Given waning second language (L2) enrollments in K-16 contexts, L2 programs must strive to understand their learners, as changes in their sociocultural environment can impact students' attitudes and, subsequently, their desire and ability to learn an L2. Thus, the authors conducted a two-wave analysis of 68 first-year L2 students' attitudes, dispositions, and expectations of L2 learning. Findings show that, as a group, first-year students entered the postsecondary arena with positive dispositions. Analyzing students' traits and prior L2 experiences was a more illustrative way of predicting how their opinions evolved. Specifically, female gender, lack of pre-high school L2 instruction, lack of travel experience in a country where the L2 is spoken, and enrollment in a 100-level course were all found to negatively shape these attitudes over time. The authors contend that L2 programs should regularly analyze learners' dispositions along with their traits to better engage and retain first-year postsecondary L2 students.

Background Religion and science are typically portrayed as fundamentally at odds and in competition over truth claims. Yet recent studies have shown that many Americans, including scientists, do not necessarily hold such a straightforward perspective on this complicated relationship. The majority of current studies have been limited in fully capturing the way people construct and understand the relationship between these domains given their predominant use of close-ended survey methodologies. Purpose This study seeks to enhance our knowledge of how people navigate religion and science issues by allowing young adults to respond to open-ended questions from semi-structured, in-depth interviews about how they navigate the domains of religion and science. Methods We analyze 214 qualitative, in-depth interviews with young adults who participated in Wave 3 of the National Study of Youth and Religion. Results Results confirm that a warfare model is not the dominant perspective among young adults today. Rather, analyses revealed five predominant themes among young adults: (1) They commonly construe this relationship in purely individualistic terms, believing people do and should sort the truth out for themselves; (2) They see the two as mutually deficient and therefore both are needed to answer different questions; (3) Their understanding of this relationship reduces to how one views the origins of the world; (4) They believe the two can actually be mutually supportive; and (5) Any contention between the two stems from institutional conflicts, primarily in the realm of education, not competing claims about fundamental truths. Conclusions and Implications Beliefs about religion and science among young adults are complex and not captured fully by close-ended survey questions. This question is clearly one that most young adults have considered and can articulate. Future research should consider how these beliefs are formulated and what influence they have on life outcomes.

Part I: Foundations for Working With Stata Chapter 1: Getting to Know Stata What You See Getting Started With Data Files Chapter 2: The Essentials Intuition and Stata Commands The Structure of Stata Commands The 5 Essential Commands Nonessential, Everyday Commands Chapter 3: Do Files and Data Management What Is a Do File? Data Management Part II: Quantitative Analysis With Stata Chapter 4: Descriptive Statistics Frequency Distributions Measures of Central Tendency and Variability Chapter 5: Relationships Between Nominal and Ordinal Variables Cross-Tabulations Chapter 6: Relationships Between Different Measurement Levels Testing Means Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) Chapter 7: Relationships Between Interval-Ratio Variables Correlation Linear Regression Chapter 8: Enhancing Your Command Repertoire Stata Help Files Advanced Convenience Commands Expanding Stata's Capabilities Appendix A: Getting to Know Stata Appendix B: Getting to Know Stata Chapter Exercise Solutions How To Index

A number of recent studies have examined the connection between pornography use and relationship outcomes for Americans already in marriages. The current study takes this research in a different direction by examining (1) whether pornography use may be associated with entrance into marriage during early adulthood and (2) whether this association is moderated by both gender and religion, two key factors strongly related to both pornography use and earlier marriage. Longitudinal data were taken from waves 1, 3, and 4 of the National Study of Youth and Religion, a nationally-representative panel study of Americans from their teenage years into early adulthood (N = 1,691). It was theorized that frequent pornography use at earlier survey waves may foster more sexually progressive attitudes that may lead to devaluing marriage as an institution, and, for religious men in particular, may disincentivize marriage as a “socially legitimate” means of sexual fulfillment. Findings affirmed that, compared to more moderate levels of pornography use, higher levels of pornography use in emerging adulthood were associated with a lower likelihood of marriage by the final survey wave for men, but not women. This association was not moderated by religiosity for either gender. Moreover, among men, higher frequency pornography viewers were not significantly different from non-viewers in their likelihood of marriage entry. Data limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

