Racial Differences on the Conners Teacher Rating Scale

Factor congruence and mean differences on the Conners Teacher Rating Scale were assessed across African-American and Caucasian school children. Factor analyses conducted separately by gender revealed similar factors across races for males and females. The main differences in factor structure within gender were the presence of an Antisocial factor in black males and an Inattention factor in white females. Across both males and females, teachers tended to rate black children higher than white children on factors relating to externalizing behaviors. Whether mean differences are a result of teacher bias or actual behavioral differences in the classroom needs further research.     

Is the Medium the Message? A Study of the Effects of Media,Communicator, and Message Characteristics on Attitude Change1

The present study examined the interactive effects of type of media, communicator, and position of message on persuasiveness of the communication. Subjects received a communication over television, radio (audio tape), or written medium, which either agreed with a position they held or strongly disagreed with it. The communicator was either a newscaster or a candidate for political office. The results indicated that subjects felt the newscaster to be more trustworthy than the candidate. In line with previous research, there was no main effect of media on persuasiveness. However, media interacted with the other variables so that when the communication disagreed with the audience, television was the most persuasive medium with the newscaster but the least persuasive with the untrusted candidate. There was no effect for media when the message agreed with the audience. Further, the candidate taking a position congruent with the audience's was rated as more attractive but less trustworthy than a candidate taking the opposite position. It was suggested that television may be the most involving medium and that either a counterargument theory or reactance theory could explain why it was not effective with the candidate.     

A test of the Zucherman heterosexual scales

Summary: Female and male undergraduate students enrolled in the introductory psychology course were administered the Zuckerman heterosexual scale as part of a larger battery of tests. The ordering of items for males was very similar to Zuckerman's with two minor exceptions. Female subjects, on the other hand, reported more sexual experiences of all kinds than did Zuckerman's sample, and two major differences in ordering Were noted. The coefficients of reproducibility for males and females were .928 and .954 respectively which were almost identical to those of Zuckerman. The rank-order correlation between the ranking of the items in the male and female scales was .958.     

A responsibility model for the practice of professional school psychology: Psychoeducational therapy

This paper discusses from first-hand experience the need for, and development of, a program of psychoeducational therapy within a school system. Conditions in the schools that support and influence the therapy, as well as therapy characteristics, are considered in some detail. Reasons are delineated that make this a responsibility model of school psychology practice. The therapy program is part of a larger supporting thrust in intervention, features of which are briefly referred to.     

Counterconditioning and exposure-only in the treatment of specific (conditioned suppression) and generalized fear in rats

In Experiment 1 the conditioned suppression technique was used to condition specific fear, suppression of operent lever pressing for food to a discrete CS. The efficacy of four treatment conditions on fear reduction was evaluated. Counterconditioning in which exposure to the CS was contiguously paired with food was significantly less effective than noncontiguous CS exposure and food. An exposure-only effect was indicated by the superiority of all three treatments involving CS exposure (the above two plus a typical conditioned suppression extinction procedure) to treatment consisting of food only. The reverse counterconditioning effect and the exposure effect are consistent with current views that emphasize the centrality of aversive stimulus exposure in fear reduction. Experiment 2 investigated elimination of generalized fear produced by unsignalled, inescapable shocks in the lever-pressing apparatus. Two treatments (counterconditioning and exposure-only) were equally effective and they were superior to no exposure control treatment. The results of the two experiments reinforce recent attempts toward a reevaluation of the role of anxiety-competing responses in elimination of fear.     

Some developments in multivariate generalizability

This article is concerned with estimation of components of maximum generalizability in multifacet experimental designs involving multiple dependent measures. Within a Type II multivariate analysis of variance framework, components of maximum generalizability are defined as those composites of the dependent measures that maximize universe score variance for persons relative to observed score variance. The coefficient of maximum generalizability, expressed as a function of variance component matrices, is shown to equal the squared canonical correlation between true and observed scores. Emphasis is placed on estimation of variance component matrices, on the distinction between generalizability- and decision-studies, and on extension to multifacet designs involving crossed and nested facets. An example of a two-facet partially nested design is provided.Appreciation is expressed to the Office of Research in Medical Education, University of Texas Medical Branch, for permitting use of their data.     

Period analytic algorithms for the estimation of selected spectral properties of short segments of EEG data

The accuracy and computational speed of three algorithms (spectral analysis, period analysis, and period amplitude analysis) for the extraction of spectral estimates from time-series data are empirically evaluated in the context of a neuropsychological experiment that requires estimates of power in the standard electroencephalographic frequency bands.     

Visual summation and its relation to processing and memory

An experiment is reported in which the interval between two presentations of the same item was systematically varied. The results indicate summation occurs only while the two stimulations are in the neural mode of storage. No interaction of input is observed if one of the items has already been stored when the second arrives. Some implications of the relation of processing to memory are discussed.     

Satisfied and Dissatisfied Students

Satisfaction toward school was assessed by means of a 60-item questionnaire and was related to measures of academic success, intellectual ability, social, class, and personal values. For the total sample of 258 high school juniors, there was no significant relation between their evaluation of school experiences and their achievement, as measured by standardized tests and teachers' grades. Teachers rated satisfied students as less impulsive and more responsible than average students. The teachers' ratings also revealed a marked positive bias in favor of girls. Extreme groups on the satisfaction measures were compared and tentative explanations are offered for some of the major differences.