Utilization of the simultaneous treatment design to improve student behavior in a first-grade classroom.

Presents a brief discussion of time-series designs and outlines the methodological limitations of the ABAB design, one of the most representative and widely used time series. The simultaneous treatment design is discussed as one means to avoid the serious limitations of the ABAB. A single case study is presented to demonstrate the utility of the simultaneous treatment design to modify the behavior of a 1st-grade male. One teacher and her aide recorded data and administered the program. The simultaneous treatment design allowed for statistical comparison of the treatment effects of 2 contingency programs administered simultaneously. The more effective program was successfully maintained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning to read: The redundant cues approach.

Two experiments with 48 undergraduates in each investigated the effects of color coding sounds in Thai syllables on the acquisition of pronunciation responses and on transfer to syllables which were not color coded. The mere presence of color as a redundant cue had no significant effect on acquisition or transfer relative to a control group trained on uncoded syllables. When Ss were informed that color was a relevant cue and given pretraining which emphasized the color code, acquisition was facilitated, but transfer to uncoded syllables was impaired. When Ss were informed that color was a relevant cue and given pretraining which emphasized the shapes of the letters, acquisition was facilitated with no impairment on the transfer task. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developing an integrated self: Academic and ethnic identities among ethnically diverse college students.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the development of college students' major selection and whether and how this choice is associated with their developing ethnic identities. Ninety ethnically diverse college students were interviewed in their first, sophomore, and senior years. Mixed-method analyses revealed 5 theoretically consistent pathways of how students configured their ethnic identities and majors over time: low awareness, consciousness-raised, high awareness, integrating, and compartmentalized. These pathways were differentially related to students' ethnicities and majors, suggesting that students' identity experiences are moderated by their chosen majors. The results of this study underscore the contribution of a longitudinal, life-span, approach to identity development for understanding the diversity in identity pathways during college. The findings also have implications for practical purposes, particularly for advising, counseling, and curriculum development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Risk and resiliency processes in ethnically diverse families in poverty.

Families living in poverty face numerous stressors that threaten the health and well-being of family members. This study examined the relationships among family-level poverty-related stress (PRS), individual-level coping with PRS, and a wide range of psychological symptoms in an ethnically diverse sample of 98 families (300 family members) living at or below 150% of the federal poverty line. Hierarchical linear model (HLM) analyses revealed that family PRS is robustly related to a wide range of psychological syndromes for family members of both genders, all ages, and all ethnic backgrounds. In addition, primary and secondary control coping were both found to serve as buffers of PRS for many syndromes. For several psychological syndromes, parents showed significantly higher levels of symptoms, but the link between PRS and symptoms was significantly stronger for children than for adults. Ethnicity was not a significant predictor in overall HLM models or follow-up analyses, suggesting that the broad construct of PRS and the theoretical model tested here apply across the 3 major ethnic groups included in this study. The findings suggest that family-based, coping-focused interventions have the potential to promote resiliency and break linkages in the pernicious cycle of family economic stress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression in ethnically diverse women: Implications for treatment in primary care settings.

What do health care practitioners need to know about providing adequate care for depressed minority women? This article examined the prevalence of depressive symptoms and clinical depression in ethnic minorities, the extent to which current health service utilization is congruent with needs, and the effectiveness of treatments provided to ethnic minorities in the primary care setting. The impact of ethnic minority women's sociocultural context on symptom expression and help-seeking behavior is also discussed. Finally, the clinical implications for accurate assessment and treatment of ethnic minority women by both medical and mental health practitioners working in the primary care sector are addressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The importance of a common in-group identity in ethnically diverse groups.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a common in-group identity in attenuating the negative effects of ethnic dissimilarity. Specifically, it was hypothesized that a common in-group identity would moderate the relationship between ethnic dissimilarity and satisfaction with coworkers. Data were gathered from 87 persons working in groups. Moderated regression analysis provided support for the hypothesis, in that when a common in-group identity was not present, demographic dissimilarity was related to less satisfaction, but when a common in-group identity was present, there was a positive relationship between ethnic dissimilarity and coworker satisfaction. Further, for ethnically dissimilar persons, coworker satisfaction was higher when a common in-group identity was present than when it was not. Results are discussed in relation to the study's contribution to social psychology and diversity management literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning mathematics in first-grade classrooms: On whose authority?

