Research & Researchers Making News RIGHT NOW - in 2013

 

May 10, 2013 Teaching materials - especially those for young learners, often contains extraneous "cute" graphics which can actually slow down or distract the learning process. A study showed that young students learned math concepts faster when presented with plain, one-colored illustrations (such as a black & white bar graph). When illustrations contained extraneous visuals (such as colorful stacks of flower or animals to represent the bar graph) learning took longer. Kaminski, J. & Sloutsky, V. (2013). "Extraneous perceptual information interferes with children's acquisition of mathematical knowledge.". Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 105(2), 351-363.

May 7, 2013: Do you have students who struggle with working memory? You might want to have them use a computer to transcribe lectures while listening to them. A new study out this month sought to compare various ways of taking lecture notes and that relationship to later testing. In the first study, the researcher found the best test scores came from students who used a computer for note taking versus those who hand wrote their notes. The second portion of the study compared taking "organized notes" versus simply attempting to transcribe the lecture. Students with good working memory scored highest on tests after taking "organized notes" (and had the greatest quantity of notes). But students with poor working memory scored highest on later testing when they tried to simply transcribe the lecture. So their suggestion is that students who struggle with working memory be encouraged to use a note-taking strategy that transcripes the lecture using a computer. Bui, D.; Myerson, J; Hale, S. (2013). "Note-taking with computers: Exploring alternative strategies for improved recall." Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 105(2), 299-309.

23 April 2013: In Metacognition, or thinking about your thinking can be beneficial in the learning process. Researchers had high school students write learning journals for math and science classes. The students were to reflect upon their learning strategies over during the course of several weeks. Those students who wrote the learning journals improved their academic performance when compared to the control group of students who did not write learning journals. Glogger, I. et al. (2012). " Learning strategies assessed by journal writing: Prediction of learning outcomes by quantity, quality, and combinations of learning strategies." Journal of Educational Psychology, preview, nps.

12 April 2013: In working out problems between people, the effect of emotions expressed depends a great deal on the culture of the participants. East Asians who use anger in negotiations are perceived as tougher and more threatening than European Americans. This is most likely due to the stereotype that East Asians tend to be emotionally inexpressive and European Americans emotionally expressive, So angry East Asian negotiators received a higher level of cooperation. So, one's culture can play a significant role in interpersonal negotiation. Adam, H. & Shirako, A. (2013). "Not All Anger Is Created Equal: The Impact of the Expresser's Culture on the Social Effects of Anger in Negotiations." Journal of Applied Psychology, Apr 1 , 2013, preview, no page specified.

6 April 2013: Improve the school adjustment for an elementary student today and you may be helping future generations. So says new research out this month, which tracked achievement and school adjustment in boys starting in the 4th grade and continued throughout the school years and into parenthood. Then this longitudinal study watched their children through preschool and elementary. The father's academic achievement and school adjustment were directly related to the same factors in their children. Pears, K et al. (2013). "Father-child transmission of school adjustment: A prospective intergenerational study." Developmental Psychology, Vol 49(4), Apr 2013, 792-803

4 April 2013: Poor self control and parent-child conflict puts adolescents at risk for depression and school behavior problems. However, new research out this month shows that a positive teacher-student relationship can protect adolescents from this risk. It appears that a good relationship with a teacher can undo some of the risk factors of poor self control and parent - adolescent conflict. Wang, M.; Brikworth, M. & Eccles, J. (2013). "Moderating effects of teacher-student relationship in adolescent trajectories of emotional and behavioral adjustment." Developmental Psychology, Vol 49(4), 690-705.

28 March 2013: Obesity is not only bad for your physical health, it causes problems with your cognitive function as well. There is a relationship between body mass index (BMI) and frontal-subcortical pathology, especially as we age. Higher BMI effects motor and attention speed as well as processing speed. Stanek, K. et al (2013) "Body mass index and neurocognitive functioning across the adult lifespan." Neuropsychology, Vol 27(2), 141-151.

