The Ethics of NIMBY Conflicts

NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) refers to an oppositional attitude from local residents against some risk generating facility that they have been chosen to host either by government or industry. The attitude is claimed to be characteristic of someone who is positive to a facility but who wants someone else to be its host. Since siting cannot be provided if everyone has this attitude, society ends up in a worse situation. The attitude is claimed to be egoistic and irrational. Here it is argued that the NIMBY critique rests on questionable assumptions about the rightness of weighing total benefit against total cost. This weighing-principle will sometimes have to yield so that the rights of individuals can be acknowledged.

An analysis of a performance feedback system: the effects of timing and feedback, public posting, and praise upon academic performance and peer interaction

In the first experiment, after establishing baseline composition rates in each classroom, timing (announcing time limits) and feedback (student self-scoring) were introduced followed by the introduction, removal, and reintroduction of public posting of highest scores. Timing and feedback improved story writing performance and public posting of highest scores improved performance even further in both classrooms. Teacher praise produced further improvement in one classroom but had no effect on performance in the other. Changes in on-task behavior paralleled changes in writing rate. Comments made by children concerning their own work or work of their peers were recorded throughout the experiment. Although the baseline rate of performance comments was almost zero, the introduction of each variable markedly increased the rate of performance comments. In the second experiment, baseline rates on reading and language exercises were established in a fifth-grade classroom. The entire performance feedback system was introduced on a multiple baseline across the two behaviors and then removed during the final phase of the experiment. Introducing the system improved performance on both tasks. These results further increased the generality of some of the findings of the previous experiment and of previous research on the efficacy of the experimental package of timing, feedback, public posting, and praise.     

Generalization of teacher behavior as a function of subject matter specific discrimination training

The effect of training on the rate of behavior-specific praise for two fourth-grade teachers was investigated within a multiple-baseline design. Training teachers to identify instances of behavior-specific praise on videotaped presentations (discrimination training) combined with instructions to use praise, and audiotape recordings of the teachers' classroom interactions as feedback, increased the rates of behavior-specific praise. However, the effects were restricted to subject-matter areas in which training was conducted.     

工作情景中差错概念与差错取向因素分析

研究一调查了解我国工作差错概念以及对待差错的基本态度与行为。研究二通过问卷调查,分析差错取向因素结构及其影响因素,结果发现,差错是一种目标导向的行为;差错取向由差错处理、差错掩盖、差错压力和差错预防四个因素组成,并且管理层次和文化程度对差错取向有较大的影响。     

THE EFFECTS OF ACCESS TO SPECIAL ACTIVITIES ON THE PERFORMANCE IN FOUR CATEGORIES OF ACADEMIC TASKS WITH THIRD-GRADE STUDENTS1

An ABAB experimental design was used to evaluate the effects of access to recreational activities contingent on the completion of at least 80% of academic tasks assigned daily. Requirements in four task categories (writing, copying words, spelling, and dictionary skills) were specified daily and students were required to complete at least 80% of the requirements in each category correctly in order to participate in daily recreational activities. The procedure produced reliable and educationally important increases in the task performance of all 19 third-grade students in the study. Most of the difference in the performance of each child between experimental conditions was on the spelling and dictionary tasks, although there were also improvements on the writing and words-copied tasks for those students showing the greatest overall change in performance. The procedure was easily implemented by the teacher alone, required only materials and equipment typically found in elementary schools, and produced changes in performance important enough to the teacher that she continued to use the basic procedure after the evaluation program was terminated.     

