Project description:BackgroundResearch demonstrates removing barriers to access, decreasing costs and offering same-day placement of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) increases contraceptive uptake in young women. For those in community college (CC), LARC utilization might reduce the risk of dropout and improve degree completion. We identified a local school who had documented an unmet need for on-campus services through a recent student assessment. We then established an on-campus, same day contraceptive clinic at the CC as part of a clinical trial. We found that students did not use the service even after multiple attempts to increase awareness and we ended the study. Here, we report lessons learned from attempting research in this environment in addition to results from a follow-up survey to determine why students did not access the clinical resource. Students reported that they already had good access to contraception and preferred to get their healthcare off-campus. This study demonstrates the complexities of studying highly focused interventions to influence access to care in the current health care environment with ever changing regulations.Trial registrationNCT02735551 . Registered April 6, 2016.
Project description:We investigate the possibility that Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, ways of being that facilitate assimilation to the dominant culture, is field-specific in its manifestation and intergenerational transmission. We focus on a field of central economic and academic interest: STEM. Data on around 13,000 undergraduates from the large nationally representative High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 indicate that parents' STEM-specific cultural capital positively contributes to youth's selection of and persistence in STEM majors in the form of parents' STEM education. We find that transmission is enacted through youths' field-specific institutionalized cultural capital (e.g., STEM grades and test scores), field-specific embodied cultural capital (e.g., STEM attitudes), and characteristics of their educational institutions (e.g., four-year rather than two-year college). This study contributes to the theory of cultural capital by examining cultural capital through a field-specific lens, and then specifically elucidating how it is expressed and transmitted within that field.
Project description:Guided by intersectional multimodal literacy frameworks and analytic methods, this qualitative study explored how seven high-achieving Black undergraduate women's photo essays visually and textually represented their persistence during the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo essays, in this context, are intersectional multimodal compositions that use images and words to articulate the challenges that the women faced during COVID-19 and the resources that promoted their persistence. Data sources included a demographic questionnaire, the women's digital photo essays, and lengthy photo-elicitation interviews with the women on Zoom. Findings reveal that the women's photo essays evoked an endarkened persistence, rooted in the legacy of Black people's collective struggle and survival, and represented by two interrelated themes: Affirming Black Beauty (i.e., Embracing natural Black hair and Caring for Black female bodies) and Honoring the Spirit (i.e., (Re)connecting with sistafriends, (Re)claiming rest, and Nurturing creativity). Research and practical implications are discussed.
Project description:Curricular changes that promote undergraduate persistence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines are likely associated with particular student psychological outcomes, and tools are needed that effectively assess these developments. Here, we describe the theoretical basis, psychometric properties, and predictive abilities of the Persistence in the Sciences (PITS) assessment survey designed to measure these in course-based research experiences (CREs). The survey is constructed from existing psychological assessment instruments, incorporating a six-factor structure consisting of project ownership (emotion and content), self-efficacy, science identity, scientific community values, and networking, and is supported by a partial confirmatory factor analysis. The survey has strong internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha: α = 0.96) and was validated using standard simple and multiple regression analyses. The regression analyses demonstrated that the factors of the PITS survey were significant predictors of the intent to become a research scientist and, as such, potentially valid for the measurement of persistence in the sciences. The PITS survey provides an effective method for measuring the psychological outcomes of undergraduate research experiences relevant to persistence in STEM and offers an approach to the development and validation of more sophisticated assessment tools that recognize the specificities of the type of educational opportunities embedded in a CRE.
Project description:We develop an overlapping generations general equilibrium model of the U.S. economy with heterogeneous consumers who face idiosyncratic earnings and health risk to study the implications of increasing college attainment, decreasing fertility, and increasing longevity (2005-2100). While all three trends contribute to a higher old age dependency ratio, increasing college attainment has different implications because it increases labor productivity. Decreasing fertility and increasing longevity require the government to increase the average labor tax rate from 33.5 to 47.1 percent. Increasing college attainment lowers the required tax increase by 12.0 percentage points. The labor tax rate required to balance the government budget is higher under general equilibrium than in a small open economy with a constant interest rate, because the reduction in the interest rate lowers capital income tax revenues.
Project description:In 2003, Chicago Public Schools introduced double-dose algebra, requiring two periods of math-one period of algebra and one of algebra support-for incoming ninth graders with eighth-grade math scores below the national median. Using a regression discontinuity design, earlier studies showed promising results from the program: For median-skill students, double-dose algebra improved algebra test scores, pass rates, high school graduation rates, and college enrollment. This study follows the same students 12 y later. Our findings show that, for median-skill students in the 2003 cohort, double-dose significantly increased semesters of college attended and college degree attainment. These results were not replicated for the 2004 cohort. Importantly, the impact of the policy on median-skill students depended largely on how classes were organized. In 2003, the impacts on college persistence and degree attainment were large in schools that strongly adhered to the cut-score-based course assignment, but without grouping median-skill students with lower-skill peers. Few schools implemented the policy in such a way in 2004.
