Effect of Social Desirability and Self-Concept Scores on the Measurement of Adjustment

The study represented an attempt to assess the “true” nature of the relationships among measures of social desirability, self-concept, and level of adjustment. Positive linear relationships, of low to moderate magnitudes, were found for all three variables. These data do not support the traditional hypotheses that self-concept tests are saturated with social desirability, that social desirability is the primary component in the measurement of adjustment, nor that self-attitudes are the major variable in adjustment. An alternative system is presented for describing the psychometric relationships among these variables, with implications for viewing non-test correlates.     

Faster Teaching via POMDP Planning

Human and automated tutors attempt to choose pedagogical activities that will maximize student learning, informed by their estimates of the student's current knowledge. There has been substantial research on tracking and modeling student learning, but significantly less attention on how to plan teaching actions and how the assumed student model impacts the resulting plans. We frame the problem of optimally selecting teaching actions using a decision‐theoretic approach and show how to formulate teaching as a partially observable Markov decision process planning problem. This framework makes it possible to explore how different assumptions about student learning and behavior should affect the selection of teaching actions. We consider how to apply this framework to concept learning problems, and we present approximate methods for finding optimal teaching actions, given the large state and action spaces that arise in teaching. Through simulations and behavioral experiments, we explore the consequences of choosing teacher actions under different assumed student models. In two concept‐learning tasks, we show that this technique can accelerate learning relative to baseline performance.     

Enhancing Parenting Skills Among Nonresident African American Fathers as a Strategy for Preventing Youth Risky Behaviors

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a theoretically based, culturally specific family intervention designed to prevent youth risky behaviors by influencing the parenting attitudes and behaviors of nonresident African American fathers and the parent–child interactions, intentions to avoid violence, and aggressive behaviors of their preadolescent sons. A sample of 158 intervention and 129 comparison group families participated. ANCOVA results indicated that the intervention was promising for enhancing parental monitoring, communication about sex, intentions to communicate, race-related socialization practices, and parenting skills satisfaction among fathers. The intervention was also beneficial for sons who reported more monitoring by their fathers, improved communication about sex, and increased intentions to avoid violence. The intervention was not effective in reducing aggressive behaviors among sons. Findings are discussed from a family support perspective, including the need to involve nonresident African American fathers in youth risky behavior prevention efforts.     

Inferring Learners' Knowledge From Their Actions

Watching another person take actions to complete a goal and making inferences about that person's knowledge is a relatively natural task for people. This ability can be especially important in educational settings, where the inferences can be used for assessment, diagnosing misconceptions, and providing informative feedback. In this paper, we develop a general framework for automatically making such inferences based on observed actions; this framework is particularly relevant for inferring student knowledge in educational games and other interactive virtual environments. Our approach relies on modeling action planning: We formalize the problem as a Markov decision process in which one must choose what actions to take to complete a goal, where choices will be dependent on one's beliefs about how actions affect the environment. We use a variation of inverse reinforcement learning to infer these beliefs. Through two lab experiments, we show that this model can recover people's beliefs in a simple environment, with accuracy comparable to that of human observers. We then demonstrate that the model can be used to provide real‐time feedback and to model data from an existing educational game.     

Sex bias and language

Recent research has suggested that in certain contexts male terms may fail to be gender neutral (Moulton, Robinson, & Elias, 1978). Stricker (1977) has proposed that even explicitly generic terms such as adult and person may not be gender neutral. The conclusions of the highly controversial and influential Broverman, Vogel, Broverman, Clarkson, and Rosenkrantz (1970) study were based directly on the assumption that adult is a gender-neutral term. The present study consisted of a modified replication of the Broverman et al. study followed by an addendum that asked subjects in the gender-neutral condition to indicate whether they had thought of a neutral, male, or female stimulus person. As predicted, subjects did not tend to think of a neutral stimulus person. The implications of this finding for sex-role stereotype research as well as for guidlines for nonsexist language are discussed.This article is based on a master's thesis completed at Southern Illinois University by the first author.     

The impact of homelessness on children.

This article reviews and critiques community-based research on the effects of homelessness on children. Homeless children confront serious threats to their ability to succeed and their future well-being. Of particular concern are health problems, hunger, poor nutrition, developmental delays, anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, and educational underachievement. Factors that may mediate the observed outcomes include inadequate shelter conditions, instability in residences and shelters, inadequate services, and barriers to accessing services that are available. Public policy initiatives are needed to meet the needs of homeless children.     

Academic achievement among formerly homeless adolescents and their continuously housed peers

This study examined the school experiences and academic achievement of 46 adolescents in families who experienced homelessness and 87 permanently housed adolescents whose families received public assistance. Measures taken after the homeless students were rehoused showed that both groups valued school highly and were similar in cognitive abilities assessed with the similarities subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Revised (WISC-R). Formerly homeless students had more school mobility, more grade retention, and worse school experiences by mother report and lower plans for post-secondary education by self-report. Both groups scored poorly on standardized tests of academic achievement. Homelessness was associated with further declines in achievement during the period of maximal residential disruption, but did not have effects 5 years later.     

Who Started This? Investigating Different Sources of Organizational Change

This study explored whether organizational change had differential effects on perceptions of group leadership and group morale, depending on the source of the change activity. Data on work group leadership and morale was collected in two waves of an employee survey, and data on change activities were collected in the second wave of the survey. When leaders outside of a work group initiated change, employees reported more negative perceptions of their work group leader. However, when the work group leader initiated change, perceptions of that leader tended to be more positive. Finally, change activities initiated by group members did not influence perceptions of work group leadership, but were associated with improved work group morale.