The relationship of participation in school activities to abilities and interests in a high school student sample

Participation in school activities is hypothesized to be related to the multiple abilities and interests of high school students. The Ball Aptitude Battery (yielding 14 ability scores), Holland's Vocational Preference Inventory, and a biographical information blank (to obtain information about participation in 53 extracurricular activities) were administered to over 900 high school seniors of both sexes. Correlational and multiple regression analyses showed different patterns of activity participation to be related to different abilities and interests. The degree of relationship was generally low, generally higher for the males than for the females, and higher for interests than for abilities. Activity correlates of abilities differed for the sexes, but activity correlates of interests tended to be similar. This suggests that the same ability can result from differential participation in activities, but the same interest develops from similar activities.     

Intergenerational continuity and discontinuity in Mexican-origin youths' participation in organized activities: insights from mixed-methods

Motivation theories suggest that parents are an integral support for adolescents' participation in organized activities. Despite the importance of parents, the field knows very little about how parents' own experiences in activities influence the participation of their adolescent children. The goals of this study were to examine (a) the patterns of intergenerational continuity and discontinuity in parents' activity participation during adolescence and their adolescents' activity participation, and (b) the processes underlying each of these patterns within Mexican-origin families. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through three in-depth interviews conducted with 31 seventh-grade adolescents and their parents at three time points over a year. The quantitative data suggested there was modest intergenerational continuity in activity participation. There were three distinct patterns: nine families were continuous participants, seven families were continuous nonparticipants, and 15 families were discontinuous, where the parent did not participate but the youth did participate in activities. The continuous participant families included families in which parents valued how organized activities contributed to their own lives and actively encouraged their adolescents' participation. The continuous nonparticipant families reported less knowledge and experience with activities along with numerous barriers to participation. There were three central reasons for the change in the discontinuous families. For a third of these families, parents felt strongly about providing a different childhood for their adolescents than what they experienced. The intergenerational discontinuity in participation was also likely to be sparked by someone else in the family or an external influence (i.e., friends, schools).     

属性不等权重的多级评分属性层级方法

本文给出基于属性不等权重的等级反应模型(Grade Response Model, GRM)的属性层级方法(Attribute Hierarchy Method, AHM), 简记为属性不等权重的GRM-AHM。在属性层级结构下, 本文利用贝叶斯网与最小二乘两种方法, 提出了被试掌握属性的条件概率与属性权重的计算方法, 发现并解决了属性在不同的项目内权重有可能不相等的问题。本研究进一步将认知诊断推广到多级评分的情形。试验证明, 属性不等权重的GRM-AHM具有较高的判准率。     

Inferring latent class lexicographic rules from choice data

A lexicographic rule orders multi-attribute alternatives in the same way as a dictionary orders words. Although no utility function can represent lexicographic preference over continuous, real-valued attributes, a constrained linear model suffices for representing such preferences over discrete attributes. We present an algorithm for inferring lexicographic structures from choice data. The primary difficulty in using such data is that it is seldom possible to obtain sufficient information to estimate individual-level preference functions. Instead, one needs to pool the data across latent clusters of individuals. We propose a method that identifies latent clusters of subjects, and estimates a lexicographic rule for each cluster. We describe an application of the method using data collected by a manufacturer of television sets. We compare the predictions of the model with those obtained from a finite-mixture, multinomial-logit model.     

Participation in school environment of children and youth with disabilities: a person-oriented approach

This study investigated patterns of interrelated positive subject and environmental factors related to participation in school activities of pupils with different kinds of disabilities. Questionnaires concerning participation were collected from 472 pupils with disabilities and their teachers, parents and special education consultants. A person-oriented approach with the aim to identify patterns of variables related to a high degree of participation of pupils with disabilities was used. Cluster-groups were formed based on scores for individual subjects on factors identified as important for participation. Groups with a high degree of participation were characterized by high scores in autonomy and perceived interaction with peers and teachers and an internal locus of control. Type and degree of disability did not predict cluster group membership. A conclusion is that the outcome participation is better predicted by patterns of interrelated positive subject and environmental factors than by type of disability or any other single factor.     

