Optimal Design for Two-Level Random Assignment and Regression Discontinuity Studies

An important concern when planning research studies is to obtain maximum precision of an estimate of a treatment effect given a budget constraint. When research designs have a multilevel or hierarchical structure changes in sample size at different levels of the design will impact precision differently. Furthermore, there will typically be differential costs of enrolling additional units at different levels of the hierarchy. The optimal design problem in multilevel research studies involves determining the optimal sample size at each level of the design given specified design parameters and a specified marginal cost of recruitment at each level. The current work extends existing results by considering optimal design for (a) unbalanced random assignment designs and (b) regression discontinuity designs.     

Advice from Rural Elders: What it Takes to Age in Place

Older adults prefer to age in place (AIP), and there are psychological, physiological, and economic benefits in doing so. However, it is especially challenging to AIP in rural communities. AIP models have been tested in urban settings and age-segregated communities, but they are not appropriate for rural communities. This paper presents rural AIP variables identified in the literature as well as those described by 39 older adults in five focus groups.     

Visual constructive and visual-motor skills in deaf native signers

Visual constructive and visual-motor skills in the deaf population were investigated by comparing performance of deaf native signers (n=20) to that of hearing nonsigners (n=20) on the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration, Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test, Wechsler Memory Scale Visual Reproduction subtest, and Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale Paper Folding and Cutting subtest. Deaf signers were found to perform similarly to hearing controls, suggesting that these tests are valid assessment instruments to use with deaf individuals.     

A Social Constructivist Approach to Preparing School Counselors to Work Effectively in Urban Schools

In this article a social construction framework is used to improve the capacity of school counselors and trainees to work effectively with African American and Latina/o students in urban schools. Three key theoretical tenets of the social construction worldview are presented as a new lens for thinking about the meaning-making process of students in an urban school setting and how school counselors can support it. We offer activities to operationalize this theoretical point of view and implications for school counselor training and practice.     

Dual Routes to Cognitive Flexibility: Learning and Response‐Conflict Resolution in the Dimensional Change Card Sort Task

Cognitive control, the ability to align our actions with goals or context, is largely absent in children under four. How then are preschoolers able to tailor their behavior to best match the situation? Learning may provide an alternative route to context‐sensitive responding. This study investigated this hypothesis in the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS), a classic test of cognitive control that most under‐fours fail. A training intervention based on learning theoretic principles proved highly effective: Three‐year‐olds who learned about DCCS rules and game contexts in a card‐labeling task, subsequently transferred this knowledge to sorting in the DCCS, passing at more than 3 times the rate of controls (N = 47). This surprising finding reveals much about the nature of the developing mind.     

Books in review

ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR MISUNDERSTANDING. By Robert Gover. New York: Ballantine Books, 1963. 215 pp. 95 cents.     

An Experiment with Grouping of Freshman English Composition Students

The thesis that low grades cause college students to give up receives some support from early psychological research and from current reinforcement theories. In the present study the effects on subsequent grades of low, average, and high first exam grades were investigated for 192 students in a traditional grading system and fifty-four students in a pass-fail grading system. When regression effects were eliminated, it was found that students receiving D’s and F’s dropped out significantly more than other students, but low graded students who continued the course did better on a later exam. Relative to others, students receiving A’s on the first exam did significantly better on a second exam. Students on the pass-fail system did not show any significant effects from first exam grades, but overall they received significantly lower grades than those on the traditional grading system. The results, though inconclusive, support grading systems which minimize low grades and maximize high grades.     

Impacting Mediators of Change for Physical Activity Among Elderly Food Stamp Recipients

A multidisciplinary team developed and pilot-tested a curriculum, delivered by trained lay educators, to increase self-efficacy for physical activity among elderly food stamp recipients. Curriculum development was guided by a comprehensive literature review. Process evaluation was used to revise the curriculum and to assess lay educator training and pilot test fidelity. Three hundred sixteen low-income older adults participated in curriculum development and pilot-testing activities. One hundred twenty four participants completed pretest/posttest impact evaluation surveys. The average age of participants was 75 years old with 55.28% having less than high school education. Significant increases in self-efficacy regarding walking most days (p = .0022), using exercise bands (p < .0001), being physically active to increase strength (p = .0012), being active without injury (p < .0001), being able to wear appropriate clothing and shoes (p < .0001), and getting information about community physical activity programs (p = .0007) were observed. Participants also endorsed higher ratings of general health at posttest (p < .0001).     

LEARNING ABILITY FOR TWO SPATIAL ORIENTATION SYSTEMS IN ELDERLY NURSING HOME RESIDENTS

Disorientation and confusion have been identified as significant problems for older persons newly admitted to nursing homes and other institutions. The purpose of this study was to determine which of two orientating systems might be best for helping older people become accustomed to a strange environment. Middle‐aged and elderly residents of a nursing home were dichotomized by performance on three memory tests and then were given two paired‐associate learning tasks. In one task colors and a place in the nursing home were to be associated; in the other symbols and a place in the nursing home were to be associated. The results indicated that the symbol‐place paired‐associate task was learned more rapidly than the color‐place task by both high and low memory ability groups, and that the lower memory ability group showed slower learning of the color‐place task compared to the higher memory ability group. In addition, learning was slower on both tasks when the color‐place task was the first presented. These results indicated that symbol‐place codes may be more useful than color‐place codes as orientation markers and suggested that evaluation of learning performance should include examination of order effects.