The inclusion of students with disabilities in large scale assessment and accountability programs has provided new opportunities to examine the impact of special education services on student achievement. Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin (1998, 2002) evaluated the effectiveness of special education programs by examining studentsâ gains on a large-scale assessment of student achievement in Texas as they entered and exited special education programs. They found that special education placement resulted in an overall increase in the achievement scores of students with disabilities. The current study aimed to replicate and extend Hanushek et al.âs research using scores from the End-of-Grade Tests of Reading Comprehension and Mathematics for 396,828 students with and without disabilities who participated in special and/or general education programs over 5 academic years in the state of North Carolina. Results of multiple regression analyses revealed support for the effectiveness of special education programs. After controlling for school characteristics, cohort, regression to the mean, and accommodations use, entry into special education programs remained a significant predictor of studentsâ gain scores on large-scale assessments of reading and mathematics. Students with disabilities made significantly larger gains when enrolled in special education programs than when enrolled in general education programs, and gains were found for most of the subgroups of special education students examined in the study. A discussion of the implications for practice, limitations of the study, and suggestions for future research are provided.

In response to a congressional mandate, the National Institute on Drug Abuse funded the Training and Employment Program (TEP) research study to evaluate a vocational program for methadone treatment clients. As part of the TEP study, the researchers developed the Vocational Readiness Screener (VRS), which was administered to 184 treatment clients participating in that study. This study used a structural equation modeling approach to evaluate the employability framework on which the VRS was based by testing the hypotheses that employability is comprised of multiple underlying factors and that vocational status moderates employability. The empirical evidence that supported the study hypotheses included estimates of test-retest and composite reliability, estimates of factor validity, and group differences in the covariance and inter-factor correlation matrices for the job-ready and non job-ready groups. The results showed differences in the factor loadings and in the structure of each of the latent factors in the employability model, which appear to be aligned with stages of vocational readiness. From a methodological perspective, these findings represent an analytic shift from prediction to latent variable analysis and allow for a better understanding of the moderator effects of vocational status at progressive stages in the rehabilitation process. Treatment implications for the substance abuse and vocational rehabilitation fields are also discussed.

Recent research has suggested that young adults make the most optimal decisions when the problem is weighed at the unconscious level, or when they engage in little deliberation (Dijksterhuis, 2004). This is an intriguing finding with important implications for older adultsâ decision making given normative age-related declines in deliberative processing. In the current study, I investigated age differences in the benefits of unconscious relative to conscious thought. I also examined the extent to which these benefits interact with the processing demands of the decision task, and further if age-related benefits associated with unconscious processing might be specific to certain decision making tasks. For example, if the decision task requires selective attention to relevant material, rather than simple evaluation, conscious thought may be more beneficial than unconscious thought and aging may negatively affect performance. Using a procedure developed by Dijksterhuis, young and older adult participants (N = 125) engaged in unconscious or conscious thought processing before selecting a choice from information regarding apartments and banks. The information was presented as intuitive (i.e., optimal choice contained the most positive attributes) or deliberative (i.e., optimal choice based on a subset of information). The results of the study reveled that young adults performed well on the decision task when unconsciously processing intuitive information and consciously processing deliberative information. Older adults were more influenced by the type of information rather than thought processing, which lead them to perform better when they received intuitive information rather than deliberative information, regardless of thought condition. Additionally, both young and older adults displayed choice supportive memory, whereas neither age nor thought condition affected choice satisfaction.

This study examined the relationships among social cognition, externalizing behavior, and social acceptance in children with and without learning disabilities. It was hypothesized that social-cognitive accuracy and externalizing behavior would mediate differences observed in social acceptance between children with and without learning disabilities. School-identified children with learning disabilities (N = 55) in grades 3 through 5 were compared to their non-identified peers (N= 631) in terms of social acceptance. Social acceptance was determined using peer nominations of liked most and liked least, which were converted into an overall social preference score for each child. When it was determined that children?s learning disability status accounted for a small but significant portion of the variance in children?s social acceptance (1.3%), mediation tests were conducted to determine if externalizing behavior or social cognitive accuracy functioned as mediators in the observed relationship. Externalizing behavior was assessed through teacher report on the Child Behavior Checklist. Social-cognitive accuracy was determined by calculating the extent to which individual children?s reports of peer groups in their classrooms matched the social groups derived through Social Cognitive Mapping. The results indicated that externalizing behavior partially mediated the relationship between learning disabilities and social acceptance. No evidence was found that social-cognitive accuracy functioned as a mediator. Limitations, implications for improving children?s social functioning, and future research on the social functioning, behavior, and social cognition of children with learning disabilities were discussed in light of these findings.

The equidistance tendency (ET) is the tendency of an observer to misperceive the depth interval between objects in a scene as being smaller than it actually is, particularly in the absence of strong depth cues and as the lateral separation between the objects decreases (Gogel, 1965). The present experiment was an attempt to create a display that would evoke a change in the influence of the ET as the lateral separation of display objects was varied. The display configuration used replicated (with updated equipment) that of a previous study (Hill and Mershon, 1985) which had reliably produced the desired effect. However, one property of the new equipment resulted in the appearance of a faintly visible background behind the main display objects that was not present in the previous experiment. In the present experiment, the display object with the poorest depth cues, which was expected to vary in perceived distance due to the ET effect, did not vary in apparent distance. Instead, one of the other objects, with stronger depth cues, varied in apparent distance. The results suggest that the presence of the faint background may have acted as an additional display object, despite its low contrast with the wider background of the visual field. This implies that even objects that are very low in salience can have a significant effect on perceived distances.

