Mechanisms of motivational interviewing in health promotion: a Bayesian mediation analysis

BACKGROUND: Counselor behaviors that mediate the efficacy of motivational interviewing (MI) are not well understood, especially when applied to health behavior promotion. We hypothesized that client change talk mediates the relationship between counselor variables and subsequent client behavior change. METHODS: Purposeful sampling identified individuals from a prospective randomized worksite trial using an MI intervention to promote firefighters’ healthy diet and regular exercise that increased dietary intake of fruits and vegetables (n = 21) or did not increase intake of fruits and vegetables (n = 22). MI interactions were coded using the Motivational Interviewing Skill Code (MISC 2.1) to categorize counselor and firefighter verbal utterances. Both Bayesian and frequentist mediation analyses were used to investigate whether client change talk mediated the relationship between counselor skills and behavior change. RESULTS: Counselors’ global spirit, empathy, and direction and MI-consistent behavioral counts (e.g., reflections, open questions, affirmations, emphasize control) significantly correlated with firefighters’ total client change talk utterances (rs = 0.42, 0.40, 0.30, and 0.61, respectively), which correlated significantly with their fruit and vegetable intake increase (r = 0.33). Both Bayesian and frequentist mediation analyses demonstrated that findings were consistent with hypotheses, such that total client change talk mediated the relationship between counselor’s skills—MI-consistent behaviors [Bayesian mediated effect: αβ = .06 (.03), 95% CI = .02, .12] and MI spirit [Bayesian mediated effect: αβ = .06 (.03), 95% CI = .01, .13]—and increased fruit and vegetable consumption. CONCLUSION: Motivational interviewing is a resource- and time-intensive intervention, and is currently being applied in many arenas. Previous research has identified the importance of counselor behaviors and client change talk in the treatment of substance use disorders. Our results indicate that similar mechanisms may underlie the effects of MI for dietary change. These results inform MI training and application by identifying those processes critical for MI success in health promotion domains

Sweetened Drink and Snacking Cues in Adolescents. A Study Using Ecological Momentary Assessment

The objective of this study was to identify physical, social, and intrapersonal cues that were associated with the consumption of sweetened beverages and sweet and salty snacks among adolescents from lower SES neighborhoods. Students were recruited from high schools with a minimum level of 25% free or reduced cost lunches. Using ecological momentary assessment, participants (N=158) were trained to answer brief questionnaires on handheld PDA devices: (a) each time they ate or drank, (b) when prompted randomly, and (c) once each evening. Data were collected over 7days for each participant. Participants reported their location (e.g., school grounds, home), mood, social environment, activities (e.g., watching TV, texting), cravings, food cues (e.g., saw a snack), and food choices. Results showed that having unhealthy snacks or sweet drinks among adolescents was associated with being at school, being with friends, feeling lonely or bored, craving a drink or snack, and being exposed to food cues. Surprisingly, sweet drink consumption was associated with exercising. Watching TV was associated with consuming sweet snacks but not with salty snacks or sweet drinks. These findings identify important environmental and intrapersonal cues to poor snacking choices that may be applied to interventions designed to disrupt these food-related, cue-behavior linked habits

Toward Optimized Effectiveness of Employee Training Programs: A Meta-Analysis

Although organizations invest heavily on employee training, the effectiveness of employee training programs has not been wellestablished. In the current study, we examine the training delivery features of employee training programs to derive a better understanding of features that may be of best benefit in the improvement of employee affective outcomes. Specifically, and via the use of meta-analysis (k = 79 studies totaling 107 independent effect sizes), we focus on two broad classes of affective employee training outcomes including attitudinal and motivational outcomes. Results evidence support for the effectiveness of employee workplace training interventions and indicate that employee training programs associated with attitudinal versus motivational outcomes require different features while being delivered to reach optimal effectiveness

Intercultural engagement and relatedness: Examining mediation effects

Most research on student sojourners has studied students coming from the Majority World to Western countries, especially the United States, for undergraduate and graduate education. Though increasing greatly in numbers, shorter sojourn has not been the focus of attention. With regard to the adjustment of sojourners, research has tended to stress situational factors rather than personality. This study is different in terms of focusing on short term educational sojourn of Western students in a Majority World country and examining the effect of personal characteristics and cultural evaluation of the sojourners on their experience. Relatedness and country of origin were found to influence the cultural experience of exchange students through their cultural evaluation at baseline. Students with higher relatedness orientation had more positive cultural evaluations at baseline which then led to a more positive cultural experience in the receiving country

Parental Predictors of Children’s Math Learning Behaviours in Different Cultures

Research indicates that parental schoolwork involvement is beneficial for students' academic functioning when parents facilitate their children's autonomy and refrain from psychological controlling practices. However, effects of the quality of parental involvement on child learning outcomes may vary due to cross-cultural differences in children's appraisal and reaction towards these practices. The current study aimed to investigate the link between the quality of parental schoolwork involvement and children's learning-related behaviours in math, and the mediating role of mother-child conflict around math schoolwork in this link in three cultural groups (i.e., German-Turkish, Turkish and German families). Data were collected from 107 German-Turkish, 426 Turkish and 140 German mothers with children in fifth to eighth grades. After testing measurement invariance of the scales across groups, multi-group structural equation modelling was used to examine the direct and indirect paths between the quality of parental involvement, mother-child conflict and child learning-related behaviours. Results showed that the level of mother-child conflict mediated the link between mothers' psychologically controlling practices and children's learning-related behaviours in math in all three groups. No mediation was found for the link between maternal autonomy support and children's learning-related behaviours in any group. However, the direct path from mothers' autonomy support to children's learning-related behaviours was significant in the Turkish and German-Turkish samples. These results suggest that the role of different forms of parental schoolwork involvement in children's academic functioning is more similar than different across cultural groups.WOS:0009018654000012-s2.0-85144526372Social Sciences Citation IndexQ2ArticleUluslararasi isbirligi ile yapilan - EVET2023YÖK - 2022-23Oca

Comparative Regression Discontinuity: A Stress Test With Small Samples

Compared to the randomized experiment (RE), the regression discontinuity design (RDD) has three main limitations: (1) In expectation, its results are unbiased only at the treatment cutoff and not for the entire study population; (2) it is less efficient than the RE and so requires more cases for the same statistical power; and (3) it requires correctly specifying the functional form that relates the assignment and outcome variables. One way to overcome these limitations might be to add a no-treatment functional form to the basic RDD and including it in the outcome analysis as a comparison function rather than as a covariate to increase power. Doing this creates a comparative regression discontinuity design (CRD). It has three untreated regression lines. Two are in the untreated segment of the RDD—the usual RDD one and the added untreated comparison function—while the third is in the treated RDD segment. Also observed is the treated regression line in the treated segment. Recent studies comparing RE, RDD, and CRD causal estimates have found that CRD reduces imprecision compared to RDD and also produces valid causal estimates at the treatment cutoff and also along all the rest of the assignment variable. The present study seeks to replicate these results, but with considerably smaller sample sizes. The power difference between RDD and CRD is replicated, but not the bias results either at the treatment cutoff or away from it. We conclude that CRD without large samples can be dangerous