Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

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The possible relationship between parental perceptions of playfulness and temperament was examined. Parents completed the Behavioral Style Questionnaire and the Child Behaviors Inventory. Children were tested using the Weschsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence to examine the effect of IQ on perceived playfulness. Fathers‘ ratings of playfulness were correlated with paternal ratings of approachability and maternal ratings of persistence. Mothers' ratings of playfulness were correlated with maternal ratings of persistence and adaptability and paternal ratings of persistence. Distractibility, intensity, and threshold were correlated with parental ratings of externality. No correlations were found between parental ratings of playfulness or externality. IQ scores were found to have no significant relationship to parental ratings of playfulness and temperament. Playfulness is a construct distinct from temperament but which can be explained, in part, by temperamental traits which, like externality, detract from the child's propensity to enter into a playful dispositional state. Externality seems to overlap with certain temperament traits which describe the child's propensity to react in particular ways to the context. Future experimental research is needed to assess the contextual influences on playful dispositions. Observational and interview data are also needed to assess whether parental differences in playfulness ratings are attributable to differential perceptions or to contextual variables or to an interaction between the two. / Ph. D.

This study gives the activities of two groups of preschool children during the morning session of a nursery school. Purpose: the purpose was 1) to perfect a reliable technique for measuring the behavior of nursery school children; 2) to record and analyze the behavior of the entire group of children enrolled at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute in the winter quarter of 1943; 3) to compare the behavior of five of the nursery school children in 1942 with their behavior in 1943. Subjects: Fourteen children of preschool age enrolled at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute during the winter quarter of 1942 and the winter quarter of 1943, were subjects. The behavior of five of these children was studied during both of these periods. Methods, definitions, and procedure. The observational methods and definitions of behavior used by Neidengard (6) in 1942 were followed in this study. Two observers, who previous to the study had achieved percentage of agreement, recorded for five minutes at a time the behavior of a single child, rotating observations from one child to another until three hours had been secured for each of ten children. This material was studied by the analysis of variance method. The data for the five children in 1942 was taken from Neidengard’s original material. / M.S.

An epidemiological survey of the frequency and severity of aggressive and disruptive behaviors found in elementary school classrooms was conducted. One hundred and forty regular education and special education teachers from the area surrounding Tucson, Arizona rated 12 classroom behavior problems for 3,135 male and female, Anglo and Hispanic students. Teachers' ratings were found to differ according to student ethnicity and gender. Anglos were rated as displaying more severe behavior problems in the classroom than Hispanics and males were rated as displaying more severe behavior problems than females. Consistent with these findings, different factor structures were identified for teacher ratings of male and female, and Anglo and Hispanic students. Implications of these findings for educators, administrators, and school psychologists are discussed.

The aim of my DPhil is to identify educational practices predictive of students' self-regulation development during early childhood. Specifically, I will analyze the Tools of the Mind preschool curriculum (Tools), which emphasizes students' self-regulation cultivation as its paramount aim. Since its development in 1993, Tools has spread to schools in the United States, Canada, and South America. In the face of Tools' proliferation, two questions emerge: does Tools significantly improve children's self-regulation skills? And, if so, then which of its effective elements could be applied across various educational contexts? This dissertation contains two studies. In the first, I will systematically review extant Tools research and then execute a multilevel meta-analysis of the quantitative results. Study one serves three purposes: 1) to identify all studies in the existing Tools evidence base, 2) to estimate an aggregate curricular effect, and 3) to determine how that effect varies across contexts and student characteristics. Thus, study one will assess whether Tools, at the curricular level, improves students' self-regulation. By contrast, study two will involve more granular analyses of the discrete learning activities that collectively comprise Tools. Specifically, study two will analyze child-level self-regulation and teacher-level Tools implementation data for 1145 preschool children in 80 classrooms across six American school districts. I will employ multilevel structural equation models to assess which Tools activities are associated with students' self-regulation growth, which are associated with decline, and which exhibit no association at all. Ultimately, this dissertation features the first Tools meta-analysis as well as the first analysis of specific Tools instructional activities. It is hoped that these analyses will identify educational practices predictive of self-regulation development both within and beyond the Tools curricular context.

This study examined the extent to which mothers of children with and without otitis-media histories differ in their perceptions of children's social behavior. Twenty-three mothers, each with two children aged 2 1/2 to 9 (30 boys, 16 girls) participated. Mothers' average age was 34. Two-thirds were full-time homemakers. Most belonged to middle-class Anglo socioeconomic status. Early recurrent otitis media (EROM) children (n = 27) had had four or more episodes before age 2 and a first episode before age 1. Mild or no otitis media (MNOM) children (n = 19) had had either fewer than four episodes before age 2 or none before age 1. Mothers rated children's social behaviors on the two-part Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory. Its intensity scale score represented frequencies with which a child showed any of 36 behaviors. Its problem scale score was the number of behaviors a mother perceived as a problem for her. Intensity scale score means did not differ significantly for EROM and MNOM children [F(1, 44) = 1.56, p ≥ .05], suggesting no differences in the frequency of occurrence of problem behaviors for the two groups. Problem scale score means differed significantly [F(1, 44) = 5.46, p < .05], suggesting that mothers perceived more behavioral problems in EROM than in MNOM children. Thirteen EROM children had conduct problems (scores above either scale's cutoff), versus two MNOM children. A significant relationship between otitis-media history and conduct problems was shown by a chi-square test [χ² (df=1)= 5.57, p < .05 . Children's age, sex, and birth order did not influence mothers' ratings. Mothers' general anxiety, measured by the Anxiety Scale Questionnaire, influenced their ratings of children's social behaviors on each individual ECBI scale, but did not have an effect after children were described as having conduct-problem or normal behavior. EROM children were rated as having conduct problems significantly more often than were MNOM children. The findings have restricted generalizability, but suggest that psychologists, pediatricians, and speech/hearing pathologists and clinicians may need to help mothers reduce children's conduct problems related to early otitis media.

Thesis (J.C.L.)--Catholic University of America, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-55).