An 18-month follow-up investigation of motor coordination and working memory in primary school children

The aim of the current study was to examine the relationship between motor coordination and visual working memory in children aged 5–11 years. Participants were 18 children with movement difficulty and 41 control children, assessed at baseline and following an 18-month time period. The McCarron Assessment of Neuromuscular Development provided a measure of motor skills and the CogState One-Back task was used to assess visual working memory. Multi-level mixed effects linear regressions were used to assess the relationship between fine motor skills, gross motor skills, and visual working memory. The results revealed that for children with movement difficulty, better fine motor skills at baseline significantly predicted greater One-Back accuracy and greater (i.e., faster) speed at 18-month follow-up. Conversely, fine motor skills at baseline did not predict One-Back accuracy and speed for control children. However, for both groups, greater One-Back accuracy at baseline predicted better fine and gross motor skills at follow-up. These findings have important implications for the assessment and treatment of children referred for motor difficulties and/or working memory difficulties.     

Advancing the trait EI content domain: Further evidence for the distinctiveness of interpersonal facets

This investigation sought to assess the congruence of the trait emotional intelligence (EI) sampling domain, reflected in the short form of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue; Petrides & Furnham, 2006), with the theoretical content of trait EI—namely, the range of personality traits implicated in emotions. First, associations of the TEIQue factors with Emotion-Oriented Coping (EOC) and Social Coping (SC) were compared. Three of the four TEIQue factors were stronger predictors of EOC than SC; only the Emotionality factor was a stronger predictor of SC. Also, Emotionality did not add to the prediction of EOC in a simultaneous regression with the other factors. Secondly, by means of Structural Equation Modelling, the 30-item composite and a theoretically altered 16-item composite were compared as mediators between the Big Five and the emotion-laden dimension of mental health. Even though all interpersonal items (i.e., those pertaining to Sociability and Emotionality) were omitted for the altered composite, it outperformed the original composite in predicting a latent mental health composite of Stress, Anxiety, and EOC. The results highlight the distinct nature of Emotionality and Sociability facets and have implications for the refinement of the trait EI content domain.     

Body Dissatisfaction and Mental Health Across Ethnic/Racial and Immigrant Groups: Implications for Marriage and Family Therapists

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this effort is to broaden the scope with which body dissatisfaction (BD) is viewed to inform the practices of MFTs. Associations between college students' BD and measures of depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and body image were tested using mean-level comparisons, path analysis, and multi-group tests by sex, across ethnic/racial groups, and across immigration status. Data were collected from N = 10,573 youth. There was evidence of significant mean level differences, and BD predicted internalizing symptoms while multi-group tests were largely invariant suggesting a more universal impact than dominant theoretical explanations (i.e. Objectification theory) posit.     

Implicit Attitudes as Potential Protection From Risky Sex: Predicting Condom Use With the IAT

The Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) has become a popular tool for measuring implicit attitudes toward 2 contrasting concepts. In this study, we suggest including a neutral category (trees) to capture implicit evaluations of a single target attitude object. Using such a technique to measure implicit attitudes toward condoms, we predicted and found that explicit attitudes were related to intended condom use in situations that allow for controlled and deliberative processing, but implicit attitudes were related to intended condom use when automatic processing presides. Implications for such implicit and explicit attitude-behavior relations are discussed in the context of sexual risk-taking.     

Are good students desirable friends? Evidence for friendship selection among elementary students / ¿Son los buenos estudiantes amigos deseables? Evidencia para la selección de amistad entre estudiantes de educación primaria

Abstract

This study assesses the relationship between friendship networks and academic performance among third graders from one school in Santiago, Chile. Longitudinal social network analysis (RSiena) was used to test whether friendship selection is driven by academic performance and if befriended peers tend to influence each other on their academic performance, including gender as a covariate. Results show a positive relationship between academic performance and number of friendship nominations received, and a higher probability of same-gender friendships. Students with higher academic achievement are more likely to be nominated as friends, especially by peers with lower academic achievement. These results suggest that elementary students value high performance as a desirable characteristic in their friends.     

Motivational and cognitive determinants of control during conflict processing

Previous studies suggest that both reward anticipation and expected or experienced conflicts activate cognitive control. The present study investigated how these factors interact during conflict processing. In two experiments, participants performed a variant of the Stroop task, receiving performance-dependent monetary rewards in some blocks. In addition, we manipulated the level of conflict-triggered reactive and expectancy-driven proactive control: In Experiment 1, we compared the Stroop effect after previously congruent and incongruent trials to examine the conflict adaptation effect (reactive control). We found that the level of motivation did not interact with conflict adaptation. In Experiment 2, we varied the proportion of congruent and incongruent trials to manipulate conflict expectancy (proactive control). The data suggest the effects of motivation to be less pronounced under conditions of high conflict expectancy. We conclude that the interaction of motivation with cognitive determinants of control depends on whether these activate proactive or reactive control processes.     

COMPREHENSION INSTRUCTION IN A READING CLINIC: COMPARISON OF CLINIC AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine middle school students’ (grades 4 to 8) metacognitive knowledge about science reading, science text, and science reading strategies. The 52 subjects were selected from 532 students who completed a survey instrument designed to determine students’ knowledge about science reading, science text, and science reading strategies. The stratified randomly sampled students were interviewed using five structured protocols. The protocol items were based on 21 strategic characteristics of successful readers of science text and three domains of metacognitive knowledge: declarative, procedural, and conditional. Quantitative analyses reveal surface level metacognitive knowledge about 20 of 21 strategies explored and similar levels of knowledge across the three metacognitive domains. A qualitative analysis indicates that average middle school students’ metacognitive knowledge of science reading, science text, and science reading strategies is similar to that of younger and poorer readers of narrative text.     

Separating the confident from the correct: Leveraging member knowledge in groups to improve decision making and performance

Groups often struggle to distinguish expert members from others who stand out for various reasons but may not be particularly knowledgeable (Littlepage & Mueller, 1997). We examined an intervention designed to improve group decision making and performance through instructing group members to search for information they already possessed that was relevant to a problem. Participants estimated values and expressed their confidence in their estimates individually and then a second time either individually or in a group. This was done with or without the intervention. Results indicated that: (1) groups were more confident than, and out-performed, individuals, (2) group decision making was best captured by models predicting more influence for more accurate members when the intervention was used and more influence for more confident members in its absence, and (3) groups that received the intervention out-performed groups that did not.     

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.