<p> Collegiate athletes experience mental health concerns at similar rates to non-athlete students, however, the student-athlete population underutilizes professional mental health help with only 10% of those in need seeking services. Criticisms of the extant research on student-athlete mental health help-seeking include studies that lack theoretical guidance, and convenience samples who are not experiencing a mental health issue. The aim of this study was to conduct a theoretically driven investigation assessing factors of help-seeking associated with the Health Belief Model and Reasoned Action Approach while sampling student-athletes who identified as currently experiencing a personal or emotional health concern. More specifically, the purpose of this study was to investigate which factors of help-seeking behavior predict the likelihood that a student-athlete will seek professional help, and to identify the differences in help-seeking factors between student-athletes with a lower likelihood of seeking help compared to those with a higher likelihood of seeking help. Participants were 269 NCAA student-athletes who completed an online survey assessing factors related to their help-seeking behavior. A multiple liner regression reveled that perceived benefits, perceived susceptibility, and perceived attitudes factors were significant predictors of the likelihood that a student-athlete would seek treatment. Results from a one-way MANOVA showed significant differences between the lower likelihood and the higher likelihood of seeking help group on the perceived seriousness, perceived susceptibility, perceived benefits, instrumental barriers, stigma-related barriers, and the perceived attitudes factors. Additional information gathered in this study suggests the most frequently reported factors which prevented student-athletes from seeking help include a belief the issues they are experiencing is not that serious, or a desire to seek help from a source other than a mental health professional. Findings from this study have implications for athletic departments, campus counseling centers, and future interventions designed to enhance mental health help-seeking.</p><p>

No description available.

A small scale, case-study evaluation was carried out on a pilot training programme for early years practitioners. The programme used was the ‘Communicating Matters’ materials, published by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES 2006), which was designed to support the development of practitioners’ understanding and skills in relation to children’s speech, language and communication. Effective skills in the area of language and communication are considered critical to academic achievement and later life chances. The evaluation aimed to highlight issues of programme implementation and practitioner learning. The objectives of the study were related to identifying whether practitioners had gained knowledge about key areas of language and communication development and whether they were able to reflect on and identify how they would implement knowledge and skills gained from the programme. In addition, the evaluation sought to understand the process of implementation and identify issues to be considered in future delivery. A mixed methods approach to the evaluation was used to obtain data through questionnaire feedback from participants and interview data from programme trainers. Results indicated that practitioners had benefitted from the programme, at least in the short-term. Participants reported improved knowledge about the development of speech, language and communication and many identified key changes that they planned to make to their behaviour, in addition to strategies that they intended to use to support children. Further longer-term investigation is required in order to make more comprehensive claims about the success of the programme with respect to the retention and application of learning and outcomes for children. The implementation of the programme was examined and difficulties with the length and expectation of the training programme were identified along with other issues related to professional development for early years practitioners.

No description available.

This thesis describes a biographical research study in which eight educational psychologists took part in interviews with the researcher, who is also an educational psychologist, on the subject of 'reliable evidence'. As part of this process participants were asked to discuss the personal and professional influences that have shaped their epistemological positioning and practice as applied psychologists. The research is located within broader themes in the literature that encompass debates about the relative merits of qualitative and quantitative approaches, the scientific tradition in psychology, evidence based practice, and the turn towards standpoint perspectives in the social sciences. It is argued that a broadly positivist epistemology remains dominant within psychology as a professional discipline and that this creates tensions for many practitioner-psychologists who find its assumptions incompatible with the majority, if not all, of their work. Thematic analysis of the interviews reveals that the participants see only a very blurred boundary between their personal and professional lives and that this influences their positioning on questions of methodology and the establishment of knowledge claims. There is scepticism amongst the participants about the value of concepts such as 'reliable evidence', and concern that 'science', as the British Psychological Society has defined that term, is of relatively limited use to them and their colleagues in educational psychology. Participants feel that the generic practice of educational psychologists - work that is principally with individual children and young people, parents, teachers and other professionals - is not valued as highly within their profession as research and systemsbased work that seeks to bring about change at an organisational level. This is because the generic practice of an educational psychologist requires a highly pragmatic 'real world' approach, whereas research and systems-based work are widely perceived to offer more opportunities to implement a rigorous and scientific methodology capable of generating 'reliable evidence'. The thesis concludes by proposing that a pragmatic epistemology can be applied to the research and generic practice elements of the work of educational psychologists through the adoption of the 'bricoleur' model, which could help address the disjuncture that educational psychologists perceive between those two aspects of their role.

Emotional difficulties in children and young people are associated with poor behavioural, social and educational outcomes (Kern, Hilt-Panahon & Sokol, 2009). A systematic review was carried out to explore the effects of therapeutic writing interventions on students’ emotional and academic outcomes and to develop an understanding of the underlying mechanisms that might help to explain these effects. Therapeutic writing interventions were found to be effective in reducing symptoms of stress, depression and anxiety and were related to improvements in academic performance. Underlying mechanisms that were associated with positive outcomes included changes in cognition, improvements in coping strategies and improvements in working memory capacity. The review highlighted a lack of research exploring the effects of therapeutic writing techniques on academic outcomes with younger students. The empirical paper sought to address some of the gaps in the existing research highlighted in the review. The research utilised a sequential explanatory mixed methods design to investigate the effects of a therapeutic storywriting intervention on children’s writing. The first quantitative phase consisted of two studies. The first study investigated the effects of a therapeutic storywriting intervention on children’s writing achievement in comparison to a matched control group. The intervention group (n=28) made significantly greater academic gains compared to the control group (n=28). The second study examined to what extent the intervention facilitated cognitive changes through exploring changes in children’s use of written language during the therapeutic storywriting intervention. There were some significant changes in children’s use of emotional and causal words; however these did not significantly predict greater academic gains. In the second qualitative phase, narrative analysis was used to explore and compare the stories written by children who had made the most and least gains. There were a number of similarities between both groups’ stories; however more of the stories written by children who had made the least gains ended negatively and lacked helpful secondary characters. The quantitative and qualitative findings are discussed with reference to prior research.

