English summaries (05/2011)
Associations of reading and math skills and reading and math self-concepts with children's sociometric status in the peer group
The present study investigated the associations of children's sociometric status with their academic skills and academic subject-specific self-concepts during their first school years. The study is part of the broader First Steps follow-up study in which children's learning pathways are studied from kindergarten to grade 4. The participants of this study were 274 children (139 girls, 135 boys), who were investigated during the years 2007-2009 when they were in kindergarten, grade 1 and grade 2. Children's reading and math skills and self-concepts of reading and math were measured at all three time points and their sociometric status was measured in grade 1. The results showed first that children who were readers already in kindergarten were more likely than other children to be popular in their peer group in grade 1. Compared to other children, popular children also had better reading and math skills in grade 1 and 2. Finally, sociometric status was related to the development of reading skills so that neglected and average children partly gained the level of reading skills of popular children by the end of grade 2. In turn, reading skills of rejected and controversial children developed more slowly than those of neglected and average children. The results suggest that positive peer relations can promote the development of children's academic skills.
Keywords: academic skills, reading skills, math skills, reading self-concept, math self-concept, peer relations, sociometric status
Conflicts in the workplace: Organizational injustice, emotions and behavioral responses to injustice
The aim of this cross-sectional study was to find out connections between injustice, emotions, empathy of the respondents and behavioral responses to injustice. In an open-ended question the respondents described an unfair situation at work. The following questionnaires were used: an organizational justice measure consisting of procedural, distributive and interactional justice items, a measure of emotions (16 emotions) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, which is a measure of empathy. The study consisted of 111 students (83 % female) from the Open University of Helsinki in the year 2008. The data was analyzed by using qualitative content analysis, explorative factor analysis, correlative analysis and variance analysis. Inner turmoil was felt the most, but in situations where the respondents had to challenge unfair action, they felt sad. However, the most common action was negotiation with the agents of the injustice. The main result of the multi-way analysis of variance showed an interactional effect of interactional justice and distributive justice on inner turmoil. In the organizational context management should consider the emotions of the employees because in the long term they cause harm to all agents.
Keywords: organizational (in)justice, emotions, empathy, responses to injustice
Comparison of the Finnish WAIS-R and WAIS-III versions
For practical reasons, one needs to assess the equivalence of the revised versions of established intelligence tests. The comparability of the Finnish version of the WAIS-III to the previous WAIS-R was studied in 125 subjects aged from 18 to 64 years. In the study population as a whole, discrepancy scores were less than one point in Full (FSIQ), Verbal (VIQ) and Performance (PIQ) IQ scales. However, there was a significant age-group effect on the discrepancy score in each of the scales, even after controlling for intelligence level, mental illness, order of administration and previous administration of Wechsler's Intelligence Scale. Subjects in age groups 18–19 and 20–24 years had higher FSIQ, VIQ and PIQ scores in the WAIS-III compared to the WAIS-R, whereas in all the older age groups the opposite was the case. The revised IQ test should give lower IQ values than the previous version, due to the Flynn effect. Our results suggest that in age groups 18 to 24 years WAIS-III IQs cores will be exaggerated from 7 to 11 points due to weaknesses in the normative data. This study highlights the importance of ensuring the representativeness of normative data in widely applied intelligence tests of this kind.
Keywords: WAIS-III, WAIS-R, intelligence, validity