Browsing by Author "Hein, Sascha D."
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Item An Exploration of the Relations Among Elementary Teachers' Background Characteristics, Self-efficacy, Instructional Practices and Classroom Effectiveness in Science(2017-08) Newell, Alana; Fan, Weihua; Tolar, Tammy; Hein, Sascha D.; Yuan, XiaojingBackground: Science achievement scores for United States students lag behind many international peers, prompting concern that they are not sufficiently prepared to compete in a global economy increasingly driven by science-related fields. Addressing science achievement at the elementary school level through enhanced teacher effectiveness is a potential solution, however, K-5 teachers are often less comfortable with science as compared to other subject areas. Accordingly, an increased understanding of the subject area differences in the relations between and among teacher aspects that impact effectiveness may provide relatable connections from subjects of strength, to weaker areas, such as science. Purpose: The current study investigated the hypothesized relations between aspects of a general teacher effectiveness framework in an elementary science setting. Specifically, the relations between teachers’ background characteristics (years of experience and subject-matter knowledge), self-efficacy, general instructional practices, and effectiveness outcomes were explored. Additionally, the psychometric properties of a recently developed general instructional practices instrument were examined, in order to evaluate its suitability as a self-report measure in a science education setting. Methods: An anonymous survey was distributed online and at science-related conferences to collect teachers’ demographic information, self-efficacy using the 24-item Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES), frequency of use of general instructional practices using the Instructional Strategies (IS) and Behavioral Management Strategies (BMS) scales of the Classroom Strategies Scale – Teacher Form, and effectiveness outcomes as measured by their district assigned value-added score as well as their students’ median passing rate in science. A total of 112 Pre-K-5th grade teachers completed the survey satisfactorily, and were included in subsequent analyses. Principal components analyses (PCA) were first conducted to investigate whether the hypothesized structures were identifiable within the current sample for the IS (subscales: Student Engagement, Instructional Delivery, Academic Performance Feedback, and Promotes Student Thinking), BMS (subscales: Corrective Feedback, Praise, Prevention Management, and Directives/Transitions) and TSES (subscales: Self-efficacy for Instructional Strategies, Self-efficacy for Classroom Management, and Self-efficacy for Student Engagement) scales. Subsequently, the scales were used in a series of regression analyses to investigate relations between background characteristics, self-efficacy, instructional practices, and teachers’ effectiveness outcomes. Results: The hypothesized 4-factor structures of the IS and BMS scales were not identifiable within the current sample, so the 1-factor solution for each was used in subsequent analyses. The 3-factor solution of the TSES was present, and thus the three subscales were used independently within the regression analyses. Relations between several teacher aspects were consistent with those hypothesized in the effectiveness framework: background characteristics and instructional context variables as a group were predictive of all three self-efficacy scales, the frequency of general instructional practices, and both effectiveness outcomes for the majority of the imputed datasets. Additionally, two of the three self-efficacy subscales were predictive of both the IS and BMS scales. Neither self-efficacy nor general instructional practices were predictive of either effectiveness outcome. Conclusion: While the factor structures of the IS and BMS scales were not identifiable in the current study, the high reliability of the 1-factor solutions suggests that further investigation of the best circumstances for their use should be explored in future studies. Many of the relations between aspects of the hypothesized framework within the setting of elementary science education were aligned with the outcomes in other subject areas, supporting the utility of investigating science teacher effectiveness in such a manner. This study contributes to the literature by building upon the existing knowledge of the relations between aspects of teacher effectiveness in such a way that may eventually lead to a common language and understanding of teacher practice across subject areas.Item Associations among Perceived Stress, Stress Coping, and Eating Behaviors(2018-12) Posada, Alexandria; Wiesner, Margit F.; Arbona, Consuelo; Hein, Sascha D.; Olvera, Norma E.; Tolar, TammyBackground: Given the combined high prevalence of overweight and obesity (27%) among college students in the United States, particularly women, there is a need to study the risk factors associated with overweight and obesity in this population. Although some biological, psychological, social, and environmental factors have been investigated, limited research has examined perceived stress, coping, sweet intake, and emotional eating among racially/ethnically diverse college women. Purpose: The present cross- sectional study’s research aims were: 1) to investigate the relationship between perceived stress and sweet intake, 2) to examine the relationship between perceived stress and emotional eating; and 3) to determine if coping strategies moderated these relationships. The following hypotheses were proposed: 1) higher levels of perceived stress would be associated with greater sweet intake; 2) higher levels of perceived stress would be associated with increased emotional eating; and 3) the relationships among perceived stress, sweets intake and emotional eating would be moderated by avoidant coping. That is, a stronger relationship between perceived stress and sweet intake and emotional eating would be observed among students with a higher use of avoidant coping. Methods: The sample consisted of 572 racially/ethnically diverse (30% Hispanic, 29% Asian, and 11% African American) undergraduate college women. Participants completed an online demographic survey and measures of dietary intake, emotional eating, perceived stress, and stress coping. