bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
WASTAGE OF ABILITY AMONGST THE INTELLECTUALLY GIFTED
Authors: ARMSTRONG H. G.
Published: May 2011

Summary. In a follow‐up of children admitted to grammar schools in 1956 and 1957 with I.Qs. of 135+, more than twice as many from professional, as from working class, homes entered full‐time higher education. Performance at Ordinary and Advanced levels of G.C.E., showed no significant differences between the two groups.
THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS
Authors: ENTWISTLE N. J. , BRENNAN T.
Published: May 2011

Summary. As an alternative to correlational analysis, a method of cluster analysis has been applied to 23 psychological variables related to academic performance among university students. Twelve clusters were described which suggested the existence of alternative paths to academic success and failure. The approach appears to offer advantages for analyses of data in which complex interactions are anticipated.
THE PERFORMANCE OF NON‐GRADUATE STUDENT TEACHERS IN UNIVERSITY COURSES
Authors: BROWN G. A.
Published: May 2011

Summary. The first year examination results of 60 students training as teachers, who would normally have taken non‐degree courses in a college of education, were compared with those of the first year honours degree students of the university. The student teachers had lower failures and fewer high scoring candidates. The overlap of results suggests that a wider range of students than has hitherto been considered can successfully study university courses.
ASSESSMENT OF TEACHING PRACTICE: AN ‘ATTRACTIVE’ HYPOTHESIS
Authors: HORE T.
Published: May 2011

Summary. An educational psychologist observing the teaching performance of borderline pass‐fail students, noticed their consistent unattractiveness. This observation led to an examination of the relationship between attractiveness and assessment in two methods subjects. The female students rated ‘ attractive ’ obtained significantly better marks than those rated ‘ unattractive.’ For male students the differences were not significant. Some implications of this result for teacher training were examined.
THE ‘SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS’ FACTOR IN ATTITUDES TO SCIENCE
Authors: ORMEROD M. B.
Published: May 2011

Summary. Subject and social implications factors have been identified in a science attitude test applied to the more able half of the 13–14 year age group in a sample of English secondary schools. The relationship between attitudes about the social implications of science and choice for or against a science option appears to be stronger in the case of girls than in the case of boys.
PERSONALITY AND ACADEMIC ATTAINMENT*
Authors: ENTWISTLE N. J.
Published: May 2011

Summary. Research using the scales developed by Eysenck and Cattell is reviewed at school level and in higher education. The results suggest an age effect in which academic success at primary school is linked to stable extra‐version, while success at university is associated with introversion. This simple pattern is, however, complicated by a variety of interactions which indicate that the relationships may differ with intellectual level, with type of institution and with the subject being studied. There is also a suggestion that the style of teaching may affect the relationships between personality and attainment. Finally, evidence on the stability of scores on the JEPI is used to question the direction of causality normally assumed in the interactions.
INDUCTION OF CURIOSITY VIA RHETORICAL QUESTIONS AND ITS EFFECT ON THE LEARNING OF FACTUAL MATERIALS
Authors: ZILLMANN D. , CANTOR JOANNE R.
Published: May 2011

Summary. Lectures were delivered in two versions: one containing rhetorical question‐and‐answer sequences and the other with identical content but without the questions. The presence of rhetorical questions significantly enhanced the learning and recall of the facts presented in the lectures when artificially high levels of attention were counteracted by distraction or by the prior induction of boredom.
PRODUCT AND PROCESS IN COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: SOME COMPARATIVE DATA ON THE PERFORMANCE OF SCHOOL AGE CHILDREN IN DIFFERENT CULTURES
Authors: PHILP HUGH , KELLY M.
Published: May 2011

Summary. In the search for factors affecting the ‘educability’ of children, tasks derived from the theoretical positions of Piaget and Bruner were administered to children of primary school age in three cultures. The sample, of total size 1,536, was drawn from New South Wales, Australia, Papua, New Guinea and children of non‐English speaking migrants in Sydney, Australia.

Instruments were designed or adapted to minimise difficulties of cross‐cultural application. The tasks were divided into two groups—‘product’ (getting it right) and ‘process’ (how it was done). Behaviours, representative of development according to the theories of both Piaget and Bruner, were found in all three cultures. The order of difficulty of the product tasks, with some minor exceptions, was the same for all three, whether the children had been to school or not. The Bruner process tasks presented a different picture. There were material differences from culture to culture in the order of appearance of various identifiable processes. As difficulty of task increased, the process commonly used by the children of each culture changed. With the most difficult tasks the children from all cultures tended to use the same process. Some implications of the findings are discussed.
PRESENTATION VARIABLES AND STUDENTS' ACTIVITIES IN MEANINGFUL LEARNING
Authors: HOWE M. J. A. , SINGER LINDA
Published: May 2011

