The purposes of the present study were to develop a Cognitive Strategy Scale, and to investigate its reliability and validity.  In Study 1, undergraduates (N=352) completed the Cognitive Strategy Scale.  A factor analysis revealed that the 20 items of the Cognitive Strategy Scale comprised 4 factors: Failure expectation and reflection, Past experience, Success reflection, and Plan reflection.  In Study 2, undergraduates (N=126) completed the Cognitive Strategy Scale and 2 related scales: a cognitive reflection-impulsivity scale and an optimism-pessimism scale.  The Cognitive Strategy Scale was shown to have high internal consistency and test-retest reliability; the results also suggested that the Cognitive Strategy Scale had high concurrent validity.  Study 3 investigated the applicability of the Cognitive Strategy Scale.  The responses of 206 undergraduates on the Cognitive Strategy Scale indicated “defensive pessimism”, “real pessimism”, “real optimism”, and “low meta-cognition”.  The features of each group were the same as had been found in previous research.  These findings suggest that the Cognitive Strategy Scale has good predictive validity when used to prescreen research participants.

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  In the present study, a calculation method was suggested for capture rate, which is an index that stands for the number of kinds of ideas that have been collected in free description data.  The DeLury method, a popular calculation method for estimating biological populations, was used to calculate a parameter that estimated the number of kinds of ideas.  In addition, by using phantom variables, it was shown that this method can be used in structural equation modeling.  Free description data from a university class evaluation coded by the KJ method were used for the analysis, and the capture rate was calculated.  The results indicated that this his method revealed more than 80% of the kinds of ideas.

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  The purpose of the present study was to develop a scale to classify different kinds of interests in science, and to examine the features of those kinds of interests.  Students in grades 5-10 (N=1,998) completed questionnaires.  Exploratory factor analysis revealed 6 factors: experience-based interest (e.g., “because we can use various instruments”), amazement-based interest (e.g., “because there are times when I’m surprised by the results we get in experiments”), accomplishment-based interest (e.g., “because I feel happy when I solve the questions and problems we get in class”), knowledge acquisition-based interest (e.g., “because I can learn about various kinds of things”), thought deepening-based interest (e.g., “because I can make my own predictions”), and daily life-related interest (e.g., “because it is connected to our own lives”).  The results also showed that the means for the thought deepening-based and daily life-related interests were lower than those for the other kinds of interests, although the former kinds of interests were found to relate to the use of deep-processing learning strategies and spontaneous learning behavior.

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  The present research examined mother-child discrepancies in reports of the children’s close relationships, as well as whether the discrepancies reported relate to the children’s well-being.  Participants were 337 mother-child pairs (the children were in elementary school grades 2-6 ; 47% were girls).  The children and their mothers reported on the content of the children’s close relationships, using the Picture Affective Relationships Test.  The children also completed the Kid-KINDL^R Quality of Life Questionnaire, which measures children’s well-being.  The findings indicated that (a) although both the mothers and the children nominated many different kinds of significant others, the mothers reported more kinds than the children did; (b) the mothers nominated “the mother figure” more often and rated that as more important than the children did, especially in core psychological functions; (c) when affective types were identified in terms of the most dominant figure, 58% of the mothers reported their child as being a “mother” type, whereas 24% of the children did; and (d) the reported mother-child discrepancies were inversely related to the children’s quality of life (QOL) scores.  The meaning of mother-child discrepancies was discussed.

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  The purpose of the present study was to examine the approach of school counselors (SCs) in supporting collaboration between school teachers and guardians of elementary school children with developmental disabilities.  From semi-structured interviews with 17 school counselors, 30 examples of such collaborations were obtained.  The interview data were analyzed using grounded theory.  From a 4-step analysis, 5 hypotheses and models were generated.  In light of those hypotheses and models, the school counselors’ approach was defined as prioritizing the growth of the child, while considering the diverse opinions of the child’s guardian and school teachers.  Moreover, the viewpoints of the guardians and school teachers interacted.  The school counselors’ role with respect to guardians included understanding guardians’ needs, support, and following guardians’ fluctuations.  The school counselors’ role with respect to school teachers included backup and advice with respect to other institutions.  The connections of guardians and school teachers were classified into communication, child-understanding, and consideration of both sides, and the relationships of these were also discussed.  Limitations of the models generated from these data from interviews with school counselors were also considered.

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  Children sometimes mistakenly attribute tasks performed by adults in joint activities to themselves, and proclaim, “I did it.”  This phenomenon is related to children’s learning through joint activities, but it is not known what kind of collaborative interactions affect these misattributions.  The present study investigated specific interactions that may lead to misattributions to the self by analyzing utterance contents and sequences.  Collaborative question games using a picture book were completed independently by 40 adult-kindergarten child dyads (mean age of children: 5 years 6 months).  Transcripts were created and analyzed for 39 of the pairs (one pair had to be omitted due to technical difficulties).  In the utterance characteristics analysis (Analysis 1), the children did not make “I did it” errors (IEs) when their own interpretations of the story were difficult to share with the adult, or when there were frequent pauses during which no one spoke. The children tended to make “I did it” errors when they constructed an utterance sequence that responded concretely to the adult’s questions or indications of the story characters’ feelings (Analysis 2).

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[in Japanese]

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