HOW ELEMENTARY STUDENTS REFERRED FOR COMPENSATORY READING INSTRUCTION PERFORM ON SCHOOL‐BASED MEASURES OF WORD RECOGNITION,FLUENCY, AND COMPREHENSION

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine how elementary students referred for compensatory remedial reading services performed on several key reading process variables: total word recognition errors while reading brief passages, significant or meaning‐changing errors, comprehension, and reading rate. In order to maximize ecological validity, the students were assessed by the school‐based reading specialist/teacher using assessment materials normally used in diagnostic evaluations of students referred for compensatory reading instruction. Although performance across all variables was below instructional levels for students’ assigned grades, both word recognition variables and comprehension approached instructional levels. Reading rate alone was consistently and significantly below several previously identified standards of performance. We feel that poor performance in rate may be an indicator of fluency problems (including automaticity in word recognition and text phrasing). Suggestions for instruction to overcome difficulties in fluency were presented.     

A Compendium of Sales-Related Literature in Customer Relationship Management: Processes and Technologies with Managerial Implications

This paper presents the first comprehensive and systematic review of the sales-related customer relationship management (CRM) literature. Specifically, from a narrowed sample of 253 CRM-related articles, 38 were qualified as the juxtaposition of CRM strategies and technologies with sales relevance. Themes found within this literature include the evolving nature of channel functioning and interfirm relationships, the strategic organizational processes involving the sales function, the evolving nature of the sales role, and both salesperson and customer adoption of CRM technology. Contributions were derived from the extant literature for both theory and practice. The meager number of published works with direct relevance to sales management along with the practicality of the topic suggests that additional CRM research, both conceptual and empirical, would be beneficial.     

Multiple partners in the age of AIDS: Self-consciousness theory and HIV risk behavior

In two studies, we found consistent correlations among gender, self-consciousness, and high-risk sexual behavior in college students. Men higher in public self-con-sciousness reported more sexual partners, but less pleasurable sexual experiences. Among women higher in private self-consciousness, using sex to assuage feelings of loneliness was associated with a greater number of sexual partners. However, higher levels of private self-consciousness coupled with a view of sex as a way to satisfy emotional needs predicted fewer sexual partners. A closer examination of how self-consciousness, attitudes toward sexual activity, and gender influence decisions to engage in high-risk sexual behaviors is proposed.     

Performance and Perceptions of Brainstormers in an Organizational Setting

Employees of a corporation who had undergone considerable training for effective teamwork were asked to brainstorm about a job-relevant issue in groups of four or alone. One half of the groups brainstormed alone first, and the other half brainstormed as a group before brainstorming alone. Participants were also asked to rate their performance and indicate whether they would perform better in groups or alone on a brainstorming task. Consistent with past laboratory research, groups generated only about half as many ideas as a similar number of individuals (nominal group), and group brainstorming led to more favorable perceptions of individual performance. Participants also believed that they would brainstorm more effectively in a group than alone. These results indicate that productivity losses in brainstorming groups are not restricted to laboratory groups. Such losses occur even in groups who work together on a daily basis, have considerable training in group dynamics, and are dealing with a job-relevant issue. The sequence of alone to group brainstorming did not influence overall productivity. The relation of this research to that of facilitated and electronic brainstorming is discussed.     

Introduction: The Role of Process Metaphysics in Our World of Science

This article applies the analytic rigor of philosophy to the vexed topic of business strategy, and uses the objective, public evidence of business strategy as an existence proof for the possibility of free will and purpose in the private realm of subjective intentionality. The first part distinguishes three types of intentionality in philosophy—purposive intentionality, referential intentionality, and the problematic intentionality of a godlike, miraculous “inner intender.” After rejecting this third type of intentionality, and noting that its rejection saves the first two types of intentionality from guilt by association, the second part draws parallels with three types of strategy in business: purposive, referential, and godlike. The first defines the goals and objectives of a company; the second picks out and targets consumers in market driven strategy; and the third, with the help of philosophical reflections, demands a rethinking of the function of leadership without reliance on a single, godlike leader. In the third part of this article, the existence proof from the public world of business is used to shed light on the possibility of intentionality in the private world of subjective intentionality. Finally, the article draws conclusions for its three audiences: for the philosophers, with credit to Nietzsche who saw it all, a greater clarity about intentionality and free will; for business people, greater clarity about the importance of purposiveness and strategic intent; and for business philosophers, a demonstration showing how—through strategy and intentionality—we can both create value and give meaning to the lives of our employees, ourselves, and our customers.     