Foreign Workers’ Time Use in Spain: Evidence from the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century

The assimilation of immigrant workers to the Spanish labour market is a topic widely addressed by the economic literature. However, a little explored issue is the time allocation of immigrants and its effects on their integration and convergence to Spanish workers. This paper aims to study the time use of immigrants among different activities and the influence of personal and family characteristics on the participation and the amount of time spent in each activity. The results will be compared to those obtained for the native workers, in order to detect possible similarities and differences between both groups (immigrants versus natives). The data used come from the Time Use Survey for the periods 2002–2003 and 2009–2010 (INE, 2004, 2011), which allows analysing the evolution of the time use’s patterns of the immigrant and native workers at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Censored regression models are applied because the time spent in different activities is a left-truncated variable. The traditional approximation to the left-truncation is a Tobit model, but it assumes that the underlying process determining the participation and the time spent in each activity are similar, which is quite restrictive. To solve this restriction, a double hurdle model is applied.     

Psychoticism,social desirability and situation selection

Previous research on personality and activity preference has shown that extraverts have a significantly and meaningfully different pattern of activity preference from introverts. This finding was also true of high and low neurotics but not to the same extent. This study was designed to see whether the traits of psychoticism and social desirability are also related to situational selection. Subjects from a large group were divided first into high P and low P scorers, and then high L and low L scorers. They indicated how much time they had spent in leisure situations over the past week; rank ordered their preferences for activities related to some of Murray's major needs and presses; rated their choice or avoidance of other abstractly described situations; and then stressful, anxiety-provoking, social situations. It was shown that both psychoticism and social desirability are related to situation selection in meaningful and predictable ways. The implications for personality assessment are considered.     

Related attributes in the choice of comparison others: It's there,but it isn't all there is

Subjects within a group of nine were supposedly given different amounts of practice prior to taking a test on which performance was either related or unrelated to practice. After taking the test, each subject was given his score, his rank order in the group, and the amount of practice presumably done by each of the other group members. The subject was then given a choice of which performance score he would like to know; a second choice was also given. On both first and second choices, subjects in the related condition were more likely to choose to see the scores of others with the same amount of practice. Related condition subjects were more interested in their comparison choices and thought they had done better on the task than unrelated subjects. In addition to this confirmation of the related attributes hypothesis, there was a significant tendency toward comparison on the basis of similarity of performance per se and a significant tendency toward upward comparison.     

Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Associations between Leisure Time Physical Activity,Mental Well-Being and Subjective Health in Middle Adulthood

Previous studies have shown that participation in leisure time physical activity is related to better mental well-being and subjective health. However, the associations between different types of leisure time physical activities and different dimensions of mental well-being have rarely been studied. In addition, longitudinal research, analyzing possible causal relations between these variables, is lacking. To investigate these research questions, data gathered at ages 42 and 50 (present N = 303) for the Finnish Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development were used. Physical activity was assessed as frequency of participation at ages 42 and 50, and at age 50 also as frequency of participation in different types of physical activities. Mental well-being was captured by emotional, psychological and social well-being and subjective health by self-rated health and symptoms. Cross-sectionally, different types of physical activities were related to different dimensions of well-being. Walking had positive associations with psychological and social well-being, rambling in nature with emotional and social well-being, and endurance training with subjective health. Rambling in nature was also positively related to subjective health but only among men. Longitudinally, mental well-being predicted later participation in leisure-time physical activity, whereas no longitudinal associations between subjective health and physical activity were found. The results suggest that leisure time physical activities are related to current mental well-being and subjective health in midlife. Across time, good mental well-being seems to be a resource promoting engagement in physical activity.

     

Facilitators and Barriers to Engagement in Home Visitation

Abstract

Given previous findings indicating a positive association between home visitation participation rates and family outcomes, the present study explored reasons for and barriers to engagement in the first six months of these parenting programs. Social support, psychoeducation, and tangible assistance emerged as consistent themes across informants as reasons for participation. Perceived invasiveness of the assessments, maternal concerns about being reported to child protective services, and mismatches between maternal needs and home visitor attributes emerged as recurrent themes regarding barriers to participation. Results of these qualitative analyses converge with previous quantitative research regarding factors associated with home visitation delivery and suggest new areas in need of further inquiry by researchers and practitioners to increase engagement.     

The Political Attitudes and Activities of Mainline Protestant Clergy in the Election of 2000: A Study of Six Denominations

This study examines clergy across six mainline Protestant denominations in terms of their social characteristics, their theological positions, and their political attitudes and behavior. The analysis is based on data collected through random surveys of clergy in each denomination conducted in 2001 using the same instrument. The predominant focus of the article is on the nature and level of political activities exhibited by mainline Protestant clergy in the election year of 2000. The analysis revealed that mainline Protestant clergy are indeed relatively active politically, but that, despite their commonality of belonging to the same broad religious tradition, the nature and level of such political activities varies across the six denominations. Variation in the level of political activity is related to a number of different variables. And, while multivariate analysis reduces the number of significant factors that account for such differences, the remaining significant factors are associated with each of the major theoretical approaches that have been advanced to account for differences in participation levels.     

