Reducing Children's Implicit Racial Bias Through Exposure to Positive Out‐Group Exemplars

Studies with adults suggest that implicit preferences favoring White versus Black individuals can be reduced through exposure to positive Black exemplars. However, it remains unclear whether developmental differences exist in the capacity for these biases to be changed. This study included 369 children and examined whether their implicit racial bias would be reduced following exposure to positive Black exemplars. Results showed that children's implicit pro‐White bias was reduced following exposure to positive Black exemplars, but only for older children (M_age = ~10 years). Younger children's (M_age = ~7 years) implicit bias was not affected by this intervention. These results suggest developmental differences in the malleability of implicit racial biases and point to possible age differences in intervention effectiveness.     

Effect of positioning on the accuracy of decision making of association football top-class referees and assistant referees during competitive matches

Abstract The aim of this study was to examine the effect of positioning on the correctness of decision making of top-class referees and assistant referees during international games. Match analyses were carried out during the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Confederations Cup 2009 and 380 foul play incidents and 165 offside situations were examined. The error percentage for the referees when indicating the incidents averaged 14%. The lowest error percentage occurred in the central area of the field, where the collaboration of the assistant referee is limited, and was achieved when indicating the incidents from a distance of 11-15?m, whereas this percentage peaked (23%) in the last 15-min match period. The error rate for the assistant referees was 13%. Distance of the assistant referee to the offside line did not have an impact on the quality of the offside decision. The risk of making incorrect decisions was reduced when the assistant referees viewed the offside situations from an angle between 46 and 60°. Incorrect offside decisions occurred twice as often in the second as in the first half of the games. Perceptual-cognitive training sessions specific to the requirements of the game should be implemented in the weekly schedule of football officials to reduce the overall error rate.     

Exploring the Underlying Factor Structure of the Parent Reading Belief Inventory (PRBI): Some Caveats

Although mainstream preschool programs have been in existence since the 1970s, little is known about the ways in which typical children attempt to understand what it means for a peer to have a disability. In this study, 4-year-old children without disabilities who were enrolled in a mainstream preschool class explained their peers' disabilities by referring to concepts of immaturity, accident, or adaptive equipment to account for the behavioral differences that they observed. The implications of these cognitions for children's developing attitudes and behaviors toward peers with disabilities are discussed.     

Social network data to alleviate cold-start in recommender system: A systematic review

Recommender Systems are currently highly relevant for helping users deal with the information overload they suffer from the large volume of data on the web, and automatically suggest the most appropriate items that meet users needs. However, in cases in which a user is new to Recommender System, the system cannot recommend items that are relevant to her/him because of lack of previous information about the user and/or the user-item rating history that helps to determine the users preferences. This problem is known as cold-start, which remains open because it does not have a final solution. Social networks have been employed as a good source of information to determine users preferences to mitigate the cold-start problem. This paper presents the results of a Systematic Literature Review on Collaborative Filtering-based Recommender System that uses social network data to mitigate the cold-start problem. This Systematic Literature Review compiled the papers published between 2011–2017, to select the most recent studies in the area. Each selected paper was evaluated and classified according to the depth which social networks used to mitigate the cold-start problem. The final results show that there are several publications that use the information of the social networks within the Recommender System; however, few research papers currently use this data to mitigate the cold-start problem.     

Investigating Supervisory Relationships and Therapeutic Alliances Using Structural Equation Modeling

The authors used structural equation modeling to examine the contribution of supervisees' supervisory relationship levels to therapeutic alliance (TA) scores with their clients in practicum. Results showed that supervisory relationship scores positively contributed to the TA. Client and counselor ratings of the TA also differed.     

Language Brokering and Depressive Symptoms in Mexican‐American Adolescents: Parent–Child Alienation and Resilience as Moderators

This study aimed to untangle the mixed effects of language brokering by examining a contextual factor (i.e., parent–child alienation) and a personal attribute (i.e., resilience) that may relate to adolescents’ feelings during translating (i.e., sense of burden and efficacy) and that may moderate the association between such feelings and adolescent depressive symptoms. Participants included 557 adolescent language brokers (M_age = 12.96) in Mexican‐American families. Results showed that adolescents with a strong sense of alienation from parents or low resilience (a) experienced more burden or less efficacy in translating and (b) were more susceptible to the detrimental effects of feeling a sense of burden and the beneficial effects of experiencing a sense of efficacy, as measured by depressive symptoms.     

The Effects of Teacher Professional Development on Children’s Attendance in Preschool

Abstract

Student absenteeism is a widespread and critical issue in early childhood education. Current efforts to reduce student absenteeism in both preschool and K–12 settings have largely been family- and parent-focused interventions. Yet, interventions targeting teachers and schools may similarly be effective tools to improve student attendance. We utilize data from a large-scale, experimental evaluation of an early childhood professional development intervention to examine whether it impacted children’s absenteeism and chronic absenteeism. Although the professional development targeted the quality of teacher-child interactions and did not target children’s absenteeism, we find that the professional development reduced student absence rates by 1.0 percentage points (equivalent to approximately an additional 1.9?days of preschool). The professional development also reduced chronic absenteeism by 6.0 percentage points. Impacts were concentrated among lower-income children. Implications for policies targeting student absenteeism in preschool settings are discussed.