Acquisition of incidental information during instruction for a response-chain skill

We examined the acquisition of incidental information and observational learning of incidental information by adolescents with moderate intellectual disabilities during school-directed systematic instruction. Effectiveness of constant time-delay instruction for vocational-skill acquisition was evaluated within a multiple-probe design across six dyads. Dyadic instructional arrangements allowed the assessment of incidental information acquired through observation. The constant time-delay procedure was effective in teaching the target vocational skill. In addition, participants acquired and retained approximately 50% of the incidental information to which they were exposed during the consequent events of constant time-delay instruction either through direct verbal presentation or through observation of their peers' instruction.     

Copying and reproducing pictures in relation to subjects' operative levels.

Past Piagetian memory research has established that Ss' operative levels influence their recall of operatively derived stimuli. To determine the locus of operative influence, children from Grades 1–5 with immature, transitional, or mature concepts of verticality were asked to copy and/or to reproduce verticality stimuli. Stimuli were either operatively advanced (a vertical tree on a hillside) or primitive (a tipped tree). Memory was tested immediately (Exp I, 96 Ss), 1 wk (Exp II, 168 Ss), or 5 mo (Exp III, 46 Ss) after the initial viewing. In each study there was a significant relationship between operative level and performance on the operatively advanced stimulus only. For the tipped stimulus, more distortion was evident in memory than in copy drawings. Contrary to predictions, however, there was no difference between distortion in copy and memory drawings for the straight stimulus regardless of Ss' operative levels. Results suggest that progressive distortion increases over time but that regressive distortion occurs before the stimulus is removed from sight. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquisition and retention of a letter-detection skill.

In two experiments, we examined the acquisition and retention of a letter-detection skill with a consistent-mapping procedure. In Experiment 1, subjects were trained from 0 to 4 sessions at detecting the letter H in displays containing random letters, and retesting occurred after a 1-month delay. Performance improved and in some cases became more automatic, and the performance level was maintained over the retention interval. When tested with a prose passage, the high error rate on the word THE was eliminated after training and after the retention interval, regardless of the amount of training. In Experiment 2, two subjects were given 12 sessions of training followed by a retention test 6 months later. For 1 subject there was also a retention test 15 months after acquisition. Performance improved dramatically with training, and substantial but not complete automaticity was achieved. Performance on the retention tests was close to the final acquisition level. The surprising lack of forgetting in this study was contrasted with the substantial forgetting typically found in studies of verbal learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived learning in relation to student evaluation of university instruction.

A continuing problem with student evaluation of college instruction is the replicated correlation between course ratings and student grades. The finding has been variously interpreted as an indication of validity, as a grading leniency effect, or as an indirect result of student selection variables. In this article, I show that a considerably larger portion of rating variance can be explained by students' subjective assessment of learning than by actual course grades. Summative data from 50 sections showed that perceived learning correlated .88 with course evaluations and .86 with instructor evaluations. These results are viewed as support for the validity hypothesis. The statistics were not reduced by partialling out the effects of anticipated letter grade, which preserved the idea that leniency or student characteristics could account for at least a small portion of the rating-grade effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interaction of learner control and prior understanding in computer-assisted video instruction.

It is commonly assumed that individual differences in abilities and aptitudes are accommodated if learners have more control over pace, amount of practice, or style of instruction they receive. 40 undergraduates with high and 40 with low prior conceptual understanding of a scientific topic were randomly assigned to a program-controlled or learner-controlled treatment in a sequence of computer-assisted video learning. A 2?×?2 analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted on posttest scores and time-on-task. As expected, low-aptitude Ss in the learner-controlled treatment had significantly lower posttest scores than high-aptitude Ss in both the program-controlled and learner-controlled treatments and low-aptitude Ss in the program-controlled treatment. High-aptitude Ss were significantly more efficient in their use of time in the learner-controlled treatment than Ss in the other 3 treatments. It is suggested that learners can be given more control if their prior understanding of a topic is high and should be provided with more structure if their prior understanding of a topic is low. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance in relation to job skill importance: A consideration of rater source.