国有企业职工需要结构及其态势研究

运用问卷法对中国国有企业职工的需要结构及其态势进行调查。结果表明,１．国有企业职工意识到的基本需要有２８种;２．这２８种需要共分六类、六个层次,按由低到高的层次排列,依次是生存、安全、社交、自主、尊重和发展需要,其中安全、发展和生存需要是国有企业职工的主导需要;３．企业、年龄和文化程度不同,职工的主导需要及其需求度存在某些差异     

Emotional and cognitive health correlates of leisure activities in older Latino and Caucasian women

This study examined differences in the frequency of leisure activity participation and relationships to depressive symptom burden and cognition in Latino and Caucasian women. Cross-sectional data were obtained from a demographically matched subsample of Latino and Caucasian (n?=?113 each) postmenopausal women (age ≥60 years), interviewed in 2004-2006 for a multiethnic cohort study of successful aging in San Diego County. Frequencies of engagement in 16 leisure activities and associations between objective cognitive performance and depressive symptom burden by ethnicity were identified using bivariate and linear regression, adjusted for physical functioning and demographic covariates. Compared to Caucasian women, Latinas were significantly more likely to be caregivers and used computers less often. Engaging in organized social activity was associated with fewer depressive symptoms in both groups. Listening to the radio was positively correlated with lower depressive symptom burden for Latinas and better cognitive functioning in Caucasians. Cognitive functioning was better in Latinas who read and did puzzles. Housework was negatively associated with Latinas' emotional health and Caucasians' cognitive functioning. Latino and Caucasian women participate in different patterns of leisure activities. Additionally, ethnicity significantly affects the relationship between leisure activities and both emotional and cognitive health.     

A stochastic model for paired comparisons of social stimuli

A stochastic model for paired comparisons of multiattribute social stimuli is proposed where one objective is to find the relative importance of the attributes for a judge. The model can be conceived as a special strict binary utility model, i.e., a BTL-model, and is related to of the stimuli are linear combinations of functions of the attributes of the stimuli. The model neither assumes that the functions are fixed in advance nor that different judges have the same set of functions. The choice among such functions, however, is admitted only within a finite scope. Within the framework of exponential families, maximum likelihood estimators and tests are derived and applied to data coming from two psychological experiments.     

Predecision conflict and different patterns of postdecision attractiveness restructuring: empirical illustrations from an important real-life decision

This study presents different postdecision consolidation patterns following decisions made under value conflicts. The different patterns were illustrated by case studies of real-life decisions concerning university programs. There were five program alternatives each of which branched into a different professional area. These decisions were very important to the students. The subjects were followed during a year, from a couple of months before they made their choice of program and during several months after the start of the programs. Different postdecision strategies for consolidating a prior decision were derived from Differentiation and Consolidation Theory (Svenson, 1992). The strategies involved the following postdecision attractiveness restructuring patterns. (1) Reversing an attractiveness disadvantage into an advantage on a conflict attribute, (2) Compensating for a disadvantage through increase of an advantage of another attribute, (3) Reversing disadvantage on a conflict and decreasing advantage on non-conflict attribute(s), and (4) Increasing advantage for chosen alternative on all attributes. In addition, (5) downgrading of importance of the conflict attribute or a complete elimination of this attribute is also a possible way of consolidating the prior decision. The results illustrated the above consolidation patterns. A comparison with subjects who made the same decisions but with no value conflict indicated that postdecision consolidation was largely driven by value conflicts at the time of decision in conjunction with the outcome of the decision.     

