Parental Documentation Status and Educational Aspirations Among Latino Adolescents: Mediating Effects of School Connectedness and Parental Attitudes Towards Education

Research suggests that Latino adolescents face challenges with respect to their perceptions of success in academia while falling behind in school competencies. This study examines pathways between parent characteristics, adolescent perceptions of parental academic importance, school connectedness, and academic aspirations/expectations for Latinos using a structural equation model. The entire population of seventh grade students was surveyed in the Oklahoma City Public School District ( N = 1,832). The final model included Latino students ( N = 661). Results found that 51.1% of all Latino adolescents identified as having an undocumented parent(s). Findings indicate that parental documentation was significantly associated with academic aspirations/expectations beyond being Latino. Parental documentation poses limitations on parents’ ability to become actively involved in their adolescents’ academics. Findings suggest efforts to increase academic aspirations/expectations should come from adolescent experiences (i.e., school connectedness) as citizenship issues are difficult to mitigate. Results should be used as support for such programs in targeting at-risk Latinos.

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The role of school enjoyment in the association between externalising and depressive symptoms and academic attainment: findings from a UK prospective cohort study

10.1101/2020.05.21.20108928 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Tim Cadman ◽

Amanda Hughes ◽

Caroline Wright ◽

José A López-López ◽

Tim Morris ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Depressive Symptoms ◽

Structural Equation ◽

School Connectedness ◽

Equation Model ◽

School Experience ◽

Academic Attainment ◽

Parents And Children ◽

Externalising Symptoms ◽

Bidirectional Associations ◽

The Relationship

ABSTRACTPrevious research on the relationship between children’s externalising and depressive symptoms, experience of school, and later academic attainment is inconclusive. The present study uses data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (n=6,409) to investigate bidirectional associations between school experience (enjoyment and connectedness) and externalising and depressive symptoms at age 10-11 and 13-14. We also investigate the relationship between school experience and academic attainment at 16 and test whether school experience mediates associations of externalising and depressive symptoms with later attainment. A cross-lagged structural equation model was employed. Externalising and depressive symptoms at 10-11 were negatively associated with school connectedness at 13-14 (externalizing: standardised β=−0.13, CI: −0.17, −0.08; depressive: β=−0.06, CI: −0.11, 0.01), and with school enjoyment at 13-14 (externalising: β=−0.08, CI: −0.13, −0.03; depressive β=−0.04, −0.08, 0.03). School enjoyment at 13-14 was positively associated with attainment at 16 (β=0.10, CI: 0.04, 0.15), and partially mediated associations between externalising and depressive symptoms at 10-11 and attainment at 16 (externalising: proportion mediated; 4.7%, CI: 0.7, 10.1, depressive: proportion mediated 2.2%, I: −1.5, 5.9). School enjoyment is a potentially modifiable risk factor that may affect educational attainment of adolescents with depressive and externalising symptoms.

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Resilience, coping, and distress among healthcare service personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic

BMC Psychiatry ◽

10.1186/s12888-021-03506-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Timothy R. Elliott ◽

Paul B. Perrin ◽

Anne-Stuart Bell ◽

Mark B. Powers ◽

Ann Marie Warren

Keyword(s):

Structural Equation ◽

Online Survey ◽

A Priori ◽

Well Being ◽

National Sample ◽

Equation Model ◽

Depression And Anxiety ◽

Final Model ◽

Doctoral Level ◽

Relationship Of

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic has a detrimental effect on the health and well-being of health care workers (HCWs). The extent to which HCWs may differ in their experience of depression and anxiety is unclear, and longitudinal studies are lacking. The present study examined theorized differences in distress between resilient and non-resilient HCWs over time, as reported in a national online survey. We also examined possible differences in distress as a function of sex and doctoral-level status. Methods A national sample responded to an online survey data that included the study measures. Of the HCWs who responded, 666 had useable data at the two time points. A longitudinal structural equation model tested an a priori model that specified the relationship of a resilient personality prototype to self-reported resilience, coping, depression and anxiety at both measurement occasions. Additional invariance models examined possible differences by sex and doctoral-level status. Results The final model explained 46.4% of the variance in psychological distress at Time 1 and 69.1% at Time 2. A non-resilient personality prototype predicted greater depression and anxiety. A resilient personality prototype was predictive of and operated through self-reported resilience and less disengaged coping to effect lower distress. No effects were found for active coping, however. The final model was generally invariant by sex and HCWs status. Additional analyses revealed that non-doctoral level HCWs had significantly higher depression and anxiety than doctoral-level HCWs on both occasions. Conclusions HCWs differ in their susceptibility to distress imposed by COVID-19. Those who are particularly vulnerable may have characteristics that contribute to a lower sense of confidence and efficacy in stressful situations, and more likely to rely on ineffective, disengaged coping behaviors that can exacerbate stress levels. Individual interventions and institutional policies may be implemented to support HCWs at risk.