Investigated relationships between the performance levels of incumbents on job skills and the importance attributed to those job skills. Supervisors and job incumbents rated both the performance of skill dimensions and the importance of those skills for respective incumbents' positions. Results indicate that the ratings of performance and importance on matched skill areas correlated positively, although relationships were somewhat stronger for incumbent data as compared with data provided by supervisors. Supervisors and incumbents agreed moderately on which skill areas were important for various positions, but the interrater agreement was much lower for performance ratings of the skill areas. For some skill areas, incumbent-rated importance and supervisor-rated performance, as well as incumbent-rated performance and supervisor-rated importance, were significantly correlated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developing conceptual understanding and procedural skill in mathematics: An iterative process.

The authors propose that conceptual and procedural knowledge develop in an iterative fashion and that improved problem representation is 1 mechanism underlying the relations between them. Two experiments were conducted with 5th- and 6th-grade students learning about decimal fractions. In Experiment 1, children's initial conceptual knowledge predicted gains in procedural knowledge, and gains in procedural knowledge predicted improvements in conceptual knowledge. Correct problem representations mediated the relation between initial conceptual knowledge and improved procedural knowledge. In Experiment 2, amount of support for correct problem representation was experimentally manipulated, and the manipulations led to gains in procedural knowledge. Thus, conceptual and procedural knowledge develop iteratively, and improved problem representation is 1 mechanism in this process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Construct validity and the relation between depression and social skill.

Lewinsohn and his colleagues proposed an important theoretical relationship between subjects' social skills and their level of depression, and numerous studies have furnished support of a modest relationship between social skill and depression. The purpose of this article is twofold: first, to compare alternative methods for examining the relationship between two constructs, and second, to estimate the true relationship between social skill and depression. Sixty-eight subjects were assessed for levels of social skills and depression via multiple methods. When analyzed in the traditional manner, the results were consistent with previous research (correlations between the social skill and depression ranged from .11 to .42). When confirmatory factor analysis was used to estimate the theoretical relationship between social skill and depression (not attenuated because of measurement error), a correlation of .85 was found. Thus multitrait-multimethod data sets, analyzed via confirmatory factor-analytic techniques, can greatly enhance theory testing and development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developing conceptions of fair contest procedures and the understanding of skill and luck.

Contrary to assumptions about the aversive effects of competition on achievement motivation, in this study young people saw academic contests as fair. When 136 children and adolescents (ages 6-14) completed structured interviews on fair ways to organize science contests and on the differentiation of skill and luck, age-related trends in their conceptions of procedural justice were parallel to their ability to differentiate skill and luck tasks. Differences in the use of contest-specific attributions such as credit allocation, odds of winning, and incentives were central to developing conceptions of procedural justice. Everyone made similar intrapersonal attributions to effort, mood, talent, and interest. Individual competition was judged to be more fair than team competition. Effectiveness was seen as necessary but not sufficient for establishing fairness. Personal harm was not central to developing conceptions of fair contests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Locus of control in relation to academic attitudes and performance in a personalized system of instruction course.

Examined locus of control in relation to academic attitudes vs study habits, rate of progress, and final achievement based on differential predictions derived from social learning theory and attribution theory. Rotter's Internal–External Locus of Control Scale (I–E) and the Survey of Study Habits and Attitudes were administered to 138 undergraduate students in a personalized system of instruction course in introductory psychology. The results of multiple regression analyses indicate that the I–E scale is related only to academic attitudes and that study habits are related to both performance measures. It is inferred that attribution theory provides the best explanation for these results. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation between hiding skill and judgment of eye direction in preschool children.

This study examines J. H. Flavell, S. G. Shipstead, and K. Croft's (1978) finding that 2 1/2-year-old children can hide an object behind a screen but cannot achieve the same result by placing the screen in front of the object. Experiment 1 replicated this finding alongside a task in which children judged what a person in a picture was looking at. Performance on the move-object task approached ceiling; performances on the move-screen and looking-where tasks were highly correlated even after age and control task performance were partialed out (r=.54, pengagement, a precursor to a mature understanding of attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential roles of frequency and meaningfulness in free recall.

Performed 2 experiments with 91 experimentally naive high school students to study the comparative influence of frequency and meaningfulness (m) on free recall. In Exp. I, the free-recall scores of 3 lists of words matched for m but varying in frequency levels were compared. In Exp. II, free recall of 3 lists of words matched for their frequency but varying in their m values were compared. Findings reveal that it is the frequency and not m of the words that influences free-recall, and that the influence of frequency is noticeable in the early trials of free-recall learning. Findings are discussed in terms of the existing theories of verbal learning. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imagery versus meaningfulness of nouns in paired-associate learning.

