Exploring the Games’ Intangible Legacy on Individuals: A Longitudinal Study of Teacher’s Community

Hosting the Olympics is subject to socio-educational outcomes, which can represent intangible and peripheral assets for host communities. The current study explores the Games’ intangible legacy on teachers’ attitudes at different points in time. Data were collected among teachers who attended the Rio 2016 Education Program at three different stages: 2016 (n = 611), 2017 (n = 451), and 2020 (n = 286). A longitudinal trend study was designed using multivariate analysis of variance MANOVA tests and latent growth modelling. Results show that the teachers’ perceptions of Olympic knowledge had a significant growth rate, while skills development and network/social exchange do not show significant changes over the time periods. Longitudinal findings suggest the continuity of the Olympic education programs as the basis for strengthening the Olympic intellect and social capital formation.

Social Study Resources and Social Wellbeing Before and During the Intelligent COVID-19 Lockdown in The Netherlands

The first intelligent COVID-19 lockdown resulted in radical changes within the tertiary educational system within the Netherlands. These changes posed new challenges for university students and many social welfare agencies have warned that it could have adverse effects on the social wellbeing (SWB) of university students. Students may lack the necessary social study-related resources (peer- and lecturer support) (SSR) necessary to aid them in coping with the new demands that the lockdown may bring. As such, the present study aimed to investigate the trajectory patterns, rate of change and longitudinal associations between SSR and SWB of 175 Dutch students before and during the COVID-19 lockdown. A piecewise latent growth modelling approach was employed to sample students’ experiences over three months. Participants to complete a battery of psychometric assessments for five weeks before the COVID-19 lockdown was implemented, followed by two directly after and a month follow-up. The results were paradoxical and contradicting to initial expectations. Where SSR showed a linear rate of decline before- and significant growth trajectory during the lockdown, SWB remained moderate and stable. Further, initial levels and growth trajectories between SSR and SWB were only associated before the lockdown.

Life course epidemiology

Types of psychiatric disorders vary with respect to age of onset, temporal continuity, and impact. Life course epidemiology provides powerful tools for understanding these complexities. This discipline broadly distinguishes ‘sensitive period’ and ‘risk accumulation’ models. The former refers to optimum windows for exposure (e.g. early life for some psychoses, in contrast to proximal exposures for depression). Accumulation refers to additive or multiplicative effects of multiple exposures, exemplified by stress process and chain of risk models. The preeminent study design for these approaches is the prospective longitudinal birth cohort study, especially where multiple cohorts help to distinguish period and cohort effects. However, limitations such as balancing the need for repeated versus age-appropriate measurement, and non-random missing data, must be carefully considered. While the statistical workhorse for life course epidemiology is general linear modelling, this discipline also requires advanced tools such as random effects, path, latent class, and latent growth modelling.

Modelling the development of language and mathematics abilities from early childhood to adolescence

This chapter assesses what mattered most during the phases of human development. This is done by introducing a new approach, Latent Growth Modelling, which allows the analysis to go further by simultaneously evaluating multiple paths that affected children's development, over the five survey rounds, and deciding which were relatively more important. The model is applied to the Younger Cohort and the aim is to illustrate the operation of developmental cascades for changes in receptive vocabulary and mathematics abilities. These models are especially suitable in the case of Young Lives because they bring together 15 years of longitudinal evidence and are tested across the four study countries. The chapter then uses the findings both from the earlier chapters and the modelling presented here to lay out a positive developmental cascade for transitions to adulthood. This provides a framework for action based on Young Lives data, regarding what mattered most and when.