The development of early literacy in Steiner‐ and standard‐educated children

Background. There is evidence that children who are taught to read later in childhood (age 6–7) make faster progress in early literacy than those who are taught at a younger age (4–5 years), as is current practice in the UK. Aims. Steiner‐educated children begin learning how to read at age 7, and have better reading‐related skills at the onset of instruction. Therefore, it is hypothesized that older Steiner‐educated children will make faster progress in early literacy than younger standard‐educated controls. Samples. A total of 30 Steiner‐educated children (age 7–9) were compared to a matched group of 31 standard‐educated controls (age 4–6). Method. Children were tested for reading, spelling, phonological awareness, and letter knowledge at three time points during their first year of formal reading instruction and again at the end of the second year. Results. There were no significant differences between groups in word reading at the end of the first and second year or reading comprehension at the end of the second year; however, the standard group outperformed the Steiner group on spelling at the end of both years. The Steiner group maintained an overall lead in phonological skills while letter knowledge was similar in both groups. Conclusions. The younger children showed similar, and in some cases, better progress in literacy than the older children; this was attributed to more consistent and high‐quality synthetic phonics instruction as is administered in standard schools. Consequently, concerns that 4‐ to 5‐year‐olds are ‘too young’ to begin formal reading instruction may be unfounded.     

The colour of gender stereotyping

Despite legislative attempts to eliminate gender stereotyping from society, the propensity to evaluate people on the basis of their sex remains a pernicious social problem. Noting the critical interplay between cultural and cognitive factors in the establishment of stereotypical beliefs, the current investigation explored the extent to which culturally transmitted colour-gender associations (i.e., pink is for girls, blue is for boys) set the stage for the automatic activation and expression of gender stereotypes. Across six experiments, the results demonstrated that (1) consumer choice for children's goods is dominated by gender-stereotyped colours (Experiment 1); (2) colour-based stereotypic associations guide young children's behaviour (Experiment 2); (3) colour-gender associations automatically activate associated stereotypes in adulthood (Experiments 3-5); and (4) colour-based stereotypic associations bias impressions of male and female targets (Experiment 6). These findings indicate that, despite prohibitions against stereotyping, seemingly innocuous societal practices may continue to promote this mode of thought.     

Studying Ideological Groups Online: Identification and Assessment of Risk Factors for Violence

Recent acts of violence have demonstrated the impact of violent ideological groups worldwide. However, the systematic study of these groups is somewhat limited. The Internet is a valuable tool for investigating ideological group behavior because it is easily accessible and commonly used by these groups. This study attempted to extend previous research by examining online message boards to assess processes particular to ideological group membership. A content analysis was conducted on several group process variables using 29 groups with message boards. A Kruskal‐Wallis test with follow‐up pairwise comparisons was used to find that violent ideological groups differed from nonviolent ideological and nonviolent nonideological groups on 7 group process variables and 3 content variables. Implications are discussed.     

Exploring the effects of ownership and choice on self-memory biases

Objects encoded in the context of temporary ownership by self enjoy a memorial advantage over objects owned by other people. This memory effect has been linked to self-referential encoding processes. The current inquiry explored the extent to which the effects of ownership are influenced by the degree of personal choice involved in assigning ownership. In three experiments pairs of participants chose objects to keep for ownership by self, and rejected objects that were given to the other participant to own. Recognition memory for the objects was then assessed. Experiment 1 showed that participants recognised more items encoded as "self-owned" than "other-owned", but only when they had been chosen by self. Experiment 2 replicated this pattern when participants' sense of choice was illusory. A source memory test in Experiment 3 showed that self-chosen items were most likely to be correctly attributed to ownership by self. These findings are discussed with reference to the link between owned objects and the self, and the routes through which self-referential operations can impact on cognition.     

Test publishers' perspective on "an updated meta-analysis": comment on Van Iddekinge, Roth, Raymark, and Odle-Dusseau (2012)

Van Iddekinge, Roth, Raymark, and Odle-Dusseau's (2012) meta-analysis of pre-employment integrity test results confirmed that such tests are meaningfully related to counterproductive work behavior. The article also offered some cautionary conclusions, which appear to stem from the limited scope of the authors' focus and the specific research procedures used. Issues discussed in this commentary include the following: (a) test publishers' provision of studies for meta-analytic consideration; (b) errors and questions in the coding of statistics from past studies; (c) debatable corrections for unreliable criterion measures; (d) exclusion of laboratory, contrasted-groups, unit-level, and time-series studies of counterproductive behavior; (e) under-emphasis on the prediction of counterproductive workplace behaviors compared with job performance, training outcomes, and turnover; (f) overlooking the industry practice of deploying integrity scales with other valid predictors of employee outcomes; (g) implication that integrity test publishers produce biased research results; (h) incomplete presentation of integrity tests' resistance to faking; and (i) omission of data indicating applicants' favorable response to integrity tests, the tests' lack of adverse impact, and the positive business impact of integrity testing. This commentary, therefore, offers an alternate perspective, addresses omissions and apparent inaccuracies, and urges a return to the use of diverse methodologies to evaluate the validity of integrity tests and other psychometric instruments.     

Test-taking motivations and outcomes on a standardized measure of on-the-job integrity

This study examined the test-taking motivation and attitudinal set of employment applicants who completed the Reid Report measure of on-the-job integrity. Applicants who were subsequently found to have received low scores on the Reid Report, decreasing the likelihood that they would be recommended for hiring, were more likely than those who received higher scores, to have believed that they could outguess the test, to have minimized its importance in the hiring decision, and to have regarded dishonest preoccupations as legitimate. Both the Reid Report score and test-taking attitudes of Outguessing and Dishonesty Legitimization also predicted admissions of past defalcations during a pre-employment screening interview.     

Investigating the boundaries of reading units across ages and reading levels

In Experiments 1 and 2 first-, third-, and seventh-grade children and college subjects circled the letter a while reading passages constructed of words familiar to first graders. First graders made more errors on the letter a embedded in a word than on the word a, whereas the converse was true of the other age groups. In Experiments 3 and 4 first-, second-, fourth-, and seventh-grade children and college students read passages and circled the letter t, making more errors on the common word the than on other words and on correctly spelled than on misspelled words. The effect of misspelling the other words increased with age and reading skill. Our combined results suggest that reading unit size increases with age and reading ability and that, whereas younger children, like adults, unitize common words, the unitization of less common words increases as word configurations become more familiar.