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381. [Article] A Study of Washington Secondary Principals' Perceptions of Effective Dropout Prevention Policies and Programs
This study examined what Washington high school principals perceive to be the most effective dropout prevention policies and programs. The population included all public high schools in the State of Washington. ...Citation Citation
- Title:
- A Study of Washington Secondary Principals' Perceptions of Effective Dropout Prevention Policies and Programs
- Author:
- Greenwood, Susan Lindsley
- Year:
- 1990
This study examined what Washington high school principals perceive to be the most effective dropout prevention policies and programs. The population included all public high schools in the State of Washington. Five questions were posed: 1. (a) What preventative measures, intervention programs or student services designed to enhance environmental and personal factors are perceived to have reduced dropout rates? (b) Does the availability of those services and programs account for a significant difference in the actual dropout rates? 2. (a) What personal/psychological factors characterize potential dropouts? (b) Do these identifying characteristics account for a significant variance in the actual dropout rates? 3. (a) What environmental factors influence dropout rates in the schools? (b) Do these factors account for a significant variance in the actual dropout rates? 4. What intervention programs or student services are available in the sample? 5. What demographic factors in the sample schools significantly affect dropout rates? The study incorporated both quantitative and qualitative methodology. Ninety six questionnaires were returned for a response rate of 64 percent. The survey gathered information about each school's demographics, opinions about potential dropouts' identifying characteristics, opinions about the school environment availability of services and programs in each building and district, and which programs they felt to be the most effective, ranking the top ten from a list of twenty possible programs, policies, or services. Six schools were visited and their principals were interviewed to get additional information about their programs and effectiveness. Data was statistically analyzed using ANOVA, multiple regression, and paired comparisons. The policies, services, and programs felt to be most effective were: In-house progressive discipline, vocational programs, a written building attendance policy, out-of-building alternative programs, cooperative work programs, freshman bonding programs, small group advisories, in-building alternative programs, a written district attendance policy, a required life skills class, honors courses, and alcohol/drug-related programs. Available programs accounting for a variance in actual dropout rates were: Monetary incentives, child care facilities, English taught as a second language, honors courses, and parent effectiveness programs. Identified personal characteristics accounting for a variance in actual dropout rates were: Working full-time, low self-esteem, parents' background, low grades, teen pregnancy, and being of a racial minority. Environmental factors accounting for a variance in actual dropout rates were: High parent and community involvement with the school, self-esteem classes and small-group advisories, and the Excellence reform. Demographic factors accounting for a variance in actual dropout rates were: economic stability, gender of principal, and use of free school lunch. The research suggests that those programs and practices accounting for a variance in actual dropout rates should be examined for their interaction of involved factors. If the discussed personal and environmental factors are present, those effective interactive practices should be implemented in order to reduce dropout rates.
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Background: CogState is a computerized cognitive battery spanning domains of memory, executive function, and speed and processing. CogState, designed to be robust to education level and efficient for repeated ...
Citation Citation
- Title:
- MCI Status, Amyloid and Tau Biomarkers, and Composite Cognitive Impairment Scores are Associated with Cogstate Performance in the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention
- Author:
- Racine, Annie M., Koscik, Rebecca L., Clark, Lindsay R., Mueller, Kimberly D., Berman, Sara Elizabeth, Nicholas, Christopher R., Asthana, Sanjay, Blennow, Kaj, Zetterberg, Henrik, Jedynak, Bruno, Bilgel, Murat, Christian, Bradley T., Carlsson, Cynthia M., Johnson, Sterling C.
- Year:
- 2016
Background: CogState is a computerized cognitive battery spanning domains of memory, executive function, and speed and processing. CogState, designed to be robust to education level and efficient for repeated administration with minimal practice effects, holds potential for detecting early cognitive deficits that may prove to be due to preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This project aimed to provide convergent and construct validity for CogState in detecting preclinical AD during late-middle-age. Methods: 279 late-middle-aged participants from the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention (mean age 63±7 years; 69% female; 37% APOE4+) completed a traditional paper-based neuropsychological battery and a CogState battery consisting of seven tests approximately six years post-baseline. A composite cognitive impairment score (CCI) was calculated using eight neuropsychological tests acquired longitudinally and was estimated at age 50 to remove confounding age effects; higher CCI indicates lower cognitive performance. Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) status (n=36) was determined by consensus using clinical and/or pyschometric criteria. A subset underwent cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) collection (n=36) and PET-PiB imaging (n=46). To determine clinical relevance of CogState, MCI and normal controls were compared by ANCOVA on select CogState variables controlling for age, literacy, gender, APOE4, AD family history, self-rated computer familiarity, and depression. To determine whether biomarkers (CSF Aβ42/Aβ40, CSF total-tau/Aβ42, global PiB burden) or CCI predict CogState performance, we ran multiple regression models controlling for age, sex, literacy, and computer familiarity. Results: MCI participants performed significantly worse (p Conclusions: MCI status, biomarkers for amyloid and tau, and CCI all predict performance on the CogState variables assessed in this study of late-middle-aged adults. CogState performance at a single time point may be an important indicator of preclinical AD processes.
