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- All Subjects: Developmental Psychology
Description
This study investigated the role of broad cognitive processes in the development of mathematics skills among children and adolescents. The participants for this study were a subsample of a nationally representative sample used in the standardization of the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities and the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement, Normative Update (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2007). Participants were between 5 years old and 18 years old (N = 4721; mean of 10.98 years, median of 10.00 years, standard deviation of 3.48 years), and were 50.7% male and 49.3% female. Structural equation models supported the theoretical suggestion that broad cognitive processes play significant and specific roles in the development of mathematical skills among children and adolescents. Implications for school psychology researchers and practitioners are discussed.
ContributorsCalderón, Carlos Oreste (Author) / Caterino, Linda (Thesis advisor) / Nakagawa, Kathryn (Thesis advisor) / Knight, George (Committee member) / Mcgrew, Kevin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Anxiety and depression are among the most prevalent disorders in youth, with prevalence rates ranging from 15% to 25% for anxiety and 5% to 14% for depression. Anxiety and depressive disorders cause significant impairment, fail to spontaneously remit, and have been prospectively linked to problematic substance use and legal problems in adulthood. These disorders often share a high-degree of comorbidity in both clinical and community samples, with anxiety disorders typically preceding the onset of depression. Given the nature and consequences of anxiety and depressive disorders, a plethora of treatment and preventative interventions have been developed and tested with data showing significant pre to post to follow-up reductions in anxiety and depressive symptoms. However, little is known about the mediators by which these interventions achieve their effects. To address this gap in the literature, the present thesis study combined meta-analytic methods and path analysis to evaluate the effects of youth anxiety and depression interventions on outcomes and four theory-driven mediators using data from 55 randomized controlled trials (N = 11,413). The mediators included: (1) information-processing biases, (2) coping strategies, (3) social competence, and (4) physiological hyperarousal. Meta-analytic results showed that treatment and preventative interventions reliably produced moderate effect sizes on outcomes and three of the four mediators (information-processing biases, coping strategies, social competence). Most importantly, findings from the path analysis showed that changes in information-processing biases and coping strategies consistently mediated changes in outcomes for anxiety and depression at both levels of intervention, whereas gains in social competence and reductions in physiological hyperarousal did not emerge as significant mediators. Knowledge of the mediators underlying intervention effects is important because they can refine testable models of treatment and prevention efforts and identify which anxiety and depression components need to be packaged or strengthened to maximize intervention effects. Allocating additional resources to significant mediators has the potential to reduce costs associated with adopting and implementing evidence-based interventions and improve dissemination and sustainability in real-world settings, thus setting the stage to be more readily integrated into clinical and non-clinical settings on a large scale.
ContributorsStoll, Ryan (Author) / Pina, Armando A (Thesis advisor) / MacKinnon, David (Committee member) / Knight, George (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Often learning new skills, such as how to throw a basketball or how to play the piano, are better accomplished practicing with another than from self-practice. Why? We propose that during joint action, partners learn to adjust their behavior to each other. For example, when dancing with a partner, we must adjust the timing, the force, and the spatial locations of movements to those of the partner. We call these adjustments a joint body schema (JBS). That is, the locations of our own effectors and our own movements are adapted by interaction with the partner. Furthermore, we propose that after a JBS is established, learning new motor skills can be enhanced by the learner's attunement to the specifics of the partner's actions. We test this proposal by having partners engage in a motor task requiring cooperation (to develop the JBS). Then we determined whether a) the JBS enhances the coordination on an unrelated task, and b) whether the JBS enhances the learning of a new motor skill. In fact, participants who established a JBS showed stronger coordination with a partner and better motor learning from the partner than did control participants. Several applications of this finding are discussed.
ContributorsMunion, Amanda Kathleen (Author) / Glenberg, Arthur (Thesis director) / Knight, George (Committee member) / McBeath, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The purpose of this study was to expand on existing parental socialization models of youth achievement motivation for engaging in physical activity. This study examined the extent to which youth affective reactions and expectancy-value beliefs mediated the relation between parental influence tactics and youth physical activity. More specifically, the direct and indirect effects of parents' positive, negative and sedentary-control tactics, the direct effect of parents' desire to change their child's physical activity, and the moderating role of the socio-emotional climate on the relation between parental influence tactics and child outcomes were investigated. Data were collected from 171 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th and 9th grade students and their parents. Pedometers were used to collect youth physical activity data and all participants completed questionnaires. Youth expectancy-value beliefs and negative affective reactions to parental influence tactics were both positively related to youth physical activity. Path analyses revealed that youth expectancy-value beliefs and negative affective reactions fully mediated the direct effects of positive and negative parental influence tactics on youth physical activity, respectively. Moreover, parents' desire to change their child's physical activity was negatively related to parent's use of positive influence tactics. Although several moderators were examined, none were statistically significant (lowest p >.05). The results suggest that additional explanatory power is gained by including a broader range of parental influence tactics and youth affective reactions in models of achievement motivation. The findings are in accord with prior recommendations made to parents with sedentary children.
ContributorsPugliese, John (Author) / Okun, Morris (Thesis advisor) / Tinsley, Barbara J (Thesis advisor) / Kulinna, Pamela (Committee member) / Knight, George (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011