Children's elicited imitations of controlled and rewritten reading texts.

Elicited imitation was used to investigate suspected conflicts between the controlled language of beginning reading texts and the natural linguistic expectations of young children. Two stories from basal readers were presented orally, in either the controlled original versions or more natural rewritten versions, for 26 first graders to imitate, one segment at a time, in a between-groups design. Children who heard the rewritten versions received significantly higher ratings on reproduction of content in their imitations. The imitations from both groups were also analyzed with respect to reproduction of specific linguistic features on which the original and rewritten versions differed. These analyses showed that, consistent with the rewriting, children were significantly more inclined to delete unmotivated repetitions than to add them, and to consolidate or conjoin simple sentences than to break up more complex ones. Additional data on story recall and on responses to comprehension questions provide further support for the conclusion that the unnatural language used in controlled reading texts contribute to the difficulties young children have in reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work teams: Applications and effectiveness.

This article uses an ecological approach to analyze factors in the effectiveness of work teams—small groups of interdependent individuals who share responsibility for outcomes for their organizations. Applications include advice and involvement, as in quality control circles and committees; production and service, as in assembly groups and sales teams; projects and development, as in engineering and research groups: and action and negotiation, as in sports teams and combat units. An analytic framework depicts team effectiveness as interdependent with organizational context, boundaries, and team development. Key context factors include (a) organizational culture, (b) technology and task design, (c) mission clarity, (d) autonomy, (e) rewards, (f) performance feedback, (g) training/consultation, and (h) physical environment. Team boundaries may mediate the impact of organizational context on team development. Current research leaves unanswered questions but suggests that effectiveness depends on organizational context and boundaries as much as on internal processes. Issues are raised for research and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing instructional texts and examples.

72 undergraduates used 1 of 4 formats of instructional information to solve series completion problems, and processing of instructional information and test performance were assessed. Direct retrieval of a procedure with an instructional text was most successful when the name of the procedure was provided, rather than the component steps. Analogical processing was used when an example was given. When inferring a rule and mapping the example rule on to the test items, Ss looked back at the example more often than at the instructional text. Practice effects were most evident for Ss given an example, suggesting that the example but not the instruction procedure was being modified in the course of the test. An appendix of problems used on the computer test is included. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reaading fluency: Episodic integration across texts.

Seven experiments examined the influence of a memorial text representation on the later reading of a different text (across-text transfer). The texts were related by overlap in vocabulary only, in content only, in both vocabulary and content, or in neither vocabulary nor content. Results indicate that there was facilitation in reading the second text when the two passages were thematically continuous, irrespective of overlap in vocabulary. This facilitation was undiminished over a 15-min delay between the readings of members of the story pair. Overlap in vocabulary between unrelated stories resulted in slower reading of the second story, but this negative transfer was transient. Experiments 5–7 provide a finer grained analysis of the text relatedness effects. The benefits of a memorial representation are interpreted in terms of episodic text representations, rather than abstract schema. Meaning overlap is necessary for such reading facilitation, but context-free word representations play little part in the across-text transfer observed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Medical decisions made by teams: carefulness and responsibility

To a growing extent, medical decision making takes place in the context of a team. Where multidisciplinary cooperation is necessary and the decisions to be taken are complex and consequential (in particular at the beginning and the end of life) joint decision making is considered an essential requirement of careful medical practice. From a legal point of view, this raises the question who is accountable for such decisions. Basically, accountability (and the liability that may result from it) will stay with the individual participants, and in particular with the first responsible, attending physician. In this respect, decision making in such situations is not basically different from other, more informal consultation structures (such as regular case reviews at department level) which are current practice in many health care institutions. Finally, if joint decision making is required, it should be clear in advance how decisions are to be arrived at in the team.     

Clinical training and expert testimony: Comment.

Comments on the original article by R. Jeffrey (see record 1965-06327-001) regarding expert testimony by psychologists in two separate court cases. The current author opines that it is a highly questionable practice for the American Psychological Association to approve programs in clinical psychology when many of these universities cynically or indifferently designate the entire responsibility for training and supervision in psychodiagnostics and psychotherapy to others, outside the university, whose competence is often unknown. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Instructional psychology: Past, present, and future.