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This study explores the manner in which leaders working in the domestic violence field in the US have or have not adopted a human rights framework and what impact this has had on domestic violence policy ...
Citation Citation
- Title:
- “Creative Interpretation and Fluidity in a Rights Framework”: The Intersection of Domestic Violence and Human Rights in the United States
- Author:
- Morgaine, Karen Lynn
- Year:
- 2007
This study explores the manner in which leaders working in the domestic violence field in the US have or have not adopted a human rights framework and what impact this has had on domestic violence policy and intervention. Participants included leaders from national domestic violence and human rights organizations. These organizations are instrumental in developing policy and in framing the issues of domestic violence and human rights, many of which also work with specific racial and ethnic populations. Some of the primary research questions included: If the human rights discourse is being put to practical use within the US, how does it meet the needs of women of color, immigrants, and other women who have been marginalized? Does bringing the issue of domestic violence into a human rights framework reinscribe hegemonic feminism in ways that are either ineffectual or oppressive and colonizing to women of color, immigrants and/or women in marginalized groups in the US and if so, in what ways? Additional research objectives include assessing whether there is active resistance to adopting a human rights framework and benefits and challenges to using the framework. This research uses the critique and experiences of women of color as a focal point. Through the use of critical ethnography and autoethnography, this study examines the manner in which the power to frame and define social problems unfolds. Findings suggest a limited dialogue to date between national domestic violence and human rights organizations with a range of thoughts regarding potential benefits and barriers to reframing domestic violence as a human rights violation. Barriers include lack of resonance/U.S. exceptionalism, power of the State to direct funding and focus, and reluctance to shift status quo based in part in white privilege. Benefits of cross-organizational dialogue include expanding focus, building coalitions, and engaging diverse communities in addressing domestic violence issues. Intersectional issues related to gender, race/ethnicity, immigration, and sovereignty are also explored. This research suggests that social workers need to continue to critically assess the application of human rights to social justice issues and the role that privilege plays in social movements and social policy formation.
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Nearly 23,000 youth age out of the foster care system between the ages of 18 and 21 each year in a transition fraught with challenges and barriers. These young people often lack developmentally appropriate ...
Citation Citation
- Title:
- Assessing the Impact of Restrictiveness and Placement Type on Transition-Related Outcomes for Youth With and Without Disabilities Aging Out of Foster Care
- Author:
- Schmidt, Jessica Danielle
- Year:
- 2015
Nearly 23,000 youth age out of the foster care system between the ages of 18 and 21 each year in a transition fraught with challenges and barriers. These young people often lack developmentally appropriate experiences and exposure to necessary knowledge, role modeling, skill building, and long-term social support to promote positive transitions to adulthood while in foster care. As a result, young people who exit care face an array of poor adult outcomes. Nearly 60% of transition-aged foster youth experience a disability, and as such, face compounded challenges exiting foster care. While the examination of young adult outcomes for youth with disabilities has been largely missing from the literature, available research documents that young adults with disabilities who had exited foster care were significantly behind their peers without disabilities in several key areas. Literature examining the experiences of transition-aged youth with disabilities in the general population also highlights gaps in young adult outcomes for young people with disabilities compared to their peers. Compounding the issue for youth in foster care, those who experience disabilities often reside in restrictive placement settings such as developmental disability (DD) certified homes, group homes, or residential treatment centers. Though limited, there is some evidence to suggest that these types of placements negatively impact young adult outcomes for those aging out of foster care. The rules and regulations in place to promote safety in these types of placements could further restrict youth from engaging in meaningful transition preparation engagement while in foster care. Therefore, youth with disabilities, whose needs necessitate a higher level of support towards transition preparation engagement, may actually receive fewer opportunities than their peers in non-relative foster care and kinship care as they prepare to exit care into adulthood. The work in this dissertation provides knowledge to address gaps in the literature around transition preparation engagement during foster care for youth with disabilities, youth residing in restrictive foster care placements, and youth who report high levels of perceived restrictiveness as they prepare to enter into adulthood. This dissertation is a secondary analysis of transition preparation engagement data collected at baseline for 294 transition-aged youth in foster care who participated in an evaluation of an intervention to promote self-determination and enhance young adult outcomes, called My Life. Transition preparation engagement in this study was represented by eight domains: youth perceptions of preparedness for adult life, post-secondary education preparation engagement, career preparation engagement, employment, daily life preparation engagement, Independent Living Program (ILP) participation, transition planning engagement, and self-determination. Transition preparation engagement domains were examined using hierarchical multiple regression analysis to explore differences by disability status, placement setting, and youth self-report of perceptions of restrictiveness. In alignment with the literature, 58.8% of youth in this sample experienced a disability. Additional key demographics, including age, gender, and race, and foster care experiences, including length of time in care and placement instability, were entered into the regression models as covariates. Results indicated significantly less transition preparation engagement for 1) youth with disabilities compared to youth without disabilities, 2) youth residing in restrictive placements compared to youth in non-relative foster care and kinship care, and 3) youth who reported higher levels of perceived restrictiveness compared to youth who reported lower levels of perceived restrictiveness. Program, policy, and research recommendations are discussed that highlight the need to promote transition preparation engagement for this particularly vulnerable group of young people in foster care who experience disabilities, are residing in restrictive placement settings and who report high levels of perceived restrictiveness.
