Estimating Causal Impacts of School Counselors With Regression Discontinuity Designs

This article presents a causal regression discontinuity framework for quantifying the impact of high school counselors on students’ education outcomes. To demonstrate this method, the authors used data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). Using high school counselor staffing counts and 4‐year college‐going rates collected through the SASS, the authors found that an additional high school counselor is predicted to induce a 10 percentage point increase in 4‐year college enrollment.     

A New Experimental Approach to the Relationship Between Color-Shading and Suicide Attempts

A new experimental approach was devised to increase responses to color and shading, thereby facilitating study of the previously demonstrated relationship between Rorschach Test color-shading responses and suicide attempts. The present study demonstrates that of 17 matched pairs of hospitalized psychiatric patients, those who had attempted suicide give significantly more shading responses to chromatic cards than those who had no history of suicide attempts. These results suggest that the technique may be useful in further studies of affect.     

Factor Analytic Structure and Validity of the Parental Feelings Inventory: A Brief Report

Previous research has highlighted the important role of parental emotions in parent–child interactions and child development. The present study presents the Parental Feelings Inventory (PFI), a new rating scale designed to assess parental emotions within the parenting role. The PFI presents emotion adjectives and asks parents to indicate the degree to which they experience that emotion in their role as parents. This study investigates the factor analytic structure and psychometric properties of this scale in a sample of parents with 3-year-old children. Participants included 149 mothers and 107 fathers of preschool-age children. The results provide support for a three-factor solution (Angry, Happy, and Anxious/Sad). This scale demonstrated good reliability and correlated with other measures of parent and child functioning. These findings provide support for the overall utility of the PFI as a measure of emotional experiences in the parenting role.     

The effect of a pre-shock signal on a free-operant avoidance response

After 25 free-operant avoidance training sessions, a 1-min signal followed by a brief shock was presented on the average of once every 4 min. During the signal, the avoidance schedule was suspended (20 sessions). Response rates during the signal were markedly reduced. Shock rates during non-signalled periods increased. Fifteen additional sessions were given during which the signal was presented without shock. Response rates during signalled periods were greater than previously observed during signalled periods, indicating that signalled shock had suppressive control over a previously acquired avoidance response rate.