Abstracts - Earli

effectiveness research (EER), the significant variables related to school success were organized inmodels that apply to similar social and educational contexts. The schools’ effectiveness models arecomplex constructs that combine significant variables from different levels: students, teachers andschool level. The aim of this article is to elaborate theoretically a model for effective schools andtest its viability in the Romanian educational context. The model for effective schools containsvariables on three levels: students, teachers and school, and the analysis is a multi-levelperspective. The goal of the investigation is to test which variables from the designed model havea significant effect on students’ academic achievement, as indicator for school success. The data isrepresented by the datasets of TIMSS 2003, Romania, for the eight grade students and theirachievement in mathematic tests. The sample is composed of 4096 students, 148 teachers and 146schools. The expected outcomes of the research project are the validation of a model for effectiveschool in Romania, the identification of the most important variables for students’ success and ofthe possible interaction effects between variables from different educational levels, present in thedesign. Due to the qualitative sampling in TIMSS assessment, the results obtained can begeneralized on the level of secondary schools in Romania and increase the utility of theeffectiveness model tested. Identifying the most important variables for school success can havepositive effects on sustaining the process of school improvement.Less selective motor memory consolidation in childhood: reduced susceptibility to interferenceEsther Adi-Japha, Bar-Ilan University, IsraelShoshi Dorfberger, University of Haifa, IsraelAvi Karni, University of Haifa, IsraelAre children superior to adults in consolidating procedural memory? Here, using a motor sequencelearning task, we show that a) the rate of learning during a training session, b) the gains accrued,without additional practice, within a 24 hours post-training interval (delayed consolidation gains),and c) the long-term retention of these gains, were as effective in 9, 12 and 17-year-olds andcomparable to those reported for adults. However, the establishment of a memory trace for thetrained sequence of movements was found to be highly susceptible to interference by a subsequentmotor learning experience (practicing a reversed movement sequence) in the 17-year-olds but notin the 9 and 12-year-olds. Thus, only the 17-year-olds showed the previously described adultpattern of interference. Altogether, our results indicate the existence of an effective consolidationphase in motor learning both before and after puberty, with no childhood advantage in the learningor retention of a motor skill. However, the ability to co-consolidate different, successive, motorexperiences, demonstrated in both the 9 and 12-year-olds, diminishes after puberty, suggesting thata more selective memory consolidation process takes over from the childhood one. Only the adultconsolidation process is gated by a recency effect and in situations of multiple, clashing,experiences occurring within a short time-interval, may less effectively establish in memorypreceding experiences if superseded by newer ones.– 738 –