Early religion scholars stressed the importance of institutionalized "rites of passage" to integrate and reinvigorate groups themselves. Surprisingly, little work, however, has explored the efficacy of such rites for the religious lives of individuals. Although research has examined the transformative role of semi-institutionalized rites like short-term mission trips and pilgrimages, we shift the focus to consider the potential influence of more fundamental initiation rites such as baptism, first communion, and bar/bat mitzvahs. Utilizing surveys 1 and 4 of the National Study of Youth and Religion and focusing on overall religiosity and disaffiliation as the outcomes, we examine whether experiencing a religious rite of passage during or before one's teenage years predicts the religious outcomes of young adults. We find no difference in religiosity over time between persons who experienced a religious rite passage and those who did not. However, those who underwent a religious rite of passage were 30 percent less likely to disaffiliate between data collection points. Tests for interactions show that the influence of such initiation rites does not vary across religious traditions. Findings suggest the experience of baptism, bar/bat mitzvah, confirmation, or other rites of passage matter primarily as durable markers of social identity, binding adherents to their faith community, if only nominally.

Project-based learning (PjBL) as a PK-12 instructional model is growing nationwide. PjBL is seen as a mechanism to deliver academic content in a more engaging way for students and in a way that stresses the development of skills critical to success in the 21st-century workforce. Because of its increasing popularity and the disparate breadth of research around the model, a study of PjBL in three southeastern public schools was conducted during academic years 2015-2016 and 2016-2017. This study attempted to better understand how PjBL was implemented in schools and to explore the impact of PjBL on schools, teachers, and students. Data collection included classroom observations, educator surveys, student surveys, and an analysis of academic and behavioral outcomes and a subset of social-emotional skills. Findings did not reveal consistent significant differences in the performances of PjBL and non-PjBL demographically matched students on academic and behavioral outcomes. PjBL students did, however, perform better on inventories of social-emotional skills. In addition, while PjBL implementation challenges are apparent, perceptions of students and educators of the impact and possibilities of PjBL are quite positive.

Using panel data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, we examine the effect of beliefs about evolution in high school on several postsecondary educational outcomes. Results indicate that net of a host of background factors and potential alternative explanatory factors, there are significant associations between beliefs about evolution and pursuing or obtaining a bachelor's degree, such that pure creationists (i.e., creationists who do not allow for the possibility that God used evolution to create the world) are less likely than naturalists to be on this trajectory. Further, when they do attend college, pure creationists and flexible creationists (i.e., creationists who allow for the possibility that God used evolution) both attend less selective colleges than naturalists, and pure creationists are less likely than naturalists to major in biology. These results suggest that evolution is a morally salient issue for many that influences their educational trajectories, highlighting the role that cultural schemas can play in shaping socioeconomic status.

Research indicates that religiosity inhibits adolescent and young adult sexual behavior, but few studies examine how religious contexts may shape sexual behavior. When religious contexts are considered, studies rarely test multiple spheres of religious influence simultaneously. Moreover, little research examines how either individual religiosity or religious contexts shape emotional responses to sex. We analyze nationally representative, longitudinal data that allow for concurrent examination of multiple religious contexts and several measures of young adult sexual behaviors and sexual regret. The influence of religiosity on sexual behavior and regret varies within and across both the spheres and outcomes tested. Individual religious salience and close ties with parents are the most consistent deterrents to initiation of sexual intercourse and having numerous intercourse partners. Closeness to parents and participation in religious activities are associated with lower odds of sexual regret, but ties to adults in one’s religious congregation are associated with increased sexual regret.

Social scientists know very little about the consequences of exposure to scientific knowledge and holding different perspectives on science and religion for individuals' religious lives. Drawing on secularization and post-secular theories, we develop and test several hypotheses about the relationships among exposure to scientific knowledge, perspectives on religion and science, and religious commitment using panel data from the National Study of Youth and Religion. Our findings indicate that religious faith is strongest among young adults who: (1) accommodate scientific knowledge into their religious perspective, or (2) reject scientific knowledge that directly contradicts their religious beliefs about the origins of the world. Young adults are also more likely to have lower religious commitment when they view science and religion as independent institutions, lending support to secularization ideas about how social differentiation secularizes individuals. We further find that mere exposure to scientific knowledge, in terms of majoring in biology or acknowledging conflict between the teachings of religion and science, is usually not sufficient to undermine religious commitment.

