Honors Education Has a Positive Effect on College Student Success

Over 1,500 U.S. universities and colleges have honors programs or honors colleges to provide extra support for their most prepared students (National Collegiate Honors Council 2018; Scott and Smith 2016). Honors programs typically provide additional financial support, faculty mentors, smaller class sizes, and other benefits compared to what institutions can typically offer all of their students. Students involved in an honors program usually earn higher GPAs compared to highly motivated students not in an honors program (Pritchard and Wilson 2003) and are more likely to stay in college and graduate within four years (Cosgrove 2004). The additional success of honors students compared to nonhonors students is often attributed to their experiences in the honors program itself. But it could be argued that honors students are more successful simply because they arrived at a university with better preparation or higher socioeconomic status. Of course, no explanation can be definitive without a randomized control trial, which would be difficult if not impossible in real-world situations, but converging evidence from multiple sources can provide a reasonable answer (Bottoms and McCloud 2018). Considerable research to date on the impact of honors education lacks the appropriate controls to account for alternative explanations for the differences often observed in the success of honors versus nonhonors students. The present study tests the impact of an honors college on the successes of a diverse, urban student sample while statistically accounting for pre-matriculation background factors and student characteristics, thereby ruling out many key alternative explanations for the association between honors education and college student success

Attitudes toward smacking in a New Zealand probability sample: Psychological and demographic correlates

Dittman, CK ORCiD: 0000-0003-0203-8785This research was conducted following the 2009 citizens-initiated referendum that aimed to overturn the 2007 legislative change that repealed parents' right to use force in the correction or discipline of children. Using a national probability sample of 5,752 New Zealand adults, the study investigated the prevalence and correlates of positive attitudes towards the physical discipline (i.e., smacking) of children. Three distinct items assessing attitudes to use of physical discipline were embedded within a large postal survey. New Zealanders expressed more favourable views toward smacking when responding to items framed in terms of supporting the legal rights of parents. This included the item replicating the 2009 referendum question. However, New Zealanders expressed less favourable attitudes toward smacking when assessed using a more general Likert-style item. Political conservatism, Big-Five personality and low education were the most reliable predictors of physical discipline attitudes. Ethnicity, immigrant status and level of poverty versus affluence were not significantly associated with physical discipline attitudes. Our findings suggest that the way the question was asked could have introduced differences into people's apparent level of support versus opposition toward the use of force to discipline children. The social policy implications of this work are discussed. © This material is copyright to the New Zealand Psychological Society

Simultaneous optimisation of stope layouts and long term production schedules

Optimisation techniques for underground metalliferous mine design and planning are not commonplace like their open cut counterpart. Optimisation studies which have focused on underground design and planning are amenable to improvement. Additionally, all techniques have ignored the effects that underground design and planning areas have on each other. This means that when optimising an individual area, there is a likelihood of increasing costs or decreasing revenues in areas not included. Considering the interaction and influence key underground design and planning areas have on each other when optimising, will provide more profitable results than if ignored. Optimisation techniques for stope layouts and production scheduling are reviewed. A model that simultaneously optimises stope layouts and production schedules using mixed integer programming is proposed and successfully applied to 64 443 blocks over a 23 year mine life, demonstrating the model's ability to produce optimal long term mine plans for a sublevel stoping operation with a $22.7m maximised net present value

Towards a public health approach to parenting programmes for parents of adolescents

Poor parenting practices have been associated with adolescent emotional and behavioural problems which are potentially preventable. Parenting interventions that are based on behavioural and social learning theories have been repeatedly shown to be effective. However, few evidence-based parenting programmes are implemented and sustained at a population level. Little research is available on supporting the general population of parents during the adolescent years. Further, a substantial researchpractice gap exists regarding the impact of a universal approach to parenting programmes for parents of adolescents

Dealing with Disobedience: An Evaluation of a Brief Parenting Intervention for Young Children Showing Noncompliant Behavior Problems

The study was a randomized controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of a brief and preventatively-focused parenting discussion group for dealing with disobedient behavior in preschool-aged children. Eighty-five parents with children aged between 3 and 5\ua0years who were concerned about the noncompliant behavior of their child were recruited from Auckland, New Zealand and Brisbane, Australia. Compared to the waitlist control group (n\ua0=\ua040), parents in the intervention group (n\ua0=\ua045) reported greater improvements in disruptive child behavior, ineffective parenting practices and parenting confidence, as well as clinically significant improvements in child behavior and parenting. All of these effects were maintained at 6-month follow up. No group differences were found for parental wellbeing, inter-parental conflict and general relationship quality, although intervention parents reported improvements in parental wellbeing and inter-parental conflict at 6-month follow-up. The findings are discussed in terms of the implications for making brief and effective parenting support available to parents