The Impact of PREP Training on Marital Conflicts Reduction: A Randomized Controlled Trial With Iranian Distressed Couples

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of the Prevention and Relationship Education Program (PREP) training on marital conflict and marital satisfaction among a sample of distressed couples in Iran. The research procedure was experimental with a pretest, posttest, and follow-up design, including a control group. The sample included 76 volunteer couples among a sample of distressed couples who were randomly selected and assigned to the experimental or control group. They completed demographic questions, the Marital Conflicts questionnaire, and a revised Marital Satisfaction Inventory in pretest, posttest and at the 1-year follow-up. Results showed that PREP training effectively led to decreased marital conflict and improvement of marital satisfaction of couples at posttest and at the 1-year follow-up. The result of covariance analysis showed significant differences between the experimental and the control groups' marital conflict and marital satisfaction at posttest and at the 1-year follow-up.     

Relationship Education for Military Couples: Recommendations for Best Practice

Military couples have a number of distinctive strengths and challenges that are likely to influence their relationship adjustment. Military couples' strengths include stable employment, financial security, and subsidized health and counseling services. At the same time, military couples often experience long periods of separation and associated difficulties with emotional disconnect, trauma symptoms, and reintegrating the family. This paper describes best practice recommendations for working with military couples, including: addressing the distinctive challenges of the military lifestyle, ensuring program delivery is seen as relevant by military couples, and providing relationship education in formats that enhance the accessibility of programs.     

Evaluation of Student Performance through a Multidimensional Finite Mixture IRT Model

In the Italian academic system, a student can enroll for an exam immediately after the end of the teaching period or can postpone it; in this second case the exam result is missing. We propose an approach for the evaluation of a student performance throughout the course of study, accounting also for nonattempted exams. The approach is based on an item response theory model that includes two discrete latent variables representing student performance and priority in selecting the exams to take. We explicitly account for nonignorable missing observations as the indicators of attempted exams also contribute to measure the performance (within-item multidimensionality). The model also allows for individual covariates in its structural part.     

Promoting the spiritual development of sick children

This paper considers whether there are aspects of spiritual pedagogy specific to the education of children who are sick and asks how these concerns are to be addressed. The context of the enquiry is England and Wales where the promotion of the spiritual development of children is a legislative requirement. The focus of the study is on sick children whose treatment requires extended stay in hospital. Such children have hardly been noticed in the continuing debate about spiritual education. Our enquiry has involved analysing literature published in English in the UK and North America. We have supplemented this analysis with primary data from semi-structured interviews with three hospital schoolteachers, two hospital chaplains and the founder of a hospice for children and a ‘respice’ for young people. We argue that what emerges as important in the spiritual education of the sick child has significant implications for the spiritual education of all children.     

Dewey and Rawls on Education

In this paper I compare the roles that the explicit and implicit educational theories of John Dewey and John Rawls play in their political works to show that Rawls’s approach is skeletal and inappropriate for defenders of democracy. I also uphold Dewey’s belief that education is valuable in itself, not only derivatively, contra Rawls. Next, I address worries for any educational theory concerning problems of distributive justice. Finally, I defend Dewey’s commitment to democracy as a consequence of the demands of productive public inquiry and education.

Never quite good enough: The paradox of sticky developmental relationships for elite university graduates

Drawing on the mentoring, education, and social psychology literatures, this longitudinal study examines how the persistence of developmental relationships from an elite graduate school influences subjective career outcomes during early career. Participants (n = 136) were surveyed about their developmental networks—a group of individuals who take an active interest in and action to advance a focal individual’s career—and subjective career outcomes over the 10 years (1996-2006) post graduation. Results show that although receiving mentoring from one’s entire developmental network was positively related to career-related self-efficacy and perceptions of career success, this was not the case for ties retained from graduate school. Continuing to receive mentoring support from developers from graduate school and further, from peers from graduate school, was negatively related to perceptions of career success. These findings offer insight into the dynamics and potentially negative consequences of developmental networks and highlight the significance of social comparison during early career.     

Outcomes of training in supervision: Randomised controlled trial

There is little controlled research on the impact of supervisor training on supervision. The current study examined the effects of supervision training in a sample of 46 supervisor–supervisee pairs of mental health practitioners. It compared Immediate 2‐day workshop training of the pair, a wait‐list control in which workshop training was delayed 3 months, and a condition in which supervisors were trained 3 months before their partners (Split). Benefits of Immediate training were restricted to supervisors reporting fully specified agreements, and to reduction of some perceived problems. Self‐efficacy in providing effective supervision fell in the Split condition, relative to the other conditions. Across conditions in general there was a fall from baseline to post‐test assessment in the proportion of sessions where recommended supervision strategies were used, perhaps partly because the controlled trial extended across the summer vacation period. Results are consistent with other observations of the limited impact of workshop training on practice.     

Working memory and arithmetic calculation in children: the contributory roles of processing speed, short-term memory, and reading

The cognitive underpinnings of arithmetic calculation in children are noted to involve working memory; however, cognitive processes related to arithmetic calculation and working memory suggest that this relationship is more complex than stated previously. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relative contributions of processing speed, short-term memory, working memory, and reading to arithmetic calculation in children. Results suggested four important findings. First, processing speed emerged as a significant contributor of arithmetic calculation only in relation to age-related differences in the general sample. Second, processing speed and short-term memory did not eliminate the contribution of working memory to arithmetic calculation. Third, individual working memory components--verbal working memory and visual-spatial working memory--each contributed unique variance to arithmetic calculation in the presence of all other variables. Fourth, a full model indicated that chronological age remained a significant contributor to arithmetic calculation in the presence of significant contributions from all other variables. Results are discussed in terms of directions for future research on working memory in arithmetic calculation.     

Comments on ‘On “Bettering Humanity” in Science and Engineering Education’

The object of this communication is to reflect on the recent article by James Stieb in relation to an earlier article by Selvan.