Paired-associate learning and formal thinking in adolescence

The development of paired-associate (PA) learning and formal thinking during adolescence was investigated with 78 sixth and tenth grade students. Group-administered tests of formal and divergent thinking were given in the tracked, classroom setting. The augmented PA treatment provided, and the minimal PA treatment did not provide, verbal and pictorial prompts. The percentages of children showing formal thinking increased and converged to the 40% mark for both high and average achievers. While the augmented treatment scores were significantly better than the minimal treatment ones, the evidence was ambiguous concerning whether there was a developmental improvement in spontaneous elaboration skills for high achievers. The hypothesis predicting PA learning to be positively related to divergent thinking, and negatively related to formal thinking, was not supported.Received his Ph.D. in educational psychology from Mississippi State University. Research and writing interests are in cognitive development, mental retardation, and behavior therapy.     

Adolescent thinking ála Piaget: The formal stage

Two of the formal-stage experiments of Piaget and Inhelder, selected largely for their closeness to the concepts defining the stage, were replicated with groups of average and gifted adolescents. This report describes the relevant Piagetian concepts (formal stage, concrete stage) in context, gives the methods and findings of this study, and concludes with a section discussing implications and making some reformulations which generally support but significantly qualify some of the central themes of the Piaget-Inhelder work. Fully developed formal-stage thinking emerges as far from commonplace among normal or average adolescents (by marked contrast with the impression created by the Piaget-Inhelder text, which chooses to report no middle or older adolescents who function at less than fully formal levels). In this respect, the formal stage differs appreciably from the earlier Piagetian stages, and early adolescence emerges as the age for which a single path model of cognitive development becomes seriously inadequate and a more complex model becomes essential. Formal-stage thinking seems best conceptualized, like most other aspects of psychological maturity, as a potentiality only partially attained by most and fully attained only by some.This work has been supported by NIMH Research Career Development Award K3-MH-18, 701.Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, AECM. Received Ph.D. in physics from MIT, M.D. from University of Minnesota, adult and child/adolescent psychiatry training at AECM; graduate of New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Main current interests are developmental psychology and psychopathology of adolescence and young adulthood.     

Identity development and formal operations as sources of adolescent egocentrism

The self-concerns and social expectations that are part of the identity development process may lead adolescents to think that others survey them for signs of individuality. The novelty of identity development may also lead to feelings of uniqueness and invulnerability. The imaginary audience and personal fable may therefore stem from identity development and not from the emergence of formal operations. In this study high school and first-year university students (N=255) completed measures of adolescent egocentrism, identity development, and formal operations. Egocentrism was moderately associated with higher scores on identity crisis and identity achievement, and with lower scores on identity diffusion. There was no significant relationship between egocentrism and the emergence of formal operations.Received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Victoria. His main interests are in personality, social and developmental psychology.Currently completing a master's degree at Lakehead University. Interests are in social and clinical psychology.     

函授教育发展的理性思考

构建终身学习体系、建设学习型社会是我们教育的目标,包括函授教育在内的成人高等教育是终身学习体系中的一个重要组成部分。在当前的教育大背景下,如何培养符合社会发展需要的各类人才,与国际教育市场接轨,如何正视目前函授教育和教学中存在的一些现象和问题,是一个需要探讨的重要问题。在考虑各种因素的情况下,应充分发挥各个学校的现存优势,努力扩大生源;通过改变传统的教学效果评估,提升函授教育的质量;用现代管理手段,进一步强化函授管理。同时从制度上建立一套有利于终身教育良性运转的有效机制,进而促使包括函授教育在内的成人高等教育事业走上可持续发展的道路。     

社区义工站的建构及其思考

在社区建立义工站有其重要的意义。建构时要坚持服务项目与机制建设相发展 ,既服务社区居民又服务社区义工 ,既发挥组织优势又充分利用社区硬件资源 ,既注重吸收人文精神又结合科学理性精神。这样 ,社区义工站才能走向规范化运转、持续发展之路。     

试论"三个代表"的哲学思想

"三个代表"的重要思想充分体现了马克思主义与时俱进的理论思想,闪耀着马克思主义哲学真理的光芒."三个代表"体现了马克思主义哲学思想:充分揭示了社会基本矛盾在社会发展中的基础作用;先进生产力,特别是科学技术在现代发展中的决定性作用;先进文化的发展对于生产力的发展和整个社会进步起着非常重要的作用;人民群众的历史主体地位.因而,要实践"三个代表"的重要思想,必须树立正确的科学的世界观、人生观和价值观.     

对社区教育中志愿者队伍建设的理性思考

社区教育已成为一种国际潮流,许多国家包括发达国家和发展中国家都在进行实践。在我国正以强劲的势头迅速发展,推动了地区经济、社会的进步。本文就社区教育中对人力资源的急切需求提出了引入志愿服务,论述了志愿者队伍建设的迫切性与可行性,并就实施中遇到的问题给出相关对策。     

Divergent thinking and self-esteem in preadolescents and adolescents

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between divergent thinking and self-esteem in preadolescents and adolescents. A second focus pertained to sex differences in the dependent variables. A total of 115 White middle class subjects ranging in age from 10–17 years responded to a personal data inventory, a self-esteem measure, and a taped auditory free-response exercise in divergent thinking. Subjects were categorized for data analysis into two age groups, preadolescents and adolescents. Scores were obtained for fluency, flexibility, and originality of thought, and for self-esteem. Adolescents were significantly more fluent and flexible than preadolescents. The two age groups did not differ significantly in orginality or self-esteem. Self-esteem correlated significantly with divergent thinking in preadolescents only. Female adolescents scored significantly higher on all dependent measures than adolescent males; there were no sex differences in preadolescents. Results are discussed from both an intra- and interstage developmental perspective on adolescence.Research assistant and doctoral canditate in human developmental and family studies at Cornell University. Major interests are adolescent and human life-span development.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Major interests are the study of creativity and the educational psychology of human life-span development.     

