Student perceptions and motivation in the classroom: exploring relatedness and value

According to Self-Determination Theory, feelings of relatedness and value of a behavior are critical factors that affect internalization and integration. The purpose of the current study was to identify factors that influence relatedness and value in an academic setting. Specifically, the study investigated the effects of autonomy, mastery goals, performance-approach goals, and performance-avoidance goals, on two dependent variables: relatedness to the professor and value of the course. Participants were 222 undergraduate students (90 males) enrolled in introductory psychology classes. Linear regression analyses showed a statistically significant effect of mastery goals and autonomy on relatedness such that higher scores were associated with greater relatedness. A similar pattern emerged for value. Neither performance-approach nor performance-avoidance goals were significantly associated with relatedness or value. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed.

Attention to adjacent and separate positions in space: An electrophysiological analysis

Some theories of visuospatial attention propose that attention can be divided between separated zones of space that exclude the intervening region, whereas other theories state that the focus of attention must encompass aunitary, continuous zone. These contrasting viewswere evaluated in an experiment 9n which subjects were required to monitor two of four stimulus locations for targets; the two relevant locations were adjacent in one condition and were separated by an intervening irrelevant location in a second condition . To assess the distribution of attention across the relevant and irrelevant locations, event-related brain potentials(ERPa)were recorded to taskirrelevant “probe” stimuli that were occasionally presented at the individual stimulus locations. When the relevant locations were adjacent, probes presented at irrelevant locations elicited smaller sensory-evoked electrophysiological responses than probes presented at relevant locations, consistent with an attentional suppression of inputs from the unattended locations. When the relevant locations were separated by an irrelevant location, however, the sensory responses evoked by probes presented at this intervening irrelevant location were not suppressed, and target detection performance became slower and less accurate. These results suggest that attentionforms a unitary zone that may expand to encompass multiple relevant locations but must also include the area between them; as a result, irrelevant information arising from intervening locations is not suppressed and perceptual processing is compromised.     

Logical searches of young children in hiding and finding tasks

Thirty-two 3 and 32 4-year-olds were tested on two tasks which required them to infer the location of a concealed object. In the hiding tusk the child watched while an object was hidden and then attempted to find it; in the finding tusk the child watched while one object was found and then attempted to find a duplicate of it in the same place. Each sequence of events that the child watched ruled out two of the four locations in a linear array as possible hiding places for the object, but did not specify which of the remaining two contained it. The children did use the information conveyed by the sequences of events to decide where to search. Older children generally did better than younger children both in their first choices and in their second choices when the first, although correct, did not locate the object. However, neither age group made the correct choice of a second location consistently. This suggested that the children encountered mnemonic or logical difficulties, or both, because of the fact that two locations were equally compatible with a given sequence of events.     

Learned helplessness and the detection of contingency: A direct test

Two studies tested a basic hypothesis of the learned helplessness model: That performance deficits associated with exposure to uncontrollable outcomes are directly mediated by an individual's perception of response-outcome independence. In the first experiment 48 subjects were exposed to noise bursts. For one experimental group, the termination of the noise was response-contingent. For five other groups, noise-burst termination was independent of subjects' responses. These five groups varied in the number of trials on which they received positive feedback: As predicted, subjects overestimated the amount of control they had over noise termination as a positive linear function of the amount of noncontingent positive feedback they received. Although subjects exposed to either noncontingent positive or negative feedback showed subsequent performance deficits on an anagrams task, the expected relation between perceived control and subsequent performance failed to emerge. These findings were replicated in a second experiment. In addition, subjects' locus, stability, and globality attributions failed to predict subsequent performance. These results call into question the central premises of helplessness theory: That perceived uncontrollability and causal attributions mediate learned helplessness.     

Peer acceptance: The correspondence between children's sociometric scores and teachers' ratings of peer interactions

In view of the current interest in children's peer relationships and social skills, and the need for valid assessment procedures for children's peer problems, the intent of the present study was to examine the correspondence between peer ratings of acceptance and teacher ratings of a child's social behavior and likability. The 92 children were males and females from the third, fourth, and fifth grades. Classroom teachers rated each of the children on withdrawn, aggressive, and likable behavior using the Pupil Evaluation Inventory. Peer ratings of the child's acceptance in play and work situations were obtained from same-sex classmates. The teacher rating of likability was the best predictor of peer acceptance scores for males; withdrawn behavior was the best predictor of peer acceptance scores for females. Ratings of withdrawn and aggressive behavior contributed to the prediction of peer acceptance scores for males; for females, only withdrawn behavior contributed to the prediction of peer acceptance. In terms of the clinical utility of teacher ratings for assessing children with peer problems, the use of the withdrawn and/or aggressive ratings scales appeared to offer promise as a means of identifying such children. Implications for the area of children's social skills and directions for future research were discussed.     

