in the case of less successful performances. For anger, attributions moderated this level of change. Golfers experienced anger for a longer period when they identified the cause of poor performance as stable rather than unstable. Thus, in the present sample although attributions did not change over 2 days, the longevity of anger depended on the attributions made immediately after competition.     

Infants' Forgetting of Correlated Attributes and Object Recognition

Infants as young as 3 months of age can encode the relations among object features. Because object recognition depends critically upon a match between perceived feature configurations and representations of the object in long-term memory, the present experiments focused on infants' long-term memory for feature correlations. In 3 experiments with 72 3-month-olds, we documented the forgetting functions of different feature correlations, examined their relation to infants' memory for individual features, and replicated the findings with different stimuli. Infants were trained to activate a mobile composed of two kinds of blocks that differed in color, the figures displayed on them, and the figures' colors and were tested after different delays with recombinations of either the block colors, the figures, or the figure colors. Infants remembered some of the original feature combinations for up to 3 days but forgot all of them after 4 days. Even after 4 days, however, infants remembered the individual features that had entered into the original combinations. These results demonstrate that very young infants not only encode the relations among object features but also remember them for several days. Moreover, there is a dissociation in memory between features and feature relations: Feature relations are forgotten sooner than the individual features that comprise those relations.     

A quantitative and qualitative study of changes in the use of learning outcomes and distractions by students and tutors during a biology poster assessment

Learning outcomes are statements of intended learning within a module. In practice, students may consider various options when undertaking assessments. They may feel they can meet the stated learning outcomes by demonstrating other aspects of study which are termed distractions. Thirty-three undergraduate students' constructed scientific posters and completed questionnaires prior to and on the day of poster submission. Additionally, ten of these students were interviewed. Analysis of questionnaire data using principle components analysis and interview data by clustering units of relevant meaning revealed that students did not differentiate between learning outcomes and distractions, both of which steered their learning during the assessment. These results are discussed within the context of assessment tasks and implications for practice.     

Engaging young students in scientific investigations: prompting for meaningful reflection

This study examined the verbal prompts a tutor used to promote reflection and young students’ responses to these prompts. Seven children (ages 8–12) participated in 260 min of one-on-one tutoring to learn scientific concepts related to gear movement; the tutor spontaneously provided these students with 763 prompts for reflection. Prompts reliably induced reflection: Students responded verbally 87% of the time. Turn-by-turn discourse analysis revealed seven distinct types of prompts and 11 distinct types of verbal responses. High-level prompts were strongly associated with high-level responses. A log-multiplicative association model with two dimensions (temporality and certainty) represented the relationships between prompt and response types; from this model, odds ratios estimated the strength of association between specific pairs of prompt and response types. Findings are discussed in terms of the effects that reflection may have on students’ developing understanding of scientific concepts.     

Cultivating critical thinkers: Exploring transfer of learning from pre-service teacher training to classroom practice

This study explores the transfer of critical thinking skills and dispositions from pre-service teacher training to classroom practice and student achievement in the cases of two graduates from a course on critical thinking-integrated instruction. Two 7th and two 8th grade classes were randomly assigned as experimental (CT-integrated instruction), or comparison (traditional instruction) groups. Empirical results demonstrated that, in these two cases, the teachers successfully developed CT-integrated instruction for effectively fostering students' CT skills and dispositions, while improving student achievement. Future research should include larger and more representative samples to avoid bias and reliably evaluate CT-based teacher training initiatives.