Implementation fidelity in a teacher-led alcohol use prevention curriculum

There is now ample evidence that teachers tend to make substantial modifications to both the prescribed content and methods of the curricula they administer, and that such modifications are likely to attenuate curricula effects. We examine the fidelity with which teachers implement "Protecting You, Protecting Me," an underage alcohol use prevention curriculum. Findings suggest that while teachers attempted to implement most sections of a lesson, the lessons taught were consistently--and often extensively--adapted. We conclude that since teachers are likely to continue to modify lessons, curriculum developers and trainers should enhance their understanding of how prevention curricula are taught under real world conditions, help teachers to reinforce key curriculum concepts, and consider modifying those curricular sections that teachers are adapting with greatest frequency.     

Child outcome measures in the study of child care quality

This article assesses whether there are methodological problems with child outcome measures that may contribute to the small associations between child care quality and child outcomes found in the literature. Outcome measures used in 65 studies of child care quality published between 1979 and December 2005 were examined, taking the previous review by Vandell and Wolfe (2000) as the starting point. Serious methodological problems were not pervasive for child outcome measures. However, methodological concerns were most prevalent among measures of socioemotional development. Furthermore, psychometric information on outcome measures was often missing from published reports, and health outcomes and approaches to learning were infrequently studied. Future research should address alignment issues between aspects of quality and the specific child outcomes chosen for study.     

The significance of place in middle childhood: qualitative research from Wales

The paper presents some key findings of qualitative research with older primary school children in Wales on their attachments to places and cultures. There is discussion of children's perspectives on the global, national and local arenas. We argue both that there are continuities with adult perspectives and that the children's views on place and identity need to be understood in the context of the social location of middle childhood. The study shows children making relatively little use of culturally-filled categories of local, national and global place-identifications. The differences they articulate are largely framed in terms of divisions between groups of people rather than in the characteristics of place, and generally related back to the self.     

Residents’ Reactions to Earthquake Early Warnings in Japan

This article empirically examines the effectiveness of earthquake early warning (EEW) in Japan based on experiences of residents who received warnings before earthquake shaking occurred. In Study 1, a survey (N = 299) was conducted to investigate residents’ experiences of, and reactions to, an EEW issued in Gunma and neighboring regions on June 17, 2018. The main results were as follows. (1) People's primary reactions to the EEW were mental, not physical, and thus motionless. Most residents stayed still, not for safety reasons, but because they were focusing on mentally bracing themselves. (2) Residents perceived the EEW to be effective because it enabled them to mentally prepare, rather than take physical protective actions, before strong shaking arrived. (3) In future, residents anticipate that on receipt of an EEW they would undertake mental preparation as opposed to physical protective actions. In Study 2, a survey (N = 450) was conducted on another EEW issued for an earthquake offshore of Chiba Prefecture on July 7, 2018. Results were in line with those of Study 1, suggesting that the findings described above are robust. Finally, given people's lack of impetus to undertake protective action on receipt of an EEW, this article discusses ways to enhance such actions.     

Gifts and Gifting

The terms gift and gifting are rarely formally defined, but are associated with something given without receiving payment, often in the expectation of reciprocation and of changing the relationship with the recipient. Extensive prior work across a number of disciplines tends to focus on gifting as a process and shows a broad conceptualization of the gift construct to include actions as diverse as charitable giving, tipping, self‐gifting and volunteering, where relationship development and reciprocation are largely irrelevant. As a way to develop the area, two proposals are made: first, that gifting research should recognize two different types of gift, transactional and relational; and second, that the exchange paradigm and its underpinning social exchange theory should become central in developing understanding of relational gifting. The authors argue that empirical researchers may usefully revisit the relational paradigm, but by adopting a more quantitative, modelling approach, and the paper illustrates how this might be achieved.     

City-wide relationships between green spaces,urban land use and topography

The growing proportion of human populations living in urban areas, and consequent trends of increasing urban expansion and densification fuel a need to understand how urban form and land use affect environmental quality, including the availability of urban green spaces. Here we use Sheffield as a case study of city-wide relationships between urban green space extent, quality (vegetation cover and tree-cover), and gradients in urban form and topography. The total area of buildings and length of the road network are equally strong negative predictors of extent of green space, while the former predictor is a more important negative influence upon green space quality. Elevation positively influences extent of green space but negatively influences tree-cover. In contrast, slope of terrain positively influences green space quality and is the best predictor of tree-cover. Overall housing density is a more important negative predictor of extent of green space and tree-cover than the densities of individual housing types. Nevertheless, the latter are more important influences upon levels of vegetation cover. Threshold effects of densities of different housing types suggest opportunities for optimising green space quality, with implications for housing policy. Variation in ecological quality of green space may partly reflect different historical intensities of industrial activity.     

Behavior of Mothers and Infants With and Without Down Syndrome During the Still‐Face Procedure

There has been limited study of how the constitutional characteristics of infants with Down syndrome (DS) influence the patterning of their relations with caregivers. To assess natural and perturbed interactions between infants with DS and their mothers, we tested ten 6‐month‐old infants with DS and 20 typically developing (TD) 4‐month‐old of similar mental age. Participants were videotaped with their mothers in a natural face‐to‐face interaction, a brief period when the mothers adopted a still‐face, and a subsequent reengagement phase. There was little to distinguish the infants in the initial phase of natural interaction, but the mothers of infants with DS were more likely to show assertive warmth, and unlike in the case of mothers of TD infants, high maternal directiveness tended to be associated with lower levels of infant looking and lack of fussing. During the still‐face episode, infants of both groups showed reduced looking and smiling, although infants with DS tended to show lower levels of fussing and fewer in this group showed fussing in the reengagement phase. Therefore DS infants were somewhat similar to TD infants of comparable mental age in being responsive to the still‐face procedure, but showed indications of group differences in intense emotional reactivity.     

TALKING ABOUT PROBABILITIES: A LOGICAL PROBLEM FOR OR/MS

The correct interpretation of a natural language statement is determined as much by convention and shared meanings as by logical content. Therefore, when the word “probability” is used in the statement of a decision problem, the intended interpretation is not always clear. If such a statement also contains explicit probability formulae, confusion and even paradox may result. In this article, a problem involving cascaded inference is interpreted in four ways, three of which are regarded by the authors as legitimate or reasonable. The problem was originally suggested by Einhorn [3] and further discussed by Libby [10]. It is suggested here that a formal, mathematicist interpretation of the word “probability” might lead to inappropriate analyses of some decisions.