We investigated the relationship between process quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC) and children’s socio-emotional development in a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Our multi-level meta-analysis of 31 publications reporting on 16 longitudinal studies (N = 17,913 children, age: 2.5–18 yrs) demonstrates that the process quality of ECEC is a small but significant predictor of children’s socio-emotional development over time (ES = 0.103, SE = 0.026, p < 0.001, 95% CI: 0.052–0.155). This longitudinal association extends to the age of 18 years in our sample. Process quality of ECEC is, thus, a significant and stable predictor of children’s socio-emotional development and well-being from toddlerhood to adolescence. The longitudinal relationship was moderated by the type of care (center-based vs. home-based) and the informant (parent, professional caregiver, external assessor, or self-report of the child). Implications for future ECEC research are discussed.
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Background: In face-to-face therapy for eating disorders, therapeutic alliance (TA) is an important predictor of symptomreduction and treatment completion. To date, however, little is known about TA during web-based cognitive behavioral therapy(web-CBT) and its association with symptom reduction, treatment completion, and the perspectives of patients versus therapists.Objective: This study aimed to investigate TA ratings measured at interim and after treatment, separately for patients andtherapists; the degree of agreement between therapists and patients (treatment completers and noncompleters) for TA ratings;and associations between patient and therapist TA ratings and both eating disorder pathology and treatment completion.Methods: A secondary analysis was performed on randomized controlled trial data of a web-CBT intervention for eatingdisorders. Participants were 170 females with bulimia nervosa (n=33), binge eating disorder (n=68), or eating disorder nototherwise specified (n=69); the mean age was 39.6 (SD 11.5) years. TA was operationalized using the Helping AllianceQuestionnaire (HAQ). Paired t tests were conducted to assess the change in TA from interim to after treatment. Intraclasscorrelations were calculated to determine cross-informant agreement with regard to HAQ scores between patients and therapists.A total of 2 stepwise regressive procedures (at interim and after treatment) were used to examine which HAQ scores predictedeating disorder pathology and therapy completion.Results: For treatment completers (128/170, 75.3%), the HAQ-total scores and HAQ-Helpfulness scores for both patients andtherapists improved significantly from interim to post treatment. For noncompleters (42/170, 24.7%), all HAQ scores decreasedsignificantly. For all HAQ scales, the agreement between patients and therapists was poor. However, the agreement was slightlybetter after treatment than at interim. Higher patient scores on the helpfulness subscale of the HAQ at interim and after treatmentwere associated with less eating disorder psychopathology. A positive association was found between the HAQ-total patientscores at interim and treatment completion. Finally, posttreatment HAQ-total patient scores and posttreatment HAQ-Helpfulnessscores of therapists were positively associated with treatment completion.Conclusions: Our study showed that TA in web-CBT is predictive of eating disorder pathology and treatment completion. Ofparticular importance is patients’ confidence in their abilities as measured with the HAQ-Helpfulness subscale when predictingposttreatment eating disorder pathology and treatment completion.
