Parent–Child Portfolios: “Look—This Book Is All About Us!”

A team of facilitators describe the process and content of portfolios they create for families attending weekly playgroup sessions based on the philosophy and practices of the Parents Interacting with Infants (PIWI) model. The parent–child portfolios are a form of authentic assessment and highlight children’s development within the context of parent–child relationships. Facilitators complete weekly observations of parent–child interactions, which allow them to monitor children’s progress on goals set by parents, evaluate their own practices, and plan future playgroup sessions.     

Sexual behaviour and interest in using a sexual health mobile app to help improve and manage college students' sexual health

Many US college students are reported to engage in risky sexual behaviour. Smartphone applications are a popular way to provide users with information in real time. We explored the potential for mobile technology to be used in promoting the sexual health of college students. Using findings from an online survey among a random sample of 5000 college students (15% response), we examined sexual behaviours and interest in a sexual health application in January 2012. The majority of students were female (73%) and owned a smartphone (74%). Twenty-nine per cent currently used health-related applications on their phone and 67% reported interest in using a free application that could improve/manage their sexual health. Interest in use varied based on gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, having an unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing, smartphone ownership and past application use. The top most useful features for women included a period tracker (46%), birth control reminder (43%) and STI and pregnancy symptom checker (30%). Women were more likely to be interested in using the application compared with men and those engaging in more sexual activity were more likely to be interested as compared with those engaging in less sexual activity. The evaluation of mobile technology to promote healthy sexuality among college students is warranted.     

Discovering indicators of successful collaboration using tense: Automated extraction of patterns in discourse

This paper describes a technique for locating indicators of success within the data collected from complex learning environments, proposing an application of e‐research to access learner processes and measure and track group progress. The technique combines automated extraction of tense and modality via parts‐of‐speech tagging with a visualisation of the timing and speaker for each utterance developed to code and analyse learner discourse, exploiting the results of previous, non‐automated analyses for validation. The work is developed using a dataset of interactions within a multi‐user virtual environment and extended to a more complex dataset of synchronous chat texts during a collaborative design task. This methodology extends natural language processing into computer‐based collaboration contexts, discovering the linguistic micro‐events that construct the larger phases of successful design‐based learning.     

Childhood adversity and adult depression among the incarcerated: Differential exposure and vulnerability by race/ethnicity and gender

The relationship between childhood adversity and adult depression is well-established but less is known about the association between childhood adversity and adult depression among the incarcerated. In this paper, we examine differential exposure and vulnerability to childhood adversity by race/ethnicity and gender on adult depression among the incarcerated in the United States. We address three research questions: does exposure to childhood adverse experiences vary by race/ethnicity and gender? Is there an association between these childhood adverse events and depression and does the strength of the association vary by the specific adverse experiences? And does vulnerability to childhood adversity vary by gender and race/ethnicity? Using the 2004 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities (SI-SFCF), we measure four key childhood adverse events – parental/caretaker substance abuse, physical assault, having been placed in foster care, and sexual assault. We use ordinary least squares regression and a series of interaction effect analyses to examine differential exposure and vulnerability to the four childhood adverse experiences by race/ethnicity and gender. Incarcerated women are more likely to report parental substance abuse, but all inmates/prisoners are similarly vulnerable to this experience. For the other three adverse experiences measured, we find that there are important racial/ethnic and gender differences in both exposure and vulnerability. African American men and women are more vulnerable to the effects of physical and sexual victimization than White and Hispanic men and women. Women are much more likely to be exposed to sexual victimization, but men who report this experience are significantly more depressed. Hispanic women and White men and women are more likely to report foster care, but all inmates/prisoners who report foster care experiences are significantly more depressed than other inmates/prisoners, with the exception of white men. The findings indicate that there are significant differences in exposure and vulnerability to childhood adversity by race/ethnicity and gender. We conclude that in order to effectively design and implement programs to decrease the probability that childhood adversity is a risk factor for adult depression interventions must be targeted toward specific, vulnerable groups according to race/ethnicity and gender.     

How does student peer review influence perceptions,engagement and academic outcomes? A case study

Involving students in peer review has many pedagogical benefits, but few studies have explicitly investigated relationships between the content of peer reviews, student perceptions and assessment outcomes. We conducted a case study of peer review within a third-year undergraduate subject at a research-intensive Australian university, in which we examined: (1) students’ perceptions of the peer review process before and after peer review, (2) content of the peer reviews and what kinds of feedback were adopted and (3) the effect of participation in peer review on performance (grades) in the assessment task. Students overwhelmingly perceived peer review to be beneficial, and the opportunity to participate in peer review resulted in a significant improvement in the quality of work submitted for assessment. Students who benefited most from peer review were those of below-median performance, and the magnitude of benefit was related to the degree to which students engaged with the peer review process. Our study confirms that participation in peer review can lead to important improvements in performance and learning outcomes.     

