Relations between parent attitudes, intrinsic value of science, peer support, available activities, and preference for future science careers were examined for science-talented, rural, adolescent females. Two hundred and twenty 9th-12th-grade girls and their mothers responded to questionnaires about science courses, plans for future courses and college majors, perceptions of the girls’ abilities in science, and numerous supports and deterrents for continued interest in science areas. Current intrinsic interest in science was most strongly related to preferring a science career, but previous experiences with science (measured by grade in school, science GPA, friends’ support for science, and extracurricular science activities) and socializers’ attitudes (measured by mothers’ perceptions of the value of science for women and of their daughters’ abilities) were also related. The discussion highlights the importance of providing activities and other supports to maintain girls’ interests in science in a rural environment.

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In two experiments, we examined the benefits of cumulative and noncumulative finals on students' short-and long-term course material retention. In Experiment 1, we examined results from course content exams administered immediately after course finals. Course sections including cumulative finals had higher content exam scores than sections with noncumulative finals. In Experiment 2, current and former students completed online versions of content exams up to 18 months after course completion. Students completing courses with cumulative finals retained more than students who took noncumulative finals. Introductory psychology students benefited more from cumulative finals than did upper-division course students. Based on our results, we suggest that instructors use cumulative finals to increase short-and long-term retention of course material.

Research examining the connection between religiousness and prejudice has used scales exclusively as proxies for the underlying constructs. Scholars in the psychology of religion, however, are ultimately concerned about the nature of religious constructs and their relationships with other variables, and the use of scales provides only indirect information concerning these constructs. To overcome this limitation, structural equation modeling (SEM) allows researchers to gather information about the relationship among constructs directly. The present study used SEM to examine the relationship between religion and prejudice using four of the most important and heavily researched constructs in the psychology of religion: religious commitment, orthodoxy, fundamentalism, and openness, as well as their relationships with three types of prejudice: racial, sexual orientation, and religious. The strongest results revealed that religious commitment, orthodoxy, and fundamentalism were linked positively with sexual orientation prejudice, whereas religious openness was linked negatively with that type of prejudice. Other religiousness-prejudice relationships were weaker and also more complex.

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