Students’ Oppositional Behaviors and Engagement in School: The Differential Role of the Student-Teacher Relationship

Students presenting oppositional behaviors often display lower behavioral and emotional engagement in class as compared to their peers. Moreover, children in general are known to be deeply affected by their relationships with teachers while in school. It is therefore possible that such relationships could also influence the engagement of students presenting higher levels of oppositional behavior. As a way of verifying this hypothesis, the present study investigated the contribution of students’ levels of oppositional behavior to their behavioral and emotional engagement in literacy. Furthermore, it examined whether these relationships were different for boys and girls, or changed as a function of two components of student-teacher relationships: closeness and conflict. Three hundred and eighty five third and fourth grade students and their teachers participated in the study. Two series of linear regressions were conducted. Findings indicate that students who presented higher levels of oppositional behavior showed lower behavioral engagement than their peers. Moreover, students who had close relationships with their teachers reported higher behavioral engagement. Although closeness in student-teacher relationships protected students from behavioral disengagement, students with higher oppositional behaviors were less protected than students who presented lower levels of oppositional difficulty. Having a warm relationship with a teacher was also more beneficial for the behavioral engagement of girls, whereas a high level of conflict between student and teacher was more harmful for the emotional engagement of boys. This was deemed to be true whether the boys or girls presented high levels of oppositional behavior or not. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of the student-teacher relationship in fostering all students’ engagement in school.     

Body Appraisal,Weight Management Goals,and Well-Being Among Midlife Men and Women

In this paper, we assess the extent to which subjective and objective body appraisals relate to weight management goals and ultimately to life satisfaction in midlife men and women. The sample consisted of 141 midlife men and women (aged 55–59) from the Foley Longitudinal Study of Adulthood. We used both logistic and hierarchical linear regressions to examine relationships among and between variables. Both men and women expressed similar levels of body appraisal, and similar weight management goals; lower body appraisal and the presence of a weight management goal were both related to lower well-being. This study suggests that subjective and objective body appraisals may motivate the setting of weight management goals, and are significant contributors to well-being in midlife. Results are discussed in the context of aging, as well as gender.     

Evaluation of Violence Prevention Approaches Among Early Adolescents: Moderating Effects of Disability Status and Gender

High prevalence rates of aggression during adolescence and associated adjustment difficulties for perpetrators and victims highlight the need for effective violence prevention programs. School-based prevention programs are advantageous as they occur in a key setting for youths' social and emotional development. The current study compared the efficacy of a combined universal violence prevention approach that included individual-level skill-building (i.e., lessons from Second Step) and school environment (i.e., Olweus Bullying Prevention Program; OBPP) interventions to OBPP alone. Participants were 231 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders (ages 11–15; M?=?12.6, SD?=?1.0) in middle school (48?% male, 67?% African American). A total of 14 classrooms were randomly assigned to the combined intervention (seven) or OBPP only comparison (seven) condition, split evenly across grades. Intervention effects were moderated by disability status and gender. Among students without disabilities those who received the combined intervention reported greater increases in anger regulation coping skills than those in the comparison condition. In contrast, among youth with disabilities greater increases in teacher-rated social skills were found for students in the combined intervention than students in the comparison condition at posttest. Gender-moderated effects included greater decreases in teacher ratings of externalizing problems and bullying behaviors for boys in the combined intervention versus the comparison condition at posttest. Study results inform school-based violence prevention programs and are discussed along with implications.     

In the Same Ballpark or a Whole New Ball Game? Staff as Raters of Youth Behavior

There is a lack of psychometrically sound tools for measuring youth outcomes in out-of-school time (OST) settings. Consequently, behavior ratings completed by OST staff are being scored as though the raters were teachers, even though cross-informant correlations are notoriously low (meta-analysis r?=?.27). Across 26 schools, 227 students were assessed by both teachers and OST staff using the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA) to measure Social Emotional Competence. These 4th and 5th grade students were 50% male; 53% 5th graders; and 51% Latino, 20% Mixed/Other, 11% Black, 11% Asian, and 7% White. In the full sample, OST staff rated children’s behavior more harshly than teachers (p?<?.001; d?=?.32), although the scores were associated (r?=?.31, p?<?.001). Among the ratings completed within the same week, teacher and staff distributions were not statistically different. Teacher and staff ratings had a “medium” correlation (r?=?.42; p?=?.01) and a classification consistency (88%) that exceeded chance by a “moderate” amount (κ?=?.43). Few, if any, studies have previously compared the ratings of the same children by teachers and OST providers. Cross-informant inter-rater reliability between teachers and OST staff was higher than expected on the DESSA.     