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the factor structure of all latent constructs before study hypotheses were tested. Structural equation modeling indicated that perceived stress factors and avoidant coping did not significantly predict sweet intake. However, perceived stress factors such as perceived helplessness (β = .39, p = .005) and lack of stress self-efficacy (β = -.12, p = .002) were significantly associated with emotional eating. Furthermore, avoidant coping was significantly associated with emotional eating (β = .27, p < .001). Further, avoidant coping was not a significant moderator of the relationships among perceived stress, sweet intake, and emotional eating. Conclusion: Higher levels of perceived helplessness and avoidant coping were related to greater engagement in emotional eating in undergraduate women. Conversely, reporting less stress self-efficacy (i.e., more stress) was related to less engagement in emotional eating. Future research interventions should focus on reducing feelings of perceived helplessness and encouraging alternative coping styles which could lead to a reduction of emotional eating behaviors in undergraduate women.Item Associations between household responsibilities and academic competencies in the context of education accessibility in Zambia(Learning and Individual Differences, 10/1/2013) Reich, Jodi; Hein, Sascha D.; Krivulskaya, Suzanna; Hart, Lesley; Gumkowski, Nina; Grigorenko, Elena L.; The Learning Disabilities ProjectThe relationship between education and socioeconomic status has been demonstrated in studies of the developed and the developing world, yet there are communities in which schooling is either not available to all children or not a preferred activity for all children. In this study, we investigated the differences between children in-school and out-of-school in rural and peri-urban communities of Zambia. As expected, we found that the children in-school performed higher in domains of adaptive behavior and on assessments of academic achievement (i.e., mathematics, reading). Somewhat unexpectedly, however, when controlling for socioeconomic status, home responsibilities (i.e., chores, work) were a positive predictor for the performance of the children out-of-school, but a negative predictor for the children in-school. The relationship between home responsibilities and academic performance may be bidirectional and differential; for example, our findings allow for the hypothesis that for in-school children chores take time away from the studies, but for out-of-school children they provide some limited mathematics exposure.Item Capturing Age-group Differences and Developmental Change with the BASC Parent Rating Scales(Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 7/1/2015) Barbot, Baptiste; Hein, Sascha D.; Luthar, Suniya S.; Grigorenko, Elena L.Estimation of age-group differences and intra-individual change across distinct developmental periods is often challenged by the use of age-appropriate (but non-parallel) measures. We present a short version of the Behavior Assessment System (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 1998), Parent Rating Scales for Children (PRS-C) and Adolescents (PRS-A), which uses only their common-items to derive estimates of the initial constructs optimized for developmental studies. Measurement invariance of a three-factor model (Externalizing, Internalizing, Adaptive Skills) was tested across age-groups (161 mothers using PRS-C; 200 mothers using PRS-A) and over time (115 mothers using PRS-C at baseline and PRS-A five years later) with the original versus short PRS. Results indicated that the short PRS holds a sufficient level of invariance for a robust estimation of age-group differences and intra-individual change, as compared to the original PRS, which held only weak invariance leading to flawed developmental inferences. Importance of test-content parallelism for developmental studies is discussed.Item Child internalizing problems and mother-child discrepancies in perceptions of parenting: Evidence for bidirectional associations(Journal of Family Psychology, 3/1/2018) Hein, Sascha D.; Stone, L.; Tan, Mei; Barbot, Bastiste; Luthar, Suniya S.; Grigorenko, Elena L.We investigated the bidirectional associations between mother–child discrepancies in their perceptions of maternal rejection and children’s internalizing problems over 10 years from pre/early adolescence to early adulthood. Mothers’ reports of rejection and involvement in the parent–child relationship, the children’s perception of the mother’s rejection, and children’s self-report of internalizing problems were collected from a sample of 360 low-income ethnically diverse urban mother–child dyads at three time points (T1, T2, and T3) with 5-year intervals. Children were on average 12.6 years old at T1 (54% girls). Using a series of nested path analyses, we found that mother–child discrepancies while reporting maternal rejection at T1 were predictive of lower ratings of maternal involvement at T2 (β = −.14), which predicted higher levels of internalizing problems at T3 (β = −.16). The presence of mother’s affective disorder was related to T1 mother–child discrepancies (β = .14). Regarding bidirectional associations, children’s internalizing problems predicted maternal involvement across all time points, whereas T2 maternal involvement predicted T3 child internalizing problems. Discrepancies showed small associations with child internalizing problems both concurrently and over time. The findings highlight the importance of early discrepancies in the perception of maternal rejection for child internalizing symptoms.Item Cognitive Dissonance in College: Focusing on the Classroom Experience(2020-08) Balaman, Ayse; Kim, Han Joe; Day, Susan X.; Hein, Sascha D.; Lee, Mimi MiyoungBackground: According to cognitive dissonance theory, when individuals encounter information at odds with their existing values, beliefs, experience, or knowledge, they may experience cognitive dissonance, and consequently engage in dissonance reduction behaviors. The college experience in general, and highly diverse college campuses in particular, are spaces with significant potential for students to encounter dissonance-arousing information. Student responses to such experiences have important implications for conceptual development, which may be facilitated through improved academic material and practices. Past research on cognitive dissonance in college students employing qualitative methods is limited. Purpose: The overall goal of this study is to explore primarily qualitatively, the wider scope of cognitive dissonance experiences of college students, driven by the following questions: 1) What are some thematic trends in dissonance arousing topics important to college students, and the specific settings and contexts in which such topics became relevant? 