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This meta-analytic review of 148 studies on child and adolescent direct and indirect aggression examined the magnitude of gender differences, intercorrelations between forms, and associations with maladjustment. Results confirmed prior findings of gender differences (favoring boys) in direct aggression and trivial gender differences in indirect aggression. Results also indicated a substantial intercorrelation(r̄ = .76) between these forms. Despite this high intercorrelation, the 2 forms showed unique associations with maladjustment: Direct aggression is more strongly related to externalizing problems, poor peer relations, and low prosocial behavior, and indirect aggression is related to internalizing problems and higher prosocial behavior. Moderation of these effect sizes by method of assessment, age, gender, and several additional variables were systematically investigated.

This study demonstrates the effectiveness of the KiVa antibullying program using a large sample of 8,237 youth from Grades 4-6 (10-12 years). Altogether, 78 schools were randomly assigned to intervention (39 schools, 4,207 students) and control conditions (39 schools, 4,030 students). Multilevel regression analyses revealed that after 9 months of implementation, the intervention had consistent beneficial effects on 7 of the 11 dependent variables, including self- and peer-reported victimization and self-reported bullying. The results indicate that the KiVa program is effective in reducing school bullying and victimization in Grades 4-6. Despite some evidence against school-based interventions, the results suggest that well-conceived school-based programs can reduce victimization.

The clinical importance of microbiomes to the chronicity of wounds is widely appreciated, yet little is understood about patient-specific processes shaping wound microbiome composition. Here, a two-cohort microbiome-genome wide association study is presented through which patient genomic loci associated with chronic wound microbiome diversity were identified. Further investigation revealed that alternative TLN2 and ZNF521 genotypes explained significant inter-patient variation in relative abundance of two key pathogens, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus epidermidis. Wound diversity was lowest in Pseudomonas aeruginosa infected wounds, and decreasing wound diversity had a significant negative linear relationship with healing rate. In addition to microbiome characteristics, age, diabetic status, and genetic ancestry all significantly influenced healing. Using structural equation modeling to identify common variance among SNPs, six loci were sufficient to explain 53% of variation in wound microbiome diversity, which was a 10% increase over traditional multiple regression. Focusing on TLN2, genotype at rs8031916 explained expression differences of alternative transcripts that differ in inclusion of important focal adhesion binding domains. Such differences are hypothesized to relate to wound microbiomes and healing through effects on bacterial exploitation of focal adhesions and/or cellular migration. Related, other associated loci were functionally enriched, often with roles in cytoskeletal dynamics. This study, being the first to identify patient genetic determinants for wound microbiomes and healing, implicates genetic variation determining cellular adhesion phenotypes as important drivers of infection type. The identification of predictive biomarkers for chronic wound microbiomes may serve as risk factors and guide treatment by informing patient-specific tendencies of infection.

The Oxford Handbook of Quantitative Methods provides an accessible and comprehensive review of the current state-of-the-science and a one-stop source for learning and reviewing current best-practices in a quantitative methods across the social, behavioral, and educational sciences.

We review a number of issues regarding missing data treatments for intervention and prevention researchers. Many of the common missing data practices in prevention research are still, unfortunately, ill-advised (e.g., use of listwise and pairwise deletion, insufficient use of auxiliary variables). Our goal is to promote better practice in the handling of missing data. We review the current state of missing data methodology and recent missing data reporting in prevention research. We describe antiquated, ad hoc missing data treatments and discuss their limitations. We discuss two modern, principled missing data treatments: multiple imputation and full information maximum likelihood, and we offer practical tips on how to best employ these methods in prevention research. The principled missing data treatments that we discuss are couched in terms of how they improve causal and statistical inference in the prevention sciences. Our recommendations are firmly grounded in missing data theory and well-validated statistical principles for handling the missing data issues that are ubiquitous in biosocial and prevention research. We augment our broad survey of missing data analysis with references to more exhaustive resources.

BackgroundState afterschool networks across the US are engaged in system-building efforts to improve the quality of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)-focused afterschool programming. This study examined national trends in STEM program quality, youth outcomes, and the connections between these two data sources.MethodsOne thousand five hundred ninety-nine youths (grades 4–12) enrolled in 158 STEM-focused afterschool programs across 11 state networks completed a retrospective self-assessment measuring STEM attitudes and social-emotional learning (SEL)/twenty-first-century skills. Two hundred fifty standardized observations of STEM activities were performed to measure STEM program quality.Results(1) Most youth (65–85%) reported increases in STEM engagement, identity, career interest, career knowledge, relationships, critical thinking, and perseverance, with the largest gains reported by those engaging with STEM activities for 4 weeks or more; (2) there were significant, strong correlations between STEM and SEL/twenty-first-century outcomes reported by youth; and (3) youth participating in higher-quality STEM programming reported more growth than peers participating in lower-quality programs.ConclusionThis effort demonstrates how investments in STEM program quality yield high returns for programs and youth and how collaborations between research and practice can track successes and challenges, determine investments in program management, and expand advocacy and policy efforts. Additionally, this study supports a growing body of literature that suggests a synergy between youth development and STEM learning approaches that can improve outcomes for youth.

