Lucinda S. Spaulding

Is Brain Gym an Effective Educational Intervention

Brain Gym® (BG; BGI, 2008) is a popular commercial program sold by Brain Gym® International (BGI). Making extravagant claims for improved intellectual and physical development, it is used in more than 80 countries. While BGIs claims are persuasive, to date there is little empirical evidence validating the approach. We examine some theoretical assumptions from which BGI was developed, review the efficacy literature, and provide suggestions for making informed decisions about the judiciousness of investing time and resources in this program.

Poverty and Persistence: A Model for Understanding Individuals' Pursuit and Persistence in a Doctor of Education Program

The purpose of this systematic grounded theory study was to extend the theoretical foundations of selfdetermination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2008), Tinto’s (1993) integration model of graduate persistence, and the framework of resilience (Cefai, 2004; Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000) to generate a theoretical model explaining how doctoral candidates from backgrounds of poverty persist through to successful admittance to doctoral candidacy. The proposed theoretical model provides an account for the relationship among significant losses in childhood that are subsequently transformed into positive attributes that motivated participants’ pursuit and persistence in a doctoral program. This study produced two new constructs contributing to the empirical and theoretical literature addressing persistence: familial integration and altruistic motivation. With high attrition rates across disciplines, this study makes an important contribution to the theoretical and empirical literature addressing doctoral persistence. Further, understanding the unique phenomena of familial integration and altruistic motivation assists universities in identifying marketing strategies and support services for the population under study.

Protecting the marriage relationship during the doctoral journey: Strategies for students and partners based on the Strong Marital House concept

With doctoral programs across disciplines experiencing perennially high attrition rates, in-depth examination of factors associated with doctoral persistence is necessary. A strong marital relationship is one factor found to be central to persistence in doctoral students. Thus, the purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the literature on marital satisfaction, quality, and stability in order to provide doctoral students and their partners strategies for nurturing and sustaining a solid marriage throughout the stress-inducing doctoral process. Recommendations are framed by the following four factors of the Sound Marital House: (a) marital friendship, (b) creating positive sentiment override, (c) regulating conflict, and (d) creating shared symbolic meaning.