Young offenders in New South Wales,Australia and the need for remedial sexual health education

The 2005–2008 Australian National Sexually Transmissible Infections Strategy identifies young people as a key target group in need of sexual health education, screening and management. For young people who are in contact with the New South Wales (NSW) juvenile justice system, a dire need for remedial sexual health education exists. NSW young offenders indicate initiation of sexual activity at a younger age than their peers, higher numbers of sexual partners, infrequent condom use and higher rates of sexually transmitted infections. They also report family instability, poor accessing of health services, and low school attendance: all factors that result in poor sexual knowledge and health outcomes. An examination into the cognitive profile of these young offenders indicates remedial education for this group may require a dual approach in order to redress their specific circumstances and needs. The first approach should target young offenders who simply missed out on stages of sexual health information in the school curriculum. The second approach requires a tailored teaching methodology more appropriate for a group with atypical cognitive profiles. Both approaches need to engage an educative model that acknowledges that these disadvantaged young people are already sexual active; and that many did not have the benefit of an informed or consensual decision making processes. More importantly, the tailoring of a sexual health education program to these young people needs to resonate with teaching to a cognitively distinctive population who have experienced higher than usual rates of alcohol and other drugs abuse, and higher than usual episodes of physical and emotional abuse and neglect.     

Conceptualizing the information seeking of college students on the autism spectrum through participant viewpoint ethnography

Due to increased numbers of diagnoses, targeted programs and initiatives, more students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are attending college (Heflin & Isbell, 2012; Zager & Alpern, 2007) but academic librarians and their staffs have not been trained to optimally serve this growing population. Utilizing wayfinding, think aloud protocol (TAP), retrospective think aloud protocol (RTAP), and a wearable camera, the actions, thoughts and feelings of a student with ASD and a neurotypical peer are evidenced as they navigate their campus library in search of materials. The library website, virtual maps to resource locations, and library workers served equally as enablers and barriers to both students in their information seeking. This study demonstrates that participant viewpoint ethnography is a viable research methodology for both neurotypical college students and those with autism.     

School Choice in London,England: Characteristics of Students in Different Types of Secondary Schools

In England, parents make “choices” (in reality, “preferences”) for the state-maintained secondary schools they wish their child to attend. If there are more applicants than places, the school's published admissions criteria are used to give priority to applicants. This article examines how school composition in London varies by first comparing schools that are overtly academically selective with those that are nominally “comprehensive” (“all ability”); second, comparing “comprehensive” schools that control their own admissions with those that do not; third, comparing schools with and without selective admissions criteria; and fourth, comparing schools that use religious criteria with those that do not. We find that school compositions vary. Academically selective schools have fewer students from poor households than comprehensive schools in the same area and have fewer Black and more Indian and Chinese/Other Asian students. Comprehensive schools with autonomy over admissions admit higher attaining students and have fewer students from poor households and with special educational needs, and those with selective admissions criteria admit higher performing children. There are fewer Bangladeshi/Pakistani students and more Black students in schools with a religious character than in those without. Although a range of factors are likely to play a role in explaining the variation in school composition, the evidence suggests that there is “selecting in” and “selecting out” of more desirable students by some schools. Implications for policy are highlighted.     

Gifted High-School Students' Perspectives on the Development of Perfectionism

Through the use of in-depth interviews, this study investigated how gifted high-school students scoring high on at least one measure of perfectionism (self-oriented, socially prescribed, or other-oriented) perceived their perfectionism as developing. Findings suggested support for three family history models outlined by Flett, Hewitt, Oliver, and Macdonald (2002 Flett, G., Hewitt, P., Oliver, J. and Macdonald, S. 2002. “Perfectionism in children and their parents: A developmental analysis”. In Perfectionism: Theory, research, and treatment, Edited by: Flett, G. and Flett, P. 89–132. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Lack of challenge in their early academic experiences was also indicated as an influence. Findings are discussed within the context of the current literature on perfectionism in gifted students, and avenues for future research are suggested.     

