Libraries and reference

AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE [website] (http://www.afionline.org), reviewed 9 June 1999.

GOING DIGITAL: STRATEGIES FOR ACCESS, PRESERVATION, AND CONVERSION OF COLLECTIONS TO A DIGITAL FORMAT edited by Donald L. DeWitt (New York: Haworth Press, 1998—$45.00, ISBN 0–7890–0521–2, 232 pp., index)

ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION [website] (http://www.eff.org), reviewed 17 April 1999. Founded in 1990 by John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor (of Lotus 1–2‐3 fame)

FACT: FIRST AMENDMENT CYBER‐TRIBUNE [website] (http://w3.trib.com/FACT), reviewed 17 April 1999. FACT is hosted by Wyoming's Casper Star‐Tribune and edited by Charles Levendosky (a columnist and editor for that newspaper)

THE HISTORY CHANNEL [website] (http://www.historychannel.com), reviewed 11 June 1999.

THE NATURE OF THE BOOK: PRINT AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE MAKING by Adrian Johns (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998—$40.00/no paper price, ISBM 0–226–40121–9 hard, 0–226–40122–7 paper, 753 pp., bibliography, index)

K.I.S.S. OF THE PANOPTICON [website] (http://carmen.artsci.washington.edu /panop/home.htm), reviewed 12 May 1999.

THE MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION STUDIES SITE (MCS): CONSTRUCTIVISM AT WORK [website] (http://www.aber.ac.uk/‐dgc/media.html), reviewed 23 April 1999.

MEDIA AWARENESS NETWORK [webstite] (http://www.media‐awareness.ca/), reviewed 11 March 1999.

CIVIC SPACE/CYBERSPACE: THE AMERICAN PUBLIC LIBRARY IN THE INFORMATION AGE by Redmond Kathleen Molz and Phyllis Dain (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999—$30.00, ISBN 0–262–13346–6, 259 pp., appendix, notes, bibliographical references, index)

RADIO VATICAN CITY [website] (http://www.wrn.org/vatican‐radio/), reviewed 12 May 1999.

SARAH ZUPKO'S CULTURAL STUDIES CENTER [website] (http://www.popcultures.com/), reviewed 12 May 1999.     

Predicting Teacher Participation in a Classroom-Based, Integrated Preventive Intervention for Preschoolers

Preschools provide a promising setting in which to conduct preventive interventions for childhood problems, but classroom programs can only be effective if teachers are willing and able to implement them. This study is one of the first to investigate predictors of the frequency of teacher participation in a classroom-based, randomized controlled trial of an integrated prevention program for preschoolers. The intervention was designed to promote school readiness with an integrated social and academic program, to be implemented by teachers with the support of classroom consultants. The current study is part of a larger project conducted with Head Start and community child care centers that serve primarily economically disadvantaged families; 49 teachers from 30 centers participated in this study. Overall, teachers conducted approximately 70% of the program activities. Participation decreased significantly over time from the first to the final week of the intervention, and also decreased within each week of the intervention, from the first to the final weekly activity. Teachers working at community child care centers implemented more intervention activities than did Head Start teachers. Teacher concerns about the intervention, assessed prior to training, predicted less participation. In addition, teachers' participation was positively related to their perception that their centers and directors were supportive, collegial, efficient, and fair, as well as their job satisfaction and commitment. Teacher experience, education, ethnicity, and self-efficacy were not significantly related to participation. In multi-level models that considered center as a level of analysis, substantial variance was accounted for by centers, pointing to the importance of considering center-level predictors in future research.     

Childhood abuse and neglect in body dysmorphic disorder

OBJECTIVE: No published studies have examined childhood abuse and neglect in body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). This study examined the prevalence and clinical correlates of abuse and neglect in individuals with this disorder. METHODS: Seventy-five subjects (69.3% female, mean age=35.4+/-12.0) with DSM-IV BDD completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and were interviewed with other reliable and valid measures. RESULTS: Of these subjects, 78.7% reported a history of childhood maltreatment: emotional neglect (68.0%), emotional abuse (56.0%), physical abuse (34.7%), physical neglect (33.3%), and sexual abuse (28.0%). Forty percent of subjects reported severe maltreatment. Among females (n=52), severity of reported abuse and neglect were .32-.57 standard deviation units higher than norms for a health maintenance organization (HMO) sample of women. Severity of sexual abuse was the only type of maltreatment significantly associated with current BDD severity (r=.23, p=.047). However, severity of sexual abuse did not predict current BDD severity in a simultaneous multiple regression analysis with age and current treatment status. There were other significant associations with childhood maltreatment: history of attempted suicide was related to emotional (p=.004), physical (p=.014), and sexual abuse (p=.038). Childhood emotional abuse was associated with a lifetime substance use disorder (r=.26, p=.02), and physical abuse was negatively associated with a lifetime mood disorder (r=-.37, p=.001). CONCLUSIONS: A high proportion of individuals with BDD reported childhood abuse and neglect. Certain types of abuse and neglect appear modestly associated with BDD symptom severity and with gender, suicidality, and certain disorders.     

