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Introduction Home visiting (HV) programs aim to promote child and family health through perinatal intervention. HV may benefit second children through improving subsequent pregnancy and birth outcomes. However, HV impacts on birth outcomes of second children have not been examined in a naturalistic setting. Methods Using data from Connecticut Nurturing Families Network (NFN) home visiting program of families enrolled from 2005 to 2015, we compared birth-related outcomes (birthweight, preterm birth, Cesarean section delivery, prenatal care utilization) of second children (n = 1758) to demographically similar propensity-score-matched families that were not enrolled in NFN (n = 5200). We examined whether the effects of NFN differed by maternal age, race and ethnicity, or visit attendance pattern. Results There was no program effect for the full sample. The effect of NFN did not differ by maternal age or visit attendance pattern but did differ by maternal race and ethnicity. Black women in NFN were more likely to receive adequate prenatal care during their second pregnancy (OR 1.05; 95% CI 1.01, 1.09) and Hispanic women in NFN were less likely to deliver by Cesarean section for their second birth (OR 0.97; 95% CI 0.94, 0.99), compared to Black and Hispanic women in the comparison group respectively. There was a protective program effect on prematurity of the second child (OR 0.92; 95% CI 0.85, 0.996) for women with a preterm first birth. Discussion These findings suggest that benefits of HV extend to subsequent birth-related outcomes for women from marginalized racial/ethnic groups. HV may help buffer some harmful social determinants of health., Author(s): Margaret L. Holland [sup.1] [sup.2] , Eileen M. Condon [sup.2] [sup.3] , Gabrielle R. Rinne [sup.4] , Madelyn M. Good [sup.5] , Sarah Bleicher [sup.2] [sup.6] , Connie Li [...]

Although many U.S. children can count sets by 4 years, it is not until 5½--6 years that they understand how counting relates to number--that is, that adding 1 to a set necessitates counting up one number. This study examined two knowledge sources that 3½- to 6-year-olds (N = 136) may leverage to acquire this "successor function": (a) mastery of productive rules governing count list generation; and (b) training with "+1" math facts. Both productive counting and "+1" math facts were related to understanding that adding 1 to sets entails counting up one number in the count list; however, even children with robust successor knowledge struggled with its arithmetic expression, suggesting they do not generalize the successor function from "+1" math facts.