Outcome in short-term group psychotherapy

This study examines the effectiveness of planned dynamic short-term group psychotherapy in a health maintenance organization setting. The groups, conducted by experienced short-term psychodynamically trained therapists, focused on common life-stage issues. A pretest/posttest design was employed; group participants completed a battery of self-report measures before, after, and 4–6 months after treatment. Group participants made statistically (and clinically) significant positive changes on the majority of change measures. They saw themselves as improved on target problems, became far less symptomatic, and reported considerable growth in interpersonal functioning.     

Development and Evaluation of a Decision Aid About Prenatal Testing for Women of Advanced Maternal Age

Objective: To develop and evaluate a decision aid designed to prepare patients of advanced maternal age for counseling about prenatal diagnostic testing. Setting: A regional genetics center. Design: A before/after study. Interventions: Participants used an audioguided workbook to learn about options and outcomes and to clarify personal risks, values, questions, and predispositions. Subjects: 21 women of advanced maternal age and 17 spouses. Main outcome measures: Knowledge of prenatal testing alternatives, decisional conflict, level of anxiety, and acceptability of the decision aid. Results: After using the decision aid, participants had significantly reduced decisional conflict (uncertainty) and a significant increase in knowledge. There was no effect on state or trait anxiety. More than three-quarters of participants were satisfied with the length, clarity, balance, and acceptability of the decision aid. Conclusions: The decision aid shows promise as a useful aid for preparing couples for counseling.     

Effects of researcher follow-up of distressed subjects: tradeoff between validity and ethical responsibility

Researchers studying depression often encounter research participants in serious preexisting distress. Examining investigators' ethical responsibilities to these subjects, Stanton and New (1988) found that depression researchers reported actions that ranged from doing nothing to contacting both the distressed subject and a significant other. By experimentally manipulating consent form information regarding potential treatment referral, we examined whether subjects (n=357) adjusted their responses on depression measures as a function of the level of follow-up they expected to receive. Results reveal that subjects who potentially could receive the most intrusive intervention (i.e., experimenter contact with the subject and a significant other) were less likely to report depressive symptoms than were subjects who anticipated less intrusive follow-up. Willingness to report depressive symptoms in particular conditions varied in part as a function of subject sex. Thus, ethical safeguards used in studies with subjects in preexisting distress may have consequences for the validity of self-report depression measures.     

Familiarity and recognition of faces in old age

Elderly persons exceed young adults in false recognitions of new faces. One account claims there are age-related deficits in memory for context of encounter with faces. Because of these deficits, elderly persons frequently recognize faces on the basis of perceived familiarity (i.e., resemblance to face representations in memory), which is high for some new faces. To test this context-recollection hypothesis, we had young adult and elderly subjects judge whether faces: (1) had been seen previously in a test (though no face was repeated), and (2) were subjectively familiar (though no face was famous). The elderly exceeded the young subjects in seen-before judgements (false recognitions), and only the elderly showed a positive correlation between false recognitions and subjective familiarity. In Experiment 2, this finding was extended from false recognitions to correct recognitions, supporting the view that elderly persons, compared to young adults, rely more on resemblance in recognizing faces.     

False recency and false fame of faces in young adulthood and old age

Studies of age differences in face recognition have shown age-related increases in false-alarm errors: elderly persons exceed young adults in judging new faces to be old. To distinguish among theoretical accounts of this finding, we compared young and elderly subjects in two recognition tasks: (1) that of judging whether faces were recent or nonrecent, and (2) that of judging whether faces were famous or nonfamous. The major independent variable was prior presentation of faces-including nonrecent and nonfamous foils-1 week before the test. False recent judgments in response to nonrecent faces and false famous judgments in response to nonfamous faces were higher among the elderly. Moreover, these age-related differences in false-alarm rates were larger for faces viewed 1 week previously than for entirely new faces. The findings suggest that, compared to young adults, older individuals rely relatively more on perceived familiarity, and relatively less on recollection of context, in making recognition decisions.