Sensitivity of self-reported noncognitive skills to survey administration conditions

Revisiting 'Hallmarks of Cancer' In Sarcomas

There is no doubt that anyone who has participated in cancer care or research has once read the 'Hallmarks of Cancer' papers published by Hanahan and Weinberg in 2001 and 2011. They initially defined the six qualities of cancer cells as cancer hallmarks in 2001, but expanded that to 11 as a next generation in 2011. In their papers, they discussed the potential treatment strategies against cancer corresponding to each of the 11 hallmarks, and to date, proposed therapies that target genes and signaling pathways associated with each of these hallmarks have guided a trail that cancer treatments should take, some of which are now used as standard in clinical practice and some of which have yet to progress that far. Along with the recent advances in cancer research such as genomic analysis with next generation sequencing, they can be reconverged to an alternative six categories defined as selective proliferative advantages, altered stress response, deregulated cellular metabolism, immune modulation and inflammation, tumor microenvironment, tissue invasion and metastasis. In this paper, we will overview the current state of these alternative hallmarks and their corresponding treatments in the current sarcoma practice, then discuss the future direction of sarcoma treatment.

Preschool or/and kindergarten? The long-term benefits of different types of early childhood education on pupils' skills

BACKGROUND

Developing countries have witnessed great progress in early childhood education (ECE) enrollment rate over the past three decades. Preschool and kindergarten are the two most common types of ECE in developing countries. Questions remain as to which of the two types of ECE is more effective in promoting child development in developing countries, including both cognitive and non-cognitive skills. The objective of this paper is to examine the long-term benefits of attending preschool or/and kindergarten on pupils' cognitive and non-cognitive skills in rural China.

METHODOLOGY

We pooled data from two large-scale surveys conducted by the authors themselves at 136 rural primary schools in 20 counties from three provinces in northwestern China in 2009. The final study sample consisted of 9,839 pupils who both reported their ECE experience and completed cognitive and non-cognitive tests. We measured pupils' cognitive skills by standardized math test scores and grade retention, and their non-cognitive skills by both self-reported self-efficacy, mental health, and teacher-reported behaviors. Inverse Probability Weighting (IPW) was used to balance the pre-treatment variables between the treatment (Any ECE, Preschool Only, Kindergarten Only, or Preschool+Kindergarten) and comparison (No ECE) groups.

RESULTS

Results from IPW show that compared with their peers without any ECE experience, pupils with any ECE experience perform better in cognitive skills (0.118 standard deviations (s.d.) increase in the TIMSS, 7.1 percentage point (pp) decrease in the probability of grade retention) but not in non-cognitive skills. By ECE types, attending kindergarten only is associated with a 0.150 s.d. increase in the TIMSS, a 7.0 pp decrease in the probability of grade retention, and a 0.059 s.d. decrease in the index of behavioral problems of pupils. Moreover, attending both preschool and kindergarten predicts a lower probability of grade retention, but attending preschool only has few benefits. Heterogenous analyses suggest that the long-term benefits of ECE are more prominent among the Han pupils from households with higher socio-economic status.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings imply that increasing access to ECE can be an effective instrument to improve pupils' skills in less-developed rural areas of China, especially their cognitive skills. Among different types of ECE, attending kindergarten contributes more to pupils' skill development in rural China than other types. We call for strengthened efforts to ensure equal access to quality ECE for preschool-aged children in rural China.

Investigating the Validity of the Australian Early Development Census

This article continues evaluation of the construct validity of the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) through comparison with linked data from a sample of 2216 4-5 year old children collected as part of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). This builds on the construct validity assessment of Brinkman et al. (Early Educ Dev 18(3):427-451, 2007) based on a smaller sample of linked Australian Early Development Instrument (AvEDI) and LSAC children, in which moderate to large correlations were apparent between teacher-rated AvEDI domains and subconstructs and LSAC measures, with lower levels apparent for parent reported LSAC measures. In the current study, the data showed moderate to low correlations between the domains and subdomains from the AEDC and teacher reported LSAC data. Differences in testing times, data sources (e.g. teachers versus carers) and levels of exposure to formal schooling at the time of testing are all discussed to account for the observed outcomes.