AN EXPERIMENTAL COMPARISON OF A CONTINGENCY MANAGED COURSE WITH LARGE LECTURE METHOD1

Contingency management procedures resembling the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) were compared with a conventional lecture method in teaching an introductory psychology course. The use of a within-subjects design in which half of the students experienced both teaching conditions made it possible to examine the reliability of test-score differences over time when subjects were balanced over conditions. In the contingency management course, material was broken down into 14 small units, each unit covering about 30 pages of text. Students were assigned to an undergraduate teaching assistant who was encouraged to develop a close working relationship with each of his/her 13 assigned students. Specifically, this meant that the assistant was to call each student by his/her first name, show an interest in the student's quiz performance, help the student understand difficult concepts, and discuss various topics of interest to the student. Each week, the teaching assistant administered up to four different 10-item multiple-choice quizzes over the week's chapter. A modified “Doomsday Contingency” required each student either to achieve a score of 80% on one of the four quizzes or drop the course. Most students passed the quiz during the first session of the week; those not passing were tutored on special areas of weakness. No student was actually forced to leave the course under the Doomsday Contingency. Although quizzes were administered on a group basis, they were scored individually while the student stood near by. In addition to the weekly quiz assignment, students under the contingency management procedures were asked to attend one lecture per week. The contingency management method departed from traditional PSI in that (1) self pacing was minimal, such that students were required to master one unit per week or drop the course, (2) teaching assistants met with students in small groups, and usually gave individual tutoring only to those students who did not pass the quiz on the first attempt, and (3) students were asked to attend one lecture per week. However, it was similar to PSI in that small units of subject matter were assigned and unit mastery was assessed through use of undergraduate assistants who delivered immediate feedback. Students in the conventional lecture group attended three 50-min lectures each week; two of these lectures followed textbook material closely, while the third, which was attended by all students, concerned material only indirectly related to the text. As a result, students in both conditions were exposed to essentially identical material. Students in the lecture condition could also obtain copies of the unit quizzes, although few did so. Course grades were determined by scores on two 45-item multiple-choice hourly exams, each covering half of the semester material (each worth 25%), and by a 90-item final exam over the entire course (worth 50%). These measures also served as the dependent variables. The experimental design employed a crossover technique in which one fourth of the students began with the contingency management method and then switched to lecture method at midsemester, while another fourth began with the lecture method and switched to contingency management. The other students stayed in the same condition throughout the semester, half under contingency management and half under the lecture method. On the last day of class, all students filled out an extensive questionnaire that assessed their opinions and attitudes about the teaching techniques. In addition to allowing for assessment of any progressive effects that the contingency management procedures might have had over time, the crossover design also permitted students to make meaningful comparisons of the two teaching methods, since half of the students experienced both methods in the same course. Although average test performance was only slightly higher under the contingency management condition, this difference occurred on each exam and was statistically reliable in each case. Further, the method did not interact with time, as it produced about a three-item advantage per half semester. On each of the three exams, teaching method accounted for between 5 and 8% of the total variance in test scores. Finally, attitude measures indicated that students experiencing half a semester of the contingency management procedures preferred them to the lecture technique, but that only those students with a full semester of contingency management rated the course significantly better than students in the full semester lecture course.     

特殊儿童个案研究资料收集的方法

本文介绍了特殊儿童个案研究中资料收集的三种重要方法：观察法、访谈法和档案资料法。本文较详细地介绍了各种方法的定义、性质,包含的不同类型,不同角色的研究者与被试之间的关系,以及怎样合理利用不同方法获得的资料等。这三种方法各有自己的优点和缺点,为保证研究资料的多样性和有效性,在个案研究中常常是联合运用的。     

中医现代化的反思和中医的发展之路

讨论了当前所进行和提倡的中医现代化的结果不是在发展中医,而是导致了对中医的歧义的误解。认为中医的发展需要在继承的基础上,在遵循中医自身规律的前提下,在不断地纯中医方法的临床实践中,用开放的思维方式和开拓和精神发展中医的基础理论,加强中药生药的质控,用中医理论与西药匹配,加强中医的方证研究,使中医更适合社会的需要,为人类的健康事业做出应有的贡献。     

小学生求知欲培养的实验研究

本研究探讨了小学生求知欲的构成因素及其培养因子;制定了测评小学生求知欲的问卷;运用现场教育实验,对小学生求知欲进行了培养研究.研究结果表明1.激发学生积极的学习态度、使之获得成功的体验,能有效地提高小学生求知欲的水平,它们是促进小学生求知欲发展的重要途径.2.求知需要、学习态度、积极的情绪情感体验是构成小学生求知欲的重要因素.