Parental decision-­making for school choice : factors, anxieties, aspirations and strategies

Abstract : The crisis in the quality of South African education has resulted in a flight trend across all types of primary and secondary education. It is no secret that a huge divide exists between functional schools and dysfunctional ones. South African schools are split into two worlds, one on par with the best in the world, the other perpetually constrained by incompetent/dishonest administrators, ineffectual teaching and industrial action by teacher trade unions. Amidst this backdrop, there is a growing perception among South Africans that public schooling will not be able to enhance the educational outcomes and future of their children. Accordingly, South African parents are increasingly making decisions regarding where to send their children to school. Historically (pre-­1994), the majority of South African parents were not actively involved in making choices regarding the schools their children would attend. Reason being, this was determined for them by legislation and children were enrolled in schools by residence, language and/or by colour. Democracy opened the door to many possibilities and post-­1994 policy changes resulted in parents starting to formulate their own ideas and preferences of what they thought the ideal school should be and offer their children. As a new body of knowledge that needs to be explored, a quantitative study was used to establish the perceptions of middle class South African parents regarding the factors, anxieties, aspirations and strategies in making the best possible school-­choice decision for their children’s future and whether these perceptions were consistent with those of school principals. Items to measure variables that emerged as important determinants or factors in decision-­making with regards to exercising school choice, was constructed and compiled into two questionnaires, one for parents and one for principals. The results of the research point to a number of factors complicating the school choice decision as often the decisions parents in South Africa make are unique and stem from consequences of apartheid policies and as such need to be understood in this specific context. Among others, the top five factors parents indicated as being important in iv school choice decision-­making were, the child’s happiness in the school, school safety, the academic curriculum and quality of discipline offered by the school, the training and experience of staff at the school as well as the quality of professional leadership, school facilities, performance and the overarching factor of school fees. The most significant information sources used by parents in their decision-­making was found to be the schools’ image in the community followed by open-­days. School fees and oversubscription of functional schools were identified as the major obstacles parents experienced in decision-­making. The key aspirations of parents to exercise school choice embrace the desire for a quality education effecting the economic empowerment of a child’s future. In establishing synergy, it was found that for the most part principals do share similar perceptions to parents concerning issues around school choice. As South African parents increasingly value the importance of education for the life opportunities of their children so the weight and cost of school choice intensifies. This is the dilemma many parents face when choosing a school for their children. Keywords: Cost, decision-­making, education, parents, quality, school-­choice.Ph.D. (Educational Management

RECRUITING SALES STUDENTS: THE VALUE OF PROFESSIONALS IN THE CLASSROOM

It can be difficult for employers to recruit sales students because of the supply/demand gap. This is true despite increases in university sales education programs. This study investigates the impact of a sales organization representative giving an in-class presentation about student intent to pursue employment at the organization. The results indicate that a quality in-class presentation can improve students’ desire to work for the organization, but an average in-class presentation or shorter extracurricular presentation had no positive effect. These results imply that an in-class presentation should be taken seriously and done well in order to positively impact the recruitment process

Toxicity of Bupropion Overdose Compared With Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors

OBJECTIVES: Adolescent depression and attempted and completed suicide are increasing in the United States. Because suicide is often impulsive, the means of self-harm are frequently items of convenience like medication. Authors of a recent study compared tricyclic antidepressant overdose to bupropion overdose. Fluoxetine and escitalopram are the only agents with Food and Drug Administration approval for pediatric depression, but off-label bupropion prescriptions are common. We sought to compare the effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and bupropion in overdose. METHODS: This was an analysis of the National Poison Data System from June 2013 through December 2017 for adolescent (ages 10–19) exposures to SSRIs or bupropion coded as “suspected suicide.” Demographics, clinical effects, therapies, and medical outcome were analyzed. RESULTS: There were 30 026 cases during the study period. Sertraline and fluoxetine accounted for nearly 60%, whereas bupropion was reported in 11.7%. Bupropion exposure was significantly associated with death (0.23% vs 0%; P < .001) or serious outcome (58.1% vs 19%; P < .001) as well as the 10 most common clinical effects, including seizures (27.0% vs 8.5%; P < .001) and hallucinations (28.6% vs 4.3%; P < .001). Bupropion exposure was significantly associated with the need for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (0.51% vs 0.01%; P < .001), intubation (4.9% vs 0.3%; P < .001), vasopressors (1.1% vs 0.2%; P < .001), and benzodiazepines (34.2% vs 5.5%; P < .001). There was a significant increase in all exposures and in proportion of serious outcomes over time. CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents who attempt self-harm are at higher risk for serious morbidity and poor outcomes with bupropion than with SSRIs. These risks, and the patient’s propensity for self-harm, should be evaluated when therapy with bupropion is considered