2) What are students’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to dissonance arousing experiences? Specifically, what information-seeking behaviors do they engage in upon such experiences? 3) Are there any significant systematic relationships between any features of the dissonance experiences and students’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to them? Methods: The sample consists of undergraduate students enrolled in courses listed in the University of Houston SONA research participation system. The study employed a within-stage mixed-model design. At Phase 1, 49 undergraduate college students responded to an online survey with open-ended and closed-ended items, using the Qualtrics data collection software. At Phase 2, an independent sample of eight undergraduate students from the same participant pool participated in 12- to 45-minute semi-structured face-to-face interviews on campus. Data analysis was conducted using thematic analysis for the qualitative data, and frequency counts and chi-square tests of independence for the quantitative data. Results: Topics of cognitive dissonance for undergraduate college students were widely varied, and the second most frequently reported context of dissonance encounters was the classroom setting. Interview data showed dissonance experiences involving classmate behavior, instructor behavior, and course content. Undergraduate students’ self-reports of responses to classroom dissonance experiences consisted of overall negative affect and cognitive and behavioral responses which demonstrated varying levels of disengagement behaviors consisting of withdrawal from the physical classroom environment, avoiding engagement with class content, and superficial engagement with class content. Students also reported positive affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses to dissonance experiences at large. Chi-square results yielded a relationship between positive affective responses and behavior change. Conclusion: Qualitative data found evidence for maladaptive responses to cognitive dissonance experienced in the classroom setting and demonstrated that college classroom dissonance encounters have the potential to lead to disengagement from class material and thus hinder learning at least in the short run. Future research should explore classroom practices aiming to minimize such negative experiences, as well as practices that can facilitate ways in which such experiences--when they do occur--can be transformed into cognitive growth experiences, enhancing the well-being of students.Item Decision Making and Emotional State in Asian and Non-Asian STEM Majors.(2019-12) Kamdar-Sharif, Amber; Wiesner, Margit F.; Day, Susan X.; Hein, Sascha D.; White, Cameron S.Background: Although Asian Americans are the largest growing ethnic group in the United States (Census Bureau, 2014), limited research has studied Asian Americans’ career development and the factors which guide this population into STEM college majors. Purpose: The study of STEM is linked to national economic prosperity in the United States, and college STEM majors are often populated by Asian-background students (Crumb & King, 2010). The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the factors that influence students of Asian background and their college degree and major choices. Three research questions were addressed: (1) Do we have reason to suspect there are differences in cultural and familial expectations when making STEM major decisions between students of Asian background and Non-Asian students, and does student gender make a difference? (2) Do students of Asian background who major in STEM report more negative or positive emotional state than students of Non-Asian backgrounds who pursue a STEM major, and are these emotional states different for male and female STEM students? (3) Are Asian American students’ STEM decision and emotional state associated with their birth order and generational status? The study sought to answer these questions to better understand the factors that are related to these decisions and characteristics. Methods: A total of 215 undergraduate and graduate STEM majors (50.6% male; 58.6% Asian ethnicity/race; 51% of the Asian students were foreign-born/first-generation) at a public research university completed an online survey. After completing questions on several demographic markers (college major, generational status, birth order, gender, age, country of origin), students reported on their perceptions of family and cultural influence on their choices of STEM majors and on their current emotional states. