Characteristics of High‐Risk College Student Drinkers Expressing High and Low Levels of Distress

The aim of this study was to identify variables that reliably differentiated between 2 groups of students who reported binge drinking at the same rate (6 to more than 10 times within the previous 2 weeks) but who exhibited different distress associated with their behavior. Results indicated that students who received an external expression of concern were more likely to be concerned themselves about their alcohol use. The clinical utility of this finding is discussed.     

Humanoid robots go to school

Education and Information Technologies - Humanoid robots are being used in some schools, however, research on the use of these robots is relatively new. In this three-year study, humanoid robots...     

Digital Youth Divas: Exploring Narrative-Driven Curriculum to Spark Middle School Girls’ Interest in Computational Activities

Women use technology to mediate numerous aspects of their professional and personal lives. Yet, few design and create these technologies given that women, especially women of color, are grossly underrepresented in computer science and engineering courses. Decisions about participation in STEM are frequently made prior to high school, and these decisions are impacted by prior experience, interest, and sense of fit with community. Digital Youth Divas is an out-of-school program that uses narrative stories to launch the creation of digital artifacts and support non-dominant middle school girls’ STEM interests and identities through virtual and real-world community. In this article, we discuss the framework of the Digital Youth Divas environment, including our approach to blending narratives into project-based design challenges through on- and offline mechanisms. Results from our pilot year, including the co-design process with the middle school participants, suggest that our narrative-centered, blended learning program design sparks non-dominant girls’ interests in STEM activities and disciplinary identification, and has the potential to mediate girls’ sense of STEM agency, identities, and interests.     

Diagnosing Nonlinearity With Confidence Envelopes for a Semiparametric Approach to Modeling Bivariate Nonlinear Relations Among Latent Variables

During the early phases of research, semiparametric models (SPMs) have the advantage of recovering latent nonlinearity over parametric counterparts. Structural equation mixture models (Bauer, 2005) can be applied as SPMs to flexibly recover and describe the form of the unknown latent relationship with minimal distributional assumptions. This short report extends the work on this SPM (Bauer, 2005; Pek, Losardo & Bauer, 2011) by developing approximate simultaneous confidence bands or confidence envelopes (CEs) to evaluate potential nonlinearity of the unknown latent function. A line-finding algorithm to be used in conjunction with these CEs is also developed as an implementation of an informal test to diagnose nonlinearity. Coverage of the CEs and performance of the algorithm in terms of rates of detecting latent nonlinearity are evaluated by Monte Carlo. Recommendations for the use of these CEs and the algorithm for detecting nonlinearity are suggested.     

Women teachers in Liberia: Social and institutional forces accounting for their underrepresentation

This study focuses on cultural and institutional factors that affect women's decision to become primary school teachers in Liberia. It exposes current dynamics that account for the male-dominated primary school teaching force and the barriers that dissuade women from becoming teachers. Based on semistructured interviews with pre-service and practicing teachers, school administrators, faculty at teacher training institutions, and Ministry of Education officials, the research findings indicate that women face several cultural barriers to receiving an education: patrilineal assumptions that daughters are destined to become resources for their husbands’ families (and thus a poor investment), early onset of sexual activity and teenage pregnancy, and social expectations about early family formation. Women who enter teacher training programs receive no recognition for their children and family responsibilities and are given insufficient financial support. When women do become teachers, they face difficult working conditions such as distant schools, poor housing facilities, late payments, and large classes filled with overage students. The probability of rural assignment brings additional dissuading factors: poor quality roads and few transportation options, a dearth of safe housing, and lack of childcare services. The study offers several policy options for increasing female teachers in the workforce.     

A NEW LOOK AT INTELLIGENCE TESTING

The aim of the paper is to explore teachers’ methods of delivering an ethos of tolerance, respect and mutual understanding in one integrated secondary school in Northern Ireland. Drawing on interviews with 18 teachers in the school, it is argued that most teachers make ‘critical choices’ which both reflect and reinforce a ‘culture of avoidance’, whereby politically or religiously contentious issues are avoided rather than explored. Although teachers are well-intentioned in making these choices, it is shown that they have the potential to create the conditions that maintain or even harden psychological boundaries between Catholics and Protestants rather than dilute them.     

Does Maternal Employment Following Childbirth Support or Inhibit Low‐Income Children’s Long‐Term Development?

This study assessed whether previous findings linking early maternal employment to lower cognitive and behavioral skills among middle‐class and White children generalized to other groups. Using a representative sample of urban, low‐income, predominantly African American and Hispanic families (n = 444), ordinary least squares regression and propensity score matching models assessed links between maternal employment in the 2 years after childbearing and children’s functioning at age 7. Children whose mothers were employed early, particularly in their first 8 months, showed enhanced socioemotional functioning compared to peers whose mothers remained nonemployed. Protective associations emerged for both part‐time and full‐time employment, and were driven by African American children, with neutral effects for Hispanics. Informal home‐based child care also heightened positive links.     

Giving Till it Helps? Alumnae Giving and Children’s College Options

This paper examines whether donations to colleges and universities are partly motivated by the desire of alumni to increase their children’s admissions probabilities. The paper uses data from a single-sex college, so that only alums with a daughter would evince this motive. We find that alums with a teenage daughter, as opposed to a teenage son, are more likely to make donations of at least $5,000. The same relationship is not evident for smaller donations, or when children are older than 18. Further, we find evidence that this difference in the probability of a donation by alums with teenage daughters and teenage sons does not exist when acceptance rates are higher in an earlier period.     

A report on the current access to academic information at the University of Pretoria for visually impaired students: challenges and opportunities

This study aimed to determine what the best practice guidelines were for making academic reading material available to visually impaired students at the University of Pretoria (UP) easily and efficiently. A basic literature review of relevant research data was done to help create further context for this study. A semi-structured interview with a staff member from the Disability Unit at the UP as well as a focus group consisting of five visually impaired students who make use of the unit were used to obtain responses to the research questions. The visually impaired students felt that local publishers and UP staff needed further insight into these students’ academic needs in order to make the acquisition process for their academic material run smoother and more efficiently.     

The Effect of Birth weight on Child Development Prior to School Entry

The present study examines variation in the effect of birth weight on children’s early cognitive and socioemotional outcomes by family socioeconomic status (SES). It is hypothesized that not only will lower birth weight children display worse cognitive and socioemotional outcomes prior to school entry, as prior research has found, but that effects will be stronger for lower-SES children. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort, the study compares the age 4 outcomes of twins discordant for birth weight (N ~ 1,400). Twin fixed-effects models are run on the full twin sample and separately for low- and high-SES children. Results support the study’s hypotheses, suggesting that socioeconomic risk accentuates the effects of birth weight on early development.