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This study investigates the impact of secondary school students' perceptions of mathematics teachers' formative assessment practices and feedback delivery on their feedback use, and mathematics performance. The sample consisted of 2767 Form 3 (Grade 11) students from 48 secondary schools in Tanzania. Surveys and focus group discussions were used to measure students' perceptions of formative assessment, feedback delivery, and feedback use. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) of survey data showed that students' perceptions of the quality of teacher feedback delivery and perceived scaffolding positively predicted students' feedback use whereas perceived monitoring negatively predicted feedback use. In turn, students' feedback use positively predicted their mathematics performance to a small extent. Content analysis of focus group discussions illustrated that most students valued their mathematics teacher's assessment practices. The findings imply that in Sub-Saharan African educational systems the quality of teacher feedback delivery and promotion of student feedback use can improve students' mathematics performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To determine the relationship between transient neonatal hypoglycemia in at-risk infants and neurocognitive function at 6-7 years of corrected age., Study Design: The pre-hPOD Study involved children born with at least 1 risk factor for neonatal hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia was defined as ≥1 consecutive blood glucose concentrations <47 mg/dl (2.6 mmol/L), severe as <36 mg/dl (2.0 mmol/L), mild as 36 to <47 mg/dL (2.0 to <2.6 mmol/L), brief as 1-2 episodes, and recurrent as ≥3 episodes. At 6-7 years children were assessed for cognitive and motor function (NIH-Toolbox), learning, visual perception and behavior. The primary outcome was neurocognitive impairment, defined as >1 SD below the normative mean in ≥1 Toolbox tests. The 8 secondary outcomes covered children's cognitive, motor, language, emotional-behavioral, and visual perceptual development. Primary and secondary outcomes were compared between children who did and did not experience neonatal hypoglycemia, adjusting for potential confounding by gestation, birthweight, sex and receipt of prophylactic dextrose gel (pre-hPOD intervention). Secondary analysis included assessment by severity and frequency of hypoglycemia., Results: Of 392 eligible children, 315 (80%) were assessed at school age (primary outcome, n = 308); 47% experienced hypoglycemia. Neurocognitive impairment was similar between exposure groups (hypoglycemia 51% vs 50% no hypoglycemia; aRD -4%, 95% CI -15%, 7%). Children with severe or recurrent hypoglycemia had worse visual motion perception and increased risk of emotional-behavioral difficulty., Conclusion: Exposure to neonatal hypoglycemia was not associated with risk of neurocognitive impairment at school-age in at-risk infants, but severe and recurrent episodes may have adverse impacts., Trial Registration: Hypoglycemia Prevention in Newborns with Oral Dextrose: the Dosage Trial (pre-hPOD Study): ACTRN12613000322730., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors have no conflicts of interest relevant to this article to disclose. The pre-hPOD Study was funded by Lottery Health Research (241266), Cure Kids (3561), philanthropic donations to the University of Auckland Foundation (F-ILG- LRSR), Health Research Council of New Zealand (15-216), Gravida, National Centre for Growth and Development (SCH-14-14), Auckland Medical Research Foundation (1113012), A+ Trust (5696) and Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, National Institutes of Health (R01HD091075). The pre-hPOD Early School-age Outcomes Study was funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand (19/960) and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, National Institutes of Health (R01HD091075). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To investigate the effect of different doses of prophylactic dextrose gel on neurocognitive function and health at 6-7 years., Design: Early school-age follow-up of the pre-hPOD (hypoglycaemia Prevention with Oral Dextrose) study., Setting: Schools and communities., Patients: Children born at ≥35 weeks with ≥1 risk factor for neonatal hypoglycaemia: maternal diabetes, small or large for gestational age, or late preterm., Interventions: Four interventions commencing at 1 hour of age: dextrose gel (40%) 200 mg/kg; 400 mg/kg; 200 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg repeated before three feeds (800 mg/kg); 400 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg before three feeds (1000 mg/kg); compared with equivolume placebo (combined for analysis)., Main Outcomes Measures: Toolbox cognitive and motor batteries, as well as tests of motion perception, numeracy and cardiometabolic health, were used. The primary outcome was neurocognitive impairment, defined as a standard score of more than 1 SD below the age-corrected mean on one or more Toolbox tests., Findings: Of 392 eligible children, 309 were assessed for the primary outcome. There were no significant differences in the rate of neurocognitive impairment between those randomised to placebo (56%) and dextrose gel (200 mg/kg 46%: adjusted risk difference (aRD)=-14%, 95% CI -35%, 7%; 400 mg/kg 48%: aRD=-7%, 95% CI -27%, 12%; 800 mg/kg 45%: aRD=-14%, 95% CI -36%, 9%; 1000 mg/kg 50%: aRD=-8%, 95% CI -29%, 13%). Children exposed to any dose of dextrose gel (combined), compared with placebo, had a lower risk of motor impairment (3% vs 14%, aRD=-11%, 95% CI -19%, -3%) and higher mean (SD) cognitive scores (106.0 (15.3) vs 101.1 (15.7), adjusted mean difference=5.4, 95% CI 1.8, 8.9)., Conclusions: Prophylactic neonatal dextrose gel did not alter neurocognitive impairment at early school age but may have motor and cognitive benefits. Further school-age follow-up studies are needed., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

