Third-grade Boys Research Articles

A Creative Strengths-Based Group Counseling Intervention for African American Boys

ABSTRACT The primary purpose of this article is to provide an overview of a strengths-based group counseling intervention based on the Achieving Success Everyday Group Model which was implemented with African American third-grade boys who needed to attend summer school in order to transition successfully to fourth grade. The intervention resulted from the partnership between a counselor education faculty member and a small charter school’s school-counseling supervisor in the northeast U.S. The group leaders’ and participants’ reported experiences indicating reinforced basic reading and writing skills among students. Finally, based on the feedback implications for training, practice, and research are provided.

스마트폰 과의존 아동에 대한 가정기반의 긍정적 행동지원 효과: 스마트폰 과의존 문제행동 및 자기관리기술을 중심으로*

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of home-based positive behavior support on problem behavior and self-management skills in children who rely on smartphones. The subjects of the study conducted individualized positive behavioral support for two third-grade boys and one girl using probe design across subjects. It provided positive home-based action support after establishing functional behavior assessment, background/precedence strategy, alternative behavior teaching strategy, and follow-up outcome strategy within the evening and time of families, a natural environment where smartphone overdependent behavior is frequently occurring. As a result, individualized positive behavior support at home increased self-management skills acquired during the intervention and reduced problem behavior in target children. The limitation of the study was discussed and future direction has been suggested.

Friends and authors: Spontaneous co-composing in a writing workshop

In the mid-1980s, researchers began to study writers working in collaboration. Much of this research attended to what might be termed side-by-side composing: authors working on their own individual pieces and discussing them with others as needed. Others have studied co-composing—that is, multiple authors crafting a single text—describing the various aspects of these collaborations and their constraints and affordances. Nevertheless, few of these researchers have examined settings in which children spontaneously undertake co-composing. The study described here is a case analysis of a group of third-grade boys who chose to work together to write a superhero story over a period of six weeks. Mobilizing Bakhtin’s construct of heteroglossic discourse, the study explores interactions among the authors and aspects of their final product. Classroom observations, audio-recordings of co-composing sessions and student interviews, as well as the finished text served as the triangulated data for the study. Analysis showed that both the students’ interaction and the text that resulted from it was multi-voiced in nature. I argue here for a Writing Workshop model that foregrounds student choice and agency, rather than asserting that procedures are the primary drivers of success. In the context described here, such a model allowed students in this classroom to follow their own interests and work with peers who were supportive of those interests.

Children's sleep and cognitive performance: a cross-domain analysis of change over time.

Relations between changes in children's cognitive performance and changes in sleep problems were examined over a 3-year period, and family socioeconomic status, child race/ethnicity, and gender were assessed as moderators of these associations. Participants were 250 second- and third-grade (8-9 years old at Time 1) boys and girls. At each assessment, children's cognitive performance (Verbal Comprehension, Decision Speed) was measured using the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities, and sleep problems (Sleepiness, Sleep/Wake Problems) were collected via self-report. Individual growth models revealed that children who reported increases in Sleepiness exhibited little growth in Verbal Comprehension over time compared with their peers who reported decreases in Sleepiness, resulting in a nearly 11-point cognitive deficit by the end of the study. These associations were not found for Sleep/Wake Problems or Decision Speed. Child race/ethnicity and gender moderated these associations, with Sleepiness serving as a vulnerability factor for poor cognitive outcomes, especially among African American children and girls. Differences in cognitive performance for children with high and low Sleepiness trajectories ranged from 16 to 19 points for African American children and from 11 to 19 points for girls. Results build substantially on existing literature examining associations between sleep and cognitive functioning in children and are the first to demonstrate that children's sleep trajectories over 3 waves were associated with changes in their cognitive performance over time.

Reading Motivation: Exploring the Elementary Gender Gap

In an attempt to more clearly understand the erosion of motivation in some readers, a number of researchers (Mohr, 2006; Smith & Wilhelm, 2002) and organizations (The Education Alliance, 2007) have called for the investigation of gender differences in all readers, including young children. Consequently, this study focused on younger, average achieving readers. Specifically, 288 third-grade average readers were studied. Two constructs consistent with expectancy-value theory (Eccles, 1983), self-concept as a reader and value of reading, were examined. The results suggest that third-grade boys and girls who are average readers are equally self-confident about their reading ability; however, boys value reading less than girls. This finding sheds new light on the complexities of motivation and gender differences.