Empirical benchmarks for changes in social and emotional skills over time

This study provides empirical benchmarks that quantify typical changes in students' reports of social and emotional skills in a large, diverse sample. Data come from six cohorts of students (N = 361,815; 6% Asian, 8% Black, 68% White, 75% Latinx, 50% Female) who responded to the CORE survey from 2015 to 2018 and help quantify typical gains/declines in growth mindset, self-efficacy, self-management, and social awareness. Results show fluctuations in skills between 4th and 12th grade (changes ranging from -.33 to .23 standard deviations). Growth mindset increases in fourth grade, declines in fifth to seventh grade, then mostly increases. Self-efficacy, self-management, and social awareness decline in sixth to eighth grade. Self-management and social awareness, but not self-efficacy, show increases in 10th to 12th grade.

Comparing the reliability and predictive power of child, teacher, and guardian reports of noncognitive skills

Children’s noncognitive or socioemotional skills (e.g., persistence and self-control) are typically measured using surveys in which either children rate their own skills or adults rate the skills of children. For many purposes—including program evaluation and monitoring school systems—ratings are often collected from multiple perspectives about a single child (e.g., from both the child and an adult). Collecting data from multiple perspectives is costly, and there is limited evidence on the benefits of this approach. Using a longitudinal survey, this study compares children’s noncognitive skills as reported by themselves, their guardians, and their teachers. Although reports from all three types of respondents are correlated with each other, teacher reports have the highest internal consistency and are the most predictive of children’s later cognitive outcomes and behavior in school. The teacher reports add predictive power beyond baseline measures of Intelligence Quotient (IQ) for most outcomes in schools. Measures collected from children and guardians add minimal predictive power beyond the teacher reports.

Simple questionnaires outperform behavioral tasks to measure socio-emotional skills in students

Recent empirical research has shown that improving socio-emotional skills such as grit, conscientiousness and self-control leads to higher academic achievement and better life outcomes. However, both theoretical and empirical works have raised concerns about the reliability of the different methods used to measure socio-emotional skills. We compared the reliability and validity of the three leading measurements methods—a student-reported questionnaire, a teacher-reported questionnaire, and a behavioral task—in a sample of 3997 French students. Before analyzing the data, we polled 114 international researchers in cognitive development and education economics; most researchers in both fields predicted that the behavioral task would be the best method. We found instead that the teacher questionnaire was more predictive of students’ behavioral outcomes and of their grade progression, while the behavioral task was the least predictive. This work suggests that researchers may not be using optimal tools to measure socio-emotional skills in children.

Personality traits and academic performance: Correcting self-assessed traits with vignettes

In this study, we investigate whether Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability and Risk Preference relate to student performance in higher education. We employ anchoring vignettes to correct for heterogeneous scale use in these non-cognitive skills. Our data are gathered among first-year students at a Dutch university. The results show that Conscientiousness is positively related to student performance, but the estimates are strongly biased upward if we use the uncorrected variables. We do not find significant relationships for Emotional Stability but find that the point estimates are larger when using the uncorrected variables. Measured Risk Preference is negatively related to student performance, yet this is fully explained by heterogeneous scale use. These results indicate the importance of using more objective measurements of personality traits.

Intergenerational sustainability is enhanced by taking the perspective of future generations

The intergenerational sustainability dilemma (ISD) is a situation of whether or not a person sacrifices herself for future sustainability. To examine the individual behaviors, one-person ISD game (ISDG) is instituted with strategy method where a queue of individuals is organized as a generational sequence. In ISDG, each individual chooses unsustainable (or sustainable) option with her payoff of [Formula: see text] ([Formula: see text]) and an irreversible cost of [Formula: see text] (zero cost) to future generations in [Formula: see text] situations. Future ahead and back (FAB) mechanism is suggested as resolution for ISD by taking the perspective of future generation whereby each individual is first asked to take the next generation's standpoint and request what she wants the current generation to choose, and, second, to make the actual decision from the original position. Results show that individuals choose unsustainable option as previous generations do so or [Formula: see text] is low (i.e., sustainability is endangered). However, FAB prevents individuals from choosing unsustainable option in such endangered situations. Overall, the results suggest that some new institutions, such as FAB mechanisms, which induce people to take the perspective of future generations, may be necessary to avoid intergenerational unsustainability, especially when intergenerational sustainability is highly endangered.