Long-term school-level effects of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP)

In agreement with two predictions, this somewhat unusual study documented that 70 elementary schools (A-schools) with continued and repeated use of the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire (OBQ) in a four-year follow-up period of 2007–2010, two to eight years after original implementation of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP), had a clearly more favorable long-term development in terms of being-bullied problems, as measured with a completely independent data source, the National Pupil Survey than 102 comparable schools (B-schools) that had not conducted any OBQ-surveys in the same period. The odds of being bullied for students in a Norwegian average elementary school were also almost 40% higher than for students who attended a school with continued use of the OBQ, and very likely, other components of the program. Several alternative explanations of the findings were explored and found wanting. Results suggested that A-schools with continued use had changed their “school culture” for the better with regard to awareness, preparedness and competence in handling and preventing bullying. This form of ‘organizational learning’ has major consequences in that new groups of students will benefit from such a school environment. It was generally concluded – in spite of a highly stable average of the level of bullying problems in Norway – that it is fully possible to substantially reduce such problems not only in one-year evaluations, as has been amply documented before, but also in the long term, up to eight years after original implementation, with a program such as the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program.     

小学高年级学生的学习判断绝对准确性及预见偏差

本研究以小学高年级学生为被试,选取高熟悉度的具体名词组成的联结词对为实验材料,考察不同判断模式下学习判断的准确性及预见偏差。研究发现:(1)小学高年级学生的学习判断绝对准确性存在年级差异。总体来看,小学六年级学生在即时判断和延迟判断模式下都具有较好的绝对准确性,而四年级和五年级学生在即时判断时出现显著的高估,而在延迟判断模式下具有较好的绝对准确性。具体分析正向词对和反向词对的准确性发现,在即时判断模式下,五、六年级学生的正向联结词对有较好的准确性,而四年级的正向联结词对出现高估;三个年级的学生的反向词对都出现高估。在延迟判断模式下,三个年级学生在正向词对和反向词对上都有较好的准确性。(2)小学五年级学生的学习判断开始出现预见偏差。(3)延迟判断能够提高小学高年级学生的学习判断准确性,减小甚至消除预见偏差。     

中小学教师心理授权的测量

本研究旨在编制适合我国实际教育情境的中小学教师心理授权问卷。在文献分析的基础上,结合开放式和半开放式问卷调查、教师访谈、专家访谈,采用分问卷开发技术,对1272份有效问卷进行了分析,结果表明中小学教师心理授权由心理授权体验、心理授权技能和心理授权行为三个分问卷构成。其中,心理授权体验包括自我效能、影响力、地位和自主性4个因素;心理授权技能包括决策参与技能和沟通交流技能2个因素;心理授权行为包括影响教学行为和决策参与行为2个因素。本研究编制的心理授权问卷共44个题项,信效度均达到了心理测量学要求,可以用作教师心理授权的测量。     

小学生创造性文学问题提出能力的发展研究

运用实验的方法,对来自山西两所小学371名小学生创造性文学问题提出能力的发展进行了研究。结果表明:(1)小学生创造性文学问题提出能力整体呈现持续上升的趋势;(2)男女生在创造性文学问题提出能力上存在差异,但差异不显著;(3)城市小学生整体优于乡村小学生的发展,二者的发展趋势同中有异;(4)小学四年级、五年级是小学生创造性文学问题提出能力的两个关键期。     

On equivalence between a partial credit item and a set of independent Rasch binary items

Given a Masters partial credit item withn known step difficulties, conditions are stated for the existence of a set of (locally) independent Rasch binary items such that their raw score and the partial credit raw score have identical probability density functions. The conditions are those for the existence ofn positive values with predetermined elementary symmetric functions and include the requirement that then step difficulties form an increasing sequence.     

Effects of active student response during error correction on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of science vocabulary by elementary students: A systematic replication

We compared active student response (ASR) error correction and no-response (NR) error correction while teaching science terms to 5 elementary students. When a student erred on ASR terms, the teacher modeled the definition and the student repeated it. When a student erred on NR terms, the teacher modeled the definition while the student looked at the vocabulary card. ASR error correction was superior on each of the study's seven dependent variables.     

