Teacher coaching with performance feedback is widely used in single-case literature to train teachers to implement a variety of strategies and interventions in their classrooms. Meta-analyses of teacher coaching have been conducted in the group design literature and on studies examining the influence of coaching on teacher treatment integrity in the single-case literature. However, the present study is the first to examine the collective single-case effects of teacher coaching with performance feedback on generalizable and maintainable teacher skills that promote teacher effectiveness. A literature search and qualitative coding process yielded 52 single-case studies examining the influence of teacher coaching with performance feedback on teacher implementation of 13 categories of generalizable skills. Included studies used multiple baseline and multiple probe designs and were coded for a variety of qualitative study characteristics. All studies were rated for quality using adapted two-level standards from Ganz and Ayers (2018) and the What Works Clearinghouse standards. Log response ratios were calculated for effect size estimates. These effect sizes were then synthesized in three sets of multi-level models with random effects for studies and cases within studies. Overall, teacher performance feedback was found to result in a 227% change in teacher implementation of skills or strategies in the classroom. When multi-level models were subset by teacher skill, seven of the 13 dependent variable groups demonstrated significant results. Twelve predictors included in an overall model revealed non-significant moderating effects, including publication status and study quality. The present meta-analysis supports teacher coaching with performance feedback as an evidence-based professional development practice in the context of single-case research, although results may vary depending on teacher target behavior. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. / School Psychology

Purpose. Sensory feedback from the vestibular system and neck muscle stretch receptors is critical for the regulation of posture. The relationship of the head to the trunk is a major factor determining the availability and integration of sensory feedback and can be interfered with by varying head orientation. The goal of this research was to assess (1) how adopting different head-on-trunk orientations would impact postural stability, particularly in relation to the stability boundary, during static balance tasks and (2) how adopting different head-on-trunk and head-in-space orientations would impact postural stability, movement characteristics, and multi-segmental torso coordination during a dynamic postural transition task in healthy, young participants. Methods. Healthy, young participants were asked to maintain 30 seconds of upright stance and forward lean or to move from sitting to standing with extended, flexed, and neutral head orientations. Dual force plates were used to assess postural stability from center of pressure variability, range, velocity, or time-to-contact. Six motion capture cameras were used to assess kinematics. During the sit-to-stand task, head velocities, trunk flexion, and movement phase durations were calculated. Segment cross-correlation and joint range of motion were calculated for six torso segments. Results. Extended head-on-trunk orientations decreased postural stability during upright stance, forward lean, and the sit-to-stand movement compared to flexed or neutral orientations. During the sit-to-stand task, head-on-trunk extension, with or without head-in-space extension, led to reduced head velocities, trunk flexion, movement duration, and transition phase duration. Head extension led to increased inter-segmental torso motion, and decreased temporal coordination of torso segments. Conclusions. This study demonstrated that interfering with head-trunk posture by adopting head extended orientations impairs balance and leads to sit-to-stand strategy changes that may interfere with movement and coordination. Results show that head-on-trunk extension is more critical than head-in-space extension for determining postural and movement changes. The findings suggest that vestibular system interference may not be the main route through which head extension impacts postural control, but that extensor muscle stretch receptors may be a factor in the posture and movement changes associated with head-on-trunk extension. It is possible tonic neck muscle activity is a critical factor for regulating balance and movement.

The increasing implementation of teams in organizations has led to much research attention around team processes and performance. Uncertainty exists, however, in how team processes impact collaborative activities and, ultimately, team performance. Recent research has focused on team cognition as a potential means of explaining this uncertainty. Extending this line of inquiry, my dissertation research focuses on the interplay between teams' cognitive and communicative processes that have been implicitly linked in past team research. Specifically, I examine mental model convergence among team members as a specific type of team cognition. By integrating cognition and communication explicitly, the process of mental model convergence as it unfolds during collaborative activities may be analyzed via the verbal exchange of mental model content. Herein, I compare baseline, intervention, and optimal team communication processes to understand how the communication patterns evoking the underlying mental model convergence process of baseline teams may be changed by team interventions and how the process differs among them. Baseline team data comes from 60 student teams working in a laboratory setting. These data are also used to create a model of team communication processes, which is then implemented to simulate the communication processes of teams receiving interventions. The two types of team intervention conditions investigated include initiating collaborative activities with a specific topic discussion and delaying the start of task activities. The teams with optimal communication processes are obtained using genetic algorithm optimization procedures for combinatorial problems with multiple objectives. Specifically, the genetic algorithm evolves generations of team communication processes, beginning with the baseline data, toward optimal cost and time performance. In addition to examining the mental model convergence process, the performance of intervention teams, analyzed on a neural network generated performance assessment model, is compared to baseline teams receiving no interventions and optimal teams. Results indicate that team interventions do not improve team performance equally. Furthermore, event history analysis indicates a temporal shift in the timing of communication patterns between baseline teams and top intervention teams (i.e., the best performing teams receiving interventions). Moreover, top intervention teams have mental model convergence processes that emulate those of optimal teams.