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to test the study hypotheses. Results: Students of Asian background reported significantly higher levels of family and cultural influence on major and career choice than non-Asians. In addition, students of Asian background reported significantly more positive day-to-day affect than non-Asians. Gender also shows a statistically significant difference in levels of reported total influence but not on total positive affect. Specifically, women of both Asian and non-Asian backgrounds reported higher levels of total influence. Generational status among the Asian students was also significantly related to total influence. Conclusion: This study is the first we know of to look at the emotional states of college STEM majors, and its results could inform culturally sensitive career assessment efforts by acknowledging and discussing collectivist points of view as well as the conventional person-environment fit in choosing a college major.Item Development of the Coping Ahead Intervention for Latina First-Generation College Students(2022-08-17) Turner, Sarah Churchill; Kim, Han Joe; Fan, Weihua; Day, Susan X.; Gonzalez, Elsa; Hein, Sascha D.Background: Academic achievement among Latina students has improved rapidly for college enrollment, but degree completion has not. Many of these Latina students are first-generation college students, with neither parent attending college. Without a role model at home with first-hand experience to relate to the struggles of college, providing guidance may help them cope with stressful situations and build confidence. Purpose: Study 1 focused on developing four lessons in the Coping Ahead Intervention to help first semester Latina first-generation college students by targeting optimism, coping strategies, college self-efficacy, and psychological well-being. Study 2 focused on gathering data about differences these malleable factors of resilience among students of different ethnicities and generational status. Research Questions: RQ 1: Among the participants in the Coping Ahead Intervention, were there differences in mean scores in resilience, optimism, college self-efficacy, coping strategies, and psychological well-being before and after the intervention? RQ 2: How did Latina first-generation college students describe stressful situations in their lives that they can change by using the Coping Ahead skills? What potential assets did these students use to compensate for situational adversities? RQ 3: How did the Latina first-generation college students describe their experiences in the Coping Ahead Intervention? RQ 4: Among college students of different ethnicities, generational status, and the interaction effect, were there differences in mean scores between resilience, optimism, college self-efficacy, coping strategies, and psychological well-being? Methods: Study 1. Using a pretest-posttest design, responses were analyzed by using quantitative and qualitative methods. Lessons were adapted for college students from Linehan’s ABC PLEASE emotion regulation skill and Seligman’s positive psychology research. The sequence of lessons was to identify and “cope ahead” for stressful situations in college, increase confidence, identify goals in college, and encourage self-care. In Study 2, responses from 279 female undergraduates were analyzed using two-way MANOVA, descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, and ANOVAs. Results: Study 1. Three students completed four lessons and surveys. The stressful situations included procrastinating, preparing for exams, and connecting with others on campus. Their assets were often grounded in culture, resilience, and social capital in their relationships at home and at school. Study 2. The omnibus MANOVA results showed no significant differences in mean scores across ethnicity and generational status. Conclusion: The participants reported the Coping Ahead Intervention was qualitatively useful in coping with stressful situations, improving relationships, and improving self-acceptance, but not statistically significant in most subscales.Item Differences in Judgments of Creativity: How Do Academic Domain, Personality, and Self-Reported Creativity Influence Novice Judges’ Evaluations of Creative Productions?(Journal of Intelligence, 9/14/2015) Tan, Mei; Mourgues, Catalina V.; Hein, Sascha D.; MacCormick, John; Barbot, Baptiste; Grigorenko, Elena L.Intelligence assessment is often viewed as a narrow and ever-narrowing field, defined (as per IQ) by the measurement of finely distinguished cognitive processes. It is instructive, however, to remember that other, broader conceptions of intelligence exist and might usefully be considered for a comprehensive assessment of intellectual functioning. This article invokes a more holistic, systems theory of intelligence—the theory of successful intelligence—and examines the possibility of including in intelligence assessment a similarly holistic measure of creativity. The time and costs of production-based assessments of creativity are generally considered prohibitive. Such barriers may be mitigated by applying the consensual assessment technique using novice raters. To investigate further this possibility, we explored the question: how much do demographic factors such as age and gender and psychological factors such as domain-specific expertise, personality or self-perceived creativity affect novices’ unidimensional ratings of creativity? Fifty-one novice judges from three undergraduate programs, majoring in three disparate expertise domains (i.e., visual art, psychology and computer science) rated 40 child-generated Lego creatures for creativity. Results showed no differences in creativity ratings based on the expertise domains of the judges. However, judges’ personality and self-perception of their own everyday creativity appeared to influence the way they scored the creatures for creativity.Item Disparities in Psychology: An Analysis of Demographics by Race and Ethnicity at Multiple Stages of Professional Development(2018-08) Alexander, Manju Elizabeth; Smith, Bradley H.; Hein, Sascha D.; Olvera, Norma E.; Hassett, Kristen S.Surveys of racial and ethnic representation indicate under-representation of minorities in psychology. However, published surveys are either outdated or use data from professional organizations that suffer from methodological problems that limit confidence in the conclusions. Nevertheless, professional organizations use these limited surveys to drive interventions and policies to increase diversity in psychology. This study examines the percentage of select racial and ethnic groups in psychology at undergraduate and graduate levels of education, and employment using federally collected data between 2001 and 2016. Data were extracted from the National Council of Education Statistics, the Current Population Survey collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the American Community Survey, collected by the United States Census. Gaps in the training pipeline are filled by