Effects of the Teacher Versus Students Game on Teacher Praise and Student Behavior

The Teacher versus Students Game is a variation of the Good Behavior Game (Barrish et al. in J Appl Behav Anal 2:119–124, 1969.  https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1969.2-119) in which students compete against the teacher to earn points and win the game. Students earn points when they follow rules, whereas the teacher earns points when they do not. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the game decreased students’ off-task behaviors while increasing teachers’ use of behavior-specific praise. Participants were five teachers and fifteen students (some with disabilities and some without) across five fourth and fifth grade elementary school general education classrooms, who were identified by their teachers as engaging in frequent off-task behavior. Results indicated that the game decreased off-task behavior for all students. The game also increased teachers’ use of behavior-specific praise statements, minimally increased general praise statements, and decreased corrective statements for all but one of the teachers.     

Characteristics of Peer Review Reports: Editor-Suggested Versus Author-Suggested Reviewers

Science and Engineering Ethics - Peer review is widely recognized as a mechanism for quality control of academic content. This research article aims at comparing the review reports and decisions of...     

Computational Versus Associative Models of Simple Conditioning

In associative models of simple conditioning, conductive connections (associations, Hebbian synapses) are strengthened by the repetitive temporal pairing of stimuli. The associations cause the animal to behave more adaptively, but they do not encode information about objectively specifiable properties of the conditioning experience. In information processing (computational) models, the temporal intervals in that experience are timed and the results recorded in memory for later use in computations that determine the decisions whether and when to respond to the conditioned stimulus. The predictions of these latter models depend on the ratios of remembered and currently experienced temporal intervals; hence, they are time-scale invariant. Two examples of empirical time-scale invariance are described: Neither the delay of reinforcement nor the ratio of reinforced to unreinforced presentations of the conditioned stimulus affects rates of acquisition and extinction. Time-scale invariance has far-reaching implications for models of the processes that underlie conditioning, for example, models of Hebbian synapses.     

Edgar Schein's Process Versus Content Consultation Models

Edgar Schein (1969, 1978, 1989, 1990) has proposed three models of consultation based on assumptions inherent in different helping styles. The first two models, purchase-of-expertise and doctor-patient, focus on the content of organizational problems. The client gives the problem to the consultant to find and implement solutions. The process consultation model focuses on how organizational problems are solved. The client and consultant collaborate throughout the problem-solving effort to find workable solutions. Because of the nature of organizations' cultures and the underlying assumptions that determine how they operate, Schein has suggested that it is most efficacious for consultants to begin in the process consultation mode and involve the client in the investigation of the problem.     

The Attributes Adolescents Associate with Peer Popularity and Teacher Preference

Perceived popularity and perceived teacher preference were investigated in a sample of 351 (179 boys, 172 girls) 10th-grade students from an urban community experiencing a moderate degree of economic distress. Students completed rating scale sociometric and behavioral nomination measures. Data on GPAs and unexplained absences were obtained from the school. Multiple regression analyses revealed that different behaviors were associated with perceived popularity and perceived teacher preference. Low GPA, low submissiveness, and high rates of absenteeism were associated with high perceived popularity and a low perceived teacher preference. Snobbishness and prosociality were more strongly associated with perceived popularity than perceived teacher preference. Students who were perceived as high on both dimensions simultaneously maintained a commitment to their scholastic success at school while behaving in a highly friendly nonsubmissive manner. A relation was also found between individuals' ratings of students' peer popularity and their own behavioral and academic attributes.     

Models of Success Versus the Success of Models: Reliability without Truth

In computer simulations of physical systems, the construction of models is guided, but not determined, by theory. At the same time simulations models are often constructed precisely because data are sparse. They are meant to replace experiments and observations as sources of data about the world; hence they cannot be evaluated simply by being compared to the world. So what can be the source of credibility for simulation models? I argue that the credibility of a simulation model comes not only from the credentials supplied to it by the governing theory, but also from the antecedently established credentials of the model building techniques employed by the simulationists. In other words, there are certain sorts of model building techniques which are taken, in and of themselves, to be reliable. Some of these model building techniques, moreover, incorporate what are sometimes called “falsifications.” These are contrary-to-fact principles that are included in a simulation model and whose inclusion is taken to increase the reliability of the results. The example of a falsification that I consider, called artificial viscosity, is in widespread use in computational fluid dynamics. Artificial viscosity, I argue, is a principle that is successfully and reliably used across a wide domain of fluid dynamical applications, but it does not offer even an approximately “realistic” or true account of fluids. Artificial viscosity, therefore, is a counter-example to the principle that success implies truth – a principle at the foundation of scientific realism. It is an example of reliability without truth.     

Career Decision-Making Models: Espoused Theory Versus Theory-in-Use

The author examines the limitations of career decision-making models from a theory-in-action perspective (Argyris, 1976). Research implications are discussed.     

Normal Versus Noncentral Chi-square Asymptotics of Misspecified Models

In this article, we present a Bayesian spatial factor analysis model. We extend previous work on confirmatory factor analysis by including geographically distributed latent variables and accounting for heterogeneity and spatial autocorrelation. The simulation study shows excellent recovery of the model parameters and demonstrates the consequences of ignoring spatial dependence. Specifically, we find inefficiency in the estimates of the factor score means and bias and inefficiency in the estimates of the corresponding covariance matrix. We apply the model to Schwartz value priority data obtained from 5 European countries. We show that the Schwartz motivational types of values, such as Conformity, Tradition, Benevolence, and Hedonism, possess high spatial autocorrelation. We identify several spatial patterns—specifically, Conformity and Hedonism have a country-specific structure, Tradition has a North–South gradient that cuts across national borders, and Benevolence has South–North cross-national gradient. Finally, we show that conventional factor analysis may lead to a loss of valuable insights compared with the proposed approach.     