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Idiographic Dynamics of Positive Affect in GAD

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027/1015-5759/a000580 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 36 (3) ◽

pp. 500-509

Author(s):

Hannah G. Bosley ◽

Devon B. Sandel ◽

Aaron J. Fisher

Keyword(s):

Positive Affect ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Alternative Hypothesis ◽

Equation Model ◽

Aggregated Data ◽

Regulatory Strategy ◽

Constant State ◽

Automatic Search ◽

Time Lagged ◽

Exploratory Procedure

Abstract. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is associated with worry and emotion regulation difficulties. The contrast-avoidance model suggests that individuals with GAD use worry to regulate emotion: by worrying, they maintain a constant state of negative affect (NA), avoiding a feared sudden shift into NA. We tested an extension of this model to positive affect (PA). During a week-long ecological momentary assessment (EMA) period, 96 undergraduates with a GAD analog provided four daily measurements of worry, dampening (i.e., PA suppression), and PA. We hypothesized a time-lagged mediation relationship in which higher worry predicts later dampening, and dampening predicts subsequently lower PA. A lag-2 structural equation model was fit to the group-aggregated data and to each individual time-series to test this hypothesis. Although worry and PA were negatively correlated in 87 participants, our model was not supported at the nomothetic level. However, idiographically, our model was well-fit for about a third (38.5%) of participants. We then used automatic search as an idiographic exploratory procedure to detect other time-lagged relationships between these constructs. While 46 individuals exhibited some cross-lagged relationships, no clear pattern emerged across participants. An alternative hypothesis about the speed of the relationship between variables is discussed using contemporaneous correlations of worry, dampening, and PA. Findings suggest heterogeneity in the function of worry as a regulatory strategy, and the importance of temporal scale for detection of time-lagged effects.

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Differential Item Functioning in Brief Instruments of Disordered Eating

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027/1015-5759/a000472 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 35 (6) ◽

pp. 823-833 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Desiree Thielemann ◽

Felicitas Richter ◽

Bernd Strauss ◽

Elmar Braehler ◽

Uwe Altmann ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Differential Item Functioning ◽

Disordered Eating ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Young Female ◽

Eating Attitudes ◽

Equation Model ◽

German Population ◽

Test Fairness ◽

Item Functioning ◽

Multiple Indicator

Abstract. Most instruments for the assessment of disordered eating were developed and validated in young female samples. However, they are often used in heterogeneous general population samples. Therefore, brief instruments of disordered eating should assess the severity of disordered eating equally well between individuals with different gender, age, body mass index (BMI), and socioeconomic status (SES). Differential item functioning (DIF) of two brief instruments of disordered eating (SCOFF, Eating Attitudes Test [EAT-8]) was modeled in a representative sample of the German population ( N = 2,527) using a multigroup item response theory (IRT) and a multiple-indicator multiple-cause (MIMIC) structural equation model (SEM) approach. No DIF by age was found in both questionnaires. Three items of the EAT-8 showed DIF across gender, indicating that females are more likely to agree than males, given the same severity of disordered eating. One item of the EAT-8 revealed slight DIF by BMI. DIF with respect to the SCOFF seemed to be negligible. Both questionnaires are equally fair across people with different age and SES. The DIF by gender that we found with respect to the EAT-8 as screening instrument may be also reflected in the use of different cutoff values for men and women. In general, both brief instruments assessing disordered eating revealed their strengths and limitations concerning test fairness for different groups.

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The Influence of Cognitive and Affective Reactions to Feedback on Subsequent Goals

European Psychologist ◽

10.1027/1016-9040/a000011 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 121-131 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Remus Ilies ◽

Timothy A. Judge ◽

David T. Wagner

Keyword(s):

Performance Feedback ◽

Business School ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Emotional Reactions ◽

Equation Model ◽

Proposed Model ◽

And Performance ◽

Dispositional Measure ◽

The Relationship ◽

Reactions To Feedback

This paper focuses on explaining how individuals set goals on multiple performance episodes, in the context of performance feedback comparing their performance on each episode with their respective goal. The proposed model was tested through a longitudinal study of 493 university students’ actual goals and performance on business school exams. Results of a structural equation model supported the proposed conceptual model in which self-efficacy and emotional reactions to feedback mediate the relationship between feedback and subsequent goals. In addition, as expected, participants’ standing on a dispositional measure of behavioral inhibition influenced the strength of their emotional reactions to negative feedback.

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Forced Zero Cross-Loading Misspecifications in Measurement Component of Structural Equation Models

Methodology ◽

10.1027/1614-2241/a000084 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 10 (4) ◽

pp. 138-152 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Hsien-Yuan Hsu ◽

Susan Troncoso Skidmore ◽

Yan Li ◽

Bruce Thompson

Keyword(s):

Structural Equation ◽

Structural Model ◽

Structural Equation Models ◽

Equation Model ◽

Model Fit ◽

Model Specification ◽

Simulation Design ◽

Measurement Models ◽

Fit Statistics ◽

Path Coefficients

The purpose of the present paper was to evaluate the effect of constraining near-zero parameter cross-loadings to zero in the measurement component of a structural equation model. A Monte Carlo 3 × 5 × 2 simulation design was conducted (i.e., sample sizes of 200, 600, and 1,000; parameter cross-loadings of 0.07, 0.10, 0.13, 0.16, and 0.19 misspecified to be zero; and parameter path coefficients in the structural model of either 0.50 or 0.70). Results indicated that factor pattern coefficients and factor covariances were overestimated in measurement models when near-zero parameter cross-loadings constrained to zero were higher than 0.13 in the population. Moreover, the path coefficients between factors were misestimated when the near-zero parameter cross-loadings constrained to zero were noteworthy. Our results add to the literature detailing the importance of testing individual model specification decisions, and not simply evaluating omnibus model fit statistics.

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