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Some Middle School Students Want Behavior Commitment Devices (but Take-Up Does Not Affect Their Behavior).

ABSTRACT: Commitment devices impose costs on one's future self for failing to follow through on one's intentions, offer no additional benefit to one's future self for following through on the intention, and people voluntarily enroll in them. Enrollment in commitment devices reflects self-awareness that one may lack sufficient self-control to fulfill one's intentions. There is little experimental research on whether school-age children possess the self-awareness necessary to enroll in a commitment device, despite evidence that children and young adolescents have many positive intentions that they fail to live up to, such as demonstrating improved school conduct or eating healthier. We report the first field experiment examining the demand for, and impact of, commitment devices among middle school students. We offered students a commitment device that imposed future costs for failing to improve in-school conduct. When presented with the opportunity to actively opt-in (default not enrolled), over one-third of students elected to enroll. When presented with the opportunity to actively opt-out (default enrolled), more than half elected to remain enrolled, showing that changing default options can increase commitment device enrollment. Despite demand for the self-control strategy, taking-up the commitment device did not affect student behavior. These findings have implications for youth-based behavioral interventions broadly, as well as those focused on eating behaviors.

SUBMITTER: Robinson CD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5835880 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Some Middle School Students Want Behavior Commitment Devices (but Take-Up Does Not Affect Their Behavior).

Robinson Carly D CD Pons Gonzalo A GA Duckworth Angela L AL Rogers Todd T

Frontiers in psychology 20180228

Commitment devices impose costs on one's future self for failing to follow through on one's intentions, offer no additional benefit to one's future self for following through on the intention, and people voluntarily enroll in them. Enrollment in commitment devices reflects self-awareness that one may lack sufficient self-control to fulfill one's intentions. There is little experimental research on whether school-age children possess the self-awareness necessary to enroll in a commitment device, ...[more]

PMID: 29541040

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Project description:IntroductionThis study aimed to determine current levels of physical activity and sedentary behavior in middle school students on the basis of grade, sex, student attitudes toward physical education, and residence location.MethodsIn 2013, a cross-sectional study of 1793 students aged 12 to 15 years was conducted across eight middle schools in Beijing, China. Four schools were selected from an urban district and another four schools were from a suburban district. Physical activity and sedentary behavior data were collected using the commonly used school-based Chinese version of the China Health and Nutrition Survey.ResultsThe mean age of sampled students was 13.3 ± 1.0 years; 51.5% were boys. Approximately 76.6% of students reported having three 45-minute physical education classes every week. A total of 35.6% students spent ? 1 h/day performing moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during school, and 34.9% spent ? 1 h/day in MVPA outside school time. Approximately half (49.7%) of the students engaged in reading, writing, or drawing for ? 2 h/day, and 42.9% reported screen time for ? 2 h/day. Although boys spent more time engaged in physical activity than girls did, they also spent more time exhibiting sedentary behavior. Each 10-unit increase in attitudes toward physical education was associated with an increased odds of 1.15 (95%CI: 1.09-1.20) for spending more than 1 h/day on MVPA. Students in suburban schools reported engaging in physical activity less when compared with those in urban schools.ConclusionThe majority of our students did not meet the current physical activity recommendations, and about half of the students spent excessive time engaging in sedentary behaviors. Findings from this study highlight a positive association between student attitudes toward physical education and physical activity. Studies are needed to further explore the role of student attitudes toward physical education in promoting physical activity among Chinese students.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Research has established that skillful family management during adolescence protects youth from a variety of mental health and behavioral problems. Interventions associated with this research have focused on parenting skills as the mediator that links early risk factors with a profile of later behavioral risk, including problem behavior, substance use, and school failure. Fortunately, positive changes in family management skills have been linked to meaningful improvements in adolescent behavior, and these improvements have been significant across a variety of cultural groups. OBJECTIVE:We describe the background, research design, and intervention components of an electronic health version of the Family Check-Up program that is targeting middle school children and is being evaluated in a randomized controlled trial for its usability, feasibility, and efficacy. METHODS:We used an iterative formative research process to develop an electronic health version of the Family Check-Up program. In our ongoing randomized controlled trial, eligible families are randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: Family Check-Up Online-only (n?100), Family Check-Up Online + Coach (n?100), and a waitlist control condition (middle school as usual; n?100). We are conducting assessments at baseline, 3 months following randomization (posttest), and at follow-ups scheduled for 6 months and 12 months. RESULTS:This randomized controlled trial project was funded in 2015. Participant recruitment was completed in spring 2018 and enrollment is ongoing. Follow-up assessments will be completed in 2019. CONCLUSIONS:The innovative Family Check-Up Online program has the potential to help address many of the barriers that more traditional school-based behavioral mental health implementation strategies have yet to solve, including staffing and resources to implement family-centered support within schools. TRIAL REGISTRATION:ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03060291; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03060291 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/70f8keeN4). TRIAL REGISTRATION:RR1-10.2196/11106.

Project description:IntroductionMathematical modeling has become a crucial competence in mathematics education in many countries and regions due to the increasingly complex real-world problems that students face in the 21st century. Previous research has shown that mathematical modeling contributes to the development of students' creativity, particularly with respect to stimulating and protecting the curiosity of children. However, previous studies have not explored or examined the relationships among middle school students' mathematical modeling competency, curiosity, and creativity based on data drawn from large-scale assessments and have not investigated the influence of teachers' teaching methods in this context.MethodsThis study used convenience sampling to select 4,531 seventh-grade students from eastern and western, urban and rural areas in China. Online tests and questionnaires were used to measure their mathematical modeling competency, curiosity, creativity and guided inquiry teaching, and a moderated mediation model was used to analyze the effect of mathematical modeling competency on creativity.ResultsThe results showed the following. (1) There are statistically significant differences between boys and girls in terms of their mathematical modeling competency, curiosity, and creativity. Specifically, boys score significantly higher than girls on these variables. (2) Creativity exhibits a statistically significant positive correlation with mathematical modeling competency, curiosity, and guided inquiry teaching. (3) Curiosity mediates the relationship between mathematical modeling competency and creativity, and guided inquiry teaching moderates the influence of curiosity. In high-level guided inquiry teaching classes, curiosity has a stronger influence on creativity, and it mediates the relationship between mathematical modeling competency and creativity more strongly.DiscussionThis study empirically verified the influence of mathematical modeling competency on creativity and provided a possible way to cultivate children's creativity. Future research should use longitudinal analysis to verify the causal relationship between mathematical modeling competency and creativity and to systematically explore the possible path by which mathematical modeling competency affects creativity.

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Some Middle School Students Want Behavior Commitment Devices (but Take-Up Does Not Affect Their Behavior).

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Some Middle School Students Want Behavior Commitment Devices (but Take-Up Does Not Affect Their Behavior).

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