18 March 2013: While there are many valid reasons to promote all boys or all girls schools, academic achievement may not be one of them. Traditional research on same-gendered schooling here in the US has been hampered by the fact that there is parental bias in sending their child to an all-boy or all-girl school. Since the assigning of students to these schools is not random, research results do not generalize well to the population at large. However, we can now look at reserch which has come out of Korea - where they do randomly assign students to same-gendered schools. A new study which measured science and math achievement scores finds no difference for students in mixed gendered versus same-gendered schools. Scores were similar. Pahlke, E. et al (2013) The Effects of Single-Sex Compared With Coeducational Schooling on Mathematics and Science Achievement: Data From Korea. Journal of Educational Psychology, Mar 18 preview, nps.
For more on this topic, you may want to look at Same, Different, Equal: Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling

28 February 2013: Lost a little sleep last night? Probably no great harm. Lost a little sleep every night? Now it's a danger. Researchers everywhere are becoming concerned with the so called "social jet lag" that is plaguing our nation. Chronic sleep deprivation and the hapbit of our society to shift sleep patterns on weekends several hours later than during the week.
Chronic sleep loss causes metabolic changes in the body. This means you no longer regulate appetite correctly. Your glucose metabolism and blood pressure control go out the window. People with chronic sleep deprivation tend to take in more calories during the day - especially from fats. The effect is very strong in children and adolescents. Not only do you take in more calories, your body loses its ability to respond to insulin. Teens who added one more hour of sleep to their day improved their insulin resistance nearly 10%. Carpenter, S. (2013). "Awakening to Sleep." Monitor on Psychology, Vol 44(1), 40-45.
Looking for more on this topic? You may be interested inThe Harvard Medical School Guide to a Good Night's Sleep

25 February 2013: A Virginia study involving hundreds of high schools has found found that bullying does indeed increase a student's risk of dropping out of school. They tracked 9th graders' self reported and teacher reported bullying and teasing. Even controlling for other issues such as poverty, minority status, communit crime rates, etc., the incidence of bullying was a predictive of high school drop out as any other known predictive factor. Students who were teased or bullied were at about a 15% greater risk of not completing all 4 years. - the correlation exceeds one full standard deviation. Lead researcher Dr Dewey Cornell is author of School Violence: Fears Versus Facts. Cornell, D.; Gregory, A.; Huang, F. & Fan, X. (2013, Feb). " Perceived prevalence of teasing and bullying predicts high school dropout rates." Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 105(1), 138 - 149.

18 February 2013: Those of you looking for research to support the use of manipulatives to teach math will want to look at a study out in December which compiled 55 different research studies on the topic using students from kindergarten to college. In teaching math with manipulatives versus math with abstract symbols only, the manipulatives won out in terms of student learning, retention, problem solving and knowledge transfer. Carbonneau, K.; Marley, S. & Selig, J. (2012). "A Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Teaching Mathematics With Concrete Manipulatives," Journal of Educational Psychology, Dec 17 issue, preview nps.

14 February 2013: It appears that while there are a lot of working memory training programs out there, they do not seem to be effective in treating working memory issues with ADHD or as a tool to improve cognitive ability or academic achievement in typical children either. A recent review of the data on over 25 treatment studies, shows that while some working memory treatment programs may result in some short term improvements in specific working memory skills. But the effects are short-lived, and more importantly do not generalize to other skills such as nonverbal ability, inhibition, attention, word decoding or math. Melby-Lervåg, M & Hulme, C. (2013) "Is working memory training effective? A meta-analytic review." Developmental Psychology, Vol 49(2), 270-29.

12 February 2013: Mothers who praise a child's process rather than the person may increase motivation. A new study tracked mothers' conversations and praise with their children. Mother's who praised the person (eg: "you are smart") rather than the process (eg: "you worked really hard on that") tended to have children who had a fixed theory of intellegence (thought their intelligence was fixed or predetermined and would not be changed through experience, practice and learning) and were less motivated to try new and more difficult tasks.
Pomerantz, E. & Kempner, S. (2013) "Mothers' Daily Person and Process Praise: Implications for Children's Theory of Intelligence and Motivation." Developmental Psychology, Feb 11 preview nps.

The work in "fixed vs growth theories of intelligence" is attributed to researcher Carol Dweck. More information in this can be found in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

30 January 2013: When correcting tests, don't just give the correct answer, explain the correct answer. This helps students transfer the new learning to different situations. A research study tested students, then one group received the correct answer, another group received explanations of the correct answer and one group got no feedback. Students were later retested with a mix of same and new questions. Both feedback groups did better on the retest questions, but the explanation feedback group scored much higher on the new questions. Butler A., et al. (2012). "Explanation Feedback Is Better Than Correct Answer Feedback for Promoting Transfer of Learning." Journal of Educational Psychology, Dec 17 preview, nps.