New statistical method identifes cytokines that distinguish stool microbiomes

Regressing an outcome or dependent variable onto a set of input or independent variables allows the analyst to measure associations between the two so that changes in the outcome can be described by and predicted by changes in the inputs. While there are many ways of doing this in classical statistics, where the dependent variable has certain properties (e.g., a scalar, survival time, count), little progress on regression where the dependent variable are microbiome taxa counts has been made that do not impose extremely strict conditions on the data. In this paper, we propose and apply a new regression model combining the Dirichlet-multinomial distribution with recursive partitioning providing a fully non-parametric regression model. This model, called DM-RPart, is applied to cytokine data and microbiome taxa count data and is applicable to any microbiome taxa count/metadata, is automatically fit, and intuitively interpretable. This is a model which can be applied to any microbiome or other compositional data and software (R package HMP) available through the R CRAN website

Left / Write // Hook: A mixed method study of a writing and boxing workshop for survivors of childhood sexual abuse and trauma

This article investigates how the combination of writing therapy and embodied empowerment, explored through the physical sport of non-contact boxing, can facilitate the recovery journeys of women survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and their move towards post-traumatic growth. It uses established quantitative psychological measurements and qualitative analytical approaches to examine the impact of an eight-week boxing and writing workshop for female survivors of CSA, called Left/Write//Hook (LWH), on participants’ recovery journeys. The hypothesis was that the LWH workshops would contribute to participants’ recovery and wellbeing. The article reports on the pilot study of the workshops as one aspect of an ongoing research project around LWH which uses concurrent, triangulation mixed methods design to gather and analyze qualitative audio-visual and creative-writing data produced by the women, alongside quantitative psychological assessment data. The findings of qualitative analyses of the participants’ creative writing and the quantitative psychological assessments of the impact of the LWH workshops on participants’ assertiveness, post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, wellbeing, depression, anxiety and stress, along with preliminary findings of filmed material are presented and discussed in this article. The findings supported the hypothesis that the LWH workshops helped facilitate participants’ recovery journeys and supported their wellbeing. This article offers preliminary support for the argument that the dual approach of written/verbal and embodied creativity can enhance the wellbeing of survivors of sexual abuse and trauma

Lesion Loci of Impaired Affective Prosody: A Systematic Review of Evidence from Stroke

Affective prosody, or the changes in rate, rhythm, pitch, and loudness that convey emotion, has long been implicated as a function of the right hemisphere (RH), yet there is a dearth of literature identifying the specific neural regions associated with its processing. The current systematic review aimed to evaluate the evidence on affective prosody localization in the RH. One hundred and ninety articles from 1970 to February 2020 investigating affective prosody comprehension and production in patients with focal brain damage were identified via database searches. Eleven articles met inclusion criteria, passed quality reviews, and were analyzed for affective prosody localization. Acute, subacute, and chronic lesions demonstrated similar profile characteristics. Localized right antero-superior (i.e., dorsal stream) regions contributed to affective prosody production impairments, whereas damage to more postero-lateral (i.e., ventral stream) regions resulted in affective prosody comprehension deficits. This review provides support that distinct RH regions are vital for affective prosody comprehension and production, aligning with literature reporting RH activation for affective prosody processing in healthy adults as well. The impact of study design on resulting interpretations is discussed

On-farm biodiesel production regulatory guide

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The Company Prosodic Deficits Keep Following Right Hemisphere Stroke: A Systematic Review

Objectives: The aim of this systematic review was to identify the presence and nature of relationships between specific forms of aprosodia (i.e., expressive and receptive emotional and linguistic prosodic deficits) and other cognitive-communication deficits and disorders in individuals with right hemisphere damage (RHD) due to stroke. Methods: One hundred and ninety articles from 1970 to February 2020 investigating receptive and expressive prosody in patients with relatively focal right hemisphere brain damage were identified via database searches. Results: Fourteen articles were identified that met inclusion criteria, passed quality reviews, and included sufficient information about prosody and potential co-occurring deficits. Twelve articles investigated receptive emotional aprosodia, and two articles investigated receptive linguistic aprosodia. Across the included studies, receptive emotional prosody was not systematically associated with hemispatial neglect, but did co-occur with deficits in emotional facial recognition, interpersonal interactions, or emotional semantics. Receptive linguistic processing was reported to co-occur with amusia and hemispatial neglect. No studies were found that investigated the co-occurrence of expressive emotional or linguistic prosodic deficits with other cognitive-communication impairments. Conclusions: This systematic review revealed significant gaps in the research literature regarding the co-occurrence of common right hemisphere disorders with prosodic deficits. More rigorous empirical inquiry is required to identify specific patient profiles based on clusters of deficits associated with right hemisphere stroke. Future research may determine whether the co-occurrences identified are due to shared cognitive-linguistic processes, and may inform the development of evidence-based assessment and treatment recommendations for individuals with cognitive-communication deficits subsequent to RHD