Judith E. Sims-Knight

The developmental antecedents of sexual coercion against women: testing alternative hypotheses with structural equation modeling.

Abstract: A unified model of the origin of sexual aggression against women on both adult and juvenile sexual offender samples has been developed and successfully tested. This model proposed three major causal paths to sexual coercion against women. In the first path, physical and verbal abuse was hypothesized to produce callousness and lack of emotionality, which disinhibited sexual drive and sexual fantasies. These in turn disinhibited hostile sexual fantasies, and led to sexual coercion. In the second causal path, sexual abuse contributed directly to the disinhibition of sexual drive and sexual fantasies, which through hostile sexual fantasies led to sexual coercion. The third path operated through early antisocial behavior, including aggressive acts. It developed as a result of both physical/verbal abuse and callousness/lack of emotion. It in turn directly affected sexual coercion and worked indirectly through the hostile sexual fantasies path. In the present study, the anonymous responses of a group of 168 blue‐collar, community males to an inventory (the Multidimensional Assessment of Sex and Aggression) were used in a structural equation model to test the validity of this model. Moreover, this model was pitted against Malamuths (1998) two‐path model. Whereas the three‐path model had an excellent fit with the data (CFI = .951, RMSEA = .047), the two‐path model fit less well (CFI = .857, RMSEA = .079). These results indicate the superiority of the three‐path model and suggest that it constitutes a solid, empirically disconfirmable heuristic for the etiology of sexual coercion against women.

Testing an Etiological Model for Male Juvenile Sexual Offending against Females.

SUMMARY Research on the origin of sexual aggression has identified several important contributing factors: (a) early abuse (physical and sexual), (b) personality/behavioral traits (callousness and unemotionality, antisocial behavior/impulsivity, and hypersexuality), and (c) attitudinal/cognitive variables (negative masculinity, hostility toward women, misogynistic fantasies). We developed and tested an etiological model of sexual coercion on adult samples of sexual offenders and community controls. The model proposes three major causal pathways to sexual coercion. Using data gathered from a computerized interview, we employed this same model to predict sexually coercive behavior in a sample of 218 juvenile sexual offenders. The cross-sample consistency of the model provides support for a unified theory of sexual aggression against women.

Designing process-based software curriculum

Computer science education traditionally has stemmed from its mathematical roots and has been related to practice through instruction of programming languages. Good software engineering practice, in contrast, requires expertise at a complex of activities that involve the intellectual skills of planning, designing, evaluating, and revising. Cognitive research has revealed that developing intellectual skills, such as these, requires: explicit instruction and practice; in the context in which such skills will be applied; in carefully structured ways. We are applying the techniques of cognitive apprenticeship, situated cognition, and reflective practice, based on our earlier successful application of such techniques, to the development of laboratories to accompany two undergraduate classes. The first section of this paper provides the foundations from the computer science/software engineering domain that justify our effort. The second section provides the background in cognitive research we use to structure the learning environment and activities for the students. Section three provides an overview of the goals we have established as part of this development activity. Section four describes the activities we have implemented in the sophomore computer science course. We conclude our remarks with a discussion of problems and intended directions.

Teaching Object‐Oriented Design Without Programming: A Progress Report

This project is demonstrating the feasibility of using the object‐oriented paradigm to teach students software design in a nonprogramming context. The program, developed using principles of user‐based, prototyping design, teaches students to create responsibility‐driven designs of computer games. Investigations with high school students with little or no knowledge of computers and senior computer science majors have demonstrated that students can indeed learn to use Class‐Responsibility‐Collaborator (CRC) cards to produce creditable high‐level designs in a relatively short time whether or not they have programming experience and can generalize what they have learned to a new design. Although the computer science majors created more complete designs and demonstrated a deeper understanding of the design process than the high school students, these students still found the experience valuable. Both sample groups generally found the process interesting and relatively painless.