The purpose of the current study was to explore the effects of social exclusion threat negative affect on the evaluated fairness of a procedure that?s function is to validate ethnic membership using the Dimensional Voice Model (Bane, 1994). Participants consisted of 120 (60 = female, 60 = male) college students. The study design was a 2 (Gender) X 2 (Justification) X 3 (Procedure) factorial between-groups experimental design. Based on social exclusion theory, individuals may experience high levels of negative affect when they perceive a threat of exclusion from a group (Baumeister & Tice, 1990). It was hypothesized that a procedure designed to validate ethnic membership will result in social exclusion threat negative affect. A procedure designed to validate ethnic membership was hypothesized as being evaluated as unfair (Thibaut, Walker, LaTour, & Houlden, 1974; Lind & Tyler, 1988; Tyler, 1990, 1994; Tyler & Lind, 1994; Walker, LaTour, Lind, & Thibaut, 1974). Justifications (Bies, 1987a, 1987b, 1989; Bies & Moag, 1986; Bies & Shapiro, 1987, 1988; Brotheridge, 2003; Skarlicki, Folger & Gee, 2004) before the procedure was tested as the rationale for the procedure introduced as procedural justification. Of two procedural justifications, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Science Foundation (NSF) justification was hypothesized as being perceived fairer. The results suggest that procedures designed to validate ethnic membership were evaluated as unfair. Additionally, the results indicated that procedural justifications might affect perceptions of fairness of the procedure. The data strongly supports the notion that these procedures may create an environment of negative affect with respondents evaluating the procedures as unfair. Implications for Lumbee Federal Recognition are discussed.

Currently, Hispanic students score significantly lower than White, non-Hispanic students in reading throughout their elementary school years. Although several evidence-based fluency techniques exist for students who speak English as a first language (e.g., Repeated Reading, Listening Passage Preview, and Phrase Drill) research has insufficiently evaluated their effects with English language learners. This study used an alternating treatments design to examine the differential effects of a one-on-one (1/1) and small group (SG) reading fluency intervention, implemented with Spanish-speaking, English language learners. Each intervention condition was also compared to a no-treatment control condition (NTC). Studentsâ words read correct per minute (WCPM) served as the primary dependent measure, though standardized reading assessments and an experimenter-developed vocabulary assessment were also administered to measure student reading progress. WCPM scores were evaluated with visual analysis, standard-error of measurement (SEM) analysis, and randomization test analysis. Compared to the NTC, all students made significant WCPM gains as a result of receiving the 1/1 condition, whereas only two students significantly outperformed the NTC as a result of the SG condition. Standardized test gains and vocabulary gains were variable across students and conditions. Overall, the study offers preliminary evidence supporting two fluency-based reading interventions for Spanish-speaking, English language learners, each of which appear differentially useful depending on the time and resources available within a particular school setting.

Studies of the effects of physical abuse on child adjustment have documented numerous adverse consequences on young children?s physical, cognitive, psychological, and social functioning. Given the overwhelming negative effects that maltreatment can have on a child?s life, it is remarkable that some victims prevail despite physical abuse. The present study was designed to investigate factors that predict individual differences in functioning of 78 children with substantiated histories of abuse. It was expected that parental warmth and socioeconomic status would significantly predict membership in ?resilience groups? (high, medium, and low). Children?s social adjustment was measured by teacher reports and peer interactions via direct observation. The Hollingshead Index of Social Status was used to measure SES. A Nurturing Parenting Style composite was used as an indication of parental warmth and was formulated based on a 30-minute interaction session between parents and their children. Separate ordinal logistic regression analyses were conducted to test hypotheses. Predictions were not supported. A discussion of study limitations and directions for future research is presented.

The purpose of the research was to examine the assessment component of the Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS) Program which is similar to curriculum-based measurement (CBM). CBM has demonstrated usefulness with determining student growth and intervention effectiveness, as well as predicting student outcomes on state-mandated assessment. The current study utilized data from one academic year of implementation of the HELPS Program with second grade students at an elementary school. The purpose was to evaluate whether the assessment data from HELPS indicated gains in studentsâ reading fluency and whether those gain scores predicted student outcomes on the Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT) for fluency and comprehension. Studentsâ scores were evaluated in terms of generalization of passage gains (initial reading of a new passage), immediate passage gains (gains within one session with one passage), and retention of passage gains (gains from one session to the next). Scores were evaluated with both linear and quadratic multi-level models. Results indicated that studentsâ generalization of passage gain scores were most meaningful in terms of determining growth over time and predicting studentsâ outcome scores. Immediate passage gains, however, can also be useful in evaluating studentsâ growth over time. Implications for these results are discussed.

Traditionally, symbol comprehension is tested using open-ended, written responses. However, responses are often so brief that they may fail to indicate a participant?s true understanding of some symbols. In the present study, several test methods were compared to the standard written method to determine if they produce better symbol comprehension performance. The four alternative methods included: written test with probe questioning after all responses were provided, oral test without probe questioning, oral test with probe questioning after responses for all symbols were provided, and oral test with probe questioning after each partially correct or incorrect response. The probe or follow-up questioning technique is taken from the cognitive interview procedure used in eyewitness identification research to elicit more detailed responses. Participants reported their interpretations of 31 safety symbols in one of the five test method conditions. Results showed that the test methods that included follow-up questioning elicited more information from participants, and increased comprehension rates in both oral and written test formats. The results have implications for cost-effective symbol design and evaluation