Parents' Socialization of Children's Injury Prevention: Description and Some Initial Parameters

In a year-long participant observation study of remediative action following actual injury, 61 8- and 9-year-old children and their 27-46-year-old mothers wrote records and reported on more than 1,000 minor injuries in branching biweekly interviews. Mothers reported that 80.1% of injuries received no parent-initiated remediation, 14% received only a lecture, and less than 3% of injuries were followed by parental action. Children reported that 96.1% of their injuries were followed by no remediative action and recalled lectures after only 1.2% of injuries. Remediative action was related to type of child activity (e.g., unstructured play was followed by remediation more often than more purposive behavior) and to mother's affect (e.g., anger) and beliefs (e.g., that injury was the child's fault or due to rule violation). The parameters that influenced remediative consequences, and thus that may influence future injury, are discussed.     

The inner world of school principals: Reflections on career life stages

The study is aimed at disclosing the reflections of school principals on their careers and investigating whether these reflections point to any distinct career stages. Ten school principals were interviewed using the think aloud technique. This process was protocolled verbatim. The protocol content analysis yielded two developmental trends: From management to leadership, and from idealism to realism. These trends started in a distinct induction stage and continued to develop throughout a relatively long period of growth. Principals' career stages were compared with teachers' career stages that had been identified in the literature. In addition to the career stages that were identified two topics of references emerged: Environmental influences and time perspectives. Practical as well as theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.

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Zusammenfassung In diesem Artikel sollen Überlegungen der Schulleiter hinsichtlich ihrer Karriere näher beleuchtet, und es soll herausgefunden werden, ob diese Überlegungen auf bestimmte Stufen der Karriere hinweisen. Zehn Schulleiter wurden mit Hilfe der Technik des lauten Denkens interviewt. Dieser Prozess wurde wortgetreu protokolliert. Die Inhaltsanalyse des Protokolls ergab zwei Entwicklungstrends: von der Verwaltung zur Leitung und von Idealismus zu Realismus. Diese Trends begannen in einer bestimmten Einführungsphase und entwickelten sich während einer relativ langen Wachstumsphase weiter. Karrierestufen der Schulleiter wurden mit den in der Fachliteratur festgelegten Karriere stufen der Lehrer verglichen. Zusätzlich zu den identifizierten Karrierestufen ergaben sich zwei damit zusammenhängende Themen: Einflüsse durch die Umgebung und Zeitaspekte. Die praktischen und theoretischen Auswirkungen dieser Analyse werden erörtert.

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Résumé L'intention de cette étude est de révéler les réflexions de directeurs d'école sur leur carrière, et de déterminer si ces réflexions indiquent des étapes professionnelles discrètes. Un procès-verbal des entretiens avec dix directeurs fut rédigé, en utilisant une technique de penser à haute voix. L'analyse du contenu du procèsverbal montre deux tendances de développement: de la gestion vers le pilotage, et de l'idéalisme vers le réalisme. Ces tendances se manifestent à partir de l'étape distincte de l'admission et continuent à se développer durant une période de croissance relativement longue. Les chéminements professionnels des directeurs sont comparés avec ceux d'enseignants qui ont été identifiés dans la littérature. A part les étapes professionnelles ainsi déterminées, on a dégagé deux points de référence: les influences environnementales et les perspectives liées au temps. Les implications pratiques et théoriques des résultats sont discutées.

     

CS-US temporal relations in blocking

In four trace-conditioning experiments with rats, the influence on the blocking of differences between the blocking cue-unconditioned stimulus (US) and the blocked cue-US trace intervals was explored. Experiment 1 demonstrated blocking despite the blocked cue’s having a shorter trace interval than the blocking cue in both elemental (Phase 1) and compound (Phase 2) training. In Experiment 2, blocking was attenuated when the blocked cue had a longer trace interval than did the blocking cue in both elemental and compound training. In Experiments 3 and 4, the trace intervals of the two cues during compound training were matched (i.e., unlike in Experiments 1 and 2, neither had temporal priority). Blocking was attenuated when the blocking cue trace interval in the elemental phase was shorter (Experiment 3) or longer (Experiment 4) than the compound cue trace during compound training. The findings indicate that subjects encode interstimulus intervals, and they further suggest that cue competition is greatest when the competing cues have the same temporal information as the US.     

Reflections as near‐peer facilitators of an inquiry project for undergraduate anatomy: Successes and challenges from a term of trial‐and‐error

Near‐peer facilitators (senior students serving as facilitators to their more junior peers) bring a unique student‐based perspective to teaching. With fewer years of teaching experience however, students who become involved in a facilitator role typically develop related skills quickly through a process of trial‐and‐error within the classroom. The aim of this paper is to report on the authors' own experiences and reflections as student near‐peer facilitators for an inquiry‐based project in an undergraduate anatomy course. Three areas of the facilitator experience are explored: (1) offering adequate guidance as facilitators of inquiry, (2) motivating students to engage in the inquiry process, and (3) fostering creativity in learning. A practical framework for providing guidance to students is discussed which offers facilitators a scaffold for asking questions and assisting students through the inquiry process. Considerations for stimulating intrinsic motivations toward inquiry learning are made, paying attention to ways in which facilitators might influence feelings of motivation towards learning. Also, the role of creativity in inquiry learning is explored by highlighting the actions facilitators can take to foster a creative learning environment. Finally, recommendations are made for the development of formalized training programs that aid near‐peer facilitators in the acquisition of facilitation skills before entering into a process of trial‐and‐error within the classroom. Anat Sci Educ. 7: 64–70. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.     

Attention as an acquisition and performance variable (AAPV)

This article introduces a new model of Pavlovian conditioning, attention as an acquisition and performance variable (AAPV), which, like several other so-called attentional models, emphasizes the role of variation of cue salience, together with associative strength, in accounting for conditioning phenomena. AAPV is primarily (but not exclusively) a performance-focused model in that it assumes not only that both the saliences and associative strengths of cue representations change during acquisition, but also that they are both influential at the time of test in determining responding. Different weights are given to the representations’ associative strengths according to the representations’ respective saliences at test. The model also treats the representation of a stimulus that is directly activated by presentation of that stimulus as distinct from the representation of the same stimulus that is activated by presenting a companion of the stimulus. Additionally, extinction is viewed as resulting from a decrease in the salience of the cue’s representation, rather than a decrease in associative strength. Simulations of several Pavlovian phenomena are presented in order to illustrate the model and assess its robustness.     

Protection from extinction provided by a conditioned inhibitor

Three conditioned suppression experiments with rats as subjects investigated the influence of higher order associations in determining the response potential of a target stimulus. In these experiments, a Pavlovian conditioned inhibitor was compounded with the target cue during extinction treatment. In Experiment 1, strong suppression was observed to the target cue that was given extinction treatment in the presence of a conditioned inhibitor, relative to a target that was extinguished with an associatively neutral cue or was extinguished alone, suggestive of enhanced protection from extinction provided by a conditioned inhibitor. This effect was replicated in a sensory preconditioning preparation in Experiment 2; in Experiment 3, in a sensory preconditioning preparation, this protection effect was retroactively attenuated when the conditioned excitor used to train the conditioned inhibitor was extinguished following extinction of the target. This provides evidence that, at least in a sensory preconditioning preparation, stimuli that are only indirectly associated with the target cue can contribute to the response potential of that target.