Age and schooling effects on early literacy and phoneme awareness

Previous research on age and schooling effects is largely restricted to studies of children who begin formal schooling at 6 years of age, and the measures of phoneme awareness used have typically lacked sensitivity for beginning readers. Our study addresses these issues by testing 4 to 6 year-olds (first 2 years of formal schooling in the United Kingdom) on a sensitive dynamic measure of phoneme awareness and tests of early literacy. There were significant effects of both age and schooling on the dynamic measure of phoneme awareness, word reading, spelling, and letter name knowledge, but there were no significant Age × Time interactions. This indicates that older children within this age group generally outperform their younger classmates (although they do not make faster progress) and that this advantage is developed prior to the start of school.     

Divine Therapy: Teaching Reflective and Meditative Practices

Abstract. Reflective and meditative practices, whether Eastern or Western, are being taught in multiple places – retreat houses, hospitals, Zen centers – but are rarely included in the theology classroom. What would be the rationale for inclusion of reflective/meditative practices in a theology curriculum that does not include such a theory/praxis course? What might a mystical tradition/reflective practice course look like? The author first explores the implications of a three‐semester pilot program – using guided imagery, spiritual journaling, iconography, and centering prayer – that was conducted with volunteers outside the classroom. Then, based on the experimental project, the author describes a course that blends global traditions with the best of the practices. The author concludes with an evaluation of the reflective/meditative practices and the praxis‐inclusive course in terms of possible long‐term effects on the personal development of the participants and the ministry of teaching and learning itself.     

Predicting psychological health: assessing the incremental validity of emotional intelligence beyond personality,Type A behaviour,and daily hassles

Although some research has linked emotional intelligence (EI) and psychological health, little research has examined EI's ability to predict health outcomes after controlling for related constructs, or EI's ability to moderate the stressor–strain relationship. The present study explored the relationships among EI (as assessed by a trait‐based measure, the EQ‐i), Big Five personality factors, Type A Behaviour Pattern (TABP), daily hassles, and psychological health/strain factors (in terms of perceived well‐being, strain, and three components of burnout). The EQ‐i was highly correlated with most aspects of personality and TABP. After controlling for the impact of hassles, personality, and TABP, the five EQ‐i subscales accounted for incremental variance in two of the five psychological health outcomes. However, the EQ‐i scales failed to moderate the hassles–strain relationship. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differential Daily Writing Conditions and Performance on Major Multiple-Choice Exams

Students (N=153) in three equivalent sections of an undergraduate human development course compared pairs of related concepts via either written or oral discussion at the beginning of most class sessions. A writing-for-random-credit section achieved significantly higher ratings on the writing activities than did a writing-for-no-credit section. The writing-for-random-credit section also obtained significantly higher correlations between the writing ratings and scores on multiple-choice exam items related to the conceptual pairs (r=.74) and on total exam scores (r=.78) than did the writing-for-no-credit section (rs=.45 and .43, respectively). Finally, the writing-for-random-credit condition produced significantly higher scores on exam items related to the conceptual pairs than did the oral-discussion-only condition. Plus, effect-size comparisons showed weak to medium differences between exam scores under the writing-for-random-credit and the writing-for-no-credit condition.     

Drug-associated psychoses and criminal responsibility

At present, the law draws a distinction when assigning criminal responsibility to those who commit offences while experiencing psychotic symptoms: if the symptoms are believed to arise because of ingesting drugs (an external cause), the offender is generally convicted of the offence; if the symptoms arise from a mental illness (an internal cause), the offender may be afforded a defence of insanity. In practice, drawing such a distinction can be problematic. There are difficulties for example in determining criminal responsibility when the use of drugs is followed by the emergence of a psychotic illness process that then continues to have an independent existence even in the absence of the ongoing substance use. This article analyses legal, policy, and expert witness perspectives relating to liberal, conservative, and intermediate approaches to this problematic area of jurisprudence.     

Critical Incidents in Student Counselor Development

Students in a master's degree program in counseling were asked to report critical incidents that had influenced their development as counselors. Participants most frequently cited courses based on experiential learning and field experiences as being influential in their development. Events external to the graduate program also were frequently reported as influencing their professional development.     

Give Me that Ol' Time Hormonal Religion

Rodney Stark (2002) has sought to explain the greater religiosity of women, something that he asserts to be a cultural and historical universal, by suggesting that male physiology makes males more impulsive and so less likely to submit to religious prohibitions. Although he presents evidence suggesting that greater female religiosity is true today cross-culturally, he presents no real evidence establishing that this generalization was true prior to the 19th century. In fact, Stark's article completely overlooks a highly visible and well-established body of scholarly literature suggesting that the "feminization of piety," in both the Protestant and Catholic traditions, is a relatively recent historical phenomenon.     

Distinguishing characteristics of orally transmitted material when compared to material transmitted by literary means

Controversy surrounds the relationship between the three Synoptic Gospels written by Mark, Matthew and Luke. In particular, researchers on the New Testament disagree about whether the similarities between these three Gospels can be attributed to copying from a common information source, or whether they are due to a reliance on common oral traditions. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the characteristics that might distinguish material that was orally transmitted from that which was copied. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to write short narratives about recent and historic events, using (a) no external sources (b) an external source which was to be returned before the narrative was written, or (c) an external source which was retained while the narrative was written. Results showed that long sequences of common verbatim text occurred only when external sources could be retained while the account was written, suggesting behaviour indicative of copying. In Experiment 2, however, different genres of material were examined (jokes, aphorisms, and poetry). Results showed that while long sequences of more than 18 words in verbatim sequence might be evidence of copying where narrative material is concerned, it is not necessarily true for poetry or aphorisms, where it is possible to transmit from memory more than 18 words in exact sequence. We conclude that when Gospel instances of long sequences of similar material are examined, copying is a likely explanation. But such instances only represent a small proportion of the total number of parallels. The majority of parallel traditions appear to rely on memory, consistent with the experimental evidence presented here. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.