Background: Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption (SSB) among children is a main risk factor for childhood obesity and subsequent onset of chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular ...disease. Introducing a tax on SSBs could potentially curb SSB consumption. However, empirical evidence remains limited and mixed. This study aims to assess the effect of an SSB tax on consumption among youth. Methods: Design Quasi-natural experiment and difference-in-difference (DID) analytical framework of pre- and post-tax SSB consumption among youth. Setting Philadelphia, PA; Seattle, WA; Oakland, CA; and Chicago Cook County, IL where sweetened beverage taxes were implemented, and other thirty cities without an SSB tax as controls. Participants 9th to 12th high school students Exposures Sweetened beverage excise taxes Main outcome and measures Effect of an SSB tax on the probability and quantity of soda, milk, and 100% fruit juice consumption. Results: Our DID estimation suggested that the introduction of an SSB tax was associated with a significant decline in soda consumption among high-school students in terms of probability (2.3 percentage points, CI, - 3.5 to -0.1, p<0.01) and quantity (0.48 of a can, equivalent to 5.76 ounces CI, -0.60 to -0.37, p < 0.01) of consumption. The decreased soda consumption was compensated by an increase in weekly milk consumption (0.55 glasses/ 4.4 ounces, CI, -0.44 to -0.66, p<0.01), whereas the consumption of 100% juice remained unchanged. The tax effects were more pronounced among normal weight, female, and racially Black/African American or White high school students compared to their counterparts. Conclusions: SSB taxes are an efficacious fiscal policy tool to curb SSB consumption among US youth.
Abstract
Introduction
Although napping is very common and related to the outcome of individual development, the relationship between napping and health is not the same in different social and ...cultural contexts. In China, napping is considered as a healthy lifestyle and is often associated with better adolescent development outcomes. As a special group of teenagers (the academic level does not meet the requirements of ordinary high school), vocational high school students have a higher incidence of behavioral problems than ordinary high school students. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the characteristics of napping and its relationship with behavioral problems in vocational high school students.
Methods
The napping questionnaire, Youth Self Report (YSR), general information questionnaire and other tools for covariates were used to measure 2505 high school students (62.04% boys, 37.96% girls, 16.71±0.02 years), recruited by convenient sampling. The relationship between nappingand behavioral problems was analyzed by multiple linear regression.
Results
72.58% of the participants reported taking a midday nap at least three days per week during the past month, and 55.79% of our sample reported naps more than 30 minutes. Multiple regression analysis showed that nap frequency was negatively associated with high school students’ behavior problems after controlling for general characteristics and other important covariates. Compared with high school students who did not nap or napped less than 1 time/week, high school students who napped 1–2 times/week or 3–4 times/week had lower level of both internalizing behavior problems and externalizing behavior problems. There was no statistically significant association between nap duration and behavior problems.
Conclusion
This study finds that when napping is allowed, moderate frequency of napping is associated with lower level of internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems in vocational high school students, while nap duration is not significantly associated with behavioral problems. Further research is needed to explore the mechanism of the relationship between napping and behavior problems.
Support (if any):
Background
Prior research has shown that engagement plays a significant role in students’ academic learning.
Aims
The present study sought to expand the current understanding of students’ engagement ...by examining how situational engagement during a particular lesson is associated with the observed teacher–student classroom interactions (i.e., emotional support, instructional support, and classroom organization) in the same lesson.
Sample
The participants were 709 Grade 7 students (47.7% girls) from 59 classrooms in 26 lower secondary schools and 51 teachers.
Methods
The data consisted of 155 video‐recorded lessons (90 language arts and 65 mathematics lessons) coded using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System – Secondary (CLASS‐S) observational instrument. Students’ self‐ratings of their situation‐specific engagement were collected using the mobile‐based In Situations (InSitu) Instrument at the end of each lesson. The data were analyzed with cross‐classified two‐level hierarchical modelling.
Results and conclusions
The results indicated that emotional support in the classroom was positively associated with students’ emotional engagement and help‐seeking, whereas classroom organization was associated with students’ behavioural and cognitive engagement. Overall, the findings provide novel evidence suggesting that students’ engagement can be fostered by supportive teacher‐student interactions.