29 January 2013: As children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) get older, their Executive Function problems appear to worsen. When compared to typically developing children, children with ASD at all ages struggle with Executive Function. However older adolescents variance is greater, indicating more problems for high functioning ASD individuals as they try to enter work and social environments. Rosenthal, M. et al (2013, Jan). "Impairments in real-world executive function increase from childhood to adolescence in autism spectrum disorders." Neuropsychology, Vol 27(1), 13-18. Researcher, Lauren Kenworthy, is author of Unstuck and on Target!: An Executive Function Curriculum to Improve Flexibility for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders.

24 January 2013: Spanking children makes them more aggressive. So says new research out this month by researchers Elizabeth Gershoff (author of Understanding Mother-Adolescent Conflict Discussions: Concurrent and Across-time Prediction from Youths' Dispositions on Parenting) and Inna Altschul (author of Parental involvement and the academic achievement of Mexican American youths: what kinds of involvement in youths' education matter most? ). In a large study of thousands of mothers and children, they gathered information regarding incidence of spanking at age 1, 3 and 5 and children's levels of aggression. Children who were spanked by mothers, as early as 1 year of age, were more aggressive by age 3. Spanking anytime during early childhood, was correlated with aggressive behavior. Levels of maternal warmth otherwise, had no moderating effect. So even warm, caring mothers who spank will see more aggression in their children.Lee, S., Altschul, I. & Gershoff, E. (2013) "Does Warmth Moderate Longitudinal Associations Between Maternal Spanking and Child Aggression in Early Childhood?" . Developmental Psychology, Jan 21 preview, nps.

22 January 2013: Reasons for adolescent substance use falls into 2 categories - enhancing a positive state or relieiving/coping with a negative state. Those who use to relieve a negative state have higher / more involved substance use and more psychological distress, but respond better to treatment. Dow, S. & Kelly, J. (2012) "Listening to Youth: Adolescents' Reasons for Substance Use as a Unique Predictor of Treatment Response and Outcome." Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, Dec 31 preview, nps.

16 January 2013: High school students who work long hours at a paying job tend to have lower grades and are at higher risk for substance use. For white and asian students, the risk increases with more educated parents. So the more advantaged the student, apparently the more severe the cost of a job while in high school. Bachman, J.; Staff, J.; O'Malley, P & Freedman-Doan, P. (2013). "Adolescent Work Intensity, School Performance, and Substance Use: Links Vary by Race/Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status." Developmental Psychology, (Jan 14 preview, nps).

8 January 2013: A new study out this week suggests there may be some relationship between aggression and anxiety in children and mothers who work night shifts. Comparing aggression, deprression and anxiety in 2500 children, researchers found higher incidence of aggression linked to mothers with night shift work as compared to children of mothers who either did not work or worked standard shfts. Dunifon, R. et al (2013). "Mothers' Night Work and Children's Behavior Problems." Jan 7 issue preview, nps.

20 December 2012: Children who struggle with division of whole numbers and understanding the magnitude of various fractions tend to be the ones who struggle with fraction arithmetic in middle grades. And as the children move through middle school math, the struggles intensify. The difference between low and high achieving 6th graders in math is much greater by 8th grade. Siegler, R.& Pyke, A.(2012). "Developmental and Individual Differences in Understanding of Fractions." Developmental Psychology, Dec 17 preview, nps.
[Robert Siegler is author of Children's Thinking]

18 December 2012: Quality of housing affects children's and adolescent's behavioral functioning, emotional function and cogvitive skills. While housing cost and type does not seem to have an effect on cognitive skills, quality does. Coley, R. et al (2012). "Relations Between Housing Characteristics and the Well-Being of Low-Income Children and Adolescents." Developmental Psychology, Dec 17 preview, nps.

