Performance Indicators in Math: Implications for Brief Experimental Analysis of Academic Performance

Brief experimental analysis (BEA) can be used to specify intervention characteristics that produce positive learning gains for individual students. A key challenge to the use of BEA for intervention planning is the identification of performance indicators (including topography of the skill, measurement characteristics, and decision criteria) that meaningfully relate to longer term success in the learning environment. This study investigates the utility of various curriculum-based assessment and measurement estimates of mathematics performance for predicting functional outcomes (i.e., retention of learned skills over time and faster learning of related content in the future). All children in grades 2–5 at the participating school participated in protocol-based computational fluency-building intervention 4 days per week for an entire school year. Specific criteria were applied each week to systematically increase intervention difficulty classwide according to a pre-established sequence of computational skill objectives. Three measurements were routinely obtained. Each week children completed a timed probe of the skill for which intervention was currently occurring and a timed probe of previously mastered skills from the sequence of computational skill objectives. Each month, all children completed a timed probe of mathematics skills representing computational skills that students were expected to master by year’s end at each grade level. At all grade levels, learning a skill that appeared early in the hierarchy or sequence of skills related positively to learning of future related and more complex computational skills. Fluency criteria were specified that predicted retention of the skill over several months.     

Modeling Family Dynamics in Children with Fragile X Syndrome

Few studies have examined the impact of children with genetic disorders and their unaffected siblings on family functioning. In this study, the reciprocal causal links between problem behaviors and maternal distress were investigated in 150 families containing a child with fragile X syndrome (FXS) and an unaffected sibling. Both children's behavior problems appeared to have strong, direct effects on maternal distress, but maternal distress did not appear to have any reciprocal causal effects on either child's behavior problems. Surprisingly, there were no significant differences in the effects of the two children's behavior problems on maternal distress. These data suggest that the problem behaviors of children with FXS, as well as their unaffected siblings, can have a substantial and additive impact on maternal depression and anxiety. Future research efforts should employ longitudinal research designs to confirm these findings.     

“Think Your Blackest Thoughts and Darken Them:” Judicial Mediation of Large Money Damage Disputes

This paper considers a much neglected, but distinctive and increasingly prevalent kind of mediation work: the mediation of large money damage cases by acting and former judges. The research finds that judicial mediation is a law-infused procedure different from forms of mediation in which the stuff of law and lawyers' work is only marginally relevant, if at all. The study details how judge-mediators draw on their knowledge of the law, technically and as a matter of professional practice, to make legally persuasive arguments that critically evaluate each side's case and what is likely to occur at future points, adversely altering the litigants' understanding of the risks and costs of failing to settle and thus facilitating dispute resolution. The study was developed and pursued as an ethnographic and ethnomethodological study of work.     

Perceptual development and categorization: I. An investigation of task demands, stimulus set similarity, and age

This research addressed the apparent inconsistency in the literature between perceptual development as a progression of increasing separability (Shepp, 1978; Smith & Kemler, 1977, 1978) and categorization as a process based on overall similarity relations across development (Mervis, 1980; Mervis & Rosch, 1981). The influence of task demands, stimulus set similarity, and age on organizing principles of perceptual similarity were examined. Findings suggest that stimulus set similarity is an important factor in determining organizing principles of similarity for both nursery school children and adults.     

The generation effect: Further tests of the lexical activation hypothesis

Three experiments compared recognition memory for word versus nonword responses when they had been either read or generated using a rhyme rule and either a word or nonword stimulus. That is, either the wordshop or the nonwordthop was generated from either the wordchop or the nonwordphop. In Experiment 1, the lexicality of the stimulus and response terms was manipulated orthogonally between subjects; in Experiments 2 and 3, it was manipulated orthogonally within subjects. In Experiment 3, subjects also made a lexical (word-nonword) decision about each response term after it had been read or generated. In all three experiments, memory performance was better for generated than read responses. This generation effect occurred only if the response term was a word, regardless of whether the stimulus term was a word or a nonword. These results are discussed in terms of the roles that lexical memory and response unitization play in the generation effect.     

Religious orientation and coping with cancer

In this study we investigated the role of religious orientation in coping with stresses associated with cancer. A measure of daily coping and the Religious Orientation scale were administered to forty hematology-oncology patients in order to examine frequency of eight coping responses across religious orientations. It was found that proreligious and intrinsic participants used religion significantly more often than nonreligious and extrinsic types to cope with stresses associated with their cancer. We concluded that religious orientation and commitment influence the coping process, and suggest that religious commitment be included in studies of coping with cancer.     

The bizarre imagery effect and intention to learn

The bizarre imagery effect, better memory for bizarre stimuli than for common stimuli, is now an established finding. However, the mnemonic benefits of bizarre imagery are subject to several constraints (e.g., the use of mixed lists and free-recall tests). A further constraint on the bizarreness effect is demonstrated here. In each of two experiments, subjects were given either incidental or intentional study instructions and were asked to rate the vividness of the images they formed from the bizarre and common sentences. Contrary to conclusions based on available evidence, the bizarreness effect in free recall was manifested only with the incidental learning instructions. This additional constraint on the effect is consistent with the item-order account of bizarreness.     

Selective processing of food,weight, and body-shape words in nonpatient women with bulimia nervosa: Interference on the Stroop task

The study investigated whether the Stroop interference effect could be found in nonpatients with a self-report consistent with a diagnosis of bulimia nervosa. The nonpatient bulimic group showed significantly more interference to disorder-specific words (food, weight, and body shape) than to control words. The two nonpatient comparison groups, a depressed-nonbulimic group and a nonbulimic-nondepressed group, showed no interference. These results indicate that nonpatients with bulimia nervosa can be used to test various models of the cognitive and emotional processes involved in bulimia nervosa with the modified Stroop task. Methodological issues in the use of the computerized Stroop task with clinical populations are also noted.