Intervening with Multiplication Fact Difficulties: Examining the Utility of the Instructional Hierarchy to Target Interventions

Examining the use of conceptual frameworks such as the instructional hierarchy (IH) to drive academic interventions represents an important area of inquiry in order to understand why an intervention was effective. However, to date, the IH has only been examined retroactively to explain the effectiveness of math interventions and has not been used to drive intervention implementation based on students’ needs. Therefore, the current study used a multiple baseline single-case design to examine the utility of the IH to determine an appropriately targeted acquisition (incremental rehearsal) or proficiency (timed drill) intervention for difficulties with multiplication facts. Students first received the contraindicated intervention (i.e., non-targeted) and then their correctly targeted intervention. Results showed that all students demonstrated greater fluency growth during their targeted intervention and that students in need of an acquisition intervention also demonstrated greater multiplication fact retention and growth rate during their targeted intervention. The utility of the IH as a heuristic to correctly target interventions based on students’ baseline skill levels is discussed.

     

Linking Availability Expectations,Bidirectional Boundary Management Behavior and Preferences,and Employee Well-Being: an Integrative Study Approach

Information and communication technologies enable employees to be available anywhere and anytime, raising availability expectations of work and nonwork contacts. Building on the theory of planned behavior and the person-environment fit theory, the present study examines how others’ availability expectations predict employees’ management of work and nonwork boundaries, and how these bidirectional boundary management behaviors relate to well-being. Results of structural equation modeling with data from 401 employees collected in two waves show that availability expectations of both coworkers and nonwork contacts predict how employees manage the boundaries of work and nonwork domains. Thereby, availability expectations are negatively related to segmentation of the two domains and coworkers' expectations show an indirect effect on employee well-being. Further, our study shows that work-nonwork and nonwork-work segmentation behavior have divergent effects on employee well-being, indicating that asymmetric boundary management behavior with high work-nonwork segmentation and low nonwork-work segmentation may be beneficial. Besides, moderation analyses underline the importance of enabling individuals to align their boundary management preferences with their actual behavior, especially when individuals have high work-nonwork segmentation preferences. By integrating and unveiling distinct antecedents of work-nonwork and nonwork-work segmentation behavior and their divergent effects on well-being, the present study contributes to a comprehensive framework for investigating and understanding bidirectional boundary management in the face of technology-enabled availability.

     

Correction to: Linking Availability Expectations,Bidirectional Boundary Management Behavior and Preferences,and Employee Well‑Being: an Integrative Study Approach

Journal of Business and Psychology -     

Medical Technologies Past and Present: How History Helps to Understand the Digital Era

Journal of Medical Humanities - This article explores the relationship between medicine’s history and its digital present through the lens of the physician-patient relationship. Today the...     

Impact of patient suffering on caregiver well-being: the case of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients and their caregivers

The impact of patient suffering on family caregivers is an understudied but important topic. This study of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and their caregivers examined the associations of two components of patient suffering: patient physical symptoms, and mental distress, as well as the patient's support for the caregiver, with caregiver well-being. The sample consisted of 52 patients with ALS and their caregivers. Patients and caregivers each completed a structured survey assessing multiple domains including demographics, health, and well-being. Specifically, patients rated their own physical symptoms and mental distress. Caregivers rated their own daily affect, and the extent to which they perceived the patient as supportive. Caregivers also reported whether or not they had found any benefit in dealing with the patient's illness. Regression analyses yielded significant associations of patient distress with caregiver negative affect; patient support was associated with greater caregiver positive affect, and patient symptoms and support were associated with greater likelihood of caregiver benefit finding. There was a significant two-way interaction of patient symptoms by support, namely, benefit finding was not only more likely with greater physical suffering and patient support, but it was also the case that caregivers who perceived the care recipient as unsupportive could only find benefit when this person experienced intense physical suffering. Support interventions for ALS patients and their caregivers should devote particular attention to how caregivers may be affected by witnessing their loved one's sufferings, as well as identify and address challenges in support exchanges between caregivers and patients.     

Initial responses to the first dose of nicotine in novel smokers: The role of exposure to environmental smoking and genetic predisposition

Background: Sensitivity to initial smoking constitutes an early predictor of the risk of dependence. We investigated the role of exposure to smoking (by parents, siblings, and peers) and reward-related candidate gene polymorphisms (OPRM1 A118G, DRD2 TaqlA and DRD4?bp VNTR) in adolescents’ responses to initial smoking.

