Development of the attitude toward science in school assessment and its use to investigate the relationship between science achievement and attitude toward science in school

There is much interest in science courses in high school and student attitudes toward those courses. A valid and reliable instrument that measures such attitudes is not available. This study first developed and validated the Attitude toward Science in School Assessment (ATSSA). The instrument was used to evaluate the relationship between such attitude and achievement in science. A low correlation was found between attitude and various achievement tests. A moderate correlation was found between attitude and achievement that included an evaluation of the quality of work, as in a course grade.     

Incidence and situational factors surrounding sexual assault against delinquent youths

This study reports the results of extensive interviews with an intact sample of moderately delinquent adolescents concerning their sexual assault histories. Findings indicate a surprisingly high incidence of victimization among the females interviewed which, the authors suggest, may characterize the larger population of delinquent females. The behavioral-situational contexts of reported victimization experiences are examined for salient commonalities and the following composite rape scenerio can be cast from the data: An unsupervised, 14-year-old female, who has been consuming alcohol or marijuana, is sexually assaulted, following threat and/or force, to the point of penile-vaginal penetration, by an older male friend or acquaintance (who has also consumed alcohol or marijuana) in his home or vehicle or other place where she is inherently unprotected. Some comments are offered concerning the requirements of an effective technology of child rape prevention.     

Generalization of serial learning in the pigeon

Sequence learning in pigeons was studied in asimultaneous chaining paradigm: all stimuli and the opportunity to respond to each stimulus were available simultaneously. In contrast to the traditionalsuccessive chaining paradigm, a simultaneous chaining paradigm provides no differential feedback following each response (except the last). Subjects were first trained to perform on sequences of two (AB), then three (ABC), and then four colors (ABCD). Performance greatly exceeded that predicted by models of random choice. Generalization to novel arrays of three and four colors was complete. After training with a four-color sequence, the subjects were tested with subsequences consisting of all possible combinations of two and three of the four training colors (e.g., BD, AD, BC, ACD, BCD, etc.). The successful completion of these subsequences showed that the organization of the original sequence did not entail overt pecks to successive elements of that sequence. That subjects can respond accurately on nonadjacent subsets is not readily explained by a chaining theory, or by any theory that assumes that responding to element n provides a cue for responding to element n+1.     

Research Abstracts

Educational technology research and development -     

Piagetian tasks as readiness measures in mathematics instruction: A critical review

The purpose of this review was to synthesize the research on the relationship between performance on Piagetian tasks of concrete operations and performance on mathematics learning tasks in order to determine whether the Piagetian tasks make useful readiness measures. The research consistently indicates that, while there is a positive correlation between performance on Piagetian tasks and mathematics achievement, many school mathematics tasks can be mastered by children who have not yet developed the reasoning abilities measured by Piagetian tasks. This does not diminish the validity of Piaget's theory, but rather suggests that the kinds of reasoning processes identified by Piaget are not essential in solving many school mathematics tasks.     

Formula-based research incentive plans at colleges and universities

Financial problems at colleges and universities have led many institutions to initiate extra efforts to obtain extramural funds. One such effort has been the establishment of formula-based research incentive plans. These plans generally utilize the recovery of indirect costs as the basis for allocating additional incentive funds to various areas as an encouragement to obtain additional extramural funds. Data from surveys conducted by the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Ohio University were combined with National Science Foundation reports to provide information about this relatively recent phenomena. The increasing popularity of these plans was shown in that a majority of institutions had such plans in effect during FY 1979. Analyses of the effectiveness of these plans showed no statistically significant differences between institutions with incentive plans and those without such plans, although mean federal research expenditures were approximately 20% greater at those institutions without these incentive plans. The evidence presented indicates that the receipt of federal research funds is not associated with the use of a formula-based research incentive plan.