In universities that require students to reside in dormitories, there are two types of social networks-study/classroom-based and social/dorm room-based. The academic streaming system may disrupt study/classroom connections, but its impact on students' social networks is unknown. Using self-reported surveys, this study examines ego network measures of network sizes, turnover, multiplexity, and diversity among 382 students (44% female, 56% male). Surveys were administered before and after the university employed a first-semester grade-point average to demote or promote students into an honours college. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 11 honours students staying within their track and 11 students who were re-streamed to the non-honours track. Quantitative results showed that students in the non-honours college and who remained there had increasingly overlapping friendship circles between study and social environments, along with more diverse social connections, indicating stronger networks. In contrast, honours participants experienced fewer overlapping networks across domains and less dispersed social ties, especially after the academic replacement process. Qualitative results showed that the honours students faced a trade-off between academic success and social engagement in maintaining their elite status. Re-streamed students experienced otherness in social groups and decreased psychological wellbeing. This study contributes to the application of network analysis in education and provides insights into the unintended consequences of educational practice on students' social networks.

Executive function plays an important role in promoting learning and social-emotional development in children. Neonatal hypoglycemia associates with executive function difficulties at 4.5 years, but little is known about the development of executive function over time in children born at risk of neonatal hypoglycemia. We aimed to describe the stability of executive function from early to mid-childhood in children born at risk of neonatal hypoglycemia and its association with neonatal hypoglycemia. Participants in a prospective cohort study of infants born at risk for neonatal hypoglycemia were assessed at ages 2, 4.5, and 9-10 years. We assessed executive function with batteries of performance-based and questionnaire-based measures, and classified children into one of four stability groups (persistent typical, intermittent typical, intermittent difficulty, and persistent difficulty) based on dichotomized scores (typical versus low at each age). Multinomial logistic regression was used to determine the associations between neonatal hypoglycemia and executive function stability groups. Three hundred and nine children, of whom 197 (64%) experienced neonatal hypoglycemia were assessed. The majority of children had stable and typical performance-based (63%) and questionnaire-based (68%) executive function across all three ages. Around one-third (30-36%) of children had transient difficulties, and only a few (0.3-1.9%) showed persistent difficulties in executive function at all ages. There was no consistent evidence of an association between neonatal hypoglycemia and the stability of executive function. Neonatal hypoglycemia does not appear to predict a specific pattern of development of executive function in children born at risk.

Background: Several attempts have been made to examine students' academic emotions (AEs) in Western contexts, but less is known about how students' self-reported emotions vary over time., Aims: The study aimed to understand Chinese students' emotional responses to academic events and the impact of high-stakes testing on their AEs in the first year with a repeated-measures survey after the Semester 1 and Semester 2 mid-term examinations., Samples: 351 first-year university students completed both surveys in an elite Chinese university, where the top 10% of first-year students were assigned to an honours programme., Methods: Self-reported AEs survey responses were evaluated with confirmatory factor analysis. Invariance testing between honours and ordinary students and between semesters was used to examine between-group differences across time., Results: A three-factor model of AEs (i.e., admired, shame, and self-loathing) was found in both semesters, with strong invariance between semesters. Mean scores between groups were equivalent and semester. However, self-loathing had the lowest mean (mean = 2.50; between mostly disagree and slightly agree), admired was at moderately agree (mean = 4.00), and shame was strongest at just over moderately agree (mean = 4.20)., Conclusions: This study reveals a three-factor structure of AEs and the stability of these emotions among highly successful Chinese learners. Despite being elite students, this sample of Chinese learners felt shame and pride in response to mid-term examinations., (© 2022 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.)

