Psychodrama and sociodrama in primary and secondary education

Students need practice in decision making and problem solving, and sociodrama can provide this practice in a safe, nonthreatening context. It helps them to become aware of the typical ways they solve problems, and it increases both social and personal awareness. It may promote acceptance, cooperation, and cohesiveness in the classroom. Students readily adapt to this kind of activity and find it both enjoyable and stimulating. It is recommended as a useful method in the classroom and guidance and counseling setting for helping students understand their own behavior and the behavior of others.     

The Portland Problem Behavior Checklist

The Portland Problem Behavior Checklist (PPBC) is described for aiding school personnel in identifying problem behaviors of students. Test reliability and validity data are reported. The PPBC appears to offer a quick format useful for clinical referrals, assessment, and initial evaluation.     

Congruence and typology of diagnoses in school psychology: An empirical study

Focus is directed upon the logic and import of the assumption that effective preventative and remedial mental health service demands reasonable agreement among service providers as to the nature and course of psychological problems. The study proceeds to test the belief that school psychologists improve in diagnostic agreement as a function of increased training and experience. Seventy-two randomly selected members of groups of novice, intern, and expert school psychologists were presented with three child case studies containing a full breadth of information and were subsequently asked to render diagnoses. It was found that diagnostic agreement was absent at all levels of experience, and further, a trend was noted wherein school psychologists tended to demonstrate increasing disagreement with one another as they acquired more training and experience. The findings were examined in the context of comparative research from allied mental health and educational specialties, with a special concern for discovering prevailing patterns of decision-making errors that result in reduced diagnostic agreement and validity.     

The relationship between kindergartners' play and achievement in prereading,language, and writing

The study examined the relationship between play and selected demographic variables (sex and SES) and kindergartners' achievement in prereading, language, and writing. Play was observed and ranked according to Smilansky's cognitive play categories. Prereading and language achievement were measured by the Metropolitan Reading Readiness Test; writing achievement was measured by students' word writing fluency. Sixty-five kindergartners (37 male, 28 female) were tested and observed in the classrooms over a four-week period. Multiple regression and ANOVA procedures were employed to determine the extent to which play, SES, and sex predicted student achievement. Play was a significant predictor of success on all three measures of achievement (p < .01). SES and sex appeared to have little influence on the prediction of achievement. There were significant main effects due to play for all achievement variables (p < .001). Post hoc analyses indicated that dramatic play had the most significant impact on play (p < .05). Pedagogical implications are made.     

Program reevaluation: The gifted controversy

Gifted reevaluations consume an enormous amount of professional time and energy. The purpose of the present study was to survey gifted education teachers' and supervisors' perceptions of current gifted reevaluation practices. Results showed most gifted educators were not in agreement with the practice of using gifted reevaluations to reestablish program eligibility. Instead, they would prefer to get information relevant to program evaluation, program planning, and the need for additional services. Included among the alternatives suggested to replace the present gifted reevaluation practices were consideration of student work products, motivation, and interest; reports by parents and by regular and gifted education teachers; and monitoring the student progress made in achieving the goals of the individual educational program.     

Validation of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children with a sample of preschool children

The validity of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) (Kaufman & Kaufman, 1983) was investigated with a sample of preschool-age children. The sample consisted of 50 subjects aged 21/2 through 4 who were distributed roughly equally by age, sex, and race according to the 1980 census. The validity of the K-ABC was examined using the Slosson Intelligence Test (SIT) (Slosson, 1982) and the Classroom Behavior Inventory-Preschool Form (CBI) (Schaefer & Edgerton, 1978) as criterion measures. The SIT and CBI-Preschool Form Verbal Intelligence Scale were found to correlate significantly (p<.01) with the global scales of the K-ABC. The K-ABC did not differentiate between age or sex groups, but blacks scored lower than whites. The findings are supportive of previous validity studies (Kaufman & Kaufman, 1983) and two-factor theories of intelligence (e.g., Das, Kirby, & Jarman, 1975).