This research study set out to describe the impact of the working memory system and other cognitive processes related to dyslexia difficulties in writing performance in students with dyslexia. Twenty dyslexic and twenty non-dyslexic students have participated in this study. The Working Memory Test Battery for Children (WMTB-C) and the Test of Written Language (TOWL-3) were administered to the subjects. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that the central executive component of the WM system significantly predicted higher-order writing skills (structural level) and that the phonological loop predicted vocabulary in text generation for students with dyslexia, whereas the visuo-spatial sketchpad did not influence written production for students with dyslexia. The texts produced by students with dyslexia were poorer than the controls on both sentence and structural levels. The analysis suggested the interdependence of a variety of cognitive processes in influencing written productivity in students with dyslexia. More importantly, this study has underlined the unique contribution of vocabulary knowledge on both sentence and structural levels; it was found to be the variable mediating the links between central executive (WM) and text generation in students with dyslexia. Finally, the analysis yielded that there was no interactive effect between central executive (WM) and dyslexia-related difficulties in writing performance of students with dyslexia. In the light of the findings implications for practice are considered and recommendations of future research are discussed.

<p> Research has indicated that African American undergraduate students experience racial microaggressions within their university contexts, and these experiences are associated with negative outcomes such as symptoms of depression and anxiety (Cokely, Hall-Clark, &amp; Hicks, 2011; Nadal, 2011; Nadal, et al., 2014). Little is known about the experience of microaggressions and their effects on African American doctoral students, particularly those within the field of psychology. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between racial microaggressions, sense of belonging, coping strategies (problem solving, social support and avoidance), and psychological well-being among African American doctoral students in psychology. Results revealed that every participant had experienced at least one racial microaggression in their doctoral program within the last six months, with the most common types being related to environment and assumptions of inferiority. Contrary to hypotheses, results from a hierarchical multiple regression analyses suggested that racial microaggressions did not significantly predict psychological well-being in this sample. Findings also did not provide evidence for social support, problem solving, avoidance, or sense of belonging as moderators for the negative impact of microaggressions. Overall, the results of this study suggest that African American doctoral students in psychology experience racial microaggressions, but questions remain about the effects of these experiences on psychological well-being. Implications and future research directions are discussed.</p><p>

<p> Stress overload is the destructive form of stress when the demands of stressors outweigh the resources one has to counter these stressors. Previous research has shown it to predict illness, poor grades, and the use of maladaptive coping strategies (i.e., avoidance). This study examines the direct and indirect effects (by way of coping strategies) of stress overload on academic performance in a sample of 1,039 freshman. It was hypothesized that stress overload would be related to poor academic performance, as measured by GPA and enrollment status. Findings from hierarchical regression analyses showed stress overload and avoidance coping were related to poor academic performance. Contrary to the hypotheses, however, coping strategies did not mediate the relationship between stress overload and academic performance: instead, tests suggested that stress overload mediates the relationship between avoidance and performance. That is, stress overload may be an aftereffect of maladaptive coping strategies, in this case avoidance, and thereby has the more proximal effect on students&rsquo; academic performance. The implications of these findings for university retention efforts, and limitations of the study, are discussed.</p><p>

<p> <b>Purpose.</b> The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand how middle school teachers describe their use of the four elements of emotional intelligence (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management) to reduce student behavioral referrals. In addition, it was the purpose of this study to discover the barriers and benefits to teacher use of the elements of emotional intelligence (EI). </p><p> <b>Methodology.</b> This study utilized a qualitative approach to understand how middle school teachers describe their use of the four elements of EI to reduce student behavioral referrals. In addition, a qualitative approach was utilized to discover the barriers and benefits to teacher use of the elements of EI. A sample of middle school teachers from San Bernardino and Los Angeles Counties participated through in-depth interviews. The data were coded to describe similarities and differences in perceptions of how participant teachers described their use of the four elements of EI to reduce the number of written office referrals. </p><p> <b>Findings:</b> Analysis of interview data resulted in 13 themes. Nine key findings were identified based on the frequency of references by study participants. Building relationships with students was considered important, building trust between teacher and student is important as well as establishing structure in the classroom and clear oral and written communication. Reported benefits of EI included better relationships with students, higher levels of student engagement, and more trusting relationships. Reported barriers included student home lives and limited training for EI. </p><p> <b>Conclusions:</b> The 9 key findings were summarized as 5 conclusions. Teachers in this study stressed the importance of building relationships, using the four skills of EI to build better relationships, engaging students through EI, and establishing trust with students. Teachers also need additional training to hone their EI skills. </p><p> <b>Recommendations:</b> Further research of outlier teachers at all grade levels across the U.S. should be conducted.</p><p>