data from the American Psychological Association and the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers. These data were analyzed graphically to understand trends in psychology education, training, and employment for Caucasians, as well as non-Caucasian groups including African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics. Results indicate that at the bachelor’s and master’s levels, the percentage of Caucasians in psychology decreased while the percentage of non-Caucasians increased. At the doctoral level, the percentage of non-Caucasians increased, but at a much lower level compared to overall doctorates completed and the population representation. Higher percentages of Asians completed degrees relative to their representation in the overall population but had relatively fewer psychology degree completions. Similar trends were observed at the internship level. However non-Caucasian representation was much lower in APA as well as the psychology workforce. Thus although gains are being made at some points in the psychology pipeline, representation of non-Caucasians in the doctoral and professional levels is declining. Implications are discussed in terms of educational policy, training and professional practice in psychology.Item Epigenetic Patterns Modulate the Connection between Developmental Dynamics of Parenting and Offspring Psychosocial Adjustment(Child Development, 1/1/2017) Naumova, Oksana Yu; Hein, Sascha D.; Suderman, Matthew; Barbot, Baptiste; Lee, Maria; Raefski, Adam; Dobrynin, Pavel V.; Brown, Pamela J.; Szyf, Moshe; Luthar, Suniya S.; Grigorenko, Elena L.This study attempted to establish and quantify the connections between parenting, offspring psychosocial adjustment, and the epigenome. The participants, 35 African-American young adults (19 females and 16 males; age = 17 to 29.5 years), represented a subsample of a three-wave longitudinal 15-year study on the developmental trajectories of low-income urban mother-offspring dyads. Mothers were assessed on their perceptions of maternal stress at each wave. Offspring were assessed on their perceptions of maternal parenting at each wave and on their adaptive and maladaptive behavior at the last wave. Genome-wide DNA methylation in peripheral T-lymphocytes at the third wave was assayed using MBD-sequencing. Statistically significant associations were identified between the change in offspring's perception of parenting from middle childhood to adulthood and the DNA methylation in offspring's adult genomes. Specifically, the slope of perceived parental rejection across the three time points was related to an increase in methylation, or a potential downregulation, of 565 genes thought to be involved in the control of a broad spectrum of biological functions generally related to cellular signaling. A subset of these epigenetic marks, clustered in 23 genes, some of which participate in the development and functioning of the CNS, were in turn associated with psychosocial adjustment as captured by interpersonal relationships and emotional self-evaluation. This appears to be one of the first investigations of the modulating role of the methylome in associations between developmental dynamics of parenting throughout the formative years of child and adolescent development and psychosocial adjustment in adulthood.Item Getting something out of nothing: Analyzing patterns of null responses to improve data collection methods in sub-Saharan Africa(Learning and Individual Differences, 2/1/2017) Hein, Sascha D.; Reich, Jodi; Marks,Sarah; Thuma, Philip E.; Grigorenko, Elena L.Careful development and adaptation of assessments is imperative for cultural psychological research. However, despite the best efforts, the use of assessments in new contexts can reveal atypical and/or unexpected patterns of performance. We found this to be the case in the testing of assessments to be used for a larger investigation of Specific Reading Disabilities in Zambia. In a sample of 207 children (100 female) from grades 2 to 7, we illustrated that assessment characteristics (i.e., stimulus type, answer choice, and response type) differentially impact patterns of responsiveness. The number of missing values was highest for assessments that (1) used written stimuli, (2) had an open-ended answer choice, and (3) required an action response. Age and socio-economic status explained some of the variance in responsiveness in selected, but not all assessments. Consideration of the impact of stimulus and response types when adapting assessments cross-linguistically and cross-culturally is essential.Item Identifying Early Concerns of Autism Spectrum Disorder: The Influence of Patient Ethnicity in Pediatric Physician Decision-Making(2019-08) Racine, Madeline D.; Mire, Sarah S.; Hein, Sascha D.; Gonzalez, Jorge E.; Olvera, Norma E.; Curtis, David F.Background: The latency between when symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) emerge and when children are diagnosed by a health care provider is well-documented. Such delays in ASD diagnosis are even higher for ethnic minority children. This is particularly true for Latino children, though reasons for these disparities are not yet clear. Given the importance of early intervention in improving outcomes in ASD, early and accurate diagnosis for all children is critical. While many children with ASD and their families rely heavily on school-based services, it is often physicians, particularly pediatricians, who have the earliest opportunities to identify symptoms of ASD; however, these important providers may lack sufficient training in and familiarity with ASD. Considering the growing population of Latino families in the United States, increased understanding about potential provider-level factors contributing to ASD diagnostic disparities for Latino children is needed. Purpose: The aims of the study were to examine (1) the effect of child ethnicity (Latino or non-Latino White) upon physician identification of ASD symptoms and subsequent diagnostic decision-making and treatment recommendations; (2) the influence of physician self-reported confidence related to recognizing ASD as a diagnostic consideration; and (3) physician characteristics and experiences that may affect their consideration