Social skills, expectancies, and drinking in adolescents

Research in the field of teenage drinking behavior has shown relationships between both social skills and drinking and alcohol expectancies and drinking. The present research investigated the comparative power of both of these sets of variables in predicting teenage drinking behavior, as well as looking at the contribution of more global cognitive structures. It was hypothesised that adolescents with high alcohol involvement would be discriminated from those with low involvement on the basis of social skills, cognitive structures, and alcohol expectancies. Seven hundred thirty-two adolescents participated in the study. Results indicated that adolescent alcohol involvement was associated with social skills deficits, positive alcohol expectancies, and negative cognitive structures concerning parents and teachers. The results revealed that, although the bulk of the variance in drinking behavior was explained by the independent effects of social skills and expectancies, the interaction of the two constructs explained an additional and significant proportion of the variance. Implications for preventive and treatment programs are discussed.

The development and inter-relationship of metacognitive components among primary school children

Much interest has been expressed in the construct metacognition, the individual's knowledge and control of his own cognitive processes. Recent educational proposals have suggested the training of general metacognitive principles in schools. The exact nature of the construct has, however, remained vague. The aim of the present study was to provide some clarity. In a study of the metacognitive responses of 144 primary school children (aged 7‐11 years) four measures commonly used to assess metacognitive function were examined. First, the content of each measure was examined. Secondly, in an attempt to identify a metacognitive factor, commonality among the measures, both of developmental patterns and statistical relationship, was sought. Whilst a common pattern of development in the children's responses to the four measures was identified, factor analysis failed to provide evidence for a common metacognitive factor and unified construct.

Influences on novice drivers' speed selection - a systematic review: Application and limitations of theory and methodology

Background Excessive speed is a primary contributing factor to young novice road trauma, including intentional and unintentional speeds above posted limits or too fast for conditions. The objective of this research was to conduct a systematic review of recent investigations into novice drivers’ speed selection, with particular attention to applications and limitations of theory and methodology. Method Systematic searches of peer-reviewed and grey literature were conducted during September 2014. Abstract reviews identified 71 references potentially meeting selection criteria of investigations since the year 2000 into factors that influence (directly or indirectly) actual speed (i.e., behaviour or performance) of young (age <25 years) and/or novice (recently-licensed) drivers. Results Full paper reviews resulted in 30 final references: 15 focused on intentional speeding and 15 on broader speed selection investigations. Both sets identified a range of individual (e.g., beliefs, personality) and social (e.g., peer, adult) influences, were predominantly theory-driven and applied cross-sectional designs. Intentional speed investigations largely utilised self-reports while other investigations more often included actual driving (simulated or ‘real world’). The latter also identified cognitive workload and external environment influences, as well as targeted interventions. Discussion and implications Applications of theory have shifted the novice speed-related literature beyond a simplistic focus on intentional speeding as human error. The potential to develop a ‘grand theory’ of intentional speeding emerged and to fill gaps to understand broader speed selection influences. This includes need for future investigations of vehicle-related and physical environment-related influences and methodologies that move beyond cross-sectional designs and rely less on self-reports.

The Systems Theory Framework of career development: 20 years of contribution to theory and practice

The development and sustained contribution of the Systems Theory Framework to career development theory and practice is well documented in national and international literatures. In addition to its contribution to theory integration, it has added to the growing literature on connecting career theory and practice, in particular for non-Western populations. In addition, it has been the basis of the development of a broad array of constructivist approaches to career counselling, and indeed specific reflective career assessment activities. This article begins with a brief history of the Systems Theory Framework which is then followed by a rationale for its development. The contribution of the Systems Theory Framework to theory and practice is then described prior to concluding comments by the authors.

The Systems Theory Framework of career development: Applications to career counselling and career assessment

Since its inception, the Systems Theory Framework of career development has afforded ready translation into practice, especially into career counselling and qualitative career assessment. Through its clearly articulated constructs and the clarity of its diagrammatic representation, the Systems Theory Framework has facilitated the development of qualitative career assessment instruments as well as a quantitative measure. This article briefly overviews these practical applications of the Systems Theory Framework as well as its application in career counselling through a story telling approach. The article concludes by offering a synthesis of and considering future directions for the Systems Theory Framework’s practical applications.

Incorporating Career Assessment into Career Counselling

Career assessment has long held a central place in career counselling since the work of Parsons (1909) signalled the birth of a new field of practice, vocational guidance, and its subsequent iterations of career guidance and counselling and more recently life designing.

My System of Career Influences

My System of Career Influences (MSCI) is a qualitative guided reflection process for adolescents and for adults that is based on the Systems Theory Framework (STF; McMahon & Patton, 1995; Patton & McMahon, 1999, 2006, 2014) of career development. Reflective of the trend towards more holistic theories and models of career counselling, the MSCI enables users to identify, prioritise and story their career influences, thus enabling them to contextualise career decisions and career transitions.