Summary. TWO experiments were conducted in which first‐year students were asked to read a passage of prose under different conditions, chosen to represent realistic study strategies. In the first experiment 86 students were allocated to three main conditions of reading, copying and summarising. The summarising activity, contrary to expectations, did not lead to greater recall than reading alone. The results of the second experiment, in which some of the 96 students read the material and others listened to it, indicated that the requirement to undertake recording activities has a negative effect upon learning only in circumstances whereby such a requirement imposes constraints upon learners' strategies.
A COMPARISON OF THREE METHODS OF EVALUATING TEACHING PERFORMANCE IN A COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Authors: POVEY R. M.
Published: May 2011

Summary. 196 Teacher's Certificate students were assessed on their penultimate teaching practice by 67 supervising tutors. The students were divided into three comparable groups and were supervised by three comparable groups of paired tutors. After three‐and‐a‐half weeks each student was graded (A to E) by two tutors independently. Each group of tutors used one of three assessment methods: Analytic, involving reference to uniform criteria in the context of a graphic‐style rating scale; Profile, involving a rating scale with a less tightly organised procedure; and Global, in which tutors made no reference to uniformly agreed criteria. The results suggest that the Analytic method represents a clear improvement over the other two methods in a number of respects.
IMPULSIVITY: SELF‐REPORT AND PERFORMANCE MEASURE
Authors: CAIRNS E. , HARBISON JOAN I.
Published: May 2011

Summary. A sample of 98 boys, aged 11–12 years, completed the Junior Eysenck Personality Inventory and were individually administered Kagan's Matching Familiar Figures test of reflection/impulsivity. Four groups were formed on the basis of median splits on two indices of impulsivity and a two‐way analysis of variance was carried out against Eysenck's personality dimensions and an additional impulsivity factor derived from the same inventory. The fact that no main effects or interactions were obtained for any self‐report measure was discussed with reference to other failures to validate the JEPI.
THE STRUCTURE OF OLIVER'S ‘SURVEY OF OPINIONS ABOUT EDUCATION’
Authors: WILSON J. A. , BILL J. M.
Published: May 2011

Summary. Oliver's Survey of Opinions about Education was completed by 424 teachers in a probability sample of 50 Northern Ireland post‐primary schools. Fee's binary target matrix procedure was used to transform a principal components' solution of the item correlation matrix to a factor solution congruent with the hypothesised scale dimensions of Naturalism, Radicalism and Tender‐mindedness. The analysis confirmed the presence of a strong Tender‐mindedness dimension, a less strong Radicalism dimension, and a weak Naturalism dimension, together with a pattern of large residual specifics. A further analysis indicated the dimensional heterogeneity of certain items, and it was suggested by way of explanation that social and educational changes since the scales were first defined may have affected the attitudinal connotation of these items, particularly on the Radicalism scale.
AN INVESTIGATION OF LEVEL I AND LEVEL II COGNITIVE PROCESSES IN THE LEARNING AND RECALL OF FACTUAL AND INFERENTIAL INFORMATION
Authors: TOWNSEND M. A. R. , KEELING B.
Published: May 2011

Summary. This study relates Jensen's dual‐process theory of cognitive functioning to the performance of 10–11 year‐old children on the learning of both factual and inferential information. Using Digit Span and Raven IQ scores, a total of 84 children was divided into four groups, scoring high and/or low on Level I (associative) and Level II (conceptual) abilities respectively. The performance of these groups was then compared on short‐term recall of factual and inferential listening comprehension items and on longer‐term recall of factual and inferential items in a test based on a prepared social studies lesson. It was hypothesised that conceptual ability would have the stronger relationship to performance on inferential items, but that associative ability would facilitate performance on factual items. Some evidence was found for the facilitative effect of high associative ability on recall of factual information in the social studies test but not in listening comprehension. Conceptual ability was by far the stronger determinant in the recall of both factual and inferential information. These results suggest that Jensen's dual‐process theory has not yet demonstrated its utility in the area of school learning.
ACHIEVEMENT AND SELF‐REPORTS OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR ACHIEVEMENT IN INFORMAL (OPEN‐SPACE) AND TRADITIONAL CLASSROOMS
Authors: BELL ANNE E. , ABRAHAMSON D. S. , GROWSE ROSEMARY
Published: May 2011

SUMMARY. Multivariate analysis showed that subsequent to the third year in a longitudinal study, 40 children chosen at random from traditional classrooms were superior in reading and math problem‐solving, but less willing to accept responsibility for negative intellectual events, when compared with 40 children from an informal, open‐space school. The groups had shown no significant differences due to type of school or sex of subject on a pre‐school predictive test battery. Differences were attributable only to type of school at the fourth year. When stepwise discriminant analysis was employed with these groups only problem‐solving and concepts in mathematics entered the multiple regression equation as significant predictors of group membership.
THE RELATION OF SPELLING ERRORS TO COGNITIVE VARIABLES AND WORD TYPE
Authors: GOYEN JUDITH D. , MARTIN M.
Published: May 2011

SUMMARY. With one exception, all of the phonetic and non‐phonetic spelling errors of a sample of 93 13‐ and 14‐year‐old boys loaded significantly on a general factor, described as verbal‐intellectual ability. Auditory sequential memory had a moderate loading on this factor, but visual sequential memory did not load significantly on any of the six factors. Analyses of the relation of word type to spelling performance indicated that spelling difficulty was a function of word frequency but not of regularity of orthography.
LATERALITY AND INTELLECTUAL ABILITY: A JUST NOT NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE?
Authors: HARDYCK C.
Published: May 2011