Motivation allows students to get interested in learning, serving as a "bridge" to academic achievement. However, mathematics is deemed as a complex one and involves a lot of thinking to understand its concepts which leads students to get discouraged which transforms motivation into a "broken bridge" due to several aspects. The study traverses and elucidates the lived experiences of students in terms of their motivation in learning mathematics lessons. The study, with a qualitative approach, uses Heideggerian Phenomenology and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) anchored on the modified Van Kaam Approach popularized by Moustakas. The selection of the participants was done with a purposive strategy aligning with the inclusion criteria set in this study. The process of gathering the data was done through conducting interviews with ten student participants from BSEd-Math 1 in Cebu Technological University - Moalboal Campus. The themes of the study are Theme 1: The Broken Drive, Theme 2: The Rebuilding, and Theme 3: The Hope collectively represent the lived experiences of the students in terms of their motivational aspect in learning the mathematics subject. Results of this study show that there are varieties of reasons why students have low motivation in learning mathematics, and at the same time have a different way of coping with such difficulties encountered. It is recommended that parents should encourage their children to cope with their learning difficulties, and teachers should encourage students academically in a way of employing the interest of their students in discussing the mathematics lessons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study focused on the relationship between school leadership and teacher outcomes, particularly regarding teachers' perceptions of leadership behavior and its impact on their well-being and satisfaction. Anchored in the Transformational Leadership Theory, the research aims to explore how teachers' perception of leadership behavior influences their satisfaction towards school leadership. The study, conducted in a public elementary school in Cagayan de Oro City, involved 85 teachers and utilized the Leader Behavior Scale (LBS) and Teachers' Satisfaction on School Leadership Scale (TSSS) for data collection. The results revealed strengths in certain leadership behaviors of the school head but also identified areas for improvement, such as Performance Orientor, Potential Extractor, and Socially Intelligent aspects of leadership. Despite this, participants expressed high levels of satisfaction with various aspects of school leadership, highlighting the positive impact of effective leadership practices. The study found a positive relationship between perceived leadership behavior and teachers' satisfaction towards school leadership (r=0.305, p=0.004), emphasizing the importance of aligning leadership behaviors with Transformational Leadership principles. Recommendations include implementing specialized leadership training programs, coaching, mentoring initiatives, and structured feedback mechanisms to enhance the overall effectiveness of the school head's leadership style and create a positive organizational climate within the school community. This research contributes to a better understanding of school leadership dynamics and provides insights for improving organizational dynamics and fostering a positive work environment in educational institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hispanic and Latinx individuals represent one of the largest and fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States. Yet research has not investigated whether young children hold essentialist beliefs about this prevalent social category. The present study addressed this issue by examining whether children used this ethnic category to make inductive inferences about novel individuals, one dimension of essentialism. A total of 108 children, 5 to 7 years of age (54 female; 56 Hispanic, 46 non‐Hispanic), completed a forced‐choice inference task. Children did not expect members of the same ethnic group to share properties, and this did not vary with their own ethnic group membership. This suggests that in the US, the belief that ethnicity is causally informative undergoes a protracted developmental trajectory, as has been observed for essentialist beliefs about race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study determined the relationship between test anxiety and learning process distraction in private senior high schools. The descriptive research design was utilized and employed to the selected students through a survey with a total of 140 senior high school students as sample. Data Collection was done through a survey. Data analysis was done through mean, standard deviation, and pearson-r. Results revealed that the Level of of Test Anxiety with the mean of 3.22 and the Level of Learning Process Distraction with mean of 3.37 are all Moderately High, this means that item identified is sometimes manifested/observed. A positive correlation between the level of Test Anxiety and Learning Process Distraction in Private Senior High School was proven in the study. The findings affirmed that there is a significant relationship between the two variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We previously described a novel Plasmodium vivax invasion mechanism into human reticulocytes via the PvRBP2a-CD98 receptor-ligand pair. Using linear epitope mapping, we assessed the PvRBP2a epitopes involved in CD98 binding and recognized by antibodies from patients who were infected. We identified 2 epitope clusters mediating PvRBP2a-CD98 interaction. Cluster B (PvRBP2a431-448, TAALKEKGKLLANLYNKL) was the target of antibody responses in humans infected by P vivax. Peptides from each cluster were able to prevent live parasite invasion of human reticulocytes. These results provide new insights for development of a malaria blood-stage vaccine against P vivax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviewed in this article is the potential for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to transform higher education delivery, accessibility, and costs. Next, five major value propositions for MOOCs are considered (headhunting, certification, face-to-face learning, personalized learning, integration with services external to the MOOC, marketing). Then, four pricing strategies for MOOCs are examined (cross-subsidy, third-party, "freemium", nonmonetary). Although the MOOC movement has experienced growing pains similar to most innovations, we assert that the unyielding pace of improvements in network technologies combined with the need to tame the costs of higher education will create continuing demand for MOOC offerings.

The need for educating engineers in the United States continues as the projected demand is rising the number of high school seniors planning to enter engineering careers has remained relatively stable (Sargent, 2014). Additionally, figures show that attrition rates in undergraduate engineering continue to be an area of concern, (Sargent, 2014; Gibbons, 2005; NSF, 2004). Given the projected increased demand for engineers, the engineering education community must explore a variety of pathways for engineering students to be successful. Organizations such as National Science Foundation (Laanan, Jackson, Darrow, 2010) have noted that beginning engineering study at a two-year campus and then transferring to an engineering bachelor's degree-granting institution is an important path and source for additional engineering students. Although some have explored the logistical issues and curricular design components of two-year campuses that enables engineering students to complete their bachelor degrees elsewhere, there is very little that explores the non-curricular factors on these campuses that help such students successfully progress (Laanan, et al., 2010). Using Tinto's theory of integration (1975, 1993), this study examines the relationship between student entry characteristics and measures of social and academic integration to engineering learning outcomes. Understanding how integration factors on two-year campuses impact engineering student success can be used to inform the design of curricular and campus-based experiences. Results indicate social and academic integration factors significantly predict engineering students' learning outcomes, especially their commitment to engineering studies.

To be identified as a bellwether among community colleges is no small feat, but that is precisely why the Community College Futures Assembly continues to draw high-performing teams annually to [...]

