Wheels,skills and thrills: A social marketing trial to reduce aggressive driving from young men in deprived areas

Young men from poorer backgrounds are associated with high road traffic collision levels. However, solving this problem has proven very difficult. Hence this paper summarises the findings of a UK government funded two-year trial of a cross-discipline intervention to reduce aggressive driving amongst this group.     

How does Bennett Woods Elementary School produce such high reading and writing achievement?

The authors developed a grounded theory about how a school serving relatively advantaged children produces high reading and writing achievement compared with schools serving similar populations of students. The school's faculty is reading and writing focused, and students experience many books as they receive explicit, demanding instruction (i.e., about how to read words, comprehend, write) connected to content learning. The school offers a positive, motivating environment. In sum, many elements that potentially supported achievement were identified, including explicit teaching of skills in the context of much reading, writing, and content learning, which is consistent with balanced perspectives on reading and writing development. A major hypothesis in the grounded theory is that even with relatively advantaged populations, great efforts may be required to produce high reading and writing achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elaborative interrogation effects on children's learning of factual content.

In 2 experiments children in Grades 4–8 learned facts under different instructional conditions. Control Ss were given base sentences containing facts and were permitted to study them as they wished. In some conditions fact sentences were accompanied by elaborations (e.g., an explanation of why a stated animal lived in a stated locale). Ss in the elaborative interrogation conditions attempted to construct their own reasons for why the facts held true. Ss in the imagery conditions constructed internal imaginal representations for each fact (e.g., an image of a stated animal living in the stated locale). Elaborative interrogation was the only condition that significantly facilitated acquisition of facts in both experiments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How to teach comparison processing to increase children's short- and long-term listening comprehension monitoring.

Used 192 3rd graders to determine whether (a) training children to compare different parts of text improves detection of text errors and (b) self-controlled training of comparison produces more durable use of the strategy. 24 Ss were assigned to each of 8 conditions: 3 comparison-processing training conditions, 2 minimal-instruction conditions, 1 passive training condition, and 2 control conditions. Ss heard expository passages, some containing explicit errors, and were asked to judge passage sensibility. Results indicate that Ss taught to use a self-instructional routine specifying comparison of the 2 most recently presented sentences with each other and with the rest of the passage monitored comprehension immediately following training and 1 wk later better than did Ss given minimal training. Teaching the 2 types of comparison without self-instruction produced only short-term benefits relative to minimal training alternatives. Results are consistent with E. M. Markman's (see record 1980-03008-001) coactivation hypothesis and with metacognitive theoretical assumptions about how to produce strategy use. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Encoding of instruments when 10- to 14-year-olds process isolated instrument-implicit sentences: More evidence of improved encoding during childhood resulting from elaborative instructions.

Examined whether 10- to 14-yr-olds infer implied instruments when reading isolated instrument-implicit sentences (IISs; e.g., Her friend swept the floor) as certainly and completely as they do when instructed to generate instruments in response to IISs. On-line instrumental encoding was tested with a procedure that was based on recognition priming of instrument words given some of the letters from the words (i.e., a word fragment). When children read the IISs without instruction to infer the implied instruments, the instrument fragment completion rates were low and less than when inference generation was required or instruments were stated during reading. Children's spontaneous instrumental inferences are less certain than suggested in previous research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transfer of a mnemonic keyword strategy at two age levels.

80 12- and 80 18-yr-old students learned a list of cities paired with their products. In experimental conditions, Ss were instructed in mnemonic usage to learn the city–product pairings. Control Ss were simply instructed to learn the pairings. Then all Ss were presented a list of Latin nouns and their translations to learn. Spontaneous transfer of the keyword strategy to the Latin task was observed only among 18-yr-olds. However, the 12-yr-olds could transfer the keyword strategy to the new task situation if they were told to "use a technique similar to the one used in the city–product task." Results are interpreted within a developmental elaboration theory framework. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mnemonic versus nonmnemonic vocabulary-learning strategies: Additional comparisons.

The keyword method of vocabulary learning was compared with 5 methods designed to increase semantic processing of the definitions of the vocabulary words. In Exps I–III with 254 undergraduates, recall of the definitions from the vocabulary words was the critical dependent measure, with the keyword method producing greater learning than in any of the semantic-based or control conditions. None of the semantic-based conditions facilitated definition recall relative to a no-strategy control condition. In Exps IV and V with 144 Ss, the keyword method, 2 semantic strategies, and the no-strategy control procedure were compared with respect to associative and response-learning components of vocabulary learning. The keyword method enhanced vocabulary/definition (associative) learning but not definition (response) learning per se. In contrast, the semantic conditions tended to increase nonassociative learning of the definitions. Results bolster the case that the keyword method is a vocabulary-learning procedure superior to semantic-based strategies advocated by reading theorists. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's use of the keyword method to learn simple Spanish vocabulary words.

Assessed children's ability to use a mnemonic procedure to learn foreign language vocabulary, the keyword method, using 107 2nd and 5th graders as Ss. To remember a foreign word translation, the keyword method user (a) associates the foreign word to an English word (the keyword) that sounds like part of the foreign word, and (b) remembers a picture of the keyword and translation referents interacting. Ss who were instructed in keyword method use and provided with interactive pictures for each vocabulary item remembered more simple Spanish vocabulary translations than did control Ss not instructed to use the keyword method. Learning the acoustic links without a keyword method instruction did not improve vocabulary learning. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A quasi-experimental validation of transactional strategies instruction with low-achieving second-grade readers.

Second-grade, low-achieving students experienced a year of either transactional strategies instruction or highly regarded, more conventional second-grade reading instruction. By the end of the academic year, there was clear evidence of greater strategy awareness and strategy use, greater acquisition of information from material read in reading group, and superior performance on standardized reading tests by the transactional strategies instruction students. This is the clearest validation to date of educator-developed transactional strategies instruction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dopamine-induced endocytosis of Na+,K+-ATPase is initiated by phosphorylation of Ser-18 in the rat alpha subunit and Is responsible for the decreased activity in epithelial cells

Dopamine inhibits Na+,K+-ATPase activity in renal tubule cells. This inhibition is associated with phosphorylation and internalization of the alpha subunit, both events being protein kinase C-dependent. Studies of purified preparations, fusion proteins with site-directed mutagenesis, and heterologous expression systems have identified two major protein kinase C phosphorylation residues (Ser-11 and Ser-18) in the rat alpha1 subunit isoform. To identify the phosphorylation site(s) that mediates endocytosis of the subunit in response to dopamine, we have performed site-directed mutagenesis of these residues in the rat alpha1 subunit and expressed the mutated forms in a renal epithelial cell line. Dopamine inhibited Na+,K+-ATPase activity and increased alpha subunit phosphorylation and clathrin-dependent endocytosis into endosomes in cells expressing the wild type alpha1 subunit or the S11A alpha1 mutant, and both effects were blocked by protein kinase C inhibition. In contrast, dopamine did not elicit any of these effects in cells expressing the S18A alpha1 mutant. While Ser-18 phosphorylation is necessary for endocytosis, it does not affect per se the enzymatic activity: preventing endocytosis with wortmannin or LY294009 blocked the inhibitory effect of dopamine on Na+,K+-ATPase activity, although it did not alter the increased alpha subunit phosphorylation induced by this agonist. We conclude that dopamine-induced inhibition of Na+, K+-ATPase activity in rat renal tubule cells requires endocytosis of the alpha subunit into defined intracellular compartments and that phosphorylation of Ser-18 is essential for this process.