This diary study provided the first classroom-based empirical test of the relations between student perceptions of high school science teachers' various autonomy supporting and thwarting practices ...and students' motivation and engagement on a daily basis over the course of an instructional unit. Perceived autonomy supporting practices were hypothesized to predict autonomous motivation and engagement outcomes, while perceived autonomy thwarting practices were hypothesized to predict controlled motivation and disaffection outcomes. In line with this prediction, multilevel modeling results based on regular reports of 208 high school students in 41 science classes across 6 weeks suggested that 4 perceived daily supports (choice provision, consideration for student preferences and interests, rationales for importance, and question opportunities) and 1 daily thwart (use of uninteresting activities) predicted changes in daily autonomous motivation and engagement. In contrast, changes in students' daily controlled motivation and disaffection were predicted primarily by 3 perceived daily thwarts (controlling messages, suppression of student perspectives, and use of uninteresting activities). Results also suggested that practices interacted such that the perception of thwarts generally bolstered desirable daily relationships between perceived supports and students' motivation and the perception of supports generally mitigated undesirable daily relationships between thwarts and motivation. Supplemental exploratory results suggested that the effects of choice and suppression of student perspectives may be heterogeneous and depend on the outcome and/or the presence of other practices. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
The results of a 6-week classroom-based diary study with 208 high school students in 41 science classes suggested that students' autonomous motivation and engagement increased (since the prior class day) on days when students perceived their teachers to support their autonomy by providing choices, considering their preferences and interests in course activities, communicating rationales for the importance of activities, providing opportunities to ask questions, or avoiding uninteresting activities. In contrast, controlled motivation and disaffection increased on days when students' perceived their teachers to thwart their autonomy by using controlling messages, suppressing student perspectives, or using uninteresting activities. Students' perceptions that teachers' used thwarting practices simultaneously with supportive practices bolstered the desirable relationship between perceived supports and motivation, and mitigated the undesirable relationship between thwarts and motivation. Results suggest the importance of focusing motivation interventions on training high school teachers to implement specific daily practices geared at supporting students' experience of autonomy and minimizing the use of specific thwarting practices to both promote autonomous motivation and engagement and reduce controlled motivation and disaffection. Results highlight the importance of targeting a profile of autonomy-relevant practices that teachers use each day when attempting to maximize student motivation and engagement.
Student ratings of teaching quality have been shown to be powerful predictors of important academic outcome variables. This is the case despite the fact that students from the same classroom can ...perceive teaching quality quite differently in their own idiosyncratic ways. These differences among students in the same classroom are typically dismissed as the result of individual rating tendencies (e.g., rater leniency) with only low relevance for students' learning. However, such idiosyncratic perceptions might also be the result of meaningful differences among students in that they could reflect dyadic effects between individual students and specific teachers (e.g., a trusting relationship). In the present study, we examined students' perceptions of teaching quality in mathematics lessons (structure, monitoring, comprehensibility, and support) in a nationally representative sample of 204 German secondary school mathematics classes. We used a quasi-experimental design for students who had the same teacher in Grades 9 and 10 and students who had a new teacher in Grade 10 to differentiate between students' time-consistent rating tendencies and dyadic student-teacher effects. The results of latent variable models showed that student rating tendencies were found for all quality dimensions, with the highest impact observed for students' general impression and teacher monitoring. The results for students with the same teacher showed additional dyadic effects. Students' general impression and comprehensibility exhibited greater time consistency when students rated the same teacher than when students rated different teachers. Finally, students' rating tendencies and dyadic effects were related to students' outcomes.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
Student ratings of teaching quality are often used to assess the quality of teaching provided by specific teachers, and such ratings have high predictive validity in terms of various learning outcomes. It is interesting that despite reasonable consensus among students in the same classroom, students also differ to some extent in how they rate their teacher's teaching. In the present study, we examined potential reasons for differing perceptions of teaching quality (structure, monitoring, comprehensibility, and support) among students in the same mathematics class in a nationally representative sample of 204 German secondary school mathematics classes. The study's results provide additional support for the validity of student ratings of teaching quality. Moreover, the results suggest that, in addition to general rating tendencies, a given student's rating also reflects the quality of the relationship between this specific student and the teacher. The findings also emphasize the importance of the "fit" between teachers and students for students' learning in mathematics.
