An Evaluation of a Media Literacy Program Training Workshop for Late Elementary School Teachers

The present study examined the efficacy of a media literacy education, substance abuse prevention training workshop for late elementary school teachers. Analyses revealed that the randomly assigned intervention (n = 18) and control (n = 23) teachers were similar in demographic characteristics and pre-training beliefs and knowledge. Teachers who participated in the workshop reported stronger beliefs in the importance of and familiarity with media literacy education and scored higher on a direct assessment of media deconstruction skills than teachers in the control group. Teachers reported positive program assessment ratings. This randomized controlled trial provides evidence that a one-day teacher training workshop on media literacy education is effective at improving teachers’ beliefs and knowledge about media literacy that are relevant for successful student outcomes

An Initial Examination of Girls’ Cognitions of Their Relationally Aggressive Peers as a Function of Their Own Social Standing

The primary aim of the present study was to examine girls’ cognitions of their relationally aggressive peers as a function of their own relationally aggressive and sociometric status. Participants were 151 4th- and 5th-grade girls attending four public elementary schools. Findings suggest that relationally aggressive girls tend to display a relatively cautious and wary social cognitive style in relationally provocative social situations. For example, they view relationally aggressive behaviors as being relatively stable and unchanging, and they exhibit little trust for peers who exhibit a similar behavioral style. Results suggest that rejected girls may exhibit markedly different social processing styles depending upon whether they are also relationally aggressive themselves. For instance, rejected-relational aggressors appear to interpret others’ negative behaviors as being quite intentional. In contrast, rejected-nonrelational aggressors demonstrate relatively high levels of trust for peers who treat them poorly while also interpreting these peers’ behaviors as being relatively unintentional. Implications for designing multilevel interventions to combat relational aggressive problems are discussed

A Media Literacy Education Approach to Teaching Adolescents Comprehensive Sexual Health Education

As states are moving toward comprehensive sexual health education, educators require engaging and effective curricula. This pre-post study (N=64) examined the feasibility of a comprehensive, media literacy education program for influencing adolescents’ sexual health and media literacy outcomes. After the program, participants were more likely to have the intention to use condoms during sex and talk to partners, parents, or medical professionals prior to sex. Media literacy outcomes included decreased perceived realism of and increased skepticism of media messages and improved media deconstruction skills. Overall, the results suggest that media literacy has the potential for positively influencing sexual health decisions

Investigating How MTV’s 16 & Pregnant May Be Used as Media Literacy Education with High-Risk Adolescents

Reality television shows featuring teen pregnancy may be used as media literacy education tools to positively affect youth sexual health outcomes. Concerns, however, exist that such programming may glamorize teen pregnancy. The present study examined how viewing and discussing episodes of MTV’s 16 and Pregnant, a reality television series about teen pregnancy, may impact adolescents at high risk for teen pregnancy (N =162; M=13.5 years). Adolescents indicated that they enjoyed viewing and discussing the episodes and saw the program as realistic but did not perceive the lives of the characters as desirable. Many also reported that they talked with someone afterward about what they had seen. Findings provide preliminary evidence that reality television shows focused on the potential outcomes of sexual behavior may be a useful way to engage adolescents in conversations about sexual health

Onset of antisocial behavior, affiliation with deviant friends, and childhood maladjustment: A test of the childhood- and adolescent-onset models

Predictors and concurrent correlates of childhood-onset and adolescent-onset antisocial behavior were studied in a sample of 165 boys and 151 girls, followed from age 6 to age 15. An integrated general growth mixture model was used to determine the number and shape of developmental trajectories of antisocial behavior exhibited by boys and girls. Associations of these trajectories with trajectories of attention-deficit/hyperactivity (ADH) problems and deviant peer affiliation were examined. A childhood-onset, an adolescent-onset, and a low antisocial behavior trajectory were identified. A minority of the sample (11%), mostly males, followed the childhood-onset trajectory. This trajectory was predicted by prior membership in the high ADH trajectory in childhood. The adolescent-onset trajectory (46%) was associated with increases in friends' antisocial behavior but not with ADH problems. Most females (60%) followed the low antisocial trajectory. A substantial proportion of females, however, followed the childhood (5%) and adolescent-onset trajectories (35%). The male-female ratios in the childhood and adolescent-onset trajectories were similar. The results largely supported theories that distinguish between childhood and adolescent onsets of antisocial behavior, but they did not suggest that boys and girls differ in the age of onset of antisocial behavior. © 2007 Cambridge University Press

Contributions of Hot and Cool Self-Regulation to Preschool Disruptive Behavior and Academic Achievement

The construct of self-regulation can be meaningfully distinguished into hot and cool components. The current study investigated self-regulation in a sample of 926 children aged 3–5 years old. Children’s performance on self-regulatory tasks was best described by two latent factors representing hot and cool regulation. When considered alone, hot and cool regulation were both significantly correlated with disruptive behavior and academic achievement. When considered together, cool regulation was uniquely associated with academic achievement, while hot regulation was uniquely associated with inattentive-overactive behaviors. Results are discussed with respect to treatment studies that directly target improvement in children’s self-regulation

