We apply a biopsychosocial conceptualization to attention development in the 1st year and examine the role of neurophysiological and social processes on the development of early attention processes. We tested whether maternal behavior measured during 2 mother-child interaction tasks when infants (N = 388) were 5 months predicted infant medial…

We examined children's task engagement during a challenging puzzle task in the presence of their primary caregivers by using a representative sample of rural children from six high-poverty counties across two states. Weighted longitudinal confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to identify a task engagement factor…

Disparities exist among Latinos in educational attainment. These disparities are magnified when comparing their access, persistence, and degree attainment to their Caucasian and Asian American counterparts. The purpose of this quantitative study is to discover the impact of cultural competence among academic advising professionals as it relates to…

Higher levels of civic and community engagement in higher education are positively associated with students' academic performance and they also build upon citizenship skills such as informed voting. Yet, while these are worthy and important outcomes of higher education, students from disadvantaged backgrounds can have more difficulty navigating…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were adopted in an effort to create a consistent set of standards across schools, districts, and states in order to ensure equality of educational opportunities for all students in the country. Educational reform through standardization implies that across thousands of miles and millions of students,…

When randomized control trials (RCT) are not feasible, researchers seek other methods to make causal inference, e.g., propensity score methods. One of the underlined assumptions for the propensity score methods to obtain unbiased treatment effect estimates is the ignorability assumption, that is, conditional on the propensity score, treatment…

Though retrieving information typically results in improved memory on a subsequent test (the testing effect), Peterson and Mulligan (2013) outlined the conditions under which retrieval practice results in poorer recall relative to restudy, a phenomenon dubbed the "negative testing effect." The item-specific-relational account proposes…

Objective: This study examined the utility of living room and church-based small group educational sessions on breast cancer and mammography, for under-served Latinas in North Carolina, USA. Design: Non-randomised, single arm design. Setting: A total of 329 self-selected Latinas participated in 31 small group educational classes in church and home…

Understanding the mechanisms of increasing the number of physics teachers educated per year at institutions with thriving physics teacher preparation programs may inspire and support other institutions in building thriving programs of their own. The Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC), led by the American Physical Society (APS) and the…

Objective: To investigate sexual orientation differences in college men's motivations for HIV testing. Participants: 665 male college students in the Southeastern United States from 2006 to 2014. Methods: Students completed a survey on HIV risk factors and testing motivations. Logistic regressions were conducted to determine the differences…

The purpose of this paper is to showcase new research that seeks to provide guidance on the heterogeneity of treatment effects by utilizing the variance of demographic differences in state assessments. This study is focused on a simple randomized block design where students are nested within schools, and within each school students are randomized…

Historically, there have been different types of instructional practice in education. Before the mid-1980s, administrators pushed content. In the mid-1980s, it was Effective Teaching with the Six-Point Lesson Plan. There were many observations with the Career Ladder of which the researcher was a participant in the pilot program. There came…

There are many promising psychological interventions on the horizon, but there is no clear methodology for preparing them to be scaled up. Drawing on design thinking, the present research formalizes a methodology for redesigning and tailoring initial interventions. We test the methodology using the case of fixed versus growth mindsets during the…

The increased use of value-added measures is a result of policymakers viewing traditional measures of teacher effectiveness as obsolete and unrelated to student achievement. Additionally, literature lacks substantial findings examining the relationship between principal observation ratings and a teacher's value-added scores based on the…

Background: Professional schools, such as schools of pharmacy, are rarely involved with promoting STEM interests among secondary school students. To address this shortcoming, the Young Innovators Program (YIP) was created to provide local secondary school students a summer immersive experiential program at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. The…