Middle-School Student Engagement in a Tick Testing Community Science Project

Studies of tickborne illness have benefited from interactions between scientists and community members. Most participants in community science projects are well-educated adults, but there are anticipated benefits from engaging younger students in research. We evaluated whether an outreach experience for rural middle-school students promoted student interest in science and resulted in the generation of samples that could be used for tick testing to assess disease risk. Middle-school students from 78 Wisconsin communities developed interdisciplinary hypotheses about the spread of Lyme disease, identified ticks, and extracted DNA from ticks to assess the prevalence of pathogens Borrelia burgdorferi, Anaplasma phagocytophillium, and Babesia microti. As a result of this intervention, students were able to successfully complete the research protocol and explain the rationale for completing the experiment. Of student participants, 84.7% reported no difficulty completing the protocol, 66% of the student samples gave reliable PCR results, and 76% of students reported interest in participating in similar experiments. Our study shows that tick outreach programs that incorporate community-based science promote knowledge about Lyme disease, facilitate engagement between students and scientists, and generate samples that can be successfully utilized for pathogen testing.

Humane Education’s Effect on Middle School Student Motivation and Standards-Based Reading Assessment

Students educated in the juvenile justice system face acute challenges such as lack of motivation and negative attitudes toward school. Schools in the system are expected to provide rigorous, Common Core-standards-aligned instruction. Humane education—lessons that nurture kindness and empathy towards humans, animals, and the environment—has been shown to motivate students and encourage their pro-social sentiments. This randomized control trial (with constraints) study of 192 12- and 13-year-old students from New Jersey asked students to complete five standards-aligned reading passages with text-based questions. The experimental-group assessments contained humane education themes and the control-group assessments had non-animal related high interest topics. The passages were equated in reading level, word count, etc. Analyses of the results showed that not only did students who received humane education passages do better overall, but also did much better on questions addressing specific Common Core Reading for Information standards. This study can be a starting point for applying and researching the effectiveness of humane education on the juvenile justice population, specifically, because they are expected to learn standards-aligned curricula and are in particular need of academic motivation and pro-social encouragement.

Prevalence and Factors Associated with Bullying Phenomenon Among Pre-Adolescents Attending First-Grade Secondary Schools of Palermo, Italy, and a Comparative Systematic Literature Review.

Background: Bullying is recognized as one of the most significant social and health problems in the school environment for children and adolescents. In Italy, bullying involved 2 in 10 kids between 11-17 years that referred to have been bullied two or more times in a month. In Sicily, the estimated prevalence of children aged 11 to 15 that suffered at least one act of bullying in the last two months was 14% in 2011.Methods: A questionnaire consisting of 30 items investigating physical, verbal and indirect bullying, observers of bullying, resiliency, and prosociality was administered to preadolescents of ten first-grade secondary schools within the Palermo Province in order to analyze prevalence and factors associated with bullying phenomenon. Also, a systematic literature review (SLR) analyzing manuscripts that reported prevalence of the bullying phenomenon worldwide was conducted. Results: Survey: a total of 867 students, belonging to 35 second and 31 third classes of ten different schools in Palermo, Italy, were recruited in the survey. The values of physical bullying are included between the 4% of the single question method and the almost forty percent detected by the score of 7 method. Verbal bullying oscillates between 15.9% and 66.3%. Observers average values varies from 15.8% to 47.5%. SLR: the estimated prevalence showed a considerable fluctuation. The occurrence of the bullying phenomenon was low in some Northern European countries, while in Anglo-Saxon countries it affected over a quarter of the middle school student population (28% in Maryland, USA and 21% in the UK). Conclusions The prevalence of the bullying phenomenon recorded by this survey with the three different methods used is similar to observations in international literature. In the Sicilian context, a higher prevalence of bullying phenomena was observed in pre-adolescents attending major classes and in schools with lower socio-economic index. Though it remains difficult to obtain univocal data that clarifies the prevalence of different type of bullying, the continuous investigation of prevalence and factors associated with the phenomenon is a necessary starting point to introduce interventions and preventive measures in Public Health programs.

Middle School Student Statistical Literacy Based on Adversity Quotient

Literasi statistik dibutuhkan dalam membaca, menginterpretasi, menyimpulkan serta mengomunikasikan data. Salah satu faktor yang mempengaruhi literasi statistik yaitu Adversity Quotient (AQ) dalam penentuan sikap ketika dihadapkan kesulitan terkait soal literasi statistik. Jenis penelitian ini yaitu penelitian deskriptif dengan pendekatan kualitatif, dengan tujuan mendeskripsikan literasi statistik siswa SMP ditinjau dari Adversity Quotient. Subjek terdiri dari 3 siswa yang diambil berdasarkan hasil Adversity Response Profile dengan kategori 1 subjek tipe climber, camper, dan quitter. Kemudian subjek diberi tes soal literasi statistik dan wawancara. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa: subjek tipe climber, camper, dan quitter belum mampu menyajikan data dalam bentuk diagram yang sesuai dan membuat kritik dari data. Subjek tipe climber mampu memberikan alasan dengan perhitungan matematis dan menerapkan konsep statistika yang sesuai, sehingga berada di level critical; Subjek tipe camper mampu mengidentifikasi terminologi statistika, namun belum menerapkannya, sehingga berada di level inconsistent; subjek tipe quitter hanya menggunakan imajinasi dan memberikan alasan non-statistik, sehingga berada di level informal.

Parental Migration and Children’s Problem Behaviours in Rural China: Testing an Integrative Theoretical Model

This study aims to investigate the social mechanism underlying the associations between parental migration and left-behind children’s delinquent and deviant behaviours in rural China. Using a middle school student sample, our results reveal that the effects of parental migration on children’s delinquency differ across caretaking arrangements. Specifically, compared with children living with non-migrant parents, those cared for by a remaining father (with a mother migrated) or by one grandparent (with both parents migrated) had weaker bonding with primary caretakers and schools, which led to delinquency and deviance directly or indirectly through more frequent association with deviant peers. In contrast, children living with a remaining mother or with two grandparents did not differ significantly from those living with non-migrant parents.