SUMMARY. Previously reported work on laterality and intellectual abilities has suggested that the left‐handed may be divided into two populations. When right‐ and left‐handed are compared as groups on measures of intellectual performance, no differences are found. However, when children at the extreme lower end of the ability distributions are compared, a slight excess of left‐handed has been reported. The present study selected, from a population of 7688 children, those at the lower end of IQ, scholastic aptitude, and reading ability distributions and found no difference in the frequency of handedness for this subgroup. Left‐handed children are as likely to be at the upper end on an ability distribution as the lower end.
ON PRESENTING PICTURES AND SENTENCES: THE EFFECT OF PRESENTATION ORDER ON SENTENCE COMPREHENSION IN NORMAL AND MENTALLY HANDICAPPED CHILDREN*
Authors: WHELDALL K. , MITTLER P.
Published: May 2011

SUMMARY. Thirty‐nine normal pre‐school and 48 older ESN(S) children of similar vocabulary age were tested on a sentence comprehension test under three different presentation conditions. The test requires the child to demonstrate his comprehension of spoken sentences by pointing appropriately to one of three or four alternative visual referents. In the first condition the pictures were presented prior to the stimulus sentence, in the second the pictures and sentence were presented simultaneously, and in the third the sentence was presented prior to the pictures. Presentation conditions did not affect performance significantly for normal children, but that of ESN(S) children was adversely affected by the condition in which sentences were presented prior to pictures.
AN AUSTRALIAN EVALUATION OF THE JUNIOR EYSENCK PERSONALITY INVENTORY
Authors: HANSFORD B. C. , NEIDHART H.
Published: May 2011

SUMMARY. An Australian sample (N=463) of 15‐year‐old girls was used in an evaluation of the Junior Eysenck Personality Inventory (JEPI). In particular, this study examined the terminology used in various items, response rates, factorial structure, and the relationship between inventory scales. Although the findings regarding item terminology and response rates may indicate a need to modify JEPI, the factorial structure and relationship between scales support the Eysenckian position.
THE EFFECT OF TYPE OF ITEM ON STUDENT‐TEACHER INTERACTION DURING FEEDBACK OF EXAMINATION PERFORMANCE
Authors: BOREHAM N. C.
Published: May 2011

SUMMARY. Seventy‐three State Registered Nurses following a course in intensive care nursing were given achievement tests, and then given knowledge of their results in tutorials. Half the students took a test of the ability to recall knowledge, while the remainder of the sample took a test of the ability to apply such knowledge. Measures of teacher‐student interaction during the tutorials showed that the application test stimulated more information exchange and greater student involvement in discussion. The significance of this is related to the informative role of feedback in facilitating learning.
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF YOUNG CHILDREN'S CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES AND LEARNING OUTCOMES
Authors: EVANS MARY ANN
Published: May 2011

Summary. Ten ‘informal’ and ten ‘comparison’ primary grade classrooms matched according to socio‐economic neighbourhood, grade, and instructional organisation were observed using the Pupil Activity Scan, an observation instrument specifically designed for the present study to record pupil behaviour. Analysis of the observational data indicated that children in informal classes engaged in child‐to‐child interaction, play activities, individual conferences with the teacher, and independent work to a greater extent than comparison pupils. In the comparison classrooms, word analysis activities, printing activities, independent silent reading, and teacher‐led group experiences were more prevalent. Substantial variation in curricula was also observed across all classrooms. Testing of the children at the end of the school year indicated no differences between the two groups in language development, problem‐solving, fine motor‐figural perception, role‐taking, or understanding of classification, but the performance of pupils in the informal classrooms appeared to be lower with respect to reading and mathematics.
PREDICTIVE VALIDITY OF A SCREENING BATTERY FOR CHILDREN ‘AT RISK’ FOR READING FAILURE
Authors: WHITE MARGARET , BATINI P. , SATZ P. , FRIEL JANETTE
Published: May 2011

Summary. A three‐year follow‐up of a sample of 407 white boys entering urban Catholic schools in Perth is reported. The children were given a series of eight tests previously shown to predict subsequent reading performance. Using discriminant analysis, it was shown that 75 per cent of children identified as having a high risk of reading failure showed severe or mild symptoms of such failure in terms of reading comprehension in the third year of schooling.
THE INTERPRETATION OF PRONOMINAL REFERENCE BY RETARDED AND NORMAL READERS
Authors: DALGLEISH B. W. J. , ENKELMANN SUSAN
Published: May 2011

