Children born at risk: What's happening in kindergarten?

Many studies examine the development of infants born at risk for medical and developmental problems during the early years of life, but far fewer follow these children into their school years. This project compared high-risk vs. low-risk children in their performance on the WPPSI at pre- and postkindergarten levels. In general, both groups of children demonstrated increases in performance; however, their patterns of performance were different. The high-risk children showed increases predominantly in the Performance areas of the test, whereas the low-risk children demonstrated increases predominantly in the Verbal areas.     

Crisis intervention teams in the schools

When a crisis occurs in the school setting, school officials must be prepared to handle the situation effectively and efficiently. One of the ways school officials can handle a crisis situation is through the use of crisis intervention teams. The steps in establishing a crisis intervention team in a school setting include: determining goals, performing a needs assessment, finding model programs, developing a membership pool, developing a training program, preparing and maintaining a list of resources and plans for support services, establishing a communication network, designating a base of operations, planning team meetings, keeping records, and implementing the phases of debriefing. A crisis management scenario is presented and discussed in terms of the steps.     

A follow-up study of high school students with a history of grade retention

The present study examines high school students with a prior history of grade retention (N = 38) compared to a matched control group of nonretained students. The retained students were lower on a number of scholastic variables (i.e., achievement, intelligence, grades), more often absent from school, and lower on three subscales of a self-esteem measure (the Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents). The authors explored the correlates of grade retained with the measured variables and found that the later a student was retained was associated with lower grades, less-positive school attitudes, less time on homework, lower educational expectations, more discipline problems, lower self-control, and a more external locus of control.     

Application of network meta-analysis in the field of physical activity and health promotion

Continued advancement in the field of physical activity and health promotion relies heavily on the synthesis of rigorous scientific evidence. As such, systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials have led to a better understanding of which intervention strategies are superior (i.e., produce the greatest effects) in physical activity-based health behavior change interventions. Indeed, standard meta-analytic approaches have allowed researchers in the field to synthesize relevant experimental evidence using pairwise procedures that produce reliable estimates of the homogeneity, magnitude, and potential biases in the observed effects. However, pairwise meta-analytic procedures are only capable to discerning differences in effects between a select intervention strategy and a select comparison or control condition. In order to maximize the impact of physical activity interventions on health-related outcomes, it is necessary to establish evidence concerning the comparative efficacy of all relevant physical activity intervention strategies. The development of network meta-analysis (NMA)—most commonly used in medical-based clinical trials—has allowed for the quantification of indirect comparisons, even in the absence of direct, head-to-head trials. Thus, it stands to reason that NMA can be applied in physical activity and health promotion research to identify the best intervention strategies. Given that this analysis technique is novel and largely unexplored in the field of physical activity and health promotion, care must be taken in its application to ensure reliable estimates and discernment of the effect sizes among interventions. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to comment on the potential application and importance of NMA in the field of physical activity and health promotion, describe how to properly and effectively apply this technique, and suggest important considerations for its appropriate application in this field. In this paper, overviews of the foundations of NMA and commonly used approaches for conducting NMA are provided, followed by assumptions related to NMA, opportunities and challenges in NMA, and a step-by-step example of developing and conducting an NMA.