Teacher workshops chip away at economic illiteracy

Workshops put on for teachers by the Atlanta and St. Louis Feds are having the desired results, a recent assessment shows. Teachers are learning about the economy and personal finance, and they are passing this information on to a student body that desperately needs it.Education - Economic aspects ; Economics - Study and teaching

Perceived Addiction to Pornography, Level of Distress and their Correlates

Negative psychological states such as distress, shame and depression have been linked to problematic porn use. This is a proposal for a study that seeks to identify if perceived addiction to pornography and stress are correlated. In addition to this perceived addiction to porn, other perceived addictions (food, sex, alcohol, marijuana and cigarettes) will be tested to determine the level of comorbidity of addictions in people. The hypothesis of this study is: People that perceive themselves as having pornography addiction will have higher rates of other perceived addictions than those who do perceive themselves to be addicted to pornography; in addition the people with higher perceived addiction to porn are expected to have higher rate of distress

Wide Field-of-View Testbed: Challenges Scaling from SmallSats to Large Satellites

Can experience gained from designing, building and launching a smallsat be successfully leveraged to build larger satellites? Following the success of building smallsats, Millennium Space Systems was awarded a contract to develop the Wide-Field-of-View (WFOV) Testbed for the U.S. Space Force\u27s Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC). This paper describes how challenges faced scaling from a smallsat to a larger-sized satellite were overcome. Topics include paradigm shifts in design and testing as well as unique programmatic approaches to enable rapid acquisition and development

The Occupational Mobility of Female Workers: An Empirical Analysis

Data from three supplemental mobility surveys conducted jointly with the Current Population Survey (CPS) in 1973, 1978, and 1981, were analyzed to investigate the determinants of occupational change by female workers in the American labor force. Results suggest that occupationally mobile female workers may substitute prestige and status for income when changing occupations. Personal characteristics and endowments were also found to be more important on outcomes relative to prior labor market experience. Investments in human capital were found to be particularly important for black female workers who exhibited occupational change

Economic education for at-risk students: an evaluation of Choices & Changes

This paper presents an evaluation of Choices & Changes, an economics education program designed to teach "at-risk" children in elementary and junior high school that they can control their future by making wise choices and investing in themselves. Using program-specific instruments and a national sample of approximately 1600 students, a controlled experiment was conducted to determine the effect of Choices & Changes on student learning and attitudes. The experimental data were analyzed using a simultaneous model estimated by 2SLS with correction for self-selection due to sample attrition between pre- and post-test observations. The results indicate that Choices & Changes had a positive effect on economic understanding for each grade level examined, ceteris paribus. Significant positive effects on attitudes were found in only one of the four student groups. These findings suggest that Choices & Changes is meeting its short-run objective of producing cognitive understanding of economic concepts and that the attitudes of at-risk students can be altered but may require additional intervention

Academic Success and the Transfer of Community College Credits in the Principles of Economics

A growing number of today’s college students attend local 2-year community colleges. Many of these students will ultimately transfer to major universities in pursuit of the traditional Bachelors degree. The question of whether such transfer credits adequately prepare students for future academic endeavors is important for educators interested in preparing successful students and maintaining the quality of their institution. In this paper, we examine whether students who transfer credits earned for the traditional Principles of Economics course sequence achieve the same levels of academic success, measured in terms of GPA, as students taking the sequence at a major state university. The model indicates that community college transfer students perform poorly relative to native students in terms of cumulative GPA. This result is driven by a self-selection process whereby the more academically challenged students are those who choose to transfer credit from 2-year schools. The results of our model are used to develop a grade equivalency measure between the university and 2-year schools. Using this measure we are able to reject the hypothesis that grades are equivalent between 2- and 4-year institutions. Finally, we find that grades in the Principles of Economics sequence are strong predictors of overall academic success

Economic education for at-risk students: an evaluation of Choices & Changes

This paper presents an evaluation of Choices & Changes, an economics education program designed to teach "at-risk" children in elementary and junior high school that they can control their future by making wise choices and investing in themselves. Using program-specific instruments and a national sample of approximately 1600 students, a controlled experiment was conducted to determine the effect of Choices & Changes on student learning and attitudes. The experimental data were analyzed using a simultaneous model estimated by 2SLS with correction for self-selection due to sample attrition between pre- and post-test observations. The results indicate that Choices & Changes had a positive effect on economic understanding for each grade level examined, ceteris paribus. Significant positive effects on attitudes were found in only one of the four student groups. These findings suggest that Choices & Changes is meeting its short-run objective of producing cognitive understanding of economic concepts and that the attitudes of at-risk students can be altered but may require additional intervention

Northern Bobwhite Habitat Modeling on a Military Installation in Relation to Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Management

The Department of Defense (DoD) manages natural resources on ~ 8 million ha of land. A top priority for much of this land is to restore and maintain native ecosystems and associated wildlife species. However, given the typical location (i.e., threatened ecosystems) and size of DoD lands, management conflicts usually occur among endangered/threatened species and game species. Military installations in the southeastern United States are commonly managed to protect red-cockaded woodpecker (Piciodes borealis) (RCW) populations and longleaf-wiregrass ecosystems. Mandated RCW management is not entirely compatible with other declining species such as northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus). Land managers need to be equipped with spatially-explicit habitat models that can be used to make informed decisions on how to manage for particular species. Data collected on Fort Gordon Military Installation, Georgia from male bobwhite whistle counts during summer 2010 and 2011 will be used to construct competing models on the relationship between RCW management and other habitat structure metrics as it relates to bobwhite habitat suitability. These data were collected using a robust occupancy sampling design to allow open and closed population assumptions. Preliminary data suggests the RCW habitat ranking matrix is a poor predictor of bobwhite habitat suitability and, more alarmingly, RCW population performance. These models will assist natural resource managers on DoD land in making efficient decisions in the face of uncertainty

The Occupational Mobility of Female Workers: An Empirical Analysis

Data from three supplemental mobility surveys conducted jointly with the Current Population Survey (CPS) in 1973, 1978, and 1981, were analyzed to investigate the determinants of occupational change by female workers in the American labor force. Results suggest that occupationally mobile female workers may substitute prestige and status for income when changing occupations. Personal characteristics and endowments were also found to be more important on outcomes relative to prior labor market experience. Investments in human capital were found to be particularly important for black female workers who exhibited occupational change