The purpose of the present study was to examine relations between classroom disruption and students’ norm consciousness and their perception of other students’ norm consciousness.  After junior high school students (N=906) completed a questionnaire, the students and their classrooms were divided into 2 categories: students with or without problematic behavior, and classrooms with high or low levels of problematic behavior.  Comparison of the 2 categories of classrooms revealed that the students in the classrooms with high levels of problematic behavior had a more negative image of other students’ norm consciousness than did the students in the classrooms with low levels of problematic behavior.  However, no difference was found between the classrooms with high and low levels of problematic behavior in the norm consciousness of the students themselves.  It appears that perception of other students’ norm consciousness is related to classroom disruption, rather than to students’ own norm consciousness.  This suggests that, in order to prevent and solve classroom disruption, it may be important for students to communicate with each other so that they will know that other students think that their classroom is disruptive.

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  In the present study, which focused on prosocial behavior toward family, friends, and strangers, a prosocial behavior scale was developed that focused on the recipient of the prosocial acts.  A preliminary study done on the Internet confirmed the content validity of the prosocial behavior scale in terms of social value, which is one of the features of prosocial behavior.  In the main study, 4^th to 9^th grade students (N=1,093) completed the questionnaire.  Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the prosocial behavior scale consisted of 3 factors: prosocial behavior toward family, toward friends, and toward strangers.  In addition, confirmatory factor analysis showed that these factors were integrated into 1 higher factor, a personality of prosociality.  All the subscales had sufficient internal consistency and test-retest reliability, and corresponded to external criteria such as previously developed scales of prosocial behavior, empathy, self-consciousness, and school-life satisfaction.  Results of a two-way ANOVA revealed that, on the whole, the girls scored higher than the boys, and that the elementary school students scored higher than the junior high school students.  The availability of the scale and directions for future research on prosocial behavior were discussed.

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  The present study surveyed the current status of abnormal eating behavior among elementary and junior high school students, using a self-report questionnaire designed by the authors.  Valid responses were obtained from 4,952 students (2,511 boys and 2,441 girls) who were in elementary school grades 4 through 6, and in all 3 years of junior high school.  Confirmatory factor analysis of the questionnaire data supported a two-factor structure: “drive for thinness” and “bulimia”, and measurement invariance across gender, grade, and body mass index (BMI).  The scores on drive for thinness were higher for the girls than for the boys, especially in grades 8 and 9.  Although the score distribution for bulimia was similar across gender and grade, the girls’ scores increased slightly with grade.  Drive for thinness was more strongly correlated with depression than with aggression, whereas bulimia was more strongly correlated with aggression.  Both factors were correlated with academic performance problems and family relationships in both the boys and the girls, specifically with the boys’ peer problems and the girls’ student-teacher relationship problems.

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  In the present study, conditions governing undergraduates’ and graduate students’ preconceptions were investigated.  Additionally, the process of conceptual change, from preconception to scientific conception, was addressed.  In Study 1, 67 participants (21 men, 46 women; average age, 23.2 years) were asked to answer questions about mechanics.  The results indicated that most of the participants had preconceptions that did not correspond to the relevant scientific concepts.  For Study 2, teaching materials were created based on the results of Study 1 and on a model of conceptual change (Hashweh, 1986), and the 52 participants (13 men, 39 women; average age 23.8 years) who had not answered all the questions correctly in Study 1 were asked to read those teaching materials and answer questions.  For those questions for which the participants’ preconceptions were not very strong, their preconceptions changed to scientific ones as they related their preconception to the proposed new conception and reorganized their view.  In those questions where the participants had strong preconceptions, their preconceptions did not change to a scientific one, because they had doubts about the new conception or did not accept it, even though they were aware that their preconception was incorrect.  Rather, they merely reinterpreted their preconception and changed it somewhat.

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  The present study aimed to clarify relations between university undergraduates’ adjustment to school and their tendency of help-seeking styles and social support.  The participants, 270 undergraduate students, completed an 85-item questionnaire regarding adolescents’ subjective adjustment to school, friendship, help-seeking styles, and social support.  Cluster analysis of the results indicated that the students’ friendships could be categorized into 4 patterns: (a) adolescents who avoided relations with friends, (b) adolescents who were reserved about contacts with friends, (c) adolescents who were positive about relations with friends, and (d) adolescents who valued relations with friends.  Results of a structural equation modeling analysis suggested that different friendship patterns produced different results regarding relations between school adjustment and the tendency to use different help-seeking styles and social support.  For those adolescents who avoided relations with friends, higher social support made school adjustment lower, and a higher self-directed help-seeking style made school adjustment higher.  Moreover, for those adolescents who were reserved about contact with friends, higher social support made school adjustment higher.

