Teaching Critical Thinking without (Much) Writing: Multiple‐Choice and Metacognition

In this essay, I explore an exam format that pairs multiple‐choice questions with required rationales. In a space adjacent to each multiple‐choice question, students explain why or how they arrived at the answer they selected. This exercise builds the critical thinking skill known as metacognition, thinking about thinking, into an exam that also engages students in the methods of the academic study of religion by asking them to compare familiar excerpts and images. As a form of assessment, the exam provides a record of students' knowledge and their thought processes, and as a learning strategy, it encourages students to examine the thought processes they use to understand religion(s) and its many manifestations.     

Preschoolers' emotion knowledge: self-regulatory foundations, and predictions of early school success

Preschoolers (N=322 in preschool, 100 in kindergarten) were assessed longitudinally to examine the self-regulatory roots of emotion knowledge (labelling and situation) and the contributions of emotion knowledge to early school adjustment (i.e., including social, motivational, and behavioural indices), as well as moderation by age, gender, and risk. Age, gender, and risk differences in emotion knowledge were also examined. Emotion knowledge skills were found to be more advanced in older children and those not at economic risk, and in those with higher levels of self-regulation. Overall, the results support the role of emotion knowledge in early school adjustment and academic success even with gender, age, and risk covaried, especially for boys, older preschoolers, and those at economic risk.     

Refining the Preschool Self‐regulation Assessment for Use in Preschool Classrooms

To aid in understanding preschoolers' self‐regulation and refinement of measurement, we examined properties of a field‐based assessment battery of preschooler's self‐regulation, the Preschool Self‐regulation Assessment (PSRA). The PSRA, which includes seven age‐appropriate tasks that tap children's executive control, was administered to 313 preschoolers and then to 261 of these children approximately 3 months later. Teachers reported on children's school readiness (social competence and classroom adjustment) at the end of preschool and kindergarten years, and on academic success in kindergarten. PSRA tasks were examined for ceiling effects at 35–65 months; Pencil Tap, Balance Beam, Toy Wrap and Snack Delay were retained for lack of such effects. Confirmatory factor analyses showed two components at each time point – hot and cool executive control – and cross‐time correlations showed significant stability of individual differences. Four‐year‐old girls and children of higher socioeconomic status outperformed 3‐year‐old boys and those at socioeconomic risk. Children, especially girls, scored higher on hot executive control. Finally, aspects of executive control differentially predicted teacher‐reports of school readiness at both times of assessment, with age, gender and risk status controlled. These selected PSRA tasks, as a shortened battery, have potential for research and applied usage, and findings speak to theoretical understanding of preschoolers' self‐regulation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Terror management and reactions to undocumented immigrants: mortality salience increases aversion to culturally dissimilar others

The authors examine the idea, derived from Terror Management Theory, that concerns about undocumented immigrants stem from the need to protect death-buffering cultural values against the symbolic threat posed by dissimilar others. It is hypothesized that reminders of death will intensify aversion to culturally dissimilar immigrants. Forty-six university students were randomly assigned to a mortality salience or a control condition prior to evaluating either an illegal alien named Ben Johnson from Vancouver or Carlos Suarez from Mexico City. Consistent with the hypothesis, reactions to the Canadian target did not differ in the control and mortality salience conditions, whereas reactions to the Mexican immigrant were more negative in the mortality salience than in the control condition.     

An investigation of the Mini-Mult validity scales

Examined the ability of the Mini-Mult validity scales to detect invalid MMPI profiles. When 34 invalid MMPI profiles were rescored with the Mini-Muir only 17 of the 34 profiles invalidated by the full MMPI were detected with the Mini-Mult. This included 14 of 27 profiles invalidated by an elevated F scale; 2 of 4 profiles invalidated by an elevated L scale and 1 of 3 profiles invalidated by an elevated K scale. Only 14 of 27 profiles invalidated by an F-K ratio of K11 were detected. When new conversion values for the Mini-Mult were utilized, the detection rate improved considerably for the F scale and the F-K ratio.     

Reconstruction from the mental image

In three experiments young children were asked to reconstruct an array of objects after they had imagined its appearance following either a rotation of the array or a change in their own position (Huttenlocher & Presson, 1973). In reconstructing arrays, subjects first positioned that object which would be most prominent to an observer following the imagined transformation. Surprisingly, this occurred even when subjects made an egocentric error by reconstructing a copy of the original array. Hence young children, although apparently egocentric, can imagine themselves in a new position with a new perspective. The mental operations which underlie imagined spatial transformations are discussed in light of the results.     

Discrimination by young infants of stimuli presented discontinuously

Four experiments are reported showing that young infants can pick up visual information from very brief displays. Pattern, edge orientation, and form can be discriminated when stimuli are presented for repeated exposures of only 300 ms.     

Observing preschoolers' social-emotional behavior: structure, foundations, and prediction of early school success

Social-emotional behavior of 352 3- and 4-year-olds attending private child-care and Head Start programs was observed using the Minnesota Preschool Affect Checklist, Revised (MPAC-R). Goals of the investigation included (a) using MPAC-R data to extract a shortened version, MPAC-R/S, comparing structure, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and stability of both versions; and, using the shortened measure, to examine (b) age, gender, and risk status differences in social-emotional behaviors; (c) contributions of emotion knowledge and executive function to social-emotional behaviors; and (d) contributions of social-emotional behaviors to early school adjustment and kindergarten academic success. Results show that reliability of MPAC-R/S was as good, or better, than the MPAC-R. MPAC-R/S structure, at both times of observation, included emotionally negative/aggressive, emotionally regulated/prosocial, and emotionally positive/productive behaviors; MPAC-R structure was similar but less replicable over time. Age, gender, and risk differences were found. Children's emotion knowledge contributed to later emotionally regulated/prosocial behavior. Finally, preschool emotionally negative/aggressive behaviors were associated with concurrent and kindergarten school success, and there was evidence of social-emotional behavior mediating relations between emotion knowledge or executive function, and school outcomes. The importance of portable, empirically supported observation measures of social-emotional behaviors is discussed along with possible applications, teacher utilization, and implementation barriers.