The Parents as Teachers Program: Its Impact on School Readiness and Later School Achievement

New research released by Dr. Edward Zigler, director emeritus of the Yale Center in Child Development and Social Policy and widely known as the "father of Head Start," explains how Parents as Teachers participation impacts children's readiness for school and performance on state performance assessments at the end of the early elementary years. The study assessed more than 7,000 Missouri children over a five-year period. The research confirms the value of Parents as Teachers participation and the direct role it plays on parenting practices that positively impact a child's learning. The most striking findings show that for poor children, high intensity participation in both Parents as Teachers and preschool appears to narrow the achievement gap at kindergarten entry and extends into third grade.A research summary is available to download. Contact the organization to learn how to access the full report

Uncertainty in the Design Stage of Two-Stage Bayesian Propensity Score Analysis

The two-stage process of propensity score analysis (PSA) includes a design stage where propensity scores are estimated and implemented to approximate a randomized experiment and an analysis stage where treatment effects are estimated conditional upon the design. This paper considers how uncertainty associated with the design stage impacts estimation of causal effects in the analysis stage. Such design uncertainty can derive from the fact that the propensity score itself is an estimated quantity, but also from other features of the design stage tied to choice of propensity score implementation. This paper offers a procedure for obtaining the posterior distribution of causal effects after marginalizing over a distribution of design-stage outputs, lending a degree of formality to Bayesian methods for PSA (BPSA) that have gained attention in recent literature. Formulation of a probability distribution for the design-stage output depends on how the propensity score is implemented in the design stage, and propagation of uncertainty into causal estimates depends on how the treatment effect is estimated in the analysis stage. We explore these differences within a sample of commonly-used propensity score implementations (quantile stratification, nearest-neighbor matching, caliper matching, inverse probability of treatment weighting, and doubly robust estimation) and investigate in a simulation study the impact of statistician choice in PS model and implementation on the degree of between- and within-design variability in the estimated treatment effect. The methods are then deployed in an investigation of the association between levels of fine particulate air pollution and elevated exposure to emissions from coal-fired power plants

The potential for bias in principal causal effect estimation when treatment received depends on a key covariate

Motivated by a potential-outcomes perspective, the idea of principal stratification has been widely recognized for its relevance in settings susceptible to posttreatment selection bias such as randomized clinical trials where treatment received can differ from treatment assigned. In one such setting, we address subtleties involved in inference for causal effects when using a key covariate to predict membership in latent principal strata. We show that when treatment received can differ from treatment assigned in both study arms, incorporating a stratum-predictive covariate can make estimates of the "complier average causal effect" (CACE) derive from observations in the two treatment arms with different covariate distributions. Adopting a Bayesian perspective and using Markov chain Monte Carlo for computation, we develop posterior checks that characterize the extent to which incorporating the pretreatment covariate endangers estimation of the CACE. We apply the method to analyze a clinical trial comparing two treatments for jaw fractures in which the study protocol allowed surgeons to overrule both possible randomized treatment assignments based on their clinical judgment and the data contained a key covariate (injury severity) predictive of treatment received.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-AOAS477 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

A Novel Solution to the Klein-Gordon Equation in the Presence of a Strong Rotating Electric Field

The Klein-Gordon equation in the presence of a strong electric field, taking the form of the Mathieu equation, is studied. A novel analytical solution is derived for particles whose asymptotic energy is much lower or much higher than the electromagnetic field amplitude. The condition for which the new solution recovers the familiar Volkov wavefunction naturally follows. When not satisfied, significant deviation from the Volkov wavefunction is demonstrated. The new condition is shown to differ by orders of magnitudes from the commonly used one. As this equation describes (neglecting spin effects) the emission processes and the particle motion in Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) cascades, our results suggest that the standard theoretical approach towards this phenomenon should be revised

Graduate Recital Trombone

This M.M. Thesis demonstrates the breadth of literature for the trombone in the genre of jazz ranging from Bebop to the current contemporary style of jazz. I will also play an original piece that will seemingly portray the many styles of music that have effected my musical development

Mental Health Presentation: An Instrument in Coach Education

While mental health is a prevalent and important topic in athletics, coaches often receive little to no training on how to recognize and manage mental health concerns or how to make good mental health a priority on their team. Thus, a mental health presentation that informs coaches at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) on the main mental health disorders and concerns in student-athletes and their management was conducted. An investigation on the main mental health concerns in student-athletes and the best practices for athletic staff when managing these concerns was done to properly create the presentation and accurately inform coaches. The methodology consisted of a Google Slides presentation that explains the prevalence and some of the possible signs and symptoms of each mental health disorder or concern followed by specific guidelines for various scenarios on which a mental health concern is brought to a coach’s attention. This presentation was presented to the coaches of fourteen athletic teams at UNC over three semesters (Spring 2021-Spring 2022). The conclusion of this presentation was that mental health literacy and the response to mental health in the athletic department at UNC was improved. This conclusion was evaluated through pre- and post-surveys that assessed changes in coaches’ mental health literacy and management skills. Since this project led to an improvement in mental health literacy and management skills, it could serve as a framework for mental health education at other universities to ensure more coaches receive proper mental health education in the future