Reducing Risk for Substance Use by Economically Disadvantaged Young Men: Positive Family Environments and Pathways to Educational Attainment

Using prospective, longitudinal data spanning 10 years (age = 10–20) from a study of 295 economically disadvantaged males, the current investigation evaluated a developmental model that links early family environment and later educational aspirations, extracurricular activities, and educational attainment to substance use in early adulthood. The results indicate that a positive family environment during adolescence (low family conflict, high family warmth, and effective child management) predicted educational involvements during adolescence that promoted educational attainment during early adulthood. Finally, higher levels of educational attainment were associated with less substance use in early adulthood, even after controlling for adolescent substance use. These findings suggest that positive parenting promotes educational achievements that increase resilience to substance use for economically disadvantaged males.     

Adapting Active Support Interactive Training to a special school context to upskill classroom staff and increase engagement in pupils

Research indicates that engagement acts as an important precursor for learning, yet sustaining the engagement of pupils with special educational needs can be a challenge for classroom staff. An Active Support staff training package, Interactive Training, has been demonstrated as an effective way of increasing engagement in adults accessing learning disability services. In theory the logic of Active Support Interactive Training could extend to a school environment, with the aim of achieving similar outcomes. The current study evaluated a special school-adapted version of Active Support Interactive Training with the aim of increasing engagement in pupils during group-based learning. Findings showed an increase in engagement in pupils for all three settings (classrooms) immediately after intervention, which continued to either increase or stabilise at three-month follow-up. Further research could test the engagement behaviour of staff pre- and post- training intervention and explore practice leadership within the school leadership team to address maintenance.     

Modern dietary guidelines for healthy pregnancy; maximising maternal and foetal outcomes and limiting excessive gestational weight gain

Abstract

Maternal dietary habits influence maternal and foetal health, representing a pathway for intervention to maximise pregnancy outcomes. Advice on energy intake is provided on a trimester basis, with no additional calories required in the first trimester and an additional 340?kcal?d^?1 and 452?kcal?d^?1 needed for the second and third trimesters. Energy intake depends on pre-gravid body mass index (BMI); underweight women are recommended an increase of 150, 200 and 300?kcal?d^?1 during the first, second and third trimester, normal weight women an increase of 0, 350 and 500?kcal?d^?1 and obese women an increase of 0, 450 and 350?kcal?day^?1. The recommendations for carbohydrate and protein intake are 175?g?d^?1 and 0.88–1.1?g?kgBM?d^?1, with no change to fat intake. The number of pre-gravid obese women is rising; therefore, we need to regulate weight in women of childbearing age and limit gestational weight gain to within the recommended ranges [overweight women 6.8–11.3?kg and obese women 5.0–9.1?kg]. This can be achieved using nutritional interventions, as dietary changes have been shown to help with gestational weight management. As pregnancy has been identified as a risk factor for the development of obesity, normal weight women should gain 11.5–16.0?kg during pregnancy. While some research has shown that dietary interventions help to regulate gestational weight gain and promote postpartum weight loss to some extent, future research is needed to provide safe and effective guidelines to maximise these effects, while benefitting maternal and foetal health.     

Dynamics of undergraduate student generic problem-solving skills captured by a campus-wide study

The ability to effectively problem solve is a highly valued competency expected of university graduates, independent of their area of study. Evaluation of problem-solving skill (PSS) development is hindered by a shortage of available tools for monitoring student progress and by lack of defined instructional strategies for development of these skills. Our research is aimed at addressing these problems. We have developed an evaluation tool, which we applied to study the dynamics of undergraduate student PSS. We tested first- and upper-year students from 26 different courses (total enrollment of 2229 students). Overall improvement of PSS was detected for the first-year students over their first term of study. There were no significant differences between the PSS of first- and upper-year students, and no improvement was detected over a single term by measuring PSS in upper-year students. Only three courses were effective at facilitating PSS. Our data indicate that most of the standard lecture approaches do not develop undergraduate student PSS and that universities and individual instructors must take active steps to advance this critical skill set in university students.     

