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This randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluated the efficacy of the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies curriculum (PATHS; Kusche & Greenberg, 1994) as a means to improve children's social–emotional competence (assessed via the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS); Gresham & Elliot, 2008) and mental health outcomes (assessed via the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ); Goodman, 1997). Forty-five schools in Greater Manchester, England, were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Allocation was balanced by proportions of children eligible for free school meals and speaking English as an additional language via minimization. Children (N = 4516) aged 7–9 years at baseline in the participating schools were the target cohort. During the two-year trial period, teachers of this cohort in schools allocated to the intervention group delivered the PATHS curriculum, while their counterparts in the control group continued their usual provision. Teachers in PATHS schools received initial training and on-going support and assistance from trained coaches. Hierarchical linear modelling of outcome data was undertaken to identify both primary (e.g., for all children) and secondary (e.g., for children classified as “at-risk”) intervention effects. A primary effect of the PATHS curriculum was found, demonstrating increases in teacher ratings of changes in children's social–emotional competence. Additionally, secondary effects of PATHS were identified, showing reductions in teacher ratings of emotional symptoms and increases in pro-social behaviour and child ratings of engagement among children identified as at-risk at baseline. However, our analyses also identified primary effects favouring the usual provision group, showing reductions in teacher ratings of peer problems and emotional symptoms, and secondary effects demonstrating reductions in teacher ratings of conduct problems and child ratings of co-operation among at-risk children. Effect sizes were small in all cases. These mixed findings suggest that social and emotional learning interventions such as PATHS may not be as efficacious when implemented outside their country of origin and evaluated in independent trials.

Resilience has been documented as a key variable in determining successful adaption to adverse circumstances and may also influence successful educational outcomes such as test performance. This paper reports on a study involving 123 pupils from 3 English primary schools, which examined the extent to which test anxiety may mediate the association between resiliency and test performance. Non-verbal ability was measured at the beginning of the school year as a control variable, and test anxiety and resilience via self-report two weeks prior to pupils taking statutory tests in English and maths at the end of primary schooling. Using multiple regression analyses to control for differences in pupils' non-verbal ability, higher resilience was found to predict lower test anxiety and higher test scores. Test anxiety, in turn, was found to predict lower test scores. The lower performance of the less resilient students was mediated by higher test anxiety. These findings indicate how resilience can account for variance in test performance and show how resilience and test anxiety may be related.

Attentional bias is a key area of research in the clinical and trait anxiety literature. In test anxiety research, however, protocols and measures have yet to be reported. Accordingly, we describe the development of a dot-probe measure of attentional bias for test anxiety. This measure was piloted on a sample of undergraduate students who completed a short, timed, cognitive ability test under high and low performance-evaluation threat conditions. As expected, highly test anxious persons reported an attentional bias towards threat stimuli under the high performance-evaluation threat condition only, consistent with a switch from an avoidant to a vigilant mode of processing. Under the low performance-evaluation threat condition, both high and low test anxious persons showed a bias away from threat stimuli. These findings suggest that test anxiety, like clinical and high trait anxiety is also characterised by attentional bias where a disproportionate amount of attentional resource is directed towards corresponding threat (i.e. test-related) stimuli.

If $P\subset \R^d$ is a rational polytope, then $i_P(n):=#(nP\cap \Z^d)$ is a quasi-polynomial in $n$, called the Ehrhart quasi-polynomial of $P$. The period of $i_P(n)$ must divide $\LL(P)= \min \{n \in \Z_{> 0} \colon nP \text{is an integral polytope}\}$. Few examples are known where the period is not exactly $\LL(P)$. We show that for any $\LL$, there is a 2-dimensional triangle $P$ such that $\LL(P)=\LL$ but such that the period of $i_P(n)$ is 1, that is, $i_P(n)$ is a polynomial in $n$. We also characterize all polygons $P$ such that $i_P(n)$ is a polynomial. In addition, we provide a counterexample to a conjecture by T. Zaslavsky about the periods of the coefficients of the Ehrhart quasi-polynomial., 9 pages, 2 figures