Methods: We used cross-sectional survey data and saliva samples from 171 Dutch students who had never inhaled on a cigarette (mean age: 13.9?years). The outcome measure was adolescents’ self-reported responses to initial smoking.

Results: Exposure to peer smoking was associated with increased liking (OR?=?1.74, CI?=?1.13–2.70) and more pleasant sensations (β?=?.21, p?=?.01). Exposure to maternal smoking was associated with less unpleasant sensations (β?=??.20, p?=?.01). Adolescents carrying the G-variant of the OPRM1 A118G polymorphism were more likely to report liking (OR?=?2.50, CI?=?1.09–5.73) and adolescents homozygous for the C-variant of the DRD2 TaqlA polymorphism reported less unpleasant sensations (β?=?.18, p?=?.04).

Conclusion: Although preliminary, these findings suggest that exposure to environmental smoking and polymorphisms in the OPRM1 and DRD2 gene may affect initial sensitivity to nicotine, an early phenotype of the risk of dependence. In the future, collaborative efforts to combine data from multiple studies in meta-analyses are needed to improve accuracy of estimated effects in genetic studies.     

The relative role of nicotine dependence and smoking-related cognitions in adolescents’ process of smoking cessation

The present study evaluates the role of distinct components of nicotine dependence (craving, withdrawal, behavioural dependence) in comparison to smoking-related cognitions (attitudes, perceived social approval, self-efficacy) in adolescent smoking cessation. In the process towards smoking cessation, we distinguish between distinct behavioural transitions, respectively, short-term abstinence, reduction in smoking behaviour and prolonged cessation, to evaluate differences in cessation-related antecedents as a function of varying behavioural outcomes. A total of 850 adolescent smokers (age 14–16) participated in the present study. Smoking behaviour was assessed 1 year after baseline. Results showed that all dependence components had a distinct role in the prediction of behavioural change towards cessation. Furthermore, each behavioural transition was predicted by a distinct set of variables, indicating that contributions of cessation-related factors vary across the course towards cessation. Overall, our findings suggest that smoking-related cognitions are particularly relevant in the initiation of behavioural change, such as short-term abstinence, whereas nicotine dependence, craving in particular, becomes increasingly important in the prediction of maintained behavioural change, such as prolonged cessation. Implications encompass enhanced attention to the multidimensional nature of nicotine dependence and the value of comparing different behavioural outcomes in a comprehensive understanding of cessation-related factors.     

Differentiating core and co-opted mechanisms in calculation: The neuroimaging of calculation in aphasia

The role of language in exact calculation is the subject of debate. Some behavioral and functional neuroimaging investigations of healthy participants suggest that calculation requires language resources. However, there are also reports of individuals with severe aphasic language impairment who retain calculation ability. One possibility in resolving these discordant findings is that the neural basis of calculation has undergone significant reorganization in aphasic calculators. Using fMRI, we examined brain activations associated with exact addition and subtraction in two patients with severe agrammatic aphasia and retained calculation ability. Behavior and brain activations during two-digit addition and subtraction were compared to those of a group of 11 healthy, age-matched controls. Behavioral results confirmed that both patients retained calculation ability. Imaging findings revealed individual differences in processing, but also a similar activation pattern across patients and controls in bilateral parietal cortices. Patients differed from controls in small areas of increased activation in peri-lesional regions, a shift from left fronto-temporal activation to the contralateral region, and increased activations in bilateral superior parietal regions. Our results suggest that bilateral parietal cortex represents the core of the calculation network and, while healthy controls may recruit language resources to support calculation, these mechanisms are not mandatory in adult cognition.     

Using stressful films to analyze risk factors for PTSD in analogue experimental studies – which film works best?

Abstract

To understand mental disorders, analogue paradigms provide an indispensable contribution. In posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the stressful film paradigm is a frequently used analogue approach: Films depicting traumatic events are shown to non-clinical participants in order to elicit stress responses analogue to responses to traumatic events in real life. Previous studies used a large variety of films, which is problematic with regard to the comparability of results. The main goal of this study was to identify a film clip that (a) consistently provokes stress reactions and (b) provokes reactions that are as similar as possible to traumatic stress.

We randomly exposed 105 male and female participants to one of four stressful films, differing, e.g., in content and origin. Intrusive memories of the film, reported immediately after the film and during a diary phase of three days, as well as distress, heart rate, and several mood states were measured. A film clip depicting rape elicited the most consistent reactions that were characterized by a higher heart rate, more distress and more intrusive memories, compared to the other three clips. Intrusive memories across all films were especially related to an increase in heart rate and disgust in response to the film.