Puerto Rican parent'ss understanding of their young children's development: P.I.A.G.E.T. program impacts on family involvement in culturally and linguistically diverse populations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impacts of a parent involvement program, Project P.I.A.G.E.T., on parents' understanding of their children's development. Subjects were 29 Puerto Rican parents whose Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) children were enrolled in the parent involvement program. With the help of home visiting paraprofessionals provided by the project, parents were trained, for six months, to use various strategies and skills in helping their children learn. The program effects were measured by a commercially available test, Alpern–Boll Developmental Profile II. The study revealed that P.I.A.G.E.T. parent involvement program was effective in improving the involved parents' understanding of their children's various developmental areas. Implications for increasing CLD parents' involvement on educating their children are also presented. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Japanese neo‐nationalism and an idea of an East Asian community

Abstract

The paper explains the relationship between Japan and its neighboring countries, and the influence of Japanese neo‐nationalism on the idea of an East Asian community.     

Type D personality as a predictor of smoking cessation failure in smoking high school adolescents

The aim of this study was to identify the association between type D personality and smoking cessation among high school students who had participated in a stop smoking program. From 27 high schools, we recruited 279 smoking students who had participated in a stop smoking program between May 29, 2015, and January 25, 2016. About 26.5% of participants had a type D personality. A logistic regression analysis revealed that initiating smoking before or during 5th grade, smoking 21 or more cigarettes daily, and having a type D personality were significantly related to smoking cessation failure. Type D personality was significantly associated with social nicotine dependency and was a predictor of smoking cessation failure after a stop smoking program. Accordingly, type D personality should be considered along with other smoking‐related factors when attempting to promote smoking cessation among high school adolescents.     

Exploring children's understanding of death concepts

This study is an investigation of the effects of death education on children and their understanding of death. The participants of this study were eighty 5- and 6-year-olds who were enrolled in a suburban kindergarten in Korea. To examine the level of children's understanding of death, researchers interviewed each child in both the control and experimental groups. After the interview, researchers provided an intervention (11 educational activities) to the experimental group. No educational intervention was provided to the control group. Researchers re-interviewed children in both groups after the treatment. The overall mean score of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group on all five categories of the death concept: causality, old age, irreversibility, finality, and inevitability. Implications regarding how death education can be approached in early childhood settings are also discussed.     

Cooperation and competition in intercultural interactions

Previous research has demonstrated that intercultural interactions produce less positive outcomes in cooperative behaviors in game play than intracultural interactions, yet no study to date has empirically linked these behavioral outcomes to cultural differences between the players. In this study stranger dyads played a modified version of Prisoner's Dilemma either with a partner from the same country or not. Intercultural dyads were less cooperative and more competitive, replicating previous findings. The behavioral outcomes for the intercultural dyads were reliably associated with differences in the dyad's home country scores on Hofstede's (2001) cultural dimension Power Distance, linking cultural differences between players and behavioral outcomes in intercultural game play.     

Diversity-related research reported in high-impact library and information science journal literature: A content analysis

This study reports a content analysis of the frequency distribution of diversity-related research in four high-impact Library and Information Science (LIS) journals published between 1995 and 2014. High-impact journals (with high rankings and impact factors) were chosen because empirically based articles from them are more likely to be able to influence future research direction. The journals chosen were published articles quarterly or bi-monthly, with an average of 5–6 articles per issue. A total of 1766 research articles were collected, with 28.71% determined to be related to diversity. Results show an increasing interest in diversity-related research in the LIS field, with a dramatic increase between 2010 and 2014. The majority of diversity-related research focuses on age, gender and ethnicity. Only a small portion of research discusses issues concerning specific populations and emphasizes diversity-related theoretical concepts. More efforts are needed to highlight the link in order to contribute to the diversity and inclusion agenda in LIS.     

Teaching Repayment of Parents' Kindness

This article introduces a Buddhist Sutra about the deep kindness of mothers and ways of repaying mothers' kindness. The Sutra has been used to teach children about mothers' kindness and the obligation to repay to their mothers in their old age. It contains discourses about 10 types of kindness that a mother bestows on her child and how to repay the kindness in her old age. The paper discusses the profound nature of mothers' kindness, the way of repaying the kindness, the reciprocal caring relationship between the mother and the child, the status of mothers in Buddhism, and implications for aging.     

Integrating Research Proposals Into a Field Seminar: Feedback From Students

Teaching research to social work students continues to be the topic of an ongoing dialog within the profession. The literature suggests that some form of a “real-world” or “hands-on” learning opportunity has many benefits for teaching a subject that students often are reluctant to engage in. Using online survey methods, researchers gathered feedback from graduate students and their field supervisors about their experience of completing a field seminar that integrated an agency-based research proposal as part of the course requirement. Although there were limitations to this approach, many of the same benefits of actually implementing research were reported by students who completed only a proposal.     

Quantification for complex assessment: uncertainty estimation in final year project thesis assessment

A quantitative method for estimating an expected uncertainty (reliability and validity) in assessment results arising from the relativity between four variables, viz examiner's expertise, examinee's expertise achieved, assessment task difficulty and examinee's performance, was developed for the complex assessment applicable to final year project thesis assessment including peer assessment. A guide map can be generated by the method for finding expected uncertainties prior to the assessment implementation with a given set of variables. It employs a scale for visualisation of expertise levels, derivation of which is based on quantified clarities of mental images for levels of the examiner's expertise and the examinee's expertise achieved. To identify the relevant expertise areas that depend on the complexity in assessment format, a graphical continuum model was developed. The continuum model consists of assessment task, assessment standards and criterion for the transition towards the complex assessment owing to the relativity between implicitness and explicitness and is capable of identifying areas of expertise required for scale development.