Heidi E. Grunwald

Factors That Promote Faculty Involvement in and Satisfaction with Institutional and Classroom Student Assessment

This study examines institutional factors that promote faculty satisfaction with their institutions approach to and support for student assessment and that are related to faculty involvement in their institutions support practices and in their own engagement with student assessment in the classroom. The study is based on a survey of faculty from 7 institutions that vary by type, control, and accrediting region. The institutions student assessment purposes, its administrative support patterns, and its faculty instructional impacts are significant predictors of faculty satisfaction with their institutions approach to and support for student assessment. External influences on, faculty uses, and perceived benefits of professional development practices for student assessment are significant predictors of faculty involvement with student assessment in their institution and their classes.

Influences of Neighborhood Context, Individual History and Parenting Behavior on Recidivism Among Juvenile Offenders

This study examined the effects of neighborhood context on juvenile recidivism to determine if neighborhoods influence the likelihood of reoffending. Although a large body of literature exists regarding the impact of environmental factors on delinquency, very little is known about the effects of these factors on juvenile recidivism. The sample analyzed includes 7,061 delinquent male juveniles committed to community-based programs in Philadelphia, of which 74% are Black, 13% Hispanic, and 11% White. Since sample youths were nested in neighborhoods, a hierarchical generalized linear model was employed to predict recidivism across three general categories of recidivism offenses: drug, violent, and property. Results indicate that predictors vary across the types of offenses and that drug offending differs from property and violent offending. Neighborhood-level factors were found to influence drug offense recidivism, but were not significant predictors of violent offenses, property offenses, or an aggregated recidivism measure, despite contrary expectations. Implications stemming from the finding that neighborhood context influences only juvenile drug recidivism are discussed.

The Effect of Neighborhood Characteristics and Spatial Spillover on Urban Juvenile Delinquency and Recidivism

The objective of this research is to investigate the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and juvenile delinquency and recidivism (the proportion of delinquents who commit crimes following completion of a court-ordered program) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We acquired data on collective efficacy, socioeconomic character, and crime for input into multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) and spatial econometric regression analyses. Both delinquency and recidivism are concentrated in impoverished neighborhoods with violent crime, although this relationship is far stronger for delinquency than for recidivism. After accounting for the influence of crime and poverty, OLS regression results suggest that African American neighborhoods tend to exhibit higher delinquency rates, but lower recidivism rates, than other neighborhoods. Spatial lag models of recidivism rate indicate the presence of spatial spillover effects, which renders the influence of neighborhood racial character on recidivism rate not significant and which we speculate represents interaction among juveniles across neighborhood boundaries.

Neighborhood Collective Efficacy and Dimensions of Diversity: A Multilevel Analysis

Collective efficacy is becoming an increasingly important concept within the social and health sciences as researchers question how the social environment of a neighborhood influences a host of individual psychological, behavioral, and health outcomes. We investigate whether ethnic as well as other dimensions of neighborhood-level diversity are associated with collective efficacy. Survey data are used to capture perceptions of neighborhood cooperation and social cohesion for 26 344 survey respondents in southeast Pennsylvania; US Census data are used to capture neighborhood concentrated disadvantage and residential mobility, as well as diversity along a range of dimensions, including ethnicity, birthplace, household type, occupation, income, and educational attainment. Multilevel modeling is employed to test the association of various dimensions of neighborhood diversity with individual-level perceptions of neighborhood cooperation and social cohesion, while controlling for individual and other neighborhood-level variables. Results suggest that low collective efficacy is associated with diversity in cultural characteristics such as ethnicity, birthplace, and household type. We ascribe these findings to patterns of neighborhood transition, or churning, where high rates of neighborhood in-migration and out-migration act to weaken collective efficacy. Diversity, both in educational attainment and in income, however, are associated with high neighborhood collective efficacy, and are not related to neighborhood churning.

The use of propensity scores to evaluate outcomes for community clinics

This article presents a model for mental health programs to estimate causal effects of treatment in community settings, where experimental studies, in which subjects are randomly assigned to treatment and control groups, are not feasible. This article describes an observational study that used a propensity score analysis with stratification and a repeated-measures analysis of covariance model to estimate treatment effects. This article includes results from one example site that was identified as having an exceptional home-based community program. The results include treatment effects for 3 outcomes identified as useful goals for home-based community programs. The study also serves as a model of how local programs can establish credibility where no evidence-based treatments exist for severely impaired youths.

Examination of the Beck Depression Inventory-II Factor Structure Among Bariatric Surgery Candidates

Background The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) is frequently used to evaluate bariatric patients in clinical and research settings; yet, there are limited data regarding the factor structure of the BDI-II with a bariatric surgery population.

The relationship between social distance and treatment attrition for juvenile offenders

ABSTRACT: Although recent work has begun to identify factors associated with risk of treatment attrition for juvenile offenders, few of these studies have considered how community context is related to the completion of juvenile offender treatment. The current work examines the relationship between social distance and treatment attrition for juvenile offenders. Analyzing a data set of 5,517 juvenile offenders adjudicated in Philadelphia, the results of cross-classified hierarchical models indicate that social distance, operationalized in two ways that consider perceptions of both the ethnic composition and level of disadvantage within neighborhoods, does not directly predict the likelihood of treatment attrition. However, when considered with the ethnicity of the juvenile offenders in the form of an interaction effect, social distance based on perceptions of ethnicity within neighborhoods is shown to predict the likelihood of treatment attrition, and to be more acute for young non-White offenders. The implications of these findings are discussed.