Examining the engagement of career academy and comprehensive high school students in the United States

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the levels of student engagement of career academy students to those at a traditional comprehensive high school using propensity score matching and structural equation modeling. We found that academy students had significantly higher levels of emotional engagement and significantly lower levels of behavioral engagement than those at comprehensive schools. We also found no statistically significant differences in the levels of cognitive engagement of academy students compared to comprehensive school students. We believe the academy model has the promise of transforming the high school experience for students as it relates to their attachment to the school, their relationships with peers and teachers, and their sense of belonging and safety. However, academies need to work with students to create and develop co-curricular and extracurricular activities of interest to engage students in their schools at a higher level.     

对过度反应现象进行数据挖掘的数学模型

对证券市场过度反应现象的研究是行为金融学的一个重要研究方向。文章讨论了过度反应现象的数学描述，并建立了一种以研究过度反应现象的数据挖掘算法为目标的数学模型。用我国A股市场1994．1．3至2004、12．31年的全部个股数据进行实证分析的结论是：在我国股票市场，投资者的投资行为对好消息存在过度反应现象。     

Stability and Change in Social Goals as Related to Goal Structures and Engagement in School

The current studies explored (a) the extended external validity of social-goal-orientation framework; (b) the mediating role of social goals between classroom goal structures and students' engagement; and (c) whether changes in social goals can be explained by classroom goal structures and engagement. Study 1 was cross-sectional (N = 317), and study 2 included two time points, with a 6-month gap (N = 223), among sixth-grade students. The findings indicated that mastery goal structure was associated with social-development goals and engagement, whereas performance goal structure was associated with demonstration. Cross-lagged analysis revealed that (a) social goals are relatively stable; (b) development goals positively predicted change in emotional engagement, and (3) behavioral engagement positively predicted changes in development goals and negatively predicted changes in demonstration-avoidance goals.     

An empirical analysis of behavioral and emotional problems of foster children as related to re-placement in care

Foster care is seen as a temporary service. However, for many children, foster care involves years of long term care. Most professionals feel that if a child must remain in care, the number of foster homes or re-placements the child experiences should be minimized. Evidence suggests that this lack of stability has a detrimental effect on the child's psychosocial development. Even though the research evidence supports the negative impact of re-placement on the foster child, little empirical research has dealt with identification of factors associated with children likely to be re-placed. This article focuses on foster children with behavioral and emotional problems and analyzes the association of these problems with placement stability and continuity. The findings report that children with behavioral and emotional problems are replaced in foster care more often than those children without similar problems.     

The impact of English language learner status on screening for emotional and behavioral disorders: A differential item functioning (DIF) study

There have been significant changes in the racial/ethnic and linguistic background of students attending public schools in the United States. The number of public‐school students who are English language learners (ELLs) participating in programs of language assistance has more than doubled over the past two decades. In 1993–1994, 5.1% of public‐school students in the United States were ELLs, or an estimated 2.1 million students. As of 2014–2015, 9.4% of students were ELLs, or an estimated 4.6 million students. It is estimated that by 2030, upward of 40% of school children will speak English as a second language. Meeting the needs of students who are not proficient in English is challenging for school professionals and even more so if they are identified for special services. Researchers have found that ELL students live in situations with numerous high‐risk factors, including poverty, inadequate schools, poor and violent neighborhoods, and limited access to adequate health care, mental health services, and schools. As a group, these students are more likely to underperform academically, have a lower grade point average, and drop out of school compared to non‐ELL Latino students.     