This study investigates scientists' data needs to provide a basis for professionals in research data management (RDM) to tailor services to meet those needs. Eighty-one participants completed a survey after they had asked a question at a Data Help Desk staffed by data management professionals at one of two science conferences. The qualitative responses were coded for common themes, and the quantitative questions were tabulated to compare results between the two conferences. The combined results provide an overview of scientists' questions and training experiences on RDM. The study found that 70 percent of scientists in the survey had no prior RDM training, and the most common RDM need for both ecologists and geologists was storage. This study provides evidence that scientists need additional information about RDM. Traditional service desk models offer one way of assisting them with data needs, but the results indicate a need for more training to meet the expectations of data sharing. Academic and other libraries should consider expanding hours and services for RDM to provide help where and when scientists need it.

This communication reports the curriculum changes and how they worked when an upper-level experimental physical chemistry course had to switch from face-to-face to online teaching within a matter of days. Although several of the learning goals of the laboratory-based course could still be met in the online environment, others required modifications in order to reduce the educational losses. The use of videos, icebreakers, homework, prelab quizzes, in-lab questions, and synchronous meetings helped to keep the students engaged and maximize the achievement of learning goals. The technology challenge when internet connections were poor was swiftly addressed by the students switching to cell phone data plans. Academic integrity was managed through the use of an open-book exam using original problems that required critical thinking and problem-solving skills rather than only regurgitation of knowledge that could be copied from textbooks or found online. Although gains were obtained through writing lab reports, solving the homework, prelab quizzes, and in-lab questions as well as generating questions about the laboratory experiments, the development of problem solving skills to address challenges during the actual instrument operation and planning and conducting an authentic research experiment were lost because instruction was not face-to-face.

By around the age of 5½, many children in the United States judge that numbers never end, and that it is always possible to add 1 to a set. These same children also generally perform well when asked to label the quantity of a set after one object is added (e.g., judging that a set labeled "five" should now be "six"). These findings suggest that children have implicit knowledge of the "successor function": Every natural number, n, has a successor, n + 1. Here, we explored how children discover this recursive function, and whether it might be related to discovering productive morphological rules that govern language-specific counting routines (e.g., the rules in English that represent base-10 structure). We tested 4- and 5-year-old children's knowledge of counting with three tasks, which we then related to (a) children's belief that 1 can always be added to any number (the successor function) and (b) their belief that numbers never end (infinity). Children who exhibited knowledge of a productive counting rule were significantly more likely to believe that numbers are infinite (i.e., there is no largest number), though such counting knowledge was not directly linked to knowledge of the successor function, per se. Also, our findings suggest that children as young as 4 years of age are able to implement rules defined over their verbal count list to generate number words beyond their spontaneous counting range, an insight which may support reasoning over their acquired verbal count sequence to infer that numbers never end.

Preparing teachers to teach science consistent with current reforms in science education is a daunting enterprise given a lack of high-quality science professional development (PD) adaptable across various contexts (Wilson 2013). This study examines the impact of a comprehensive professional development program on middle school teachers' disciplinary content knowledge and instructional practices. In this mixed methods investigation, data sources included classroom observations, content knowledge assessments, surveys, and a range of interviews. The teachers in the program showed significant improvements in their disciplinary content knowledge and demonstrated through their enactment of a reform-based curriculum, a range of ability levels to translate their knowledge into instructional practices consistent with the principles espoused in the PD. We conclude that programs that attend to elements of effective PD identified in the literature can positively impact middle school science teachers' enactment of reform-based science teaching. Our findings extend these elements to include the strategic engagement of school and district leadership and the provision of a safe learning space for teachers to collectively engage in reciprocal learning and critical practice. This study has worldwide implications for designing PD for science teachers and for extending our understanding of the impact of each element.