Integral to knowing mathematics is an understanding of how mathematical ideas are generated and validated. In mathematics classrooms, teachers socialize this understanding by establishing discourse patterns and participatory structures in which various sources-the teacher, the text, the discipline of mathematics, or the community of learners--are implicitly and explicitly credited with the authority to develop and validate mathematical ideas. In the present investigation, the authors focused on classroom discourse processes and participatory structures that grant sources of mathematical authority in 6 first-grade classrooms. In general, teachers firmly and with few exceptions positioned themselves as the sole mathematical authority in their classrooms. Yet, the authors found significant exceptions in 1 teacher's lessons, with these exceptions inspiring possibilities in accomplishing the shift from a formal to a growth-and-change tradition of socializing students into the discipline of mathematics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mental health providers' perceptions of cultural variables in evaluating ethnically diverse clients.

The study assessed anonymously the perceptions of 107 mental health providers concerning the importance of considering cultural variables in the assessment of mental disorders in ethnic minority individuals. Although the providers overwhelmingly reported a belief in the importance of cultural variables, a relatively small percentage considered themselves highly successful in assessing the degree of the clients' assimilation and acculturation. Additionally, 73% of the respondents reported a high degree of need for more culturally focused training. The results indicate the need to increase such training in order to better serve minority individuals and the possible need to increase the numbers of mental health providers serving minority clients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implementing reciprocal teaching in the classroom: Overcoming obstacles and making modifications.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate teachers' implementation and practice of reciprocal teaching (RT) in 2 elementary schools. Over a 3-year period, 17 elementary school teachers participated in the implementation of RT. The obstacles they encountered and modifications made to RT were examined in vivo. Teachers modified their practice of RT, and the authors examined their modifications using 3 elements of RT: strategy use, dialogue, and scaffolded instruction. The focus was on whether these 3 essential elements remained in the teachers' constructions of RT. The authors also focused on whether teachers added anything new to RT. Theory and guidelines that can be used to help teachers with the implementation and practice of RT are developed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Objective and subjective assessments of socioeconomic status and their relationship to self-rated health in an ethnically diverse sample of pregnant women.

A new measure of subjective socioeconomic status (SES) was examined in relation to self-rated physical health in pregnant women. Except among African Americans, subjective SES was significantly related to education, household income, and occupation. Subjective SES was significantly related to self-rated health among all groups. In multiple regression analyses, subjective SES was a significant predictor of self-rated health after the effects of objective indicators were accounted for among White and Chinese American women; among African American women and Latinas, household income was the only significant predictor of self-rated health. After accounting for the effects of subjective SES on health, objective indicators made no additional contribution to explaining health among White and Chinese American women; household income continued to predict health after accounting for subjective SES among Latinas and African American women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning to read and spell in Persian: A cross-sectional study from Grades 1 to 4.

We investigated the reading and spelling development of 140 Persian children attending Grades 1–4 in Iran. Persian has very consistent letter–sound correspondences, but it varies in transparency because 3 of its 6 vowel phonemes are not marked with letters. Persian also varies in spelling consistency because 6 phonemes have more than one orthographic representation. We tested whether lexicality effects—an advantage of words over nonwords—would be affected be reading transparency and spelling consistency. We found that children became more efficient readers and spellers across grades, with the greatest growth occurring between Grades 1 and 2. For reading, lexicality effects were present with transparent words starting in Grade 2, but lexicality effects with opaque words were not yet present in Grade 4. As expected, the size of transparency effects for reading decreased across grades. For spelling, however, there was no lexicality effect for either consistent or inconsistent words. Moreover, consistency effects were large and did not decrease systematically across grades. Most interesting from a developmental perspective was the finding that both reading transparency and spelling polygraphy affected reading as well as spelling in Grades 1 and 2, but the word characteristics had differential effects as a function of literacy task in Grades 3 and 4. This pattern highlights the vulnerability of children's representations and processes during the early phases of acquisition as well as the rapidity with which representations and processes become specialized as a function of the literacy task at hand. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Optimal scaling of HIV-related sexual risk behaviors in ethnically diverse homosexually active men.

As HIV-related behavioral research moves increasingly in the direction of seeking to determine predictors of high-risk sexual behavior, more efficient methods of specifying patterns are needed. Two statistical techniques, homogeneity analysis and latent class analysis, useful in scaling binary multivariate data profiles are presented. Both were used to analyze reported sexual behavior patterns in two samples of homosexually active men, one sample of 343 primarily White gay men attending an HIV workshop and one sample of 837 African American gay men recruited nationally. Results support the existence of a single, nonlinear, latent dimension underlying male homosexual behaviors consistent with HIV-related risk taking. Both statistical methods provide an efficient means to optimally scale sexual behavior patterns, a critical outcome variable in HIV-related research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning to read from television: The effects of using captions and narration.

