The effects of universal pre-K on cognitive development

In this study of Oklahoma's universal pre-K program, the authors relied on a strict birthday eligibility criterion to compare "young" kindergarten children who just completed pre-K to "old" pre-K children just beginning pre-K. This regression-discontinuity design reduces the threat of selection bias. Their sample consisted of 1,567 pre-K children and 1,461 kindergarten children who had just completed pre-K. The authors estimated the impact of the pre-K treatment on Woodcock-Johnson Achievement test scores. The authors found test impacts of 3.00 points (0.79 of the standard deviation for the control group) for the Letter-Word Identification score, 1.86 points (0.64 of the standard deviation of the control group) for the Spelling score, and 1.94 points (0.38 of the standard deviation of the control group) for the Applied Problems score. Hispanic, Black, White, and Native American children all benefit from the program, as do children in diverse income brackets, as measured by school lunch eligibility status. The authors conclude that Oklahoma's universal pre-K program has succeeded in enhancing the school readiness of a diverse group of children.     

Adolescent Suicidality: Who Will Ideate,Who Will Act?

Responses to the 1999 Youth Risk Behavior Survey including suicide ideation, attempt, medically treated attempt, and six problem behaviors were analysed. Youth across the spectrum ideated. Overwhelmingly, the 17% of youth with more than three problem behaviors were the youth who acted; they accounted for 60% of medically treated suicidal acts. Compared to adolescents with zero problem behaviors, the odds of a medically treated suicide attempt were 2.3 times greater among respondents with one, 8.8 with two, 18.3 with three, 30.8 with four, 50.0 with five, and 227.3 with six. A count of problem behaviors offers a reliable way to identify suicide risk.     

Linguistically mediated visual search: The critical role of speech rate

Recent studies have shown that the presentation of concurrent linguistic context can lead to highly efficient performance in a standard conjunction search task by the induction of an incremental search strategy (Spivey, Tyler, Eberhard, & Tanenhaus, 2001). However, these findings were obtained under anomalously slow speech rate conditions. Accordingly, in the present study, the effects of concurrent linguistic context on visual search performance were compared when speech was recorded at both a normal rate and a slow rate. The findings provided clear evidence that the visual search benefit afforded by concurrent linguistic context was contingent on speech rate, with normal speech producing a smaller benefit. Overall, these findings have important implications for understanding how linguistic and visual processes interact in real time and suggest a disparity in the temporal resolution of speech comprehension and visual search processes.     

Raters who pursue different goals give different ratings

J. N. Cleveland and K. R. Murphy (1992) suggested that phenomena such as rater errors and interrater disagreements could be understood in terms of differences in the goals pursued by various raters. We measured 19 rating goals of students at the beginning of a semester, grouped them into scales, and correlated these with teacher evaluations collected at the end of the semester. We found significant multiple correlations, both within classes and in an analysis of the pooled sample (adjusting for instructor mean differences, incremental R2 =.08). Measures of rating goals obtained after raters had observed a significant proportion of ratee performance accounted for variance (incremental R2 =.07) not accounted for by measures of goals obtained at the beginning of the semester.     

Contrast influences perceived duration of brief time intervals

34 participants judged the duration of a 4-sec. interval which was preceded by a contextual interval of 2, 6, 10, or 14 sec. Underestimations of the test interval when the contextual intervals were longer suggested temporal durations are affected by a mechanism of comparing and contrasting analogous to the one producing some visual illusions.     

Genetic and environmental contributions to the co-occurrence of depressive personality disorder and DSM-IV personality disorders

One of the main controversies with regard to depressive personality disorder (DPD) concerns the co-occurrence with the established DSM-IV personality disorders (PDs). The main aim of this study was to examine to what extent DPD and the DSM-IV PDs share genetic and environmental risk factors, using multivariate twin modeling. The DSM-IV Structured Interview for Personality was applied to 2,794 young adult twins. Paranoid PD from Cluster A, borderline PD from Cluster B, and all three PDs from Cluster C were independently and significantly associated with DPD in multiple regression analysis. The genetic correlations between DPD and the other PDs were strong (.53-.83), while the environmental correlations were moderate (.36-.40). Close to 50% of the total variance in DPD was disorder specific. However, only 5% was due to disorder-specific genetic factors, indicating that a substantial part of the genetic vulnerability to DPD also increases the vulnerability to other PDs.     

Cancer Survivors’ Spiritual Well-Being and Use of Complementary Methods: A Report from the American Cancer Society’s Studies of Cancer Survivors

We examined associations between spiritual well-being and CAM use among 4,139 cancer survivors. We also explored the classification of religious/spiritual practices (R/S) as CAMs and alternative subscale structures of the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy—Spiritual Well-being (FACIT-Sp). We evaluated three aspects of spirituality, Faith, Peace, and Meaning, and use of 19 CAMs in 5 domains. Mind–body methods were subdivided into R/S and non-R/S. All FACIT-Sp factors were associated with CAM use, but in different directions: Meaning and Faith were positively associated; Peace was negatively associated. Peace was negatively associated with R/S CAMs, but not non-R/S CAMs. The prevalence of CAM use dropped from 79.3 to 64.8% when R/S items were excluded. These findings confirm an association between spiritual well-being and CAM use, including some non-R/S CAMs, and provide evidence of the benefits of using the three-factor FACIT-Sp solution and treating R/S CAMs as a separate category.     

Learning as Leaving Home: Fear,Empathy, and Hospitality in the Theology and Religion Classroom

The article is a response to this journal's call for papers on metaphors for teaching, and also draws from a previous publication in which Kent Eilers developed a methodology for teaching global theologies. In this methodology, the ultimate goal was the development of “hermeneutical dispositions of empathy, hospitality, and receptivity toward culturally diverse voices” (2014, 165). This article considers the goals of Eilers' methodology, and others like his, and how it is that the metaphors of “leaving home” and “communal imagination” highlight the importance of the ambient and interpersonal features of a classroom and their effect on the attainment of the above goals. In so doing, it extends the conversation beyond content and methodology in teaching theology and religion into the realms of philosophy of education, as well as the fields of moral and values education. It is contended that the metaphors informed by these areas of study facilitate the attainment of such goals, and similar ones, by demonstrating that the cultivation of an ambience of care, trust, and compassion within the classroom constitutes an essential foundation for learning in which students “leave home” and cultivate “communal imagination.” The article finishes with practical suggestions for educators in theology and religion.