Abstract Childhood education affects how individuals adapt to the challenges of adulthood. Although various generalizations are made relating childhood educational experiences to characteristics of adults, there is scant evidence to support those assertions for adult literacy learners in the United States. This study investigates the relationship of childhood educational attainment to other characteristics of adult learners. In this study, 201 native English-speaking adult learners in the United States who read at the 3.0–7.9 grade equivalency levels were administered surveys and tests to better understand the relationships between childhood educational attainment and the following characteristics: childhood school disability status and grade repetition; as well as adult characteristics including current reading-related skills, reading avoidance behaviors, reading practices for informational and digital texts, employment status, and Readiness-to-Learn. Results indicated that only school disability status was correlated with educational attainment (Cramer’s V test, V = 0.279, p = 0.004). The results contribute to the body of knowledge about adult learners who want to develop literacy skills and the nuances of childhood schooling experiences in this population. Based on these results, caution should be exercised when treating educational attainment as a signal of other characteristics, including reading skills, among adult literacy students. These findings align with other international research findings.

The following study examines the impact of an online stress intervention on teacher burnout and teacher efficacy. Using a group experimental design, researchers tested the preliminary efficacy of the intervention: an online professional development program created for teachers that instructs coping strategies and promotes social-emotional competencies. Fifty-one teachers and classroom staff were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. After four weeks, participation in the program was associated with increases in coping practices, teacher efficacy, and personal accomplishment as well as decreases in emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Implications for research and professional development are discussed.

Writing allows access to venues often limited by poverty, disabilities, and geography. Promoting writing skills can create bridges to overcome the isolation that often keeps communities from engaging with one another. However, most of the students in the nation's schools are not capable writers and find the persuasive genres challenging. In this wait-list quasi-experimental study, 25 teachers from four urban schools were assigned to treatment (n=11) or control conditions (n=14). Teachers received practice-based professional development to learn to teach self-regulated strategy development for persuasive writing to their 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students (318 in treatment, 367 in control). Before and after intervention, students wrote to persuasive prompts, which were counterbalanced, and scored for holistic quality, analytic quality, and length. Teachers were observed for fidelity of implementation and focus groups were conducted to assess social validity. Results indicate teachers implemented with adequate, but lower than expected fidelity. Student results indicate SRSD instruction resulted in an increase in writing outcomes above those in the comparison condition, but effect sizes were low (holistic quality ES=0.15; analytic ES=0.24; length ES=0.15). Lower teacher fidelity resulted in more variability in student outcomes. Teachers indicated they found the intervention had a positive effect on students and would use SRSD in the future.

NAPDS NINE ESSENTIALS ADDRESSED: 1. A comprehensive mission that is broader in its outreach and scope than the mission of any partner and that furthers the education profession and its responsibility to advance equity within schools and, by potential extension, the broader community; 4. A shared commitment to innovative and reflective practice by all participants; 5. Engagement in and public sharing of the results of deliberate investigations of practice by respective participants 6. Work by college/university faculty and P–12 faculty in formal roles across institutional settings;

Learning Objectives Readers of this article can expect to learn how to interpret a research article from the abstract through the methods and discussion sections to the authors' conclusions. They will learn how to interpret the results and apply them in a gym setting. Readers also will be able to differentiate between different types of research and how they can and cannot be used in a practical setting.

