Trauma and psychological distress among ethnically diverse community college students

An association has been found between traumatic experiences and psychological distress; however, the impact of ethnicity on psychological distress is less clear. The present study examined the relationship between traumatic experiences and measures of psychological distress among a multiethnic sample of community college students. A total of 389 male and 848 female students completed a questionnaire that included the Distressing Events Questionnaire (DEQ), the Traumatic Life Events Questionnaire (TLEQ), the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), the Bulimia (BUL), and the Drive for Thinness (DT) subscales of the Eating Disorders Inventory. As predicted, Blacks and Latinos reported higher levels of interpersonal trauma than White students. There was a positive association between trauma exposure and symptoms of depression, eating disorders, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and no ethnic differences were observed in depression and PTSD scores among students exposed to interpersonal trauma. The high levels of trauma among Blacks and Latinos should be of concern to academic institutions because trauma is linked to poor academic performance.     

Shifting the paradigm: The use of creativity in career counseling

Conclusion To summarize, the techniques provided were intended to serve as a springboard for career counselors to employ creative strategies in their work. There also are important individual difference variables in career counselors that would make some of these techniques more desirable than others. It seems critical to explore different ways of being creative in our work in order to ensure that students develop an interest in vocational counseling and clients receive excellent services.As surveys of counselors as well as clients continue to show a dissatisfaction with career counseling it seems imperative that we investigate dynamic new ways of helping our clients think about their life/ career planning. As we model creativity in our own lives and practice, our clients will vicariously experience people who are truly excited about their occupational employment. This alone may assist career clients in achieving their dreams and maximizing their creative potentials.     

Transitions On and Off AFDC: Implications for Parenting and Children''s Cognitive Development

The goal of current national and state legislation on welfare reform is to decrease the number of people who are dependent on public assistance, most of whom are mothers and their young children. Mothers' patterns of welfare receipt in the 3 years following the birth of a child were examined vis-à-vis their associations with maternal emotional distress (General Health Questionnaire), provision of learning experiences (Home Observation of the Measurement of the Environment), parenting behavior, and the child's cognitive test score (Stanford-Binet) in the third year of life. The data set was the Infant Health and Development Program, an eight-site randomized clinical trial designed to test the efficacy of educational and family support services in reducing developmental delays in low-birthweight, preterm infants (N = 833). Strong negative associations were found between receiving welfare and parenting behavior and child outcomes at age 3 years. Outcomes varied depending on when the mother received public assistance (earlier or later in her child's first 3 years) and family poverty status on leaving welfare. The parenting behavior of mothers who had left welfare by their child's third birthday was more likely to be authoritarian if she had left public assistance without also leaving poverty. Implications of these findings for the well-being of children in low-income families are discussed.     

Extended households and the life course of young mothers: understanding the associations using a sample of mothers with premature, low birth weight babies

This paper examined whether the greater average schooling and employment, and lower parenting competence, of young mothers who reside with adult relatives reflect preexisting differences versus potential causal mechanisms. The sample included 554 young mothers (ages 13 to 25; nearly two thirds African American) from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP) a random-assignment intervention study of premature, low birth weight babies followed 8 times from birth to age 3. Ordinary least squares, fixed-effects, and random-effects models indicated that young mothers of low birth weight babies sorted into extended households based on preexisting characteristics that were correlated with their lower parenting skills and knowledge. In contrast, coresidence predicted greater schooling or employment across models, with some variations for different subgroups.     

Environmental health and toxicology resources of the United States National Library of Medicine

For over 40 years, the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Program (TEHIP) has worked to organize and to provide access to an extensive array of environmental health and toxicology resources. During these years, the TEHIP program has evolved from a handful of databases developed primarily for researchers to a broad range of products and services that also serve industry, students, and the general public. TEHIP's resources include TOXNET , a collection of databases, including online handbooks, bibliographic references, information on the release of chemicals in the environment, and a chemical dictionary. TEHIP also produces several resources aimed towards the general public, such as the Household Products Database , which helps users explore chemicals often found in common household products, and Tox Town , an interactive guide to commonly encountered toxic substances, health, and the environment. This paper introduces some of NLM's environmental health and toxicology resources.     

Teachers’ Use of Educative Features in Guides for Nature of Science Read-Alouds

Science & Education - This study investigates the use of specific educative features for supporting the teaching of nature of science (NOS) during read-alouds of elementary science trade books....     

How front-end loading contributes to creating and sustaining the theory-practice gap in higher education programs

In this paper, I show how Mead’s theory of emergence can prove explanatory in how the theory-practice gap is co-created and sustained in front-end loading university programs. Taking teacher education as an exemplar, I argue that trainee teachers encounter different and oft-times conflicting environmental, social and cultural conditions in the two ‘fields of interaction’ of their training program, namely, the on-campus pre-service program and the in-school experience. The argument draws on interview and focus group data collected via a study of first-year graduate teachers of an Australian pre-service teacher education program. My conclusions are two-fold. First, I argue that role taking and self-regulated behaviour within the two environmental fields of interaction in front-end loading programs inhibit the trainee professional from exercising the power of agency to implement theory learned at university in practice in the workplace. Second, I conclude that Mead’s theory of emergence proves effective in predicting the obduracy of the gap between theory and practice in front-end programs.     

Enhancing the Development of Low-Birthweight, Premature Infants: Changes in Cognition and Behavior over the First Three Years

The Infant Health and Development Program is a randomized clinical trial to test the efficacy of educational and family support services and pediatric follow-up offered in the first 3 years of life on reducing the incidence of developmental delay in low-birthweight (LBW), preterm infants in 8 clinical sites ( N = 985). Effects of the intervention on cognitive and behavior problem scores over the 3 years are examined. Significant intervention effects were seen on cognitive scores at 24 and 36 but not 12 months of age; effect sizes were similar at both ages. These effects persist when controlling for earlier cognitive scores. At 24 and 36 months, behavior problem scores for the intervention group were significantly lower than for the follow-up group; the intervention was more efficacious for children with higher initial behavior problem scores. Results are discussed in terms of timing and targeting of services for LBW and disadvantaged children.     

Lessons Learned from PISA: A Systematic Review of Peer-Reviewed Articles on the Programme for International Student Assessment

International large-scale assessments are on the rise, with the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) seen by many as having strategic prominence in education policy debates. The present article reviews PISA-related English-language peer-reviewed articles from the programme’s first cycle in 2000 to its most current in 2015. Five literature bases were searched, and results were analysed with SPSS. Results map the frequency of publications according to journal, country, and scientific discipline. They also summarise major themes within three identified categories: secondary analysis, policy impact, and critiques. Findings indicated that studies based on the PISA dataset has led to progress in educational research while simultaneously pointing to the need for caution when using this research to inform educational policy.