The author investigated caption use, sound, and the reading behavior of 76 children who had just completed 2nd grade. The present study indicated that beginning readers recognize more words when they view television that uses captions. The auditory element was important for comprehension tasks related to incidental elements and spontaneous use of target words, and the combination of captions and sound helped children identify the critical story elements in the video clips. Positive beliefs about one's competence in reading or watching television appeared to facilitate the recognition of words and, for boys, improve their oral reading rates. In sum, television captions, by evoking efforts to read, appeared to help a child focus on central story elements and away from distracting information, including sound effects and visual glitz. Implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychometric properties of reverse-scored items on the CES-D in a sample of ethnically diverse older adults.

Reverse-scored items on assessment scales increase cognitive processing demands and may therefore lead to measurement problems for older adult respondents. In this study, the objective was to examine possible psychometric inadequacies of reverse-scored items on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) when used to assess ethnically diverse older adults. Using baseline data from a gerontologic clinical trial (n = 460), we tested the hypotheses that the reversed items on the CES-D (a) are less reliable than nonreversed items, (b) disproportionately lead to intraindividually atypical responses that are psychometrically problematic, and (c) evidence improved measurement properties when an imputation procedure based on the scale mean is used to replace atypical responses. In general, the results supported the hypotheses. Relative to nonreversed CES-D items, the 4 reversed items were less internally consistent, were associated with lower item-scale correlations, and were more often answered atypically at an intraindividual level. Further, the atypical responses were negatively correlated with responses to psychometrically sound nonreversed items that had similar content. The use of imputation to replace atypical responses enhanced the predictive validity of the set of reverse-scored items. Among older adult respondents, reverse-scored items are associated with measurement difficulties. It is recommended that appropriate correction procedures such as item readministration or statistical imputation be applied to reduce the difficulties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identifying at-risk, ethnically diverse stroke caregivers for counseling: A longitudinal study of mental health.

Purpose: This study examined (1) causality in the relationship between stroke caregiver mental health and care-recipient functioning, and (2) the prediction from stroke caregiver and care-recipient variables 5 months and 11 months later. Research Method: Questionnaire, interview, and observational data were collected from 124 ethnically diverse stroke caregiver/care-recipient dyads in the homes of care recipients at 1, 6, and 12 months after discharge. Results: The magnitudes of the causal pathways between stroke caregiver mental health and care-recipient functioning were not significantly different. At 1 month after discharge, the best predictors of poor caregiver mental health 11 months later were care-recipient low daily functioning and caregiver low sense of coherence, high burden, and high depression. Conclusions: Caregiver mental health and care-recipient functioning may have reciprocal causal influence on each other, so one of the first steps in stroke rehabilitation may be providing counseling to the primary caregiver. Caregivers with high burden, a low sense of coherence, and a low-functioning care recipient are those most at risk for poor mental health outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning to choose: Cognitive aging and strategy selection learning in decision making.

Decision makers often have to learn from experience. In these situations, people must use the available feedback to select the appropriate decision strategy. How does the ability to select decision strategies on the basis of experience change with age? We examined younger and older adults' strategy selection learning in a probabilistic inference task using a computational model of strategy selection learning. Older adults showed poorer decision performance compared with younger adults. In particular, older adults performed poorly in an environment favoring the use of a more cognitively demanding strategy. The results suggest that the impact of cognitive aging on strategy selection learning depends on the structure of the decision environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predictors and consequences of achievement goals in the college classroom: Maintaining interest and making the grade.

The authors investigated personality predictors of achievement goals in an introductory psychology class, as well as the consequences of these goals for the motivation and performance of 311 undergraduates. Two dimensions of achievement motivation (workmastery and competitive orientations; J. T. Spence & R. L. Helmreich, 1983) predicted the goals endorsed. Individuals high in workmastery were more likely to adopt mastery goals and less likely to adopt work avoidance goals, whereas competitive individuals were more likely to endorse performance and work avoidance goals. Students adopting mastery goals were more interested in the class, but students adopting performance goals achieved higher levels of performance. These results suggest that both mastery and performance goals can lead to important positive outcomes in college classes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transitions in concept acquisition: Using the hand to read the mind.

Thoughts conveyed through gesture often differ from thoughts conveyed through speech. A model of the sources and consequences of such gesture–speech mismatches and their role during transitional periods in the acquisition of concepts is proposed. The model makes 2 major claims: (1) The transitional state is the source of gesture–speech mismatch. In gesture–speech mismatch, 2 beliefs are simultaneously expressed on the same problem, one in gesture and another in speech. This simultaneous activation of multiple beliefs characterizes the transitional knowledge state and creates gesture–speech mismatch. (2) Gesture–speech mismatch signals to the social world that a child is in a transitional state and is ready to learn. The child's spontaneous gestures index the zone of proximal development, thus providing a mechanism by which adults can calibrate their input to that child's level of understanding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)