Purpose: Empathy has been widely theorized as an important ability in professions such as policing, in which to perform well individuals require multiple and interacting abilities, not least when resolving conflict situations. Even so, there are few studies investigating how subconstructs of empathy relate to other constructs such as general cognitive ability. The purpose of this paper is to establish, after evaluating psychometric properties, relationships among measures of empathy and cognitive ability in a sample of Swedish police students ( n  = 157)., Design/methodology/approach: Multiple latent variable models of how the different measures work to predict tasks that can be seen as proxies for the ability to understand another person's situation and intentions are evaluated to determine the most robust relationship(s) within the data., Findings: We find support for the psychometric properties reported in previous studies with the used instruments. We also find support for perspective-taking, a cognitive empathy subconstruct predicting the ability to recognize emotions, and also the affective part of empathy, predicting general cognitive ability. These findings are discussed at length in the paper., Originality/value: This research adds more knowledge to the issue of how general cognitive ability relates to cognitive empathy and other subconstructs of empathy or Theory of Mind., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Inzunza, Brown, Stenlund and Wikström.)

Background: Nature-based interventions, which focus on outdoor play, mental health, and self-directed autonomous play, are becoming popular in promoting well-being. The objective of this study was to test whether connecting to nature would contribute to better feeding and eating habits in families with pre-schoolers., Methods: 241 families with children aged two to five were randomly assigned to the Intervention (IG) and Control Groups (CG). IG received 10 sessions of a family-based programme, which included a novel Connectedness to Nature (CN) element. CG received only the government's health recommendations. The effectiveness of the intervention's primary outcomes (CN, eating/feeding behaviours) was analysed by a repeated measures structural equation model with intervention status as a causal predictor., Results: 204 families (IG, n = 120; CG, n = 84) completed the measurements before and after the trial. The intervention had a medium effect on caregivers' CN (f 2  = 0.16, (95%CI = 0.06, 0.30)) and a large effect on children's CN (f 2  = 0.58, (95%CI = 0.36, 0.89)). In the IG, children's CN strongly predicted caregivers' feeding style (β = 0.48 (p < .01, 95%CI = 0.14, 0.83)) and moderately, children's eating behaviours (β = 0.21 (p = .16, 95%CI = -0.09, 0.52)). This produced a positive trend for greater vegetable consumption in the IG compared to the CG (β = 0.20 (95%CI = 0.01, 0.39) vs. β = -0.05, (95%CI = -0.18, 0.08)). Interestingly, the path values in the CG significantly reflected the traditional pattern, (e.g., parental feeding style strongly influenced children's eating behaviour (β = 0.33, p = .001, 95%CI = 0.13, 0.54)., Conclusions: The Play&Grow intervention positively increased caregivers' and children's CN. It also improved eating behaviors in children independent of their caregivers' feeding style. This may indicate a higher degree of autonomy in children's eating behaviour if they are exposed to nature. Further research should test the CN component in promotion of healthy eating in pre-schoolers., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Children born very preterm are at higher risk of adverse neurocognitive and educational outcomes. However, how low intelligence (IQ) and low executive function may each contribute to poorer academic outcomes at school age requires clarification., Aim: To examine the associations between intelligence, executive function and academic achievement in children born very preterm., Design/methods: This cohort study assessed children born <30 weeks' gestation or <1500 g at age 7 years using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) for IQ, and the Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch) and Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) for executive function. Academic achievement was rated by teachers against curriculum standards., Results: Of the 76 children (35 girls, 41 boys, mean age = 7.2 year), 22 (28%) were rated below expected level for reading, 32 (42%) for writing and 38 (50%) for mathematics. After adjustment for sex and socioeconomic status, low IQ (OR's 9.0-12.3) and most low executive function measures (OR's 4.1-9.3) were associated with below-expected achievement. After further adjustment for IQ, low cognitive flexibility (OR = 9.3, 95% CI = 1.2-71.5) and teacher ratings of executive function (OR = 5.3, 95% CI = 1.4-20.2) were associated with below-expected achievement. Mediation analysis showed IQ had indirect effects on writing (b = 1.5, 95% CI = 0.6-3.1) via attentional control; and on reading (b = 1.0, 95% CI = 0.2-3.2) and writing (b = 0.8, 95% CI = 0.1-2.5) via cognitive flexibility., Conclusions: Both low IQ and low executive function are associated with below-expected teacher-rated academic achievement in children born very preterm. IQ may influence academic achievement in part through executive function., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)