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We surveyed college students (N = 105) asking them to rate the importance of workplace skills as if they were responding as themselves, as their parents, and as future employers. We also asked participants to generate a list of skills they considered most important to develop in college, and to evaluate workplace behaviors for the likelihood of any of these resulting in termination of employment for new hires. Results revealed that college students perceived that the value they place on workplace skills matched more closely their parents' views than those of future employers. College students' list of skills considered important to develop in college was more focused on college success than career success. College students accurately identified five out of six behaviors most likely to lead to termination of employment for new staff (Gardner, 2007), but failed to identify inappropriate use of technology. These findings provide insight for faculty members who want students to succeed both at college and in their careers.

This study examined the suitability of a brief oral presentation exercise as an assessment method in biopsychology. Undergraduate students researched and presented a five-minute, self-selected fact related to course material, allowing them to practice oral communication skills, such as clearly explaining and carefully listening. Biopsychology students were compared to a similar group of students who did not participate in the brief oral presentation. When asked to rank potential class assignments, biopsychology students showed a stronger preference for oral presentations than did the comparison group. Biopsychology students expressed positive attitudes about the assignment and demonstrated learning related to the oral presentations. This exercise provided the additional benefits to the instructor of keeping the class content current and relevant to students.

Examines and compares student and faculty attitudes towards students missing classes and class attendance. Surveys undergraduate students (n=231) in lower and upper level psychology courses and psychology faculty. Reports that students found more reasons acceptable for missing classes and that the amount of in-class material on the examinations affected student attendance. (CMK)

Asserts that current animal research enables students to understand basic developmental principles. Presents results from a study that evaluated the content of 24 developmental textbooks published between 1995 and 2000, demonstrating that older studies are typically used. (CMK)

One group of bobwhite quail embryos (Colinus virginianus) was exposed to 10 min/hr of bobwhite chick contentment calls immediately followed by 10 min/hr of bobwhite chick distress calls. A 2nd group of embryos was exposed to the same auditory stimulation but in the opposite order of presentation. Postnatal testing revealed that chicks exposed prenatally to the bobwhite chick contentment call and distress call (in either order of presentation) continued to respond to maternal auditory cues into later stages of postnatal development compared with unmanipulated chicks. Chicks exposed prenatally to the contentment call followed by the distress call showed an accelerated pattern of visual responsiveness to maternal cues, whereas chicks exposed prenatally to the distress call followed by the contentment call showed deficits in the normal pattern of perceptual visual responsiveness, suggesting that the auditory stimulation precocial avian embryos encounter 1 st is influential in directing early intersensory development.

Unlike the other sensory modalities of precocial infants, the visual modality does not normally become functional until after birth or hatching. Despite this unique developmental status, the role of emerging visual experience on postnatal perceptual organization remains unclear. In this study, bobwhite quail hatchlings were reared in conditions that manipulated postnatal experience with maternal visual cues, either alone or in conjunction with maternal auditory cues. Results revealed that bobwhite chicks require postnatal exposure to both maternal auditory and visual cues following hatching to demonstrate species-specific perceptual preferences. Chicks that received temporally disparate maternal auditory and visual cues or experience with only maternal visual or maternal auditory cues failed to show species-typical perceptual responsiveness. These results suggest that developmental mechanisms involving both visual and auditory sensory experience underlie the emergence of early intersensory integration.

This study examined the effects of specific types of prenatal auditory stimulation on the auditory learning capacity of bobwhite embryos (Colinus virginianus) incubated in either communal or isolation conditions. Results revealed that socially incubated embryos could learn an individual bobwhite maternal call, whereas embryos denied physical and tactile stimulation as a result of isolation incubation failed to demonstrate prenatal auditory learning of the maternal call. In contrast, embryos exposed to bobwhite chick contentment calls in the period prior to hatching demonstrated prenatal auditory learning, whether they were incubated socially or in isolation. Socially incubated and isolation-incubated embryos exposed to bobwhite chick distress calls failed to learn the individual maternal call, indicating that the type of sensory stimulation the developing organism encounters prenatally is important in fostering normal perceptual learning ability.

ABSTRACT Species-typical developmental outcomes result from organismic and environmental constraints and experiences shared by members of a species. We examined the effects of enhanced prenatal sensory experience on hatching behaviors by exposing domestic chicks ( n = 95) and Japanese quail ( n = 125) to one of four prenatal conditions: enhanced visual stimulation, enhanced auditory stimulation, enhanced auditory and visual stimulation, or no enhanced sensory experience (control condition). In general, across species, control embryos had slower hatching behaviors than all other embryos. Embryos in the auditory condition had faster hatching behaviors than embryos in the visual and control conditions. Auditory-visual condition embryos showed similarities to embryos exposed to either auditory or visual stimulation. These results suggest that prenatal sensory experience can influence hatching behavior of precocial birds, with the type of stimulation being a critical variable. These results also provide further evidence that species-typical outcomes are the result of species-typical prenatal experiences. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 56: 935-942, 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Species-typical prenatal visual stimulation in avian species is a necessary component in the development of population level lateralized behaviors. This relationship suggests that species-typical developmental outcomes result from organismic and environmental constraints and experiences shared by members of a species. We examined the effects of prenatal visual experience on the development of turning bias and footedness in Japanese quail chicks, a species which does not demonstrate a naturally occurring level of population laterality and only weak individual laterality. Chicks (n = 167) were exposed to one of four prenatal conditions: both eye systems exposed to enhanced visual experience, right eye system exposed/left eye system occluded, left eye system exposed/right eye system occluded, or no enhanced visual experience. When subjects were exposed to prenatal visual stimulation, individual and population level laterality was induced. These results suggest that unilateral prenatal visual experience to the right eye or left eye system is sufficient to induce and influence the direction of individual and population laterality in a species that does not normal demonstrate such biases. The results also provide further evidence that prenatal sensory experiences can elicit the development of postnatal lateralization. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 56: 489-497, 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]