Summary. Retarded and normal readers were required to interpret two clause sentences in which the pronominal subject of one clause agreed with the named subject of the other. If the pronominal subject appears in the main clause, the subjects cannot have the same identity. If it is in the subordinate clause, the subjects may have the same or different identities. Some sentences followed an indirect speech format in which the subordinate clause is usually preceded by the main; others contained subordinate clauses headed by an adverb, which are not fixed in relation to the main clause. A simple order based solution sometimes adopted by young children avoids the main and subordinate distinction: if the pronominal subject precedes the named subject its reference is restricted to a different identity (ID2). The retarded subjects produced significantly fewer ID2 interpretations when these were obligatory, confirming that syntactic problems may be implicated in reading retardation. The group × set interaction was not significant, although the normal readers were too advanced to apply the order strategy. Since the retarded readers did not spontaneously apply the order strategy the possibility of teaching it where the main: subordinate distinction is too difficult to operationalise is raised.
A TRANSMISSION‐INTERPRETATION SCALE
Authors: GARDNER P. L. , TAYLOR S. M.
Published: May 2011

Summary. Barnes and Shemilt (1974) have conceptualised transmission‐interpretation (T‐I) as an important dimension of teachers' verbal behaviour. Transmissive teachers are held to differ from interpretative ones in their beliefs about the nature of knowledge, in their expectations of student performance and in their perceptions of their tasks as teachers. These differences in beliefs, expectations and perceptions might be expected to surface as observable differences in the way teachers use language in the classroom.

The present paper describes an attempt to measure teacher T‐I by means of a 40‐item Likert scale completed by students. After correction for attenuation, the T‐I scale correlated 0–83 with the Student Perception of Teacher Style scale (Tuckman, 1970) which measures teacher directiveness. A shortened (20‐item) version of the T‐I scale yielded an estimated coefficient alpha of 0–93, suggesting that the construct can be measured with a high degree of internal consistency.
ADJUSTMENT OF EXAMINATION MARKS
Authors: GREEN J. R. , BALDOCK G. R. , AL‐BAYATTI M. F.
Published: May 2011

Summary. A simple unbalanced block model is proposed for examination marks, as an improvement on the usual implicit model. The new model is applied to some real data and is found, by the usual normal linear theory F test, to give a highly significant improvement. Some alternative models are also considered.
THE PRODUCTION AND PERCEPTION BY PROFOUNDLY DEAF CHILDREN OF SYNTACTIC TIME CUES IN ENGLISH
Authors: IVIMEY G. P.
Published: May 2011

Summary. Earlier analyses of the syntactic development of English profoundly deaf children have revealed the existence of non‐standard stages in the evolution of verb phrases. These pass from a stage of unit verbs where form of the verb is constant, usually present or past, but with no regular time‐reference; through an intermediate stage of dual time reference, frequently as with the children studies contrasting future and a common present/past system. In this latter, form still has no systematic time‐marking function. Finally children develop a three‐fold time marking system in which form and reference of verbs are fairly consistently related. It was predicted that the stage of development reached in verb‐phrase production would influence the perception of verb phrases in language reception. A reading task, using vocabulary known to the subjects, was used, requiring the children to recognise the time‐reference of simple sentences. The prediction was supported: the productive linguistic model of the children appears to be related to their perception of language.
SUB‐CULTURAL DIFFERENCES ON SELECTED COGNITIVE TASKS
Authors: MOLLOY G. N.
Published: May 2011

Summary. The present study investigated some relationships between age, socio‐economic status (SES), and cognitive task performance among 120 children from Grades 1 and 4. A battery of tasks differing in transformational requirements and ostensibly in cultural loading was administered to all children. Analyses of results indicate that low SES children were more handicapped in some tasks of so‐called reasoning ability when compared to middle SES children. But contrary to expectations, the test scores of the contrasted SES groups were more disparate in Grade 1 than in Grade 4. For the older age group, SES differences on the culturally loaded Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) were apparent, whereas differences on the culturally‐reduced Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices were statistically non‐significant.
REPORTING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT: HOW MANY GRADES?
Authors: MITCHELMORE M. C.
Published: May 2011

Summary. This paper presents a scientific rationale for deciding the maximum number of points on a grading scale used for reporting student achievement. It is first proposed that a scale be considered acceptable if a hypothetical retest would lead to at least 90 per cent of the students being regarded within one point of their original grade. The proposed criterion is then used to derive a formula for the maximum number of grades in terms of the standard error of the test score in the special case where the standard error is constant and the grade boundaries are equally spaced, and applications to more general cases are considered. The method is illustrated by applying it to three typical assessment situations, in which the estimated maximum acceptable number of grades is found to vary from 3 to 9.
STUDENTS' REACTIONS TO ATTRIBUTIONS OF ABILITY AND EFFORT
Authors: RAVIV A. , BAR‐TAL D. , RAVIV ALONA , LEVIT RUTH
Published: May 2011

Summary. One hundred and forty‐four 5th grade, 10th grade and college students were presented with a questionnaire consisting of three parts. In Part I, the students received a description of eight different hypothetical stories about classmates. In each story, the classmate's ability (high or low), exerted effort (high or low) and outcome (success or failure) were varied. Following each story the students were asked to rate the predicted grade given by a teacher, teacher's appreciation, own appreciation, projected classmate's satisfaction, and own willingness to resemble the classmate. In Parts II and III, the students were asked whether they would like to be perceived as having ability or as exerting effort. The results showed that while students believe that teachers and they themselves show more appreciation of effort exertion than ability, they project feelings of satisfaction and would like to be perceived more as having ability than exerting effort. Also, 5th grade students on all the questions reacted more favourably to effort exertion than 10th grade and college students.
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN THE DOWN'S SYNDROME INFANT: SLOW OR DIFFERENT?
Authors: MORSS J. R.
Published: May 2011