幼儿分类能力发展及促进的实验研究

Classification is a kind of basic cognitive process, and category is an important way for human beings to define the world. At the same time, categories are organized in a hierarchical way, which makes it possible for human beings to process information efficiency. For those reasons, the development of classification ability is always one of the foci in developmental psychology. By using the methods of spontaneous and trained classification of both familiar stimuli materials and artificial concepts, this research explored the 4-6 year old children's classification criteria. And by the artificial concept system formed in these classification criteria experiments, the mastery degree of class hierarchy in these young children was analyzed. The main results and conclusions are: 1) The classification ability increases quickly among kindergarteners from 4 to 6 year old: the 4 year old children seemed unable to classify objects by classificatory criteria, however, the 6 year ones had shown the ability in many experimental conditions. But the main basis of classificatory criteria in these young children, including 6 year old ones, was the functional relation of the objects but the conceptual relations, and their classification criteria was not consistent because they seem to be easily affected by experimental conditions. 2) The age of 5 is a more sensitive period of classification ability development: for the children of 5 year old, it was found that their classification ability was easily enhanced by training. The zone of proximal development in classification ability by category standard could probably lie in this period of age. 3) Knowledge is an important factor that affects young children's classification ability, meanwhile, their classification activity are affected by cognitive processing ability: young children exhibited different classification ability as they had different understanding of stimuli materials. Kindergarteners of different age were significantly different in their classification ability as the difference in cognitive processing ability, even if they had the same knowledge about the stimuli materials. 4) Different properties of class hierarchy are different in difficulty for young children: the 5-6 year old children showed that the could master the transitivity of the class hierarchy. No matter under what learning condition, they could answer most of the transitivity questions correctly and infer the property of the sub-class according to that of the super-class. The young children at 5-6 years old had mastered the branching property of class hierarchy at a relative high level, but their answers were easily affected by the hints in the questions. However, it seemed that the asymmetry of class hierarchy was difficult for young children to learn. Because young children could not understand the class inclusion relation, they always drew wrong conclusions about super-class from sub-class in their classification.

通过对心理学期刊的几项统计分析看我国十年来儿童发展教育心理学研究状况与动向

In this study, bibliometric method was usded in the investigation of 2274 papers concerning child developmental and educational psychology, which were published during the ten years of 1979-1988, in 14 psychological journals and 97 other scientific journals. According to the quantitative and qualitative analyses, the results are as follows: 1979-1988 saw the rapid development and prosperous period in China's child developmental and educational psychology, During which more papers were published and more fields couched than in the psvious thirty years. The number of literature publications increased and went to the peak in 1983 and 1984, and came down since 1985. The trend was found to result from the decrease in popular science introductions of psychology, which reflected that a heat of psychology had appeared in 1983 and started to cool in 1985. At the mean time, the number of research reports had been holding a steady increase by 1987 and decreased obviously in 1988, especially in the fields of cognitive and social development. There could be several possible explanations of this phenonemon: Piagetian studies are becoming fewer and the eakening of Piaget's influence might predict a period of standstill in the field of developmental psychology in China; As researches become more and more difficult, researchers have turned to be more cautious in lay out their reports; the cutdown of fees and staff could also be one of reasons for less publication in 1988. As the factors mentioned above still exist and their influences last, the number of papers are not expected to increase in the near future. The field of thinking and menory is closely connected with that of artificial intelligence. The downhill situations in these two fileds should be taken seriously. 2. The types of research work are divided on the bases of their problem raising. The trends show that the deepening studies, which represent a comaratively higher level of exploration, are waving fewer, while repeated studies and creative studies are becoming more as the years go along. This fact is worth being further analysed. Big progress could be seen from research methods. The methods currently used are mainly experiment, psychological measurement and assessment, and theoretical reasoning. There is a rapid increase of research by using scales. Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Binet Scale and Baley Scale have been revised andstandardized. Chinese researchers have also developed several good scales of their own, some of which are valuable and need to be standardized. In the papers investigated, the amount of citation is significantly lower than the world average level as well as the average citation number of whole China's scientific literature. Among the papers cited, most are of Chinese and English languages, and only a small rate were published in resently five years. The renewal of literature cited seems to stay at a low level in the ten years. Tremendous work could be reflected by the number of subjects used the research work in those ten years: 362665. A lot of studies piled on the period of 4-16 year olds. Compared with the previous thirty years, the age range was much enlarged and there were quite a few studies about preschool, school and adolescent periods. The study of newborn of 0-3 has been a weak point so far and it is a field to which chinese developmental psychologists should pay more attention. The progress in using statistics is one of the most obvious part in the development in the research work of child developmental and educational psychology. The one tendency that should be awared and avoid is to put the cart before the horse: seeking for more sophisticated statistic method while neglecting the meanings of research problems. 3. Citation analysis was used in selecting scholars who had great influence in the field of child developmental and educational psychology. Among the often cited and famous scholars, 31 are Chinese researchers and 12 are Western psychologists. The authoritative journal for child developmental psychology and educational psychology is Acta Psychologica Sinica.