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This thesis was an endeavor to find the drama available for the elementary children of Portland, Oregon. In deciding what drama was for children two different forms were first researched. Children’s theatre ...
Citation Citation
- Title:
- Children's drama available for the elementary school children of Portland, Oregon
- Author:
- Gender, Margaret Othus
- Year:
- 1967
This thesis was an endeavor to find the drama available for the elementary children of Portland, Oregon. In deciding what drama was for children two different forms were first researched. Children’s theatre done by adults such as in community services, educational programs and professional and commercial theatres were studied. Drama by children, referred to as the less formalized drama, creative dramatics was also investigated. To further examine the background of children’s theatre in the United States, various children’s theatres around the country were studied including the University Children’s Theatre at Northwestern under the direction of Winifred Ward and Goodman Memorial Children’s Theatre in Chicago under the direction of Charlotte Chorpenning. With the advent of the educational field into children’s theatre culminating with the Children’s Theatre Conference the movement became wide spread throughout the United States. A great deal has been done to spark children’s drama not only in the viewing of children’s plays in production but affording children actual participation in creative drama workshops and children’s productions. More and more community theatres, commercial groups and universities are doing children’s drama throughout the nation. In an effort to find what was being offered to the Portland children in drama, the Portland Public Grade Schools were first approached. With the help of the Language Arts Supervisor five areas of drama for children were researched through reading and interviews. Although the Portland Public Grade Schools have no drama courses instructed by specific drama teachers they do encourage drama to be correlated into the classroom program and taught in “in service” courses for their teachers. The “model school program” has drama as a definite course and the Portland schools offer a summer school which has a creative drama course available to the elementary school children. The University of Portland, a Catholic university in Portland, has achieved the most definite progress in the Portland area in children’s theatre. They not only produce children’s plays during the school year but offer creative drama and playwriting in their course of study. Under the instruction and production of Mrs. Catherine Roberts for the last six years they are striving to bring children’s theatre to the Portland children and their teachers. Portland does offer some excellent theatre for children in the community. The Portland Junior League, a service group, has nationally been involved throughout the years with their children’s play productions by their groups for the school children of their communities. Now, after turning their productions over to Portland University they still maintain a very worthwhile program of puppetry for the school children of Portland. Portland Junior Civic Theatre, one of the oldest children’s theatre groups in Portland, not only produces children’s productions by children but conducts a children’s drama school throughout the year. The Portland Park Bureau also takes an active part particularly during the summer in children’s drama and training. The newest to Portland is the Playmaker’s Group, relatively young but eager in its endeavor for the children of the area. Their efforts include both productions and schooling on a creative drama promise, with improvisational plays by the adult Playmaker casts. Children’s theatre in Portland is developing but has faced many problems and has many more to surmount. The progress of the active workers in this movement show hope for the future for the children of Portland. The appendix of the thesis is devoted to several programs involved with the teaching of drama. First is a course in creative drama offered to college students in the colleges and universities having such courses in their curriculum. A creative drama course correlated with the regular classroom subjects in the Portland Grade School Curriculum is also included. Last, a summer school plan for community theatre is shown. All the arts combine in the theatre, decor, the dance, impersonation, effective speech, the song, pantomime, the projection of personality, the art of suppressing self and even ill will, for the unity of effort. Hundreds of other arts could be listed including the art of living together and the art of creative imagination. That is why the play can never be omitted from child education.
