Dynamic prediction characteristics of the Child Abuse Potential Inventory

OBJECTIVES: Risk measures are commonly used to evaluate outcomes in child abuse prevention and intervention programs. This study examined whether pre-intervention to post-intervention changes on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAP) Abuse Scale corresponded to actual changes in risk for future reports of maltreatment and evaluated the validity of several algorithms for classifying clinically significant change. METHOD: Participants in the study were 459 parents participating in any one of 27 community-based family preservation and family support programs. Most parents were low-income mothers with a variety of social risk indicators, about a third of whom would be classified as high-risk by the CAP Abuse Scale. Participants were administered the CAP at program enrollment, then at completion of the intervention (median time=150 days), then followed for an average of approximately 2 years for future official maltreatment reports. Dynamic predictive validity of the CAP Abuse Scale was modeled by comparing survival models using a time-dependent structure of pre- and post-intervention scores to identically structured models using only a pre-intervention score. RESULTS: Pre-intervention CAP Abuse Scale scores demonstrated incremental future predictive validity. However, score changes failed to correspond to changes in likelihood of future abuse. Models using pre-intervention scores only were more predictive than time-dependent score models, and pre-intervention scores were better predictors than post-intervention scores of post-intervention CPS referrals. Common algorithms for classifying clinically significant change yielded results that could be counter-intuitive and misleading. For example, participants classified as improved on these algorithms were actually at similar or even higher risk than those classified as unchanged or worse. CONCLUSIONS: The results strongly supported the static predictive validity of the CAP and the use of the CAP for screening purposes. The results did not support the dynamic predictive validity of the CAP. Results of exploratory analyses suggested the possibility that the changes observed on the CAP Abuse Scale reflected changes in subscales assessing subjective distress or parenting attitudes, which may be markers for initial risk but when changed, do not necessarily translate into actual changes in future maltreatment behavior. Although replication and extension are needed before drawing firm conclusions, the current study raises questions about the common practice of using risk instruments as proxy measures for child maltreatment risk in intervention and prevention programs.     

Deaf children's use of beliefs and desires in negotiation

Although several studies have shown that deaf children demonstrated impaired performances on false-belief tasks, the children's belief understanding appeared intact when asked to explain emotions or behavior. However, this finding does not necessarily indicate a full-fledged theory of mind. This study aimed to investigate deaf children's negotiation strategies in false-belief situations, because situations that require negotiation provide a natural context with a clear motivational aspect, which might appeal more strongly to deaf children's false-belief reasoning capacities. The purpose of this study was to compare the reactions of 11- to 12-year-old deaf and hearing children to scenarios in which a mother, who is unaware of a change in the situation, threatens to block the fulfillment of the child's desire. The results showed that deaf children more often failed to correct the mother's false beliefs. In contrast with hearing children, who frequently left their own desires implicit, deaf children kept stressing their desires as a primary argument, even though the mother could be expected to be fully aware of these desires. Moral claims were used to the same extent by both groups. In general, deaf children more often used arguments that did not provide new information for their conversation partners, including repetitions of the same argument. The results were interpreted in terms of the special needs that are required by the hampered communication between deaf and hearing people as well as in terms of the ongoing discussion regarding theory-of-mind development in deaf children.     

What Should Criminal Justice Interns Know? Comparing the Opinions of Student Interns and Criminal Justice Practitioners

We surveyed 118 criminal justice interns, asking them to assess the importance of various practical skills, professional skills, academic content knowledge, and knowledge of various current issues. We compared the results with those of 202 criminal justice practitioners. Student interns viewed almost every skill and knowledge area as important. Practitioners placed the greatest value on verbal communication skills, good work ethic, good work habits, and initiative. Regarding content knowledge, practitioners assigned the greatest importance to applied ethics. Racial issues as they apply to criminal justice and gender issues were viewed as most important in the current issues category. We examined the differences according to race, gender, and type of agency. We found significant differences between interns and practitioners in terms of the skills and knowledge deemed important, and significant differences between agency types. Significant differences existed based on racial and ethnic identity; differences based on gender were not significant.     

Socialization and Family Correlates of Mental Health Outcomes among Hispanic and Anglo American Children: Consideration of Cross-Ethnic Scalar Equivalence

Recently there has been concern over the need for developmental research within ethnic minority populations and interest in socialization and family variables within, and variability across, ethnic groups. This study reports analyses designed to: compare several socialization, family, and mental health variables among Hispanic and Anglo American 8–14-year-old children and mothers; examine the regression equations predicting mental health indicators with the socialization and family variables; and evaluate the cross-ethnic scalar equivalence of these socialization and family measures. The findings indicate that there are ethnic differences in several socialization and family variables; several of the socialization and family variables are related to the mental health variables, and these relations are very similar across ethnic groups; and the socialization and family measures appear to have sufficient cross-ethnic scalar equivalence for English-speaking, largely Mexican American Hispanic samples. Further, these findings suggest some caution regarding the use of the Child Depression Inventory in Hispanic samples.     