Project description:BackgroundOrganization theories offer numerous existing, highly relevant, yet largely untapped explanations of the organizational dynamics underlying evidence-based intervention (EBI) implementation. Rooted in ideas regarding power, autonomy, and control, organization theories can explain how and why organizations adopt, implement, and sustain EBI use. Although they have gained visibility, organization theories remain underused in implementation research, perhaps due to their inaccessibility to implementation scientists. To improve access to organization theory among implementation scientists, we summarized organization theories with relevance to implementation science.MethodsLed by the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network (CPCRN) Organization Theory for Implementation Science workgroup, we employed a modified Delphi process to reach a consensus among 18 experts at the intersection of organization and implementation science regarding organization theories with relevance to implementation science. From texts that described the organization theories, using standardized abstraction forms, two investigators independently abstracted information regarding constructs, propositions regarding how or why constructs might influence implementation, the potential relevance of organization theories' propositions for implementation, and overviews of each theory. The investigators then reconciled discrepancies until reaching consensus. A third investigator reviewed reconciled abstraction forms for accuracy, coherence, and completeness.FindingsWe identified nine organization theories with relevance to implementation science: contingency, complexity, institutional, network, organizational learning, resource dependence, sociotechnical, and transaction cost economics. From the theories, we abstracted 70 constructs and 65 propositions. An example proposition from institutional theory is: "Coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures contribute to organizations…within an organizational field [becoming increasingly similar]." These propositions can be operationalized as levers to facilitate EBI implementation.ConclusionsTo increase use in the field, organization theories must be made more accessible to implementation scientists. The abstraction forms developed in this study are now publicly available on the CPCRN website with the goal of increasing access to organization theories among an interdisciplinary audience of implementation scientists through the CPCRN Scholars program and other venues. Next steps include consolidating organization theory constructs into domains and translating the resulting framework for use among researchers, policymakers and practitioners, aiding them in accounting for a comprehensive set of organization theory constructs thought to influence EBI implementation.
Project description:ObjectiveThe primary aims of this study are to (a) identify patterns of suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB) during college among students with lifetime pre-matriculation STB and (b) develop a risk-screening algorithm for persistence of pre-matriculation STB during college.MethodsData come from the Leuven College Surveys, a series of prospective cohort studies of all incoming KU Leuven University freshmen. In the academic year 2012-2013, 4,889 incoming freshmen (73.2% response rate) provided baseline data on sociodemographic variables, childhood-adolescent traumatic experiences, 12-month stressful experiences, 12-month mental disorders, 12-month STB, and severity markers of pre-matriculation STB. A total of 2,566 students (69.3% conditional response rate) participated in 12- and 24-month follow-up surveys during the first 2 college years.ResultsThirteen percent (weighted n = 535) of incoming freshmen reported lifetime pre-matriculation STB. Of those, 28.0% reported 12-month STB in 1 follow-up assessment, and another 27.7%, in both follow-up assessments. High persistence of STB (ie, 12-month STB in 2 follow-up assessments) was most strongly associated with severity markers of pre-matriculation STB, with odds ratios in the 2.4-10.3 range and population attributable risk proportions between 9.2% and 50.8%. When the aim was for less than 50% of false-positive cases (positive predictive value = 54.4%), a multivariate predictive risk algorithm (cross-validated area under the curve = 0.79) situated 59.9% of highly persistent cases among the 30% respondents with highest baseline predicted risk.ConclusionsAn individualized web-based screening approach is a promising strategy to identify students at the time of university entrance who may be at high risk for STB persistence during their academic career.
Project description:This study assesses the impacts of the Science program at Piedmont Virginia Community College and its flagship capstone research experience, Supervised Study, through psychosocial perceptions associated with persistence in science and through a comparative analysis of subsequent science bachelor's degree attainment. Supervised Study involves authentic, independent projects, a research methods course and learning community, and one-on-one faculty mentoring. The Persistence in the Sciences survey was used as a repeated-measures instrument in four semesters of Supervised Study. Positive trends were observed for self-efficacy, science identity, community values, and networking, while responses related to project ownership were mixed (n = 13). To contextualize these observations, transfer and bachelor's degree completion rates were analyzed. Students who earn an associate's degree in Science (n = 113 between 2012 and 2019) complete bachelor's degrees at high rates (66.4%). Moreover, they are two to four times more likely to major in physical and natural sciences than their science-oriented peers, who take many of the same courses, with the exception of Supervised Study. Notably, these comparison rates remain consistent between different demographic groups. These findings further describe a model for research at the community college level that supports persistence in undergraduate science for a broad group of students.
Project description:ObjectiveTo compare the effects of a coverage expansion versus a Medicaid physician fee increase on children's utilization of physician services. PRIMARY DATA SOURCE: National Health Interview Survey (1997-2009).Study designWe use the Children's Health Insurance Program, enacted in 1997, as a natural experiment, and we performed a panel data regression analysis using the state-year as the unit of observation. Outcomes include physician visits per child per year and the following indicators of access to primary care: whether the child saw a physician, pediatrician, or visited an ER in the last year, and whether the parents reported experiencing a non-cost-related access problem. We analyzed these outcomes among all children, and separately among socioeconomic status (SES) quartiles defined based on family income and parents' education.Principal findingsChildren's Health Insurance Program had a major impact on the extent and nature of children's insurance coverage. However, it is not associated with any change in the aggregate quantity of physician services, and its associations with indicators of access are mixed. Increases in physician fees are associated with broad-based improvements in indicators of access.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that (1) coverage expansions, even if they substantially reduce patient cost sharing, do not necessarily increase physician utilization, and (2) increasing the generosity of provider payments in public programs can improve access among low-SES children, and, through spillover effects, increase higher-SES children as well.