Investigated effects of noun imagery (I) and meaningfulness (m) on paired-associate (PA) learning using 3 PA lists. In 1 list, I was varied on stimulus and response sides in a factorial design while m was held constant; in another, m was similarly varied while I was controlled; in the 3rd, I and m were covaried. 33 undergraduates served as Ss. 4 study-test trials with each list showed that I was alone had strong positive effects, more so on the stimulus than response side of pairs, whereas m alone showed negative effects attributable mainly to superior learning of low m-low m pairs. The covarying attributes had intermediate effects, suggesting again that the contribution of m was negative. Exp. II yielded insignificant effects for m when varied on stimulus and response sides using homogeneous lists. 68 Canadian Forces trainees served as Ss. The patterns of learning data and post learning reports of learning strategies are consistent with an interpretation of the effects of I in terms of mediating imagery. The negative effect of m suggests associative interference. (French summary) (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquisition of a problem-solving skill: Levels of organization and use of working memory.

We examined the acquisition of a problem-solving skill at three levels of organization—strategy, subgoal, and operator—and investigated changes in temporary storage, manipulation of information, and coordination of multiple representations. 6 college students practiced minimizing the simulated cost of solving diagnostic problems with digital electronic circuits for approximately 50 hr (347 problems). Ss were tested on declarative knowledge, inferential skills at the subgoal level, and ability to solve problems during working memory tasks. The working memory tasks required retention of a preload, concurrent processing, or integration of displayed information with the contents of working memory. The data support the view that restructuring is goal sensitive and strategic. The results suggest a multiple-level analysis of skill acquisition in which practice allows strategic restructuring of cognitive processes at 3 levels of organization. Implications for models of skill acquisition and working memory are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquisition of structured knowledge without instruction: The relational schema induction paradigm.

Participants learned about a structure without explicit explanation, either by using relational schema induction (G. S. Halford, J. D. Bain, M. T. Maybery, & G. Andrews, 1998), which requires completion of instances of the structure, or by memorizing instances. Emergence of structured knowledge over trials was assessed by ability to map the structure to an isomorph and thereby to generate novel instances of the structure (the generativity test). Schema induction was found to be an effective way to induce acquisition of the structure, and the generativity test was a sensitive measure of structure acquisition, as indicated by converging measures. Memorization produced only low levels of structured knowledge. A conception of structured knowledge acquisition based on relational schema induction is proposed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of meaningfulness on child free-recall learning.

Investigated the effects of experience (age) and stimulus meaningfulness on free-recall learning. In Study 1, meaningfulness values, assessed via the production method, were obtained on 40 trigrams for 120 kindergarten, second- and 6th-grade children. Employing these norms in a subsequent free-recall learning study (Study 2), it was found that trials to criterion and grade level were positively related when meaningfulness was free to vary in the same list stimuli. However, trials-to-criterion differences were equivalent across grade levels when meaningfulness was held constant. Implications for child learning research and theory are discussed. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lying in the elementary school years: Verbal deception and its relation to second-order belief understanding.

The development of lying to conceal one's own transgression was examined in school-age children. Children (N = 172) between 6 and 11 years of age were asked not to peek at the answer to a trivia question while left alone in a room. Half of the children could not resist temptation and peeked at the answer. When the experimenter asked them whether they had peeked, the majority of children lied. However, children's subsequent verbal statements, made in response to follow-up questioning, were not always consistent with their initial denial and, hence, leaked critical information to reveal their deceit. Children's ability to maintain consistency between their initial lie and subsequent verbal statements increased with age. This ability is also positively correlated with children's 2nd-order belief scores, suggesting that theory of mind understanding plays an important role in children's ability to lie consistently. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive development and reading: The relation of reading-specific multiple classification skill to reading comprehension in elementary school children.

Cognitive flexibility, the ability to consider multiple aspects of stimuli simultaneously, develops over the elementary school years and can be measured with a multiple classification task. Although prior research indicates a significant relation between domain-general multiple classification skill (e.g., classifying objects by shape and color simultaneously) and reading, a precise relation between these abilities has not been found. A reading-specific multiple classification task was designed that required children to classify printed words along phonological and semantic dimensions simultaneously. Reading-specific multiple classification skill made a unique contribution to children's reading comprehension over the contributions made by children's age, domain-general multiple classification skill, decoding skill, and verbal ability. Additionally, training in reading-specific multiple classification facilitated children's reading comprehension. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)