Employees as customers: Exploring service climate,employee patronage,and turnover

The role of retail employees as customers was explored by quantitatively examining the influence of service climate and employee patronage on employee turnover intentions. Employees representing all shifts in two stores of a national retailer participated. Results indicated that employee patronage partially mediates the effects of service climate on employee turnover intentions. The findings suggest that employee patronage is a highly relevant organizational concept that warrants additional study. Practitioners may apply these findings in developing management and supervision training programs and designing employee selection and retention programs. Researchers may incorporate the variable of patronage when studying populations where employees can be external customers. Future research is necessary because the concept of employee patronage has not been adequately studied.     

Are changes in running economy associated with changes in performance in runners? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Improvements in running economy (RE) are thought to lead to improvements in running performance (P). Multiple interventions have been designed with the aim of improving RE in middle and long-distance runners. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of interventions of at least 2-weeks’ duration on RE and P and to determine whether there is a relationship between changes in RE (ΔRE) and changes in running performance (ΔP). A database search was carried out in Web of Science, Scopus and SPORTDiscus. In accordance with a PRISMA checklist 10 studies reporting 12 comparisons between interventions and controls were included in the review. There was no correlation between percentage ΔRE and percentage ΔP (r = 0.46, P = 0.936, 12 comparisons). There was a low risk of reporting bias but an unclear risk of bias for other items. Meta-analyses found no statistically significant differences between interventions and controls for RE (SMD (95% CI) = ?0.37 (?1.43, 0.69), 204 participants, p = 0.49) or for P (SMD (95% CI) = ?0.65 (?26.02, 24.72, 204 participants, p = 0.99). There is a need for studies of greater statistical power, methodological quality, duration and homogeneity of intervention and population. Standardised measures of performance and greater control over non-intervention training are also required.     

Latent profiles of children's shyness: Behavioral,affective, and physiological components

Shyness can manifest on behavioral, affective, and physiological levels, but little is known about how these components cluster. We coded behavioral expressions of avoidance/inhibition, collected self-reported nervousness, and measured cardiac vagal withdrawal in 152 children (M_age = 7.82 years, 73 girls, 82% White) to a speech task in 2018–2021. A latent profile analysis using these behavioral, affective, and physiological indicators revealed four profiles: average reactive (43%), lower affective reactive (20%), higher affective reactive (26%), and consistently higher reactive (11%). Membership in the higher reactive profile predicted higher parent-reported temperamental shyness across 2 years. Findings provide empirical support for the long-theorized idea that shyness might exist as an emotional state but also represents a distinct temperamental quality for some children.     

Selectivity,admissions and intakes to ‘comprehensive’ schools in London,England

This study focuses on admissions criteria used for ‘comprehensive’ secondary schools in London, UK. It was found that schools whose admissions were controlled by the local authority were more likely to report giving priority to children with medical/social needs and special educational needs than were schools that controlled their own admissions; the latter were more likely to report the use of various potentially ‘creaming’ criteria. There was also more ‘selectivity’ among London comprehensive schools with autonomy over admissions, with higher proportions using potentially selective admissions criteria than in the rest of England. Moreover, it was found that schools with responsibility for their own admissions had lower proportions of pupils with special educational needs and obtained higher scores in public examination ‘league tables’ than schools whose admissions were controlled by the local authority. The findings suggest that some schools, although nominally ‘comprehensive’, appear to restrict access to certain groups of pupils.     

The Effects of Item and Examinee Sampling in the Analysis and Selection of Objective Test Items

Abstract The investigation sets out to determine whether in the construction of normreferenced tests the effects of sampling errors in the pre‐testing procedure outweigh the theoretical advantages to be gained in selecting items with the highest discrimination indices. The procedure for pre‐testing and selecting the items is simulated by sampling artificial matrices each representing the scores of a population of examinees on a domain of items. The results indicate that the sampling errors do not have a significant deleterious effect if the samples in the pre‐testing procedure contain more than 50 items and 25 examinees. Moreover, there may be very little to be gained by using larger samples.