Little of social work literature provides evidence of best teaching practices for preparing social work students to work with clients from historically excluded racial and ethnic groups. A systematic literature review was conducted to assess studies published in the United States during the 10-year period (2007-2016) that examined: (1) social work educators' pedagogical interventions for teaching about racial and ethnic diversity, (2) components of those interventions, (3) methodological designs to evaluate the interventions, and (4) the students' learning outcomes. Following the systematic review protocol, the authors identified and assessed twenty-five studies (qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods). The studies reflected a variety of teaching interventions, such as diversity courses and projects, instructional technology, and cultural immersion programs. While many reported positive student learning outcomes, as a whole, the studies lacked methodological rigor and sound theoretical grounding. Although social work education attempts to prepare students for multicultural practice, the field lacks an intentional and systematic approach to teaching about racial and ethnic diversity and evaluating learning outcomes in social work students. There is an urgency to expand the empirical evidence on social work diversity education, particularly concerning teaching about race, racism, and Whiteness.

Contemporary college student activism has been particularly visible and effective in the past few years at US institutions of higher education and is projected only to grow in future years. Almost all of these protests and demands, while explicitly linked to social and racial justice, are sites of resistance to the neoliberalization of the academy. These activists are imagining a post-neoliberal society, and are building their demands around these potential new social imaginaries. Based on a discourse analysis of contemporary college student activist demands, to examine more closely the ways that student activists understand, resist, critique, and offer new alternatives to current (neoliberal) structures in higher education, it is suggested that student activists might be one key to understanding what's next for higher education in a post-neoliberal context. The activists' critiques of the structure of higher education reveal a sophisticated understanding of the current socio-political, cultural, and economic realities. Their demands show an optimistic, creative imagination that could serve educators well as we grapple with our first steps down a new road. Using their critiques and demands as a jumping-off point, this paper offers the blueprint for a new social imaginary in higher education, one that is focused on community and justice.

In this article, we report findings from two cases of rural, high-needs elementary schools in the Southeastern United States that successfully improved learning outcomes for their students. As illustrated by our findings, a combination of effective teacher professional development, focused student learning initiatives, and enhanced community and family involvement contributed to the removal of the schools from priority and below average designations. In addition to illustrating the leadership practices that positively influenced improvement efforts in these two schools, and expanding the nascent body of scholarship on context-responsive leadership, our findings serve as a starting point for a larger project centered on the nexus of school leader agency in increasingly diverse cultural contexts.

A growing body of evidence suggests that children succeed in nontraditional false-belief tasks in the first years of life. However, few studies have examined individual differences in infants' and toddlers' performance on these tasks. Here we investigated whether parental use of mental-state language (i.e. think, understand), which predicts children's performance on elicited-response false-belief tasks at older ages, also predicts toddlers' performance on a nontraditional task. We tested 2.5-year-old children in a verbal nontraditional false-belief task that included two looking time measures, anticipatory looking and preferential looking, and measured parents' use of mental-state language during a picture-book task. Parents' use of mental-state language positively predicted children's performance on the anticipatory-looking measure of the nontraditional task. These results provide the first evidence that social factors relate to children's false-belief understanding prior to age 3 and that this association extends to performance on nontraditional tasks. These findings add to a growing number of studies suggesting that mental-state language supports mental-state understanding across the lifespan.

Abstract Background Firearms are the most lethal method of suicide and account for approximately half of all suicide deaths nationwide. We describe associations between firearm purchasing characteristics and firearm suicide. Methods Data on all legal handgun transactions in California from 1996 to 2015 were obtained from the California Department of Justice Dealer’s Record of Sale database. Handgun purchasers were linked to mortality data to identify those who died between 1996 and 2015. To account for variation in timing and duration of observation time, analyses were stratified by birth cohort. The primary analysis focused on those aged 21–25 in 1996. A secondary analysis tested associations among those aged 50–54 in 1996. Using incidence density sampling, purchasers who died by firearm suicide (cases) were each gender-matched to 5 purchasers (controls) who remained at risk at the case’s time of death. We examined the characteristics of purchasers and transactions, focusing on the transaction closest in time to the case’s death. Data were analyzed with conditional logistic regression. Results There were 390 firearm suicides among the younger cohort and 512 firearm suicides among the older cohort. Across both cohorts, older age at first purchase and the purchase of a revolver were associated with greater risk of firearm suicide. For example, among the younger cohort, those who purchased a revolver versus semiautomatic pistol had 1.78 times the risk of firearm suicide (95% CI 1.32, 2.40) in multivariable models. Other associations varied across cohorts, suggesting cohort or age effects in purchasing patterns. Conclusions Findings add to the evidence on firearm suicide risk and may help inform prevention strategies and future research.