Gender and age differences in awareness and endorsement of gender stereotypes about academic abilities

We measured age and gender differences in children’s awareness and endorsement of gender stereotypes about math, science, and verbal abilities in 463 fourth, sixth, and eighth graders. Children reported their perceptions of adults’ beliefs and their own stereotypes about gender differences in academic abilities. Consistent with study hypotheses, fourth and sixth graders had a stronger tendency than eighth graders to favor their own gender group rather than report traditional stereotypes. On average, girls favored girls over boys in all three domains. Fourth grade boys favored boys in all three domains; middle school boys reported traditional verbal stereotypes and were on average egalitarian in beliefs about math and science. Children’s reports of their perceptions of adults’ stereotypes mirrored age and gender differences in their own stereotypes and were correlated with their own stereotype endorsement. In addition to showing beliefs favoring girls in verbal domains and a tendency for most age and gender groups to not endorse traditional math and science stereotypes, the results support a synthesis of developmental and social identity theories regarding individual differences in children’s stereotype endorsement. Children’s tendency to favor girls in verbal domains may contribute to gender differences in educational and career choices by pulling girls toward the humanities and social sciences and discouraging boys from pursuing those domains.     

Social skills and problem behaviors as mediators of the relationship between behavioral self-regulation and academic achievement

Early behavioral self-regulation is an important predictor of the skills children need to be successful in school. However, little is known about the mechanism(s) through which self-regulation affects academic achievement. The current study investigates the possibility that two aspects of children's social functioning, social skills and problem behaviors, mediate the relationship between preschool self-regulation and literacy and math achievement. Additionally, we investigated whether the meditational processes differed for boys and girls. We expected that better self-regulation would help children to interact well with others (social skills) and minimize impulsive or aggressive (problem) behaviors. Positive interactions with others and few problem behaviors were expected to relate to gains in achievement as learning takes place within a social context. Preschool-aged children (n = 118) were tested with direct measures of self-regulation, literacy, and math. Teachers reported on children's social skills and problem behaviors. Using a structural equation modeling approach (SEM) for mediation analysis, social skills and problem behaviors were found to mediate the relationship between self-regulation and growth in literacy across the preschool year, but not math. Findings suggest that the mediational process was similar for boys and girls. These findings indicate that a child's social skills and problem behaviors are part of the mechanism through which behavioral self-regulation affects growth in literacy. Self-regulation may be important not just because of the way that it relates directly to academic achievement but also because of the ways in which it promotes or inhibits children's interactions with others.     

Young girls’ spatial and arithmetic performance: The mediating role of maternal supportive interactions during joint spatial problem solving

The present study addresses girls’ (6–7-year-olds; N = 162) early spatial and arithmetic skills within the context of learning environments provided by their mothers. The study was designed to determine the relationship between maternal supportive interactions on a joint origami spatial problem-solving task and their first grade daughters’ spatial and arithmetic skills. During home visits the mothers and daughters were videotaped jointly solving origami tasks with maternal supportive interactions assessed through ratings of maternal stimulation of cognitive development and maternal quality of assistance; the girls were separately assessed in school on spatial and arithmetic skills. Using structural equation modeling, the main findings were (1) maternal supportive interactions on a mother–child origami task mediated the relation between mothers’ spatial skills/educational level and their daughters’ spatial skills and (2) their daughters’ spatial skills in turn mediated the relation between quality of maternal supportive spatial interactions and the daughters’ arithmetic achievement. The present findings indicate the importance of early maternal supportive interactions relating to spatial problem solving for girls’ spatial and arithmetic achievement. Furthermore, all pathways linking girls’ home environments and arithmetic skills were mediated through the girls’ spatial skills, suggesting that for young girls, development of early spatial skills may be important for effective arithmetic learning.     

Electronic health record: integrating evidence-based information at the point of clinical decision making

The authors created two tools to achieve the goals of providing physicians with a way to review alternative diagnoses and improving access to relevant evidence-based library resources without disrupting established workflows. The “diagnostic decision support tool” lifted terms from standard, coded fields in the electronic health record and sent them to Isabel, which produced a list of possible diagnoses. The physicians chose their diagnoses and were presented with the “knowledge page,” a collection of evidence-based library resources. Each resource was automatically populated with search results based on the chosen diagnosis. Physicians responded positively to the “knowledge page.”