Adolescent behavior now occurs offline and online. Frequently studied and treated independently, the relationship between offline problem behaviors and online risk taking is not well understood. This study asked whether there are any problematic behaviors predictive of online risk taking by high school students. Using a 2009 dataset of 2,077 high…

Self-efficacy represents an individual's belief that he or she can perform a particular task in a given domain. It is a strong predictor for performance and persistence in STEM education. Research shows that there is a large and persistent gender gap in student self-efficacy in STEM academic disciplines. In some cases, active teaching strategies…

The use of mental health-related intake assessments by juvenile correctional facilities as predictive measures of confinement behavior has seen limited use in recent years. This study employs the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-Version 2 (MAYSI-2) and How I Think Questionnaire (HIT) as measurement tools on the same data set to assess the…

Objectives: We examined the longitudinal relationship between cardiovascular fitness (CRF) and academic performance (AP) among students in a diverse public school district. Furthermore, we determined whether the relationship between CRF and AP varied by student sociodemographic characteristics. Methods: This study used data from 2005-2006 to…

Teachers' ratings of conflict and closeness as well as observed emotional support are known predictors of children's social functioning. Consistency in emotional support represents an emerging line of research. The goal of the present study is to understand whether the relation between the consistency of teachers' emotional support and children's…

The authors report the results of a three-year longitudinal study of retention among undergraduate engineering students enrolled at four major universities. The study demonstrates that self-efficacy can be a critical factor in student persistence and can be broken down into three components: work, career, and academic self-efficacy. The authors…

Although course management systems (CMSs) provide technology platforms that help faculty members adopt better techniques for teaching and learning, and training contributes to faculty information technology (IT) use, many higher education faculty members do not complete CMS training programs, resulting in underuse of CMSs. Therefore, the overall…

The transition from adolescence to adulthood has been shown to be a time of amplified risk for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). It is unknown, however, whether problems in educational attainment and employment in the years after high school exit represent momentary perturbations in development or a turning point with long-lasting…

This study of students competing in the 2009 Massachusetts State Science & Engineering Fair investigates the role gender played in students' participation, choice of science field, award of prizes, and mentioning inspiring teachers. Females made up 62 percent of the participants and were more likely to enter projects in biology and in…

Due to the decrease in public funding, community colleges are in a position where they need to generate private gifts. Alumni represent the largest untapped pool of prospective donors, and the success of alumni giving at 4-year institutions illustrates the potential that exists for community colleges. To develop effective fundraising strategies,…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of "self-efficacy" for "Enlisting Social Resources, Self-Regulatory Efficacy, self-efficacy" for "Self-Regulated Learning," and "self-efficacy" for "Academic Achievement" (Bandura's Children's "Self-Efficacy Scale," 2006) of urban…

Over the past few decades, and especially in the past ten years, computer use in schools has increased dramatically; however there has been little research examining the effects of technology use on student achievement, specifically defined by standardized test scores. There is also concern as to how technology use differs by gender and if that…

This study compared parental psychiatric symptom severity, and the absence or presence of severe substance abuse, as predictors of contact with minor children for a representative sample of adults with diagnoses of serious mental illness (N = 45). Child contact and psychiatric symptom severity were measured during regularly scheduled 6-month…

This nonexperimental, longitudinal field study examines the extent to which variation in observed classroom supports (quality of emotional and instructional interactions and amount of exposure to literacy and math activities) predicts trajectories of achievement in reading and math from 54 months to fifth grade. Growth mixture modeling detected…

The NEAIR 2009 Conference Proceedings is a compilation of papers presented at the Baltimore, Maryland conference. Papers in this document include: (1) A Principle Components Analysis of The Determinants of Student Satisfaction at a Historically Black Institution (Tao Gong and Jacqueline V. Parham); (2) Assessing and Enhancing Graduates'…