Developing an evidence-based program sustainability training curriculum: A group randomized, multi-phase approach

Abstract Background The emergence of dissemination and implementation (D&I) science has driven a rapid increase in studies of how new scientific discoveries are translated and developed into evidence-based programs and policies. However, D&I science has paid much less attention to what happens to programs once they have been implemented. Public health programs can only deliver benefits if they reach maturity and sustain activities over time. In order to achieve the full benefits of significant investment in public health research and program development, there must be an understanding of the factors that relate to sustainability to inform development of tools and trainings to support strategic long-term program sustainability. Tobacco control programs, specifically, vary in their abilities to support and sustain themselves over time. As of 2018, most states still do not meet the CDC-recommended level for funding their TC program, allowing tobacco use to remain the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the USA. The purpose of this study is to empirically develop, test, and disseminate training programs to improve the sustainability of evidence-based state tobacco control programs and thus, tobacco-related health outcomes. Methods This paper describes the methods of a group randomized, multi-phase study that evaluates the empirically developed “Program Sustainability Action Planning Training” and technical assistance in US state-level tobacco control programs. Phase 1 includes developing the sustainability action planning training curriculum and technical assistance protocol and developing measures to assess long-term program sustainability. Phase 2 includes a group randomized trial to test the effectiveness of the training and technical assistance in improving sustainability outcomes in 24 state tobacco control programs (12 intervention, 12 comparison). Phase 3 includes the active dissemination of final training curricula materials to a broader public health audience. Discussion Empirical evidence has established that program sustainability can improve through training and technical assistance; however, to our knowledge, no evidence-based sustainability training curriculum program exists. Therefore, systematic methods are needed to develop, test, and disseminate a training that improves the sustainability of evidence-based programs. Trial registration NCT03598114. Registered 25 July 2018—retrospectively registered

What Matters? An Analysis of Teacher Training, Student Achievement, and Teacher Attrition in North Carolina.

Using a quantitative approach that draws on qualitative methods, this study aimed to identify what, if any, elements within an elementary teacher preparation program have a relationship between elementary student achievement gains in reading and math as well as a teacher’s attrition. This study identified elements of teacher training programs through interviews, program document reviews, and surveys of training programs in North Carolina. I used data from the North Carolina Education Resource Data Center (NCERDC) for the years 2014-2018 to test relationships between program elements, student achievement, and teacher attrition using a covariate adjusted multilevel linear model and a school fixed effects model. Results showed that attendance at certain training programs themselves can increase student achievement in math and reading, as well as a teacher’s attrition. Furthermore, there were signs that specific courses in the training program (such as subject matter) can also impact a student’s learning and teacher attrition. Specifically, there were two elements of training techniques themselves that showed an impact on student achievement and teacher attrition: recording a candidate’s teaching practice in student teaching experiences and lessons on instructional technology. Such findings suggest elements within training likely matter as much as the overall training requirements and more research is needed within programs to test the effects of elements themselves, as well as the quality of the element on student and teacher outcome

Specifying and Executing Optimizations for Parallel Programs

Compiler optimizations, usually expressed as rewrites on program graphs, are a core part of all modern compilers. However, even production compilers have bugs, and these bugs are difficult to detect and resolve. The problem only becomes more complex when compiling parallel programs; from the choice of graph representation to the possibility of race conditions, optimization designers have a range of factors to consider that do not appear when dealing with single-threaded programs. In this paper we present PTRANS, a domain-specific language for formal specification of compiler transformations, and describe its executable semantics. The fundamental approach of PTRANS is to describe program transformations as rewrites on control flow graphs with temporal logic side conditions. The syntax of PTRANS allows cleaner, more comprehensible specification of program optimizations; its executable semantics allows these specifications to act as prototypes for the optimizations themselves, so that candidate optimizations can be tested and refined before going on to include them in a compiler. We demonstrate the use of PTRANS to state, test, and refine the specification of a redundant store elimination optimization on parallel programs.Comment: In Proceedings GRAPHITE 2014, arXiv:1407.767

Improving the Economic and Life Outcomes of At-Risk Youth, Fall 2002

This paper outlines ideas and strategies to engage alienated and disaffected young people and help them acquire skills, gain work experience, and improve their lives. Based on lessons learned from three decades of demonstrations and evaluations concerning at-risk youth, the paper presents ideas that government agencies and private foundations could consider when working to fill important service and knowledge gaps. It offers suggestions about how to change the public discourse about young people at risk and how to strengthen the public will to capitalize on this population's strengths and potential. The paper recommends three program strategies, all of which leverage youth-serving institutions and existing funding streams and lay the groundwork to expand programs whose effectiveness has stood the test of evaluation. The fundamental premise of this paper is how to increase youth engagement as a prerequisite to success. It draws upon existing research, the experiences of youth programs that have had unusual success in attracting and retaining enrollees, insights from a youth development perspective, and the observations of youth program practitioners and young people themselves. Recommendations are presented in the areas of goals and framework for action, program design, and broadening public support and building capacity

