Evidence-Based Mental Health Programs in Schools: Barriers and Facilitators of Successful Implementation

Although schools can improve children’s access to mental health services, not all school-based providers are able to successfully deliver evidence-based practices. Indeed, even when school clinicians are trained in evidence-based practices (EBP), the training does not necessarily result in the implementation of those practices. This study explores factors that influence implementation of a particular EBP, Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS). Semi-structured telephone interviews with 35 site administrators and clinicians from across the United States were conducted 6–18 months after receiving CBITS training to discuss implementation experiences. The implementation experiences of participants differed, but all reported similar barriers to implementation. Sites that successfully overcame such barriers differed from their unsuccessful counterparts by having greater organizational structure for delivering school services, a social network of other clinicians implementing CBITS, and administrative support for implementation. This study suggests that EBP implementation can be facilitated by having the necessary support from school leadership and peers

Measuring Anxiety in Youth with Learning Disabilities: Reliability and Validity of the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC)

Youth with learning disabilities (LD) are at an increased risk for anxiety disorders and valid measures of anxiety are necessary for assessing this population. We investigated the psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC; March in Multidimensional anxiety scale for children. Multi-Health Systems, North Tonawanda, 1998) in 41 adolescents (ages 11– 17 years) with LD. Youth and parents completed the MASC and were administered the semi-structured Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule: Child and Parent Versions (ADIS: C/P; Silverman and Albano in The Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV-Child and Parent Versions. Psychological Corporation, San Antonio, 1996). Results found that child and parent reports of Social Anxiety on the MASC closely corresponded with ADIS-generated social phobia diagnoses, and parent total scores discriminated well among youth with and without any anxiety disorder. A multi-method multi-trait matrix provided evidence of the construct validity of the MASC total score for both parent and child reports. Our findings provide empirical evidence that parent and child versions of the MASC are useful for assessing anxiety in youth with LD

Development of a Quantitative Instrument to Measure Mobile Collaborative Learning (MCL) Using WhatsApp: The Conceptual Steps

It has been reported that WhatsApp, a social media application, had approximately 1.6 billion active users globally as of July 2019, almost one-fifth of the total world’s population. Thus, research about WhatsApp’s influence in general and especially its influence in education was relevant and significant. While there was much research involving WhatsApp and learning, it was not conclusive about the effects of WhatsApp on student learning. Specifically, research focusing on collaborative learning using WhatsApp was lacking, including research instruments for measuring collaboration on WhatsApp. Consequently, the paper’s research problem was the lack of research instruments for measuring collaboration on WhatsApp in relation to academic achievement. To address the research problem, the study followed the important initial and conceptual steps of the instrument development process to develop a research instrument to measure collaboration on WhatsApp in relation to academic achievement. The result of the paper was a developed instrument that provides researchers with a basis to measure the explanatory constructs involved in mobile collaborative learning (MCL) processes on WhatsApp and potentially other social media platforms. Therefore, the paper made an appropriately theoretical contribution, which was grounded in the scientific literature. The study facilitated positivistic research and epistemology for acquiring objective and precise scientific knowledge. Such deductive research promotes theory testing and development and presents educators and students with scientific evidence about learning with MCL applications such as WhatsApp from which both curriculum and learning design can be informed and benefited. In the age of connected mobility this is a necessity.School of Computin

Non-affirmative Theory of Education as a Foundation for Curriculum Studies, Didaktik and Educational Leadership

This chapter presents non-affirmative theory of education as the foundation for a new research program in education, allowing us to bridge educational leadership, curriculum studies and Didaktik. We demonstrate the strengths of this framework by analyzing literature from educational leadership and curriculum theory/didaktik. In contrast to both socialization-oriented explanations locating curriculum and leadership within existing society, and transformation-oriented models viewing education as revolutionary or super-ordinate to society, non-affirmative theory explains the relation between education and politics, economy and culture, respectively, as non-hierarchical. Here critical deliberation and discursive practices mediate between politics, culture, economy and education, driven by individual agency in historically developed cultural and societal institutions. While transformative and socialization models typically result in instrumental notions of leadership and teaching, non-affirmative education theory, previously developed within German and Nordic education, instead views leadership and teaching as relational and hermeneutic, drawing on ontological core concepts of modern education: recognition; summoning to self-activity and Bildsamkeit. Understanding educational leadership, school development and teaching then requires a comparative multi-level approach informed by discursive institutionalism and organization theory, in addition to theorizing leadership and teaching as cultural-historical and critical-hermeneutic activity. Globalisation and contemporary challenges to deliberative democracy also call for rethinking modern nation-state based theorizing of education in a cosmopolitan light. Non-affirmative education theory allows us to understand and promote recognition based democratic citizenship (political, economical and cultural) that respects cultural, ethical and epistemological variations in a globopolitan era. We hope an American-European-Asian comparative dialogue is enhanced by theorizing education with a non-affirmative approach