This study aims at investigating the factors affecting the prospective teachers 'innovativeness level by structural equation modeling. For this purpose, the predictive relationships between gender, grade level, department, and risk-taking behaviors, and pre-service teachers' innovativeness levels were analyzed by path analysis. The correlational…

In Australia, the impacts of urbanisation and human activity are evident in increased waste generation and the emissions of metals into the air, land or water. Metals that have accumulated in urban soils almost exclusively anthropogenically can persist for long periods in the environment. Anthropogenic waste emissions containing heavy metals are a…

This study investigates the relationship between aspects of parent psychopathology and child egocentrism as measured by the Piagetian Three Mountains Task. Two hypotheses were tested: (1) The overall impairment of the previously hospitalized parent will relate to child egocentric errors on a Piagetian Three Mountains Task; (2) Overall impairment…

Prenatal appointment keeping is an important predictor of birth outcomes, yet many pregnant adolescents miss an excessive number of appointments. Since effective strategies for increasing appointment keeping require costly staff time, methods to predict relative risk for noncompliance with appointments might help delineate a circumscribed…

Two studies investigated how mothers of young children anticipate and interfere in events which may result in injury to their child. The first naturalistic study examined 150 mothers of firstborn children between 1 and 3 years old in Sweden. Mothers were interviewed and instructed in reporting about events which they anticipated would cause injury…

To examine risk for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in terms of risk-related behaviors, and to investigate the factors that may be involved in putting one at risk, a study conducted telephone interviews with 493 randomly selected adults (18 years or older) in Austin, Texas in the fall of 1987. Respondents answered approximately 40…

This report examines risk and protective factors associated with adolescent tobacco involvement. Of interest are family contexts, peers, and individual covariates. Participants were 399 youth, parents, and a close-in-age sibling. Of the youth, 150 initiated use early (7th, 8th, or 9th grade), 82 later (10th or 11th grade), and 167 abstained.…

By using a competing risks model, survival analysis methods can be extended to predict which of several mutually exclusive outcomes students will choose based on predictor variables, thereby ascertaining if the profile of risk differs across groups. The paper begins with a brief introduction to logistic regression and some of the basic concepts of…

This study examined the effects that cumulation of slight risks-prenatal up to adolescence-had on cognitive competence and school achievement in Austrian students who had not been identified as being at risk. Data were collected on 91 randomly selected 11- to 13-year-olds who participated in the Vienna Developmental Study, which analyzed…

The purpose of this study was to predict maintenance of foster home placement. Fifty-one foster children comprised the sample; 47 were involved in the Casey Family Program in Montana, and four were past participants. Case files provided the first and major data base. Caseworker ratings, a second data source, were obtained on children's personal…

Video games have become one of the favorite activities of children in America. A growing body of research links violent video game play to aggressive cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors. This study tested the predictions that exposure to violent video game content is: (1) positively correlated with hostile attribution bias; (2) positively…

The evolution of the family concerns health educators because family environment has been consistently linked to development of various addictions and negative behaviors, such as drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, workaholism, excessive exercise, sexual promiscuity, vandalism, youth crime, and violence and abuse. It is recognized that a…

Adolescent drug use in the United States remains higher than that of any other industrialized country. To explore this problem, demographic and psychosocial variables from a survey of 346 pre- and early adolescents were used to predict membership in clusters of students with varying substance use attitudes and expectancies. Cluster analysis…

Health Hazard Appraisal (HHA), or risk factor analysis, is a health education preventive medicine technique that assists people in recognizing their health risks and, through their own actions, in improving both their sense of well-being and their life expectancy. HHA, an educational tool in implementing theoretical behavior changes, is based on…