Responses of Physically Abused and Nonabused Children to Different Forms of Interadult Anger

Responses to various forms of interadult anger were examined in 2 groups of 6–11-year-olds: 44 low-SES children with a history of physical abuse and exposure to interspousal aggression, and 44 low-SES children exposed to interspousal aggression but with no history of physical abuse or other child maltreatment. Children were presented with videotaped segments of adults in angry and friendly interactions. Angry segments varied on ( a ) the type of anger expression (nonverbal, verbal, verbal-physical), and ( b ) whether anger was resolved. In general, physically abused children reported greater fear than nonabused children in response to all forms of interadult anger. Moreover, abused children appeared particularly sensitive to whether anger between adults was resolved. Findings are discussed with regard factors that may mediate relations between exposure to family violence and the development of psychopathology in children from highly aggressive home environments.     

经济为何成为印第安纳大选的关键

Evelyn Salyer is the kind of voter Republicans desperately need to hang onto this fall.     

技术与高等教育-新时代的契机与变革

本文旨在探讨技术是怎样潜在地影响了高等教育。文章从五个层面展开分析 :技术与现代社会 ;从历史视角透视技术与教育 ;技术对高等教育的影响 ;政策压力与合法性 ;高等教育领域内技术变革的阻力。     

Risk Assessment and Optimisation of Blast Mitigation Strategies for Design and Strengthening of Built Infrastructure

A probabilistic risk assessment procedure is developed which can predict risks of explosive blast damage to built infrastructure, and when combined with life-cycle cost analysis, the procedure can be used to optimise blast mitigation strategies. The paper focuses on window glazing since this is a load-capacity system which, when subjected to blast loading, has caused significant damage and injury to building occupants. Structural reliability techniques are used to derive blast reliability curves for annealed and toughened glazing subjected to explosive blast for a variety of threat scenarios. The probabilistic analyses include the uncertainties associated with blast modelling, glazing response and glazing failure criteria. Damage risks are calculated for an individual window and for windows in the facade of a multi-storey commercial building. The paper shows an illustrative example of how this information, when combined with risk-based decision-making criteria, can be used to optimise blast mitigation strategies.     

English language teachers becoming more efficacious through research engagement at their Turkish university

While it is generally recognized that teacher research can be a very beneficial form of continuing professional development (CPD), there is still relatively limited research available on the impact this activity has on teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, which are of interest to educational psychologists because, while being open to constant change, these beliefs influence the way in which knowledge is transformed into action. There is also a relative lack of available research into how teachers develop as researchers; the processes whereby they gain practical knowledge and more positive self-efficacy beliefs in planning, conducting, analysing, presenting and writing up research require further exploration. This qualitative multi-case study addresses these issues, exploring the development of three in-service teachers of English on a foundation programme at a Turkish university. Findings reveal that engaging in CPD which directly benefited their learners helped all three teachers develop positive teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and deeper practical knowledge in relation to the specific tasks that concerned them. Furthermore, from a starting point of having low self-efficacy beliefs in conducting practical research, which reflected their lack of prior knowledge in this area, they all became more efficacious as they gained research experience and developed practical knowledge of research. This study highlights the benefits, then, of helping teachers become more efficacious through CPD that engages them as knowledge-generators. Enthusiastic mentoring, autonomy support and the opportunity to present their research more widely all helped the teachers in this Turkish context to develop.     

Educational Stratification and Students’ Social Bonding to School

This paper examines the polarization model from qualitative research in both Great Britain and the US, which claims that educational stratification practices polarize students into pro- and anti-school orientations. Because few researchers have adequately conceptualized school attitudes and behavior, social bonding theory (Hirschi, 1969) is used to provide a framework for examining the polarization hypothesis. Relying on High School and Beyond data from the US, an attempt is made to develop measures of respondents’ social bonding to school, including college expectations, absenteeism, disciplinary problems, and engagement. The polarization hypothesis is supported by these US data when examining educational stratification effects on the school bonding measures. Compared to academic-track students, general- and vocational-track students have Iowa college expectations, more disciplinary problems, and are less academically engaged, controlling for prior school orientations and for selection bias due to dropping out of school. For absenteeism, the general track has a significant positive effect, while vocational-track students do not differ from those in the academic track. In addition, students in the nonacademic tracks are more likely to drop out of school between the 10th and 12th grades compared to academic-track students.