Occupational differentiation among white men in the first decade after high school

Most research on career development is concerned with the fate of individuals, but portraits of the heterogeneity and development of whole populations or aggregates of individuals can also be useful for understanding the needs and development of different client populations. Two population-level concepts are proposed and defined: differentiation and distribution. This report then charts the rate at which occupational differentiation proceeds among 3730 young white men and investigates the personal and family attributes by which these men are distributed, or distribute themselves, to jobs. Data from the National Longitudinal (Parnes) Survey of the Labor Force Experience of Young Men are used to examine employment among men aged 16 to 28 in different levels and fields of work. Results suggest that the rate of labor force participation stabilizes in the early twenties, differentiation among men by education and the distribution of men among different broad levels and fields of work stabilize by the mid-twenties, and the sorting of men with different socioeconomic backgrounds into different occupational groups continues through the late twenties at which age it appears to have been largely completed. Discriminant analyses suggest that the distribution of men to jobs is primarily along an occupational status dimension, and secondarily according to field of work. Among the variables used in the analyses, academic achievement is the major dimension by which men are sorted or sort themselves to different jobs.     

The organization of day-care environments: required versus optional activities

Measures of group participation were used in an experimental analysis of the effects of two preschool activity schedules. Children's participation in preschool activities remained as high when children were allowed no options but were required to follow a schedule of activities in sequence, as when they were free to choose between several optional activities. However, this was only true: (1) when a child was not forced to wait until all other children had finished, but could start the next required activity individually as soon as he had finished the preceding one, and (2) when there was an abundance of materials in each required activity. When there were not adequate materials in each activity, children's participation was disrupted unless they were free to choose among several optional activities. Thus, in order to maintain high levels of participation in preschool play activities, it is not necessary to allow children to choose among several alternative activities. High participation may be more efficiently maintained by providing a supply of materials that is adequate to occupy all children in each of a sequence of required activities and staffing by at least two teachers, so that while one teacher is supervising children still finishing one activity another teacher can supervise children who are ready to start the next.     

Prospective versus retrospective coding of samples of stimuli,responses, and reinforcers in delayed matching with pigeons

Pigeons' performance with samples of stimuli (red and green), number of responses (1 and 20), and reinforcers (food and no food) was assessed in a matching-to-sample preparation. Samples of red, 20 responses, and food were each associated with the red comparison stimulus; samples of green, 1 response, and no food were each associated with the green comparison stimulus. Interest focused on whether physically different samples associated with the same comparison stimulus each establish a unique memorial representation embodying the physical attributes of the sample (retrospective coding), or whether they activate a unitary memorial representation embodying an instruction for test responding (prospective coding). In the first experiment, accuracy of choice responding was independent of whether successive sample presentations within a trial involved the same physical sample or physically different but associatively identical samples. A second experiment revealed that, in contrast to other matching preparations, accuracy was not reduced when sample elements were compounded during presentation. It was concluded that physically different samples which are associated with the same comparison stimulus are coded prospectively in terms of an instruction for choice responding.     

Performance evaluation: On choosing to know the related attributes of others when we know their performance

It was hypothesized that people will choose to find out about the performance attributes of others who perform similarly to themselves if they believe the attributes are related to performance. Subjects within a group of nine were supposedly given different amounts of practice prior to taking a test on which performance was said to be either related or unrelated to practice. After taking the test, each subject was given his score, his rank order in the group, and the score obtained by each of the other group members. The subject was then allowed to find out about the number of items practiced by one other person in the group. A second choice was also given. On both first and second choices, subjects in the related condition chose to learn about others who were adjacent to them in the rank order. Subjects in the unrelated condition chose to learn about others with extreme scores. First choices in both conditions were strongly biased upward, supporting the unidirectional drive hypothesis.     

Specificity of cognitive and behavioral variables to Positive and Negative Affect

The Tripartite Model proposes that a combination of greater Negative Affect (NA) and reduced Positive Affect (PA) contributes to depressive symptoms. The purpose of this study was to test a model of affective experience in which cognitive variables (i.e., negative cognitions and appraisals) are uniquely related to NA but not PA, and in which behavioral variables (i.e., activity participation) are uniquely associated with PA but not NA. Participants included 88 spousal Alzheimer caregivers (mean age = 74 years). Multiple regression models, in which negative cognitions (i.e., helplessness, blames self, and negative appraisals) and activity participation (i.e., frequency of engaging in social and recreational activities) were used to predict depressive symptoms, PA and NA. Results indicated that while helplessness, blaming oneself, negative appraisals, and activity participation all significantly predicted depressive symptoms, only negative cognitive variables significantly predicted NA, and only activity participation significantly predicted PA. These data confirm that depressive experience consists of two relatively independent components - increased Negative Affect and reduced Positive Affect - which have unique correlates in negative cognitions and activity participation. If confirmed, the findings suggest the utility of focusing interventions on each of these components in the management of depressive symptoms.