AUnit - a testing framework for alloy

textWriting declarative models of software designs and analyzing them to detect defects is an effective methodology for developing more dependable software systems. However, writing such models correctly can be challenging for practitioners who may not be proficient in declarative programming, and their models themselves may be buggy. We introduce the foundations of a novel test automation framework, AUnit, which we envision for testing declarative models written in Alloy -- a first-order, relational language that is supported by its SAT-based analyzer. We take inspiration from the success of the family of xUnit frameworks that are used widely in practice for test automation, albeit for imperative or object-oriented programs. The key novelty of our work is to define a basis for unit testing for Alloy, specifically, to define the concepts of test case and test coverage as well as coverage criteria for declarative models. We reduce the problems of declarative test execution and coverage computation to partial evaluation without requiring SAT solving. Our vision is to blend how developers write unit tests in commonly used programming languages with how Alloy users formulate their models in Alloy, thereby facilitating the development and testing of Alloy models for both new Alloy users as well as experts. We illustrate our ideas using a small but complex Alloy model. While we focus on Alloy, our ideas generalize to other declarative languages (such as Z, B, ASM).Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Programs for Testing Processor-in-Memory Computing Systems

The Multithreaded Microbenchmarks for Processor-In-Memory (PIM) Compilers, Simulators, and Hardware are computer programs arranged in a series for use in testing the performances of PIM computing systems, including compilers, simulators, and hardware. The programs at the beginning of the series test basic functionality; the programs at subsequent positions in the series test increasingly complex functionality. The programs are intended to be used while designing a PIM system, and can be used to verify that compilers, simulators, and hardware work correctly. The programs can also be used to enable designers of these system components to examine tradeoffs in implementation. Finally, these programs can be run on non-PIM hardware (either single-threaded or multithreaded) using the POSIX pthreads standard to verify that the benchmarks themselves operate correctly. [POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface for UNIX) is a set of standards that define how programs and operating systems interact with each other. pthreads is a library of pre-emptive thread routines that comply with one of the POSIX standards.

Enhancing Assertiveness Through Traditional Turkish Folk Dance

The present study investigates the effects of assertiveness training programs through folk dances on high school students’ assertiveness levels. Pre-test post-test with control group design has been used to examine. Furthermore, a questionnaire including one open-ended question asked students to learn their opinion on training and its effects on themselves. Experiment and control group participants were administered the Rathus Assertiveness Inventory, and experiment group participants received a two–hour assertiveness training program through folk dances per week over eight weeks. The study sample included 203 students who were in first grade in the same school. Results revealed that students in the experiment group had significantly higher assertiveness levels than those in the control group (P<0.05), and experiment group students defined that this assertiveness training program positively affected them and increased their awareness about themselves

The Relationship Between Student Perceptions of Guidance and Counseling Services

Guidance and counseling services are activities carried out through direct or face-to-face eye contact to help individuals who are experiencing problems so that these individuals can understand themselves and their environment, choose and make decisions, and can be responsible for the various problems themselves. . Related to this competency, guidance and counseling teachers or counselors manage programs including compiling programs, implementing programs, and evaluating guidance and counseling programs to help students develop optimally according to student needs. This research was conducted at SMA Negeri 1 Bandar Khalipah, Serdang Bedagai Regency. The method used in this research is correlational descriptive quantitative research. The data were sourced from the students who were the research samples, namely at each level a sample of 120 students was taken at SMA Negeri 1 Bandar Khalipah, Serdang Bedagai Regency. As for how to collect data using a Likert scale instrument. The steps taken in data analysis are data description and hypothesis testing. Based on the test results, it can be seen that there is a significant relationship between perception and attitude, this is evidenced by the sig coefficient = 0.000 0.05 and the Pearson correlation coefficient = 0.556. So the results of the study indicate that there is a significant positive relationship between views about the professional competence of counselors with the aim of providing student guidance and counseling service

Evaluation of a Positive Youth Development Program Based on the Repertory Grid Test

The repertory grid test, based on personal construct psychology, was used to evaluate the effectiveness of Project P.A.T.H.S. (Positive Adolescent Training through Holistic Social Programmes) in Hong Kong. One hundred and four program participants (n = 104) were randomly invited to complete a repertory grid based on personal construct theory in order to provide both quantitative and qualitative data for measuring self-identity changes after joining the program. Findings generally showed that the participants perceived that they understood themselves better and had stronger resilience after joining the program. Participants also saw themselves as closer to their ideal selves and other positive role figures (but farther away from a loser) after joining the program. This study provides additional support for the effectiveness of the Tier 1 Program of Project P.A.T.H.S. in the Chinese context. This study also shows that the repertory grid test is a useful evaluation method to measure self-identity changes in participants in positive youth development programs

Sources of Test Anxiety: A Qualitative Approach

Test anxiety comes as an irrefutable fact of education. Testing and being tested, whatever the level of education, is a natural source of concern. The intention of this study is to obtain data that will be the starting point for future intervention programs for test-anxiety. For the research, 10 middle school students and 10 high school students and semi-structured interview forms were interviewed. It has been seen that middle school students describe test anxiety with emotional symptoms and high school students with cognitive symptoms. While the anxiety of the test anxiety affects the life of the students and the influence of the family relations in the high school students is in the preliminary stage, the middle school students show themselves as negative thoughts about the future and the negative affect appears as a common theme in both groups. As sources of test anxiety, we see parents’ and teachers’ higher success expectations in both age groups. Besides, the words that parents’ and teachers’ motivational words the students cause them to worry more about not being the anticipated effect in the students. These negative attitudes cause an sense of over responsibility in students. According to the findings of the study, it is revealed that it is a great necessity for the parents and teachers to be involved in the intervention programs for the students who are experiencing the test anxiety. Keywords: Text anxiety, high school students, secondary school students, source of text anxiety, qualitative researc