Alexander von Eye

Race, Gender, and Information Technology Use: The New Digital Divide

This research examined race and gender differences in the intensity and nature of IT use and whether IT use predicted academic performance. A sample of 515 children (172 African Americans and 343 Caucasian Americans), average age 12 years old, completed surveys as part of their participation in the Children and Technology Project. Findings indicated race and gender differences in the intensity of IT use; African American males were the least intense users of computers and the Internet, and African American females were the most intense users of the Internet. Males, regardless of race, were the most intense videogame players, and females, regardless of race, were the most intense cell phone users. IT use predicted childrens academic performance. Length of time using computers and the Internet was a positive predictor of academic performance, whereas amount of time spent playing videogames was a negative predictor. Implications of the findings for bringing IT to African American males and bringing African American males to IT are discussed.

Does Home Internet Use Influence the Academic Performance of Low-Income Children?

HomeNetToo is a longitudinal field study designed to examine the antecedents and consequences of home Internet use in low-income families (http://www.HomeNetToo.org). The study was done between December 2000 and June 2002. Among the consequences considered was children’s academic performance. Participants were 140 children, mostly African American (83%), mostly boys (58%), and most living in single-parent households (75%) in which the median annual income was

Resilience Among Children Exposed to Domestic Violence: The Role of Risk and Protective Factors

15,000 (U.S. dollars) or less. Average age was 13.8 years. Ages ranged between 10 and 18 years, Internet use was continuously recorded, and multiple measures of academic performance were obtained during the 16-month trial. Findings indicated that children who used the Internet more had higher scores on standardized tests of reading achievement and higher grade point averages 6 months, 1 year, and 16 months later than did children who used it less. Older children used the Internet more than did younger children, but age had no effect on the nature or the academic performance benefits of Internet use. Implications for the digital “use” divide are discussed.

Person-Oriented and Variable-Oriented Research: Concepts, Results, and Development

Individual and family characteristics that predict resilience among children exposed to domestic violence (DV) were examined. Mother-child dyads (n = 190) were assessed when the children were 2, 3, and 4 years of age. DV-exposed children were 3.7 times more likely than nonexposed children to develop internalizing or externalizing problems. However, 54% of DV-exposed children maintained positive adaptation and were characterized by easy temperament (odds ratio [OR] = .39, d = .52) and nondepressed mothers (OR = 1.14, d = .07), as compared to their nonresilient counterparts. Chronic DV was associated with maternal depression, difficult child temperament, and internalizing or externalizing symptoms. Results underscore heterogeneous outcomes among DV-exposed children and the influence of individual and family characteristics on childrens adaptation.

Caregiver burden and depressive symptoms: analysis of common outcomes in caregivers of elderly patients.

Variable-oriented empirical research is based on the proposition that populations are homogeneous. Person-oriented research is based on the propositions that (1) distinct subgroups may exist and (2), if they exist, aggregate-level parameters may contradict parameters estimated for groups or individuals. This article first reviews the main tenets of person-oriented research with respect to developmental research. Three criteria of person-oriented research are proposed: (1) data are analyzed under the assumption that they were drawn from more than one population; (2) attempts are made to establish the external validity of groupings; and (3) groupings are interpreted based on theory. Illustrations use sample studies from the literature, for which both variable-oriented and person-oriented results are presented. Two groups of theorems and propositions of person-oriented research are presented. The first group is method-centered and posits that parameter estimates can be group-specific. Thus, aggregation can lead to conclusions that describe none of the individuals or groups in a population validly. The second, new group posits that certain data situations are particularly prone to misleading conclusions after aggregation. Finally, the ecological fallacy is discussed as one of the chief reasons why person-oriented research is necessary. Conditions for proper variable- and person-oriented research are outlined.

