Winters Terrell (stickyak1)

9% sensitivity, 76.4% specificity). To identify the usefulness of the BDI-II as a severity assessment tool or screening tool, a test information curve (TIC) was generated with an Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis. The TIC was flat and plateau-like, indicating its appropriateness as a severity rating tool. Research data supports the BDI-II as a reliable and valid screening tool as well as a severity rating tool in the Korean adult population. Copyright © 2020 Park, Jaekal, Yoon, Lee and Choi.Introduction Teaching is a stressful profession that exposes workers to the risk of burnout. Techniques involving higher mental functions, such as transcendental meditation and prayer, have been used in stress and burnout prevention programs. In this study, we report the results of an experience conducted in a group of teachers of a religious institute, in which prayer was used as a technique to prevent burnout. Methods Fifty teachers and support staff employed at a Catholic school of a Congregation of nuns volunteered for this study. They were randomized into two groups prayer treatment (n = 25) or control group (n = 25). The treatment protocol was based on the combination of individual Christian prayer and a focus group of prayer-reflection. The participants received two 30 min training sessions a week over 2 months. Job satisfaction, well-being, and burnout symptoms (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization sub-scales) were measured at baseline and at follow-up (4 months) with the Italian versions of the Maslach Burnout Inventory validated for teaching and education sector, the General Health Questionnaire, and the Warr, Cook, and Wall's Job Satisfaction Scale. Results At follow-up, a significant improvement of all outcome measures was observed. Emotional exhaustion (16.80-4.92, p less then 0.001), depersonalization (3.72-0.60, p less then 0.001) levels, and psychological impairment (10.08-2.04, p less then 0.001) were significantly decreased, and job satisfaction (45.96-77.00, p less then 0.001) was increased. The effect sizes (Glass' Δ) of the therapeutic interventions ranged from 0.53 (satisfaction level) to 2.87 (psychological health), suggesting moderate to large effects. Discussion Prayer could be effective, no less than meditation and other spiritual or mind-body techniques, in contrasting the negative effects of occupational stress and preventing burnout among teachers and possibly other human service professionals. Copyright © 2020 Chirico, Sharma, Zaffina and Magnavita.The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of two teaching strategies on preschoolers' oral language skills repeated read-aloud with question and answer teaching embedded, and repeated read-aloud with executive function (EF) activities embedded. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was employed. Selleck SRT1720 Children ranging in age from 4 years 6 months to 6 years and 4 months participated in the study (n = 53). They were recruited from preschools in Taitung, Taiwan, randomly assigned to the three study groups. 36 children were divided and assigned to the two experimental groups (question and answer teaching group and EF group), while the remaining 17, to the control group. The participating preservice teachers attended 32 h of training which included the theory, practice, and outcome evaluation measure for the teaching strategies implemented. The intervention spanned 2 months. Oral language tests (curriculum-based receptive vocabulary, inferential comprehension, and oral comprehension) were administered before and after the intervention. The findings revealed that both experimental groups positively impacted participants' receptive vocabulary and oral comprehension when compared with the control group, although the performances between the two experimental groups did not differ significantly. For inferential comprehension, there was no statistically significant difference across the three groups. Implications of the study findings