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Although breakfast programs in schools have been encouraged in school-aged children due to numerous benefits on physical and academic performance, participation in School Breakfast Programs (SBP) remains lower than the National School Lunch Program in the United States. Some studies have found that lower participation in the SBP are due to barriers and stigmas. Some studies have found that when breakfast programs are taken into the classroom, uptake of the program improves. However, the relationship between breakfast intake and academic outcomes among young adolescents remains inconclusive. The goal of this study was to examine the effect of a newly implemented Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC) program within a large urban school district in Western Massachusetts. A secondary comparative cross-sectional analysis was conducted to investigate the impact of the “Breakfast in the Classroom” (BIC) program on middle school students’ academic performance, absenteeism rates, and school nurse visits, factors that influence learners positive experience within the school system. Data on a total of 1,897 students from seven public schools in Western Massachusetts were included in the analysis. Linear regression models showed that breakfast in the classroom (BIC) program did not have a significant effect on student academic performance, attendance, and school nurse visits in a cohort of middle school students. Sensitivity analysis on a subset of the sample of students receiving free lunch who are also participants of the BIC program, had significantly higher academic performance outcomes than their BIC peers who were ineligible for the free lunch program. Findings of the study provide important baseline data for both food services and the school board district and can help inform future studies on the impact of the BIC program on student outcomes.

This study explored college students' use of the Internet and Facebook as well as whether usage patterns, and perceptions about the academic effects of use, relate to time spent studying and/or academic performance. One hundred sixty undergraduate students completed an online survey designed to measure the frequency, duration, intensity, and academic impact of their Internet and Facebook use. Results indicate that students devote a significant amount of time to both academic (M = 1.82 hrs per day) and recreational (M = 2.50 hrs per day) Internet activities, and that Facebook users (n = 153, 96% of the sample) spend an average of two hours per day on the site, accounting for almost half of total time spent on the Internet and approximately 80% of recreational use. Results also show that spending more time on the Internet for academic purposes, waiting longer to check Facebook when studying or doing schoolwork, and spending less time on the Internet for fun, are all significant predictor / Educational Psychology

In Chapter 2, I employ the educational production function to identify the different effects of making a friend of the same gender and the opposite gender in a school network. Unlike other gender peer effects literature that only quantifies the causal effects of the proportion of girls in an aggregated level, such as other students in the same class, grade, or dorm, I study the gender of the five best friends nominated by the student. I address the endogeneity of friendship composition by employing a novel set of instrumental variables for the number of same-gender and opposite-gender friends. We find that having more friends, especially in the early accumulation stage, lowers the test scores. We also explore the mechanisms. In Chapter 3, I investigate the role of social learning in enrollment decisions for a public pension scheme. All else equal, if a qualified rural resident moves from a community where no other co- villagers participate in the new pension scheme to a community that is fully covered by the pension scheme, the probability of an individual enrolling by 0.541 percentage point. We use robustness checks to illustrate that the estimated peer effects are not driven by the common unobserved factors, but by social interactions. In Chapter 4, we use the survey data on Chinese middle students and the instrumental variables method to explore the different effects of making friends with the same gender and the opposite gender in a school network on mental health. The empirical results find that having a larger number of same-gender friends improves mental health but having a larger number of opposite-gender friends hurts mental health. / Doctor of Philosophy / We need human connections. Along with other assets, such as money and skills, networks and relationships are resources that could help with economic outcomes in our daily lives. The rapid development of the Internet and the intelligentization of digital devices such as mobile phones have made it easier to establish relationships with others. They also generate much more data nowadays that makes it possible to study social relationships. In this dissertation, we mainly discuss two aspects of social networks. First, we use popularity as a measure of social capital and study how social capital influence middle school students' academic outcomes and mental health outcomes using Chinese data. Given that middle school students are in the embryonic stage of personal emotional development, we distinguish friends by of the same gender or not. We find that popularity with the same gender and the opposite gender differently impacts the outcomes. Second, it is intuitive that under the influence or pressure of a group, an individual tends to make his or her speech and behavior consistent with the group. Therefore, we are interested in if an individual's choice will be driven by other people's choices in the same group. We consider the adoption of a newly introduced pension program for rural residents in China. Besides demographic characteristics, a person's decision is also influenced by those around them. If a higher proportion of his or her co-villagers choose to join the pension plan, he or she is more likely to join.