Integrating software process in computer science curriculum

Software process-planning, evaluation and modification of development activities based on metrics and measurement must be integrated into the computer science curriculum if it is to stay apace with the needs of modern software organizations. We developed software process activities and implemented them in a laboratory in conjunction with the third course of the computer science major. Students used practices such as postmortem analysis and measurement-based planning to gain control over their program development activities. Students kept electronic design notebooks that included pre/post surveys and postmortems on activities. Students used the data from their programming projects, collected during reviews and postmortems, in planning the next project. We used cognitive apprenticeship techniques so that students could not only understand the concepts but be able to apply them. At the end of the course surveys of the students indicated that they had (a) understood the software process concepts, (b) changed their own practices, (c) appreciated the value of such practices and (d) increased their commitment to a software engineering career. The laboratory developed in this project is not tied to a particular content but is generally applicable to any course with programming projects.

In support of student process improvement

Preparing students for careers as software developers or software engineers requires more than applying computer science. Software engineering education needs better and more robust instructional models to support the education of new generations of software engineers. The paper discusses the major instructional strategies of software engineering education, and considers their pedagogical value. The paper reviews current activity in software engineering in the context of current industrial emphasis on process improvement and the quality paradigm. We present a four part project model that we have developed and used that integrates recent research in cognitive psychology and software process practices. We suggest ways in which the processes involved in the project model provide the right environment to help students develop the skills truly needed to become accomplished practitioners.

Reflective essays in software engineering

Software engineering education has evolved over the past ten years as understanding of the issues related to the practice of developing software systems has increased. A part of that evolution is an increased appreciation that learning software development requires more than participating in a design project. The design project provides a context in which the social and technical aspects of software engineering can become visible, but students often fail to learn the intended lessons. The authors, like other academics, believe that active reflection on experiences during these activities promotes the acquisition of more meaningful and persistent learning. They further believe that writing can and should play a critical role in promoting that reflective learning when the writing assignments require students to explore connections that arise during project activity. This will occur, however, only if the learning environment supports students in the construction and management of the writing activity, and supports faculty in providing the necessary feedback to students regarding their ideas. In this paper, the authors describe how their incorporation of writing activities in software project courses has evolved over the past five years, and a formative evaluation of their current efforts in software engineering.

Chapter 2 – Assessment of Dynamic Treatment Targets for Juveniles Who Sexually Offend

Using the overarching framework of the risk/needs/responsivity principles of Andrews and Bonta (2006), this chapter identifies the criminogenic needs that have been emerged most consistently as treatment targets for juveniles who have sexually offended (JSOs). Empirical studies supporting the selection of each domain are presented and the assessment tools that have the most research support with JSOs are described and evaluated. The treatment needs reviewed are: hypersexuality and sexual deviance; age and gender sexual preferences; antisocial behavior; callous-unemotional trait; aggressive fantasies and behavior; intimacy and friendships; and victimization. We recommend that clinicians assessing JSOs either generate their own batteries from the reviewed tools or select instruments using different methods that have been created to assess all of the critical domains.

Portfolio use in software engineering education: an experience report

This paper discusses the use of an electronic portfolio in a software engineering course at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. The Learning Portal provides the standard function of such systems for students to post their work. It also provides a syllabus function so instructors can post all information and assignments to the Portal. It goes beyond these basic functions, however, to facilitate reflective practice. It allows both students and faculty to give feedback to student work and it collects various types of student work, including survey forms that require students to reflect upon their work. It also provides functions for team interaction. In this paper we describe how the electronic portfolio was used in this course, including what artifacts were captured and how students used the system. We conducted an interview study of students after they finished the course to ascertain how they felt the portfolio changed the way they learned, the issues they encountered in working within such an environment, and their perspectives on how such a support system might influence their behavior in the future.

Experiences with Using Assessment Based, Double-Loop Learning to Improve Engineering Student's Design Skills

The problem with traditional engineering education revolves around the use of stove-pipe curricula, using passive lectures and cookbook laboratories with pre-determined results. Real-world engineering is open-ended and team-oriented requiring active participation. This paper describes a proof of concept study focused on the efficacy of assessment based double loop learning aimed at improving engineering students design skills. Our study began by examining students present design skills over all 4 years of the electrical engineering (ELE) and computer engineering (CPE) curriculums. During the second year of the study, junior engineering students are provided with a new open-ended design course where students use design process assessments to improve upon their use of sound design practice, thereby improving their outcomes in design.