Student Characteristics as Predictors of Teachers’ Implementation of a Kindergarten Readiness Program

Recent years have seen increasing numbers of classroom-based interventions designed to enhance the school readiness of at-risk preschoolers. Even the most comprehensive, well-designed programs can suffer from limited effectiveness due to low-frequency implementation by teachers. The current study presents findings from the Building Bridges project (BB), an integrated program targeting school readiness in Head Start and low-income child care centers. Previous studies have reported the role of teacher-level and program-level characteristics in predicting teacher implementation of an intervention. The present study examines the role of student characteristics—language and math ability, social skills, and behavioral functioning—in predicting implementation exposure. These associations were examined in the context of program type (Head Start, child care) and intervention condition (consultation, no consultation). 88 classrooms (41 Head Start, 47 child care) participated in the BB intervention. Implementation exposure was predicted by several distinct student characteristics. Teachers whose students exhibited poorer language skills implemented significantly more BB activities, a finding that was consistent across program types and intervention conditions. A marginally significant trend was identified for oppositional behavior when interacted with intervention group in that teachers whose students demonstrated higher rates of oppositional behavior implemented fewer intervention activities when they did not have a consultant. Teachers in child care centers with a BB consultant had higher rates of implementation than did teachers in all other groups. These findings provide important information regarding the student-level characteristics that should be evaluated in order to optimize implementation of an intervention

The association between preschool children's social functioning and their emergent academic skills

This study examined the relationship between social functioning and emergent academic development in a sample of 467 preschool children (M = 55.9 months old, SD = 3.8). Teachers reported on children’s aggression, attention problems, and prosocial skills. Preliteracy, language, and early mathematics skills were assessed with standardized tests. Better social functioning was associated with stronger academic development. Attention problems were related to poorer academic development controlling for aggression and social skills, pointing to the importance of attention in these relations. Children’s social skills were related to academic development controlling for attention and aggression problems, consistent with models suggesting that children’s social strengths and difficulties are independently related to their academic development. Support was not found for the hypothesis that these relationships would be stronger in boys than in girls. Some relationships were stronger in African American than Caucasian children. Children’s self-reported feelings about school moderated several relationships, consistent with the idea that positive feelings about school may be a protective factor against co-occurring academic and social problems

Teacher (mis)perceptions of preschoolers’ academic skills: Predictors and associations with longitudinal outcomes.

Preschool teachers have important impacts on children’s academic outcomes, and teachers’ misperceptions of children’s academic skills could have negative consequences, particularly for low-income preschoolers. This study utilized data gathered from 123 preschool teachers and their 760 preschoolers from 70 low-income, racially diverse centers. Hierarchical linear modeling was utilized to account for the nested data structure. Even after controlling for children’s actual academic skill, older children, children with stronger social skills, and children with fewer inattentive symptoms were perceived to have stronger academic abilities. Contrary to hypotheses, preschoolers with more behavior problems were perceived by teachers to have significantly better pre-academic abilities than they actually had. Teachers’ perceptions were not associated with child gender or child race/ethnicity. Although considerable variability was due to teacher-level characteristics, child characteristics explained 42% of the variability in teachers’ perceptions about children’s language and pre-literacy ability and 41% of the variability in teachers’ perceptions about mathability. Notably, these perceptions appear to have important impacts over time. Controlling for child baseline academic skill and child characteristics, teacher perceptions early in the preschool year were significantly associated with child academic outcomes during the spring for both language and pre-literacy and math. Study implications with regard to the achievement gap are discussed

Predicting teacher participation in a classroom-based, integrated preventive intervention for preschoolers

Preschools provide a promising setting in which to conduct preventive interventions for childhood problems, but classroom programs can only be effective if teachers are willing and able to implement them. This study is one of the first to investigate predictors of the frequency of teacher participation in a classroom-based, randomized controlled trial of an integrated prevention program for preschoolers. The intervention was designed to promote school readiness with an integrated social and academic program, to be implemented by teachers with the support of classroom consultants. The current study is part of a larger project conducted with Head Start and community child care centers that serve primarily economically disadvantaged families; 49 teachers from 30 centers participated in this study. Overall, teachers conducted approximately 70% of the program activities. Participation decreased significantly over time from the first to the final week of the intervention, and also decreased within each week of the intervention, from the first to the final weekly activity. Teachers working at community child care centers implemented more intervention activities than did Head Start teachers. Teacher concerns about the intervention, assessed prior to training, predicted less participation. In addition, teachers' participation was positively related to their perception that their centers and directors were supportive, collegial, efficient, and fair, as well as their job satisfaction and commitment. Teacher experience, education, ethnicity, and self-efficacy were not significantly related to participation. In multi-level models that considered center as a level of analysis, substantial variance was accounted for by centers, pointing to the importance of considering center-level predictors in future research