This study investigates the impact of instructors' positive comments on academic resiliency and student performance. Not only is academic resiliency a stable trait, but we hypothesis that it may be induced or impeded; i.e. academic resiliency is malleable. The Academic Self-Efficacy Scale, Academic Locus of Control Scale, and the Academic Conscientiousness Scale were collected as covariates. It was predicted that participants randomly assigned to the positive teacher support condition would score better on the final exam and demonstrate increased academic resiliency compared to a baseline measure. Conversely, participants randomly assigned to the negative teacher support condition should do poorly on the exam and demonstrate reduced academic resiliency compared to a baseline measure. There were of73 undergraduate participants (13 male, 60 female) with a median age of 22 (SD=7 .19) recruited from a large Southeastern university students who were enrolled in two web-based courses.

Yes / To examine the impact of acute classroom movement break (CMB) and physically active learning (PAL) interventions on physical activity (PA), cognition, academic performance and classroom behaviour. Systematic review. PubMed, EBSCO, Academic Search Complete, Education Resources Information Center, PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus, SCOPUS and Web of Science. Studies investigating school-based acute bouts of CMB or PAL on (PA), cognition, academic performance and classroom behaviour. The Downs and Black checklist assessed risk of bias. Ten PAL and eight CMB studies were identified from 2929 potentially relevant articles. Risk of bias scores ranged from 33% to 64.3%. Variation in study designs drove specific, but differing, outcomes. Three studies assessed PA using objective measures. Interventions replaced sedentary time with either light PA or moderate-to-vigorous PA dependent on design characteristics (mode, duration and intensity). Only one study factored individual PA outcomes into analyses. Classroom behaviour improved after longer moderate-to-vigorous (>10 min), or shorter more intense (5 min), CMB/PAL bouts (9 out of 11 interventions). There was no support for enhanced cognition or academic performance due to limited repeated studies. Low-to-medium quality designs predominate in investigations of the acute impacts of CMB and PAL on PA, cognition, academic performance and classroom behaviour. Variable quality in experimental designs, outcome measures and intervention characteristics impact outcomes making conclusions problematic. CMB and PAL increased PA and enhanced time on task. To improve confidence in study outcomes, future investigations should combine examples of good practice observed in current studies. CRD42017070981.

Yes / For schools to consider physical activity (PA) interventions, improvements must be shown in PA and additional educational benefits such as executive function (EF) and academic performance (AP). Over 8800 schools worldwide have implemented The Daily Mile™ (TDM), without any formal assessments of its impact. Rigorous and high-quality studies are needed to explore TDM's contribution to moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) guidelines and potential impact on EFs and AP. Methods: Children (14 classes, n = 303, age mean = 8.99 ± 0.5) from 11 primary schools already implementing TDM consented. At the individual level, children were randomly assigned using a 4-block process to either TDM or continued academic lessons (TDM n = 158, control n = 145). Children completed pre and post, EF tests (Trail Making Task; Digit Recall; Flanker; Animal Stroop) and a maths fluency test (Maths Addition and Subtraction, Speed and Accuracy Test). Accelerometers assessed MVPA using 15-s-epochs and Evenson cut-points. Results: Using multi-level modelling, TDM revealed significantly greater MVPA (+10.23 min) and reduced sedentary time (−9.28 min) compared to control (p ≤ 0.001, d = 4.92, 3.61 retrospectively). Maths fluency interacted with condition and time (p = 0.031, d = 0.25); post hocs revealed no significances over time (p > 0.05). No differences in EFs (all p > 0.05). Conclusions: This study is the first assessing the acute effects of TDM compared to continued academic lessons. TDM revealed no significant improvements in maths fluency or EF. These findings question justifying the widespread adoption of TDM based on enhanced cognition claims. Nonetheless, TDM may provide 10 min of MVPA, achieving a third of the daily in school recommendations to meet overall daily recommendations.