Interpreting evolutionary diagrams: When topology and process conflict

The authors argue that some diagrams in biology textbooks and the popular press presented as depicting evolutionary relationships suggest an inappropriate (anagenic) conception of evolutionary history. The goal of this research was to provide baseline data that begin to document how college students conceptualize the evolutionary relationships depicted in such noncladogenic diagrams and how they think about the underlying evolutionary processes. Study 1 investigated how students (n = 50) interpreted the evolutionary relationships depicted in four such evolutionary diagrams. In Study 2, new students (n = 62) were asked to interpret what the students in Study 1 meant when they used the terms evolved into/from and ancestor/descendant of. The results show the interpretations fell broadly into two categories: (a) evolution as an anagenic rather than cladogenic process, and (b) evolution as a teleological (purpose‐driven) process. These results imply that noncladogenic diagrams are inappropriate for use in evolution education because they lead to the misinterpretation of many evolutionary processes. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:861–882, 2010     

School‐based prevention and intervention programs for children with emotional disturbance: A review of treatment components and methodology

School practitioners and educators are frequently challenged by the diverse and pervasive academic, social, and behavioral needs of children at risk for and with emotional disturbance. The present article examines the outcome literature on school‐based prevention and intervention programs by systematically reviewing the key treatment interventions and methodology used. A total of 29 investigations including 1,405 children and adolescents were reviewed and coded on 41 variables across three dimensions (i.e., sample characteristics, treatment components, and methodology). Single subject and group design studies were included. Behavioral and/or cognitive behavioral treatment approaches were primary used. Deficit‐based assessment and treatment approaches (i.e., problem behaviors) were predominately used in the outcome literature with few investigations incorporating strength‐based outcome approaches. Findings are discussed in relation to previous research. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Dealing with non‐normality: an introduction and step‐by‐step guide using R

The article presents some notes on normalization and illustrates these procedures using graphing functions in R. Using real data, the paper also presents an R package and online Shiny app that efficiently transforms variables in large datasets.     

Factors associated with early career progression in professional Australian Football players

This study examined the association between individual and team characteristics and the probability of being offered a second contract in professional Australian Football. Contract status was obtained from the AFL for players who were drafted in the AFL National Draft between 1999 and 2013 (n = 999). Individual player characteristics were retrieved from the AFL while variables relating to performance were accessed online via Champion Data®. A binary logistic regression examined the influence of each characteristic on the probability of a professional Australian Football player receiving a second contract. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and the associated AUC were used to assess the discriminant ability of both a training (n = 938) and test data set (n = 61). The characteristics that influenced the probability of receiving a second contract included first year debut (pr 0.606), draft order (pr – 0.126), draft year (pr 0.059), games played (pr 1.848), team state (pr 0.458), rising star nomination (pr 1.553) and team ladder position (pr ?0.043) (χ² (8) = 198.28, p < 0.001). The ROC curve demonstrated an AUC of 82.4% (training) and 76.0% (test). A combination of individual and team based characteristics are associated with early career progression in professional Australian Football.     

Strategies for Assessing Classroom Teaching: Examining Administrator Thinking as Validity Evidence

All 50 states use observations to evaluate practicing teachers, but we know little about how administrators actually reason when they use those observation protocols. Drawing on think-aloud and stimulated recall data, this study describes the types of strategies and warrants practicing administrators used when rating with their district’s observation protocol. Administrators in a large urban district used an observation protocol aligned to Danielson’s Framework for Teaching to rate a brief lesson clip. Administrators’ thinking was recorded, clarified, and inductively coded. Findings suggest administrator thinking and justification is complex even for short lengths of instruction. Administrators used a range of reasoning strategies, many of which were not sanctioned by their training. Exploratory analyses suggest strategy use was not related to the accuracy of ratings. Implications for the validity of teacher observation scores in high-stakes settings are considered.     

Using an Exploratory Professional Development Initiative to Introduce iPads in the Early Childhood Education Classroom

The purpose of this study was to investigate the incorporation of iPads into the early childhood classroom through an exploratory teacher professional development initiative. Eighteen early childhood educators participated in a 6-month study targeting teacher professional development and pedagogical innovation. This study included built-in opportunities for teacher collaborative discussions and support in their team meetings, as well as basic technology training on the use of an iPad in a classroom. A thematic analysis was conducted using constructed codes from teacher interviews and focus groups, as well as artifact collections of notes from teacher bi-monthly meetings. Results indicate that teachers used technology in three innovative ways: as an efficiency solution, as a bridge in virtual parent communication, and as curriculum enhancement or replacement. The researchers of this study argue that using the iPad as curriculum is the next area of professional growth for early childhood teachers.