Summary. An investigation was carried out to determine whether cognitive development in the Down's Syndrome (DS) infant is identical in nature with that of the Normal (N) infant, even though manifesting a general retardation. Longitudinal investigation was carried out of Object Permanence development in a group of 8 DS infants and a group of 26 N infants. As expected, DS infants manifested delayed achievement of all steps in the sequence. In addition, however, DS infants were less likely than N infants to repeat an achieved success on the following test session. Further, and in contrast to the N infants, errors committed by the DS infants tended not to conform to the “characteristic” error pattern theoretically predicted for each task. It was concluded that identity in development across the two populations holds at the level of first achievement only. Cognitive development in the DS infant must be considered not merely “slow” but rather, in important respects, different from that in the normal infant.
CHILDREN'S SENSITIVITY TO DIFFERENT MODES OF COLOUR USE IN ART
Authors: O'HARE D. , COOK DEBORAH
Published: May 2011

Summary. Whilst children's drawings have been studied from a variety of perspectives their sensitivity to different modes of colour organisation has not been investigated. Proceeding from a classification of the four main modes of colour organisation found in adult art, six groups from age 5 to 11 years were tested for their ability to execute appropriate differences in the uses of colour in completions to a partially drawn scene. Subjects were also tested for their sensitivity to the differences between heraldic, gradation, harmonic and pure use of colour in a matching task. First‐year first school children displayed little capacity to produce consistent differences in their pictures. Third‐year first school children displayed significant capacities to perceive differences, but only a limited capacity to produce them. Third‐year middle school children demonstrated considerable capacities to produce differences in styles of colour use.
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT, SELF‐ESTEEM AND VALUING OF THE SCHOOL—SOME SEX DIFFERENCES
Authors: SKAALVIK E. M.
Published: May 2011

Summary. The present study tested the hypotheses that there would be sex differences in the relationship between academic achievement and (1) self‐esteem, (2) perception of parental pressure towards academic achievement and (3) perceived value of the school. These hypotheses were derived from an analysis of self‐esteem theory in relation to sex related roles and norms in our culture. The hypotheses were tested using 348 children in five different class levels. Results showed that from the 4th to the 8th class level low academic achievement was associated with low self‐esteem and with strong perceived parental pressure for boys, but not for girls. At the 8th class level low achievement was associated with low perceived value of the school for the girls while there was no such relationship for boys. The results supported the hypothesis that academic achievement has different effects for boys and girls.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG CHILDREN'S UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROCESS OF EVAPORATION
Authors: BEVERIDGE MICHAEL
Published: May 2011

Summary. This study looks at the development of young children's explanations of events which adults would explain as involving evaporation. Ninety children at each of 5, 7 and 9 years took part and these children were divided into three equal groups at each age. A pilot study, which is also briefly reported here, had indicated that 7‐ and 8‐year‐old children gave explanations which were situation‐specific. In particular, this suggested that a pan of water boiled away because the water “went into the pan”. The main study went on to look at how different groups of children at each age responded to lessons about either the non‐absorbent nature of the pan or the importance of the visible steam produced when the water boils. With age, the children were found to develop intuitive explanations of evaporation which became less inconsistent with the adult scientific view. On the other hand there was only inconclusive evidence of the differential effects of the lessons at each age. The failure of the lessons to immediately trigger off the evaporation as an explanation supports the importance of underlying cognitive structures.
TRANSFER OF TRAINING IN THE GENERATION OF DIAGNOSTIC HYPOTHESES: THE EFFECT OF LOWERING FIDELITY OF SIMULATION
Authors: BOREHAM N. C.
Published: May 2011

Summary. Practice on simulations of diagnostic problem solving can provide the knowledge base required for generating hypotheses for new problems. However, this kind of learning may be inhibited if the simulation requires the learner to practise the convergent type of hypothesis testing typical of most diagnostic situations. This prediction was tested in an experiment in which 40 adults practised on a simulation of a diagnostic task, and were then tested on their ability to generate hypotheses for a new problem. The degree of convergence/divergence of the hypothesis testing in the practice task was varied experimentally. It was found that subjects who practised the more convergent form of hypothesis testing acquired less hypothesis generating ability (P < 0.05) than those who practised the more divergent form of hypothesis testing. These findings imply that, in certain circumstances, transfer performance may be improved by lowering fidelity of simulation in the practice task. This contradicts the widespread acceptance in theories of transfer that maximum similarity of the practice and criterion situations always produces maximum transfer.
THE NATURE OF REVERSIBLE LETTER CONFUSIONS IN DYSLEXIC AND NORMAL READERS: MISPERCEPTION OR MISLABELLING?
Authors: BIGSBY PAMELA
Published: May 2011