Traces the history of instructional psychology from the early part of this century to recent developments. Currently, instructional psychology, with the methods and concepts of cognitive psychology, focuses on the acquisition of intellectual competence. Researchers are examining such areas as the knowledge and cognitive processes required in advanced levels of reading and text comprehension, the computational and problem-solving skills needed in mathematics, the skills of learning assessed by aptitude tests, and the effects on school achievement of the interaction between initial ability and classroom variables. The emerging field of instructional psychology can be described in terms of 4 major components: the nature of the competence to be attained, the initial state of the learner, the transition processes between these 2 stages, and ways of assessing and monitoring performance changes in the acquisition of competence. Principles that should guide the development of a psychology of instruction are discussed. (110 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prior knowledge activation: Inducing engagement with informational texts.

Failure to engage with informational texts is a problem frequently noted at the high school level, at which students are expected to read independently. As a means of addressing this issue, a prior knowledge activation strategy (PKA) was taught to ninth-grade students in which they were encouraged to make spontaneous connections between their personal knowledge and informational texts. Students who learned to use the PKA strategy consistently outperformed students in a main idea (MI) treatment group and those in a no-instruction control group on application-level comprehension questions but not literal-level questions. A second study replicated the operations of the first study, with the addition of an MI-PKA treatment designed to combine both strategies. Both the PKA and the MI-PKA combination groups performed higher on application-level comprehension questions and demonstrated more positive attitudes toward reading than the other groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Facilitation of retention by self-stimulation and by experimenter-administered stimulation.

73 male hooded rats were trained on a 1-trial appetitive learning task, given various posttraining brain stimulation treatments of the lateral hypothalamus, and tested for retention 24 hrs later. Posttraining trial treatments of 1,000 trains of self-stimulation or 30 trains of experimenter (E)-administered stimulation facilitated retention. Treatments of 1,000 trains of E-administered stimulation or 30 trains of self-stimulation did not facilitate retention. Two possible hypotheses are discussed as explanations of this pattern of results. The concept of reinforcement from an optimum level of arousal can explain the data, if it is assumed that a self-stimulating rat regulates its rate of responding so as to control its own level of arousal. Alternatively, the facilitation of retention by 1,000 trains of self-stimulation and by 30 trains of E-administered stimulation may each represent the function of an independent neural substrate of reinforcement, each with its own set of requirements for activation. (French summary) (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Typographical cuing in conventional and programed texts.

This study assessed the instructional effectiveness of simple and complex forms of typographical cuing in both conventional and programed texts. 118 pretested, 8th-grade students read an 8th-grade history lesson and were later retested. Analysis of gain scores revealed that: (a) simple typographical cuing distinguishing core from enrichment content enhances the ratio of important to unimportant content learned without affecting the total amount learned; (b) complex typographical cuing distinguishing 5 categories of lesson content fails to increase learning of either core or enrichment content; (c) the programed or quizzed text is more effective than the conventional text; (d) the effects of simple typographical cuing and programed quizzing appear independent and additive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Negotiating teams: A levels of analysis approach.

In light of the increasing presence of teams and work groups in organizations and their role in negotiations, the authors outline a framework for understanding the dynamics of negotiating teams. The traditional context of dyadic negotiations (i.e., one-on-one) is used as a point of departure for the analysis. The authors bring together research on negotiation, small group dynamics, and individual social cognition into a coherent framework to analyze negotiating teams. At the heart of the framework are 3 categories of psychological processes, corresponding to different levels of analysis, which highlight the contributions of individual, intragroup, and intergroup processes. These processes are discussed in terms of traditional negotiation concepts, such as integrative and distributive bargaining. Finally, guidance for future research is provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pyramids, circles, and teams: Confronting leadership issues.

This article traces the ongoing controversy about the relative value of hierarchies and teams in corporate organizations through a presentation case histories of two current executive leaders, both recently attaining their positions and faced with problematic situations involving difficult senior players who report to them. It uses the case histories to illustrate differences in personality and leadership styles, describing these in terms of pyramids and circles, and uses this context to argue for a continuum of successful leadership styles and behaviors that work only when suited to the personality and style of the leaders themselves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transfer of fluency across repetitions and across texts.