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  The present study aimed to develop a new measure appropriate for assessing college students’ individual interests and to investigate change trajectories of their interest in their college major.  In Study 1, which had 202 participants, a Domain Learning Interest Scale for College Students was developed, consisting of 3 subscales: affect-related interest, value-related interest, and knowledge.  Reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s α.  Confirmatory factor analyses supported the 3-factor structure (N=288).  Positive correlations between intrinsic regulation, mastery goal, self-efficacy, and the Domain Learning Interest Scale for College Students provided evidence for the scale’s construct validity (N=268).  In Study 2, the latent curve model was used to analyze the longitudinal data obtained from 288 freshmen.  The results indicated a slow downward trend in affect- and value-related interest, but a relatively rapid upward trend of knowledge, with high variability in mean levels and changes in affect-related interest.  Gender differences in change trajectories were revealed in the value-related interest scores.  Implications for studying the development of students’ interests are discussed.

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  Narcissistic personality and social phobic tendency are similar to the sub-constructs of narcissistic personality disorder, and have characteristics in common with shame-proneness.  The present study investigated different effects of self-presentation motivation (praise-seeking and rejection-avoidance motivation) on emotions (shame, hostility, and depression) arising from failure, among groups in a two-dimensional model of social phobic tendency and narcissistic personality.  Undergraduates (N=368) completed a questionnaire.  Factor analysis of the data revealed that failure situations could be classified into 2 factors: “failures by themselves” and “pointing or reproach by others”.  In the “pointing or reproach by others” situation, the individuals with high narcissistic personality and those with high social phobic tendency showed rejection-avoidance motivation effects on depression, mediating shame at failure.  It was suggested that, in the individuals in which either narcissistic personality or social phobic tendency is relatively high, evaluation hypersensitivity may have strong effects on shame at failure, and that attributing failure to the general self may harm self-evaluation so severely that a deep depression may be brought about.

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  The present study investigated usefulness of the Multilayer Instruction Model-Progress Monitoring (MIM-PM) in mathematics.  Elementary school first graders (N=400) completed the instrument periodically during 1 year.  Analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated significant increases in their scores across time, and significant correlations between their scores on the Multilayer Instruction Model-Progress Monitoring in mathematics and on the Criterion References Test (CRT)-II in mathematics (Tatsuno & Kitao, 2011; in Japanese), suggesting the validity of the Multilayer Instruction Model-Progress Monitoring in mathematics.  The participants were divided into 3 groups based on their scores on the Multilayer Instruction Model-Progress Monitoring in mathematics and their existing reading scores as follows: those participants with difficulties only in mathematics (mathematics difficulties group, MD), the participants at or above the 50th percentile (high-achieving group, HA), and those participants with difficulties in mathematics and reading (low-achieving group, LA).  Scores on the Criterion References Test-II in mathematics were significantly different among the groups, with 5.15% of the participants having difficulties only in mathematics.  An ANOVA indicated significant main effects and interactions between “time” and “group”.  The mathematics difficulties and low-achieving groups did not show the constant and significant growth evidenced by the students in the high-achieving group.  It was concluded that the Multilayer Instruction Model-Progress Monitoring in mathematics may be able to identify students at risk for early learning difficulties in mathematics.

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  The present study explored whether children’s apologies are associated with feeling guilty, and whether the degree of guilt depends on whether the violation had been detected.  Participants were second-, fourth-, and sixth-graders (n=87, 86, and 79, respectively).  The results were as follows: (a) Feeling guilty enhanced the motivation to apologize to victims.  Those students reporting a higher degree of guilt indicated that they express their regret through apologies, whereas students reporting a lower degree of guilt chose the “selfish strategy” (i.e., an “ego trip”) on the “taking a victim’s property task”.  The children’s apologies were influenced by their feeling guilty, which is similar to previous results on the apologies of preschool children.  (b) On the “breaking a promise task”, most of the children indicated that they would apologize, regardless of whether or not they had a sense of guilt.  (c) On the “cheating task”, the group reporting a higher degree of guilt selected the prosocial strategy, whereas those reporting a lower degree of guilt chose the selfish strategy.  These results suggest that feeling guilty was viewed as one cause for apologizing when a victim’s property had been taken, but it did not promote apologizing when a promise had been broken.  In comparison, guilt appeared to play a critical role in motiving prosocial behavior, rather than an apology, in a situation in which no one knew about the perpetrator’s transgression (the cheating task).

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  The present study examined the process of modifying the listening behavior of junior high school students via learning to listen.  The intervention was focused especially on the students’ recognition of listening; it was hypothesized that this would improve their listening behavior.  The participants were 30 junior high school students (15 males, 15 females), each of whom had four 60-minute listening sessions.  Of those students, 14 who had taken part in all 4 sessions were interviewed individually after the final session.  Analysis of the interview results, based on a Modified Grounded Theory Approach, revealed 11 concepts and 6 categories, and showed 3 types of hypothetical processes that depended on the experiences of listening to others, being listened to by others, and observing others’ listening behavior.  Being listened to by others increased the students’ awareness of the meaning of listening much more than did listening to others or observing others’ listening behavior.  Furthermore, changes in the participants’ listening behavior resulted in other changes in their recognition of listening and in their developing positive relationships with their peers.

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