This chapter examines how Roman Catholic faith and practices in the U.S. do and do not make a different in a variety of important lifecourse outcomes among Catholic 18–13 year-old Americans. Again, the analysis is based upon third-wave data from the National Study of Youth and Religion. The chapter demonstrates that Catholic faith and practice tend to make significant but usually not major differences in a number of lifecourse outcomes. Those American Catholic emerging adults ages 18–23 who are the most religiously devout tend to be doing significantly better in various ways in their lives than those who are not very religious or not religious at all. This pattern reproduces similar associations found between religious faith and practice and positive lifecourse outcomes for American youth generally.

Fostering students’ intellectual curiosity is a common goal of first-year seminar programs—especially in liberal arts settings. The authors propose an alternative method to assess this ambiguous, value-laden concept. Relying on data gathered from pre- and posttest in-depth interviews of 34 students enrolled in first-year seminars, they construct an externally valid assess ment framework to measure the behavioral manifestations of intellectual curiosity. More specifically, they measure the extent to which students’ participation in first-year seminars leads to an increase in intrinsically motivated behaviors that enhance and expand upon their educational experience. Colleges and universities nationwide have instituted first-year seminar programs to facilitate students’ entrance into their respective intellectual communities. The success of these programs has been measured in a number of ways. They have been shown to improve graduation rates (Barefoot, 1993), retention (Boudreau & Kromrey, 1994), satisfaction, and student adjustment (for an overview, see Barton and Donahue, 2009; Pascarella and Terenzini, 2005, pp. 400-403). Yet, while these are worthy accomplishments, many institutions have higher aspirations; they want to transform students into new kinds of people. A 2006 survey of first-year seminar programs found that over 35% of them encouraged some type of “self-exploration” and “personal development” (Griffin & Tobolows ky, 2008). In this study, we offer a framework for assessing one of these

This book provides an in-depth description and analysis of American Catholics (and ex-Catholics) ages 18–23. The main focus is on their religious and spiritual lives but also includes an examination of how their religious faith and practice do and do not affect other life outcomes. Based on nationally representative survey and interview (longitudinal/panel) data of the highest quality, the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR—first and third waves). It describes the distribution of religious beliefs and practices among them, how they cluster into different types of young adults religiously, shows the kind of changes that have happened in the lives of this group of (ex-)Catholic emerging adults, and which factors from their teenage years tend to produce higher levels of religiousness five years later. It also contains the most careful and sophisticated methodological discussion of how to conceptualize and measure who in the U.S. should even count as "Catholic" in social-science studies. It contributes both to our scholarly knowledge about religious change and stability in the U.S., especially among emerging adults, and to our understanding of how and why the Catholic Church is undergoing changes over time, particularly with its younger members. All of the findings are also set into big-picture historical context with a chapter that shows how sweeping changes in the twentieth century set up the Catholic Church for what it is confronting today.

It is well known that founders typically seek assistance for their fledgling ventures, but what remains unclear are the reasons why some founders collaborate with more people than others in their startup efforts. Our study investigates the link between employment experience and the extent to which founders depend on others for assistance when starting businesses. Employment experience provides founders with opportunities to be exposed to and develop preferences for particular work environments and the conditions associated with certain organizational roles. Drawing on occupational socialization theory, we investigate why employment experience predicts founding collaboration size. Our analysis of a nationally representative sample of early-stage business founders in the United States reveals that the amount of business experience and the defining social and analytical requirements of a founder's occupational background affect the number of people founders choose to involve in their founding efforts in opposite ways: While founders possessing venture-specific industry experience are more likely to opt for solo ventures or smaller collaborations, founders with backgrounds in highly interactive occupations are more likely to recruit more collaborators as co-owners. We found this preference for collaboration is strengthened for founders with occupational backgrounds that called for both interactive and analytical work. Our findings have theoretical and practical implications on how founders' experience influences the extent to which they initiate collaborations with others.

This excursus explores in depth the technical methodological issues involved in who should “count” as “Catholic” in any social-science study using survey data. This is a matter that most studies of Catholics tend to ignore, and yet it might affect their research findings in significant ways. It applies especially for studies focusing on children, teenagers, or emerging adults, for whom family background is a potentially still-important influence, even if those youth do not currently self-identify as Catholic at the time of the study. The excursus demonstrates the many complications involved in different ways of categorizing “Catholics” for analysis and how they affect findings, often as a methodological artifact. The excursus’ findings provide an important methodological contribution to the social-scientific study of Catholicism, in the U.S. and perhaps beyond.