Ghrelin is a gastric hormone that plays a role in stimulating hunger and fat accumulation because the hyperinsulinemia associated with obesity fails to suppress ghrelin. High intensity exercise has been shown to acutely decrease plasma acylated ghrelin concentrations in normal weight individuals. However, the evidence for how exercise affects ghrelin in obese individuals is lacking. PURPOSE: To compare the effects of high intensity interval exercise on acute plasma acylated ghrelin levels in an obese and non-obese male population. METHODS: Eighteen subjects with a mean age of 29.8 yr. (± 7.6), including 9 non- obese men (BF% mean= 13.7 ± 3.6) and nine obese men (BF% mean = 31.7 ± 4.7) participated in this study. Using a crossover design, participants were randomly assigned to an exercise or control condition, with each subject acting as their own control. The exercise trial consisted of participants cycling in high intensity intervals for 20 minutes (not including warmup and cool down) at a rate of 60% to 85% of their heart rate reserve on a cycle ergometer followed by sixty minutes of rest. The control trial consisted of ninety minutes of rest. Blood samples (3-4ml) were collected at baseline, 0.5, 1, and 1.5 hours post-intervention. Acylated ghrelin concentrations were determined from plasma. Hunger was assessed while blood samples were being drawn using a 10-point Likert-type scale. Group means for plasma ghrelin concentrations between groups were analyzed using an independent t-test. The effect of exercise on ghrelin was analyzed using paired t-test and the relationship between perceived hunger and ghrelin were determined using Pearson correlations. RESULTS: Baseline plasma ghrelin levels were significantly higher in the non-obese group (t = 3.43, p = .036) when compared to the obese group. Exercise was effective in reducing plasma acylated ghrelin levels in the non-obese group (t = 2.34, p = .047), however no significant changes were found in the obese group. CONCLUSIONS: The low resting levels of plasma ghrelin concentrations exhibited by the obese population when compared to non-obese subjects may lead to long fasting periods. Furthermore, the lack of reduction in ghrelin following exercise may cause an overconsumption of energy. Both of these occurrences may result in increased fat storage in obese populations.

Clinical teaching employed through anchor action research (AAR) studies helps to evaluate teacher preparation efforts in professional development schools (PDSs) through K-12 student achievement. As a part of the teacher-intern-professor (TIP) group, the intern participates in the planning and delivery of a unit of instruction that uses a pretest and posttest as assessments. This study contributes a summary of 10 AAR studies in PDSs which overall have a statistically significant effect size for student achievement using meta-analysis. The results show that Cohen's d effect size between groups is .387 in favor of the PDS TIP Groups, which is typical of effect sizes of meta-syntheses of educational interventions. Thus, this study demonstrates a clinical approach to teaching combined with a statistical approach to overcome small sample sizes through meta-analysis to show student academic achievement gains in PDSs.

EXAMINATION OF PARAMETER ESTIMATION USING RECURSIVE BAYESIAN ANALYSIS IN SIMULATED ITEM RESPONSE THEORY APPLICATIONS by Robert Hendrick For the past several years, high-stakes testing has been the predominant indicator used to assess students' academic ability. School systems, teachers, parents, and students are dependent upon the accuracy of academic ability estimates designated, θs, by item response theory (IRT) computer programs. In this study, the accuracy of 3 parameter logistic (3PL) IRT estimates of academic ability were obtained from the BILOG-MG and WinBUGS computer programs which were employed to compare the use of noninformative and informative priors in θ estimation. The rationale for comparing the output of these two computer programs is that the underlying statistical theory employed in these two computer programs is different, and there may be a notable difference in the accuracy of θ estimation when an informative prior is used by WinBUGS in analyzing skewed populations. In particular, the θ parameter estimates of BILOG-MG using traditional IRT analysis with non-informative priors in each situation and the θ parameter estimates of WinBUGS using Recursive Bayesian Analysis (RBA) with informative priors are compared to the true simulated θ value using Root Mean Square Errors (RMSEs). To make this comparison, Monte Carlo computer simulation is used across three occasions within three conditions giving nine comparison situations. For the priors and data generated, results show similar θ estimation accuracy for a normally distributed latent trait (RMSE = 0.35), a more accurate θ estimation process using RBA compared to traditional analysis (RMSEs of 0.36 compared to 0.76) when using latent trait distributions skewed in a similar direction, and less accurate θ estimation using RBA compared to traditional analysis (RMSEs of 1.48 compared to 0.80) when using extremely skewed negative then positive distributions in a longitudinal setting. Implications for further research include extensions to other IRT models, developing prior elicitation equations, and applying Bayesian informative prior elicitations in BILOG-MG. EXAMINATION OF PARAMETER ESTIMATION USING RECURSIVE BAYESIAN ANALYSIS IN SIMULATED ITEM RESPONSE THEORY APPLICATIONS by Robert Hendrick