Social functioning among college students diagnosed with ADHD and the mediating role of emotion regulation

Despite the many studies that have documented the association between symptoms of ADHD and social difficulties in children and adolescents, few have examined this phenomenon in college students. In addition, the underlying factors contributing to such social difficulties are still poorly understood. We hypothesised that college students with symptoms of ADHD, namely inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity, would continue to display social behavioural difficulties, and that emotion regulation would play a mediating role in that relationship. Ninety-nine 17–24-year-old college students filled out three questionnaires to assess Inattentive and Hyperactivity/Impulsivity Symptoms, Social Skills, and Emotion Regulation abilities. Analysis revealed that emotion regulation is a significant mediator between Inattentive Symptoms and Social Skills for female students. There was no significant correlation between ADHD symptoms and Social Skills for males. Female college students report social functioning difficulties associated with their inattentive and hyperactive symptoms, and impaired emotion regulation abilities mediate this relationship for inattentive symptoms only.     

Comprehensive Sexuality Education for Adolescents in Zambia via the Mobile-Optimized Website TuneMe: A Content Analysis

Abstract

Adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa encounter high risks associated with sexuality and reproduction, yet face numerous barriers in obtaining appropriate health services and information. Mobile phones provide a unique opportunity to provide youth with this critical sexual and reproductive health information need. Designed from the United Nations Comprehensive Sexuality Education framework, the mobile-optimized app TuneMe aims to provide adolescents living in eight sub-Saharan African countries—Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho, South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia—with sexual and reproductive health information, and to promote uptake and use of sexual and reproductive health services. To assess the scope and appropriateness of TuneMe’s sexuality education content, we conducted a directed content analysis of the 299 articles published on the Zambia-specific TuneMe site between October 2015 and June 2017. Results from this analysis indicate that the greatest information provided by TuneMe was on sexual and reproductive health and HIV, followed by relationships, sexual rights, and citizenship. There was substantially less information that focused specifically on matters of pleasure, violence, diversity, and gender. Content was situated within relatable and culturally-relevant contexts, but gave mixed, and often problematic, depictions of gender norms. This assessment is central to understanding current and future mobile-based sexuality education programming.     

Carnival in the Curriculum

This article focuses on a carnival in the curriculum project designed to revitalise the arts in the experience of students in Higher Education preparing to become primary school teachers. It argues the relevance of a combined arts or trans‐disciplinary artform in the remit of a visual arts education journal and explores carnival as a complex, inclusive, multifaceted and multidimensional cultural practice with deep historical and social roots. It locates carnival within theory and the debate about the arts in schools in the UK from the early 1980s. Drawing on the analysis of interviews with students and teachers in carnival project schools, issues and themes such as student involvement, creativity, artists in schools, and cross‐curricular learning are explored, concluding that carnival in the curriculum provides an opportunity for agency within the regulated official curriculum.     

Bridging the gap between observation protocols and formative feedback

In this study, we sought to identify how feedback about classroom observations affected novice university mathematics instructors’ (UMIs) teaching practices. Specifically, we examined how a Red–Yellow–Green feedback system (RYG feedback) affected graduate student instructor (GSI) scores on an observation protocol (GSIOP). The protocol was developed specifically for this population, and both the GSIOP and RYG feedback were used within a peer mentoring program for GSIs, wherein novice GSIs were mentored by more experienced GSIs. Mentors observed novices’ classrooms using the GSIOP and provided RYG feedback as part of observation–feedback cycles. We analyzed 100 sets of scores, each collected over the course of a semester containing on average three observation–feedback cycles. Analyzing the semester-long datasets longitudinally provided insight into what types of feedback informed and influenced observed teaching. After qualitatively coding the feedback provided to the GSIs by their mentors along multiple dimensions, we found certain forms of feedback were more influential for observable changes in GSIs’ teaching. For example, pedagogical feedback that included contextualization (context and focal events) demonstrated a more positive change in GSIOP score than feedback that lacked contextualization. Our results suggest that contextual formative feedback has a positive change to student-focused and teacher-focused observations.

     

“I'm Kind of a Feminist”: Using Master Narratives to Analyze Gender Identity in Middle Childhood

A robust literature documents the significance of gender in children's development, but gaps remain in understanding how developing gender identities link to gender inequalities. This article uses master narratives to analyze the ways that children's gender narratives reinforce or disrupt gender inequality. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 233 Black, White, mixed- and other-race minority children (7–12 years old; M_age = 9.92; 61% girls) in racially diverse schools in the Pacific Northwest. Four narrative types were identified: two “master narratives” that reinforced gender inequality and two “alternative narratives” that disrupted it. Analyses revealed that 5th/6th-graders (vs. 2nd–4th graders) and girls (vs. boys) were more likely to tell alternative narratives. The contributions of master narratives for understanding gender identity, development, and inequality are discussed.     

General Communication

COMMUNICATION RESEARCH: ISSUES AND METHODS by James A. Anderson (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987--price not given)

MASS MEDIA RESEARCH: AN INTRODUCTION by Roger D. Wimmer and Joseph R. Dominick (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1987---price not given)

SEARCH STRATEGIES IN MASS COMMUNICATION by Jean Ward and Kathleen Hansen (New York: Longman, 1986---$34.95/15.95)

THE KNOWLEDGE INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES: 1960-1980 by Michael Rogers Rubin and Mary Taylor Huber (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986---$40.00)

KNOWLEDGE GENERATION, EXCHANGE, AND UTILIZATION edited by George M. Beal, et al. (Houlder,CO: Westview Press, 1986---$38.00, paper)

OVERLOAD AND BOREDOM: ESSAYS ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY by Orrin K. Klapp (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986---$29.95)

INTERNEDIA: INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION IN A MEDIA WORLD edited by Gary Gumpert and Robert Cathcart (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986---$16.95, paper)

MAPPING THE INFORMATION BUSINESS by John McLaughlin and Anne Lousie Antonoff (Cambridge: Harvard University Program on Information Resources Policy, 1986---price not given, paper)