of an ASD diagnosis, particularly for Latino children. Methods: Sixty-five pediatric physicians were randomly presented with one of two versions of a clinical vignette (i.e. Latino child, White child) that described a hypothetical child (4 year-old male) presenting with various symptoms of ASD and were asked to answer questions designed to gather information about physicians’ identification of ASD symptoms and subsequent decision-making regarding diagnostic considerations and treatment recommendations; a scale of provider confidence in serving children with ASD was also developed and administered. Results: A series of chi-square tests of homogeneity indicated no significant differences in physician recognition of ASD as a differential diagnosis and subsequent diagnostic decision-making and treatment recommendations based on child ethnicity. However, logistic regression indicated physician self-reported confidence in serving children with ASD moderated the effects child ethnicity had on ASD as a first diagnostic consideration; participants who reported higher confidence were more likely to consider ASD as a first diagnostic consideration when the child in the vignette was Latino. Moreover, a measure of confidence was psychometrically assessed as a promising way to measure physician confidence in serving children with ASD that may be used in future studies. Conclusions: The current study offers initial information about pediatric physicians’ decision-making regarding diagnostic considerations and treatment recommendations when presented with a young child with various symptoms of ASD, findings that were not previously available in research. Additionally, findings from this study highlight the role physician self-reported confidence has on the diagnostic consideration of ASD with Latino children. The study also offers unique information regarding physician perceived challenges related to identifying and diagnosing ASD, which represent opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaborations and consultative partnerships between school psychologists and pediatricians. Results are discussed in the context of implications for such cross-disciplinary work with the goal of reducing ASD diagnostic disparities for ethnic minority children.Item Identifying Learning Patterns of Children at Risk for Specific Reading Disability(Developmental Science, 5/1/2017) Barbot, Baptiste; Krivulskaya, Suzanna; Hein, Sascha D.; Reich, Jodi; Thuma, Philip E.; Grigorenko, Elena L.Differences in learning patterns of vocabulary acquisition in children at risk (+SRD) and not at risk (SRD) for Specific Reading Disability (SRD) were examined using a microdevelopmental paradigm applied to the multi-trial Foreign Language Learning Task (FLLT; Baddeley et al., 1995). The FLLT was administered to 905 children from rural Chitonga-speaking Zambia. A multi-group Latent Growth Curve Model (LGCM) was implemented to study interindividual differences in intraindividual change across trials. Results showed that the +SRD group recalled fewer words correctly in the first trial, learned at a slower rate during the subsequent trials, and demonstrated a more linear learning pattern compared to the SRD group. This study illustrates the promise of LGCM applied to multi-trial learning tasks, by isolating three components of the learning process (initial recall, rate of learning, and functional pattern of learning). Implications of this microdevelopmental approach to SRD research in low-to-middle income countries are discussed.Item Mental Health Profiles and Recidivism in Juvenile Justice-Involved Youths(2023-08) Dragomir-Davis, Andreea Maria; Arbona, Consuelo; Wiesner, Margit F.; de Dios, Marcel A.; Hein, Sascha D.Background: Youths with mental health disorders are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system (JJS) and at a higher risk for future JJS involvement (recidivism), compared to youths without mental health disorders. Youths with high mental health symptomatology tend to have a more extensive history of JJS involvement, but the relationship between different mental health profiles and future recidivism has been minimally examined. The literature on JJS-involved youths with mental health or substance use disorders suggests that interventions targeting these needs may decrease the risk of recidivism, but research documenting the effectiveness of mental health interventions in reducing recidivism rates among youth with mental health disorders is scarce. Purpose: The research questions addressed in this study are: (1) Can the youths in this sample be classified into distinct groups, based on their mental health symptomatology? (2) Are there any demographic differences in the distribution of mental health profiles? (3) Does mental health group membership predict whether a youth recidivates and the type of recidivating offense? (4) Is the relationship between mental health group membership and recidivism moderated by the completion of a mental health program? Methods: The data used in the study consisted of records of 9,694 JJS-involved youths, collected between 2017 and 2022 at a large urban juvenile department in Texas. The youths were 75.5% boys, 43.6% Hispanic, 44.8% Black, and 11.6% non-Hispanic White. The measures used in this study were the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-2 (MAYSI-2), two indicators of recidivism, one indicator of completion (or noncompletion) of a mental health program, and demographic information. Statistical analyses included (1) a latent profile analysis using the scores for the MAYSI-2 scales to identify groups of youths with similar patterns of mental health needs, (2) two logistic regression analyses predicting whether a youth recidivated and the type of recidivating offense, and (3) a logistic regression analysis examining the moderator role of completing a mental health program. Results: The results of the latent profile analysis showed that a model consisting of three classes of mental health needs fitted the data the best. The groups that emerged were a low (59.8%), moderate (26.6%), and high mental health needs group (13.7%). The youths in the moderate needs group were more likely to recidivate in general, compared to youths in the low and high