The Medical College of Georgia FitKid Project: the relations between program attendance and changes in outcomes in year 1

To investigate the relations of attendance of children in an after-school physical activity (PA) program to changes in body composition and cardiovascular fitness (CVF). Eight-month after-school PA-based intervention. In all, 278 third-grade boys and girls from nine elementary schools (age, 8.7 y (s.d. = 0.6 y), body mass index (BMI) 19.1 kg/m2 (s.d. = 4.4) and percent body fat (%BF) 26.0 (s.d. = 9.0)). Body composition (from dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry), BMI (from height and weight), waist circumference (WC) and CVF (from the YMCA submaximal bench-stepping test). There was a significant negative linear trend between level of attendance in the after-school program and change in %BF and fat mass; there was also a significant positive linear trend between program attendance and change in CVF. There was a marginally significant linear trend between program attendance and fat-free mass. Greater increases in bone mineral density were observed with higher program attendance. Changes in BMI and WC were not influenced by program attendance. Understanding the dose-response effect of PA on health outcomes, particularly body composition, in children is crucial in our effort to prevent overweight and its health consequences. Since there is limited data available to base PA dose recommendations for youths, findings from this study are relevant, and suggest that greater health benefits can be obtained in young children with more frequent participation in PA.

Effect of Children's Perceived Rejection on Physical Aggression

This study investigated whether the perception of self as socially rejected might contribute to increased physical aggression among elementary-school children. It was hypothesized that physically aggressive children would become more physically aggressive over time if they perceived that they were rejected and tended to blame peers for social failure experiences. Third-grade boys and girls (n = 941) were assessed in the Fall and Spring of the school year. Peer-report data on physical aggression and social preference were collected, along with self-report data on perceived rejection and attributions for social failure experiences. Results for boys were consistent with hypotheses, whereas the results for girls revealed a different pattern of relations. These results constitute prospective evidence that children's self-perceptions of social rejection can uniquely influence externalizing behavior. Results are discussed in terms of mechanisms that might mediate the relation between perceived rejection and physical aggression.

The Relationship of Art Instruction, Grade-Level, and Gender on Third- and Seventh-Grade Student Drawings

This study examines the development of thematic and observational drawings among third and seventh graders. Students in one school received formal art instruction, while students in the other did not. The drawing factors (thematic and observational) were compared according to grade factors (third and seventh), instruction factors (present or absent), and gender factors (female and male). The Gestalt Holistic Assessment (GHA) was used to rate drawings. Findings on the factors of instruction by drawing and gender by drawing show possible trends toward significance. The gender by grade factor for all drawings produced a significant difference, statistically confirming trends previously reported by Brewer (1995) concerning diminishing female achievement from third to seventh grade. A Tukey Simple Effect Analysis was employed to better understand scoring variations for gender and grade by drawing task. On both tasks, but significantly on the thematic, third-grade boys scored lower than third-grade girls. Third-grade boys also scored significantly lower than seventh-grade boys on both drawings. Thematic drawing results show that seventh-grade girls' scores were slightly lower than both their seventh-grade male classmates and the third-grade girls. This trend deepened on the observational drawing, where seventh-grade girls scored significantly lower than seventh-grade boys and significantly lower than the younger third-grade girls.

Preschool Experiences of Advantaged Children

Experiences of advantaged children were examined among 85 kindergarten, 72 first-grade, 61 second-grade, and 66 third-grade boys and girls. Preschool and nonpreschool/nonday-care groups scored significantly higher on academic self-esteem than a day-care group. The preschool group scored higher on CTBS Mathematics than the other two groups, and the preschool and day-care groups had significantly fewer absences in public school than the nonpreschool/nonday-care group.

On the relation between social information processing and socially competent behavior in early school-aged children.