Three experiments examined transfer of reading fluency across repeated readings of the same text and across related but different texts with a total of 102 college students. In Exp 1, it was found that a paraphrase that altered the syntactic structure of sentences but not the lexical identity of main concepts or the unfolding of the message was reprocessed as an unchanged repetition. However, when the paraphrase altered the lexical identity of main concepts, there was a loss in the repetition benefit. In Exps 2 and 3, there was transfer from a representation of 1 text to the reading of a 2nd text only if the messages were continuous. Results are discussed in terms of the influence of episodic text representations on reading fluency. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Practice and retention: A unifying analysis.

What is the strength of a memory trace that has received various practices at times tj in the past? The strength accumulation equation proposes the following: strength?=?Σtj–d, where the summation is over the practices of the trace. This equation predicts both the power law of practice and the power law of retention. This article reports the fits of the predictions of this equation to 5 experiments. Across these experiments, participants received as many as 240 trials of practice distributed over intervals as long as 400 days. The experiments also varied whether participants were just practicing retrieving an item or practicing applying a relatively complex rule. A model based on this equation successfully fit all the data when it was assumed that the passage of psychological time slowed after the experimental session. The strength accumulation equation was compared with other conceptions of the retention function and the relationship of the retention function to the practice function. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Estimation of employment test validities by expert judgment.

Compared the relative accuracy of 2 methods of estimating employment test validity: expert judgment and small sample criterion-related validation studies. The study was based on US Navy data from samples of over 3,000 for each of 9 jobs, with validity results on 6 tests for each job. 20 experienced psychologists estimated the observed validity for each of the 54 test–job combinations. Both the random and systematic error in the expert judgments were evaluated. Psychologists typically underestimated the validity by a small amount (an average systematic error of .019). On the average, to equal the accuracy of a single judge, the sample size of a criterion-related validation study would have to be 92. To match the accuracy of an average across 4 judges, the sample size must be 326. The sample size must be 1,164 to match the accuracy of the pooled judgment of 30 judges. Results indicate that, given highly trained and experienced judges, expert judgment may provide more accurate estimates of validity for cognitive tests than do local criterion-related validation studies. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Instructional technology and the measurement of learing outcomes: Some questions.

"Measures which assess student achievement in terms of a criterion standard provide information as to the degree of competence attained by a particular student which is independent of reference to the performance of others." Achievement measures may also convey information about the capability of a student compared with the capability of other students. Achievement tests are used (a) to provide information about the characteristics of an individual's present behavior and (b) to provide information about the conditions or instructional treatments which produce that behavior. Test development has been dominated by the particular requirements of predictive, correlation aptitude test theory." Achievement and criterion measurement has attempted frequently to cast itself in this framework; some additional considerations are required. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consultation and training with school-based crisis teams.

Schools often bring outside mental health consultants to provide postcrisis counseling after a suicide or another tragedy. This article describes a different role for consultants who specialize in this type of work: training school personnel to provide this valuable service themselves. It is argued that training school-based personnel to provide postcrisis counseling results in greater value to a school system than does direct service provision by an outside consultant. The author's experience as mental health consultant to a large urban/suburban school district's crisis team is used to illustrate various training techniques that can be used and benefits that can be derived from this type of consultation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading both high-coherence and low-coherence texts: Effects of text sequence and prior knowledge.

Determined if (1) the advantage for the low-coherence text is due to inferences made while reading, or alternatively, due to inferences generated during testing as a result of less information being available from the low-coherence text; (2) the inferences must rely on prior knowledge, or if inferences based on the text (or recently presented information) are sufficient; and (3) reading 2 different text versions is advantageous for readers. Ss were 80 university students who were assigned to 1 of 4 conditions representing if the Ss read the high-coherence text followed by either the high- or low-coherence text, or the low-coherence text followed by either the high-or the low-coherence text. Methodology involved reading the texts, answering questions about the text, and answering prior knowledge questions. The results indicate that high-knowledge readers benefited from the low-coherence only text when it was read first. Further, low-knowledge readers benefited from the high-coherence text, regardless of whether it was read first, second, or twice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)