12 December 2012: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may be predicted by examining communications in children as young as 13 months. Researchers observed infants spontaneously initiated word and word - gesture combinations in 13 month infants. They observed them again at 18 months and then tracked them for 3 years. Those children who were at the bottom scoring on communication at 13 months and especially at 18 months were most likely to receive an ASD diagnosis at 36 months. Winder, B. et al (2012). "Spontaneous Initiation of Communication in Infants at Low and Heightened Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorders."Developmental Psychology, Dec 10 preview, nps

28 November: In men, a moderate amount of stress during testing, can increase not only test performance, but memory recall of the material at a later time. The effect is much more mild for women. Hupbach, A. & Almut, F. (2012). "Moderate stress enhances immediate and delayed retrieval of educationally relevant material in healthy young men." Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol 126(6), 819-825.

26 November: Adolescents with ADHD have more conflicts with the parents and over more issues than adolescents without ADHD. Mothers however, do not tend to attribute the conflict to the ADHD, whereas Fathers do. Markel, G. & Wiener, J. (2012). "Attribution Processes in Parent–Adolescent Conflict in Families of Adolescents With and Without ADHD". Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science. Nov 12. preview, nps.
[Geraldine Markel is author of Performance Breakthroughs for Adolescents With Learning Disabilities or Add: How to Help Students Succeed in the Regular Education Classroom]

9 November: High quality childcare during the infant to toddler period appears to create better memory skills in children as they begin school. High quality childcare during the preschool years leads to better language skills. Cognitive skills were highest in children who experienced high quality childcare during both the infant to toddler and preschool periods. Li, W. et al (2012, Nov 5) "Timing of High-Quality Child Care and Cognitive, Language, and Preacademic Development." Developmental Psychology, preview, nps.

16 October: While many adolescents experiment with substances, most of them do not incur long term psychological problems as a result. A new longitudinal study indicates that the level of anxiety experienced by the adolescent prior to substance use can predict who sustains long-term psychological problems in the future. Those with high levels of anxiety who use stiumulants and hallucinogens tend to have long terms problems. Interestingly though, the use of cannibis (marijuana) by those with high levels of anxiety tends to reduce the risk of long term problems. Fallu, J. et al (2012). "Substance use among adolescents: Moderating effects of anxiety." Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science. Vol 44(4), 319-329.

14 October: For male students, a little bit of stress can be a good thing - at least for increasing memory on studied material. Researcher taught new material to students on day 1, exposed them to stress on day 2, and tested them on day 3. Males who incurred the stress on day 2, did better on the test. Hupbach, A. & Fierman, R. (2012). "Moderate Stress Enhances Immediate and Delayed Retrieval of Educationally Relevant Material in Healthy Young Men." Behavioral Neuroscience, Oct 15 preview, nps.

4 October: Adolescent substance use can be divided into (1)abstainers (2) experimenters (3) at-risk users (4) abusers. When tracked into adulthood, at age 26 the "experimenters" group were more likely to have a high school diploma and higher education, regular involvement in long-term intimate relationships, and better work ethic, when compared to the other groups. Englund, M. et al. (2012). "The Developmental Significance of Late Adolescent Substance Use for Early Adult Functioning." Developmental Psychology, Oct 1 issue, preview, nps.

2 October: Over the long term, children who do not get adequate sleep tend to have higher rates of depression, anxiety and emotional adjustment problems. Researchers tracked children through upper elementary grades and found the relationship more pronounced in girls, African American children and children from lower SES homes. El-Sheikh, M. et al (2012). "Children's Sleep and Adjustment: A Residualized Change Analysis." Developmental Psychology, Oct 1 issue. Preview, nps.

4 September: Who is most likely to be retained in kindergarten? Boys, native English speakers, and children who attended daycare at age 4 rather than public pre-K programs. Winsler, A. et al. (2012, Sep). "Child, family, and childcare predictors of delayed school entry and kindergarten retention among linguistically and ethnically diverse children." Developmental Psychology, Vol 48(5), 1299-1314.

2 September 2012: Chronic stress has now been shown to change the chemical and physical struction of the prefrontal cortex and affects both working memory and impulse control. Mika, A. et al. (2012, Aug 20). "Chronic Stress Impairs Prefrontal Cortex-Dependent Response Inhibition and Spatial Working Memory."Bhavioral Neuroscience, preview, nps.

29 August 2012: Obviously mind wandering affects reading comprehension. Researchers have studied influences on this relationship. Individual differences in mind wandering can be attributed to working memory capacity, interest in the topic, motivation to do well on the task and experince with the topic. Unsworth, N. & McMillan, B. (2012), "Mind Wandering and Reading Comprehension: Examining the Roles of Working Memory Capacity, Interest, Motivation, and Topic Experience," Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. Aug 20, preview, nps.