Within the field of deaf education, a commonly held belief is that the incidence of acts of aggression will decrease as the hearing impaired child's competence in language increases. To examine this relationship, a longitudinal study using file reviews was conducted with a sample of bilaterally deaf males aged 4 to 14 from a residential school. Frequency counts of aggression and scores on the Reading subtest of the Stanford Achievement Test-Hearing Impaired were examined for the school years beginning in 1986, 1987, 1988 by means of a Time Series Analysis. This analysis showed a significant trend in the direction of establishing a correlation between lower levels of aggression and increases in language competence.

Introduction: How individuals deal with outcomes under unknown risks (I.e. ambiguity) can be important for understanding decisions in the real world. One commonly applied model for ambiguous decisions, maxmin expected utility (MMEU), suggests that people only focus on the range of probabilities. However, other models, including subjective recursive expected utility (SREU), suggest that instead of thinking about the range, people construct a belief about the probabilities as a distribution, based on their experiences or intuition. MMEU has been used to relate ambiguity preferences to clinical disorders, including autism spectrum disorder. However, if SREU models are a better reflection of decisions under ambiguity, these differences may be related to beliefs instead of preferences. Methods: To investigate the role of beliefs in ambiguous decisions, we collected choice and personality data from an online sample (N=298) utilizing a novel task. In our task, participants make decisions under ambiguity after learning about the distribution of probabilities during a previous decision task. We test if variance in beliefs influences decisions under ambiguity, interacts with reward feedback, and accounts for individual differences related to a clinical variable, the Autism Quotient (AQ) to explore the bounds of the MMEU model. Results: Participants preferred ambiguous stimuli associated with high variance distributions and made larger changes in response to feedback information when applied to high variance distributions. We did not replicate results showing that ambiguity aversion decreased with AQ but did find AQ decreased with the believed variance of probabilities. Conclusions: Our results provide experimental evidence that decisions under ambiguity are influenced by beliefs, violating a key axiom of MMEU, suggesting previous results should be revisited by incorporating beliefs to better understand the mechanisms of ambiguous choice. / Psychology

<p> Research demonstrates that there is a gap in focusing understanding factors of information communication technology (ICT) acceptance and use in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). ICT is gaining popularity because it is a force in the economic growth equation. SMEs adopt ICT to promote their business strategy, performance, and growth. This study focused on the factors influencing ICT acceptance and use in SMEs. The research questions were 1) what factors influence SME owners/managers to accept ICT in Kenya? 2) What is the relationship between ICT acceptance and SMEs retail business growth in Kenya? and 3) What is the relationship between ICT usage and SMEs retail business growth in Kenya? The researcher used quantitative research methodology to survey SME owners/managers in Kenya. The researcher hand delivered the survey to 121 potential participants, of which 118 responded. This study evaluated factors of ICT acceptance in SMEs, the relationship between ICT acceptance and SME growth, and the relationship between ICT usage and SME growth. Research findings showed that customer services, cost reduction and business relationships were the most influential factors of ICT acceptance. Computer applications and mobile phones were the most commonly used ICT tools. The study found a strong positive relationship between ICT acceptance and SME growth, and a moderate positive relationship between ICT usage and SME growth. The research results are valuable to stakeholders including potential entrepreneurs, sponsors, government official and financial institutions who make informed decision and formulate policies about ICT investment and effective business strategies for SMEs growth.</p>

