This paper discusses the importance of assessing teachers’ attitudes to integration as one important step in preparing school systems for a move toward more inclusive modes of education. The Attitudes Toward Mainstreaming Scale (ATMS) of Berryman, Neal, and Robinson (1980) was translated into Chinese and the questionnaire completed by 310 Chinese secondary school teachers in Hong Kong. The Chinese Version of the scale (C-ATMS) was found to have adequate internal consistency. A principal components factor analysis with varimax solutions yielded three meaningful factors: 1. Presumption of Learning Capability; 2. General Integration Issues; and 3. Presumption of Limited Capacity. These three factors could reliably be reproduced in two separate sub-samples (guidance teachers and non-guidance teachers). Potential uses of the C-ATMS are discussed.

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The present study examines certain work variables (long work hours, autonomy, tedium and overload) in relation to women’s work-family conflict, and the extent to which spouse support acts as a moderating variable in this relationship. In a sample of 310 Malaysian women combining work and family, results of the regression analyses showed that long working hours and overload were positively related to work-family conflict after taking into account of race and occupational group. In addition, there was some support for the moderating effect of spouse support on the relationship between work variables and conflict. Significant interactions were observed between work hours and spouse support, and between autonomy and spouse support. Implications of these findings to married employed women are discussed.

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This study investigated how the variations of width-ratios of the gray test figure (TF) to the inducing figure (IF) in slanted stripe-patterns of Koffka-ring type influenced the shift of simultaneous brightness/hue assimilation and contrast. Subjects estimated the appearances of gray TFs in the five TF-to-IF width-ratios of stripes on the display using black-white (Experiment 1) and red-green (Experiment 2) IF-presentations. The results revealed that the magnitudes of brightness and hue contrasts in the TF increased as the TF-to-IF width-ratio decreased. A significant assimilation was not observed in the mean magnitudes of TF-appearance in the width-variations of stimulus-patterns. Consequently, the stimulus-patterns used in this study seemed to cause the subjects to perceive the brightness and hue contrasts throughout the width-variation. However, the tendency to assimilation in the larger TF-to-IF width-ratio was observed by the subjects who were more attentive to the pattern-location in their viewing style. Therefore, it may be postulated that the contrast is primarily affected by sensory (bottom-up) factors while the assimilation is affected by cognitive (top-down) factors in the brightness and hue information-processing.

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Two risk-taking measures (preferential choice question and willing to pay question) as well as two measures of the level of overconfidence (general knowledge question and peer comparison question) were designed to test whether the S21 and Kiasuism play a role in influencing Singaporeans’ decision-making. The overall results suggest that S21 give more risk seeking advice while kiasuism provide stronger overconfidence advice. The implications of these findings were discussed and compared, in some detail, with other existing evidence which revealed that (a) people in Asian cultures (e.g., Chinese) were more risk-seeking and more overconfident than people in other cultures (e.g., in United States) and (b) Singaporeans’ overconfidence level is comparable to Americans’ and lower than the other Asian subject groups like Indians, Taiwan Chinese and Mainland Chinese.

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Two experiments were performed to examine whether the perceptual grouping by shape similarity affected visual stream segregation (VISS), in which four lights appear to be a set of two apparent motion (streams) when flashed at a moderately fast rate. Sixteen undergraduates found the upper limits of the stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) for producing VISS under various conditions of arrangement of shape in four vertical positions. The experiments showed that the SOA was longer where the grouping by shape similarity was compatible with the original grouping of VISS than where there was no grouping due to shape. They also showed that the SOA was shorter where the grouping by shape was not compatible than where there was no grouping due to shape. The results indicate that, in addition to the flashing rate of the lights, the perceptual grouping is another important factor to produce VISS. They also show that VISS is a type of apparent motion affected by the perceptual organization among stimuli in the display.

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Previous research has shown that for self-estimates of overall IQ males rate their scores higher than do females (Beloff, 1992). More recent investigations have found that for estimates of specific intelligences, there are fewer gender differences (Furnham, Clark, & Bailey, 1999). This paper aimed to investigate the nature of estimates and gender effects in overall IQ and estimates on the 13 tasks from the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), using a sample of secondary school pupils and grades 10 to 12. Results showed higher male self-estimates for eight of these tasks, including arithmetic and comprehension. There were far fewer sex differences when estimating parental scores on the WISC scales or overall intelligences. The self-estimated WISC scores factored “correctly” into verbal and performance tasks. Regressions showed object assembly and arithmetic important predictors of the overall IQ estimate of self and parents. Results are discussed in terms of the salient literature in the field as well as the implications in educational settings.

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