Objective: Many behavior change programs are delivered in group settings to manage implementation costs and to foster support and interactions among group members in order to facilitate behavior change. Understanding the group dynamics that evolve in group settings (e.g., weight management, Alcoholics Anonymous) is important, yet rarely measured.…

Background: The purpose of this study is to describe patterns of care and service use among adolescent school-based health center (SBHC) users in New Mexico and contrast patterns and services between frequent and infrequent users. Methods: Medical claims/encounter data were analyzed from 59 SBHCs located in secondary schools in New Mexico during…

There is increasing interest in both the cumulative and long-term impact of early life adversity on brain structure and function, especially as the brain is both highly vulnerable and highly adaptive during childhood. Relationships between SES and neural development have been shown in children older than age 2 years. Less is known regarding the…

Purpose: This paper aims to introduce matching in propensity score analysis (PSA) as an alternative statistical approach for researchers looking to make causal inferences using intact groups. Design/methodology/approach: An illustrative example demonstrated the varying results of analysis of variance, analysis of covariance and PSA on a heuristic…

This study examined the predictive relationship between library use by individual students and their retention status in university settings. The methodology builds on a small number of previous studies to examine library use at the individual level to determine if use of specific library services is predictive of retention for freshmen and…

Problem Statement: Although it is well known that parents' methods of raising their children significantly affect their children's personalities and how they face life, this study has been designed because there is a lack of specific research on which ego states of adults are associated with self-control. In the present study, self-control and ego…

Theories of preview benefit in reading hinge on integration across saccades and the idea that preview benefit is greater the more similar the preview and target are. Schotter (2013) reported preview benefit from a synonymous preview, but it is unclear whether this effect occurs because of similarity between the preview and target (i.e.,…

Purpose: This study investigated the communicative use of eye gaze and gestures in females with Rett syndrome. Method: Data on 151 females with Rett syndrome participating in the Australian Rett Syndrome Database was used in this study. Items from the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales Developmental Profile Infant-Toddler Checklist…

Extension program evaluations often present opportunities to analyze data in multiple ways. This article suggests that program evaluations can involve more sophisticated data analysis approaches than are often used. On the basis of a hypothetical program scenario and corresponding data set, two approaches to testing for evidence of program impact…

In order to improve discrimination accuracy between Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and similar neurodevelopmental disorders, a data mining procedure, Classification and Regression Trees (CART), was used on a large multi-site sample of PDD Behavior Inventory (PDDBI) forms on children with and without ASD. Discrimination accuracy exceeded 80%,…

Background/Context: A long line of research has empirically examined the effects of social context on child and adolescent well-being. Scholars have paid particular attention to two specific levels of social context: the school and neighborhood. Although youths occupy these social contexts simultaneously, empirical research on schools and…

This study examines the relationship between tuition increases, retention, and Pell Grant recipients attending college for the first time at 279 four-year public universities in the southeastern and southwestern regions of the United States. The data for this study was gathered from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) using…

Public-private partnerships in emergency management are widely encouraged in the academic literature, yet the government of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) tends to view collaboration from the private sector as an impediment to good policy. This occurs in spite of the island nation's geography that makes it susceptible to natural and human…

The climate in college admissions is more competitive than ever, making understanding the college choice factors that contribute to a student's enrollment decision increasingly important. Using admitted student data from a liberal arts institution in the northeast for fall 2008 to fall 2011, and after controlling for student preparedness,…

Purpose: This study aims to question whether learning outcomes of the first course in accounting could predict the overall academic performance of accounting students as measured by their graduating grade point average (GPA). Design/methodology/approach The sample of the present study was drawn from accounting students who were graduated during…