Children’s Gender-Typed Activity Choices Across Preschool Social Contexts

Variability in children’s gender-typed activity preferences was examined across several preschool social contexts--solitary play, interactions with female peers, male peers, and both, and interactions with teachers. Participants were preschool children (N?=?264; 49?% girls, M age?=?52?months, range 37–60) attending Head Start classes in the Southwest United States. Seventy-three percent were Mexican/Mexican-American, and 82?% of families earned less than $30,000 per year. Children’s preferences for gender-typed activities varied as a function of their own gender and the identity of their interactional partners. Girls and boys preferred gender-typed activities (e.g., girls preferred feminine activities) when in solitary play but activity preferences changed across social contexts. Specifically, girls played significantly more with masculine activities when with male peers and boys played significantly more with feminine activities during interactions with teachers. Findings suggest that through social interactions with peers and teachers, children are exposed to a greater range of activities than what they experience when they play by themselves.     

READING ABILITY AND PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AS PREDICTORS OF ELEVEN AND TWELVE YEAR OLDS' TEXT COMPREHENSION

The effect of prior knowledge on the comprehension of written prose paragraphs in intact, topic sentence deleted and topic and concluding sentence deleted conditions was studied. A methodology for determining prior knowledge is advanced. Subjects were average and high ability upper elementary age children. A 3 X 3 passage by treatment design was utilized. Strongest correlations were for ability and prior knowledge, and criterion measures of inferencing and summarizing. ANOVA yielded significant main effects for ability and all criterion measures except inference. Step‐wise regression analysis suggests prior knowledge as a better response predictor than ability on three of four criterion measures. The utility of an uncomplicated method for analyzing students' levels of prior knowledge valuable to researchers and classroom teachers is discussed.     

Bilateral saccadic eye movements and tactile stimulation,but not auditory stimulation,enhance memory retrieval

Recent research has shown superior memory retrieval when participants make a series of horizontal saccadic eye movements between the memory encoding phase and the retrieval phase compared to participants who do not move their eyes or move their eyes vertically. It has been hypothesized that the rapidly alternating activation of the two hemispheres that is associated with the series of left–right eye movements is critical in causing the enhanced retrieval. This hypothesis predicts a beneficial effect on retrieval of alternating left–right stimulation not only of the visuomotor system, but also of the somatosensory system, both of which have a strict contralateral organization. In contrast, this hypothesis does not predict an effect, or a weaker effect, on retrieval of alternating left–right stimulation of the auditory system, which has a much less lateralized organization. Consistent with these predictions, we replicated the horizontal saccade-induced retrieval enhancement (Experiment 1) and showed that a similar retrieval enhancement occurs after alternating left–right tactile stimulation (Experiment 2). Furthermore, retrieval was not enhanced after alternating left–right auditory stimulation compared to simultaneous bilateral auditory stimulation (Experiment 3). We discuss the possibility that alternating bilateral activation of the left and right hemispheres exerts its effects on memory by increasing the functional connectivity between the two hemispheres. We also discuss the findings in the context of clinical practice, in which bilateral eye movements (EMDR) and auditory stimulation are used in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.     

Formal Operational Reasoning in African University Students

Few studies have investigated formal operational concepts among Africans. The present study examined formal operational reasoning among African university students. Both Piagetian and neo-Piagetian criteria of 75% and 50% success rate were used for determining the presence of formal operational concepts. Three formal operational concepts—propositional, proportional, and combinatorial reasoning—were assessed among African university students.     

The development and analysis of tutorial dialogues in AutoTutor Lite

The goal of intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) that interact in natural language is to emulate the benefits that a well-trained human tutor provides to students, by interpreting student answers and appropriately responding in order to encourage elaboration. BRCA Gist is an ITS developed using AutoTutor Lite, a Web-based version of AutoTutor. Fuzzy-trace theory theoretically motivated the development of BRCA Gist, which engages people in tutorial dialogues to teach them about genetic breast cancer risk. We describe an empirical method to create tutorial dialogues and fine-tune the calibration of BRCA Gist’s semantic processing engine without a team of computer scientists. We created five interactive dialogues centered on pedagogic questions such as “What should someone do if she receives a positive result for genetic risk of breast cancer?” This method involved an iterative refinement process of repeated testing with different texts and successively making adjustments to the tutor’s expectations and settings in order to improve performance. The goal of this method was to enable BRCA Gist to interpret and respond to answers in a manner that best facilitated learning. We developed a method to analyze the efficacy of the tutor’s dialogues. We found that BRCA Gist’s assessment of participants’ answers was highly correlated with the quality of the answers found by trained human judges using a reliable rubric. The dialogue quality between users and BRCA Gist predicted performance on a breast cancer risk knowledge test completed after exposure to the tutor. The appropriateness of BRCA Gist’s feedback also predicted the quality of answers and breast cancer risk knowledge test scores.     

Post‐traumatic factors and resilience: the role of shelter management and survivours' attitudes after the earthquakes in El Salvador (2001)

A participatory research action was undertaken in the two largest shelters established after the earthquakes in El Salvador (2001). One hundred fifteen semi‐structured interviews were carried out among refugees, which later formed the basis for a self‐managed community plan. Comparisons between the two shelters—which differed primarily in whether the grouping of tents was made to reflect the community of origin of the survivors (shelter Santa Gertrudis) or not (shelter El Cafetalón)—showed that refugees in Santa Gertrudis participated more often in community activities, and had more positive emotional memories, fewer feelings of having been humiliated and less emotional discomfort than refugees in El Cafetalón. The results suggest that forms of organisation and management which consider elements of dignity, participation and respect for the capacity of the victims to control their own lives are relevant factors for effective individual and community coping after a catastrophe. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relationship between mothers' and daughters' sex-role attitudes and self-concepts in three types of family environment

Assuming that mothers are significant others in daughters' socialization, this study was conducted to determine if significant relationships exist between mothers and daughters regarding sex-role attitudes and self-concepts. Three types of families were sampled: those where the mother was a full-time homemaker, those where she was employed because of economic necessity, and those where she was employed for personal and professional fulfillment. The results indicated significant relationships between mothers' and daughters' attitudes toward marriage, children, and careers, but not self-concepts. Differences were also found between the three groups of mothers and daughters. Mothers who are involved in careers that are personally salient differ from mothers who are employed because of economic necessity and mothers who are full-time homemakers.     

A minicomputer program for control and data acquisition in classical conditioning

A 4K PDP-8/E computer program package has been developed to control classical conditioning procedures, to collect response data, and to extract statistical summeries. In contrast with other existing behavioral control languages geared to digital data typical of discrete operant analyses, this program distinguishes itself by its ability to retrieve and analyze the analog data arising from phasic response systems such as the rabbit’s nictitating membrane. By means of a question-and-answer Teletype conversation with the E, the program establishes trial sequence and trial spacing parameters; CS and US duration, probability, and interstimulus interval; intertrial interval fractionation for recording intertrial response frequencies; and session length. Various versions of the program exist to compute statistical properties of the analog response data, to dump detailed trial-by-trial topographies, and to attach instrumental contingencies to subtle features of the real-time analog responding.