The difficulty of transfer and academic engagement of further education students when progressing to higher education environments

The difficulty of students transferring from Further Education Colleges and progressing to Higher Education Universities in the United Kingdom is a well-known problem. The study presented here focuses on the ability of students to begin to engage with the subject of computer programming on transferring after 2 years of study at a further education college into a 3rd year of a university programme. There is an assumption that there are environmental factors within the change that cause the problems of student engagement with their studies. The findings of this study concurs with difficulties for many students with beginning to engage with skills such as programming. However, the findings presented in this paper challenges the assumption that it is environmental factors within the university and proposes that the problem is not due to a difficulty of transfer from further education to Higher Education but that the problem pre-dates this transfer. The problem proposed from this study is that many students simply do not gain the skills their qualifications suggest while in Further Education. Subsequently, many students cannot begin to engage with skilled subject areas at University. It is proposed that the extent of the problem remains hidden and ultimately unsolvable due to a target-driven management system placing a focus on pass rates

Daily Interpersonal Stress and the Stressor–Vulnerability Model of Alcohol Use

We used an experience sampling design to examine the within–person, within–day associations among interpersonal stress, negative affect, and alcohol use, and how these associations varied as a function of alcohol–outcome expectancies (AOEs), avoidance coping style, sex, and neuroticism. Ninety–eight community adult drinkers who wanted to reduce their alcohol consumption (49 women) reported for 21 days on their interpersonal stress and affect (three times per day), and alcohol use (as it occurred) using hand–held computers. Several individual difference factors interacted with daytime interpersonal stress and afternoon negative affect in predicting nighttime alcohol use, with individuals high in careless unconcern AOEs or low in impairment AOEs demonstrating stronger positive associations between daytime stress and negative affect and nighttime drinking. Daytime drinking and individual difference factors also interacted in predicting nighttime interpersonal stress, with individuals high in careless unconcern AOEs or those low in impairment AOEs or avoidance coping style demonstrating the strongest positive associations between daytime drinking and nighttime stress. The interactive effects in predicting drinking outcomes were generally limited to days on which some interpersonal stress occurred

Chronic strain, daily work stress, and pain among workers with rheumatoid arthritis: Does job stress make a bad day worse?

The structure of the job and the daily experience of work are challenges for workers with rheumatoid arthritis. Yet little is known about how these two factors interact to put workers with chronic pain at risk for worse pain on a given day. This exploratory 20 workday diary study of 27 workers with rheumatoid arthritis used hierarchical linear modeling to examine how the structure of the job and neuroticism moderate the relationship between daily undesirable work events (daily stressors), and pain reports within a day. On days with more undesirable work events compared to days with fewer events, individuals with jobs associated with job “strain” (high demand/low control) reported greater midday pain, irrespective of neuroticism and negative mood, than workers with other combinations of demand and control. These findings demonstrate the utility of analyzing fluctuating within-person relationships among pain, mood, and daily work stressors within the context of the structure of the job, and helps to explain why daily work stressors result in worse health outcomes for some but not all workers with RA

Mothers' beliefs about behavioral causes for their developmentally disabled infant's condition: What do they signify

Mothers of young infants with perinatal medical problems or genetic syn-dromes strongly associated with developmental disability were interviewed about causes of the infant's condition. Mothers who assigned causal respon-sibility to their own behavior, mothers who blamed others ' behavior, and mothers who did not suspect behavioral causes were compared on other vari-ables measured concurrently with attributions and from follow-up home visits at 9 and 18 months. Group differences were found for concurrently report-ed mood disturbance and caretaking difficulties; reported caretaking problems at 9 months; maternal responsiveness, involvement with the child and or-ganization of the infant's environment at 9 and 18 months; and total scores on the HOME Inventory, measuring support for the infant's social, cogni-tive, and emotional development, at 18 months. For each significant analy-sis, more optimal scores were associated with behavioral self-blame. Blaming 'This study was supported by grants from the Connecticut State Department of Education and University of Connecticut Research Foundation to the first two authors and by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to the third author. The authors thank the staffs o