The protection of children exposed to marital violence

A review of the available research shows that children who witness violence between their parents have emotional and behavioural difficulties that mirror those of children currently identified as being abused. It is not clear whether these difficulties stem from the violence itself or the insecurity common in such families. However, current understanding of the experience of trauma suggests that some of these children are traumatized by the scenes they witness. Thus they fulfil the criteria for suffering from ‘significant harm’, within the guidelines of the Children Act. Current models of intervention in other areas of identified abuse could be applied to these children, offering adequate protection from further harm.     

Street children in Trinidad and Tobago: understanding their lives and experiences

A community-based action research process, over a three-year period, employed interviews and participant observations with five children living on the streets in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago. Data revealed violence in the family to be a contributing factor to children's presence on the streets: it was also a feature of their lives on the streets. A complex pattern emerged of violence, hostility, and distorted social interactions amidst negative attitudes and disdainful behaviour all around them. It is argued that, although it is not easy, more people – professionals and citizens – would do well to listen to, and understand the lives of, street children in order to be motivated for change.     

The effects of alternating mand and tact training on the acquisition of tacts

Two training procedures were compared with respect to the average number of training trials it took to teach new verbal responses to normal children. Mand contingencies were alternated with tact contingencies in one condition while only tact contingencies were in effect in the other condition. Normal, preschool children served as subjects and toy parts were the objects that were to be named. The results indicated that it took, on the average, fewer trials to teach part names (tacts) in the mand-tact condition than in the tact only condition. Although more research is needed to confirm this, it appears that mand contingencies involve stronger controlling variables and can facilitate the acquisition of a tact repertoire.

     

Tailored program evaluation: Past, present, future

This paper discusses measurement issues related to the evaluation of computer-tailored health behavior change programs. As the first generation of commercially available tailored products is utilized in health promotion programming, programmers and researchers are becoming aware of the unique challenges that the evaluation of these programs presents. A project is presented that used an online tailored health behavior assessment (HBA) in a worksite setting. Process and outcome evaluation methods are described and include the challenges faced, and strategies proposed and implemented, for meeting them. Implications for future research in tailored program development, implementation, and evaluation are also discussed.     

Heterogeneity and study size in random-effects meta-analysis

It is well known that heterogeneity between studies in a meta-analysis can be either caused by diversity, for example, variations in populations and interventions, or caused by bias, that is, variations in design quality and conduct of the studies. Heterogeneity that is due to bias is difficult to deal with. On the other hand, heterogeneity that is due to diversity is taken into account by a standard random-effects model. However, such a model generally assumes that heterogeneity does not vary according to study-level variables such as the size of the studies in the meta-analysis and the type of study design used. This paper develops models that allow for this type of variation in heterogeneity and discusses the properties of the resulting methods. The models are fitted using the maximum-likelihood method and by modifying the Paule–Mandel method. Furthermore, a real-world argument is given to support the assumption that the inter-study variance is inversely proportional to study size. Under this assumption, the corresponding random-effects method is shown to be connected with standard fixed-effect meta-analysis in a way that may well appeal to many clinicians. The models and methods that are proposed are applied to data from two large systematic reviews.     

The Development of Students' Mathematics Self‐Concept in Relation to Gender: Different Countries,Different Trajectories?

Gender differences in the development of children's and adolescents' academic self‐perceptions have received increasing attention in recent years. This study extends previous research by examining the development of mathematics self‐concept across grades 7–12 in three cultural settings: Australia (Sydney; N=1,333), the United States (Michigan; N=2,443), and Germany (four federal states; N=4,688). Results of latent growth curve models document very similar patterns of self‐concept development in males and females in the three settings. First, gender differences in favor of boys were observed at the beginning of the observation period (grade 7). Second, gender was not significantly related to self‐concept change in either group, meaning that initial differences persisted across time. Third, the results provided no evidence that the form of the longitudinal change trajectories for mathematics self‐concept differed across the cultural settings. This pattern of results is inconsistent with explanatory models that predict converging or diverging gender differences in mathematics self‐concept. Furthermore, the results indicate that self‐concept development may be highly similar across western cultural settings.