27 August 2012: Children who have been through trauma have more trouble negotiating relationships in classrooms and within their peer groups. Trauma in childhood leads to more severe interpersonal struggles as adults. Moreso than people traumatized as adults. Marylene Cloitre, PhD, National Center for PTSD, Menlo Park, CA. "Trauma Recovery: The Art and Science of Treating the Whole Person". Invited Address, Aug 4, 2012. APA National Conference, Orlando, FL.

2 August 2012: People with PTSD have problems with learning in addition to problems with anxiety. New research shows that individuals with PTSD also have hippocampus dysfunction, including decreased volume and problems in the medial temporal lobe associated with learning impairment. Levy-Gigi, E. et al. (2012). Individuals With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Show a Selective Deficit in Generalization of Associative Learning. Neuropsychology, Jul 30, preview, nps.

31July 2012: New longitudinal research tracked Non Suicidal Self Injury reports(NSSI) in 9th graders to later actual suicidal attempts in later adolescence. Results show that NSSI, in addition to factors such as depressionn can help predict suicide risk for adolescents. Guan, K. et al (2012). "Nonsuicidal Self-Injury as a Time-Invariant Predictor of Adolescent Suicide Ideation and Attempts in a Diverse Community Sample,", Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Jul 30, preview nps.

27 July 2012: While bilingual children tend to have lower math scores when entering school, by 5th grade they are caught up to their native English speaking peers. However due to a variety of factors, non-English Dominant Bilingual students and non English speaking students continue to score lower on reading and math assessments. Wen-Jui, H. (2012). "Bilingualism and Academic Achievement". Child Development, Vol 83(1), 300-321.

24 July 2012: Young adolescents who have trouble sustaining attention are more likely to begin smoking at an early age. However the researchers caution there are significant other factors which influence adolesents to begin and continue smoking. Harakeh, Z. et al. (2012). "The Association Between Neurocognitive Functioning and Smoking in Adolescence: The TRAILS Study." Neuropsychology, Jul 9, preview, nps.

18 July 2012: How far you go in your schooling has been linked to heridity to some extent. However, now researchers have actually found the genes that correlate to educational attainment. Variations in 3 dopaminergic genes, DAT1, DRD2, & DRD4, have been found to be linked to dopamine levels associated with the highest levels of education. Of course, so many other factors play into a person's education achievement, but genetics are a player. Beaver, K. et al (2012). "Dopaminergic polymorphisms and educational achievement: Results from a longitudinal sample of Americans". Developmental Psychology, Vol 48(4), 932-938.

10 July 2012: Air pollution is not only bad for the body, it is bad for the brain. Researchers at the Univ or Michigan and the Ohio State University are conducting research which now shows that exposure to smog damages children's cognitive ability, changes the neuronal structure in the hippocampus, increases brain declines due to age, and increases depression. Weir, K. (2012). "Smog in our brsin." Monitor on Psychology, Vol 43(7), pg 32 - 37.

6 July 2012: More support for getting children up and moving in current study out this month. Preadolescent children who engaged in more sedentary behavior and had lower cardiorespiratory fitness, scored lower on cognitive tests. They showed less cognitive control, more errors of omission and lower response accuracy. Chidren with higher aerobic fitness do better with cognitive tasks. Pontifex, M. et al. (2012, July). "Fit and vigilant: The relationship between poorer aerobic fitness and failures in sustained attention during preadolescence." Neuropsychology, Vol 26(4), 407-413.

4 July 2012: The likelihood of a child becoming an entrereneur as an adult is based on socioeconomic background and role model of parents. For boys, having a self-employed father was biggest predictor. For girls, it is SES background and resources. Most entrepreneurs should good social skill development and intent by the age of 16. Schoon, I. & Duckwork, K. (2012, July 2). "Who Becomes and Entrepreneur? Early Life Experiences as Predictors fo Entrepreneurship." Developmental Psychology, preview, nps.

30 June 2012: Playing board games, which involve linear numbers, in the classroom can help preschool children with number ine estimation, magnitude comparison and counting. Ramani, G.; Siegler, R,; & Hitti, A. (2012, June 18) "Taking it to the Classroom: Number Board Games as a Small group Learning Activity." Journal of Educational Psychology, preview, nps.