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Background: The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is widely used to screen for psychosocial problems among adolescents. As the severity of such problems is known to be related to age and gender, screening could be improved by interpreting SDQ scale scores with age-specific and perhaps gender-specific norms. Up to now, such norms are lacking. The aim of the current study is to present gender-specific and joint normative data per year of age for the Dutch self-reported and parent-reported SDQ versions for use among 12- to 17-year-old adolescents. Methods: The norm groups for the self-reported and parent-reported SDQ versions consisted of 993 adolescents and 736 parents, respectively, from the general Dutch population. Per SDQ version, both gender-specific norms and joint norms (percentiles and cutoffs) per year of age were calculated through regression-based norming (Rigby in J Roy Stat Soc Ser C 54:507, 2005). Additionally, these norms were compared to the widely used British norms that are neither age-specific nor gender-specific. Results: By design, gender-specific ‘abnormal’ cutoffs (i.e., cutoffs aimed at identifying max. 10% of the most extremely scoring males and max. 10% of the most extremely scoring females) resulted in about equal percentages of ‘abnormal’ scoring male and female adolescents per SDQ scale. In contrast, joint ‘abnormal’ cutoffs (i.e., cutoffs aimed at identifying max. 10% of the most extremely scoring adolescents) resulted in relatively more male (7.6 to 13.6%, depending on age) than female (3.3 to 8.9%, depending on age) adolescents as scoring ‘abnormal’ on scales measuring externalizing behavior (self-reported and parent-reported SDQ versions), and relatively more female (3.9 to 14.3%, depending on age) than male (1.8 to 6.9%, depending on age) adolescents as scoring ‘abnormal’ on scales measuring internalizing behavior (self-reported SDQ version). In both types of norms, minor age effects were present. Among Dutch adolescents, the British norms yielded detection rates much lower than the expected 10%. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that detection rates depend on the reference group that is used (British or Dutch general adolescent population; specific gender group or not). The normative data in this paper facilitate the comparison of an adolescent’s scores to different reference groups, and allow for cross-country/cultural comparisons of adolescents’ psychosocial behavior.
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In honours programmes, teachers face the task of designing courses in which students feel challenged and learn from accomplishing demanding assignments. The aim of this study was to investigate students’ and teachers’ perceptions of challenge and learning in an honours programme. From 2016 to 2019, students and teachers rated the learning activities during the programme and explained their ratings. The results showed that in the first two years, teachers estimated challenge and learning significantly higher than the students did. However, both students and teachers viewed the tasks as the factor with the strongest impact on challenge and learning. In the first year, students also identified group dynamics as challenging and a source for learning. Enhancing task complexity and supporting group dynamics are the main factors to adjust the level of challenge in an honours programme. Monitoring students’ and teachers’ perceptions can help to adapt the programme to improve students’ learning.
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We examined the neural correlates of facial attractiveness by presenting pictures of male or female faces (neutral expression) with low/intermediate/high attractiveness to 48 male or female participants while recording their electroencephalogram (EEG). Subjective attractiveness ratings were used to determine the 10% highest, 10% middlemost, and 10% lowest rated faces for each individual participant to allow for high contrast comparisons. These were then split into preferred and dispreferred gender categories. ERP components P1, N1, P2, N2, early posterior negativity (EPN), P300 and late positive potential (LPP) (up until 3000 ms post-stimulus), and the face specific N170 were analysed. A salience effect (attractive/unattractive > intermediate) in an early LPP interval (450–850 ms) and a long-lasting valence related effect (attractive > unattractive) in a late LPP interval (1000–3000 ms) were elicited by the preferred gender faces but not by the dispreferred gender faces. Multi-variate pattern analysis (MVPA)-classifications on whole-brain single-trial EEG patterns further confirmed these salience and valence effects. It is concluded that, facial attractiveness elicits neural responses that are indicative of valenced experiences, but only if these faces are considered relevant. These experiences take time to develop and last well beyond the interval that is commonly explored.
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Attracting the best candidates online for job vacancies has become a challenging task for companies. One thing that could influence the attractiveness of organisations for employees is their reputation that is an essential component of marketing research and plays a crucial role in customer and employee acquisition and retention. Prior research has shown the importance for companies to improve their corporate reputation (CR) for its effect on attracting the best candidates for job vacancies. Company ratings and vacancy advertisements are nowadays a massive, rich valued, online data source for forming opinions regarding corporations. This study focuses on the effect of CR cues that are present in the description of online vacancies on vacancy attractiveness. Our findings show that departments that are responsible for writing vacancy descriptions are recommended to include the CR themes citizenship, leadership, innovation, and governance and to exclude performance. This will increase vacancies’ attractiveness which helps prevent labour shortage.
