Building a professional development system: a case study of North Carolina's parenting education experiences

Designing a professional development system for parent educators requires weaving together multiple pieces from within the network of organizations providing parenting education. North Carolina examined how to build a system using the influence of evidence-based programs as well as professional credentialing for parenting educators. A system built with professionals who understand sound parenting practices and networked together to use best practices with parents is critical to support families and prevent child abuse.     

Understanding the resilience of mail-back survey methods: An analysis of 20 years of change in response rates to national park surveys

Coverage and response rate challenges facing telephone and internet surveys have encouraged scientists to reconsider mail data collection methods. Although response rates to telephone surveys have declined sharply in the last 20 years, it is unclear how response rates to mail have fared during this time. This study analyzes 179 mail-back surveys of visitors to US National Parks from 1988 to 2007, which used virtually the same administration procedures throughout the period. Results show that response rates, based on only those who initially agreed to return a questionnaire, have remained at a high level with a 76% average while the number of questions and pages steadily increased. Despite this rise in response burden, rates have declined only moderately from about 80% in the late 1980s to about 70% more recently. The roles of additional contacts and survey salience in maintaining high response rates are examined. Results suggest that mail-back surveys for obtaining information from quasi-general public populations remain an effective data collection procedure.     

Going Back Home? Changing Demography and Geography of Mexican Return Migration

Return migration has been a constant feature of Mexico?CUS migration patterns, but its characteristics have changed sharply with time. We use the Mexican censuses and counts of 1995, 2000, 2010, and the complete set of individual and household records of the 2005 Population Count to explore the demographic characteristics of returnees in the context of tighter border control and rising levels of forced return migration. Involuntary and therefore unplanned return is likely to mean greater difficulties of incorporation into the community of origin. The study of the effects of the militarization of the US?CMexico border on migration patterns has focused on the US side. We contribute to this literature by focusing on the Mexican side. We consider the intensity and type of previous migration to the US as compared to current return migration, and State of origin and destination. Our data suggest that particularly attractive destinations for returnees are border cities, prosperous communities and growing metropolitan areas. Findings suggest changes in the demographic composition and geographic distribution of returnees. The discordance between the patterns of outmigration and return is a telling indicator of changes in the overall migration relationship between Mexico and the US. The patterns for 2005 are also observed in 2010 even if the absolute number of inter-censal returnees increased threefold over the period. Finally, we argue that focusing on destinations of return instead of areas of emigration will contribute to a more comprehensive understanding on the nature of future return migration to Mexico and its policy implications.     

Psychometric Validation of the Gambling Passion Scale (GPS) in an English-speaking University Sample

The Gambling Passion Scale (GPS) is a recently developed research instrument for assessing individuals' passion for gambling. Because the psychometric properties of the GPS have only previously been examined in French Canadians, the aim of this study was to replicate previous psychometric findings in an English-speaking university sample. Participants (female: n = 58; male: n = 89) were drawn from a university campus based on self-reported experience with gambling indexed by scores on the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS). The two-factor structure reported by Rousseau et al. (Journal of Gambling Studies, 18(1), pp. 45–66, 2002) was largely replicated in this sample, as were relationships between ‘obsessive passion’ and negative consequences stemming from gambling. These results support the validity of the GPS as a measure of gambling passion in English-speaking university gamblers and its potential to contribute to understanding problem gambling.     

The effect of labor relations climate on the union participation process

Research examining union member attitudes and behaviors have produced inconsistent results for key relationships in models of union participation. Social information processing theory suggests that a contextual variable, labor relations climate, should systematically influence the attitudinal variables in these models. Our meta-analysis shows that labor relations climate moderates four of five key relationships. Consequently, theory on union member participation should be altered to reflect the recent emergence of less adversarial union-management relationships.     

Calculation of Phase 2 dose-finding study sample size for reliable Phase 3 dose selection

Sample sizes of Phase 2 dose-finding studies, usually determined based on a power requirement to detect a significant dose–response relationship, will generally not provide adequate precision for Phase 3 target dose selection. We propose to calculate the sample size of a dose-finding study based on the probability of successfully identifying the target dose within an acceptable range (e.g., 80%–120% of the target) using the multiple comparison and modeling procedure (MCP-Mod). With the proposed approach, different design options for the Phase 2 dose-finding study can also be compared. Due to inherent uncertainty around an assumed true dose–response relationship, sensitivity analyses to assess the robustness of the sample size calculations to deviations from modeling assumptions are recommended. Planning for a hypothetical Phase 2 dose-finding study is used to illustrate the main points. Codes for the proposed approach is available at https://github.com/happysundae/posMCPMod .     

Are state mindfulness and state work engagement related during the workday?

Given the growing interest in mindfulness in the workplace and the established importance of work engagement for work-related health and well-being, we explore the relationships between these 2 positive psychological states as they vary naturalistically over the workday. Utilising data from 3 measurement occasions per day (before work, mid-workday, and end-workday), we track natural variations in state mindfulness and state work engagement to create a fine-grained picture about their reciprocal relationships within the workday. A sample of 94 university employees completed multiple diary entries per day, for 10 working days. Data were analysed using multilevel structural equation modelling in MPlus, testing within-person pathways between mindfulness and work engagement across the day. Although state work engagement was a predictor of subsequent state mindfulness, state mindfulness did not predict subsequent state work engagement when controlling for earlier within-day work engagement. Overall, the within-day associations between mindfulness and work engagement were weak. We note the high within-day stabilities of state mindfulness and state work engagement, and discuss whether job and personal resources as well as task features might be moderators in the relationships between these constructs.