Summary. An experiment was carried out to examine the extent and locus of the confusions which reversible letters have been observed to produce in the reading behaviour of dyslexic children. Using an extension of the Posner paradigm to collect speed and error data, the processing of reversible letters by dyslexic children was compared with that of both chronological and reading age controls. Results suggested that reversible letter confusions are errors of labelling rather than perception, and that dyslexic readers differ from normal readers of the same chronological age not in their perception of reversible letters but in their processing of them, within the name code. It was proposed that remedial programmes should concentrate on letter to sound mappings, particularly of reversible letters, rather than on largely unproductive programmes aimed at improving perception.
VERBAL/SPATIAL TASK EXPECTATIONS IN WRITTEN INSTRUCTION
Authors: KRAFT GOLDIE S. , NOVIE GREGORY J. , KULHAVY RAYMOND W.
Published: May 2011

Summary. In two experiments, high school students studied a map‐prose combination under instructions to expect either a spatial/locational or verbal/event post‐test over the target material. Control groups received no expectation instructions. In general, test expectation instructions significantly influenced the kinds of information students were able to recall on a spatially or verbally cued post‐test. In the first study, people who expected a verbal test recalled significantly fewer location items, whereas people expecting a spatial test produced superior location recall. In the second study, students in both verbal and spatial expectation groups outperformed the control condition on specifically cued items. These data suggest that the type of instructional test expectation a student is exposed to can have a major effect on the way in which instruction will be processed and studied.
THE PREDICTIVE VALIDITY OF BANNATYNE'S WISC CATEGORIES FOR LATER READING ACHIEVEMENT
Authors: McKAY MICHAEL F. , NEALE MARIE D. , THOMPSON G. BRIAN
Published: May 2011

Summary. This study was concerned with the Preparatory Grade prediction of later reading performance using recategorised WISC results suggested by Bannatyne (1974). Using the three factors Spatial, Conceptual and Sequential as the dependent variables, and group membership based on subsequent longitudinal reading performance as the independent variables, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) resulted in a significant multivariate F for a sample of 179 children (P < 0.0001). Step‐down tests and post‐hoc comparisons indicated that the Sequential factor accounted for most of between‐group variance and was the only factor to discriminate between the ‘failing readers' and average and above average readers. None of the Bannatyne‐WISC categories was able to discriminate between children who were ‘slow starters' in beginning reading and children who continued to fail at reading throughout the primary school.
THE INFLUENCE OF PATERNAL SOCIAL CLASS ON INTELLIGENCE AND EDUCATIONAL LEVEL IN MALE ADOPTEES AND NON‐ADOPTEES
Authors: TEASDALE T. W. , OWEN DAVID R.
Published: May 2011

Summary. Intelligence test scores and educational level of 241 18–26 year‐old male adoptees correlate with the social class of both their biological fathers (r = 0.218, P < 0.01; and r = 0.173, P < 0.05) and their adoptive fathers (r = 0.216, P < 0.01; and r = 0.359, P < 0.001). The correlation between the biological father's social class and the adoptee's educational level may be largely mediated by the inheritance of characteristics more directly measured by the intelligence test. Conversely, the correlation between the adoptive father's social class and the adoptee's intelligence test score may be largely mediated by familial environmental influences on educational level. The multiple correlations of both biological and adoptive fathers' social classes with the adoptees' intelligence test scores (R = 0.292, P < 0.001) and with adoptees' educational level (R = 0.384, P < 0.001) do not differ significantly (z < 0.6, NS) from the simple correlations of fathers' social class with sons' intelligence test scores and educational level in a non‐adoptive control sample of 4,020 father‐son pairs (r = 0.320, P < 0.001; and r = 0.417, P < 0.001). This suggests that familial influences on intelligence test scores and educational level may be adequately accounted for by an additive model including both genetic and familial environmental components.
PALLIATIVE VS DIRECT ACTION STRESS‐REDUCTION PROCEDURES AS TREATMENTS FOR READING DISABILITY
Authors: SHARPLEY CHRISTOPHER F. , ROWLAND STEVEN E.
Published: May 2011

Summary. Several previous reports of the treatment of learning disabilities via EMG biofeedback and relaxation training have suggested that these can be effective in reducing the high levels of stress which accompany the academic performance of learning disabled children, resulting in improvements on dependent variables such as reading, spelling, arithmetic and handwriting. The present study examined the relative efficacy of EMG biofeedback, relaxation training, remedial teaching and two control procedures with 50 elementary schoolchildren who had been referred for reading disability. Daily reading “probes” of reading accuracy, speed and comprehension were collected as well as pre‐ vs post‐test data on two standardised tests of reading skill. Both time‐series analyses and analysis of variance statistics failed to show significant improvements in accuracy and speed of reading for any but the remedial teaching treatment group. It is concluded that “direct action” to alleviate stress due to threat of failure at reading is more effective than “palliative” attempts at reduction of tension with no action upon the performance deficit itself. Implications for teaching and policy for teacher training and provision of services are discussed, with suggestions made for further research.
THE ROLE OF PHONEMIC AWARENESS IN THE READING STYLE OF BEGINNING READERS
Authors: STUART‐HAMILTON IAN
Published: May 2011

