Higher education scholars and institutional researchers rely heavily on self-reported survey data in their work. This chapter explores problems associated with self-reports and provides questions and recommendations for their use.

Increased tobacco consumption, specially among adolescents and females, has been observed recently in Mexico. The goal of this study is to describe tobacco consumption and motives for use among university students. A descriptive cross-sectional study was performed using data provided by 282 students aged 15-24 studying at the University of…

This article written by Peter Lloyd Bennett, educational psychologist, and Carole Dyehouse, headteacher, provides a personal account of how one primary school responded to the death of a pupil. The authors describe the process by which bereavement within the school community became a valued learning opportunity within the school curriculum.…

This study examined relations among cortisol reactivity and measures of cognitive function and social behavior in 4- to 5-year-old children (N=169) attending Head Start. Saliva samples for the assay of cortisol were collected at the beginning, middle, and end of an approximately 45-min testing session. Moderate increase in cortisol followed by…

In a 3-wave longitudinal study (with assessments 2 years apart) involving 186 early adolescents (M ages of approximately 9.3, 11.4, and 13.4), the hypothesis that parental warmth/positive expressivity predicts children's effortful control (EC) (a temperamental characteristic contributing to emotion regulation) 2 years later, which in turn predicts…

A qualitative analysis of interview data with 41 rapists determined that five implicit theories (ITs) underlie rapists' offense supportive beliefs/feelings/motives: (a) dangerous world (DW)--where men have feelings of generalized anger and/or resentment toward others; (b) women are dangerous--where men hold a set of attitudes that are hostile…

Verbal and behavioral measures of children's knowledge are frequently dissociated. These situations represent a largely untapped but important resource for furthering an understanding of human cognition. In this paper, verbal-behavioral dissociations in children are discussed and analyzed, drawing from a wide range of domains. The article explores…

Although a number of studies have associated recasts with second language development, the actual mechanisms by which recasts work to impact learning are still little understood. In particular, researchers have sought to gain a deeper understanding of the connections among recasts, learners' responses to recasts, and subsequent development. To…

Ability estimates yielded by the one- (1PL), two- (2PL), and three-parameter (3PL) models and the nominal response model (NRM) were compared with the number-right (NR) scoring model using items not susceptible to test-wiseness (NTW) and items susceptible to the ID1 test-wiseness strategy. These items were contained in grade 12 diploma examinations…

Academics are reported to be working longer hours and have less time for research because of increasing administrative and teaching demands. The traditional pattern of the academic enterprise appears to have changed. To explore whether this is indeed the case, the Experience Sampling Method [ESM], a research technique devised by Mihaly…

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether playing a specific ball sport, such as tennis, could maintain the coincidence-timing (CT) performance of older adults at a similar level to that of younger ones. To address this question, tennis players and nonplayers of three different age ranges (ages 20-30, 60-70, and 70-80 years)…

The purpose of this study was to examine the linkages between alexithymia and delinquency in male adolescents (age ranging from 14 to 18 years), and to investigate whether alexithymia was a good discriminatory factor for juvenile delinquency. Thirty-six offender adolescents and 46 non-offender control adolescents participated in the study and…

In this article, the author responds to a teacher's question on a baby's behavior who keeps banging on his high chair and laughs uncontrollably. The author states that young children pay close attention to adult's emotional responses. Their lives depend on knowing the best ways to get positive or at least neutral responses from grown-ups in charge…

The relationship between verbal skills and retention among adolescents in substance abuse treatment is understudied. In order to assess verbal predictors of retention, twenty-eight 16-19 year old adolescents in a therapeutic community for substance abuse were evaluated between 30 and 90 days after admission. These adolescents were then followed…

In 43 countries, 199,097 fifteen-year-olds completed a reading comprehension test and a questionnaire. We analyzed the data using multilevel regressions of Rasch-estimated test scores to test the associations of gender and context on reading achievement among adolescents. In every country, girls outscored boys. Reading enjoyment mediated 42% of…