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The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in parents' perceptions of frequency and effectiveness regarding parental involvement among various demographic groups (ethnicity, education level, socio-economic status, number of children in the home) based on Epstein's (2007) six typologies of parental involvement. Parents were asked to reflect on the degree to which their child's school carried out the activities informed by the six parental involvement typologies of Epstein's Model of Parental Involvement (i.e., parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision-making, and collaborating with the community). Findings indicated that parents in this study had significantly different views regarding the implementation of effective parental involvement behaviors by schools. Results from the study will provide districts with knowledge on how to better serve parents as well as close the gap in communication between home and school.

Identifying changes in fish growth is important for accurate scientific advice used for fisheries management, because environmental change is affecting fish growth and size-at-age is a critical component of contemporary stock assessment methods. Growth-increment biochronologies are time series of growth-increments derived from hard parts of marine organisms that may reveal dynamics of somatic fish growth. Here we use time series of otolith increments of two fish stocks to fit and compare a biologically derived growth model and a generalized statistical model. Both models produced similar trajectories of annual growth trends, but the biologically based one was more precise and predicted smaller interannual fluctuations than the statistical model. The biologically based model strongly indicated covariance between anabolic and catabolic rates among individuals. Otolith size-at-age did not closely match fish length-at-age, and consequently the growth model could not accurately hindcast observed fish length-at-age. For these reasons, fitted growth dynamics from otolith biochronologies may best suited to identify growth rate fluctuations, understand past drivers of growth dynamics, and improve ecological forecast in the face of rapid environmental change. La determination des variations de la croissance des poissons est importante pour la formulation d'avis scientifiques exacts pour la gestion des peches, puisque les changements environnementaux ont une incidence sur la croissance des poissons et que la taille selon l'age est un element cle des methodes contemporaines d'evaluation des stocks. Les biochronologies d'increments de croissance sont des series chronologiques d'increments de croissance obtenues de parties dures d'organismes marins, qui peuvent reveler la dynamique de la croissance somatique des poissons. Nous utilisons des series chronologiques d'increments de croissance d'otolites provenant de deux stocks de poissons pour caler et comparer un modele de croissance fonde sur la biologie et un modele statistique generalise. Les deux modeles produisent des trajectoires semblables des tendances de la croissance annuelle, mais le modele biologique est plus precis et predit de plus petites fluctuations interannuelles que le modele statistique. Le modele biologique fait clairement ressortir la covariance des taux anaboliques et cataboliques individuels. La taille selon l'age des otolites ne concorde pas bien avec la taille selon l'age des poissons et, par consequent, le modele de croissance ne peut produire des predictions a posteriori exactes de la longueur des poissons selon l'age. Pour ces raisons, la plus grande utilite de la dynamique de croissance obtenue a partir de biochronologies d'otolites pourrait etre pour la determination des fluctuations des taux de croissance dans le but de comprendre les facteurs determinants passes de la dynamique de croissance et d'ameliorer les previsions des conditions ecologiques dans un contexte de changements climatiques rapides. [Traduit par la Redaction], Introduction Understanding the processes underlying growth is critical for modeling fish population dynamics, as size-at-age is a critical component of contemporary age- and size-structured stock assessment methods (Lorenzen 2016). Environmentally [...]

Analysis of growth increments in the hard parts of animals (e.g., fish otoliths) can be used to assess how organisms respond to variability in environmental conditions. In this study, mixed-effects models were applied to otolith data simulated for two hypothetical fish populations with assumed biological parameters and known growth response to environmental variability. Our objective was to assess the sensitivity of environment-growth relationships derived from otolith biochronologies when challenged with a range of realistic ageing errors and sampling regimes. We found that the development of a robust biochronology and the precision of environmental effect estimates can be seriously hampered by insufficient sample size. Moreover, the introduction of even moderate ageing error into the data can cause substantial underestimation of environmental sources of growth variation. This underestimation diminished our capacity to correctly quantify the known environment-growth relationship and more generally will lead to overly conservative conclusions concerning the growth response to environmental change. Careful study design, reduction of ageing errors, and large sample sizes are critical prerequisites if robust inferences are to be made from biochronological data. L'analyse des increments de croissance preserves dans les parties dures d'animaux (comme les otolites de poissons) peut etre utilisee pour evaluer les reactions des organismes aux variations des conditions ambiantes. Des modeles a effets mixtes ont ete appliques a des donnees d'otolites simulees pour deux populations de poissons hypothetiques en integrant des parametres biologiques presumes et une reaction connue de la croissance a la variabilite des conditions ambiantes. L'objectif consistait a evaluer la sensibilite des relations entre le milieu et la croissance obtenues de biochronologies reposant sur les otolites etant donnee une fourchette d'erreurs realistes de determination de l'age et de regimes d'echantillonnage. Nous constatons qu'un echantillon trop petit peut serieusement entraver l'elaboration d'une biochronologie robuste et limiter la precision des estimations des effets du milieu ambiant. L'introduction dans les donnees d'erreurs ne serait-ce que moderees de determination de l'age peut en outre entrainer une sous-estimation considerable des sources ambiantes de variation de la croissance. Cette sous-estimation reduit notre capacite de quantifier correctement la relation milieu-croissance connue et, plus generalement, se traduira par des conclusions trop moderees concernant la reaction de la croissance a des changements des conditions ambiantes. Une methodologie judicieuse, la reduction des erreurs de determination de l'age et des echantillons de grande taille sont des conditions prealables essentielles a l'etablissement d'inferences robustes a partir de donnees biochronologiques., Introduction Otoliths are calcified structures located in the inner ear of fish that commonly show growth bands corresponding to daily, seasonal, or annual growth patterns (Campana and Thorrold 2001). For [...]

This article describes how the use of Pringles cans and other tube containers can help physical education teachers gain a new perspective on incorporating a reusable, recyclable, durable product to create fun activities that support the development of fundamental skills in the physical education environment.