To leave or not to leave? Understanding determinants of farmers' choices to remain in or abandon agri-environmental schemes

Effectiveness of Agri-Environmental Schemes (AESs) as tools to enhance the rural environment can be achieved not only by increasing uptake rates, but also by avoiding participating farmers abandoning the scheme once they are in. For this reason, it is important to also consider what affects farmers\u2019 decisions to remain in the scheme rather than leave it at the end of the contractual obligation. However, up to now, there has been very little on this issue in the literature. The paper offers a contribution to this by revealing the role of determinants like the farmer\u2019s and farm structural characteristics, farmer\u2019s learning process, neighbourhood effect and the impact of changes in the policy design on the farmer\u2019s decision to remain in the scheme over a long time scale. This is examined in a long-standing scheme in the case study area, the Veneto Region of Italy. The paper uses duration analysis and is based on longitudinal panel-data of the entire population of 2000-2015 adopters. By using only data available in official regional records, it also provides regional policy-makers with an operational tool that is useful to analyse the impact of their AES design changes. The results of the duration models show that a larger farm size, a younger farmer age, the succession in the family farm, and the farmer\u2019s positive attitude towards the environment, trigger longer durations in AES. Similarly, the impact of the accumulation of the farmer\u2019s experience in the scheme management, as well as the neighbourhood effect increase the probability of remaining. Lastly, the changes in policy tailoring and targeting also have a positive impact on maintaining the farmer in the scheme. The paper concludes by noting that duration analysis can deliver useful results in order to guide policy-makers in the effort to steer higher levels of farmers\u2019 persistence in the scheme and provides some recommendations for a more mature agro-environmental policy design

Officer Perceptions of Fleet and Take-Home Police Cruisers: Evidence from MA

The purpose of this research is to determine police officers perceived benefits of take-home police cruisers. The primary question to be answered by this research is: do officers see take-home cruisers as a benefit to the department and what are those benefits? Departments typically make large decisions like switching to take home cruisers based on department budgets, what makes the most sense for their individual department, and how it would affect their officers. It is hypothesized that the police officers would perceive the use of take-home cruisers to be more effective compared to a fleet of cruisers. Results show that a majority of officers see take-home cruisers to be beneficial to not only themselves but to their departments. This research was conducted with a small portion of police officers currently working in Massachusetts, leaving behind the perceptions of other officers in the state who are retired or were not reached during the study. Future research should use a larger sample and consider including officers from the entire state of MA, other states, and/or running the study for a longer period of time

Assessing Depressive Symptoms in Adolescent Boys: Pre- Versus Postpubescent, Delinquent Versus Nondelinquent

The purpose of this study was to compare depressive symptoms reported by boys who were either pre- or postpubescent and who were legally designated delinquent or had no legal histories. A self-report puberty scale and a semi-structured interview (the Child Assessment Schedule-CAS) were administered to 48 boys. Results were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Significance levels between groups were examined with Duncan\u27s range test. No significant differences were found between pre- and postpubescent boys for reporting depressive symptoms, but delinquent youths were found to report significantly more depressive symptoms than nondelinquent youths. The implications of these results are discussed in relation to the measures used and recommendations for future research

The Effect of Sportspersonship Instruction on the Behaviors Of Second Grade Physical Education Students

The effect of sportspersonship instruction on the behaviors of second grade physical education students was examined. Instruction consisted of defining sportspersonship focus words, modifying the words into target behaviors, modeling the behaviors, and reinforcing the behaviors. Results revealed that students from two intact classes improved their behaviors

Les intelligences multiples :: une aide motivationnelle pour les enfants en difficulté des classes d’introduction

Après avoir cherché de quelle manière on pouvait aider les élèves en difficulté à entrer dans les apprentissages de manière différente ou autrement, je me suis penchée sur la théorie des intelligences multiples d’Howard Gardner. Cette méthode intéresse les enseignants qui savent que les enfants n’apprennent pas tous de la même manière. Elle est bien moins connue en Suisse qu’au Canada où fleurissent de nombreuses écoles et recherches pédagogiques. Il me semblait important d’expérimenter cette pratique dans le but de pouvoir l’utiliser à l’avenir dans mon enseignement. Ce travail de mémoire consiste à comprendre comment la manière d’enseigner peut influencer, au travers d’activités spécifiques, la motivation des élèves d’une classe d’introduction. Après la détermination d’un profil d’intelligences de quatre élèves et la mise en place d’un dispositif varié sur les intelligences multiples (IM), j’ai ensuite observé la manière dont les élèves restaient motivés lors séquences sur la représentation du temps en 3e année Harmos. Les résultats ont montré que certaines hypothèses posées ont pu être validées puisque certains élèves perdaient leur motivation lorsqu’ils travaillaient dans des activités qui ne mobilisaient pas leur intelligence préférentielle

The Effect of Incorporating Math Skills into Physical Education Classes on Math Achievement of Second Grade Elementary Students

The effect of embedding math skills into physical education lessons on math achievement of second grade students in two classes was investigated. There were no statistical differences between the experimental (PE/Math) group and the control group. However, practical observations indicated more research is needed in this area