needs groups and they were also more likely to recidivate with certain types of offenses (i.e., against person, drug, and weapon offenses). There was no association found between the completion of a mental health program and recidivism rates. Conclusion: The results supported an association between mental health needs and recidivism for the moderate needs group and revealed that this relationship is more nuanced for youths with high needs. The extant literature and present study have provided mixed or inconclusive results regarding the effectiveness of interventions in reducing mental health outcomes and recidivism rates for youths in the JJS.Item Paired Associate Learning Tasks and their Contribution to Reading Skills(Learning and Individual Differences, 1/1/2017) Mourgues, Catalina V.; Tan, Mei; Hein, Sascha D.; Ojanen, Emma; Reich, Jodi; Lyytinen, Heikki; Grigorenko, Elena L.Associative learning has been identified as one of several non-linguistic processes involved in reading acquisition. However, it has not been established whether it is an independent process that contributes to reading performance on its own or whether it is a process that is embedded in other linguistic skills (e.g., phonological awareness or phonological memory) and, therefore, contributing to reading performance indirectly. Research has shown that performance on tasks assessing associative learning, e.g., paired-associate learning (PAL) tasks, is lower in children with specific reading difficulties compared to typical readers. We explored the differential associations of two distinct verbal-visual PAL tasks (the Bala Bbala Graphogame, BBG, and a Foreign Language Learning Task, FLLT) with reading skills (word reading and pseudo-word decoding), controlling for phonological awareness, rapid naming, and letter and digit span in children at risk for reading disabilities and their typically developing peers. Our study sample consisted of 110 children living in rural Zambia, ranging in age from 7 to 18 years old (48.1% female). Multivariate analyses of covariance were used to explore the group differences in reading performance. Repeated-measures ANCOVA was used to examine children’s learning across the PAL tasks. The differential relationships between both PAL tasks and reading performance were explored via structural equation modeling. The main result was that the children at risk for reading difficulties had lower performance on both PAL tasks. The BBG was a significant predictor for both word reading and pseudo-word decoding, whereas the FLLT—only for word reading. Performance on the FLLT partially mediated the association between phonological awareness and word reading. These results illustrate the partial independence of associative learning from other reading-related skills; the specifics of this relationship vary based on the type of PAL task administered.Item Physical Growth and Nonverbal Intelligence: Associations in Zambia(Journal of Pediatrics, 11/1/2014) Hein, Sascha D.; Reich, Jodi; Thuma, Philip E.; Grigorenko, Elena L.Objective: To investigate normative developmental body mass index (BMI) trajectories and associations of physical growth indicators—height, weight, head circumference (HC), and BMI—with nonverbal intelligence in an understudied population of children from sub-Saharan Africa. Study design: A sample of 3981 students (50.8% male), grades 3-7, with a mean age of 12.75 years was recruited from 34 rural Zambian schools. Children with low scores on vision and hearing screenings were excluded. Height, weight, and HC were measured, and nonverbal intelligence was assessed using the Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test, Symbolic Memory subtest and Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition, Triangles subtest. Results: Students in higher grades had a higher BMI over and above the effect of age. Girls had a marginally higher BMI, although that for both boys and girls was approximately 1 SD below the international Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization norms. When controlling for the effect of age, nonverbal intelligence showed small but significant positive relationships with HC (r = 0.17) and BMI (r = 0.11). HC and BMI accounted for 1.9% of the variance in nonverbal intelligence, over and above the contribution of grade and sex. Conclusion: BMI-for-age growth curves of Zambian children follow observed worldwide developmental trajectories. The positive relationships between BMI and intelligence underscore the importance of providing adequate nutritional and physical growth opportunities for children worldwide and in sub-Saharan Africa in particular. Directions for future studies are discussed with regard to maximizing the cognitive potential of all rural African children.Item Reoffending Among Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth With Autism: the Role of Crime Type, Detention, and Aggression in a Primarily White Sample of Offenders(2022-05) Slaughter, Alexandra; de Dios, Marcel A.; Arbona, Consuelo; Mire, Sarah S.; Smith, Nathan Grant; Hein, Sascha D.Background: Previous studies have shown that youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often involved with the juvenile justice system (JJS). However, there is limited research examining criminal reoffending in youth with ASD. Unique characteristics of youth with ASD may make them more likely to reoffend. Furthermore, some of the unique characteristics and factors associated with ASD may also contribute to distinct patterns of criminal reoffending behavior. Examining such factors may provide much needed findings that can be used to design more effective and targeted interventions. Purpose: This longitudinal study aimed to determine whether prior fighting behavior in school and detention facility incarceration increased the risk of reoffending among youth with ASD, as compared to equivalent matched groups of youth without disabilities and youth with other types of disabilities. Methods: Longitudinal archival data from the State of Connecticut’s Judicial Branch, Court Support Services Division, was used to derive a sample of 308 youth involved in the juvenile justice system (including 77 youth with ASD). Binary logistic regression modeling was used to ascertain