Improving metacognition: A comparison of interventions

Accurate knowledge monitoring is critical to the learning process, as it allows one to regulate studying and test preparation. Thus, a number of investigations have attempted to improve metacognition in the classroom, with the ultimate goal of improving student exam performance. However, such interventions have had inconsistent success using varying paradigms. We compared the effectiveness of five interventions aimed at improving prediction accuracy in a laboratory environment: review, salient feedback, motivation warning lecture, incentives, and reflection. Only the salient feedback and the motivation warning lecture interventions significantly improved participants' prediction accuracy from test 1 to test 2. Review, incentives, and reflection did not improve predictive or postdictive calibration. Well‐timed salient feedback and a lecture warning students not to be biased by desired grades were effective methods of improving calibration accuracy. Results offer effective interventions to improve metacognition that could be used in a classroom setting.     

Outcomes and Findings of Program Evaluation for the Intensive Mental Health Program

We describe changes in adaptive functioning for children enrolled in the Intensive Mental Health Program (IMHP), an innovative model for serving children with the most severe forms of SED. Most children show marked improvements in multiple indicators of role performance and symptomatology. Although a high risk, high need group, most children attended school regularly and lived with a stable caregiver at discharge.     

Constructive conversations: Revisiting selected developments with clients and counsellors

Aim: to examine client and counsellor experiences in using and responding to social constructionist (e.g. solution‐focused, narrative and collaborative approaches) questions and other conversational interventions. Method: retrospective comments were elicited from 32 clients and 12 counsellors (trained in social constructionist counselling approaches) in reviewing their videotaped use of (or response to) questions and interventions from the social constructionist approaches in single session lifestyle consultations. These comments were transcribed then analysed using the constant comparison method of grounded theory. Results: five common themes (but with different emphases for clients and counsellors) were identified: exploring and adopting the client's perspective; identifying alternative perspectives; identifying strengths, possibilities, and solutions; developing a shared understanding; struggling to talk in a different way. Conclusions: the findings will be useful to counsellors interested in improving their responsive use of questions and interventions in dialogues with clients.     

VERB™ Summer Scorecard: Findings from a Multi-level Community-based Physical Activity Intervention for Tweens

The benefits of physical activity for adolescents are well established. Multi-level interventions may be especially effective in establishing and sustaining health-enhancing behaviors. This study explored the influences of a multi-level community intervention aimed at increasing physical activity among tweens (youth 9–13). Two Florida school districts far apart served as intervention and comparison sites in a quasi-experimental post-test design. Youth in grades 5 through 8 in the intervention community (n = 1,253) and comparison community (n = 866) completed an anonymous post-intervention survey. An intent-to-treat analysis did not show any statistically significant group differences for the physical activity outcomes examined. However, a subset analysis revealed that students who reported participating in the intervention were more likely to be physically active than youth in the comparison group, as well as youth in the intervention community who reported not participating. Participating in the intervention was significantly related to meeting recommendations for vigorous physical activity (OR = 2.08, P = 0.0259), being physically active on weekends (OR = 1.84, P = 0.0017), and reporting more days of trying a new game or sport (OR = 1.49, P = 0.046) after controlling for grade, gender, race/ethnicity, and SES. These findings support the efficacy of multi-level interventions to create effective health behavior change, especially when linkages among community, media, schools, and the home are present.     

Current Status of Psychosocial Intervention Research for Pediatric Outpatient Surgery

We reviewed 20 published studies of psychosocial interventions (i.e., preoperative preparation, parental presence) for children undergoing outpatient surgical procedures. The effectiveness of different intervention strategies on child and parent outcomes is summarized. Few positive effects were found for any of the psychosocial interventions. However, only a small number of randomized controlled trials were conducted and many of the studies using quasi-experimental designs had significant methodological problems that limited the interpretation of their findings. Research recommendations are described such as strengthening methodological rigor, making intervention strategies relevant to outpatient surgery, and using developmentally appropriate intervention strategies.     