Summary. Phonemic awareness is highly correlated with the reading abilities of young schoolchildren. However, no‐one has tested how it influences reading. Two experiments compared 20 children possessing phonemic awareness with 20 matched for reading and chronological age who lacked it. In Experiment 1, the children's ability to detect changes in the graphemic structure of isolated words was assessed. In Experiment 2, the children's reading from their schoolbooks was examined by miscue analysis. In comparison with the non‐aware group, the aware group was significantly more sensitive to changes in graphemic structure, made greater use of graphemic cues and made fewer “nonsense” errors in “normal” reading.
EFFECTS OF TEXT ILLUSTRATION ON CHILDREN'S LEARNING OF A SCHOOL SCIENCE TOPIC
Authors: REID D. J. , BEVERIDGE M.
Published: May 2011

Summary. The effect of text and illustration on the learning of a school science topic by 13‐year‐old children was investigated. 272 children studying integrated science in the second year of two comprehensive schools were given texts with varied picture content. Learning was measured by a criterion‐referenced objective items test which differentiated between the effects of pictures on their own, text on its own, the general effect of pictures when added to text and the specific effect of pictures associated redundantly with parts of the text. The results indicate that there is no general motivational effect of pictures on the learning of text, but that with higher ability levels the effect of specific pictures is beneficial whilst with less able children they distract. In addition, there is some evidence to indicate that when materials are presented in traditional worksheet mode they might be learned more efficiently than the same materials presented in microcomputer mode.
TEACHERS' REPORTED PRACTICES TOWARDS GIRLS AND BOYS IN SCIENCE AND LANGUAGES
Authors: WORRALL NORMAN , TSARNA HELEN
Published: May 2011

Summary. Fifty‐three science and 55 language teachers, male and female, were asked about their classroom practices with respect to a typical or average ability 14‐year‐old, either a girl or a boy. Questions ranged from the broad, e.g., amount of quality work expected, through the more specific, e.g., waiting time on difficult questions, to the very specific, e.g., frequency of smiling or eye contact. Up to eight of the 11 items showed a pattern where girls were relatively “favoured” in languages, and boys in science, though less markedly. The pattern generally held for both male and female teachers, and there was no evidence for boys or girls being favoured either overall or selectively by male or female teachers. Although science teachers expected lower achievement from girls, this appeared not to influence their teaching disposition adversely. Both the situation for girls in science and the less understood situation for boys in languages seem usefully elaborated by such classroom practice indicators.
DATA ORGANISATION AND RETRIEVAL BY CHILDREN
Authors: UNDERWOOD JEAN , UNDERWOOD GEOFFREY
Published: May 2011

Summary. How does the structure of a database influence the user's organisation of information within it, and the user's retrieval of information from it? Three experiments investigated how young children (9–11 years of age) organised and retrieved words from a number of structures. Subjects were given sets of 10 to 12 words and asked to organise them on paper (Experiments 1 and 2) and to extract data from a pre‐organised set of words (Experiment 3). Each word set had a pre‐defined organisation based on the semantic relationship between the words. The four organisations used in the three experiments were: lists, hierarchies, networks and table structures. Experiment 1 showed that young children have severe difficulties in organising information into hierarchies and even more difficulty with tables. Lists were the most common form of data organisation used even when that organisational structure was not the most appropriate. A few children produced idiosyncratic organisations, possibly due to a failure to recognise the semantic relationship among the words. In Experiment 2, while some children could fit the word sets into “skeletons” that were explicitly designed to maintain all the semantic relationships between the words, the organisation of hierarchies and tables still proved difficult for most subjects. Experiment 3 showed, however, that young children can retrieve data from existing structures. These results are considered in relation to the increased use of computer‐based information retrieval systems in schools.
DELAYED RETENTION OF ORALLY PRESENTED TEXT WITH PICTORIAL SUPPORT
Authors: PEECK J. , JANS M. W.
Published: May 2011

Summary. University students were presented with either a tape‐slides presentation on an African tribe, the tape only, or the slides only, and took a retention test two days later. In comparison with the slides condition, the tape‐slides condition retained significantly more information presented by text and pictures but significantly less information presented by pictures‐only. There were no differences between the tape‐slides condition and the tape condition in retention of unillustrated text content, irrespective of its relationship to what was shown in the picture, but illustrated text content was better retained in the tape‐slides condition.
THE USE OF OPERANT TECHNIQUES TO RAISE SELF‐ESTEEM IN MALADJUSTED CHILDREN
Authors: GURNEY PETER W.
Published: May 2011

Summary. This investigation was concerned to raise the level of self‐esteem in maladjusted children by the use of behaviour modification techniques. A small sample (N = 14) of maladjusted boys aged between 10 and 12 years was randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group and experienced individual extraction procedures and rewards. Only the experimental group experienced procedures, including modelling, instruction and contingent reward, designed to enhance behavioural self‐esteem as reflected in positive self‐referent verbal statements (PSRVS) and in overt behaviours related to self‐esteem (Behaviour Rating Form—BRF). Data collected during the treatment phase showed a substantial and highly significant increase in PSRVS in the experimental group.