In this paper, we present a new minimal mathematical conceptual approach to quantum mechanics using light polarization for lower secondary school students with the aim of bringing students closer to ...the so-called quantum mechanical way of thinking. We investigated how students think about some of the basic concepts and fundamental laws and we found that certain concepts are quite well-understandable in younger grades too. We studied the introduction of the so-called state circle, which can faithfully represent quantum mechanical formalism without involving students in abstract algebraic calculations. We then categorized and analyzed students’ thoughts on the superposition principle and the lack of trajectory, finding that the concept of measurement and the lack of trajectory were problematic. We explored that younger students tend to hold gestalt-like mental models of quantum concepts, while at the same time being able to use visualizations correctly for reasoning in the quantum realm. Overall, this paper provides evidence in favor of introducing basic features of quantum mechanics as early as in lower secondary school.
This study draws upon social cognitive career theory and higher education literature to test a conceptual framework for understanding the entrance into science, technology, engineering, and ...mathematics (STEM) majors by recent high school graduates attending 4-year institutions. Results suggest that choosing a STEM major is directly influenced by intent to major in STEM, high school math achievement, and initial postsecondary experiences, such as academic interaction and financial aid receipt. Exerting the largest impact on STEM entrance, intent to major in STEM is directly affected by 12th-grade math achievement, exposure to math and science courses, and math self-efficacy beliefs—all three subject to the influence of early achievement in and attitudes toward math. Multiple-group structural equation modeling analyses indicated heterogeneous effects of math achievement and exposure to math and science across racial groups, with their positive impact on STEM intent accruing most to White students and least to under-represented minority students.
Using panel data from a census of public school students in the state of Florida, the authors examine the associations between students' high school course-taking in various subjects and their ...10th-grade test scores, high school graduation, entry into postsecondary institutions, and postsecondary performance. The authors use propensity score matching (based on 8thgrade test scores, other student characteristics, and school effects) within groups of students matched on the composition of the students' course-taking in other subjects to estimate the differences in outcomes for students who take rigorous courses in a variety of subjects. The authors find substantial significant differences in outcomes for those who take rigorous courses, and these estimated effects are often larger for disadvantaged youth and students attending disadvantaged schools.
Our newly proposed integrated academic self-concept model integrates 3 major theories of academic self-concept formation and developmental perspectives into a unified conceptual and methodological ...framework. Relations among math self-concept (MSC), school grades, test scores, and school-level contextual effects over 6 years, from the end of primary school through the first 5 years of secondary school (a representative sample of 3,370 German students, 42 secondary schools, 50% male, M age at grade 5 = 11.75) support the (1) internal/external frame of reference model: Math school grades had positive effects on MSC, but the effects of German grades were negative; (2) reciprocal effects (longitudinal panel) model: MSC was predictive of and predicted by math test scores and school grades; (3) big-fish-little-pond effect: The effects on MSC were negative for school-average achievement based on 4 indicators (primary school grades in math and German, school-track prior to the start of secondary school, math test scores in the first year of secondary school). Results for all 3 theoretical models were consistent across the 5 secondary school years: This supports the prediction of developmental equilibrium. This integration highlights the robustness of support over the potentially volatile early to middle adolescent period; the interconnectedness and complementarity of 3 ASC models; their counterbalancing strengths and weaknesses; and new theoretical, developmental, and substantive implications at their intersections.
BackgroundSports- and recreation-related (SRR) activities are a major cause of concussions among adolescents. Most adolescent SRR concussion research has been conducted among public school students. ...As private schools are qualitatively different from public schools (e.g. location, socioeconomic status, sports played), this study explores the concussion experiences of a large group of private high school students.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study is to describe concussion reporting and return to learn (RTL) and return to play (RTP) post-concussion in a sample of private high school students who play a sport or engage in a recreational activity. These outcomes were also stratified by gender, contact level of their primary sport, and grade.DesignWe surveyed students who played sports or a recreational activity about the sports they played, and their self-reported concussion experiences between April - May, 2018. Descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate statistics are presented.SettingTen New England private preparatory high schools.Patients (or Participants)Data was collected from 2,122 male and female students.Interventions (or Assessment of Risk Factors)Sex, grade, contact level of primary sport played and age of first concussion.Main Outcome MeasurementsThe main outcome of interest was percentage of students who reported/hid a concussion, and the time it the student to return to school and then to sport.ResultsOne-third (33.0%) of students who reported engaging in sport-activities, self-reported experiencing a concussion in their lifetime. A higher percentage of males, students who played contact sports, and those who played multiple seasons of school sports, reported a concussion. Sex, contact level of primary sport played and age of first concussion were also significantly associated with reporting a sports-related concussion. 3% of students reported faking concussions.ConclusionsA sizeable proportion of private preparatory high school students reported experiencing a concussion, with some students at higher risk.
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