Rationale for Individualizing Interventions to Promote Adjustment to the Nursing Home

This study was designed to determine whether certain variables were predictors of nursing home residents' membership in groups representing qualitative categories of nursing home adjustment. Responses of 186 residents to an open-ended question about how they handled the change to nursing home life were coded as very good, fair, or poor; an adjustment variable was created on the basis of this classification. Analysis of variance of random samples from each adjustment group showed that affect and social support varied significantly with adjustment. However, when discriminant analysis was applied, the three groups could not be differentiated using measure of affect, life satisfaction, social support, participation in the decisions leading to admission, nursing home satisfaction, or health. Based on the conclusion that adjustment to the nursing home is a unique experience for each individual, strategies were proposed for individualizing interventions to enable adjustment.     

正念训练对冲动性不同要素的影响：基于双加工理论

正念是指对当下身心体验不带有评判地觉察。基于双加工理论,以正念为核心的训练对个体冲动性不同要素均具有明显干预效果。一方面,有助于降低因情感系统引发的冲动驱力：通过调整个体的奖赏评估与预期,缓和诱发冲动的压力与负性情绪反应,减弱自动化反应的联结和强度;另一方面,提升个体由认知控制系统调节的冲动控制力：增强个体的认知控制和行为抑制能力。由于冲动性驱动因素和控制因素二者加工时序的先后差异和作用方向对抗性特点,正念训练促进两类要素的积极交互影响,缩小冲动性“驱动”与“控制”力量之间的不平衡,为个体更好地回应自身反应与外界刺激提供了有利缓冲,是降低个体冲动性的有效干预手段。     

In vivo functional assessment and multi-element interventions for problem behaviors of students with disabilities in classroom settings

Persons with developmental disabilities often do not follow instructions or complete tasks in educational settings, thus further disadvantaging themselves as they try to lead more normalized lives. The purpose of this paper was to address the problems of three persons referred for not following instructions and for engaging in associated behavior problems (e.g., crying, hitting, throwing materials) when given instructions. A functional assessment was conducted in the natural school setting without any prescribed conditions as in analogue functional assessments. Results of the assessments showed that problem behaviors for two subjects occurred much more in demand conditions requiring active responses than in demand conditions requiring passive responses. The results for a third subject showed problem behaviors were associated with toileting demands, less so with other demand conditions, but not with conditions in which there were an absence of demands. Individualized multi-element interventions were based on the negative reinforcement hypothesis and were intended to make tasks less aversive and to make instructions easier to understand. Results of the interventions showed increases in task engagement and decreases in problem behaviors during the active tasks and toileting tasks for which interventions were programmed, as well as for the passive tasks and other demand conditions for which no interventions were programmed. Results were discussed in terms of the value of functional assessments in directing therapists to base interventions on hypotheses of the function of the presenting problem.     

Narrative career counseling: My career story and pictorial narratives

The present article addresses the questions of what changes during narrative-informed career interventions and what prompts client reflection. We interrogated two case studies that both used the interventions of Pictorial Narratives (Taylor & Santoro, 2016) and My Career Story (Savickas & Hartung, 2012). Being heard and validated were elements that prompted client change through increased reflexivity and agency. And, reflexivity and agency were fostered by encouraging clients to consider the contrast between problem and preferred pictorials and to connect the perspective from early recollections to possibilities in a reconstructed career narrative. This pair of contrasting symbols prompted deep sense-making and new realizations that primed purposeful actions in the real world to reconstruct career and life. In addition to addressing the questions posed by the organizers, this article describes how the Pictorial Narrative methods, when used in career counseling, can been integrated with the My Career Story workbook to enhance client reflection and agency. The two case examples illustrate this unique integration of constructionist career counseling interventions.     

Promoting positive outcomes through strengths interventions: A literature review

This paper reviews studies of strengths interventions published between 2011 and 2016. Strengths interventions aim to promote well-being or other positive outcomes by facilitating strengths identification, and sometimes also strengths use and/or development. The present review provides an overview of the different strengths interventions that are investigated, their effectiveness, and moderating and mediating factors. Results of the 18 (quasi-)experimental studies that were identified through a systematic literature search showed that all types of strengths interventions had positive outcomes in terms of well-being, job outcomes (e.g. work engagement), personal growth initiative, and group or team outcomes (e.g. class cohesion). Hope, positive affect, authentic self-expression, perceptions of the employment relationship, and feelings of social worth were identified as mediators, whereas extraversion and having specific strengths (e.g. persistence) were identified as moderators. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for future research and practice.