The Simple View of Reading states that reading comprehension is the product of word recognition and listening comprehension. Whereas much research has focused on word recognition accuracy, recent attention has been directed toward word recognition fluency. The current study investigated whether a separate fluency component should be added to the Simple View of Reading. A battery of reading and language measures was administered to 604 children in second, fourth, and eighth grades. Approximately half these children had language and/or nonverbal cognitive impairments in kindergarten, but weighting procedures were used to reduce the potential bias this sampling characteristic may have entailed. Structural equation modeling was used to determine whether fluency accounted for unique variance in reading comprehension after controlling for word recognition accuracy and listening comprehension. Individual profile analyses were conducted to determine the number of individual participants who had poor fluency in the spite of good word recognition accuracy and listening comprehension. Results showed that fluency did not account for unique variance in reading comprehension and that few individuals had problems in fluency separate from word recognition accuracy or listening comprehension. Thus, it does not appear that a separate fluency component should be added to the Simple View of Reading.

This study addressed the need for research examining impacts of the Coronavirus-19 (COVID) pandemic on Latinx adolescents’ adjustment. Survey data for a probability sample of 547 Latinx adolescents (Mage = 13.71, SD = 0.86; 55.2% female) were collected from 2018 to 2021, including two times both prior to, and during, COVID. Independent variables assessed COVID-related household hospitalization, job/income loss, and adolescents’ increased childcare responsibility. Structural Equation Model results indicated that COVID-related increases in adolescent childcare responsibility were associated with increased internalizing and externalizing symptoms and declines in school performance. COVID hospitalization and job/income loss were associated indirectly, through childcare responsibilities, to worse adolescent outcomes. Family adversities may harm adolescents’ adjustment by burdening adolescents with responsibilities such caring for children.

Considering that adults with Substance Use Disorder (SUD) experience many barriers and challenges in designing and living a satisfactory life, based on Life Design paradigm, this study aimed at analyzing the direct and indirect effect of career adaptability, through hope, on life satisfaction in a sample of individuals with SUD compared to a sample of individuals without SUD. In this study, a sample of 185 adults with and 185 adults without SUD was involved and different measures to assess career adaptability (Career Adapt-Abilities Scale-Italian Form; Soresi, Nota, & Ferrari; 2012), hope (The Adult Hope Scale) and life satisfaction (The Satisfaction with Life Scale) were used. Multigroup structural analyses were conducted to test the group differences in the direct and indirect effects model hypothesized. Results showed that career adaptability is indirectly, through hope, related to life satisfaction across two groups. These results have important implications for practice and emphasize the need to promoting career adaptability and hope in people with SUD to improve their life satisfaction that is an important diagnostic and outcome criteria in substance use disorder issues.

For youth raised in the Digital Age, online risks such as cyberbullying and sexting have become increasingly problematic. Since digital media is primarily consumed at home, parents play an important role in mitigating these risks; parents can teach children about online dangers, regulate the amount of time spent online, and, to some extent, curate the online content children see. The present study evaluated the psychometric properties of a four-factor media parenting measurement model introduced by Livingstone et al. (2011) across self-reports of a U.S. sample of parents (Mage = 38.5) and children (ages 10–14; Mage = 11.8). To identify meaningful group differences, latent mean comparisons were evaluated across youth age and gender. Confirmatory Factor Analysis results provided good fit to the data for the four-factor media parenting model based on both parent [χ2(201, n = 306) = 384.407; RMSEA(.046—.063) = .055; CFI = .958; TLI/NNFI = .951; SRMR = .050] and child report [χ2(203, n = 306) = 378.033; RMSEA(.045-.061) = .053; CFI = .942; TLI/NNFI = .934; SRMR = .060]. The final latent parenting factors included: Active Mediation, Monitoring, Technology Control, and Restrictive Mediation. Latent mean comparisons revealed that parents of girls reported higher levels of Monitoring than parents of boys, whereas girls reported higher levels of parental Restriction than boys. Similarly, older children and their parents reported lower Restriction than younger children and their parents. Overall, latent mean differences identified between media parenting domains may be important for youth outcomes and provide support for their inclusion as distinct factors in predictive models.