新形势新挑战新思路--"全国共青团院校党委书记校长研讨会"会议纪要

全国共青团院校党委书记校长研讨会于2003年3月29日至4月2日在广州召开。会议由广东青年管理干部学院主办,全国18所省级院校和广州市、深圳市、珠海市团校校长参加了会议。会议还特别邀请了团中央组织部、团广东省委的领导以及部分德高望重的团校老领导与会,会议代表共60多人。     

Exceptional giftedness in early adolescence and intrafamilial divergent thinking

Two groups of boys and their parents (N=54) were given five divergent thinking tests as one part of a longitudinal investigation on exceptional giftedness in early adolescence. One groups of adolescents was selected because their IQs were above 150, and the other group, was selected because of their outstanding math-science abilities. Canonical and bivariate analyses indicated that there was a strong correlation between the adolescents' divergent thinking test scores and their parents' divergent thinking test scores (Rc=.55). Additionally, there was some indication that these correlations differed in the two exceptionally gifted groups, with the high-IQ group having divergent thinking test scores related to those of both parents, and the math-science group having divergent thinking test scores related only to those of their mothers. These findings are very consistent with earlier investigations on exceptionally gifted adolescents.This research was supported by a grant to M.A.R. from the University Research Council of the University of Hawaii, and by grants to R.S.A. from the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation.Received Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School. Research interests include creative, gifted, and autistic children, and psychometrics.Received Ph.D. from Boston University. Research interests include child development, long-term family involvement, giftedness, and the achievement of eminence.     

Operational thinking at adolescence in relation to psychosomatic disorder

This article represents an attempt from a developmental point of view to construct theoretical links between psychic and somatic functioning as they are manifest in psychosomatic illness and to relate this process to the types of thinking — preoperational and operational — that determine the insights into disease available to the adolescent mind.Presented at the International Congress of Pediatrics at New Delhi, India, October 26, 1977.Received his M.D. from University of London. Major interests include research on childhood psychopathology in relation to parenting.     

Older adolescents' thinking about academic/vocational and interpersonal commitments

Sixty-eight college students listed the factors they consider or would consider when making the following commitments: choosing courses, choosing a major, choosing a career, choosing a friend, choosing a romantic partner, and choosing a lifelong partner. In addition, subjects provided their own definition ofcommitment in an unstructured essay. Subjects listed more factors, more distinct types of factors, and more original factors for interpersonal commitments than for academic/vocational commitments. There were few gender differences found in these measures, contradicting the idea that men and women think differently about different commitments. In addition, few gender or class year differences were found in the themes present in the essay definingcommitment. Conceptions of commitment, as described in essays, predicted thinking about specific commitments only slightly.Received Ph.D. in Psychology and M.S.E. in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and has research interests in the areas of cognitive development and reasoning and decision making.Received Ph.D. in Counseling and Guidance from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and has research interests in adolescent development and adolescent psychopathology.     

Problem discovery,divergent thinking,and the creative process

Previous empirical research suggests that problem discovery is an important step in the creative process. The present investigation was conducted to examine the role of problem discovery in the divergent thinking and creative performance of adolescents. Three divergent thinking tests were administered to a group of adolescents. Each test contained three presentedproblems and one discoveredproblem. The discovered problem allowed the adolescents to think of a problem and then to provide solutions. Comparisons indicated that the adolescents generated significantly more responses to the discovered problems than the presented problems. Most important was that the unique variance of the discovered problems (controlling the variance shared with scores from the presented problems) was reliable and significantly related to five indices of creative performance. These results support the componential theory of divergent thinking and creativity, and are consistent with the developmental view of problem finding.Received Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the Claremont Graduate School. Research interests include the psychometrics of creativity and giftedness, and the developmental antecedents of eminence and genius.Current interests include gifted children and creativity.     

关于行动学习法在基层干部培训中的实践与思考

行动学习法是近年来培训领域比较流行的一种方法,因其"在做中学"、"在反思中学"和"在学习中学会学习"等特点,而被广泛运用于企业、高校和党政机关等机构的教学和培训。一些基层党校围绕地方党委和政府的重点工作运用行动学习法开展干部教育培训,取得了实效。作为培训组织者,应当在遵循行动学习法基本原理的基础上,精心选择任务主题,努力做到基本原理与具体实践的最大契合。     

School crime and disruption as a function of student-school fit: An empirical assessment

A theoretical model is described which conceptualizes school crime and disruption as a function of the congruence or fit between the personal characteristics of students and the social environments of the schools they attend. In a direct empirical test of the model, indices representing 10 distinct dimensions of student-school fit are related to three composite measures of school misconduct: school crime, school avoidance, and class misbehavior. A number of significant relationships are found between dimensions of student-school fit and the three indices of school misbehavior, several of which manifest one of the nonlinear forms specified by the model, providing at least modest support for a person-environment fit theory of school crime and disruption.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, San Francisco, September 1978. Analyses reported here were supported by a research grant (G-78-0049) from the National Institute of Education.Received Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan. Current research interests include alienation and involvement in high school, person-environment fit, and survey methodology.Current research interests include the development and treatment of aggressive and deviant behavior in adolescence and socialization experiences in high school.Received Ph.D. in personality psychology from the University of Michigan. Current research interests include adolescent self-esteem, delinquent behavior, and alternative schools.     

Some Heads Are Sanforized

No abstract available for this article.