This article tested the hypotheses that (1) children's behavioral competence is a function of patterns of social information processing; (2) processing correlates of behavior occur at each of 5 steps of processing within each of 3 social situations; (3) measures at each step uniquely increment each other in predicting behavior; (4) the relation between processing and behavior is stronger within than across domains; and (5) processing patterns are more sophisticated among older than younger children and the processing-behavior relation is stronger among older than younger children. Videorecorded stimuli were used to assess processing patterns (encoding, interpretational errors and bias, response generation, response evaluation, and enactment skill) in 3 domains (peer group entry, response to provocation, and response to authority directive) in 259 first-, second-, and third-grade boys and girls (ages 6-9 years). Ratings of behavioral competence in each domain were made by peers and teachers. Findings generally supported hypotheses, with the magnitude of relations being modest.

Body satisfaction and self-concept of third- and sixth-grade students.

Pubertal development has been implicated as the point of origin for decreased body satisfaction and self-concept for girls from prepubertal levels and an increase in body satisfaction and self-concept for boys. Two groups of boys and girls in Grades 3 and 6 completed a Body Satisfaction Questionnaire and the Piers-Harris Self-concept Scale to test this assumption. The third graders were considered to be prepubertal and sixth graders as early pubertal. The sixth-grade boys scored lower on body satisfaction than third-grade boys, and their self-concept scores were positively correlated with body satisfaction scores. For girls, body satisfaction scores were correlated with self-concept in both grades, and few significant differences were found between grades. For girls apparently the relationship between body satisfaction and self-concept may be present before the onset of puberty.

Peer Status and Aggression in Boys' Groups: Developmental and Contextual Analyses

The social transactions of popular, rejected, neglected, and average first- and third-grade boys were examined during their initial encounters with peers. 23 groups of 5 or 6 boys each were observed for 45-min free-play sessions conducted on 5 consecutive days, with sociometric interviews following each session. Social preference in the play groups correlated significantly with classroom social preference after the third and subsequent play sessions for the third graders, and after the fourth and subsequent sessions for the first graders. The observational coding system distinguished 4 types of aggressive behavior that were hypothesized to relate to peer status in different ways. The first, rough play, was not related to peer status. However, rejected boys at both ages displayed significantly higher rates of angry reactive aggression and instrumental aggression than average boys. The relation between bullying and peer status varied with the age of the child. Popular first graders engaged in more bullying than average first graders, but popular third graders did not differ from average in bullying. Other questions concerned the temporal relation between play group behaviors and social preference scores within the group. Socially interactive behaviors anteceded high preference by peers, and low preference in turn led to social isolation in subsequent sessions.

The development of moral orientation in elementary school children

While much research has focused on issues of justice in children's moral learning, little is known about children's use of other moral orientations in solving moral problems. A study was conducted with children drawn from Grades 1, 3, and 5 (total n=54). Fables were used as the moral dilemmas, since previous research had shown that they could be solved from either a justice or a care orientation. In individual interviews, children were asked how they would solve the problems in the fables, whether there was a different solution, and what the best solution (justice or care) would be. They were then asked to explain the logic of the solution they offered. The results from the study showed that (a) children tended to adopt a care orientation as their first solution and to consider it the best solution, (b) there were no differences between first- and third-grade boys and girls, (c) solutions involving violence and tricks appeared among the fifth-grade boys only, and (d) the ability to explain the logic of both orientations to the fables problem was correlated with children's use of abstract reasoning skills on beginning formal operational tasks and with perspective-taking ability.

Social Reasoning and Social Behavior in Reflective and Impulsive Children

Forty-one reflective and forty-five impulsive third-grade boys were administered a social reasoning task. Impulsives chose assertive responses to conflicts less often than reflectives. However, no style group differences were found for other types of self-rated responses or for teacher and male peer ratings of social behavior. Impulsives were rated by their female peers as more physically aggressive on the playground and more verbally aggressive, likely to leave social conflicts, and assertive in the classroom. Highly reliable group differences were found for the teacher, peer, and experimenter ratings of motivation, with impulsive being rated as less motivated than reflectives. The fact that impulsives demonstrated maladaptive social behavior and inadequate motivation, in spite of their adequate social reasoning, is noteworthy. These findings, supported by a growing body of research, imply that the traditional social cognitive skill deficit model of maladaptive behavior is inadequate. As well, they suggest that control deficits (e.g., impulsivity) and production deficits (e.g., low motivation) merit consideration in our treatment of maladaptive behavior in general and impulsivity in particular.

The Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test as a measure of field-dependence/independence.

This paper describes the use of the Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test as a valid and reliable measure to assess field-dependence/independence of 240 first- and 240 third-grade pupils. Scores on the Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test were correlated .95 and .87 with scores on the Articulation of the Body-Concept Scale for the first-grade girls and boys and .94 and .97 for third-grade girls and boys. Scores were also correlated with those on the Children's Embedded Figures Test. Correlations between the Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test and the Children's Embedded Figures Test were of similar magnitude to those between the Articulation of the Body-concept Scale and the Children's Embedded Figures Test.

Reliability of the Raven coloured progressive matrices for Anglo and for Mexican-American children

The present study investigated the internal consistency reliability estimates of the Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM) for Anglo and Mexican-American third-grade boys from low socioeconomic status background. The results showed that the reliability estimates of the CPM for the two ethnic groups were acceptably high and extremely similar in magnitude. In light of these findings, plus previous cross-cultural reliability studies of the CPM, it appears that the CPM is a promising nonverbal intelligence measure when used with children of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

The effects of reward on tutor's behaviors in a cross-age tutoring context

Utilizing a cross-age tutoring context, this study examined the effects of reward on the teaching behaviors of the tutor, the tutor's subsequent motivation to continue to teach during a free choice period, and the social interaction between a tutor and a tutee. Third-grade boys and girls ( n = 96) who exhibited a positive reinforcement style were asked to teach six addition problems to a first-grade boy or girl ( n = 96). The children were randomly assigned to pairs and to one of the three reward conditions. In the performance-contingent reward condition, the tutors were promised a toy if the first-grader learned all of the arithmetic problems. In the noncontingent reward condition, the tutors were promised a toy for teaching the first-grader. In the no reward condition, the tutors taught the first-grader without promise of a toy. The results indicated that the social interaction was rated lower for the children in the performance-contingent group and that the tutors in this group spent less time teaching during the free choice period. However, neither the tutor's teaching style nor the tutee's post-test performance was adversely affected by the reward.

The Effects of Self-Monitoring on Children's Classroom Behavior

A multiple baseline design across three third-grade boys was used to determine the effectiveness of self-monitoring as an intervention tool in the classroom setting. The differential effectiveness of self-monitoring the correctness of answers to arithmetic problems and of self-monitoring on-task behavior was determined by an alternating-treatments design for each boy. Self-monitoring academic accuracy or on-task behavior produced comparable effects. Self-monitoring increased on-task behavior for all three subjects. Self-monitoring increased the rate of completion of arithmetic problems for two of the three subjects. Self-monitoring did not affect academic accuracy in a consistent manner. These results are discussed in light of the instruction and motivational aspects of self-monitoring.

Evidence for Perceptual Influences in Understanding Liquid Level Invariance

Abstract The possibility of perceptual distortions that make truly horizontal liquid surfaces appear oblique was investigated for 60 third-grade boys and girls. The study sought to determine whether perceptual distortions might be responsible for the slow development of liquid level invariance. Controls were introduced to insure that children could perceive and reproduce horizontals in nontilted containers. Perceptual illusions, creating the impression of an oblique liquid surface rather than a true horizontal one, were prevalent at four angles of orientation (45, 70, 110, and 135 degrees), but not in the upright position (0 degrees). Moreover, evidence for an orientation × container interaction was obtained. Results are useful in accounting for the slow growth of knowledge about the principle of liquid level invariance in stationary containers, and for the fact that sizeable numbers of adults fail to show full knowledge of the physical phenomenon.

Moral Judgments by Children of the Intentional Behavior of Friends and Strangers

Abstract Piaget's suggestion that cooperation influences the child's use of intention-ality was studied by testing 84 first-, second-, and third-grade boys and girls with modified moral judgment stories. Both friends and strangers were judged in the context of two different story types. It was expected that intentions would be utilized to a greater degree when judging friends owing to previous cooperative experiences with friends. A significant story character by story type interaction (p < .001) was found and indicated an apparent acceleration in the child's use of intentionality in stories where consideration of intentions lead to the less severe judgments of friends. Results were discussed in terms of the child's selective use of intentionality.