31 May 2012: While standardized tests may be somewhat valid instruments for measuing IQ, they don't measure self-control. Self control helps students study, complete homework and other learning tasks and participate positively in the classroom - all equally important to later success. Report card grades are better at measuring self-control. Duckwork, A. et al. (2012). "What No Child Left Behind leaves behind: The roles of IQ and self-control in predicting standardized achievement test scores and report card grades." Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 104(2), 439-451

29 May 2012: New longitudinal results out on English Language Learners (ELLs) in the US as they progress through high school. Statistics show that an amazing 60% of high school ELLs were born in the United States - meaning they have spent at least 9 years in the US without developing enough English language to function academically in the school system. This would seem to imply more emphasis is needed in our public schools for English language development. On a good note, while foreign-born ELLs begin high school functioning significantly lower in language profieciency than their US-born ELL peers, by the end of high school, they have caught up. Slama, R. (2012) "A longitudinal analysis of academic English proficiency outcomes for adolescent English language learners in the United States." Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 104(2), 265-285

23 May 2012: Before you or your school spends money on programs designed to improve working memory (in both children with ADHD and just a general improvement in typically developing children and adults), you may want to look at a meta-analysis realized this month which looked at the top 30 programs aimed at doing that. Researchers found that any benefit is short-lived for the most part, with little generalization. Some long term benefit remains for visuospatial working memory but non for verbal working memory.Melby-Lervåg, M. & Hulme, C. (2012). "Is Working Memory Training Effective? A Meta-Analytic Review." Developmental Psychology, May 21 issue, preview, nps.

20 May 2012: The post-high school picture is a bleak one for young adults with Autism. More than 1/2 of young adults with autism, tracked 2 years after high school had no paid job experience, nor post high school education. The statistics shed light on the need for public schools to focus more attention on helping young people assimilate into being community participants after graduation. Shattuck, P. et al. (2012) "Postsecondary Education and Employment Among Youth With an Autism Spectrum Disorder" Pediatrics May 14th preview, nps.

18 May 2012: Sexual harrassment in early adolescense can lead to eating disorders during teenage years. Researchers tracked 5th grade students through 9th grade and found that those who experienced sexual harrassment, tended to try to modify their own body image and were more likely to have eating disorders by 9th grade. Girls were more suseptable than boys. Petersen, J. (2012, Apr 30). "Peer Sexual Harassment and Disordered Eating in Early Adolescence." Developmental Psychology, preview, nps.

11 May 2012: A mind shift is taking place which views autism not as a deficit, needing a cure, but simply a different, but valid pathway within human diversity. This "neurodiversity movement" challenges our traditional medical model which sees autism as a separate entity from the person and something needing a cure Kapp, S. et al. (2012, Apr 30). "Deficit, Difference, or Both? Autism and Neurodiversity." Developmental Psychology, preview, nps.

4 May 2012: Substance use increases in African American teens as a result of feelings of racial discrimination. However, the effect is only seen in youth who endorse substance use as a coping mechanism. Gerrard, M. (2012, April 30). "Coping With Racial Discrimination: The Role of Substance Use." Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, preview, nps.

2 May 2012: Diets high is saturated fats are not only bad for your physical health, they cause impairment of cognitive function and now researchers also link it to learning and relearning of tasks. Asem, J. et al. (2012). "The Effect of High-Fat Diet on Extinction and Renewal." Behavioral Neuroscience, (Apr 30), preview nps.

1 May 2012: The positive feedback bias refers to previous studies showing that white teachers give more positive feeback to minority students. New research indicates this may be tempered by stronger support systems from colleagues and administration. In the new study, white teachers were less prone to the positive feedback bias in high-support schools. The support system though tempered the effect only on the feedback given to Black students. White teachers show the bias toward Hispanic students, regardless of school support network.
Harber, K. et al. (2012). "Students' Race and Teachers' Social Support Affect the Positive Feedback Bias in Public Schools." Journal of Educational Psychology, Apr 30., preview, nps.

20 April 2012: Preschool / elementary students who come from harsh home environments with punitive discipline practices, and/or exposure to violence show declines in academic performance and function. This decline is greatly exacerbated if the students also experience victimization. Schwartz, D. et al. (2012, Apr 16). The Link Between Harsh Home Environments and Negative Academic Trajectories Is Exacerbated by "Victimization in the Elementary School Peer Group." Developmental Psychology, preview, nps.

