Purpose The overarching purpose of this exploratory study was to understand how foster parents' parenting-related stress levels have changed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the role of sociodemographic characteristics in exacerbating risk for increased stress. Method Participants were electronically surveyed about their pre-and post-pandemic parenting-related stress, using an adapted version of the parenting stress scale. Results Nine-hundred and ninety foster parents (N = 990) participated in the study. Overall, foster parents reported significant increases along three specific domains of stress-namely, parenting stress, lack of control, and parental satisfaction (reversescored). Analyses for group differences on the post-only scores indicated that foster parents who are not married, or who report poorer mental health (i.e., "good", versus "very good" or "excellent") or financial circumstances (i.e., as indicated by not reliably having more income than expenses) may face increased risk for exacerbated stress during this pandemic. Discussion Findings from this study indicate that parental stress-levels among foster parents have increased since the start of COVID-19. These findings are not only troubling for foster caregivers, but may also have implications for the youth in their care. Ultimately, results from this study indicate the need to better support foster parents, in general, and during public health crises, specifically.
Are hiring decisions affected by knowledge that a job applicant was previously laid off? We expected decisional biases to be linked with the motivational tendency to believe that society is fair and outcomes are just and deserved (hereafter, system justifying beliefs [SJBs]). Indeed, hiring decisions were more likely to disadvantage a laid off applicant as SJBs increased both when detailed job application information was reviewed for one laid off applicant (Study 1) and when the applicant was described as one of many laid off as the result of corporate downsizing (Study 2). Furthermore, both experiments supported a mediation model, whereby greater endorsement of SJBs was associated with greater perceptions of weaknesses in the laid off applicant, which in turn led to less sympathy, and finally to biased hiring decisions. Study 2 additionally demonstrated that all findings held when controlling for other ideologies.
Students' school engagement is widely regarded as critical for positive school adjustment and overall academic success. Foster youth persistently face poorer educational outcomes than peers and demonstrate lower levels of school engagement and higher levels of academically threatening behaviors. The goals of the present study were (a) to explore relationships amongst various child‐level correlates of school engagement and problem behaviors—namely, self‐esteem and social skills—and (b) to respectively investigate the protective potential of self‐esteem and social skills in the association between school engagement and behavior problems that threaten educational trajectories. Results indicate significant associations between school engagement and problem behaviors, as well as between self‐esteem, social skills, and school engagement. Further, self‐esteem mediated the association between school engagement and both youth‐ and foster parent‐reported externalizing behavior, and social skills mediated the association between school engagement and both youth‐ and foster parent‐reported externalizing behavior. Implications for future practice, research, and policy are discussed.
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AbstractObjective -The purpose of this research was to examine how beginning and advanced level engineering students report use of information when completing an engineering design process. This information is important for librarians seeking to develop information literacy curricula in the context of engineering design.Methods -Researchers conducted semi-structured interviews about information strategies used in engineering design with 21 engineering students (10 first and second year; 11 senior and graduate). Researchers transcribed interviews and developed an inductive coding scheme. Then, from the coding scheme, researchers extracted broader themes.Results -Beginning level engineering students interviewed: (a) relied primarily on the parameters explicitly given in the problem statement; (b) primarily used general search strategies; (c) were documentation oriented; and (d) relied on external feedback to determine when they had found enough information. Advanced level engineering students interviewed: (a) relied on both their own knowledge and the information provided in the problem statement; (b) utilized both general and specific search strategies; (c) were application oriented; and (d) relied on self-reflection and problem requirements to determine when they had found enough information.Conclusion -Beginning level students describe information gathering as externally motivated tasks to complete, rather than activities that are important to inform their design. Advanced level students describe more personal investment in their use of information through consideration of information based on their prior knowledge and questioning information. Future research should consider how to best support beginning level engineering students' personal engagement with information.
State-level child welfare policies and practices affect what can be referred, investigated, and substantiated as child maltreatment, and these institutional factors vary across states and over time. Researchers typically have not accounted for these factors in analyses, confounding institutional features with the underlying construct they seek to study. The present study addresses this limitation by demonstrating how changes in specific state child welfare policies and practices influence reported and substantiated maltreatment in the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS). Using negative binomial models with state and year fixed-effects to analyze data from 2005 to 2018, we found significant influence of state policy and practice changes on state-level rates of reported and substantiated maltreatment over time. If a state implemented three of the most common policy changes—adding mandated reporters, centralized intake, and staff—its maltreatment reports were an estimated 32% higher than they would have been in the absence of these changes. By contrast, most state policy changes decreased the number of reports that were substantiated—by 24% if they implemented both differential response and higher standards of proof. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.
Objective: The present study had three major aims: 1) To identify subgroups of adults with differing combinations of childhood maltreatment exposures, 2) to understand the association of childhood maltreatment subgroup membership with subjective sleep quality in midlife, and 3) to assess poor sleep quality in midlife as a mechanism between childhood maltreatment subgroup membership and physical functional limitations in late adulthood. Design: Data come from the Biomarker project of the Midlife Development in the United States study (n = 1,251). Outcome Measures: The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (Buysse et al., 1989) was used to assess sleep quality in midlife. Functional limitations in late adulthood was measured using a version of the SF-36 (Brazier et al., 1992) Results: Two vulnerable childhood maltreatment subgroups emerged (Physical and Emotional Maltreatment Subgroup , n = 49, and Sexual Abuse Subgroup , n = 105) and a normative subgroup (n= 1,087; low exposure to childhood maltreatment). Poor sleep quality in midlife mediated the association between both maltreatment subgroups and functional limitations in late adulthood. Conclusion: Results highlight the role of sleep in linking childhood maltreatment with functional impairments in adulthood and offer a potential target for interventions to improve quality of life in older adults.
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