s of recent articles published in Teaching of Psychology TWO STUDIES OF READING COMPLIANCE AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS JOHN SAPPINGTON, KIMBERLY KINSEY, KIRK MUNSAYAC Senior psychology majors completed the Major Field Test in Psychology (MFT) produced by the Educational Testing Service as a component of programme assessment at James Madison University. We related MFT performance to student characteristics including academic success indicators and specific psychology courses completed. MFT performance strongly correlated with other measures of academic success such as Scholastic Assessment Test scores and grade point average. There was a weak but significant positive correlation between number of psychology courses completed and MFT score. Only 4 content courses appeared to improve MFT subtest scores: abnormal psychology, social psychology, biopsychology and counseling psychology. We discuss the use and interpretation of MFT scores for programme assessment and the implications of these findings for curriculum design, academic advising and preparation of students for the Graduate Record Examination Advanced Psychology Test. In Teaching of Psychology 29(4), 272 FACTORS INFLUENCING SELF-RATED PREPAREDNESS FOR GRADUATE SCHOOL: A SURVEY OF GRADUATE STUDENTS MATTHEW T. HUSS, BRANDY A. RANDALL, MARC PATRY, STEPHEN F. DAVIS, DAVID J. HANSEN Numerous studies have found a host of factors that are likely to result in more successful applications to graduate schools. This study was a retrospective examination of the variables that distinguish graduate students who believed they were better prepared for graduate school. We examined several of these factors, including variables associated with undergraduate education and the individual for their relation to self-rated preparedness for graduate school. Our findings highlighted quality faculty interactions and participation in research as important factors in graduate students’ post hoc ratings of their preparedness for graduate school. We also found that different types of institutions differed in the degree to which these opportunities were available to or accessed by students. In Teaching of Psychology 29(4), 275 OPERANT CONDITIONING CONCEPTS IN INTRODUCTORY PSYCHOLOGY TEXTBOOKS AND THEIR COMPANION WEB SITES

Sex differences in math/spatial performance demand explanations. Within the biological view, the complexity and number of variables make the explanation difficult at best. Laterality and age of pubertal onset have been investigated prominently in this context but rarely considered as interactions in the same study. Some 468 college subjects with SAT MATH (SAT M) scores were divided into 12 groups defined by sex, laterality, and age (early, middle, and late) of pubertal onset. Significant main effects for sex and age of onset emerged, as did an interaction between lateral preference and pubertal onset. Generally males outperformed females. The combination of maleness, sinistrality, and early maturation was associated with high SAT M scores. Sinistrality and late maturation among females predicted very poor math performance.

An archival study sampled personality test protocols with spontaneous handwriting specimens from 73 men and 168 women for signatures and scores on selected scales from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2. Judges applied a 5-point scale to sort signatures for tidiness. Interrater agreement was .93. The mean handwriting tidiness score for men was 1.8 and 2.8 for women, a significant difference of 1 point. Correlations between handwriting tidiness and MMPI-2 scores did not support the hypothesis that erratic handwriting is associated with pathology but scores for gender role correlated significantly with handwriting tidiness. Masculine Gender Role predicted sloppy penmanship and Feminine Gender Role predicted tidy writing, independent of the writers' biological sex.

College students resist required reading assignments. Likewise, faculty are reluctant to quiz on reading assignments for fear of evoking disapproval. Measurement of reading compliance allows instructors to demonstrate a connection between reading preparation and subsequent success on final exams. The first study suggested that self-reports of reading compliance are invalid because of distortion on the part of students. A separate archival study demonstrated utility of the initial surprise quiz in predicting scores on final exams. Instructors might consider surprise quizzes to reinforce effort, illustrate practical benefits of reading preparation, and emphasize students' responsibility in the learning enterprise.

Students in a research methods course watched episodes of Star Trek (Coon & Roddenberry, 1967)and Star Trek: The Next Generation (Roddenberry, 1990) as an exercise to empirically test the validity of personality impressions, demonstrating the use of operational definitions, interobserver reliability, and behavioral observation. The students first viewed episodes to identify contrasting personality characteristics between 2 Star Trek captains, then operationally defined these in terms of relevant, observable behaviors. To test the hypothesized personality contrasts, students observed the characters in different episodes, recording observations according to the operational definitions.

Scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 were correlated to identify which measures predicted depression among 219 women and 115 men. Despite prevalence data indicating that dysphoria is more common among females than males, sex did not predict MMPI-2 Depression scores in this sample. Masculine Gender Role was negatively predictive of depression for both sexes. High scores on Feminine Gender Role were slightly predictive of depression among men but not among women. An effective strategy for coping with depression involves managing stress causing circumstances as opposed to managing the feelings that result from stress. Persons of either sex who score high on Masculine Gender Role endorse traits that are compatible with the better strategy.

Separate bodies of research suggest that performance in spatial reasoning covaries with gender and with gender role. Typically studies employ a spatial task whose variance is then used to account for differences in scores between gender groups or variance in a measure of gender role. A methodological issue in such research is that the tasks used to represent spatial reasoning may be differentially available or differentially appealing as a function of gender. Also, authors tend to analyze data in terms of either gender or gender role but rarely both. A collection of personality assessments administered to 204 college students each contained a completed Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) and a drawing of a human figure. Within MMPI-2 are three measures of gender role. Drawing talent is unquestionably spatial and has the advantage of being equally available and encouraged among the two genders. Male gender predicted drawing skill. Within both genders, self-perceived masculinity in gender role also predicted higher scores on the drawing skill. Outcomes are seen as compatible with Geschwind and Galaburda's 1987 formulation regarding the behavioral manifestations of fetal androgenization.

Among the hypotheses advanced to explain sex differences in math problem solving is the assertion that males are assisted by male-familiar item content and females by female-familiar item content. A 15-item test with parallel forms was constructed. Each form contained 5 male-familiar items, 5 female-familiar items, and 5 neutrally worded items. Male-familiar items on Form A were rephrased to construct the female-familiar items of Form B. Similarly, the female-familiar items of Form A were reconstructed as the male-familiar items of Form B. Neutral items were identically worded on the two forms. Thus, the items were equal with respect to the operations needed to solve them as well as the complexity of units and numerical relationships within them. Males outperformed females in all item conditions. The differences in observed summation scores were statistically significant between the two groups. Gender-familiar wording was unrelated to the outcome. The hypothesis that biased item wording contributes to gender differences in math problem solving was not supported.

The perceptual behavior of process and reactive schizophrenics under neutral and stress conditions suggests an hypothesis that the former employ a repressive ego defensive mode in these conditions while reactives employ a sensitization mode. The Repression-Sensitization scale of the MMPI was administered to a sample of hospitalized process and reactive schizophrenics to test the hypothesis. Scores of the process group did not indicate modal repression. Reactives' scores were, however, well toward the sensitization pole and significantly higher than those of the process group. Results support the concept of a sensitization defensive mode as a characteristic dimension in the etiology of reactive schizophrenia.

A fundamental canon of research design is the necessity of maximizing variance from a primary source—i.e., the independent variable. In personality research, where the independent variable is often a characteristic of subjects-e.g., age, sex, or birth order—the canon is observed by imposing control on sources of secondary variance—e.g., education, socioeconomic status, or other demographic variables. Thus, by matching demographic characteristics among control and experimental subjects, signal is enhanced at the expense of systematic but irrelevant secondary noise. Similarly, investigators, have applied the canon to schizophrenia research in which the goal is to assess psychological and physiological functioning in diagnosed psychotics as compared to nonpsychotic controls with irrelevant demographic input held constant. However, problems of a conceptual and a tactical nature arise when the process/reactive (P/R) continuum is applied in order to enhance signal reception within the larger category of schizophrenia . Conceptual difficulties proceed from the uncertainty as to what constitutes primary variance in P/R. Granted that subjects can be reliably designated process or reactive, the fundamental substrate of that distinction is, as yet, an empirical question. Tactical problems arise in the choosing of a measure to represent P/R in the experimental design and the kinds of experimental control that each measure logically requires.

30 process and 30 reactive schizophrenics were given aversive conditioning trials in which they were asked to determine the highest level of shock intensity they could tolerate. Results indicate that process schizophrenics, as a group, tolerate higher intensity than do the reactives. The outcome supports the notion that process types respond to external threat with reduced awareness while reactives remain acutely attuned.