Effects of Unimodal and Multimodal Cues About Threat Locations on Target Acquisition and Workload

Two studies were conducted to examine the effects of unimodal and multimodal cueing techniques for indicating the location of threats on target acquisition, the recall of information from concurrent communications, and perceived workload. One visual, two auditory (i.e., nonspatial speech and spatial tones [3-D]), and one tactile cue were assessed in Experiment 1. Experiment 2 examined the effects of combinations of the cues assessed in the first investigation: visual + nonspatial speech, visual + spatial tones, visual + tactile, and nonspatial speech + tactile. A unimodal, “visual only” condition was included as a baseline to determine the extent to which a supplementary cue might influence changes in performance and workload. The results of the studies indicated that time to first shot and the percentage of hits can be improved and workload reduced by providing cues about target location. The multimodal cues did not yield significant improvements in performance or workload beyond that achieved by the unimodal visual cue.     

Moore’s Paradox is not just another pragmatic paradox

One version of Moore’s Paradox is the challenge to account for the absurdity of beliefs purportedly expressed by someone who asserts sentences of the form ‘p & I do not believe that p’ (‘Moorean sentences’). The absurdity of these beliefs is philosophically puzzling, given that Moorean sentences (i) are contingent and often true; and (ii) express contents that are unproblematic when presented in the third-person. In this paper I critically examine the most popular proposed solution to these two puzzles, according to which Moorean beliefs are absurd because Moorean sentences are instances of pragmatic paradox; that is to say, the propositions they express are necessarily false-when-believed. My conclusion is that while a Moorean belief is a pragmatic paradox, it is not just another pragmatic paradox, because this diagnosis does not explain all the puzzling features of Moorean beliefs. In particularly, while this analysis is plausible in relation to the puzzle posed by characteristic (i) of Moorean sentences, I argue that it fails to account for (ii). I do so in the course of an attempt to formulate the definition of a pragmatic paradox in more precise formal terms, in order to see whether the definition is satisfied by Moorean sentences, but not by their third-person transpositions. For only an account which can do so could address (ii) adequately. After rejecting a number of attempted formalizations, I arrive at a definition which delivers the right results. The problem with this definition, however, is that it has to be couched in first-person terms, making an essential use of ‘I’. Thus the problem of accounting for first-/third-person asymmetry recurs at a higher order, which shows that the Pragmatic Paradox Resolution fails to identify the source of such asymmetry highlighted by Moore’s Paradox.     

The freedom of Christ and the problem of deliberation

Call the claim, common to many in the Christian intellectual tradition, that Christ, in virtue of his created human intellect, had certain, infallible exhaustive foreknowledge the Foreknowledge Thesis. Now consider what I will call the Conditional: If the Foreknowledge Thesis is true, then Christ’s created human will lacked an important sort of freedom that we mere humans have. Insofar as many, perhaps all, of the people who affirm the Foreknowledge Thesis also wish to affirm the robust freedom of Christ’s human will, the truth of the Conditional would be most unwelcome to them. I consider an argument in support of the Conditional from the necessary conditions for deliberation, arguing that the argument fails.     

What cognitive abilities are involved in trail-making performance?

The cognitive abilities involved in the Connections (Salthouse, et al., 2000) version of the trail making test were investigated by administering the test, along with a battery of cognitive tests and tests of complex span and updating conceptualizations of working memory, to a sample of over 3600 adults. The results indicate that this variant of the trail making test largely reflects individual differences in speed and fluid cognitive abilities, with the relative contributions of the two abilities varying according to particular measure of performance considered (e.g., difference, ratio, or residual). Relations of age on trail making performance were also examined. Although strong age differences were evident in the Connections and working memory measures, with both sets of variables there was nearly complete overlap of the age differences with individual differences in speed and fluid cognitive abilities.