Outcomes of a school‐based mental health program for youth with serious emotional disorders

The present study describes a comprehensive, day treatment program conducted in public school classrooms for children with serious emotional disorders (SED) and presents data evaluating program efficacy. Behavioral outcomes are presented for 142 children, ages 5 to 18 years, over the course of an academic year. Treatment efficacy was assessed using a behavioral outcome measure, the Youth Outcome Questionnaire. At initial evaluation, all children were exhibiting emotional symptoms beyond the scope of outpatient services, with 97% being classified as having a Severe Emotional Disorder. At the 9‐month follow‐up, 50.7% of the sample showed overall symptom reduction, and 27.5% scored below clinical cutoff levels, indicating remission of symptoms to within normal limits. Treatment response was equally likely among boys and girls, and across diagnostic categories. Elementary school‐aged children and adolescents made equivalent gains in the program; however, mixed‐model, repeated‐measures ANOVA revealed a significant group × time interaction ( p < .05), indicating that these groups showed different patterns of improvement over time. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 39: 661–675, 2002.     

‘We are getting there slowly’: lesbian teacher experiences in the post-Section 28 environment

Prior to the subtraction of Section 28 from the 1988 Local Government Act in 2003, a substantial amount of research was published that specifically examined the experiences of lesbian physical education (PE) teachers. This article contributes to the existing academic literature by exploring the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual teachers working in a post-Section 28 school environment. Drawing on life history interviews of two lesbian PE teachers, we offer insights into how the abolition of Section 28 has affected their lives. Comparable to previous studies, both women reported feeling fearful of the consequences of identifying as lesbian and employed various strategies in order to maintain a divide between their public and private lives so as to conceal their sexual identities from colleagues, pupils and parents. However, in contrast to much of the previous literature, we found that the teachers in this study also identified with narratives of resistance. Despite being fearful of coming out at work, they nevertheless remained committed to coming out when the context is appropriate, to challenging the heteronormative symbolic order configured around the heterosexual/homosexual binary and to more proactively promoting sexual diversity and tolerance in schools.     

Data literacy training needs of biomedical researchers

Objective

The research investigated topic priorities for data literacy training for biomedical researchers and staff.

Methods

An electronic survey was used to assess researchers'' level of knowledge related to data literacy skills and the relevance of these skills to their work.

Results

Most respondents did not have any formal training in data literacy. Respondents considered most tasks highly relevant to their work but rated their expertise in tasks lower.

Conclusion

Among this group, researchers have diverse data literacy training needs. Librarians'' expertise makes them well suited to provide such training.     

The Relation between Chinese Preschoolers’ Social-Emotional Competence and Preacademic Skills

Research Findings: The current study examines the relations between Chinese preschoolers’ social-emotional competence and their preacademic skills, as well as the role of child gender and parental education in such relations. A total of 154 children from the northeastern region of China were involved in the study. Both parents and head teachers of the target children completed measures of children’s social-emotional competence and preacademic skills. Multiple aspects of social-emotional competence were investigated. The results showed that children’s withdrawn behaviors and attention problems were negatively related to their preacademic skills. Both parent- and teacher-reported positive social behaviors were positively related to children’s preacademic skills. In addition, child gender and parental education together moderated the effects of children’s anxious/depressed problems and parent-reported social behaviors on children’s preacademic skills. Practice or Policy: Teacher training and support are needed to help preschool teachers (a) better support children who are socially withdrawn or have difficulty regulating attention and (b) understand the construct and importance of social-emotional development in relation to children’s preacademic development . In addition, child characteristics such as age and gender and socioeconomic factors need to be taken into consideration in the study of young children’s social-emotional and cognitive competence.     

Engaging New Faculty in the Scholarship of Teaching

This article describes how scholarly teaching projects were conceived, implemented, and evaluated by junior faculty from a variety of disciplines at a medium-sized midwestern university. The authors explore: considerations in designing scholarly teaching projects, methods used to evaluate teaching effectiveness, and outcomes of the teaching projects. Finally, two of the teaching projects illustrate how junior faculty with diverse courses, class sizes, and teaching concerns approached the task of improving their teaching.     

Self-Regulation and Economic Stress in Children of Hispanic Immigrants and Their Peers: Better Regulation at a Cost?

Research Findings: Although there is a well-established relationship between economic stress and children’s self-regulation, few studies have examined this relationship in children of Hispanic immigrants (COHIs), a rapidly growing population. In a sample of preschool children (N = 165), we examined whether economic stress predicted teacher evaluations of children’s self-regulation, whether economic stress predicted children’s physiological reactivity (via cortisol levels), and whether economic stress had a similar effect on self-regulation and children’s cortisol for COHI versus nonimmigrant children. Greater economic stress was associated with poorer child self-regulation and heightened physiological reactivity across a challenging classroom task for the sample as a whole. However, when we examined children by group, greater economic stress was associated with poorer teacher-reported self-regulation for nonimmigrant children only. In contrast, greater economic stress was related to greater cortisol reactivity across a challenge task for COHIs but not for nonimmigrants. Practice or Policy: Results demonstrate the importance of considering physiological indices of self-regulation (heightened stress physiology), in addition to traditional external indices (teacher report), when assessing self-regulation or risk more generally among preschool samples that are diverse in terms of ethnicity, economic risk, and parents’ nativity.