The relationship of mathematics self-efficacy expectations to the selection of science-based college majors

The major purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship of mathematics self-efficacy expectations to the selection of science-based majors in college males and females. Based on results obtained from a pilot sample of college students, an instrument assessing mathematics self-efficacy expectations was developed. The items used in the mathematics self-efficacy scale included everyday math tasks, math problems, and math-based college courses. Subjects, 153 female and 109 male undergraduates, completed the mathematics self-efficacy scale, the Bem Sex Role Inventory, an adapted version of the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitudes Scales, and a questionnaire concerning their college major choices. Results indicated that mathematics self-efficacy expectations were significantly related to the extent to which students selected science-based college majors, thus supporting the postulated role of cognitive mediational factors in educational and career choice behavior. In addition, the math-related self-efficacy expectations of college males were significantly stronger than were those of college females. Implications of the findings for the process of educational and career decision-making are discussed.     

TEACHING SELF-ADMINISTRATION OF SUCTIONING TO CHILDREN WITH TRACHEOSTOMIES

We examined the effectiveness of using dolls to teach young children with tracheostomies to self-administer a suctioning procedure. Four children between the ages of 5 and 8 years, who had had tracheostomies for 6 months or longer, participated. After skills were taught via doll-centered simulations, in vivo skills were evaluated. All of the training and probe sessions were conducted in the participants' classrooms or homes. Results of a multiple baseline design across subjects and skill components indicated that the performance of all children improved as a function of training. Skill maintenance was demonstrated by all participants during follow-up assessments conducted 2 to 6 weeks posttraining. Results of a questionnaire completed by caregivers and interviews with the children revealed high levels of satisfaction with the training procedures and outcomes.     

Effects of an intervention program for pregnant adolescents: Educational outcomes at two years postpartum

Examined postpartum effects of a school-based intervention program for pregnant adolescents. Interviews were conducted with 102 innercity black, low-income, school-aged mothers who had attended the program, and their academic and medical records were reviewed. For teenagers who had been poor students prior to becoming pregnant, a strong linear effect was found for duration of program attendance: with sufficient time in the program, poorer students became indistinguishable from better students in educational success. Most of the better students were educationally successful at 2 years postpartum, independent of their length of time in the program. For all students, longer durations of postnatal intervention were predictive of lower likelihood of subsequent childbearing. Numerous academic, medical, social, and demographic variables were ruled out as possible confounding factors that might have produced the positive educational outcomes for poorer students. The results suggest that adolescents who appear to have minimal academic promise prior to their pregnancy are nevertheless very responsive to school-based intervention.     

Effects of background anger,provocation, and methylphenidate on emotional arousal and aggressive responding in attention-deficit hyperactivity disordered boys with and without concurrent aggressiveness

We investigated the effects of background anger, provocation, and methylphenidate on emotional, physiological, and behavioral responding in children with attentiondeficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with and without concurrent aggression. Our study revealed that ADHD boys showed more emotional and physiological distress when exposed to an interaction in which an administrator chastised each boy's favorite counselor, compared to a friendly interaction between the two adults. The background anger manipulation did not affect the aggressive behavior of the boys against an opponent in an aggressive game. High-aggressive (HA) ADHD boys were more likely to respond to provocation with aggression than low-aggressive (LA) ADHD boys, but only LA boys showed increased physiological reactivity with increasing provocation. Methylphenidate resulted in increased heart rates under all conditions and did not interact with any of the other findings.This project was conducted while the first author had the support of National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grant AA 06267.The authors wish to thank the staff members of the 1987 Summer Day Treatment Program who assisted in conducting this project. The authors also express their appreciation to Karen Guthrie for coordinating the medication assessment and to Hart Blanton for computer programming.     

“Double Trouble”: An Introduction

This piece sets the scene for the inaugural addresses by Rosi Braidotti and Selma Sevenhuijsen which follow and provides background information on the history of women's studies in the Netherlands.     

Teaching minority high school students to recruit helpers to attain personal and educational goals

Recruiting help from mentors and other potential helpers is a promising strategy for helping disadvantaged and minority youths meet their personal and educational goals. Three African-American high school seniors participated in a project designed to evaluate the effectiveness of training procedures that would allow them to ask for help in attaining educational and other personal goals. A behavioral training procedure that included instructional materials, role-play practice, praise, and feedback was used. Targeted skills included goal setting and 30 responses involved in the process of meeting with a potential helper. Role-play situations were used to evaluate participants' help-recruiting skills before and after training. Participants increased their help-recruiting skills from an average of 38% during baseline, to an average of 75% after training. Self-reported measures of goal attainment suggested that the students benefited from the training. Implications for mentoring programs designed to increase minority students' opportunities to reach educational goals were discussed.     

Within-compound associations between the context and the conditioned stimulus

Three experiments were conducted to test for the presence of associations between contextual cues and the nominal conditioned stimulus (CS) in fear conditioning. Rats were given tone-footshock pairings and were tested for their fear of the nominal CS, the tone, in a different context. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that rats given nonreinforced exposure to the training context following conditioning were less fearful of the CS. Experiment 3 indicated that additional footshock presentations in the training context following conditioning produced greater fear of the CS. In both procedures postconditioning treatments designed to directly alter only the associative strength of the training context yielded parallel changes in the conditioned response to the CS. These data suggest that within-compound associations are formed between the context and the CS during classical conditioning.     

Mentally retarded individuals outperform college graduates in judging the nonconservation of space and perimeter

Most adults of average and superior intelligence incorrectly assume that in a two dimensional figure two attributes, area, and perimeter, are locked in a fixed relationship such that if one remains unchanged so does the other. Consequently, when they correctly conserve one attribute during shape transformation, they incorrectly conserve the other. Mentally retarded individuals assume no such fixed relationship but depend exclusively on perceptual information. Although this dependence adversely effects their judgment of conservation, it allows them to correctly judge the changed state of the nonconserved attribute.