Project Outcome results in action

ABSTRACT

The Public Library Association’s performance measurement initiative, Project Outcome, is a free online toolkit designed to help public libraries understand and share the impact of essential library programs and services by providing simple surveys and an easy-to-use process for measuring and analyzing outcomes. Interviews of participating libraries and community stakeholders were conducted in 2017 to create five success case studies. What PLA learned is that libraries using Project Outcome surveys can leverage their outcome data into actionable results—tracking their impact across time, improving and expanding programs and services, supporting new and deepening existing partnerships, and increasing library championship.     

Engaging Families in Public Libraries

Public libraries today are undergoing significant transformations as well as interacting with patrons in new and different ways (Knight Foundation 2017). Part of this transformation is the way libraries are engaging entire families. Libraries are playing a stronger role than ever before in supporting families to promote children’s early literacy and reading skills (Celano and Neuman 2015; Nagle et al. 2016; Neuman and Celano 2010), stimulating adult learning (Boden and Tashijan 2015), creating initiatives to improve family health (Morgan et al. 2016), providing services to families with extreme challenges such as those experiencing poverty, homelessness, food insecurity, and incarceration (Holt and Holt 2010; Terille 2016), as well as becoming spaces for families, especially those who are recent immigrants, to build new relationships and social networks (Khoir et al. 2017; Vårheim 2014). Despite these efforts, few studies have specifically sought to understand the organizational dimensions that support family engagement within a library system and the potential that these efforts have in promoting children’s learning not only in the early years, but also into and throughout middle childhood and adolescence. Based on a yearlong study investigating the power of family engagement in public libraries, this article considers how libraries can begin to adopt a systemic approach to family engagement to further innovate the library space.     

SCHOOL‐WIDE POSITIVE BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTIONS AND SUPPORTS FOR STUDENTS WITH EMOTIONAL AND BEHAVIORAL DISORDERS

This investigation employed a participatory action research method involving school psychology consultants and educators to design and evaluate the impact of school‐wide positive behavioral interventions and supports in a self‐contained school serving students with emotional and behavioral disorders. The traditional practices of a universal system, including teaching and acknowledging expected behaviors and responding to disruptive behaviors, were adapted to better accommodate the needs of a more challenging student population. In addition, system‐wide practices, including various teaming and professional development strategies, were instituted to promote sustainability. Results, after implementation of Tier 1, showed reductions in the frequency of discipline referrals and the number of emergency safety interventions, with a sustained impact across the next 3 years. Limitations included the lack of experimental control in evaluating the intervention. Discussion includes recommendations for an expanded role for school psychologists in promoting evidence‐based practices for high‐risk student populations.     

Students’ use of personal technologies in the university classroom: analysing the perceptions of the digital generation

Faculty frequently express concerns about students’ personal use of information and communication technologies in today’s university classrooms. As a requirement of a graduate research methodology course in a university in Ontario, Canada, the authors conducted qualitative research to gain an in-depth understanding of students’ perceptions of this issue. Their findings reveal students’ complex considerations about the acceptability of technology use. Their analysis of the broader contexts of students’ use reveals that despite a technological revolution, university teaching practices have remained largely the same, resulting in ‘cultural lag’ within the classroom. While faculty are technically ‘in charge’, students wield power through course evaluations, surveillance technologies and Internet postings. Neoliberalism and the corporatisation of the university have engendered an ‘entrepreneurial student’ customer who sees education as a means to a career. Understanding students’ perceptions and their technological, social and political contexts offers insights into the tensions within today’s classrooms.     

Externally Contingent and Unstable Self‐Worth as Predictors of Depression in College Women: A 3‐Month Study

Undergraduate women completed measures of externally contingent self‐worth, self‐esteem instability, and depression at the beginning (Time 1) and again 3 months later near the end (Time 2) of an academic semester. Findings indicated that when Time 1 depression scores were controlled for, each Time 1 facet of self‐esteem made significant contributions to Time 2 depression scores. Implications of these findings for the counseling of depressed college students are discussed.     

Correlates of Psychological Abuse Perpetration in College Dating Relationships

This study examined the contributions of gender, adult romantic attachment orientations (i.e., avoidance, anxiety), defense mechanisms (i.e., narcissism, other‐splitting), and stressors to college student psychological abuse perpetration (dominance). Men with higher levels of attachment avoidance, narcissistic entitlement, and stressful problems reported more dominance of female partners. Women with higher levels of other‐splitting reported more dominance of male partners. Attachment avoidance contributed to women's dominance of male partners only in the context of elevated narcissistic entitlement or few stressors.