Breaking Down Barriers: Museum as Broker of Home/School Collaboration

ABSTRACT

Parents have a major influence on children's learning, yet parent involvement remains weak in many communities. This article addresses the role of a museum in bringing home and school together, describing results from 2 complementary studies of a museum-designed and -implemented parent involvement program. The first study was an exploratory, mixed-methods investigation designed to understand the program's impact on parents' engagement in their children's learning. The second study used a grounded theory approach to develop theoretical hypotheses about the programmatic mechanisms that facilitated parents' engagement. In terms of impact, the program gave parents a platform through which to create new and more meaningful spaces for connecting to their children's learning, including conceptual spaces, social spaces, and physical spaces. In terms of mechanisms, the program first helped parents to build relevant capital and then to author new and relevant ways of engaging with their children's schooling. Taken together, study results broaden current thinking about the spaces in which parent engagement occurs and emphasize the important community-based role that museums can play to bring parents and schools together in support of children's development.     

Assessing bimodality to detect the presence of a dual cognitive process

Researchers have long sought to distinguish between single-process and dual-process cognitive phenomena, using responses such as reaction times and, more recently, hand movements. Analysis of a response distribution’s modality has been crucial in detecting the presence of dual processes, because they tend to introduce bimodal features. Rarely, however, have bimodality measures been systematically evaluated. We carried out tests of readily available bimodality measures that any researcher may easily employ: the bimodality coefficient (BC), Hartigan’s dip statistic (HDS), and the difference in Akaike’s information criterion between one-component and two-component distribution models (AIC_diff). We simulated distributions containing two response populations and examined the influences of (1) the distances between populations, (2) proportions of responses, (3) the amount of positive skew present, and (4) sample size. Distance always had a stronger effect than did proportion, and the effects of proportion greatly differed across the measures. Skew biased the measures by increasing bimodality detection, in some cases leading to anomalous interactive effects. BC and HDS were generally convergent, but a number of important discrepancies were found. AIC_diff was extremely sensitive to bimodality and identified nearly all distributions as bimodal. However, all measures served to detect the presence of bimodality in comparison to unimodal simulations. We provide a validation with experimental data, discuss methodological and theoretical implications, and make recommendations regarding the choice of analysis.     

Social Support and Mental Health Outcomes Among U.S. Army Special Operations Personnel

Mental health disorders continue to plague service members and veterans; thus, new approaches are required to help address such outcomes. The identification of risk and resilience factors for these disorders in specific populations can better inform both treatment and prevention strategies. This study focuses on a unique population of U.S. Army Special Operations personnel to assess how specific avenues of social support and personal morale are related to mental health outcomes. The results indicate that, whereas personal morale and friend support reduce the relationship between combat experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), strong unit support exacerbates the negative effects of combat experiences in relation to PTSD. The study thus shows that although informal social support can lessen postdeployment mental health concerns, military populations with strong internal bonds may be at greater risk of PTSD because the support that they receive from fellow service members may heighten the traumatic impact of combat experiences.     

A Longitudinal Comparison of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Depression Among Military Service Components

The purpose of this study was to longitudinally investigate PTSD and depression between Reserve, National Guard, and active duty continuously and dichotomously. The study consisted of Millennium Cohort Study participants and used self-reported symptoms. Repeated measures modeling assessed PTSD and depression continuously and dichotomously over time. A subanalysis among only recently deployed personnel was conducted. Of the 52,653 participants for the PTSD analysis, the adjusted PCL-C means were 34.6 for Reservists, 34.4 for National Guardsmen, and 34.7 for active duty members, respectively. Of the 53,073 participants for depression analysis, the adjusted PHQ-9 means were 6.8, 6.7, and 7.2, respectively. In dichotomous models, Reservists and National Guardsmen did not have a higher risk of PTSD or depression compared with active duty members. Among deployers, Reservists and National Guardsmen had higher odds (odds ratio = 1.16, 95% confidence limit [CL] [1.01, 1.34] and OR = 1.19, 95% CL [1.04, 1.36], respectively) of screening positive for PTSD, but not depression. Although Reserve and National Guard deployers had modestly increased odds of PTSD compared with active duty members, overall there were minimal differences in the risk and symptom scores of PTSD and depression between service components.     

Therapist Utilization of Online Social Support for Parents of Premature Infants

Using a qualitative framework to capture the voices and stories of parents of premature infants, this study explored the role of online social support through the use of the March of Dimes, Share Your Story site. Given the growing trend of computer mediated communication usage in the lives of individuals and family members experiencing medical challenges, this study adds to the broad array of research on online social support, while specifically contributing to the limited literature on the parental experience of premature birth and online social support. The research also connects marriage and family therapists and other family practitioners to the role of online social support opportunities for families.     

Observational Effects on Preference Selection for Four Children on the Autism Spectrum: A Replication

Individuals with autism have been noted to have restricted interests and repetitive behavior such as nonfunctional manipulation of objects. In this study, we used an observational conditioning procedure to switch the preference of items for four individuals diagnosed with autism who are considered lower functioning. The procedure consisted of the participant observing an adult playing with toys that were initially non‐preferred by the participant in a functional and engaging manner. For two participants, results were similar to the findings by Leaf; one participant required additional conditioning procedures, and we were unable to switch the preference for the other participant. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.