With support from the William T. Grant Foundation, Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) is conducting a research study on the factors associated with whether children and youth participate in out-of-school time (OST) programs and activities. Building on our previous work, we are using national data to examine the many factors and contexts in…

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…

This present research reveals how beer advertising affects adolescents' knowledge of beer brands, drinking attitudes, and drinking behaviors. In addition to traditional psychological approaches for measuring media effects on alcohol-related behaviors and attitudes, market research advertising tracking methods were included to permit a clearer and…

A database was assembled from data collected on all people served by the Developmental Disabilities divisions of Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming, including state institutions and state-funded programs (n=5,928). Information included provider expenditures associated with each individual, allocations made by individual reimbursement rates,…

The purpose of this study was to examine students' perceptions of mentoring in a university cooperative education (co-op) program. Within this setting, students report to a supervisor. This supervisor has direct responsibility for the student and may influence the quality of the co-op experience by providing a mentoring role. A need existed to…

Vocational education and training (VET) represents one of the most significant reforms to the senior secondary curriculum in Australian schools over recent decades. Introduced to expand curricular options and provide work-based training and qualifications, the numbers of students participating in VET have more than trebled since the mid-1990s.…

This document consists of the two issues of the "Alabama Counseling Association Journal" published during 1996. The focus of the journal is on communicating ideas and information that will help counselors to implement the counseling role and develop the profession of counseling. Issue number 1 includes the following articles:…

This final report describes major activities and outcomes of a one-year project in Birmingham, Alabama, which attempted to utilize quantitative record linkage methodology and a qualitative family interview to increase the available information regarding risk factors associated with special education placement for young children. The project…

This study investigated how transfer from marital conflict affects parents' ability to regulate their children's negative affect displays and how these parent responses impact their children's academic and social adjustment. In addition, the study examined whether parents' gender is associated with parents' reactions to their children's negative…

In the early 1990s, Texas teacher certification requirements were changed to include a passing grade on each of a series of comprehensive examinations of subject and professional knowledge. This study identified variables that predict success on the secondary professional development component of these tests--the Examination for Certification of…

This document contains three papers from a symposium on motivation for learning and performance that was conducted as part of a conference on human resource development (HRD). "A Holistic Approach towards Motivation To Learn" (Constantine Kontoghiorghes) reports on a study that identified the following key variables within and outside…

Noting that families in home visiting early intervention programs receive only about half the number of intended visits, this research used quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate how personality and other factors affect the mother-home visitor relationship and thereby, influence home visit intensity. Participating in the study were 5…

This paper discusses the development of a questionnaire to measure attitudes and beliefs that predict intercultural adjustment (ICA) as opposed to intercultural communication or acculturation. Piloting of the first version of the measure suggested that 153 items may be valid predictors of ICA; this study attempts to further reduce the number of…

This study compared the culture-dependent attitudes of Finnish teachers (N=147) and American teachers (N=160) toward gifted education. The teachers from both countries represented preservice teachers, regular classroom teachers, and teachers of the gifted. Emphasis was on the relationship of attitude to culture from which the teacher came. The…

This study developed a statistical model to identify college students most prone to dropping out, testing the model to predict the retention status of black residential and white commuter students at an historically black institution with an open admissions policy. The model used 25 pre- and early-matriculation variables, including gender, age,…