Twenty-three pediatric residents reviewed slides of 15 children's genitalia (normal or abnormal) and were given either a specific or nonspecific history for sexual abuse. Results indicated that incongruency between patient history and physical examination negatively affected residents' ability to discriminate between abuse and nonabuse findings.…

Offers techniques to make book reports a more meaningful experience for students. Suggests guidelines for book selections and for what the students should look for in their reading. Lists alternatives to traditional book reports that allow an evaluative approach to reading and provide an opportunity for creativity and critical thought. (DK)

Presents results of study investigating cognitive strategies involved in the Kohs Block Design test. Reports that the study's purposes were to improve the distinction between syncretic and analytic strategies, match strategies with field dependence level, and assess metacognitive skills. Discusses findings of three strategies: syncretic, analytic,…

Reviews of multivocal literature are assessments of what can be learned from a given body of literature and assessments of the claims on which that knowledge is based. Methodological rigor is less likely to be a problem in such reviews than is lack of independent judgment. (SLD)

Compares the validity of principals' judgments and teachers' self-ratings in an extensively developed program (North Carolina's Teacher Performance Appraisal Instrument), using a high-inference rating scale. Results did not support using principals' judgments on high-inference items when global inferences on teacher effectiveness are desired.…

Explores how social-studies student teachers think about and write about history through an examination of their historical thinking, use of sources, and writing. Focuses on constructing historical accounts from multiple sources. Discusses common patterns in thinking and writing. Suggests way to improve student teachers' engagement with historical…

Reviews research focusing on problem-solving deficits and their relationship to suicidal behavior and considers some of the methodological problems that arise. Discusses findings in terms of active versus passive problem solving, state or trait factors, and the psychological processes underlying problem solving. (Author/JDM)

Examined elementary students' evaluations of decision-making procedures in different social contexts. Found that consensus was preferred in peer and family contexts and authority-based procedures were preferred for school curricular decisions. Older children were more likely than younger to consider how children's limited knowledge and competence…

This article presents the concept of knowledge discovery, a process of searching for associations in large volumes of computer data, as an aid to creativity. It then discusses the various techniques in knowledge discovery. Mednick's associative theory of creative thought serves as the theoretical foundation for this research. (Contains…

We describe a perceptual experiment that we have successfully used in Research Methods classes. Students attempt to identify a series of simple cookie cutter shapes using only the fingers and hands (haptic perception). Students read archival studies that have used this procedure, identify confounds, generate and test alternate hypotheses, and…

Despite the critical importance of maintaining a valid and transparent selection process that serves the values held by all stakeholders involved in medical education (i.e., students, faculty, society), there continue to be problems with the current state of available admissions protocols. Some problems derive from inertia induced by inaccurate…

Its proponents argue that the important cognitive effect of service-learning is increasing political knowledge. In this article, I enumerate additional skills of political thinking relevant to a civically engaged service-learning curriculum in political science. These skills include helping students: 1) develop interest in politics, 2) learn what…

Currently, there has been substantial interest, in Australia and internationally, in policy activities related to outcomes-based educational performance indicators and their link with growing demands for accountability of teachers and schools. In order to achieve a fair comparison between schools, it is commonly agreed that a correction should be…

Whether judgments made by complete strangers as to the intelligence of subjects are accurate or merely illusory was studied in Germany. Target subjects were 50 female and 50 male adults recruited through a newspaper article. Eighteen judges, who did not know the subjects, were recruited from a university community. Videorecordings of the subjects,…

This essay emphasizes a need for broad-minded constructivism which posits that individuals have coherent ways of understanding their world and that these understandings are structured and hierarchically organized. The meaning behind the term "co-construction," used in psychology, anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines, is…