Novelty and Habituation: the Driving Forces in Early Stage Learning for Developmental Robotics

Q. Meng and M. H. Lee, Novelty and Habituation: the Driving Forces in Early Stage Learning for Developmental Robotics, AI-Workshop on NeuroBotics, University of Ulm, Germany. September 2004.

Social networks applied to training

In this article, we address the importance and relevance that social networks exhibit in their use as an educational resource.  This relevance relies in the possibility of implementing new learning resources or increasing the level of the participant's connectivity, as well as developing learning communities.  Also, the risk entailed from their use is discussed, especially for the students that have a low technological education or those having excessive confidence on the media.  It is important to highlight that the educational use of social networks is not a simple extension or translation of the student's habitual, recreational use, but that it implies an important change in the roles given to teachers as well as learners; from accommodative learning environments that only encourage memorization to other environments that demand an active, reflective, collaborative and proactive attitude, that require the development/acquisition of technological as well as social abilities, aptitudes and values.  It is also important to highlight that a correct implementation and adequate use will not only foment formal learning, but also informal and non-formal learning.

Reducing the mapping between perception and action facilitates imitation

This study investigated two hypotheses regarding the mapping of perception to action during imitation. The first hypothesis predicted that as children’s cognitive capacities increase the tendency to map one goal and disregard others during imitation should decrease. This hypothesis was tested by comparing the performances of 168 4- to 7-year-olds in a gestural imitation task developed by Bekkering, Wohlschläger, and Gattis. The second hypothesis predicted that reducing the mapping between perception and action should reduce the demands on the cognitive resources of the child. This hypothesis was tested by creating a condition in which perception and action overlapped by sharing objects between experimenter and child. In three experimental conditions, an adult modelled four gestures, directed at either: 1) one of two sets of round stickers (proprietary objects); 2) the same location on the table, without any sticker (no objects); or 3) one set of round stickers, which were shared with the child (shared objects). The results confirmed both hypotheses. Four- and five-year-olds imitated less accurately when imitation involved mapping of both objects and movements (proprietary and shared objects) than when imitation involved mapping movements only (no objects). Seven-year-olds imitated accurately in all three conditions, demonstrating that increased cognitive capacity allowed them to map multiple goals from perception to action. Most importantly, reducing the mapping between perception and action in the shared objects condition facilitated imitation, specifically for the transitional group, 6-year-olds. We conclude that mapping between perception and action is not direct, but resembles mapping relations in analogical reasoning: cognitive processes mediate mapping from perception to action.

Sensory-motor problems in Autism

Despite being largely characterised as a social and cognitive disorder, strong evidence indicates the presence of significant sensory-motor problems in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This paper outlines our progression from initial, broad assessment using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (M-ABC) to subsequent targeted kinematic assessment. In particular, pronounced ASD impairment seen in the broad categories of manual dexterity and ball skills was found to be routed in specific difficulties on isolated tasks, which were translated into focused experimental assessment. Kinematic results from both subsequent studies highlight impaired use of perception-action coupling to guide, adapt and tailor movement to task demands, resulting in inflexible and rigid motor profiles. In particular difficulties with the use of temporal adaption are shown, with "hyperdexterity" witnessed in ballistic movement profiles, often at the cost of spatial accuracy and task performance. By linearly progressing from the use of a standardised assessment tool to targeted kinematic assessment, clear and defined links are drawn between measureable difficulties and underlying sensory-motor assessment. Results are specifically viewed in-light of perception-action coupling and its role in early infant development suggesting that rather than being 'secondary' level impairment, sensory-motor problems may be fundamental in the progression of ASD. This logical and systematic process thus allows a further understanding into the potential route of observable motor problems in ASD; a vital step if underlying motor problems are to be considered a fundamental aspect of autism and allow a route of non-invasive preliminary diagnosis.

Applying gaze-contingent training within community settings to infants from diverse SES backgrounds

Even in infancy children from low-SES backgrounds differ in frontal cortex functioning and, by the start of preschool, they frequently show poor performance on executive functions including attention control. These differences may causally mediate later difficulties in academic learning. Here, we present a study to assess the feasibility of using computerized paradigms to train attention control in infants, delivered weekly over five sessions in early intervention centres for low-SES families. Thirty-three 12-month-old infants were recruited, of whom 23 completed the training. Our results showed the feasibility of repeat-visit cognitive training within community settings. Training-related improvements were found, relative to active controls, on tasks assessing visual sustained attention, saccadic reaction time, and rule learning, whereas trend improvements were found on assessments of short-term memory. No significant improvements were found in task switching. These results warrant further investigation into the potential of this method for targeting ‘at-risk’ infants in community settings.