<p> This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study designed to describe the experience of HIV medication adherence using a mobile phone application. For the purpose of this qualitative study, nine semi-structured focus group discussions were conducted over a three-month period at an AIDS service organization in Central Texas. The data were analyzed following the principles of thematic analysis. During analysis, four themes were identified and relations between these themes were delineated to reflect the experiences of the 23 participants. Improving adherence to antiretroviral therapy is key in reducing the morbidity and mortality of HIV disease; and daily medication adherence may prevent the occurrence of the development of drug resistant mutant strains of HIV (Mbuagbaw et al., 2011). Adherence to ART may be complex secondary to person, behavioral, and treatment factors (Halkitis, Palamar, &amp; Mukjerjee, 2008); and noncompliance to taking daily HIV medications may be considered a community health issue secondary to risk for viral transmission. The mobile phone application, Care4TodayTM Mobile Health Manager, was the intervention tool; and collection of focus group discussion outcomes over a three-month period with baseline versus end-of-study data determined the feasibility and acceptability of this medication adherence intervention. The greater the intention to engage in a behavior, such as daily adherence to HIV medication regimes, the greater is the likelihood of its performance. The findings suggest that when individuals are offered the necessary resources, such as a mobile phone medication reminder application, they may have greater success in performing the behavior.</p>

<p> This action research exploratory study sought to learn how to better develop my practice by using grounded theory. It explored the apparent cognitive transformational experience of nine participants over a period of four weeks after the implementation of an intervention called Mindfulness into Action. The informal intervention was used with the Kichwa community in the Amazon rainforest and three additional formal interventions were conducted in the United States, Ecuador, and Norway over six years, in each case supported by higher education institutions. Using grounded theory methodology, the researcher found that participants were in the initial &ldquo;reactive&rdquo; state in Phase 1, experiencing conflict, resistance, stress, and victim identity. These characteristics were unknown to participants who were just reacting to everyday life experiences. In Phase 2, participants became aware of their behaviors, but could not stop non-beneficial behaviors. In Phase 3, they could observe their unknown behaviors and then change their sabotaging behaviors. Other salient characteristics from Phase 3 were happiness, being at peace with themselves, tolerance, and effectiveness. </p><p> There is a tendency to believe that change does not come easily, especially for adults, because our mental models rule our lives (subconsciously). However, participants were all adults from distinct walks of life who observed their unknown assumptions and reported change in their lives and in perceptions of their world. Furthermore, this intervention helped participants manage <i> dissonance</i> in their lives and produce changes specific and relevant to each individual, i.e., adults in the Kichwa community changed their assumptions and got rid of the mining company without violence. Moreover, the students who conducted research in the Amazon rainforest changed their research approach from top-down (doing research on people) to human development co-creation (doing research with people). Lastly, students in the academic institutions changed their way of interacting with their environment and others, and most importantly observed and changed behaviors that were sabotaging their efforts to succeed in life. They overcame their assumption of &ldquo;knowing&rdquo; and became more open to others&rsquo; perspectives. Each change was specific to the individual, resulting in the betterment of their lives.</p>

<p> This dissertation focused on advancing the current research on the connection between physical and psychological health. This study focused on two psychotherapy groups that integrate mind-body practices in the form of yoga, meditation, and relaxation. These groups were ongoing and are held once a week for one hour in an urban outpatient mental health clinic. Participants in these groups attended consistently for approximately 1-4 years and experienced a wide-range of trauma and chronic pain symptoms. Because the groups were active and running for several years, this study followed a qualitative research approach to comprehensively capture the participants&rsquo; subjective experience. Understanding the experience of these particular clients could prove to be advantageous to the field of psychology as it will help to elucidate the individual&rsquo;s experience of an integrated mind-body modality for trauma and pain treatment. Using phenomenological interviews, this study explored the subjective experience of individuals in these groups. In-depth interview questions focused on participants&rsquo; reactions to the mind-body interventions for combined physical and psychological symptom relief.</p>

<p> Response Interruption and Redirection (RIRD) has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment for stereotypic behavior exhibited by persons with autism spectrum disorder. The present study investigates the applicability of this intervention in the context of the classroom setting. Specifically, it investigates whether or not the intervention is as effective when it is used with a subject in the process of completing complex tasks. This research also investigates collateral effects of reduced stereotypic behavior on productivity and efficiency of task completion. While stereotypy was reduced and productivity increased across three experimental conditions, there were mixed results as to the relationship between RIRD and overall efficiency of task completion. </p>