Prosocial skills causally mediate the relation between effective classroom management and academic competence: An application of direction dependence analysis.

Abstract

Direction dependence analysis (DDA) is a recently developed method that addresses the need for more sophisticated tools to evaluate causal mechanisms of developmental processes and interventions. The present study applied DDA to evaluate the hypothesized mediators of a classroom behavior management training program on student academic competence. The study involved a group randomized controlled trial with 105 teachers and 1,818 students (KϪ3rd grade) in a large urban school district in the United States. Analyses revealed only student prosocial skill development causally mediated the intervention's effects on student academic competence. The findings support the importance of explicit instruction and coaching of student social skills as part of classroom behavior management programs and confirm the causal link between prosocial skills and academic success. The findings are discussed with regard to implications for future applications of DDA in developmental research.

Exploring the Relationship Between Interpersonal Emotion Regulation and Social Anxiety Symptoms: The Mediating Role of Negative Mood Regulation Expectancies

“…kurtosis, skewness) of variables, (b) distributional properties of residuals of competing models, and (c) independence of predictors and errors are examined. It was stated that in an accurately specified model, (a) the dependent variable will be closer to the normality, (b) the residual will be closer to normality, and (c) assumption of independence will be confirmed compared to an inaccurately specified model (Wiedermann & Sebastian, 2019 ; Wiedermann & von Eye, 2015 ; Wiedermann et al, 2019 , 2020 ). These properties were investigated for a model where four IER strategies precede NMRE (IER → NMRE) and a reversed model where NMRE precede the IER strategies (NMRE → IER) to infer the ordering of the relationship.…”

What drives the perceived prejudice asymmetry among advantaged group members? The mediating role of social group power and moral obligations

“…In brief, DDA studies the distributional properties of predictor and outcome variables to infer the direction of effects in cross‐sectional data (Wiedermann & Sebastian, 2020). This technique builds on the premise that, in a correctly specified causal model, one is more likely to observe: (1) normality of the dependent variable (relative to the tentative predictor), (2) normality of residuals, and (3) independence of predictors and errors (Wiedermann et al., 2015, 2019, 2020). Hence, DDA relies on three series of statistical tests investigating these assumptions to dissociate between more and less likely causal sequences.…”

A Systematic Review of Student Disability and Race Representation in Universal School-Based Social and Emotional Learning Interventions for Elementary School Students

“…Notably absent from this literature is the lack of meaningful subgroup analysis among disability status and race and ethnicity, as well as consistency in how students are grouped with respect to disability or race. Studies overwhelmingly ( n = 14) categorize SWDs under generic umbrella terms, including IEP status (DiPerna et al, 2018; Gomez Varon, 2020), special education (Bakosh, 2013; Bradshaw et al, 2009; DiPerna et al, 2015, 2016, 2018; Fairclough, 2016; Gandhi et al, 2018; Hetrick, 2018; Leos-Urbel & Sanchez, 2015; Malatino, 2011; Reinke et al, 2018; Wiedermann et al, 2020) or having disabilities in general (Osher et al, 2014; see Table 2). Three studies examined disabilities more narrowly by breaking down disability status: by severity (mild, moderate, severe; Meyer & Ostrosky, 2016); emotional, behavioral, and learning disorder (Murray et al, 2018); and having a “mental/physical disability” and “emotional behavioral disability” (Neace & Muñoz, 2012).…”