Do television and electronic games predict children's psychosocial adjustment? Longitudinal research using the UK Millennium Cohort Study

Background: Screen entertainment for young children has been associated with several aspects of psychosocial adjustment. Most research is from North America and focuses on television. Few longitudinal studies have compared the effects of TV and electronic games, or have investigated gender differences. Purpose: To explore how time watching TV and playing electronic games at age 5 years each predicts change in psychosocial adjustment in a representative sample of 7 year-olds from the UK. Methods: Typical daily hours viewing television and playing electronic games at age 5 years were reported by mothers of 11 014 children from the UK Millennium Cohort Study. Conduct problems, emotional symptoms, peer relationship problems, hyperactivity/inattention and prosocial behaviour were reported by mothers using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Change in adjustment from age 5 years to 7 years was regressed on screen exposures; adjusting for family characteristics and functioning, and child characteristics. Results: Watching TV for 3 h or more at 5 years predicted a 0.13 point increase (95% CI 0.03 to 0.24) in conduct problems by 7 years, compared with watching for under an hour, but playing electronic games was not associated with conduct problems. No associations were found between either type of screen time and emotional symptoms, hyperactivity/inattention, peer relationship problems or prosocial behaviour. There was no evidence of gender differences in the effect of screen time. Conclusions: TV but not electronic games predicted a small increase in conduct problems. Screen time did not predict other aspects of psychosocial adjustment. Further work is required to establish causal mechanisms

Impact of a theoretically based sex education programme (SHARE) delivered by teachers on NHS registered conceptions and terminations: final results of cluster randomised trial

<b>Objective</b>: To assess the impact of a theoretically based sex education programme (SHARE) delivered by teachers compared with conventional education in terms of conceptions and terminations registered by the NHS. Design Follow-up of cluster randomised trial 4.5 years after intervention. <b>Setting</b>: NHS records of women who had attended 25 secondary schools in east Scotland. <b>Participants</b>: 4196 women (99.5% of those eligible). <b>Intervention</b>: SHARE programme (intervention group) v existing sex education (control group). <b>Main outcome measure</b>: NHS recorded conceptions and terminations for the achieved sample linked at age 20. <b>Results</b>: In an "intention to treat" analysis there were no significant differences between the groups in registered conceptions per 1000 pupils (300 SHARE v 274 control; difference 26, 95% confidence interval –33 to 86) and terminations per 1000 pupils (127 v 112; difference 15, –13 to 42) between ages 16 and 20. <b>Conclusions</b>: This specially designed sex education programme did not reduce conceptions or terminations by age 20 compared with conventional provision. The lack of effect was not due to quality of delivery. Enhancing teacher led school sex education beyond conventional provision in eastern Scotland is unlikely to reduce terminations in teenagers

Calcutta Botanic Garden and the colonial re-ordering of the Indian environment

This article examines three hand-painted colour maps that accompanied the annual report of the Calcutta Botanic Garden for 1846 to illustrate how the Garden’s layout, uses and functions had changed over the previous 30 years. The evolution of the Calcutta Botanic Garden in the first half of the nineteenth-century reflects a wider shift in attitudes regarding the relationship between science, empire and the natural world. On a more human level the maps result from, and illustrate, the development of a vicious personal feud between the two eminent colonial botanists charged with superintending the garden in the 1840s

"A bit more truthful": the validity of adolescent sexual behaviour data collected in rural northern Tanzania using five methods.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the validity of sexual behaviour data collected from African adolescents using five methods. METHODS: 9280 Tanzanian adolescents participated in a biological marker and face to face questionnaire survey and 6079 in an assisted self-completion questionnaire survey; 74 participated in in-depth interviews and 56 person weeks of participant observation were conducted. RESULTS: 38% of males and 59% of females reporting sexual activity did so in only one of the two 1998 questionnaires. Only 58% of males and 29% of females with biological markers consistently reported sexual activity in both questionnaires. Nine of 11 (82%) in-depth interview respondents who had had biological markers provided an invalid series of responses about sex in the survey and in-depth interview series. Only one of six female in-depth interview respondents with an STI reported sex in any of the four surveys, but five reported it in the in-depth interviews. CONCLUSION: In this low prevalence population, biological markers on their own revealed that a few adolescents had had sex, but in combination with in-depth interviews they may be useful in identifying risk factors for STIs. Self-reported sexual behaviour data were fraught with inconsistencies. In-depth interviews seem to be more effective than assisted self-completion questionnaires and face to face questionnaires in promoting honest responses among females with STIs. Participant observation was the most useful method for understanding the nature, complexity, and extent of sexual behaviour

Remarks to the Ceremony of Achievement

Address presented at Dardanelle High School, Dardanelle, A

Remarks During New Beginnings

Address presented at Ouachita Baptist University, Arkadelphia, A

Transgressing the moral economy: Wheelerism and management of the nationalised coal industry in Scotland

This article illuminates the links between managerial style and political economy in post-1945 Britain, and explores the origins of the 1984–1985 miners' strike, by examining in longer historical context the abrasive attitudes and policies of Albert Wheeler, Scottish Area Director of the National Coal Board (NCB). Wheeler built on an earlier emphasis on production and economic criteria, and his micro-management reflected pre-existing centralising tendencies in the industries. But he was innovative in one crucial aspect, transgressing the moral economy of the Scottish coalfield, which emphasised the value of economic security and changes by joint industrial agreement

The Pavlov-Yerkes Connection: What Was Its Origin?

Historians of psychology traditionally acknowledge Robert Mearns Yerkes as responsible for introducing the work of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov to American psychologists. The introduction occurred in a 1909 Psychological Bulletin paper coauthored with Harvard graduate student, Sergius Morgulls. Yet how Yerkes, who did not read Russian and who never personally used Pavlov\u27s conditioning paradigm, came to know and appreciate Pavlov\u27s endeavors is unclear. This paper examines how Yerkes became acquainted with salivary conditioning studies and suggests a reason why the 1909 paper was actually written