Progressor: Social navigation support through open social student modeling

The increased volumes of online learning content have produced two problems: how to help students to find the most appropriate resources and how to engage them in using these resources. Personalized and social learning have been suggested as potential ways to address these problems. Our work presented in this paper combines the ideas of personalized and social learning in the context of educational hypermedia. We introduce Progressor, an innovative Web-based tool based on the concepts of social navigation and open student modeling that helps students to find the most relevant resources in a large collection of parameterized self-assessment questions on Java programming. We have evaluated Progressor in a semester-long classroom study, the results of which are presented in this paper. The study confirmed the impact of personalized social navigation support provided by the system in the target context. The interface encouraged students to explore more topics attempting more questions and achieving higher success rates in answering them. A deeper analysis of the social navigation support mechanism revealed that the top students successfully led the way to discovering most relevant resources by creating clear pathways for weaker students. © 2013 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Perceveid Social Support in middle school students

Research on school climate has among its purposes to contribute to improving the quality of education, one of the main challenges of the Mexican educational system, particularly at the level of basic education. Our aim was to explore the relationships between the dimensions of school climate of perceived social the support teacher-student, support student-student and opportunities for autonomy and academic performance. The study was non-experimental and correlational. The sample consisted of 325 students from a middle school in northeastern Mexico, with a mean age of 13.4 years who responded to a scale of perceived school climate. The results show that students perceive great teacher support associated with student-student support and opportunities for autonomy. In addition, we found that academic achievement related to teacher support and opportunities for autonomy. These data are consistent with the country´s educational policy, which emphasizes the teacher´s role as facilitator of student learning to improve learning outcomes and the quality of education.Fil: Rodriguez, María Concepción. Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León; MéxicoFil: Vivas, Jorge Ricardo. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Psicología. Centro de Investigación en Procesos Básicos, Metodologías y Educación; ArgentinaFil: Comesaña, Ana. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Psicología. Centro de Investigación en Procesos Básicos, Metodologías y Educación; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; ArgentinaFil: Ramirez, Laura Minerva. Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León; MéxicoFil: Peña, José Armando. Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León; Méxic

Measuring Perceived Social Support in Mexican American Youth: Psychometric Properties of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support

The utility of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) (Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet, & Farley, 1988) was investigated within a sample of 290 Mexican American adolescents. Results suggested that the three-subscale structure (Family, Friends, and Significant Other) of the MSPSS was confirmed, and adequate internal reliability for the three scales was demonstrated as well. Support for construct validity was found by evaluating correlations from a perceived family support subscale as well as a satisfaction with family measure. It appears that the MSPSS is a useful measure for assessing perceived social support in Latino youth and as such can be used to further our understanding about social support from different sources in Latino adolescents

Social support, social control and health behavior change in spouses

Our work on support processes in intimate relationships has focused on how partners in committed relationships help one another contend with personal difficulties, and how partners elicit and provide support in their day-to-day interactions. We are particularly interested in how these support skills relate to marital outcomes (Pasch & Bradbury, 1998; Pasch, Harris, Sullivan, & Bradbury, 2004; Sullivan, Pasch, Eldridge, & Bradbury, 1998) and how they relate to behavior change in spouses (Sullivan, Pasch, Johnson, & Bradbury, 2006), especially health behavior changes. In this chapter, we review research examining the effects of social support and social control on spouses\u27 health behaviors, propose a theory to account for discrepancies in these findings, and report initial data examining the usefulness of this theory in understanding the relationship between social support, social control, and partner health behavior

Social Security Reform and Childcare Support

This paper examines how social security reform and childcare support affect fertility and social welfare, based on a simple overlapping generations model with endogenous fertility. In an open economy with no altruism, introducing a childcare subsidy is the second-best solution under an aging population. However, in a closed economy and/or assuming the household's altruistic bequests, childcare support is not necessarily desirable and the case that curtailing a pay-as-you-go social security system reduces social welfare cannot be ruled out. In addition, we show that social security reform and childcare have different effects on the transition process to a new steady state.Social security, childcare support, fertility, bequests

Social support and the wealthy porcupine: Pain, social support, money, and culture

Social support and social integration have been major topics of research for social scientists for many decades (e.g., Durkheim, 1897/1997). Social support is generally portrayed as a “good thing,” with numerous researchers providing evidence of both the buffering and direct impacts of support on mental and physiological well-being (e.g., Kraus, Liang, & Gu, 1998; Litwin, 2001) and the ability of support to be a buffer against physical and psychological pain (e.g., Lpez-Martnez, Esteve-Zarazaga & Ramrez-Maestre, 2008). In their target article, Zhou and Gao (this issue) also suggest that social support is an important buffer against pain but argue for a further buffer against both physical and social pain—money—that may be important if social support fails. They cite a number of ingenious experiments for the link between social support, money, and pain, claiming that money and support “complement each other in managing pain” (p. 127), continuing in a tradition of research examining the compensatory dynamics of money and interpersonal support (e.g., Foa & Foa, 1974). In doing so, they raise a number of important questions about pain management, social exclusion, social support, and material resources. In my commentary I focus in particular on their concerns with social support and materialism, aiming to address three aspects of their model: the relationship between social support and money; the connections between money, materialism, and well-being; and the role of culture in moderating the relationship between social support and money. To do this I draw on some of my own work in changing cultures and conduct brief analyses of data from the latest large-scale European Social Survey (ESS). I conclude by suggesting some ideas for further research that might help further elaborate the intriguing model proposed by Zhou and Gao

Perceived Social Support among Chinese American Hemodialysis Patients

Social support is linked to improved health outcomes both in Western and Asian societies and is a vital factor in a patient\u27s adjustment to end-stage renal disease and its treatment regimen. This study explored perceived social support among 46 Chinese American hemodialysis patients in San Francisco\u27s Chinatown using the Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire plus open-ended questions. Findings unexpectedly revealed low levels of perceived social support and lack of tangible support especially in elder patients. We can no longer assume that traditional family cultural values are providing adequate social support for this population