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386. [Article] Bicyclist Compliance at Signalized Intersections
This project examined cyclist red light running behavior using two data sets. Previous studies of cyclist compliance have investigated the tendencies of cyclists to run red lights on the whole by generalizing ...Citation Citation
- Title:
- Bicyclist Compliance at Signalized Intersections
- Author:
- Thompson, Samson Ray Riley
- Year:
- 2015
This project examined cyclist red light running behavior using two data sets. Previous studies of cyclist compliance have investigated the tendencies of cyclists to run red lights on the whole by generalizing different maneuvers to their end outcome, running a red light. This project differentiates between the different types of red light running and focuses on the most egregious case, gap acceptance, which is when a cyclist runs a red light by accepting a gap in opposing traffic. Using video data, a mathematical model of cyclist red light running was developed for gap acceptance. Similar to other studies, this analysis utilized only information about the cyclist, intersection, and scenario that can be outwardly observed. This analysis found that the number of cyclists already waiting at the signal, the presence of a vehicle in the adjacent lane, and female sex were deterrents to red light running. Conversely, certain types of signal phasing, witnessing a violation, and lack of helmet increased the odds that a cyclist would run the red light. Interestingly, while women in general are less likely to run a red light, those who witnessed a violation were even more prone that men who had witnessed a violation to follow suit and run the red light themselves. It is likely that the differing socialization of women and men leads to different effects of witnessing a previous violator. The analysis also confirmed that a small subset of cyclists, similar to that found in the general population, are more prone to traffic violations. These cyclists are more willing to engage in multiple biking-related risk factors that include not wearing a helmet and running red lights. Although the model has definite explanatory power regarding decisions of cyclist compliance, much of the variance in the compliance choices of the sample is left unexplained. This points toward the influence of other, not outwardly observable variables on the decision to run a red light. Analysis of survey data from cyclists further confirms that individual characteristics not visible to the observer interact with intersection, scenario, and visible cyclist characteristics to result in a decision to comply (or not) with a traffic signal. Furthermore, cyclist characteristics, in general, and unobservable individual characteristics, specifically, play a larger role in compliance decisions as the number of compliance-inducing intersection traits (e.g. conflicting traffic volume) decrease. One such unobservable trait is the regard for the law by some cyclists, which becomes a more important determinant of compliance at simpler intersections. Cyclists were also shown to choose non-compliance if they questioned the validity of the red indication for them, as cyclists. The video and survey data have some comparable findings. For instance, the relationship of age to compliance was explored in both data analyses. Age was not found to be a significant predictor of non-compliance in the video data analysis while it was negatively correlated with stated non-compliance for two of the survey intersections. Gender, while having significant effects on non-compliance in the video dataset, did not emerge as an important factor in the stated non-compliance of survey takers. Helmet use had a consistent relationship with compliance between the video and survey datasets. Helmet use was positively associated with compliance in the video data and negatively associated with revealed non-compliance at two of the survey intersections. When coupled with the positive association between normlessness and stated willingness to run a red light, the relationship between helmet use and compliance solidifies the notion that a class of cyclists is more likely to consistently violate signals. It points towards a link between red light running and individuals who do not adhere to social norms and policies as strictly as others. Variables representing cyclists and motorists waiting at the signal were positively related to signal compliance in the video data. While an increased number of cyclists may be a physical deterrent to red light running, part of the influence on compliance that this variable and the variable representing the presence of a vehicle may be due to accountability of cyclists to other road users. This relationship, however, was not revealed in the stated non-compliance data from the survey. Efforts to increase cyclist compliance may not be worth a jurisdiction's resources since nearly 90% of cyclists in the video data were already compliant. If a problem intersection does warrant intervention, different methods of ensuring bicyclist compliance are warranted depending on the intersection characteristics. An alternative solution is to consider the applicability of traffic laws (originally designed for cars) to bicyclists. Creating separation in how laws affect motorists and cyclists might be a better solution for overly simple types of intersections where cyclists have fewer conflicts, better visibility, etc. than motorists. Education or other messaging aimed at cyclists about compliance is another strategy to increase compliance. Since cyclists appear to feel more justified in running red lights at low-volume, simple-looking intersections, it would probably be prudent to target messaging at these types of intersections. Many cyclists are deterred by high-volume and/or complicated looking intersections for safety reasons. Reminding cyclists of the potential dangers at other intersections may be a successful messaging strategy. Alternatively, reminding cyclists that it is still illegal to run a red light even if they feel safe doing so may be prudent. Additionally, messaging about the purpose of infrastructure such as bicycle-specific signals or lights that indicate detection at a signal may convince cyclists that stopping at the signal is in their best interest and that the wait will be minimal and/or warranted.