Development of an Early Hebrew Oral Reading Fluency Measure

Currently, there are no Hebrew (L2) reading assessments that have been tested to obtain evidence for reliability and validity on which to base decisions about Hebrew instruction. The authors developed a Hebrew benchmark assessment tool for first grade students modeled after Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, a standardized test of accuracy and fluency used to identify at-risk students and to monitor student progress. Results of pilot data collection (N=53) provide evidence for strong alternate form reliability for this measure, as well as evidence for content, face and criterion-related validity. Future directions for research and development are discussed.     

The Buddhist Institute at Phnom Penh,the International Council of Women,and the Rome International Institute for Educational Cinematography: intersections of internationalism and imperialism, 1931–1934

This article explores the intersection of aspects of imperialism and internationalism in discussion of cinematography at the League of Nations, at the International Council of Women (ICW), and as they played out in the imperial, national and local flows around educational cinematography in the work of Suzanne Karpelès at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It focuses on the 1931 ICW cinematograph conference organised by Laura Dreyfus-Barney at the League’s Rome International Institute for Educational Cinematography (IIEC) and on the IIEC’s 1934 cinematography congress, when Dreyfus-Barney fed Karpelès’ ideas about educational film into the congress. The article looks at the notion of rapprochement (of nations) within internationalism as this became articulated at both the League and the ICW with notions about mentalities within imperialism. It also traces the intersection of rapprochement and mentalities in Karpelès’ promotion of educational cinematography from her base in Phnom Penh. The article concludes that various elements around the cinematic at the League, the ICW and at Phnom Penh illustrate articulations of internationalism in the domains of nationalism and imperialism as well as articulations of the national and imperial in the domain of the international.     

Children''s Use of Anatomically Detailed Dolls to Recount an Event

The use of anatomically detailed dolls in child sexual abuse investigations has raised several controversial issues related to important theoretical questions in developmental psychology. The present study was designed to examine some of these issues in a methodologically sound experiment. 80 3- and 5-year-old children experienced a social interaction with a male confederate and were later tested under 1 of 4 recall conditions: reenactment with anatomically detailed dolls, reenactment with regular dolls, free recall with visual cues, or free recall without visual cues. The children were also asked a variety of specific and misleading questions, some of them dealing with acts associated with abuse ("He took your clothes off, didn't he?"). Both anatomically detailed and regular dolls along with other props aided 5-year-olds more than 3-year-olds in recounting the event. To use increased rather than decreased age differences. Anatomically detailed dolls did not foster false reports of abuse. Overall, 3-year-olds were more suggestible than 5-year-olds. The findings have implications for children's testimony in child abuse cases and for psychological theories concerning the effects of stimulus support on children's memory.     

The marginal costs of instruction

This is a study of the costs of instruction in a large public research university. It departs from other work on instructional costs in its attempt to draw inferences about the economic costs of incremental or marginal enrollments. Focusing on graduate education, we examine how the costs directly facing faculty differ from those incurred by the institution's administration and legislature as reflected in the budgetary rewards for instruction. These cost differences provide the wherewithal for a university to carry out basic research and other important functions that lack a paying clientele. The study also explores the roles of economic costs in the institution's pricing of graduate education.     

A systematic approach to analysing sports performance

A systematic approach to the analysis of sporting events is discussed. The basic tenet is that objective quantification of critical events is required for a complete analysis. This approach encompasses diverse areas of methodology and research, such as quantification, biomechanics and physiology. The theoretical underpinnings are behavioural, in so far as athletes produce observable behaviour that can be quantified and ultimately changed. Several areas of analysis are linked together in a general framework and each one of these areas is dealt with in detail.     

Time–motion analysis of elite field hockey,with special reference to repeated-sprint activity

Limited information exists about the movement patterns of field-hockey players, especially during elite competition. Time–motion analysis was used to document the movement patterns during an international field-hockey game. In addition, the movement patterns of repeated-sprint activity were investigated, as repeated-sprint ability is considered to be an important fitness component of team-sport performance. Fourteen members of the Australian men's field-hockey team (age 26±3 years, body mass 76.7±5.6?kg, [Vdot]O_2max 57.9±3.6?ml?·?kg^?1?·?min^?1; mean±s) were filmed during an international game and their movement patterns were analysed. The majority of the total player game time was spent in the low-intensity motions of walking, jogging and standing (46.5±8.1, 40.5±7.0 and 7.4±0.9%, respectively). In comparison, the proportions of time spent in striding and sprinting were 4.1±1.1 and 1.5±0.6%, respectively. Our criteria for ‘repeated-sprint’ activity (defined as a minimum of three sprints, with mean recovery duration between sprints of less than 21?s) was met on 17 occasions during the game (total for all players), with a mean 4±1 sprints per bout. On average, 95% of the recovery during the repeated-sprint bouts was of an active nature. In summary, the results suggest that the motion activities of an elite field-hockey competition are similar to those of elite soccer, rugby and Australian Rules football. In addition, the investigation of repeated-sprint activity during competition has provided additional information about the unique physiological demands of elite field-hockey performance.     

Intelligence and experience: A neopiagetian approach

An organismic process-structural approach to the classic and modern issues of intelligence and experience is outlined. A Theory of Constructive Operators (TCO) originally designed to explicate Piaget's metatheoretical notions of stages and of equilibration is presented. The theory describes a psychological organism which is a very active semantic-pragmatic system geared to assimilatory praxis. Its organization is bilevel: a situation-bound level of subjective operators (schemes) and a situation-free level constituted either by silent operators (mental effort, learning operators, field factors, affective factors, etc.) or by basic principles which describe the dynamic articulation of subjective and silent operators (the central articulation is a principle of schematic overdetermination of performance).The presentation emphasizes the TCO's epistemological foundations and Piagetian roots. The rules governing its main constructs are given. The presentation is therefore detailed enough to make possible the theory's use and its evaluation. Some of the theory's constructs as well as the illustration of mathematical models derivable from the theory in order to make quantitative predictions in many different types of tasks are however omitted. Experimental-developmental work supporting the TCO is not presented but reference to relevant papers and unpublished dissertations is provided. Relations of the TCO to some recent information-processing models of artificial intelligence and to task analysis are explained. Five basic aspects or conceptions of intelligence are recognized: genotypic (Hebb's intelligence A), phenotypic (Hebb's intelligence B), psychometric (Vernon's intelligence C), developmental (intelligence D) and computer-simulation (i.e., CS) intelligence. All five are briefly discussed and their relations with the TCO's explication of intelligence are briefly mentioned. In this manner we tacitly suggest how the understanding of these various aspects of the complex notion of intelligence can be advanced by means of the TCO. Detailed discussion of this last issue is however beyond the scope of the paper.This paper is based on extensive unpublished material prepared by the senior author which will appear in more detail elsewhere (Pascual-Leone, in preparation). P. J. Burtis participated in the initial editing of that material and Janice Johnson assisted in the preparation of the final draft of this paper. We gratefully acknowledge their advice and effort. All rights reserved by the senior author.