Using selected research reports, personal correspondence with students and, my experience as a higher education administrator of a College in a Caribbean small islands state, I reflexively display the usefulness of a pastoral approach to student retention. Difficulties of employing the approach are also explored.

In this two-wave prospective study, the authors investigated whether level of dispositional affective empathy moderated the association between parental support and antisocial behavior in early adolescents. The sample consisted of 823 Dutch boys and girls (mean age = 12.8 years) enrolled in the first year of secondary education. Higher levels of…

Within a sample of 584 twins aged 12 to 25 months (292 pairs) studied longitudinally, positive affect measured through two laboratory pleasure episodes and maternal report at 12 and 22 months significantly predicted empathy-related helping and hypothesis testing assessed between 19 and 25 months. Girls showed significantly more concern than did…

In this article, we report on a study examining those factors which contribute to the mathematics performance of a sample of children aged between 8 and 13 years. The study was designed specifically to consider the potency of a number of mathematical affective factors, as well as background characteristics (viz., gender, ethnicity, and…

In, "Idiographic Filters for Psychological Constructs," Nesselroade, Gerstorf, Hardy, and Ram study patterns of variation within individuals. In this context they make an important suggestion: to test for invariant relations among latent variables, but to allow the relations between these latent variables and their indicators to vary between…

Callous and unemotional (CU) traits have been linked to severe antisocial behavior in youth, but studies examining the etiology of CU traits are lacking. Based on prior research, it was hypothesized that childhood anxiety and parenting practices would interact to predict changes in CU traits over time. Hypotheses were tested using a sample of 120…

Two studies addressed age- and gender-related patterns in early adolescents' and emerging adults' conceptions of intimacy in friendships. Forty-one early adolescents and 96 emerging adults in Study 1 and 174 emerging adults in Study 2 described a time when they felt especially close to a friend. Narratives were coded for intimate behaviors and…

This prospective investigation sought to discriminate children who were both aggressive towards and victimized by peers in the first grade, from those who were only aggressive, only victimized, or neither (i.e., socially adjusted), using early child and family risk factors. Two hundred thirty-eight children, their mothers, and teachers…

The present study investigated the family characteristics of bullies, victims, and positively behaving adolescents. The study was conducted in three elementary schools in Adana central province with students who were attending 6th-7th, and 8th grades. A who-is-who form prepared by the researchers was used for the determination of the family…

This 18-month prospective study investigated factors that contributed to changes in eating disorder symptoms among adolescents living in the People's Republic of China. Five hundred forty-one Chinese middle school and high school students (182 boys, 359 girls) completed measures of eating disorder symptoms; body dissatisfaction; appearance ideal…

This article focused on the investigation of the differences in the frequency of language learning strategy use by successful and unsuccessful first-year students of a Chinese university. The study found that successful students used a wider range of learning strategies for EFL learning significantly more frequently than unsuccessful students. It…

The study examined conflict and facilitation in work-family relations among working mothers of children with learning disorders (LD) or with typical development. The study also focused on three maternal personal resources (maternal anxious/avoidant attachment security, affect and sense of coherence) as antecedents of these work-family relations,…

It has been claimed that children's drawings following brief mood induction procedures differ in size depending on positive or negative mood. However there are conflicting findings in the field regarding the existence and direction of scaling changes. Such inconsistencies may be the result of methodological differences or may indicate that this…

In this commentary, Corno discusses Vollmeyer and Rheinberg's evidence from the perspective of related work in educational psychology. Relevant new terms provide background for understanding connections between the language used by Vollmeyer and Rheinberg and that of educational psychologists. The author uses results from research on teaching for…

Cup stacking has become commonplace in today's physical education nomenclature. Proponents make claims that cup stacking improves cognitive, affective, and psychomotor abilities. At physical education conferences, scores of professional physical educators eagerly watch cup stacking representatives construct and deconstruct a variety of pyramids…