the relationship between disability status, prior history of fighting behavior in school, and detention stays on two criminal re-offense outcome variables: 1) crimes against persons, and 2) property related crimes, during a three-year follow-up period. Findings: This study found that juvenile justice-involved youth (JJY), regardless of special education classification, with a history of detention stays were twice as likely to have property crime re-offenses as compared to those who did not have a prior detention stay. In addition, the general population of JJY who had a history of fighting behavior in school were twice as likely to reoffend with respect to crimes against persons compared to JJY who did not have a history of fighting in school. No significant differences were found between youth with ASD and youth without disabilities or other disability categories with respect to aggression or detention stays and re-offenses. Conclusions: Given the associations between detention stays, fighting behavior in school, and reoffending, prevention and intervention programs implemented in schools or with first time offenders through the JJS may prevent re-offending. Particularly for JJY with ASD, characteristics of the disorder should be taken into consideration and programs can tailor curriculum to meet the unique needs of this population. A more integrated approach involving schools, community mental health agencies, police, and the courts can be developed in ways that are more responsive to the needs of youth with ASD in order to minimize re-offending among this vulnerable subpopulation of youth.Item School effects on non-verbal intelligence and nutritional status in rural Zambia(Learning and Individual Differences, 2/1/2017) Hein, Sascha D.; Tan, Mei; Reich, Jodi; Thuma, Philip E.; Grigorenko, Elena L.This study uses hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to examine the school factors (i.e., related to school organization and teacher and student body) associated with non-verbal intelligence (NI) and nutritional status (i.e., body mass index; BMI) of 4204 3rd to 7th graders in rural areas of Southern Province, Zambia. Results showed that 23.5% and 7.7% of the NI and BMI variance, respectively, were conditioned by differences between schools. The set of 14 school factors accounted for 58.8% and 75.9% of the between-school differences in NI and BMI, respectively. Grade-specific HLM yielded higher between-school variation of NI (41%) and BMI (14.6%) for students in grade 3 compared to grades 4 to 7. School factors showed a differential pattern of associations with NI and BMI across grades. The distance to a health post and teacher’s teaching experience were the strongest predictors of NI (particularly in grades 4, 6 and 7); the presence of a preschool was linked to lower BMI in grades 4 to 6. Implications for improving access and quality of education in rural Zambia are discussed.Item The Association between Identity and Student Engagement in Engineering Undergraduate Students(2019-12) Li, Nan; Fan, Weihua; Hein, Sascha D.; Wiesner, Margit F.; Arbona, ConsueloBackground: Scholars have been becoming increasingly interested in understanding engineering identity among college students as a means to promote student engagement and preserve students in engineering majors. However, there is a lack of psychometrically strong instrument to empirically assess engineering identity. Moreover, the importance of multidimensional nature of student engagement has not been highlighted in engineering education research. Consequently, little is known about the association between engineering identity and student engagement. Purpose: Drawing on the identity formation theory (Crocetti, Rubini, & Meeus, 2008), the purpose of this cross-sectional study was twofold: (1) to adapt and validate the Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS) to assess college engineering identity and (2) to explore the relations of engineering identity with three facets of college student engagement (i.e., effort, course choice, and persistence). Methods: Two hundred and forty-one engineering undergraduate students (Mage = 22.36 years; 78.4% males) in a large southern urban public university in the United States completed paper-and-pencil and online surveys assessing their identity and student engagement. Results: The findings of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed the three-factor structure of engineering identity (i.e., commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment) among engineering students by excluding one item related to in-depth exploration in the original scale. Good internal consistency was found for each subscale (α = .73 to .88). Regarding validity evidence for the U-MICS, results of Pearson correlation showed that commitment and in-depth exploration were positively correlated with self-efficacy (r = .19 to .42) and subjective task values (r = .47 to .56), whereas reconsideration of commitment was negatively correlated to self-efficacy (r = -.28) and subjective tasks values (r = -.19 to -.36). Juniors scored significantly higher in commitment than sophomores, and Asian students had higher level of reconsideration of commitment than White students. Engineering students who transferred from a two-year college scored higher on commitment than students who started their higher education in a four-year college or students who transferred from another four-year college. In terms of the association between engineering identity and student engagement, results from structural equation modeling (SEM) showed that each dimension of engineering identity had independent contribution to different facets of student engagement. More importantly, commitment and in-depth exploration were equally important predictors of student engagement by addressing collinearity problems through a model comparison approach proposed by Marsh, Dowson, Pietsch, and Walker (2004). Conclusion: This study demonstrates satisfactory psychometric properties of U-MICS for engineering undergraduate students. Additionally, this study advances existing literature by providing empirical evidence with regard to the associations between engineering identity and different facets of student engagement.