Factors influencing failure on stressful army training courses

A set of ability tests from the Kit of Factor Referenced Cognitive Tests (Ekstrom, French and Harman, 1976, 1979), the EPQ, a Type A scale and a measure of Obsessionality were administered to 135 non-commissioned officers in the British Army at the beginning of an arduous ten-week training course in the Brecon Beacons. It was found that the 25 men (19%) who were unable to complete the training course did not differ from the others in any of the abilities measured, but were significantly more neurotic, and tended to be more extraverted, impatient and emotionally unrepressed. Personality factors are thus seen to contribute more to success or failure on such courses than simple cognitive abilities.     

Factors predicting success in picture naming in Alzheimer's disease and primary progressive aphasia

The aim of the present study was to determine the predictive value of all important variables in the picture naming performance of 8 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 8 patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA). The experimental investigation controlled for (i) visual complexity, (ii) name agreement on dominant response, (iii) age of acquisition, (iv) frequency, (v) word length, (vi) concept familiarity, and (vii) category membership. The results of the multiple regression analyses showed that age of acquisition and name agreement were significant for 10/16 subjects. Visual complexity, frequency, familiarity, and category were also significant for four patients respectively. Word length had no effect. These results are at variance with those of series of patients with AD (Gaillard et al., 1998) and with PPA (Lambon Ralph et al., 1998) where concept familiarity was found to be one of the most predictive factors of naming success.     

Sex differences in the professional orientation of first-year medical students

This article, presenting the findings from a 1975 survey of first-year medical students in the state of North Carolina, explores the relationship between students' sex and professional orientations considered relevant to current health care problems. The professional orientations concern four problem areas: (1) physicians' relationships with patients, (2) political and economic change in the medical profession, (3) the treatment of women physicians and women patients, and (4) geographic and specialty mal-distribution of physicians. Substantial sex differences are found for some professional orientations. As hypothesized, women orient more highly than men to humanizing physician-patient relationships, political and economic change in medicine, the problems facing women physicians and patients, and expecting an inner-city practice. Implications of the findings for health care and medical education are discussed.This report is based on the author's doctoral dissertation, Boys and Girls in White: Professional Orientation of the Student Physician Department of Sociology, Duke University, 1976. The author would like to express appreciation to Jim House for his continued guidance and encouragement as dissertation advisor.     

Methodological pitfalls in predicting counseling success

Prediction models employing multiple linear regression of raw scores, multiple linear regression of factor scores, the single best predictor, and a nine-point decision rule index were compared. The subjects were 296 clients undergoing vocational counseling and evaluation. Predictor variables included performance ratings, demographic variables, and WAIS subtest scores; the criterion was employment status upon program completion. The least statistically sophisticated model, employing the single best predictor, was the most successful approach. Considerable shrinkage in power of prediction was demonstrated upon cross-validation particularly for multiple linear regression of raw scores model, indicating the necessity of cross-validating prediction schemes. Additional suggestions are made to those designing prediction studies.     

Predicting success among first-year engineering students at the Rand Afrikaans University

160 first-year students in the Engineering Faculty at the Rand Afrikaans University completed the Study Orientation Questionnaire in Mathematics and the Senior Aptitude Test Advanced. 100 students who passed and 40 who failed the first year scored significantly differently on three subtests, Calculations, Study attitude in mathematics, and Problem-solving behaviour in mathematics. Step-wise linear regression showed a combination of three fields, namely, Calculations, Study attitude in mathematics, and Mathematics anxiety, contributed significantly (R2=25.8%) towards predicting the first-year aggregate score of first-year engineering students.     

Preparing children for medical examinations: the importance of previous medical experience

The relationship between past medical experience and children's response to preparation for medical examinations was investigated in 79 pediatric outpatients aged 3 to 12 years. Children were randomly assigned to one of five preparation conditions prior to receiving a medical examination and a throat culture: sensory information about the exam, training in coping skills (deep breathing and positive self-talk), combined sensory information and coping skills training, attention control, and no-treatment control. The results indicated that children with previous negative medical experiences demonstrated more behavioral distress during a throat culture examination that did children with previous positive or neutral medical experiences. In addition, the attention control condition appeared to increase the distress of children with previous negative medical experiences. Amount of past exposure to the specific medical procedure was not related to observed distress. The implications of these findings for the preparation of children for medical procedures are discussed.     

Fear of failure and fear of success

Verbal leads were used to elicit TAT responses from 160 male and female high school seniors, under neutral and aroused conditions. These protocols were scored for fear of success (FOS) according to the 1973 revised scoring system developed by Horner, Tresemer, Berens, and Watson (Note 1) and also scored for fear of failure (FOF) according to the Hostile Press Scoring System developed by Birney, Burdick, and Teevan (1969). Significant positive correlations between the two motive scores were obtained under both neutral and aroused conditions. The lack of independence between the FOS and FOF scores reflects theoretical similarities in the definitions of the motives, as well as considerable overlap in the scoring systems. It was hypothesized that for those people (especially women) whose affiliative and achievement needs are interrelated, FOF and FOS may be nearly equivalent, since fear of social rejection thus becomes tantamount to fear of failure.     

Factors affecting the success of referential communication

A study was designed to determine the factors that cause difficulty to adolescent listeners performing referential communication. Difficulties might arise because of (a) inability to detect message inadequacy, (b) misperception of task demands, or (c) inability to formulate an adequate question. The results of the present study showed that both able and less able subjects were able to detect message inadequacy almost perfectly, but that less able subjects had severe difficulty in formulating adequate requests for more information. Analysis suggests that in our 13-to 14-year-old subjects information-processing limitations, rather than lack of purely linguistic skills, account for most of the error variance when the task demands are transparent.This research was supported by a grant from the Leverhulme Foundation (U.K.) to the third author, and a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (U.K.) to the first author (reference CO8250011). We are grateful to R. Lee Humphreys for advice and assistance.     

Development in the understanding of causes of success and failure in verbal communication

Each child observed a communication game in which two dolls sent messages to each other so that the listener doll could pick out a matching card.Allocations and justifications of blame were examined as a function of the age of the child, adequacy of message, correctness of choice, and seating position. The results were generally consistent with two propositions. Younger children passed judgements as though they were asking themselves whether the message sent was inconsistent with the speaker's card — only when this was so was the speaker blamed. Older children blamed the speaker and cited the inadequacy of the message whenever the message did not identify the speaker's card uniquely, even when communication was successful.     

Self-esteem and the effects of success and failure feedback n performance

High and low self-esteem subjects received success or failure feedback regarding their performance on a task described as measuring their sensitivity to other people. Presumably as part of another study, changes in their self-perceptions regarding sensitivity to others were assessed, as well as changes in their performance on a different task Changes in self-perception were greater when the feedback was consistent with subjects' overall level of self-evaluation Task performance following failure was poorer than that following success HSE subjects performed better following success feedback, and LSE subjects performed more poorly following failure There were no significant performance changes for the HSE-failure and LSE-success subjects. The degree of change in self-perception of sensitivity to others was highly correlated with the magnitude of performance changes     

Learning style and medical students' performance on objective examinations

Whether convergers perform better than other learning styles (measured on Kolb's Learning Style Inventory) on an objective medical school examination was investigated. Convergers were more likely than nonconvergers to achieve an outstanding (A) score on a biometrics examination.