Development and Initial Validation of a Scale Measuring the Beliefs of Educators Regarding Response to Intervention

This article presents information on the development and initial validation of the 16-item Response to Intervention (RTI) Beliefs Scale. The scale is designed to measure the extent to which educators working in schools hold beliefs consistent with the tenets of RTI. The authors administered the instrument to 2,430 educators in 62 elementary schools in the fall of 2007 and 2,443 educators in 68 elementary schools in the spring of 2008. Exploratory, single-level confirmatory, and multilevel confirmatory factor analysis procedures were used to examine construct validity. Results supported a correlated 3-factor model (Academic Abilities and Performance of Students with Disabilities, Data-Based Decision Making, and Functions of Core and Supplemental Instruction) at both the school and educator levels of analysis. Furthermore, the factor scores derived from the model demonstrated significant, positive relations to RTI implementation. Reliability estimates for two of the three factor scores exceeded.70. Implications for research on educator beliefs and implementation of RTI as well as implications for school psychologists supporting RTI implementation are discussed.     

The failure to detect tactile change: A tactile analogue of visual change blindness

A large body of empirical research now shows that people are surprisingly poor at detecting significant changes in visually presented scenes. This phenomenon is known aschange blindness in vision. A similar phenomenon occurs in audition, but to date no such effect has been documented in touch. In the present study, we explored the ability of people to detect changes introduced between two consecutively presented vibrotactile patterns presented over the body surface. The patterns consisted of two or three vibrotactile stimuli presented for 200 msec. The position of one of the vibrotactile stimuli composing the display was repeatedly changed (alternating between two different positions) on 50% of the trials, but the same pattern was presented repeatedly on the remaining trials. Three conditions were investigated: No interval between the patterns, an empty interval between the patterns, and a masked interval between the patterns. Change detection was near perfect in the no-interval block. Performance deteriorated somewhat in the empty-interval block, but by far the worst change detection performance occurred in the masked-interval block. These results demonstrate that “change blindness” can also affect tactile perception.     

Examining the relationship between free recall and immediate serial recall: the effect of concurrent task performance

In 3 experiments, participants saw lists of 16 words for free recall with or without a 6-digit immediate serial recall (ISR) task after each word. Free recall was performed under standard visual silent and spoken-aloud conditions (Experiment 1), overt rehearsal conditions (Experiment 2), and fixed rehearsal conditions (Experiment 3). The authors found that in each experiment, there was no effect of ISR on the magnitude of the recency effect, but interleaved ISR disrupted free recall of those words that would otherwise be rehearsed. The authors conclude that ISR and recency cannot both be outputs from a unitary limited-capacity short-term memory store and discuss the possibility that the process of rehearsal may be common to both tasks.     

Developmental Delays at Arrival,Early Intervention Enrollment,and Adopted Chinese Girls’ Academic Performance and Internalizing Problems in Adolescence

The author investigated the extent of developmental delays in girls adopted from China, their subsequent early intervention (EI) enrollment, and how the delays and EI were related to their academic performance and internalizing problems in adolescence. The sample included 180 adolescent girls (M = 13.4 years, SD = 2.0 years) who were adopted at 3–23.5 months (M = 11.5 months, SD = 3.7 months). Data on the adopted Chinese girls’ delays at arrival and EI enrollment in physical therapy (PT) and speech–language therapy (SLT) were collected from the adoptive mothers at the Baseline; data on the adopted Chinese girls’ present academic performance and internalizing problems were collected from the adoptive mothers and adopted girls at Wave 4 six years later. Data analyses revealed that 55% of the adoptees had moderate-to-severe delays when first arrived at the adoptive homes. Motor delays significantly increased the odds for PT (odds ratio [OR] = 3.98, 95% CI [2.18, 7.82], p <.001) and SLT (OR = 2.36, 95% CI [1.50–3.72, p <.001). Social-cognitive delays also significantly increased the odds for PT (OR = 1.90, 95% CI [1.36, 2.63], p <.001) and SLT (OR = 1.63, 95% CI [1.22, 2.17], p <.001). Motor delays were negatively associated with academic performance but positively associated with internalizing problems. General linear modeling showed that the adoptees who had developmental delays at arrival and subsequently enrolled in EI scored significantly lower on academic performance than their peers who had delays but did not enroll in EI, as well their peers who had no delays and did not enroll in EI. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

The emotional and cognitive effect of immersion in film viewing

This brief report presents an experiment testing the effect of immersion on emotional responses and cognitive genre categorisation of film viewers. Immersion of a film presentation was varied by presenting an animated movie either in a 3D-viewing condition (low immersive condition) or in a CAVE condition (high immersive condition, comparable to virtual reality experience). Viewers rated their emotions and categorised the movies into four basic film genres (action, drama, comedy, and non-fiction). Two distinct types of emotion were measured: Fictional World emotions (e.g., sadness) in response to the presented fictional events and Artefact emotions in response to the film as an artefact (e.g., fascination). Results showed that stronger immersion led to more intense emotions but did not influence genre categorisation. In line with expectations, both types of emotional response were intensified by high immersion. The results are explained by suggesting that highly immersive cinema has its impact on a basic dimension of emotion, namely arousal that underlies both types of emotions.     

Loneliness and social behaviours in a virtual social environment

Feeling lonely motivates people to reconnect with others, but it can also trigger a vicious cycle of cognitions and behaviours that reinforces their loneliness. In this study, we examined the behavioural consequences of loneliness in a virtual social environment. A total of 176 participants navigated a character (protagonist) through a two-dimensional browser game and rated the character's loneliness multiple times during the game. In the first part of the game, another character is introduced as the protagonist's spouse. At one point, the spouse leaves for an undetermined period of time but later returns. Immediately before this separation, higher ascribed loneliness of the protagonist was associated with more frequent interactions with the spouse. After the reunion, however, higher ascribed loneliness was associated with less frequent interactions with the spouse. Ascribed loneliness was not significantly related to the frequency of interactions with others nor to the frequency of solitary activities. These patterns held after controlling for ascribed positive affect. Participants' levels of loneliness were related to the level of ascribed loneliness only when the spouse was present but not when the spouse was absent. In sum, these findings suggest that the conditions that trigger the vicious cycle of loneliness are person- and situation-specific.     

When message tailoring backfires: The role of initial attitudes in affect–cognition matching

This research explores when and how tailoring messages to attitudinal bases backfires. Study 1 demonstrated that for attitudes (toward education subsidies) that were based more on beliefs than emotions, recipients whose initial attitudes were incongruent with the message position (i.e., message opponents) showed mismatching effects, such that the affective message was more persuasive than the cognitive message. Study 2 replicated these mismatching effects among message opponents for attitudes (toward a rival university) that were primarily affective. Study 3 controlled for effects of initial attitude certainty and replicated the mismatching effects of Study 2 for affective attitudes toward an increase in tuition. Finally, Study 4 suggested a potential mechanism for mismatching effects, revealing that for attitudes (toward an online course management system) that were based more on beliefs than emotions, message opponents counter‐argued with the cognitive appeal more intensely than the affective appeal. Contrary to the notion in the extant literature that mismatching effects are relatively rare compared with matching effects, the current research suggests that mismatching effects occur for both primarily affective and cognitive attitudes when the recipient is highly opposed to the message position. The present findings also demonstrate the utility of examining attitudinal bases at the object level in the context of message tailoring. Implications for message tailoring and for affective versus cognitive attitudes are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.