Refugees in Context: A Systemic,Intersectional Exploration of Discrimination in the United States

International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling - The goal of this study was to examine how individual, community, and socio-political mechanisms of discrimination intersect, manifest, and...     

The Will,the Wit,the Judgement: The importance of an early start in productive and successful creative writing

Most traditional concepts about creative writers include the idea that creative talent is evident early - that productive and talented writers began their careers at a young age. Yet few empirical studies have actually examined this supposition. A study of 986 creative writers from the twentieth century investigated the relationship between the age at first publication and measures of productivity (numbers of works produced) and success (winning a Nobel or Pulitzer prize). While significant relationships were found between an early debut and increased productivity in poetry and total number of works, it is more noteworthy that a writer's age at first publication was not significantly related to total productivity in fiction or success. Implications for creative writers and teachers of creative writing are discussed, along with how these findings might be incorporated into the current standards-based reform efforts.     

How specific is the shape bias?

Children tend to extend object names on the basis of sameness of shape, rather than size, color, or material-a tendency that has been dubbed the "shape bias." Is the shape bias the result of well-learned associations between words and objects? Or does it exist because of a general belief that shape is a good indicator of object category membership? The present three studies addressed this debate by exploring whether the shape bias is specific to naming. In Study 1, 3-year-olds showed the shape bias both when asked to extend a novel name and when asked to select an object of the same kind as a target object. Study 2 found the same shape bias when children were asked to generalize properties relevant to category membership. Study 3 replicated the findings from Study 1 with 2-year-olds. These findings suggest that the shape bias derives from children's beliefs about object kinds and is not the product of associative learning.     

A Critical Review of Students’ and Teachers’ Understandings of Nature of Science

Science & Education - There is widespread agreement that an adequate understanding of the nature of science (NOS) is a critical component of scientific literacy and a major goal in science...     

Integrated reflectography and thermography for wooden paintings diagnostics

The need of inspecting a masterpiece of fine art without affecting it led to develop non destructive methods of investigation. In the field of art conservation, several diagnostic techniques are being widely used to inspect works of art, giving different but complementary results. The present work deals with two of these methods, reflectography and thermography, both techniques examining objects in the infrared spectrum but in different wavelength bands. Their integrated data potentially provide a powerful tool for mapping hidden features and alterations of artworks. This was confirmed during the inspections of a 13th century panel painting under restoration at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure laboratories (Florence, Italy). A graphical user interface was also designed to aid operators in the field of conservation dealing with the results of the two IR methods. Many options such as image adjustment, comparison, overlaying and transparency variation, in addition to thermographic elaborations, have been made available to users. Imaging data integration provides a multi-layered and multi-spectral representation of the painting that yields a comprehensive diagnosis confirms the anomalies individuation and reduces the ambiguities of information coming from a single diagnostic method.     

A season-long team-building intervention: examining the effect of team goal setting on cohesion

The purpose of the current study was to determine whether the implementation of a season-long team-building intervention program using team goal setting increased perceptions of cohesion. The participants were 86 female high school basketball players from 8 teams. The teams were randomly assigned to either an experimental team goal-setting or control condition. Each participant completed the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ; Carron, Brawley, & Widmeyer, 2002; Carron, Widmeyer, & Brawley, 1985), which assessed cohesion at both the beginning and end of the season. Overall, the results revealed a significant multivariate effect, Pillai's trace F(12, 438) = 2.68, p = .002. Post hoc analyses showed that at the beginning of the season, athletes from both conditions did not differ in their perceptions of cohesion. However, at the end of the season, athletes in the team goal-setting condition held higher perceptions of cohesion than athletes in the control condition. Overall, the results indicated that team goal setting was an effective team-building tool for influencing cohesiveness in sport teams.     

Teacher-pupil compatibility and teachers' ratings of children's behavior

Canonical variate analysis of the relationships between teachers' ratings of children's behavior and an index of teacher-pupil compatibility objectively demonstrated a significant relationship between behaviors representative of serious psychopathology and teacher-pupil compatibility. Previous multivariate analyses of variance had failed to identify meaningful relationships between teacher-pupil compatibility and teacher nomination of a child as a behavior problem. This study provides inferential support for the contention that school behavior problems and emotional disturbances are separate nosological entities.     

A comparison of WISC-R and stanford-binet intelligence scale classifications of developmentally disabled children

WISC-Rs and Stanford-Binets were administered to 50 children with developmental disabilities referred for comprehensive evaluations. Although the two IQs correlated highly and significantly, it was found that 54% of the children received different classifications using the two instruments. Thus, testers should be aware that different classifications of intellectual level may be derived for the same child depending upon which test is used.