School Psychology International

It is desirable today that school psychologists, in addition to being concerned with student achievement, give consideration to important psychosocial aspects of classroom environments. This paper makes several economical hand-scorable classroom environment instruments readily accessible to school psychologists and provides an overview of numerous past uses of these instruments including studies of the effects of classroom environment on student outcomes, use of environment variables as process criteria in evaluating educational innovations and teachers' practical attempts to use learning environment assessments to guide improvements in classrooms. Some applications of classroom environment assessments in school psychology are considered.

A comparison was made between the causal attributions offered by fifty-two problem and fifty-six non-problem children of both sexes in relation to situations involving the success and failure of pupils on a number of classroom tests. The results confirmed some general findings of attribution research that effort is an important causal explanation and that success is attributed to internal causes while failure elicits more external responses. In addition different attribution patterns were found between achievement situations, consistent with earlier results. In contrast to previous studies, however, some expected differences between boys and girls and problem and non-problem groups were not confirmed. The usual finding that girls attribute successful outcomes to luck and neglect effort while at the same time attributing failure to lack of ability was not found. Also, an earlier report that problem children will be more external, unintentional and unstable in their pattern of attributions was not supported. The importance of interest as a causal explanation and the overriding effect of outcome in relation to pupils' attributions were significant findings in this study.

Psychologists, teachers and researchers have a common interest in understanding how students solve mathematics problems. We want, and need, to understand how solutions to problems are developed so that interactions with both successful and unsuccessful problem-solvers can become more effective. In order to build a more sophisticated understanding of problem-solving we must consider a number of major factors — the instructional setting, the nature of the problem-solver, the resources available, the structure of the mathematical content and the student's understanding of that, and the processes used in the solution. Also needed is a technique for identifying those processes in samples of students' mathematics performance. What we learn from using the technique influences the design of future instruction.

This study was designed to assess a model of the development of planning in writing skills. We also attempted to teach children (nine and twelve years old) how to plan before writing a composition. The model proved to be replicable, but the effects of training on planning could not be attained. We concluded that planning, so fundamental for adequate school behaviour, develops only through many years of practice. Short-term training can hardly elicit the reflective behaviour necessary for planning activities. Further we discuss the pitfalls of the training and suggest possible improvements.

The present study investigated the impact of familiarity with the school setting on kindergarten children's expectations of school and on adjustment of first graders to the school setting. The assumptions were that familiarity with the school setting would lead to a greater amount of valid information about school, which would decrease the anxiety of kindergarten children's role expectations of school. Previous exposure to the school setting would also lead to better adjustment in the first grade. Subjects were nineteen kindergarten children and twenty first graders from infant-school settings, and thirty-three kindergarten children and twenty-six first graders from regular educational settings, the sexes being evenly represented. All subjects came from middle socio-economic backgrounds. On the whole, the results corroborated the assumptions.

The Canadian English version of the International Study Skills Inventory was administered to classes of university and college students. Item factor analysis and correlational analysis of factors were performed. The factor structure was described and four factors in the Study Skills, Motivation, Creativity Scales were tentatively named. Suggestions for instrument improvement and further research were discussed.

The neurological basis of learning disabilities has been the focus of much debate for nearly a century. The precise neuroanatomical nature of the often subtle disturbances in behaviour that characterize this disorder has only recently begun to emerge. This article briefly reviews early conceptualizations of the neurological nature of learning disabilities and provides a current overview as to the neurodevelopmental pathology that is associated with the behavioural disturbance observed in these children. Since there is good evidence that the basis for severe learning disabilities is related to developmental neuropathology, it seems evident that learning disabilities should be found in children from diverse cultural and ethnic heritages. Other implications with regard to clinical and psychoeducational assessment as well as educational intervention are also addressed.

Using Maslow's (1973) Hierarchy of Basic Human Needs as an organizational scheme, this article offers an overview of interventions which are commonly used with visually impaired children. These strategies include: counselling parents to aid acceptance of their child, providing stimulation and enrichment to enhance psychological development, increasing visual efficiency, aiding orientation and mobility, decreasing undesirable behaviours, increasing social skills, fostering classroom acceptance, facilitating academic learning, and counselling the child to aid self-acceptance.