Post‐test analysis showed a significant difference in overt self‐esteem (BRF) between the two groups but failed to detect significant differences in other dependent variables, including self‐report of global and specific self‐esteem. The discussion examines the substantial gain made by both groups in global self‐esteem, together with the implications for work with maladjusted children of individual extraction time and consistent recording of positive experiences.
THE INFLUENCE OF VERBAL ABILITY AND METAMEMORY ON FUTURE RECALL
Authors: SWANSON H. LEE
Published: May 2011

Summary.

This study determines whether items from a metamemorial questionnaire would better predict recall performance than standardised measures of general verbal ability. Thirty‐two children, separated into high and average verbal ability groups, were administered a metamemory test and, one week later, two prose and free‐recall tasks. The results indicated that ability group differences were limited to certain dependent measures (i.e., mental effort, knowledge about strategies, equivalence/non‐equivalence of strategy resources and strategy applicability). Most importantly, a stepwise regression analysis indicated that metamemory scores were more likely to predict the future recallability of material than measures of language ability (i.e., verbal IQ, reading and language achievement). Results are discussed in terms of children's “awareness” of the combined influences of memory variables and of the awareness of executive routines as a more important determinant of future recall than language ability.
DISPOSITIONAL ASSOCIATES OF GCE PERFORMANCE IN SIXTH FORM AND FURTHER EDUCATION COLLEGE STUDENTS
Authors: CLARKE M. J. , YOUNGMAN M. B.
Published: May 2011

Summary.

A great deal of research effort has sought to identify factors associated with successful academic performance. The more consistent findings suggest generally that intellectual ability and previous examination performance are the strongest determinants of attainment, whilst within the dispositional domain of personality, extraversion and emotional stability claim some importance, albeit that findings in the latter area have been surprisingly inconclusive. This paper reports the findings of a study which examined the dispositional associates of GCE O‐/A‐level performance, employing a sample of 356 two‐year, full‐time GCE A‐level students who entered further education and sixth form colleges immediately after completing their fifth form work in schools. A method of cluster analysis was used to identify student types based on selected dispositional characteristics. Within‐cluster regression analysis was then employed in order to determine the relative weight attached to the student dispositional characteristics in explaining their GCE O‐and A‐level performance. The potential of the clusters is confirmed by the high predictive power associated with the multiple regression model employed and, in particular, the considerable explanatory power associated with the students' measured dispositional characteristics.
PRE‐SCHOOL CHILDREN'S PREFERENCES FOR DRAWINGS OF A SIMILAR COMPLEXITY TO THEIR OWN
Authors: BROOKS MICHAEL R. , GLENN SHEILA M. , CROZIER W. RAY
Published: May 2011

Summary. The drawings of people and houses by nursery school children were compared with their preferences for representations of various complexity of the same subjects. It was found that children significantly prefer representations which have most in common with their own drawings, thus indicating that children draw as they do through choice, and not because they have difficulty in producing more advanced representations.
SEX, SOCIAL CLASS AND ETHNIC DIFFERENCES IN THE EXPECTATIONS OF UNEMPLOYMENT AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL‐BEING OF SECONDARY SCHOOL PUPILS IN ENGLAND
Authors: ULLAH PHILIP , BROTHERTON CHRIS
Published: May 2011

Summary. Studies of the harmful psychological effects of unemployment on young people have typically paid little attention to their psychological well‐being during their final years at school. In particular, there has been little research into the relationship between school pupils' well‐being and their expectations and views about the possibility of becoming unemployed after leaving school. It is possible that those pupils who anticipate unemployment may have lower levels of well‐being, and may thus experience less of a decline in psychological health at the onset of unemployment.

The study described here set out to measure two indices of well‐being, psychological distress and anxiety, among fifth and sixth year secondary school pupils. Also measured were their expectations of becoming unemployed, their concern about this, the amount of difficulty they expected to encounter finding a job, and their employment commitment. Comparisons on these variables were made between males and females, middle class and working class pupils, and white, Asian and Afro‐Caribbean pupils. Differences between these demographic categories are reported, along with the associations observed between the well‐being variables and views about future employment and unemployment. Levels of psychological distress and anxiety were found to be as high as those observed in unemployed samples, though were not related to expectations and concern about the possibility of becoming unemployed. A number of possible influences on the psychological health of school pupils are suggested.
CHILDREN'S LEARNING SKILLS: A CAUTIONARY NOTE ON ETHNIC DIFFERENCES
Authors: PHILLIPS C. J.
Published: May 2011

Summary. In the summer term of their first year in junior schooling, pupils of seven schools in the West Midlands were tested for attainments in reading, spelling and number. Ninety‐one children were from Asian families and 149 children were of indigenous parentage. About three years earlier all subjects had been rated on Part I of the Guide to the Child's Learning Skills, the predictive validity of which is supported by the attainment testing. The linear regression slopes of attainments on ratings do not differ significantly between the ethnic samples.