Cognitive bias modification as a strategy to reduce children's fears and concerns about the secondary school transition

Background and objectives: Cognitive Bias Modification of Interpretations (CBM-I) has emerged as an anxiety-reducing tool for children and adolescents, targeting maladaptive interpretations of everyday situations. This literature falls short of addressing whether the effects of CBM-I extend to worries about a real-life stressor, such as a school transition. Design: The study comprised a between-groups design comparing the effects of CBM-I to an active control (AC) intervention in children. Method: We recruited 38 children within two months of their primary–secondary school transition and investigated the capacity for multi-session, parent-administered CBM-I, compared to an AC condition, to modify cognitive style and reduce anxiety symptoms and school concerns. Results: While benign interpretations increased significantly and negative interpretations tended to decrease following CBM-I, both interventions significantly reduced anxiety symptoms and school concerns. Conclusions: These findings indicate that anxiety-reducing effects of CBM-I in children extend to a real life stressful event, but that equivalent anxiety reduction may be achieved through exposure to potentially worrying situations and parent–child interaction in the absence of bias modification.     

Prolonged Stress,PTSD, and Depression Among School Aggressors and Victims

Exposure rates to school aggression as an aggressor, victim, aggressive victim, or a bystander is high, with large numbers of school-aged children reporting being subjected to verbal or physical violence. We hypothesized that all 3 clusters of the DSM–IV designation of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Criterion B: Intrusive recall, Criterion C: Avoidance, and Criterion D: Hypervigilance) would be experienced by pure victims, pure aggressors, and aggressive victims. We also anticipated that PTSD symptoms would lead to depression, primarily for victims. Questionnaires were given to 1,398 students, yielding 1,116 valid questionnaires (80% response rate). Respondents were enrolled in the general education system, from 9 different schools in Israel. Following calibration of the research instruments using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, a series of structural equation and reflection models were examined. The path through some of the symptoms of PTSD and depression was apparent only for victims. For the victims, the indirect model through avoidance predicted depression only for relational victimization. No clear linkage was found among aggression, PTSD, and depression for aggressors. For aggressors, physical aggression was linked with the 3 clusters of PTSD symptoms, but not with depression.     

Positive and negative well-being among adolescents from theological and conventional schools in India

In this pilot study, we examined positive and negative well-being among 60 students from theological and conventional schools. Participants included 30 students (50% females) from each school, aged 16–18 years. Self-reported measures included life satisfaction and achievement motivation for positive well-being and stress and anxiety for negative well-being. Results indicated that theological school students reported much lower life satisfaction compared to students in conventional schools with a large effect size. Similar patterns were observed with stress and anxiety, although effects were small. There were no differences in achievement motivation between the two schools. Regarding gender, findings showed that males reported lower stress and anxiety than their female counterparts and these effects were large. Genders did not differ in life satisfaction and achievement motivation.     

Differential Susceptibility to Parenting in Middle Childhood: Do Impulsivity,Effortful Control and Negative Emotionality Indicate Susceptibility or Vulnerability?

In this longitudinal study, we examined whether children differ in their susceptibility to harsh and responsive parenting as reflected in their externalizing and prosocial behaviour two years later. We focused on three potential susceptibility markers assessed during middle childhood: Negative emotionality, impulsivity, and effortful control. Participants were 120 Dutch children (6–11 years old; 54% girls). Parenting was assessed using both observations and self‐report questionnaires. Parental responsiveness predicted decreased externalizing behaviour two years later among children high on impulsivity (in case of observed responsiveness) or low on effortful control (in case of observed and self‐reported responsiveness) but not among children low on impulsivity or high on effortful control. Observed harsh parenting predicted decreased prosocial behaviour, especially among children with average or high negative emotionality. The findings support a diathesis–stress model more than they do a differential susceptibility model. High impulsivity seemed to be a vulnerability factor, predicting increased externalizing behaviour when parents lacked responsiveness. Also, high negative emotionality served as a vulnerability factor, predicting decreased prosocial behaviour when parents were harsh, while low negative emotionality served as a protective factor, buffering against decreased prosocial behaviour. Finally, low effortful control might operate as a vantage‐sensitivity factor, predicting decreased externalizing behaviour when parents were responsive. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychological Sense of University Membership: An Adaptation Study of the PSSM Scale for Turkish University Students

The Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale (PSSM) is a widely used instrument to assess the sense of belonging to a school among adolescents. Despite its widespread use in middle and high school students, to date no particular adaptation study has been conducted for its use among university students. For this reason, the present study conducted an adaptation of the PSSM scale for these students. Five hundred and nine students at a Turkish university voluntarily participated in the study, and the PSSM Scale's factor structure was examined by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, identifying three factors representing the students' sense of university membership with acceptable internal consistencies: acceptance by faculty members (.70), belonging (.75), and acceptance by students (.76). The internal consistency of the 18-item scale was calculated as .84. As hypothesized, the convergent and discriminant validity of the scale was also tested. The self-report sense of belonging and degree of satisfaction with the university were positively correlated with the three dimensions of the scale. Also, the scores regarding the students' intention to drop out of university along with loneliness were negatively correlated with all the dimension of the PSSM scale.     

Incorporating Mobility in Growth Modeling for Multilevel and Longitudinal Item Response Data

Multilevel data often cannot be represented by the strict form of hierarchy typically assumed in multilevel modeling. A common example is the case in which subjects change their group membership in longitudinal studies (e.g., students transfer schools; employees transition between different departments). In this study, cross-classified and multiple membership models for multilevel and longitudinal item response data (CCMM-MLIRD) are developed to incorporate such mobility, focusing on students' school change in large-scale longitudinal studies. Furthermore, we investigate the effect of incorrectly modeling school membership in the analysis of multilevel and longitudinal item response data. Two types of school mobility are described, and corresponding models are specified. Results of the simulation studies suggested that appropriate modeling of the two types of school mobility using the CCMM-MLIRD yielded good recovery of the parameters and improvement over models that did not incorporate mobility properly. In addition, the consequences of incorrectly modeling the school effects on the variance estimates of the random effects and the standard errors of the fixed effects depended upon mobility patterns and model specifications. Two sets of large-scale longitudinal data are analyzed to illustrate applications of the CCMM-MLIRD for each type of school mobility.     

Character Development within Youth Development Programs: Exploring Multiple Dimensions of Activity Involvement

We examined links among three dimensions of youth involvement (intensity, duration, and engagement) in Boy Scouts of America (BSA), an international out‐of‐school time (OST) youth development program designed to promote moral and performance character in boys. Using data from 737 youth and their parents who participated in one of 40 BSA program sites (commonly referred to as “packs”), we first considered how individual‐ and pack‐level measures of program involvement were differentially linked with character development. Next, we examined whether pack‐level involvement characteristics moderate individual‐level involvement characteristics, hypothesizing that highly involved packs would serve to further enhance the positive effects of high levels of individual involvement. Results indicated engagement was the strongest, most frequent predictor of increases in both moral and performance character. Although there were no direct effects of pack‐level intensity, duration, or engagement, the effects of individual‐level engagement were moderated by pack‐level engagement, suggesting that the largest increases in moral and performance character occurred among highly engaged youth who were enrolled in highly engaged packs. These results highlight the need to examine multiple dimensions of OST program involvement simultaneously, and suggest that strengthening youth engagement in programming may provide a means for enhancing the positive effects of high‐quality youth programming.