Impact of Physical Abuse on Internalizing Behavior Across Generations

This study investigated the multigenerational impact of mothers’ own exposure to physical maltreatment on internalizing symptoms in her child after accounting for her parenting practices, depression, and the child’s own exposure to stressful life events. Children (n?=?101, ages 5–16), predominantly African American, were recruited into this cross sectional study using ethnographic mapping and targeted sampling for high-risk neighborhoods. Mothers reported retrospectively on their own exposure to physical maltreatment in childhood, their parenting practices, as well as current depressive symptoms. Maternal report of her child’s exposure to stressful life events and child behavior was also collected. Maternal childhood exposure to physical maltreatment was significantly associated with her child’s internalizing symptoms (p?=?.004); this effect remained after accounting for child sex, maternal depressive symptoms, harsh parenting practices, and the child’s own exposure to stressful life events. Formal tests of mediation through these pathways were non-significant. Findings suggest mothers’ experience of childhood maltreatment contributes uniquely to children’s internalizing symptoms, potentially through previously uncharacterized pathways. Examination of additional behavioral, psychosocial and biological pathways may help better describe the multi-generational effects of child maltreatment.     

Psychometric Evaluation of the Spanish Versions of the Perceived Religious Influence on Health Behavior Scale and the Illness as Punishment for Sin Scale in a Sample of Churchgoing Latinas

The present study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Spanish versions of the Perceived Religious Influence on Health Behavior scale and the Illness as Punishment for Sin scale in a sample of churchgoing Latina women (N = 404). For the Perceived Religious Influence on Health Behavior scale, confirmatory factor analysis provided support for the expected one-factor model, internal consistency reliability was good, and there was evidence of convergent validity. For the Illness as Punishment for Sin scale, confirmatory factor analysis provided support for the expected one-factor model, but on a revised seven-item version of the measure. Internal consistency reliability and convergent validity for this revised version were good. It is recommended that future studies use the Perceived Religious Influence on Health Behavior scale and the revised Illness as Punishment for Sin scale when examining these constructs among Latina women.     

Development,Acceptability, and Effectiveness of an Acceptance-Based Behavioral Stress/Anxiety Management Workshop for University Students

College is a critical time in which individuals experience transition and stress, and may experience subthreshold or clinical symptoms of anxiety and depression. In addition, educational contexts offer a unique opportunity to serve the needs of a diverse group of students who may experience additional stressors related to experiences with discrimination; acculturative stress; financial strain; and balancing family, work, and school demands. Therefore, college appears to be an ideal time for students to learn about evidence-based skills to use in response to anxiety and depression.However, there are multiple barriers that may make it less likely that evidence-based skills and services are available to or utilized by students, including lack of funding and services available on campus, as well as concerns about mental health stigma. This study examines the preliminary acceptability and effectiveness of an acceptance-based behavioral stress/anxiety management workshop for university students on a diverse urban campus. Results indicate that participants found the workshop to be acceptable and helpful. Mixed-effect regression models examining symptom and impairment measures at preworkshop, 1-week follow-up, and 4-week follow-up showed a significant effect for time on anxious arousal, general anxiety symptoms, and social anxiety, but no significant effect for time on impairment. Implications and future directions for mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches in educational contexts are discussed.     

Sexual Coercion Among Students at the University of Cape Coast,Ghana

Sexual coercion refers to strategies that result in an individual engaging in sexual activity against his or her will. Ecological factors influence the way sexual interactions occur; however, the relationship between these factors and sexual coercion has not been explored among university students in Ghana. The purpose of this study was to examine sexual coercion among university students in Ghana by specifically examining individual-level factors (age, gender, sexual debut, age differential with first partner, being in an intimate relationship, history of abortion, and past experiences with transactional sex) and the experience of forced and coerced sex. Residential students at the University of Cape Coast were invited to participate and completed a survey on a tablet computer. Questions included demographics; sexual and reproductive health experiences and knowledge; and attitudes and experiences with abortion. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to examine individual-level factors associated with experiences of sexual coercion and forced sex. There were 480 females and 556 males that completed the survey; 26.3 and 16.4% reported having had intercourse either because they were forced or coerced, or when they were “very unwilling”. These students were more likely to be female (OR 3.5), to have had an abortion (OR 2.9), and to have engaged in transactional sex (OR 1.9). Many University of Cape Coast students are experiencing forced or coerced sex. Programs targeting both female and male students as both victims and perpetrators of sexual violence in this population are sorely needed. Primary prevention of sexual violence is one promising field.     

Perceptual control models of pursuit manual tracking demonstrate individual specificity and parameter consistency

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - Computational models that simulate individuals’ movements in pursuit-tracking tasks have been used to elucidate mechanisms of human motor control....