Task-Oriented Versus Other-Referenced Competition: Differential Implications for Children's Peer Relations1

We conceptualized a multidimensional construct of competitiveness among children. In our model, competing in order to achieve task mastery is distinct from competition motivated by social comparison. Competition is further differentiated by domain, with a distinction between the physical and cognitive domains. Peer- and self-report measures were developed to measure these dimensions. In general, these factors emerged as well-defined and as having somewhat different implications for peer relations. There was little concordance between the peer-nomination and self-report data. The peer nominations indicated that task-oriented competition was generally associated with acceptance and prosocial behavior, whereas other-directed competition was generally associated with being liked less and being seen as aggressive. There was little corroboration of these links in the analyses based on the self-report data.     

Forward Models: Supervised Learning with a Distal Teacher

Internal models of the environment have an important role to play in adaptive systems, in general, and are of particular importance for the supervised learning paradigm. In this article we demonstrate that certain classical problems associated with the notion of the “teacher” in supervised learning can be solved by judicious use of learned internal models as components of the adaptive system. In particular, we show how supervised learning algorithms can be utilized in cases in which an unknown dynamical system intervenes between actions and desired outcomes. Our approach applies to any supervised learning algorithm that is capable of learning in multilayer networks.     

Effects of a Teacher Professional Development Intervention on Peer Relationships in Secondary Classrooms

We investigated the effects of My Teaching Partner-Secondary (MTP-S), a teacher professional development intervention, on students' peer relationships in middle and high school classrooms. MTP-S targets increasing teachers' positive interactions with students and sensitive instructional practices and has demonstrated improvements in students' academic achievement and motivation. The current study tested the prediction from systems theory that effects of MTP-S on students would extend beyond the academic domain-that is, the ecology of teachers' behaviors towards students should also influence the ecology of students' behaviors towards one another. Participants were 88 teachers (43 randomly assigned to MTP-S and 45 assigned to a control group that received the regular professional development offerings in their school) and 1423 students in their classrooms. Observations and student self-report of classroom peer interactions were collected at the start and at the end of the course. Results indicated that in MTP-S classrooms, students were observed to show improvement in positive peer interactions, although this pattern was not found in self-report data. However, moderation analyses suggested that for students with high disruptive behavior at the start of the course, teacher participation in MTP-S mitigated a typical decline towards poorer self-reported peer relationships. The relevance of findings for the social ecology of classrooms is discussed.     

Differentiation Matching Versus Level of Differentiation in Students' Judgments of Teacher Effectiveness

The present study examined the role of differentiation matching and level of differentiation in student-teacher relationships. Subjects were residents, mental health specialists, and medical students enrolled in psychiatry courses and in five core curriculum courses, and the respective faculty professors. All subjects completed measures of differentiation at the beginning of the course and students rated the teaching effectiveness of the faculty at the end. Judged teaching "effectiveness" was associated with a high level of interpersonal differentiation on the part of the teacher. Differentiation matching of teachers and student was related to high effectiveness ratings when the student was more differentiated than the teacher under conditions of frequent teacher exposure and familiarity.     

Bayesian Comparison of Latent Variable Models: Conditional Versus Marginal Likelihoods

Psychometrika - Typical Bayesian methods for models with latent variables (or random effects) involve directly sampling the latent variables along with the model parameters. In high-level software...     

Modeling Heterogeneous Peer Assortment Effects Using Finite Mixture Exponential Random Graph Models

Psychometrika - This article develops a class of models called sender/receiver finite mixture exponential random graph models (SRFM-ERGMs). This class of models extends the existing exponential...     

Parental,Peer, and Teacher Influences on the Social Behavior of Hong Kong Chinese Adolescents

Intensive interviews and self-report questionnaires were used to investigate parental, peer, and teacher influences on the prosocial and antisocial behaviors of Hong Kong Chinese adolescents. Students came from 5 academically different high schools. Results indicated that perceived parental influence was positively associated with frequency of prosocial behavior and negatively associated with frequency of delinquent behavior. Students with good relationships with their parents and peers showed lower frequencies of antisocial behaviors than did students with bad relationships. Adolescents in different identity statuses (achievement, moratorium, foreclosure, diffusion; E. H. Erikson, 1968) showed different patterns of prosocial and antisocial behaviors. For example, adolescents in the identity achievement group exhibited high frequencies of prosocial behaviors and low frequencies of antisocial behaviors, but those in the identity moratorium group exhibited quite high frequencies of both prosocial and antisocial behaviors.     

父母、同伴依恋对青少年孤独感的影响模型:基于不同类型学校的检验

该研究探讨不同类型学校中同伴依恋在父母依恋与青少年孤独感之间的作用。结果发现:(1)在重点高中生群体中,同伴依恋在父母依恋与其孤独感之间起部分中介作用;(2)在职业高中生群体中,同伴依恋在父母依恋与其孤独感之间起部分中介作用;(3)在普通高中生群体中,同伴依恋是预测孤独感水平的主要因素,父母依恋在同伴依恋与孤独感之间起调节作用。在依恋对青少年孤独感的作用机制中,间接效应与交互效应模型均得到验证,但模型的适用性因学校类型不同存在差异。