Steering Capital: Optimizing Financial Support for Innovation in Public Education

Examines efforts to align capital to education innovation and calls for clarity and agreement on problems, goals, and metrics; an effective R&D system; an evidence-based culture of continuous improvement; and transparent, comparable, and useful data

Supporting and Scaling Change: Lessons From the First Round of the Investing in Innovation (i3) Program

Assesses the degree to which the i3 program helped advance innovation in public education. Outlines takeaways, challenges, and recommendations for the Education Department and grantmakers, including optimizing support for different stages of innovation

Pull and Push: Strengthening Demand for Innovation in Education

Examines policy, information, and cultural barriers that minimize the "demand pull" for educational innovation. Calls for encouraging early adopters, bolstering smart adoption, providing better information, and rewarding productivity improvements

Encouraging Social Innovation Through Capital: Using Technology to Address Barriers

Outlines how technology can help foster a robust capital market for public education innovation by improving content, linking technology with face-to-face networks, and streamlining transactions. Suggests steps for government, foundations, and developers

School-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Adolescents with Anxiety

Mental health problems, particularly anxiety, are a growing problem in adolescents. Some treatments (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy) have been shown effective for youth anxiety, but do not help all adolescents. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), a treatment supported for anxiety in adults, has yet to be fully researched in adolescents. ACT is a flexible therapy that is understood to be appropriate, if not ideal, for younger populations and schools. The present study compares a school-based, group ACT for adolescents with anxiety to a waitlist. Adolescents (N = 26) with anxiety were randomized to a 12 week waitlist or to participate in a school-based, group ACT for anxiety. The groups took place during the school day, ranging from .5-1 hours for 1-2 times a week, depending on the school. Over the course of the study, the adolescents completed four surveys of anxiety, other mental health variables, and class absences. Adolescents in the ACT groups reported less anxiety and fewer class absences after receiving treatment as compared to the waitlist group. No differences were found for other mental health variables. Participants reported that the ACT groups were acceptable and enjoyable. These findings demonstrate that ACT groups may be beneficial to integrate within school settings. They also support the use of ACT with younger populations with anxiety more broadly

Esther Tusquets\u27 El mismo mar de todos los veranos and Carta a la madre : The Healing Transformation of the Mother-Daughter Relationship

The aim of this thesis is to explore how Esther Tusquets\u27 Carta a la madre can be viewed as an evolution of Elia\u27s emotional struggles in her search for forgiveness and closure with her mother in El mismo mar de todos los veranos, and explain why Tusquets would chose to reintroduce these characters (or slight variations of them) to readers close to twenty years later. There are differences that exist between the works and some characters are altered, but my analysis illustrates that Carta a la madre is not a continuation of Elia\u27s story, but rather an evolution of the mother daughter relationship that ultimately has the narrative space and the epistolary characteristics that allow for healing. By presenting readers with a variation of the story using another genre, Tusquets suggests that there can be closure and progress made when an external, dialogic action is taken

Telehealth Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Adolescents With Transdiagnostic Health-Related Anxiety: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Health-related anxiety is a growing issue to understand how to treat, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic. Some studies show that a specific type of therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), may be beneficial for health anxiety in adults, but this has not yet been tested with adolescents. The present study is a randomized, waitlist-controlled trial of ACT delivered via Zoom for adolescents struggling with health-related anxiety. A total of 30 adolescents (ages 12-17), plus one caretaker each (N = 60), living in Utah and currently struggling with health-related anxiety were enrolled. The majority of caretakers and adolescents were White, non- Hispanic/Latine, and female. Participants in the treatment condition received ten weekly, 50-minute sessions of ACT delivered via Zoom. Overall, adolescents who received ACT reported small, significant decreases in health-related anxiety as compared to the waitlist. No differences were found between groups for adolescent-rated general anxiety, depression, psychological inflexibility, or anxiety sensitivity. Caretakers reported decreases in child general anxiety and improvements in parental psychological inflexibility. No significant differences were found between groups for caretaker-rated familial accommodation and accommodation-related child distress. Overall, adolescents and caretakers rated the treatment positively. Future studies should test ACT with more diverse groups of adolescents as well as compare it to other available therapy options. However, this study is the first to examine ACT as a potential treatment for health-related anxiety in adolescents, and thereby adds to the growing literature supporting the use of ACT as a potential treatment option for youth

Psychological distress, attachment, and conflict resolution in romantic relationships

Understanding the correlates of psychological distress has important implications for enhancing clinical treatments and promoting well-being and mental health in daily life. The present study examines the associations between attachment avoidance and anxiety, conflict resolution, and psychological distress in romantic relationships in a large sample (N = 697) recruited online. Anxiety and avoidance were associated with heightened psychological distress, and maladaptive conflict resolution strategies were found partially mediate these associations. Future directions and clinical implications highlighting attachment and conflict resolution are discussed

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for a Child With Misophonia: A Case Study

Misophonia, a condition involving hypersensitivity, anger, and/or disgust in response to specific noises (e.g., chewing, tapping), is highly underresearched in children. Several case studies point towards the utility of cognitive behavioral therapy and related treatments (e.g., acceptance and commitment therapy [ACT]). ACT presents a particularly promising option, as it focuses on building psychological flexibility in response to difficult internal experiences, rather than trying to remove or change them (e.g., responding effectively to irritation provoked by chewing). The present case study describes “Kelly” (pseudonym), a 12-year-old girl with moderately severe misophonia symptoms, who received a 16-session course of ACT for misophonia. At post-treatment, Kelly reported a decline to the mild range of misophonia, as well as re-engagement in activities that were important to her and clinically significant reductions in depressive symptoms. These results suggest that ACT may be an appropriate treatment for children with misophonia; however, much more research is warranted

The Importance of Reliable Information Sources for Prospective Medical Travellers

Expectations of completing PhDs for job readiness, are increasing. Information Systems (IS) PhDs face the challenge of appreciating the multidisciplinary and multi-paradigmatic diversity of the discipline, demanding a breadth of knowledge beyond that expected in many other disciplines. In addition, PhD students in Australian universities are constrained to a 3+ year enrolment, as compared for example, to the more common 4 and 5 year enrolments in North American universities. These demands require that IS PhD students in Australia be synergistic in their choice of activities during enrolment. With the aim of maximizing the value of the PhD experience, the study reported herein explores synergy between research and teaching. More specifically, this research-in-progress (RIP) paper reports a programme design for training PhD students, from involvement as supervisors of coursework Masters students’ research projects