Stone Walks: inhuman animacies and queer archives of feeling

Excavating what Jeffrey Cohen [2015. Stone: An ecology of the inhuman. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press] calls ‘lithic ecomateriality’, in this paper we illustrate how rocks have traditionally been conceptualized through three tropes: rocks as insensate; rocks as personified; and rocks as transformative. We take up the concept of inhuman to challenge human-centric taxonomies of rocks and animacy. If rocks are not lifeless, or only considered as ‘resources’ or ‘threats’, to humans, then thinking with rocks as vital extends our ethical and political response. In the final section of the paper, we consider archives, not as a logical form of organizing knowledge, but as material, vital, and affective. We argue that when stones and archives are examined as something more than stable things – as interfactual, transcorporeal, and transmaterial co-compositions – different ethical relatings to the inhuman world become possible.     

Women in interdisciplinary science: Exploring preferences and consequences

For at least a decade, U.S. funding agencies and university campuses have promoted the expansion of interdisciplinary research. At the same time, federal and local programs have sought to increase the participation of women and minorities in science, mathematics, and engineering. Research has focused on each of these trends independently, but very few studies have considered their interaction by asking how intellectual preferences for and professional consequences of interdisciplinary science might be influenced by gender, race, and/or ethnicity. Focused specifically on gender, this paper considers the expectation that women will be more drawn to interdisciplinary research, and explores the learning styles, work preferences, and career behaviors that might anticipate and/or explicate gender differences in interdisciplinary science. Principal mechanisms by which researchers engage in interdisciplinarity - cross-fertilization, team-collaboration, field-creation, and problem-orientation - are tested for evidence of gendering using preliminary empirical data from three studies. The results of this exploratory analysis offer clues about possible tendencies and raise questions about the potential costs and benefits for those who adopt them.     

CSRP's Impact on low-income preschoolers' preacademic skills: self-regulation as a mediating mechanism

Based on theoretically driven models, the Chicago School Readiness Project (CSRP) targeted low-income children's school readiness through the mediating mechanism of self-regulation. The CSRP is a multicomponent, cluster-randomized efficacy trial implemented in 35 Head Start-funded classrooms (N = 602 children). The analyses confirm that the CSRP improved low-income children's self-regulation skills (as indexed by attention/impulse control and executive function) from fall to spring of the Head Start year. Analyses also suggest significant benefits of CSRP for children's preacademic skills, as measured by vocabulary, letter-naming, and math skills. Partial support was found for improvement in children's self-regulation as a hypothesized mediator for children's gains in academic readiness. Implications for programs and policies that support young children's behavioral health and academic success are discussed.     

Hemoglobin, growth, and attention of infants in southern Ethiopia

Male and female infants from rural Ethiopia were tested to investigate relations among hemoglobin (Hb), anthropometry, and attention. A longitudinal design was used to examine differences in attention performance from 6 (M = 24.9 weeks, n = 89) to 9 months of age (M = 40.6 weeks, n = 85), differences hypothesized to be related to changes in iron status and growth delays. Stunting (length‐for‐age z scores < ?2.0) and attention performance, t(30) = ?2.42, p = .022, worsened over time. Growth and Hb predicted attention at 9 months, R² = .15, p < .05, but not at 6. The study contributes to the knowledge base concerning the relations among Hb, early growth, and attention.     

Face-to-face versus computer-mediated discussion of teaching cases: Impacts on preservice teachers’ engagement, critical analyses, and self-efficacy

Two frequently-used discussion protocols were investigated as part of a program to implement teaching cases in undergraduate educational psychology classes designed for preservice teachers. One protocol involved synchronous face-to-face (FTF) discussion of teaching cases, which occurred in class after students had individually completed written case analyses as homework outside of class. The other was asynchronous computer-mediated (CM) discussion taking place outside of class, simultaneous to students’ completion of their written case analyses. Six class offerings of an undergraduate child development course taught by two instructors (three classes by each instructor) were randomly assigned within instructor in a quasi-experimental design to one of the three discussion conditions: FTF, CM, or no discussion of the cases across the semester. Findings indicated that both CM and FTF discussion conditions were associated with positive outcomes relative to the control condition. Both CM and FTF discussion related to higher cognitive–affective engagement with the cases than the control condition; and the CM discussion condition was associated with higher cognitive–affective engagement than FTF discussion. In contrast, FTF discussion, but not CM discussion, was associated with higher-than-control-condition case analysis ability at the end of the semester. Potential explanations for these findings and directions for future research are discussed.