Schools experience difficulty retaining special educators to serve students with emotional or behavioral disorders (EBD) in self-contained settings, as they have higher rates of burnout and attrition than other educators. Administrators could prevent these outcomes by improving working conditions, but research provides limited insights into which conditions are most important for these special educators. Using structural equation modeling to analyze data from a national survey, we found that special educators’ perceptions of adequacy of planning time, workload manageability, stress, and emotional exhaustion mediated relationships between other working conditions and intent to stay. Specifically, special educators who reported that they (a) spent more time planning outside school (b) supervised more paraprofessionals, (c) had limited access to curricular resources, and (d) served more heterogeneous instructional groups were more likely to report having insufficient planning time, unmanageable workloads, stress, emotional exhaustion, and intent to leave. Results imply that administrators should target planning time, curricular resources, and instructional grouping.

An overview is provided of measures that are administered repeatedly in daily life. Variations of this methodology have been referred to as ecological momentary assessment, diary methods, daily process measures, and most broadly as intensive repeated measures in naturalistic settings (IRM-NS). Contrasts are drawn between IRM-NS methods on the basis of different sampling strategies, such as timecontingent recording, signal-contingent recording, and event-contingent recording. Common threats to the internal validity, construct validity, and external validity of IRM-NS measures are reviewed, along with ways to reduce these threats. The statistical analysis of IRM-NS data is considered, with a particular focus on the investigation of intraindividual variability. An extended example is provided of an IRM-NS measure, an event-contingent recording method for the assessment of interpersonal behaviour.

Special education teachers (SETs) who teach students with emotional or behavioral disorders (EBD) in self-contained settings are often less qualified, more stressed and burned out, and more likely to leave teaching than other SETs, resulting in a less effective workforce teaching students with significant behavioral and academic needs. Working conditions are a lever by which outcomes can be improved for SETs in these settings, yet the extant research on SETs’ working conditions in self-contained settings is scarce; no researchers have comprehensively examined these SETs’ working conditions using a national sample. To fill this crucial gap in the literature, we surveyed a national sample ( n = 171) of SETs serving students with EBD in self-contained classes. We describe findings in terms of the working conditions that SETs experienced—social (e.g., administrator support, paraprofessionals, professional development) and logistical (e.g., instructional grouping, instructional resources, planning time)—providing implications for research, policy, and practice.

Background: Patients with Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and obesity experience distressing relationships, which could trigger negative affect and over-eating. To date no studies compared the interpersonal profiles and prototypicality of both groups using the interpersonal circumplex. Method: A sample of 177 patients with BED (mean age: 41.0 ± 12.5 years; 11.3% males), 321 obese non-BED adults (mean age: 44.5 ± 13.4 years; 28% males), and 108 normal weight adults (mean age: 37.3 ± 9.6 years; 52.77% males) completed the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-32), and scales of binge eating and psychological distress at one time-point. Results: Compared to normal weight and obese participants, those with BED reported higher levels of interpersonal problems on all circumplex dimensions, except for Vindictive, with small to medium effects. All groups had highly prototypical profiles. Both obese and normal weight adults had very similar interpersonal profiles characterized by predominant friendly-dominant themes. On the contrary, those with BED had predominant friendlysubmissive themes. Patients with BED reported significantly higher levels of psychological distress and binge eating severity, compared to the other two groups. Greater Domineering, Cold, Socially Inhibited and Non-Assertive scale scores, and lower Vindictive scale scores significantly predicted higher binge eating and psychological distress, regardless of group membership. Discussion: Findings lend support to an interpersonal model of binge eating and to the presence of qualitative differences between patients with obesity and BED. Finally, results suggest some strategies for the clinical management of BED focused on non-assertion and problems with experiences and expression of anger.

The interpersonal model has been validated for binge eating disorder (BED), but it is not yet known if the model applies to individuals who are obese but who do not binge eat. The goal of this study was to compare the validity of the interpersonal model in those with BED versus those with obesity, and normal weight samples. Data from a sample of 93 treatment-seeking women diagnosed with BED, 186 women who were obese without BED, and 100 controls who were normal weight were examined for indirect effects of interpersonal problems on binge eating psychopathology mediated through negative affect. Findings demonstrated the mediating role of negative affect for those with BED and those who were obese without BED. Testing a reverse model suggested that the interpersonal model is specific for BED but that this model may not be specific for those without BED. This is the first study to find support for the interpersonal model in a sample of women with obesity but who do not binge. However, negative affect likely plays a more complex role in determining overeating in those with obesity but who do not binge. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.