Conceptualizing and Modeling Individual and Ecological Asset Components of Thriving in Early Adolescence

Despite widespread use of caregiver burden and depressive symptoms in caregiving research, the relationship between these two concepts and the way in which burden and depressive symptoms are affected are not clear. Methods: The authors used structural equation modeling with an inception cohort of 488 family caregivers to examine the relationship between care recipients’ mental and functional status and recency of care demands and caregivers’ burden and depressive symptoms. Results: Care recipients’ mental and functional status and recency of care demands predicted caregiver burden; burden, in turn, was nearly significant in predicting depressive symptoms. Care recipients’ mental status and recency of care demands had a near significant indirect effect on caregiver depressive symptoms. There were no significant direct paths between care recipients’ mental status, functional status, recency of care demands, and caregivers’ depressive symptoms. Discussion: Health care practitioners should assist caregivers with new care demands stemming from care recipients’ mental and functional status to decrease burdens and should monitor caregivers with higher levels of burden for the development of depressive symptoms.

Nature and process of leisure constraints: An empirical test

Using two randomly selected separate subsamples of 50,000 middle or high school students drawn from the 1999 to 2000 Search Institute Profiles of Student Life Attitudes and Behavior survey, firstand second-order factors of items assessing internal and external assets were identified. In both samples, first-order exploratory factor analyses produced 14 scales with conceptual integrity and adequate reliability, although differences were found between the middle and high school samples (e.g., further differentiation of scales). The factors in the middle school sample loaded on two second-order constructs, representing individual and ecological assets. These second-order factors accounted for unique variance in an index of thriving. The concept of developmental assets and the role of these assets in early adolescent development are discussed.

The Social Networks of Women Experiencing Domestic Violence

Abstract This study examined the possible existence of three distinct, hierarchically ordered categories of constraints on leisure originally proposed by Crawford and Godbey (1987) and elaborated on by Crawford, Jackson, and Godbey (1991). A new instrument was developed to measure perceptions of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural constraints on leisure as they related to beginning a new leisure activity. The sample consisted of 363 male and female 12th graders from three high schools located in a suburb of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. A confirmatory factor analysis indicated that intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural constraints on leisure formed three distinct categories of constraints on leisure. The use of simultaneous z tests and a metamodel that utilized a binomial test provided support for the Crawford et al. (1991) proposal that intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural constraints exist in a hierarchy. Theoretical and methodological implications of the findings are discussed.

Information technology use and creativity: Findings from the Children and Technology Project

The research literature has demonstrated that battered women living in shelters experience impaired social support. This study examines this phenomenon among battered women living in the community. This study compared a group of pregnant battered women (n=145) and a group of pregnant nonbattered women (n=58) in terms of their structural [e.g., total number of supporters, network members in violent relationships with their partners (an index of homophily or nonhomophily) and functional (e.g., emotional)] social support. Four reasons for impaired support in battered women were proposed and examined, including social isolation, failure to disclose abuse, homophily, and low SES. Only homophily was related to impaired support among battered women. In addition, the relationship between structural and functional support and mental health outcomes (e.g., depression, self-esteem) was examined. Criticism, practical support, homophily, and disclosure were all significant predictors of mental health for battered women. Implications for community-based interventions are discussed in the context of current intervention strategies with battered women.

Structural Relations among Spirituality, Religiosity, and Thriving in Adolescence.

This research examined relationships between childrens information technology (IT) use and their creativity. Four types of information technology were considered: computer use, Internet use, videogame playing and cell phone use. A multidimensional measure of creativity was developed based on Torrances (1987, 1995) test of creative thinking. Participants were 491 12-year olds; 53% were female, 34% were African American and 66% were Caucasian American. Results indicated that videogame playing predicted of all measures of creativity. Regardless of gender or race, greater videogame playing was associated with greater creativity. Type of videogame (e.g., violent, interpersonal) was unrelated to videogame effects on creativity. Gender but not race differences were obtained in the amount and type of videogame playing, but not in creativity. Implications of the findings for future research to test the causal relationship between videogame playing and creativity and to identify mediator and moderator variables are discussed.