Proximal Impact of Two First-Grade Preventive Interventions on the Early Risk Behaviors for Later Substance Abuse, Depression, and Antisocial Behavior

We assessed the immediate effects of two universal, first-grade preventive interventions on the proximal targets of poor achievement, concentration problems, aggression, and shy behaviors, known early risk behaviors for later substance use/abuse, affective disorder, and conduct disorder. The classroom-centered (CC) intervention was designed to reduce these early risk behaviors by enhancing teachers' behavior management and instructional skills, whereas the family-school partnership (FSP) intervention was aimed at improving parent-teacher communication and parental teaching and child behavior management strategies. Over the course of first and second grades, the CC intervention yielded the greatest degree of impact on its proximal targets, whereas the FSP's impact was somewhat less. The effects were influenced by gender and by preintervention levels of risk. Analyses of implementation measures demonstrated that greater fidelity to the intervention protocols was associated with greater impact on behavior ratings and on achievement scores, thus providing some evidence of specificity in the effect of the interventions.     

Modification of school attendance for an elementary population

The staff and students of a school composed of Grades 1 through 3 participated in a program to increase school attendance. Children earned the opportunity to attend part or all of a monthly party by their attendance. Immediate feedback occurred each morning by placing stars on a classroom chart for each child present. The school's attendance during the program was compared both with attendance during preceding years and with attendance at other schools. The experimental school's attendance improved dramatically to become the best of all elementary schools in the system.     

INDIRECT FACILITATION OF ON-TASK BEHAVIOR PRODUCED BY CONTINGENT FREE-TIME FOR ACADEMIC PRODUCTIVITY1

This study investigated the relationship between on-task behavior and the academic performance of three low achieving and disruptive children in an elementary school special-education class. A number of researchers have postulated that the direct elimination of off-task or disruptive behavior is a necessary prior requirement when increases in academic performance are sought in special-education classrooms composed of low achievers with below-average socioeconomic environments. The present research program investigated this issue and measured the incidence of on-task behavior and its relationship to changes in the performance of a variety of academic tasks brought about by the opportunity to engage in daily free-time activities. Three children from a class of eight “educably mentally handicapped” students were chosen as target subjects, as their repertoires seemed to be especially defective. These children were observed by the first author for 90-minute sessions three days a week, and data regarding on-task behavior were obtained by the use of an interval recording technique. In conjunction with the teacher, the first author also monitored the academic performance of the children in six structured activities—answer completion from boardwork instructions, task completion from handout assignments, comprehension of reading assignments and vocabulary recognition, accuracy of direction-following to audiotaped instructions, quality of copied handwriting, and the matching of appropriate phonetic sounds to pictured objects and situations. Following baseline sessions during which both on-task and academic performance was measured, several experimental sessions were conducted during which free-time was given noncontingently. During these sessions, no reliable changes in student performance were observed. Subsequently, the teacher and experimenters defined a specified percentage of correct completion of each of the six categories of skill performance as necessary for the achievement of the free-time reinforcer, during each experimental session. As a result, both the academic productivity and the on-task measures of behavior were observed to increase, even though reinforcement was not directly contingent upon on-task behavior. The subsequent reinstitution of noncontingent free-time was followed by lower rates of both output and on-task behavior. The final reintroduction of contingent free-time for academic productivity again produced substantial increases in both work accomplished correctly and on-task behavior. Corresponding increases in productivity were noted for most nontarget children as well. While the present investigation has shown a high correspondence between productivity and on-task behavior, we must keep in mind that on-task behavior can be defined in many different ways. It remains possible that differences in the degree of correlation between outcome measures and the topography of “work” activity may relate to the degree to which the specific on-task behaviors measured are actually required for the outcome behavior. The failure of many researchers to identify a direct relationship between “appearances” and output may be inherently a measurement problem.