In our session, we showcase work from a researcher-practitioner partnership between James Madison University, the University of Virginia, and Harrisonburg City Public Schools that is focused on developing a continuous improvement process to translate social-psychological interventions into teaching practices that enhance motivation and learning.…

Teachers tasked with developing moral character in future physicians face an array of pedagogic challenges, among them identifying tools to measure progress in instilling the requisite skill set. One validated instrument for assessing moral judgment is the Defining Issues Test (DIT-2). Based on the work of Lawrence Kohlberg, the test's main…

Computer-assisted testing is not without its problems and pitfalls, but it holds a great deal of promise as well. Computer administration of tests provides more control over the testing process than was ever possible with paper-and-pencil testing. At the same time it offers the possibility of being able to monitor and record aspects of the testing…

The problem of human response to loss is complex. To approach understanding of this process it is valuable to use a number of models. Phenomenologically the application of a temporal matrix divides the reaction into three useful heuristic and empirical stages: initial, acute grief (1-3 months); mourning (1-2 years); and post-mourning, with no set…

The author provides an overview of the people accepted into the National Program for Educational Leadership (NPEL). The candidates were examined through essays, references, interviews, and a battery of psychological inventories that examined intelligence, interests, and values. The characteristics of program Fellows are discussed, along with each…

If a therapist conceptualizes human behavior systemically, he may process information and devise therapeutic strategies from many different vantage points, ranging from the intrapsychic to the macrosystemic. Although psychodiagnostic examination of the individual has a long history in the field of psychology, and psychodiagnostics can greatly…

Independent evaluations are usually requested when a parent disputes the psychological evaluation of his or her child completed by school officials. These independent evaluations are comparable to a second opinion as found in other professions. However such evaluations are often fraught with problems, including qualifications of the examiner,…

This paper considers three clinical judgment biases in clinical inference: (1) illusory correlation bias, the report by clinicians of a correlation between psychodiagnostic test signs and patient's symptoms which are not correlated or are correlated to a smaller degree than that reported; (2) labeling bias, the tendency of exposure to diagnositc…

Increasing attention is being given to the psychometric adequacy of recently published structured child interviews. Three published child interviews, The Child Assessment Schedule (CAS), The Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents (DICA), and The Interview Schedule for Children (ISC) were evaluated in terms of the available evidence of…

The search for and generation of causal explanations required by the task of explaining an initial impression, appear to be sufficient to raise the subjective likelihood of the event explained and to result in the persistence of the initial impression. Generating supporting and counter arguments with respect to the event does not result in an…

Intended for school psychologists, the paper discusses current approaches to instrumentation in the standardized psychological schools. A framework is presented for the classification of assessment instruments, and examples of some currently employed instruments are provided along with a comparative analysis. Problems identified with existing…

Whether one is working with clients in a clinic or students in school, it is useful to have a psychological framework within which behavioral observations and diagnostic considerations can be integrated and understood. One such approach begins with the assumption that each person has: (1) a self (a sense of personal existence); (2) a self-concept…

While there have been few reports of psychological assessment of eating disordered patients, studies using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) to assess eating disordered subjects found that female anorexics had remarkably similiar profiles (score elevations of 70 or more) to female schizophrenics on the Depression (D),…

The goal of this study was to examine the complex interplay among family, neuropsychological, psychosocial, psychiatric, and immunological variables with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected homosexual/bisexual men and their families. The subjects were a broad spectrum of 29 outpatient HIV-infected homosexual/bisexual men between the ages…

In order to measure the effects of exposure to filmed violence, 40 third-grade boys and girls were shown two television excerpts. One-half of the group viewed a segment from a violent detective series; the other half saw an exciting but nonviolent segment from a major league baseball game. Immediately afterward, each child was asked to "babysit"…