Form effects on the estimation of students' oral reading fluency using DIBELS

This study examined the effects of passage and presentation order on progress monitoring assessments of oral reading fluency in 134 second grade students. The students were randomly assigned to read six one-minute passages in one of six fixed orders over a seven week period. The passages had been developed to be comparable based on readability formulas. Estimates of oral reading fluency varied across the six stories (67.9 to 93.9), but not as a function of presentation order. These passage effects altered the shape of growth trajectories and affected estimates of linear growth rates, but were shown to be removed when forms were equated. Explicit equating is essential to the development of equivalent forms, which can vary in difficulty despite high correlations across forms and apparent equivalence through readability indices.     

Short-term effects of grade retention on the growth rate of Woodcock-Johnson III broad math and reading scores

We investigated the effects of grade retention in first grade on the growth of the Woodcock-Johnson broad mathematics and reading scores over three years using linear growth curve modeling on an academically at-risk sample. A large sample (n = 784) of first grade children who were at risk for retention was initially identified based on low literacy scores. Scores representing propensity for retention were constructed based on 72 variables collected in comprehensive baseline testing in first grade. We closely matched 97 pairs of retained and promoted children based on their propensity scores using optimal matching procedures. This procedure adjusted for baseline differences between the retained and promoted children. We found that grade retention decreased the growth rate of mathematical skills but had no significant effect on reading skills. In addition, several potential moderators of the effect of retention on growth of mathematical and reading skills were identified including limited English language proficiency and children's conduct problems.     

The Pleasant Life, the Engaged Life, and the Meaningful Life: What about the Balanced Life?

Martin Seligman, in his very popular book Authentic Happiness (Seligman 2002), argued that authentic happiness is derived from three major sets of experiences in life, namely experiencing pleasantness regularly (the pleasant life), experiencing a high level of engagement in satisfying activities (the engaged life), and experiencing a sense of connectedness to a greater whole (the meaningful life). In this paper, we maintain that balance in life contributes significantly to subjective well-being. Balance contributes to subjective well-being because of the satisfaction limit that people can derive from a single life domain. People have to be involved in multiple domains to satisfy the full spectrum of human development needs. Different life domains tend to focus on different human developmental needs. More specifically, balance contributes to subjective well-being because subjective well-being can only be attained when both survival and growth needs are met. High levels of subjective well-being cannot be attained with satisfaction of basic needs or growth needs alone. Both needs have to be met to induce subjective well-being.     

Life Satisfaction is not a Balanced Estimator of the Good Life: Evidence from Reaction Time Measures and Self-Reported Emotions

A widespread belief in happiness research is that measures of life satisfaction capture the variety of an individual’s experiences along a single favorable—unfavorable dimension. The current article points to a possible violation of this assumption. With a combination of data and theory it argues that life satisfaction is not a balanced reflection of subjective experiences because the evaluation that drives judgments of life satisfaction is tilted towards pleasure and away from engagement. We postulate that feelings of pleasure are overrated in statements of life satisfaction, whereas feelings of engagement are underrepresented. Feelings of engagement and interest are further supposed to be indicators of personal growth. Measures of personal growth and life satisfaction should thus be unrelated. Empirical evidence for our model is provided by self-report and reaction time data from a Norwegian convenience sample (N = 30). Detection latencies for pleasant stimuli correlated significantly with life satisfaction but not with measures of personal growth. Life satisfaction correlated significantly with pleasant experiences, but not with engagement. Personal growth correlated significantly with feelings of engagement. Life satisfaction and personal growth were uncorrelated.     

Individual differences in trajectories of arithmetical development in typically achieving 5- to 7-year-olds

The arithmetical performance of typically achieving 5- to 7-year-olds (N = 29) was measured at four 6-month intervals. The same seven tasks were used at each time point: exact calculation, story problems, approximate arithmetic, place value, calculation principles, forced retrieval, and written problems. Although group analysis showed mostly linear growth over the 18-month period, analysis of individual differences revealed a much more complex picture. Some children exhibited marked variation in performance across the seven tasks, including evidence of difficulty in some cases. Individual growth patterns also showed differences in developmental trajectories between children on each task and within children across tasks. The findings support the idea of the componential nature of arithmetical ability and underscore the need for further longitudinal research on typically achieving children and of careful consideration of individual differences.     

Early life origins of psychological development and mental health

According to the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD)‐hypothesis, conditions early in life may have life‐long consequences. In a series of epidemiological birth cohort and clinical studies and natural experiments, we have had the chance to test the extent to which this hypothesis is useful in understanding individual differences in psychological development and mental health. Our findings have provided evidence that individual differences in cognitive, social and emotional development and in mental health may lie in early life circumstances, and add significantly to the literature by pointing out which periods of early growth are the most critical. These findings are also important in translating pre‐clinical evidence to humans. What remains less clear, however, is what the mechanisms of programming are. Thus, further research is needed to elucidate these mechanisms before information on the early life origins of health and disease can be used in designing prevention and intervention programs.     

Effects of Couples' Perceptions of Genogram Construction on Therapeutic Alliance and Session Impact: A Growth Curve Analysis

The purpose of this study was to examine how the construction of a therapist-administered genogram (TAGE) versus a self-administered genogram (SAGE) would affect therapeutic alliance and session character in couples therapy across time. Eight student marriage and family therapists conducting therapy with 17 couples administered a TAGE, SAGE, or control treatment intervention in the second therapy session. Measurements were taken following the first five sessions. Results of a growth curve analysis showed no significant differences in couple members' growth curves based on their participation in one of the three treatment groups. Recommendations for clinicians and future genogram researchers are provided.of the Marriage and Family Therapy program at     

Principal component analysis with external information on both subjects and variables

A method for structural analysis of multivariate data is proposed that combines features of regression analysis and principal component analysis. In this method, the original data are first decomposed into several components according to external information. The components are then subjected to principal component analysis to explore structures within the components. It is shown that this requires the generalized singular value decomposition of a matrix with certain metric matrices. The numerical method based on the QR decomposition is described, which simplifies the computation considerably. The proposed method includes a number of interesting special cases, whose relations to existing methods are discussed. Examples are given to demonstrate practical uses of the method.The work reported in this paper was supported by grant A6394 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to the first author. Thanks are due to Jim Ramsay, Haruo Yanai, Henk Kiers, and Shizuhiko Nishisato for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Jim Ramsay, in particular, suggested the use of the QR decomposition, which simplified the presentation of the paper considerably.