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Background. Violent criminal offenders with personality disorders (PD’s) can cause immense harm, but are often deemed untreatable. This study aimed to conduct a randomized clinical trial to test the effectiveness of long-term psychotherapy for rehabilitating offenders with PDs. Methods. We compared schema therapy (ST), an evidence-based psychotherapy for PDs, to treatment-as-usual (TAU) at eight high-security forensic hospitals in the Netherlands. Patients in both conditions received multiple treatment modalities and differed only in the individual, study-specific therapy they received. One-hundred-three male offenders with antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, or paranoid PDs, or Cluster B PD-not-otherwise specified, were assigned to 3 years of ST or TAU and assessed every 6 months. Primary outcomes were rehabilitation, involving gradual reintegration into the community, and PD symptoms. Results. Patients in both conditions showed moderate to large improvements in outcomes. ST was superior to TAU on both primary outcomes – rehabilitation (i.e. attaining supervised and unsupervised leave) and PD symptoms – and six of nine secondary outcomes, with small to moderate advantages over TAU. ST patients moved more rapidly through rehabilitation (supervised leave, treatment*time: F(5308) = 9.40, p < 0.001; unsupervised leave, treatment*- time: F(5472) = 3.45, p = 0.004), and showed faster improvements on PD scales (treatment*- time: t(1387) = −2.85, p = 0.005). Conclusions. These findings contradict pessimistic views on the treatability of violent offenders with PDs, and support the effectiveness of long-term psychotherapy for rehabilitating these patients, facilitating their re-entry into the community
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Electrification of mobility exceeds personal transport to increasingly focus on particular segments such as city logistics and taxis. These commercial mobility segments have different motives to purchase a full electric vehicle and require a particular approach to incentivize and facilitate the transition towards electric mobility. A case where a municipality was successful in stimulating the transition to electric mobility is the taxi sector in the city of Amsterdam. Using results from a survey study (n = 300), this paper analyses the differences in characteristics between taxi drivers that either have or do not have interest in purchasing a full electric taxi vehicle. Results show a low intention across the sample to adopt a full electric vehicle and no statistically significant differences in demographics between the two groups. Differences were found between the level of acceptability of the covenant, the rated attractiveness of the incentives, the ratings of full electric vehicle attributes and the consultation of objective and social information sources. These results can be used by policy makers to develop new incentives that target specific topics currently influencing the interest in a full electric taxi vehicle.
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Abstract Background: Children and adolescents in mental healthcare often perceive their care needs and necessary treatment differently from their clinicians. As such discordance between young patients and clinicians may obstruct treatment adherence and compromise treatment outcomes, it is important to understand the factors associated with it. We therefore investigated the factors associated with patient–clinician discordance with regard to care needs in various areas of functioning. Methods: A cross-sectional study involving 244 children/adolescents aged 6–18 participating with their clinicians in treatment at a specialized mental healthcare center. As a previous study conducted by our research group had found the greatest patient–clinician discordance in three CANSAS care needs—“mental health problems,” “information regarding diagnosis and/or treatment,” and “making and/or keeping friends”—we used univariable and multivariable statistics to investigate the factors associated with discordance regarding these three care needs. Results: patient–clinician discordance on the three CANSAS items was associated with child, parent, and family/social-context factors. Three variables were significant in each of the three final multivariable models: dangerous behavior towards self (child level); severity of psychiatric problems of the parent (parent level); and growing up in a single-parent household (family/social-context level). Conclusions: To deliver treatment most effectively and to prevent drop-out, it is important during diagnostic assessment and treatment planning to address the patient’s care needs at all three levels: child, parent and family/social context.
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This paper analyses the ways in which informal mediation channels facilitate service delivery in the Citizen Service Bureaus at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and give rise to an interplay between formal and informal institutions. In particular, the personal backgrounds of brokers as informal mediators and how they ensure their acceptance amongst service seekers are explored. Further, the motivations of the service seekers to solicit help from these mediators as well as institutional responses from the municipal administration along with other relevant actors like the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi are examined.
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