14 April 2012: Adding traditional paper-based study aids (especially those prompting key ideas) does increase learning via computer and game-based applications. Providing a list of main ideas to look for seemed to benefit all learners, whereas have a paper the students had to fill out as they went along only favored some learners. Fiorella, L. & Mayer, R. (2012, Apr 9). "Paper-Based Aids for Learning With a Computer-Based Game." Journal of Educational Psychology, preview, nps.

10 April 2012: Adolescents who use fitness supplements are at greater risk of later using illicit perfomance enhancing substances such as anabolic-androgenic steroids. Other risk indicators include body image disturbance, compulsive exercise, and perfectionism.Hildebrandt, T, Harty, S.; Langenbucher, J. (2012, Apr 9). "Fitness Supplements as a Gateway Substance for Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Use". Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, preview, nps.

6 April 2012: Pre-adolescent girls with ADHD were measured for Executive Function (planning, organization, attention, working memory, etc) and then tracked for 10 years into adulthood. Regardless of whether or not the ADHD symptoms continued, the girls continued to show problems with Exectuve Function into adulthood compared to the control group of girls without ADHD. Miller, M.; Ho, J.; Hinshaw S. (2012, April 2) "Executive Functions in Girls With ADHD Followed Prospectively Into Young Adulthood." Neuropsychology, preview nps.

28 Mar 2012: There is a reciprocal relationship between math interest and math ability that begins before school even starts. Researchers have found that preschooler's interest in math predict their math performance later and preschoolers math skills also predict interest in math later. Fisher, P. et al. (2012, March 26). "Early Math Interest and the Development of Math Skills.". Journal of Educational Psychology, preview, nps.

25 Mar 2012: Research on rats shows that stress during adolescence causes an increase in depression and anxiety in adulthood. New research shows that WHERE in adolescence the stress occurs has an effect too. Stress in early adolescence causes an increase in both depression and anxiety problems in adulthood, whereas stress in mid-adolescence did not cause an increase in axiety related issues but did tend to increase risk-taking behavior. Wilkin, M., et al. (2012, April). "Intermittent physical stress during early- and mid-adolescence differentially alters rats' anxiety- and depression-like behaviors in adulthood." Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol 126(2), 344-360.

23 Mar 2012: Researchers used a large pool of elementary children from diverse ethnic backgrounds who were below average in both literacy and math at the end of first grade. Half the students were retained a year and half were promoted onto the next grade. They then tracked the students through elementary grades using the Woodcock Johnson test annually. The retained students received a one year boost in achievement early on, however that boost had completely disappeared by the end of the elementary grades. Moser, S.;West, S.;Hughes, J. (2012). " Trajectories of Math and Reading Achievement in Low-Achieving Children in Elementary School: Effects of Early and Later Retention in Grade. Journal of Educational Psychology, Mar 19 preview, nps. .

21 Mar 2012: If you work with traditionally gifted, or high achieving students, you may be aware of the "Big Fish Little Pond" effect which suggests students may suffer a decline in their academic self concept if put in groups with higher achieving students. New reserach indicates that may not be the case - often times it just depends on the educational environment. When high achieving students were pulled out to attend supplemental summer programs, not only did their self concept not deminsh, many of them had a higher academic self concept upon completion. Makel, M. et al (2012). "Changing the Pond, Not the Fish: Following High-Ability Students Across Different Educational Environments." Journal of Educational Psychology, Mar 19 preview, nps.

19 Mar 2012: People of all ages who suffer from social anxiety are much more likely to use marijuana to cope in social situations. In fact, they are more likely to avoid any social situation if marijuana is unavailable. Heimberg, J. et al. (2012). "Marijuana-related problems and social anxiety: The role of marijuana behaviors in social situations".Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, Vol 26(1), 151-156 .

12 Mar 2012: Are you an "owl" or a "lark"? It may make a difference in your mood and health. While most adolescents are "owls" the fewer "larks" or morning-type adolescents have more positive overall affect and better subjective health. The greater the "morningness" of an inidividual, the greater the positive affect. This may be the reason older people in general report being happier. Biss, R. & Hasher, L. (2012, Feb 6). "Happy as a lark: Morning-type younger and older adults are higher in positive affect." Emotion, preview nps.

 

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