Mediation of Childhood Adversity and Health by Relationship Quality in Diverse Couples

Individuals with economic disadvantage experience greater (a) adverse childhood experiences (ACE), (b) risk for low relationship quality and relationship dissolution, and (c) disparity in physical and mental health. Thus, a critical need exists to understand the connections between areas of disparity in family and relational health on physical and mental health for those most vulnerable to the deleterious effects. The researchers therefore tested a dyadic model for the mediation of ACE and health by relationship quality with data from 503 couples with economic disadvantage and a racial or ethnic minority background (76.9%). The data fit the proposed model and explained a majority of the variance in health, 82.3% of the variance in menʼs health and 56.5% in womenʼs health—both large effects. Moreover, the significant indirect pathway between ACE and health through relationship quality contributed 98.05% and 57.40% of the total effects for men and women, respectively. Overall, a significant relationship existed between ACE, relationship quality, and health for men and women at the actor-level and the dyadic influence between members of a couple contributed to the overall model fit. Results add to support for the role of relationship quality as a dyadic social determinant of health disparities with implications for prevention and intervention.     

Can Item Format (Multiple Choice vs. Open-Ended) Account for Gender Differences in Mathematics Achievement?

The purpose of this study was to investigate differential performance of boys and girls on open-ended (OE) and multiple-choice (MC) items on the 1988 and 1991 International Assessment of Educational Progress (IAEP) mathematics test. In the 1988 mathematics assessment, a representative sample of approximately 1,000 13-year-olds in each of the six participating countries was assessed. In the 1991 mathematics assessment, a representative sample of 9- and 13-year-olds (approximately 1,650 from each age group) in some 20 participating countries was assessed. Analyses of both assessments yielded results that indicated that boys generally performed better than girls in mathematics. In the 1988 assessment, gender effects were larger on MC items than on OE items, corresponding to results of earlier studies. However, the 1991 IAEP assessment produced contrary results: gender effects tended to be larger for OE items than for MC items. These inconsistent results challenge the assertion that girls perform relatively better on OE test items, and suggest that item format alone cannot account for gender differences in mathematics performance. Further investigation of the data revealed that the inconsistent patterns of gender effects with regard to item format were related to the difficulty level of the items, regardless of item format. Correlations between item difficulty and item gender effect size were computed for age 13 in the 1988 assessment and for ages 9 and 13 in the 1991 assessment. The correlations obtained were 0.26, 0.47, and 0.53, respectively, suggesting that the more difficult the items, the better boys perform relative to girls.     

Using Parent Target Problem Narratives to Evaluate Outcomes in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - This paper examines the reliability and validity of parent target problems (PTPs) in a multi-site randomized controlled trial of parent training...