A twin study of the etiology of high readingability

The present study examined the etiology of highreading ability in an overall sample of 350twin pairs in which at least one member of 100pairs (54 MZ, 46 DZ) had a reading compositescore one standard deviation above the sample mean. These highreaders also had significantly higher scoresthan the rest of the sample on Full Scale,Verbal and Performance IQ scores, as well as onmeasures of phoneme awareness, orthographiccoding, phonological decoding, and verbalshort-term memory. The MZ proband-wiseconcordance rate for high group membership wassignificantly higher than the DZ proband-wiseconcordance rate and further behavioralgenetic analyses corroborated that high readingability is partly due to genetic influence(h² _g = 0.55 ± 0.22). Bivariatemultiple regression analyses demonstrated thathigh phonological awareness, orthographiccoding, phonological decoding, and short-termverbal memory skills all share significantcommon genetic influence with high readingability. These results suggest that readingability and its cognitive correlates are on acontinuous distribution, with both extremes ofthe distribution being similarly heritable. They also support the hypothesis that the samecognitive processes that are associated withdyslexia are important for the development ofhigh reading ability.     

“生产经营型”新型职业农民胜任素质的要素构成研究——基于行为事件访谈法

“三农”问题是国家发展战略中的重难点,培育新型职业农民是中国实现农业现代化的必然选择。基于行为事件访谈法对样本区域的35名“生产经营型”新型职业农民进行研究,在此基础上建构其胜任素质的要素构成。结果表明,“生产经营型”新型职业农民的胜任素质包括“从农动机、职业承诺、团队建设与领导力、市场信息搜集与获取、成本收益评估能力、模式创新力、关系资本积累能力、农人新思维”等17项要素。新型职业农民胜任特征编码具有较高信度,胜任特征能对绩优组和绩平组进行有效鉴别与区分,具有较高效度。因此,采用行为事件访谈法对“生产经营型”新型职业农民胜任素质要素构成进行研究也是有效的。     

高校学生使用移动图书馆的行为意向研究

本文对移动图书馆的概念进行了界定,以技术接受模式为理论基础,识别了感知有用性、感知易用性、感知成本、使用态度、使用行为意向5个变量,进而提出感知有用性、感知易用性、感知成本、使用态度、使用行为意向变量间相互影响关系的假设,最终形成高校学生对移动图书馆使用行为意向的影响因素概念模型。在对武汉市高校学生问卷调研的基础上,通过结构方程模型分析,结果表明,感知有用性对使用行为意向具有显著的正向影响关系,同时感知有用性还分别对使用态度具有显著的正向影响关系。感知易用性对感知有用性有正向显著影响关系,感知成本对使用态度有显著负向影响,使用态度对使用行为意向有显著正向影响。因此,为了顺利实现移动图书馆的推广需要注重其有用性和易用性,最大限度降低其感知成本。     

Literature of Behavioral Economics,Part 1: Introduction and Books

Behavioral economics, a blend of cognitive psychology and economics, is a new field that has attracted much attention, both from economists and from the general public. Behavioral economists have won Nobel Prizes and written books that became New York Times bestsellers. Unlike traditional economists, whose models are based on a perfect “rational man,” behavioral economists study ways that people actually make decisions and incorporate those findings into economic theory. This article presents an overview and history of the development of behavioral economics and a selective annotated bibliography of books in the field.     

Behavioral self-regulation and relations to emergent academic skills among children in Germany and Iceland

The present study investigated a direct assessment of behavioral self-regulation (the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders; HTKS) and its contribution to early academic achievement among young children in Germany and Iceland. The authors examined the psychometric properties and construct validity of the HTKS, investigated gender differences in young children's behavioral self-regulation, and explored relations between the HTKS and a teacher report of behavioral self-regulation (the Child Behavior Rating Scale; CBRS) and emerging academic skills. Findings supported the construct validity of the HTKS when used with young German and Icelandic children. Multilevel analyses revealed gender differences, particularly on the CBRS teacher-rated measure. Finally, higher levels of behavioral self-regulation were related to higher academic skills after important background variables were controlled, although some cross-cultural differences in the predictive utility of the HTKS and CBRS were observed. Overall, these results extend prior psychometric work on the HTKS to samples of young European children and support the importance of understanding of the role behavioral self-regulation in young children's development.